Tag Archives: Folleterre

(Almost) One month in Faerie Space

by Fire Jaguar

I came to Folleterre Radical Faerie Sanctuary for the Solstice
the year before I was intensive care
watching the suns rays creep across the floor to the bed I couldn’t leave
hooked up to a tube helping me breathe
for 24 hours
In folleterre I was welcomed home, home to the earth, to nature
I marked the solstice by watching the sun rise
As the sun entered my sign of cancer
I sang songs I made a year before in the sandpit, with my crystals and cried
I had an epiphany
I could heal from everything that ever happened to me
.
I vowed to myself, faeries, the lake and Pan that I would return
for as long as I could
I bravely asked for help
negotiated for time
couldn’t return for atleast 5 weeks
didn’t even want to leave…
lost in limbo
but before I knew it, it was time to return
.
I missed my initial flight
I got 3 days in a much smaller and more familiar sanctuary
a half way house
I arrived 3 days late
and immediately sang at a spontaneous cabaret, about how lost I was, and how it feels so good
to have found my tribe
dressed as Jesus Spice
It was nerve wracking
but really helped me arrive
.
I had made a beloved friend a Wand from the Ancestors tree while I was away
he had stayed
I got to put the Wand back in the very spot we found it in, as fallen wood, 5 weeks before
I love the magic we all create
We are so lucky to have Sanctuary, Off grid, Safe, Faerie Space
.
At the First Gathering, there were about 80 more people than the Solstice
I knew this would be intense
But being out in nature together
was very different, to my experience of being in the many roomed, crucible like Featherstone Castle
Morning Circles were long, but the experience was much more cohesive
the number of people  made every task seem rather threatening…
My focus was on entertaining myself by getting dressed up, enjoying the attention, compliments
showing off the parts of my body I actually like
 and heart circling
.
Blonde Ambition Spice
 Sex Book Madonna
 Joan Collins Spice
 Kylie Minogue, singing whilst doing yoga
 BDSM Barbie
Shamanic Spice
 Princess Leia Brigitte Bardot Spice
 Cruella DeVil Spice
 Spiritiual Barbie Spice
 Mama and Baby Winehouse
Show Girl Spice
some of the looks and names I created… I know there were many more…
always a little bit self conscious
unsure of my motivations
I talked to myself in the mirror about it one day and cried
It’s not easy being incarnate in a body sometimes
I don’t have to be an attention seeker, it is safe to approach people
sometimes an outfit felt like armour, or at least it put a distance between myself and others
I think I may have simply been too much in my head
Most of the times it brought on pure joy
.
Its amazing even in a very safe space
How much fear I often still felt
I had this constant desire to be held
it happened twice in almost 4 weeks
I avoided many opportunities for intimacy through fear
intimacy to me being authentic, revealing your most private and true at this moment self – thoughts, feelings, bodily self..
And I actually also did this a lot..
But it requires trust
The Sanctuary was a very different place for me in the final week once long term friends I have built that with had left
.
I got sick twice
both times when I was getting close to people I really liked
what was that about?
I felt like a contagious leper…
avoiding people when I needed hugs more than ever
not completely, the first time I felt so much better when I realised it wasn’t just me…
I heard afterwards,  50% of the gathering had it to!
The Shame I felt was totally disproportionate to the present situation
But I read in a book while I was there, and it was true for me, and these things take work to clear..
My first sexual encounters were totally entrenched in shame and fear
.
I was able to focus and feel grateful for what actually happened, instead of what I felt like I missed out on…
Lovely cuddles, kisses, wonderful hugs and beautiful conversations… people being there just at the right moment
Helping me be shoeless shamanic spice, when I was freaking out about performing without heels, so genuinely, lovingly supportive, and grateful for things I had done too…
I was able to share my shame at being so lazy, and why, and gently encouraged to do more…
I definitely felt better once I finally did some washing up!
I started cooking more too
.
 I thought about how we are Radical, its Radically different for me anyway to be in such a space, from 17-21 I only knew websites as the way to secretly connect with other queers
I was in an abusive relationship after that for five years where I didn’t connect in that way or any other
I spent one year of my life out and single, but my priority was healing, in a rather heteronormative spiritual community,
then I found the faeries, and a new lover, two years, feeling I was sortof  part of this tribe
Ended that relationship in January, and 8 months on there are people who feel like my chosen family
Allowed to “just be”
I love myself more, I love them, and I know they love me…
Real affection outside of a “relationship” is almost a totally new thing
.
Being in Sanctuary did bring me more physical healing that I desired to, not in the way I expected
as lazy as I was at times, I was still up on my feet so much more, rarely ever inside
Just walking up hill to meditation rock was a workout
swimming was wonderful
I eventually got so fed up with feeling crap I started stretching in the morning
I feel so much better I’m maintaining more activity
before I would just sit around at home thinking I can’t be bothered
Last night I had a totally enchanted experience, a regular occurence in Folleterre
Missing the lake, I walked to the nearby river, and swam down it, surrounded by tree’s on each side
It gives me tingles just thinking about it
Remembering the Lake, I had a mystical experience there too, to the sound of a flute
I was missing some of my friends, but then in my heart and  my minds eye, they were all there, dancing in the lake, or on the bank with me too!
.
Once I left, I could really appreciate where I had been..
People who aren’t faeries think I’ve just been on holiday… A holiday from the outside world I guess
Walking in the French town of Lure
I was checking out his muscled arm
I noticed his angry face…
I felt the fear, (so small, compared to the all consuming kind I’ve felt in the past)
I breathed through it (what an improvement)
But thought, shit, this isn’t safe (so much more aware of what’s happening)
I’m no longer in Faerie Space
.
Really i’m always in Faerie Space
I came back to london
I performed at a Queer Cabaret
I brought my ability to share deeply from the heart to the Glory’s stage
about how much I’ve grown, probably demonstrated more than anything by my Angelic outfit
One that’s been nurtured and appreciated even more in the last month, but finally recognised during the last 4 years
People were so grateful and touched
Take your broken Heart, and make it into Art, as Carrie Fisher once said
My hearts no longer broken though, just wide open

Shokti’s Radical Faerie Fundamentals

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Radical Faerie is a term adopted by some humans (often but by no means exclusively gay men) as a label to indicate we view ourselves as free and sacred beings of nature, seeking to live from the heart in tune with the natural forces, and that like nature is constantly exploring and growing, is both male and female, elemental and divine. Each Faerie will have their own unique definition of the term, no faerie seeks to speak for another, this offering is Shokti’s take on some fundamental faerie fae-osophy. I believe Faerie space offers sanctuary to those of us who wish to explore who and what we are from the root up, a sanctuary where the self-limiting, hierarchical and patriarchal concepts of materialist science and certain dictatorial religions do not reign. Instead Magic is on the throne, and Her reign gives us Freedom to be Who We Are.

Tucson 1979

The faerie fundamentals as seen by SHOKTI: Each human soul is a unique mixture of the primal energies of Creation. A soul has self-awareness, a quality which mystics of all faiths have declared is the essential nature of the Creator Consciousness – like the Source itself, we have self-knowledge, and the ability to create our own destiny. An interplay of pure consciousness (Shiva) and pure energy (Shakti), often depicted as an ecstatic, sexual union, brings the worlds into being. Souls combine the Shiva and Shakti nature of the Divine Creator Source within themselves, the fundamental truth is that at soul level we all both male and female energies, they flow together to create our being, while our personalities are also shaped by the interplay of the four elemental forces that are the building blocks of life.

Humans are the meeting point of nature and spirit. To live a healthy, balanced life we need to be well connected to both – modern life is crippled by disease and disaster because most people are connected to neither.

And yet healing and wholeness are our birthright as divine beings at home in the universe, and with some adjustments to our attitudes and outlooks can be ours. At any point we can choose to re-boot our lives and bring ourselves into harmony with the natural flow of the universe. We have to remember that we are not separate from nature or spirit, in fact we are constantly under the influence of energy flows which our ancient ancestors understood much better than we do today.

beltane-faeries

Four simple steps to healing:

Attuning to Nature

Opening to Spirit

Healing the Heart

Reprogramming the Mind

The route to all this is through the Body.

If we seek wholeness, peace and wisdom in our lives, we have to take the responsibility for our healing out of the hands of doctors and into our own bodies. It will help if we believe that it is possible to come into harmonic flow with life. We have probably been encouraged to believe in a random, purposeless existence for most of our lives. We will need to be prepared to learn some new things, which are in fact old things, the things our souls already know, but which we forgot.

Inside each of us exists a soul that has deep roots in the indigenous tribes of this planet, in rites and ceremonies that connect us deeply to the Earth, the Air, the Fire and Water…. Plus to the Spirit, the multidimensional consciousness that we are forever part of. Through our own intuition we can bring ourselves into alignment – but these energies are extremely powerful, and can unbalance us as well as help us. Therefore it is valuable to share our journey into healing with others who can support and reflect back to us what is going on.

Most of us have taken psychedelics, or worked with medicine plant helpers, to expand our awareness in some way. Drug use is so popular because humans love to experience the potential limitlessness and ecstatic feelings in their soul – though in a materialist, scientific era, soul is a word we rarely use. If we accept the reality of the soul, a question that then comes up of course is do we also have to accept the religious rules and concepts we were indoctrinated with as children?

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Only one way to find out – ask the soul. Step One. Go out in Nature. Attuning to Nature also involves taking notice of moon cycles, seasonal changes and astrological influences. Step Two. We can raise our vibrational frequency to talk to the Spirit. There are infinite ways to alter our vibrations. Eventually drugs become irrelevant – they can be useful to open up energy channels in us which we can then access through other means, eg dance, drumming, chanting, yoga, breathing techniques, sexual energy. Those channels exist in us, it’s just the modern world convinced most of us to tune them out.

Step Three. Healing the Heart involves sharing our stories, being heard without judgement in the warm embrace of fellow souls. Heart Circle is the most powerful heart healing tool I have ever come across. We can only do so much emotional healing alone, we can do so much with a special lover – but to fully heal our hearts we have to accept that humans are social creatures, we belong in community. Our hearts thrive when they are connected to many other hearts in openness, trust and joy. If we restrict our love to romantic illusions of partnership over all else, we will suffer. If we are held in the bosom of a loving community of friends we will survive all life throws at us, and grow through our challenges.

Step Four. The Mind has to give up. It doesn’t run the show. It isn’t designed to know everything – it is designed to ask questions, to analyse and consider. We keep our minds so full, and over stimulated in modern life – meditation helps us to calm the mind, enter into a passive mode within it, where we can, through stillness or trance, get access to its deeper levels, to the places shared with others in the collective consciousness. Through these levels we can even talk to plants, animals and spirit beings.

For this to be possible the mind has to be able to become clear and open, like a cloudless sky, and for that to happen we will need to reprogramme all beliefs and thought patterns that keep the dark clouds in our lives.

Coming to Healing involves coming home to the Body. Taking the body into nature – moving, stretching and opening the body to let in spirit – bringing the body into close physical contact with others (healing touch is part of healing the heart) – and even the reprogramming of the mind, the release of old beliefs and the affirmation of new, happens most effectively when the body is engaged too. Our bodies are temples of our spirit, containing a powerhouse of spiritual energy accessible through our sexuality. Sex is the fastest way to enlightenment, it has been said – if it is approached with awareness, love and surrender.

peacetomymind

The Earth’s journey round the Sun provides us with eight seasonal festival points when it becomes possible for us to leap onto the Path of Healing and Awakening. Spring Equinox is just round the corner as I write this – as Nature reawakens after the cold, inward Winter months, so can we. As we dedicate ourselves to our own healing – as we discover our own ability to heal – the energies of Nature and Spirit rush to assist us.

The elements offer us a way to know and explore who and what we really are. Other metaphysical systems, such as the chakras, the kabbalistic tree of life, the planet’s astrological maps are also very helfpul tools for us to deepen self-knowledge and come into harmony with life. These maps are around to help us maximise the experience the soul is having while on planet Earth.   But the greatest teacher of all is LOVE, and on that point probably every faerie will agree – love opens the gates to the soul, to subject-SUBJECT consciousness (the term invented by Rad Fae Grandfather Harry Hay). Faeries gather in tribal groupings because the LOVE draws us in, transforms and heals us, opens the way to fuller manifestation of the light and joy in our souls. We were born this way, born to awaken, born to seek deeper and higher than most folk, born to be planetary healers. The time is really NOW. We are birthing the Age of Aquarius.

IF YOU FEEL THE CALL, FIND US

Thankyou Faerie Family by Beverley: stories from Albion, summer solstice 2015.

Feeling Joy at the end of a synchronicity filled week in the magical aura of Avalon,

Love as so many new connections were made and friendships deepened,

Heart blooms peppered the days.

Inspired by the power of community and co-creation, and the great contributions from so many to the collective event,

Feeling humbled and honoured by fae who quietly confided in me their deep secrets,

Fortified by the morning qi gong,

Happy at the greater diversity of the gathering,

Feeling blessed by the many personal learnings scattered across the gathering,

Feeling loved and accepted even when the stress levels spiked and the crown of calm slipped momentarily – then held unconditionally in faerie compassion.

Grateful for the kind thanks and tokens of appreciation & helping to rebuild my broken self worth,

Enriched by the experiences,

Liberated through the workshops,

Thankful for the healing,

Nourished by wonderfully creative vegan food,

Delighted to see those first timers I had encouraged to come find that they did fit in and yes they were part of the faerie family.

Happy to be able to use my cooking skills again and work with a harmonious kitchen team,

Entertained and impressed by the show and the talent, and also those whose living performances that ran non-stop for the week,

Invigorated and recharged by our excursions to the sacred places in Avalon,

Tuned in to spirit and the visions, the telepathy, the synchronicity, the angelic messenger service…

Stronger in my personal capacity to manage life,

Loved again, and loving again, beyond the walls and the wounds,

Unconditionally loved,

Hugged by all the hugs…

Still being hugged now as I type….

Rad Fae Summer Solstice @ Paddington Farm, Glastonbury.

Facebook event here.

Booking form here.

Last year, we were blessed with some awesome weather, as our community descended on Paddington Farm to have one of the most revelatory, nourishing and joyful gatherings seen there – the whispers and energy from which propelled the community into some hungry and ecstatic energy that saw a real spike in community events, happenings and appearances throughout the rest of the year.

We WERQED out our shame and cast it off last summer. We danced naked and painted in the sunshine, in awe of each other and the world. We spoke and we listened, we cooked and we munched, meditated and stretched in the bounty of the Somerset landscape. We played a tribal intensity around the fire throughout the night; beating our drums hot handed and wildly, lost in each other and spirit. We were enchanted.

And now it’s time to gather again, to continue the story and officially break out our tribe into the bosom of summer.

This faerie-qweens, is our summer gathering! Let’s put it all aside for one week to weave some camp-chaos and sissy-serenity in our pop up headquarters, nestled in the ancient hills of Olde-Glasto.

Yes! Let our summer-sport be faerie-loving, and Paddington Farm our pitch. Breathe deep dears and open your hearts: raid your closets, set your intentions and spread the word.

Bring fabulous outfits, smiles, loving-appetites, raw passion, creative inclinations and soulful offerings – let’s co-create and supercharge our radical network the world over, by making this one go off in the brightest, most spectacular and conscious way possible.

It begins with you and ends with us all.

See you there.

If you have any other suggestions around encouraging a more inclusive, safe space that you would like us to consider, or would like to comment on any of these – please, get in touch.

Faeries Fire Solstice in Avalon by Dido / Bowerbird.

Hard by Paddington Farm,

Stands Paddington Wood.

Where deep within Ananga and his Faery friends from far,

Blissfully danced, pranced and vaguely stood.

What sounds were heard!

What scenes appeared!

Oh those flames did bond and purge!

I kisses a god that night.

And hidden in their secret bower,

All in fragrant flower,

The Satyrs of Paddington Wood,

Crouched silently and watched in wonder struck.

And turning to his shaggy mate one did whisper in a hush:

“For never yet did I behold mortals like to these,

Neither man nor woman.

I am awed as I look upon them”.

Joie de Folleterre by Queaver – 15th August 2013.

A time for joy.
Tears ripen.

Nothing in the trees’ gaze contradicts the flowers
that dare declare they love. All the colours of music,
all the music of the forest, bright with wonder’s blessing.

Think of it as a merry-go-round,
a subaqueous garden.

Bones blur, outlines loosen, a little like trees, indistinct
in summer’s haze, splinters smoothed away.
Hands unfold, steady on another’s touch.
Around the flames of laughter,
the glow of conversation,
kisses tickle, settle,
rest, depart, rainbow-winged.
Settle again and again.

There is something like music that eases each
separate note into one swelling melody.

Wildly beautiful shapes, colours, swirl
and swoon in this lava lamp.

Somewhere bees get busy with tomorrow’s fruiting.
As your fingers coax rope into baskets I drop
my doubts inside. Your offering eyes ignite
my soul that’s been singing
to itself these years, by the far lake.

Yes, eyes meet here, shadows
steepen their lustre
into jewel-light that
bursts beyond words.

Words are clumsy messengers. Here the language is pretty
wraps, wigs, dresses sexpressively excessive.
Fireworks fixed in half motion. Star-beams caught
between silk and skin,
skin and skin.

With the night they sprawl shifting abruptly to dodge
the fire’s frisky smoke.

The days would be roaring and hungry,
gone in a few gulps, just flakes
to record the feast.

A time for sadness.
Dreams ripen. You snuggle in my heart.

A buoyant soul, unshackled and rising – Odanata on Summer Gathering 2013 @ Folleterre.

The way to Folleterre was scenic, light and full of promise. The approach greeted by a meandering stream carving out picturesque spaces for habitation and country-folk recreation in the humble valley place of Folleterre’s home. Pines postured green and tall in peaceful and watchful communion with other brothers and sisters of bark and leaf. The sun held the whole scene in a warmth you felt on the breath, in the chest. The pull up the mountain was a calling – a silken leash gently tugging on the fluttering hearts of a thousand butterflies in the stomach.

I can’t give you many words for my first glimpse of our Faerie haven. I jostled with the tension of a superficial desire to have my expectations fulfilled and the heartfelt attempt to breathe in the first moment of being there. To grasp it authentically, untainted by my prior lust for and dreams of Folleterre.

Nevertheless I had arrived – I was here now. Follettere held me whilst I gained some composure. The environment so strange yet so perfectly familiar. Faerie intention and detail etched into the most inconspicuous places. The pinecone tinsel up the shit tower, the wisps of an absent-minded doodle in the sand of a faerie-claimed beach and crochet-flowers adorning the branches of random trees down the way to the prairie.

And holding I would need. The bosom of Follettere took some nesting. The first task being unpacking my other-world baggage, inspecting the contents with care and sharing some of them round for knowing reflection in heart circle. Then, either making adjustments, scrapping entirely or re-crafting them with a new found, or better honed, loving faerie-artisanship. Of course there are a few bits wedged in the cognitive crevices of a worn luggage, undetectable to naked-faerie eye – but a gathering is a tonic for perspective. There will be other times for these, of that I’m sure.

The appropriate camp caveat of “you better WERQ” accompanied my initiation to Folleterre – a cyclical process of processing and learning and bonding and sharing. But what sweet soulful bounty and harvest did the perseverance yield – akin to bursting out, wild and running, from the dank and thorny thickets of a strange forest into a boundless meadow of wild flower harmony. Each murmur of summer life so present, so disarming.

And then the connections. Thrilling and physical, enriching and penetrative – a reaching out beyond the pre-conceived and anxious, without grasping, to merge with the welcome of another faerie soul. Faerie souls that taught me the boundless nature of love. It’s transcendental quality – the simple, divine antidote to the unfathomable, to the dark.

Anchored in the tired conceptions of how to love and how to be loved, a new way of being with one another in perfect sharing became the new horizon. A personal metamorphosis still unfolding. A flaking off of a tired rusty hue, stripped back by perfect flows of clarity – the buoyancy of the soul unshackled, and rising.

I re-enter the other place consolidated, holding onto perfect realisations, trying all the time with your love and support, to make them permanent manifestations.

Odanata x