Gay Spirituality

I talk a lot about the “Queer Spirit”.  In fact, I’ve even given workshops on it.  Our group, the Green Faerie Grove, uses this idea frequently in ritual.  I thought I’d take a moment to talk a bit about the Queer Spirit as I see it and why I think it’s a useful construct to use in ritual.

I view the Queer Spirit as a type of non-polar, genderless divine spirit.  For those of you that are familiar with Scott Cunningham’s book Wicca for the Solitary Pracitioner, I’d compare the Queer Spirit in my view to what Cunningham calls the “All” or “One”.  In Cunningham’s work, he talks about the All being a genderless, formless divine energy that in an attempt to understand itself better divided into the male and female polarities that many see as God and Goddess.  This isn’t a new idea as Kabbalah talks about the Ain Soph, a divine void or nothingness that condenses down to a genderless, divine energy in the first Sephorith, Kether.  Kether then divides into the masculine Chokmah and feminine Binah.  The idea here being that the Queer Spirit precedes gender and identity as God or Goddess.  It’s a formless, genderless divinity and a collective divine consciousness.

In my personal practice, the Queer Spirit is the source for everything positive and everything negative about being Queer.  It’s a primal source.  It’s also a repository to which we return upon our passing.  Our community is never diminished when we lose a brother or sister because their spiritual essence rejoins the Queer Spirit, which like the Force in Star Wars flows between and amongst us all. 

So as a pagan or Wiccan, why bother with this distinction?  Afterall, can’t we just workshop queer gods and goddesses?  I think we can.  However, one thing that the Queer Spirit as an idea provides is a common divine energy to which various pagan paths can relate.  At Between the Worlds, we have heathens, buddhists, druids and every other type of alternative pagan path represented.  Invoking God and Goddess and the four quarters in our opening ritual has a tendency to alienate those paths that don’t see the world from a Wicca perspective.  By invoking the Queer Spirit as our primary source of divinity, we allow each participant to bring their own meaning to it.  Each person can view the Queer Spirit as they will and better relate to the ritual as a whole.

I’ve found that this notion of the Queer Spirit has gone from something used primarily to unite various pagan paths in a diverse setting like Between the Worlds to an extremely integral part of my own practice.  I hope that you find some inspiration from it as well. 

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