In an unbidden instant, a bright ember ignited a cascade of
thought and action within me. In my imagination a mercurial figure with mighty
and proud leporine ears turned to me and said “you cannot be my Consort, there
are no games we can play together” with such drollness that I was immediately
won over. Within a few short hours a story I’d struggled to write for several
months seemed to flow as effortlessly as if I were copying it by rote.
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| artist and source unknown |
This was the point from which my Beltane Faerie Story
seemed to blossom forth. I’d been struggling to write about experiencing
queerness and Beltane for some time, from conversations that had started the
previous Spring: Deep and heartfelt sharing
of the quiet hurt and exclusion felt when the menfolk and the womenfolk are
separated to talk about their part in the “mysteries” that lead to the birth of
a Divine Son then the digging of a symbolic feminine hole in which to plant an
equally symbolic masculine Maypole.
Spirited debate on social media about some of the perceived heteronormativity
present even in the writings of druids we admired, that lazy lack of thought beyond
the pervasive norm of opposite binary-gender pairings which, while not actively
discriminatory, did nothing to acknowledge the non-heterosexual,
non-childbearing, non-fertile, non-binary gendered members of our
community. Out and out slanging matches
based on the clear premise that these neo-traditions were entirely
non-excluding so long as you just played along with them to maintain the status
quo, on which more later, and that if one didn’t like them then one should
bugger off to some other tradition and stop trying to mess up druidry by making
it all politically correctness gone mad.
Amidst it all, a correspondence between myself, Penny Billington the editor of Touchstone and a young academic whose intellect and
sense of social justice I greatly admire. I fondly imagine it as being akin to
The White Council, although Penny assures me I’m no Cate Blanchett and that she
certainly looks nothing like Christopher Lee. Their commentary was so
insightful and had such depth I felt like I was running to keep up, but it did
wonders to clarify my thoughts.
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| The White Council (c) New Line Cinema |
The story was published in Touchstone and then featured on
Druidcast Episode 84. I had that mix of feeling happy that work I had
done was out in the world and fearful of having put myself out there quite so
visibly. Brené Brown talks
about keeping yourself small and under the radar to avoid feeling vulnerable, yet in vulnerability finding the birthplace of creativity and innovation,
and I had stuck my head well and truly above the parapet.
There
were reactions. People had opinions in my direction. Most were positive. Not
all were kind. Some were downright personal. There emerged an idea that I was
somehow trying to steer druidry into a new, non-traditional form. What was my
end-game? Why did I become a druid if I
didn’t love The Goddess and The God? Why was I trying to change the nature of
the Gods in order to fit my lifestyle? If I felt so unwelcome, why didn’t I just
leave? What would this gay-druidry look like and why didn’t I go off somewhere
and do this gay-druidry with the other gay druids and leave everyone else in peace
to do it the way it’s always been done? And so on…
It’s
worth noting at this point that I usually choose ‘queer’ to describe myself. Gay is fine too, but I am wary of the androcentrism it conveys. I worry that most people just read ‘gay’ as ‘gay
man’, limiting advocacy of lesbians, bisexuals, genderqueer, *trans people,
non-binary, androgenous, asexual and intersex people gathering under the
rainbow banner of what Dan Savage wryly refers to as “our beloved acronym” of
LGBTQIAA+
It took me a while to notice that due to the limitations of
my talent, nearly everybody had missed a significant amount of what I was
trying to convey: “Beltane Faerie Story” is a satire. It’s supposed to be
faintly ridiculous, from the glorious Beltane Hare-spirit crowning a Champion
with a pair of furr’d ears to the final Ceremony with added extra verses for
the queers. "Which version are we doing this year?" I imagine the Archdruids muttering. "The gay ritual or the normal one?"
If I did have an “end-game”, then my ulterior motive would
be that it should seem ludicrous that a spiritual tradition should have to go
to preposterous lengths to be accommodating. It should already be inclusive or
it simply isn’t fit for purpose. That means we don’t need “gay druidry” any more
than we need “gay tea” or “gay cars”, just tea that tastes good to anyone who
wants to drink it and cars that anybody can learn to drive.
Many, many months later I was to hear Penny in conversation with Philip Carr-Gomm as recorded at the OBOD 50th Anniversary
Celebrations. I heard it on Druidcast as somehow I missed the actual interview.
She interrupts Philip near the end of the conversation and changes the subject
onto the contribution being made by gay OBOD members and in what she says I
hear threads from our conversation and feel deeply moved.
Her summation is characteristically erudite, a passionate
ally she dismisses heteronormativity stating simply that, “what we do want is a
druid robe that everyone is able to shake their shoulders in and feel
comfortable with”.
