[Liminal Letters] Queerness is expansive. Queer community should be, too
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Not into weekly newsletters? You can opt-out of the weekly newsletter without removing yourself from other updates HERE! Hey, Reader! What is community? It’s a question I think a lot about in Pride month. In the past, I've struggled to feel connected to mainstream ideas of queer community - the gay bar, the city, etc. As someone who grew up kind of in the middle of nowhere and then went to college in the middle of nowhere and who has only had a car for 7 out of the 32 years they’ve been alive, who hid their gender identity for A LONG time, who grew up in an area and in a time where people were totally okay with gay people and gay rights - as long as they conformed to straight & hetero norms, who doesn’t vibe with the queer community where they currently live, the idea of queer community has often been fraught for me. I have often thought that I don’t have queer community. But community can look so many ways. Over the last year especially, I have had a number of experiences that have prompted me to consider the ways I have overlooked the amazing queer community I do have just because it doesn’t look like a more stereotypical queer experience. Even though I only went to my first pride celebration at 27, I’ve actually always had queer friends. In high school, in college, in those middle of nowhere places all the queers and weirdos flocked together, recognizing one another, quietly affirming one another, trying to figure out what it means to be queer when your entire world has worked hard to make sure you have absolutely no examples of what that can be. Even though I do not vibe with the most visible parts queer community where I live, I have connected with so many amazing queer folks online and more recently in unexpected places irl - like the rock climbing gym! Even if we do not gather together at the gay bar, that doesn’t diminish our connection. In the last year, I've found myself spending more time in the stereotypical places of queer community - in gay bars and other queer spaces, both at home and traveling. Going to the gay bar and actually making connections, striking up conversations, making friends, and flirting, it felt easy and familiar. Because I’ve always been doing it, even if it doesn’t happen in the places I’ve been told it should. In my travels this year, I have met up with several rad queer friends that I’ve made online, and it was like any old friendship, only we’d actually “just met”. Forming community is natural. It is human. But that community doesn’t always match stereotypical expectations. That doesn’t make it any less valuable or less worthy of being called community. ESPECIALLY when we are talking about queer community. Our queer communities are allowed to be queer. They’re allowed to be offbeat or unexpected. They’re allowed to be virtual, dispersed across time zones, rooted in something other than shared physical location or the fact that we attend the same corporate sponsored Pride events. More than that, our queer communities are allowed to extend beyond living, breathing humans, too. As witches, spiritworkers, and animists, we are allowed to form queer community with deities, spirits, plants, animals, the dead. All of these are potentially vital queer connections. Queerness is expansive, so of course queer community should be, too. If you’re looking to expand your queer community this Pride month, then I want to invite you to join the Queer Ancestor Coven! Read on to learn more about this community for building community with your queer ancestors! Queer Ancestor Coven Now Open!The Queer Ancestor Coven is a month-long group exploration for finding queer joy, healing, liberation through connection with the queer ancestors! Part study group, part support group, we’ll come together in queer community to connect with, honor, and heal our queer ancestors. During this an month-long exploration you’ll learn to connect with queer ancestors, remediate lineages of harm, and reverence lineages of queer magic, healing, liberation, and celebration. We’ll come together as a community to explore our many queer ancestries, what it means to work with queer ancestors, and how to reverence, remediate, and revel in those ancestries. You’ll learn how to do radical ancestor work to connect with your queer ancestors so that you can access to a reservoir of queer joy, hope, strength, and magic that will help you carry forward the banner of collective liberation.
In the Coven, you’ll learn:
Find a reservoir of gay as fuck hope and healing thru radical ancestor work so that you can root into healing magical liberatory work that supports your queer self, your queer community, and your queer ancestors! The Coven starts TODAY! You can register HERE!
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This Week's Joys & Gratitudes
What's bringing you joy this week? Where are you finding magic? Feel free to hit reply and let me know! Until next time! In Joy, Magic, and Solidarity, P.S. Know someone who would find magic in this newsletter? Please forward it on! Word of mouth is one way we weave connection & magic! |