One Fey's Tale, Installment 2

my first trip

by middle, only on LifeLube

I spent most of my pre-adult life in bedroom communities that epitomized suburbia. Even so, I’ve come by my love of land and the outdoors honestly. My parents grew up in post-depression Virginia, Dad on a country farm and Mom in a small Virginia town. I’ve visited the log cabin where my Dad was born and the farms where he spent his childhood picking berries and pole beans for pennies. I’ve attended family reunions on the farm where Mom spent summers packing peaches for a favorite uncle. Even in 70s suburbia where I grew up, I enjoyed adjacent natural green spaces – farms and pastures, undeveloped lands adjacent to our neighborhoods where I and other neighborhood boys had more than one kind of adventure.

When my fey friends and I are talking to someone interested in our gatherings, we often say, “when you are ready, you will go.” In March of 2000, after serving as my Mom’s primary caregiver for 15 months, she died at home as she’d wished. Suddenly, I was free to seek healing and peace in some new experiences.

I attended three “retreats” that spring – a local Christian camp for persons living with HIV/AIDS, a Body Electric erotic workshop, and my first faerie gathering. If that doesn’t reveal something about my nature, perhaps the fact that I saw major similarities among them does. Each was an attempt to create a safe space to explore self and consider spirit. At each, I encountered lost and found souls searching for new bonds – platonic, spiritual, sensual and erotic -of community, of circle, of created families. In each setting, human touch was recognized for its significance and value. I saw persons celebrating as they worked to defy their self-bondage.

The trip began on an interstate just blocks from my urban condo. As I followed the directions, each turn of the route took me onto smaller, then onto more primitive roads until my car was creeping down the dirt and gravel driveway along a mountain ridge.

Without a doubt, I was met with hospitality. Volunteers helped me unload my bags, tent, and supplies, and shuttled me to a remote parking area. Once I got my tent pitched and my things situated inside, I headed to the bathhouse for a shower. In no time I was showering face to face with a beautiful copper-skinned woman with coal black hair (a first!) That was just fine by me. I’d come for new experiences, and I was off to a fine start.

I’ll never forget waking up the next morning. I was camped on a wooded ridge. The sun rose over the edge and filtered through the greenery of spring to light the interior of my tent. The breezes were soothing as I emerged from dream-filled sleep. Most memorable was the cacophony of animal sounds- bird song, the sound of woodpeckers drumming, and the scratching of other animals – echoed around my tent in a three dimensional cacophony.

It took several days to really transition into sanctuary. Gradually I begin to “feel” the land beneath my feet, the skies above, the people and energies around me. Each struck me with their beauty. I couldn’t help feeling that the elements were meant to gather and dance some profound cosmic dance in this place.

A lot happened - much more than I can cover in this small bit of writing - but it is safe to say my investment in faerie culture began with my participation in a ritual that was the focus for this gathering. Hundreds of faeries of all shapes, genders, colors, and ages gathered in a circle. They were nothing if not fabulous, dressed simply or extravagantly, brightly painted or just nude, all radiant with spirit. As we joined hands and gazed into others’ eyes, I felt an energy dashing around the circle we’d created. A fat bumblebee landed on my shoulder. I clasped my neighbors’ hands more firmly, wished the bee well, and watched it fly away.

The directions were called: north, east, south, west, above, and below. Someone in the center asked us to remember and invoke the names of our ancestors and others who’d gone before us. I spoke their names: “Tony,” the first ‘buddy’ I’d watched die in a hospital room of AIDS; “Matt” the gay brother that helped me out of the closet and who I lost too soon to a car wreck; “Tony,” my co-worker and coaster-freak friend who also died of AIDS, missing effective treatment by just 5 years. I called out, “Mom.” I felt emotion and spirit well up in me, and with the shedding of a few tears I made a small peace with their and my own HIV infected mortality.

Sooner than I would have wished, the time came to pack everything up, load the car, and head back to what I now considered my other home. The gradual devolution of the road was reversed as I drove out of the area. I began to feel a vague feeling of sickness as I approached the on-ramp and turned onto the interstate.

I didn’t know it that day, but making the transition in and out of these sacred places would become less painful with practice, but never easy. I braced myself and let my thoughts wander among myriad visions of “what could be.”

(to be continued)

Read middle's first installment, only on LifeLube