Badpuppy Gay Today

Wednesday, 21 May 1997

Calling their best-known publication RFD, a "journal for gay men which focuses on country living and encourages alternative life styles," the loosely organized Radical Faeries, a group founded over twenty years ago by Harry Hay and his companion of 35 years, John Burnside, flourishes not only in nearly every U.S. state, but in other nations too. Hay, a Californian now 85, was a founder of the original 1950 chapter of The Mattachine Society.

The Radical Faeries, known for exhibiting their colorful, dancing counterculture presences at gay marches and parades, have emphasized country living because the earth itself appeals to many as an organic part of themselves. Hay, according to Gay Soul author Mark Thompson, felt inspired when, as a child, he watched Hopi Indians perform their ritual dances, and empathized with their connectedness to Mother Earth. Many Faeries envision the godhead as a feminine personae, the Mother Goddess, a recurring figure in mythology, whether as the Roman Catholic Virgin Mary, the Egyptian Isis, the Buddhist Kwan Yin, or the Greek Athena.

A visitor to well-plowed Faerie territory in Tennessee recounted how he arrived at a Faerie country site in a driving rain storm. Expecting to find members huddled inside the farmhouse, he was startled, he said, at seeing a spirited group of unembarrassed, naked males, dancing in the rain in exotic circled formations around a huge bonfire in the yard.

Though there are significant denominational divisions among occult and spirit-conscious gay groupings, attendees often find themselves--as shown in RFD magazine-- concerned with making friends, growing flowers, promoting health, exploring therapeutic massage, exchanging herbs, celebrating horticulture, pursuing farming, exchanging goat-milk recipes, and lessening the loneliness of prisoners.

In spite of individualistic doctrinal differences, Faeries lean toward an easy tolerance that emphasizes inclusiveness rather than exclusion. They seem not to sacrifice community to dogma. In a meeting held in Atlanta, a member carrying a handsomely woven scarf stood at the center of a Faerie circle and boasted of his scarf's miraculous "healing powers" suggesting other attendees wear it during the weekend. A skeptic rose next and, with theatrical wit, appropriated the scarf. Without speaking, he folded it neatly, and then used it as a spinning-base between his buttocks and the floor, his hands held playfully upwards.

Another West Coast gay spirit theorist and practitioner is Mitch Walker, Ph.D., author and Jungian therapist. " I realized loving another guy was archetypal, not a mere accident or adaptation," he says.

Walker's master's thesis, a breakthrough, discussed the then-unheard-of topic of gay depth psychology. It was, says Mark Thompson," the first-ever gay-centered application of Jungian theory to the question of what is a gay identity." Walker and the Radical Faeries have recently entered, it appears, into theoretical disputes, not unlike those which affect other ideology-based associations.

On May 3, at the Atlanta Friends (Quaker) Meeting House, members of Gay Spirit Visions many of whose members have also attended Faerie gatherings, discussed how they could best make a place for their own feelings of same-sex love. "Men who love men," said John Stowe, a keynote speaker and leader, "have great gifts, talents, and sensibilities that are sorely needed in the world. We have a unique beneficial place in society--to the extent that we claim our right and responsibility to fill it." The Atlanta meeting gave focus to "exercises that emphasize interaction, movement, and enthusiasm," as well as "practical positive results."

Visionary, the Gay Spirit Vision newsletter, discusses such topics as "Reforming Global Health Through Energetic Healing." The Atlanta group can be e-mailed for information at GSVGSV@AOL.COM

RFD, A Country Journal for Gay Men Everywhere, is available by subscription ($20 for four issues) from the Short Mountain Collective, Route 1, Box 84A, Liberty, Tennessee, 37095.

RFD lists its Faerie Contacts worldwide, from Paris to San Francisco. E-mailing for Faerie contacts can be accomplished through majordomo@queernet.org. Include "subscribe Faerie" or "subscribe Faerie-digest" in the message--not the subject line.