Mystical Weaving of Sexuality & Spirituality with Al Head & Shokti of Queer Spirit Festival

07/15/19 • 30 min

The Queer Spirit Festival is a five day celebration of the love, passion and creative spirit of the LGBTQ+ community. Now in it’s third year, the festival will be held August 14-18, in Northamptonshire, England.

Al Head is a pagan energy worker who has been an lgbt activist and organiser since the early 1980s, as well as a peace, environmental and inclusion activist. They are also the author of “Queer Deity, Sacred Slut.”

Shokti is a spiritual activist and Faerie Witch. He is one of the crew who worked to birth Folleterre Radical Faerie Sanctuary in France and who brought Faerie gatherings to the UK in 2006. Shokti is the workshop programmer for the Queer Spirit Festival, bringing together dozens of facilitators and activists working on the cutting edge of queer community and consciousness.

Episode Highlights

Shokti shares how his HIV diagnosis lead him to explore spirituality and through this path connected with his current community.
Al tells the story of their spiritual journey from radical Christianity to exploring the intersection of sexuality, spirituality and politics, leading them to paganism.
They share how the Queer Spirit festival first began as an idea out of Queer Pagan Camp, as a way of bringing different tribes of queer spiritual folks together.
They describe what it’s like to attend the QS festival, what kind of workshops are scheduled and the different rituals and ceremonies which are offered.
Shokti shares more of his ideas about the reclaiming of queer mystical power, and the weaving together of sexuality and spirituality.
Al talks about how they use sex magic to help heal the land and brings these practices to the festival for restoring the energy of the earth.
We discuss how learning about consent with people can improve our relationship to the earth.

Web links

Queer Spirit Festival - Northamptonshire, England, August 14-18, 2019
Find Queer Spirit Festival on FaceBook, Instagram & Twitter

Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes.

And follow us on Instagram!

Join our mailing list to get news and podcast updates sent directly to you.

Episode Highlights

Shokti shares how his HIV diagnosis lead him to explore spirituality and through this path connected with his current community.
Al tells the story of their spiritual journey from radical Christianity to exploring the intersection of sexuality, spirituality and politics, leading them to paganism.
They share how the Queer Spirit festival first began as an idea out of Queer Pagan Camp, as a way of bringing different tribes of queer spiritual folks together.
They describe what it’s like to attend the QS festival, what kind of workshops are scheduled and the different rituals and ceremonies which are offered.
Shokti shares more of his ideas about the reclaiming of queer mystical power, and the weaving together of sexuality and spirituality.
Al talks about how they use sex magic to help heal the land and brings these practices to the festival for restoring the energy of the earth.
We discuss how learning about consent with people can improve our relationship to the earth.

Web links

Queer Spirit Festival - Northamptonshire, England, August 14-18, 2019
Find Queer Spirit Festival on FaceBook, Instagram & Twitter

Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes.

And follow us on Instagram!

Join our mailing list to get news and podcast updates sent directly to you.

Previous Episode

Art for Healing the Past & Writing a New Future with Rudy Loewe

Rudy Loewe is a visual artist utilizing drawing, painting and printmaking as a means of building narrative and contributing to dialogues on social themes. They work with large scale, sometimes directly onto surfaces that then ensure their temporality; as well as small scale in forms such as publications.

The work itself is bright and colorful, referencing aesthetics from the Afro Caribbean diaspora.

It also represents different kinds of bodies, highlighting differing races; non-conforming genders; sexualities; classes and (dis)ability. Rudy makes the work that reflects the narratives they would like to see in the world, the histories that are not getting the visibility or care that they deserve.

Episode Highlights

Rudy shares how they grew up in a family of artists, but was the first to make a living from art, starting with making comics.
They talk about using comics as a way to get art and the narratives of art, to those who wouldn’t normally access other kinds of art.
Using art to tell the kinds of stories they want to see in the world, especially for queer POC and others who aren't normally depicted.
Workshops Rudy has facilitated to teach others to create zines exploring gender, sexuality and mental health.
The way art helps one have access to, and explore the language of identity when words are not quite right.
Rudy’s zine sharing about their polarized experiences in therapy, to help people understand more about how to be mindful as a consumer of therapy.
How mental health symptoms vary for different kinds populations and identities.
The exploration of Afrofuturism and black feminist utopias in Rudy’s art; the importance of telling POC stories in history, and removing white supremacy from images of the future. (Here is an image of the piece we refer to when discussing Afrofuturism.)

Web links

Find Rudy at RudyLoewe.com
You can also find them on Twitter & Instagram

Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes.

And follow us on Instagram!

Join our mailing list to get news and podcast updates sent directly to you.

Next Episode

Queering Parenthood: Birth, Death & Earth with Kaya Colin

Kaya Colin is a queer femme, social worker, witch, and accidental parent to an almost 3 year old. Her upcoming projects, both launching this summer, are inspired by vulnerability and isolation from community during pregnancy and parenting. The Mad Queer Parents podcast, explores the intersection of mental health, queerness and parenting. Kaya and her partner are opening, a counseling practice, Femme & Them, to serve LGBTQ families and pregnant people. In between foraging, parenting, and making tea and magic, Kaya is a crisis worker in rural Washington state.

Episode Highlights

Kaya tells how she was inspired to study social work after having a chaotic childhood, and her desire to understand the system she grew up in by studying psychology.
She shares the story of becoming a parent, which was unplanned but is learning so much from this new experience. She talks about being a single, queer mother-to-be and the challenges of navigating her identities in birthing spaces.
During her pregnancy she tuned into the energies of grief and death by connecting with her ancestors as she became a parent.
Now she and her partner run a therapy practice in Washington state, working with LGBTQ families.
Her identity as a witch is a way of connecting to nature and finding support through that connection. She shares how the earth has taught her to be a parent.
Her new podcast, Mad Queer Parents explores the intersection of queerness, mental health and parenting.

Web links