For those who haven’t caught on yet: I’m fucking queer. \u00a0This shapes my experience of magic every bit as much as it does my interaction with the rest of the\u00a0world. \u00a0Sometimes positively. \u00a0Sometimes negatively.<\/p>\n
I live in Kansas City, where the Pagan community is “cool” with people like me\u00a0 … \u00a0just as long as we never complicate their gender binary, or challenge the gender\u00a0dynamics of their power\u00a0structures. \u00a0Sunrise, Indiana, was worse: excepting Sannafrid, they had that\u00a0awful Viking vibe of aggressive heteronormativity. \u00a0Lawrence, Kansas, where I come from originally … well, honestly, it’s hard to say. \u00a0 I was pretty closeted and ignorant back then, and the world ten and twenty years ago was a very\u00a0different place. \u00a0Although I have known a variety of other LGBT witches, pagans, and sorcerers in my time, barely a handful \u00a0of them have been politically queer, and most of those from the …well, to be blunt, from the anti-radical cis gay political end of things.<\/p>\n
Literature has largely failed me, as well. \u00a0The things I have found in print largely pigeonhole Pagan queers: speaking exclusively to cisgender gays and lesbians, and framing them guides and teachers for the pagan community at large, a teaching tool for others but of no value to or in themselves.\u00a0 They also tend to be very appropriative, stealing language from First Nations peoples, and poorly researched in terms of the ancient peoples they point to for comfort and inspiration. \u00a0There are some explicitly radical and trans-positive Pagan ebooks available in the world (interestingly: almost all anthologies) but I find it increasingly difficult to read from a screen, and strive to spend most of my digital time producing content rather than consuming it.<\/p>\n
I know \u00a0that there are, \u00a0in the world, traditions of witchcraft more friendly to queer ethics and politics than any I have seen in person or in print. \u00a0I hope, someday, to find a teacher. \u00a0A coven. \u00a0A community.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, however, I must write the book I want to read. \u00a0I must create the community I wish to find.<\/p>\n
What does it mean, to me, to be a witch? \u00a0What does it mean, to me, to be queer?\u00a0 What does it mean, to me, to be a queer witch?\u00a0 I have been asking these questions for fifteen and twenty years.\u00a0 So far my answers are still ephemeral, less than satisfactory.<\/p>\n
Witchcraft is both a being and a doing: to be a witch is to practice witchcraft.\u00a0 Not all forms of magic are witchcraft, though, and sometimes it’s hard to say what is and what isn’t.\u00a0 Often, it’s a sort of “I know it when I see it” sort of thing.\u00a0 But what I can say is this: it is transgressive.\u00a0 It is an explicit rejection of one’s assigned place in the world, particularly with regard to sanctity and blasphemy, but also with regard to class and caste.\u00a0 It is movement outside the boundaries.\u00a0 It is reaching too high, and stooping too low.\u00a0 It is addressing gods as equals and cavorting with forbidden powers.<\/p>\n
To be queer is likewise to transgress the boundaries assigned by society.\u00a0 To be queer is to reject traditional limits of masculinity and femininity.\u00a0 To be queer is to engage in forbidden loves and lusts.\u00a0 It is to take your identity into your own hands – and, by doing so, often putting your life at risk, as well.<\/p>\n
To be a queer witch, then, is doubly transgressive, doubly marginal.\u00a0 It leaves practically no area of my life safe from public condemnation.\u00a0 I cannot be a model minority.\u00a0 Even if I were to otherwise submit utterly, the very fact that I exist is a challenge to the system.<\/p>\n
I am Outside.\u00a0 I am Other, even among Others. Everywhere I go, I find … “No, not this, either.”<\/p>\n
And yet … what I am not<\/em> is an unsatisfactory exploration of what I am<\/em>.<\/p>\n I must clear new paths, pave new roads, perform new rites, write new books, dedicate new temples.<\/p>\n But it’s so, so hard to travel alone.<\/p>\n I am one mad, damaged queer.\u00a0 My vision is insufficient to tear down the edifices of the Patriarchy.\u00a0 These two hands are not enough to destroy the gender binary.\u00a0 Alone, even with my friends and lovers, I cannot find or create new gods adequate to the new age which we must build together.<\/p>\n Our predecessors walked away from the One God.\u00a0 They found a new Goddess and her Consort.\u00a0 They found that the Old Gods had never truly left.\u00a0 But our peers are too complacent, looking too much to the past and the present.\u00a0 We must look to the future.\u00a0 We must be transgressors and innovators.\u00a0 We must complicate witchcraft.\u00a0 We must queer it.<\/p>\n So I beg you: come forth, and follow with me. Lead me, if you will.\u00a0 Let us make witchcraft a wilder, stranger place than it has ever dreamed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For those who haven’t caught on yet: I’m fucking queer. \u00a0This shapes my experience of magic every bit as much as it does my interaction with the rest of the\u00a0world. \u00a0Sometimes positively. \u00a0Sometimes negatively. I live in Kansas City, where the Pagan community is “cool” with people like me\u00a0 … \u00a0just as long as we … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,5],"tags":[83,206,216],"class_list":["post-3026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-witchcraft","tag-feminist-witchcraft","tag-political-paganism","tag-queer-witchcraft"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-MO","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}