for Jane,
for my sisters

Jules International
1997

The WWW Edition
1998

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Printed copies of the original version are available

We faeries say we are exploring what it means to be gay, to be male, to be creative, but it could as honestly be stated that we are exploring our humanity.

I would argue that faerie is intrinsically "gay" and "male", though those are not the only defining factors, but that faerie space must find a place within its borders for both straight and female elements/energies. What other elements define "faerie" become more contentious with each supposition, since faeries define themselves individually. A creative spirit, a commitment to the notion of community and of respecting other voices, a temperament that challenges or at least critically examines all notions of authority, some would argue an attachment to notions of rural or at least nature centred philosophies.

The faeries - always plural, because of what happens when we are together: we need each other to really weave our magic.

I see a hilltop or at least a rise in the land with a tree silhouetted against the sky and all these slow-spinning faeries in flowing skirts that catch the wind, turning round and laughing as they spin.

There is so much talk of nature in what I have written, it surprises me. Is it that the commitment to deal with each other in such an engaged straight-on manner also requires us to deal with our environment in the same way? What is the nature of faerie awareness? grey cashmere sweaters on smooth brown shoulders, a figure that has the qualities of seems both masculine and feminine, the sleight skeleton, the suggestion of muscular force, something in the way the flesh looks and calls out; it has a name, it loves, it knows itself in others. The dampness of the evening, like a sauna, like having sex just to lay there in the limpid, languid air, like having sex just to walk in the moistness of it, the moistness of sex, the passion of the slow leak of fluids.

The hungers arise unbidden. Shall we claim them, then?

tired and sweetly satisfied, the body smells lingering around me, but also the lingering reminders of responsibility: chop wood carry water, clean the tent, do your toilet "prendre sa douche", eat, socialize, laugh, and say, "this is not a laughing thing, it's a crying thing, how come you're crying child, you've lost someone", grieving for our dead, remembering our dying, caring for our dying, remembering to live.

striking out into the fields I break off stems of the plants that sag into the less-travelled path, the heat is sticky on my skin, the flies buzz around and make passes at my flesh, and the bright sun warms the head the sleepy eyes, the need for a cool, quiet shelter to process all that we have seen and done. I am tired, the room spins, the world spins green and golden, and the smell of scent of man on my fingers is like honey