One issue that often arises for queer people is that they don't relate to the idea of their higher power being gendered. Or they don't relate to the gender of the Divine according to the spiritual path they know the best. This was true for me when I couldn't accept a Father God because my relationship with my father was so poor. For me, the Goddess filled that void but for some people, neither gender really speaks to them. When faced with this challenge at the Between the Worlds gathering, we collectively started to refer to our higher power as the Queer Spirit.
When I first started Between the Worlds with Michael Llyod I was pretty ignorant about large portions of the queer community. Most of my experiences had been limited to the LGB of our community. Fortunately, my work with the festival led to many invitations to speak at other festivals and conferences. Through this, I interacted with a much larger queer community and expanded my understanding of what it means to be queer.
As a result of this, we began to change how we talked about the higher power at Between the Worlds. Michael and I were both primarily Wiccan and so we had started out invoking God and Goddess. As my own world expanded, I began to think more broadly. What would a queer deity be? How could we get away from the heteronormative gender dyad?
This led to the idea of the Queer Spirit. The Queer Spirit is the embodiment of all that it means to be queer. The Queer Spirit was sexual, vibrant, and creative. We began to focus our rituals on the Queer Spirit and we found that it was much more inclusive. But more than that, it just felt right.
Episode Summary
In this episode of Queer Spirituality, I discuss the different ways that queer people approach their higher power and the gender polarity associated with spirituality. It’s important to feel that we can relate to our deity, which is why I have spent many years adapting rituals to incorporate other people's beliefs and methods of worship. One that I would like to present to you today is that of Queer Spirit, a unifying higher power that finds commonality within our communities so that we can create safe spaces for ourselves and our community to support each other and protect our rights as one.
If you’re struggling to connect with the traditional approaches to exploring higher power and feel disconnected from the deity, I invite you to listen to this episode. Perhaps Queer spirit will speak to you.
Did this episode inspire you? I’d love to hear your thoughts ❤️ drop me a review on your favorite listening platform.
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