RFD No. 139 Autumn 2009 $ 7.75 30th anniversary of the First Radical Faerie Gathering(#140)RFD #139 • Autumn 2009 Retelling Far-Out Desert Between the Lines 2 A Celebration of Radical Faeries’ 30th Anniversary Vol 36 No 1 #139 Autumn 2009 Decennial anniversaries are often used by individuals, groups, and even movements as a time for reflection for what was and growth, hopes and dreams for what could be. We use this important issue of RFD as an opportunity for readers and writers to reflect on the thirtieth anniversary of the Radical Faerie movement. During the Labor Day weekend, August 31 to September 2, 1979, men from all over the United States gathered at an ashram in Benson, Arizona at the call of Harry Hay, John Burnside and Don Kilhefner. These men, and those who joined them, initiated a movement that would take on the name on the call: “Radical Faerie”. As you will read in the following pages, the Radical Faerie movement was born out of many peoples’ sharings, ideas and visions. Early faeries looked at the world, including the gay world, in which they lived, and wanted something better, deeper, richer. And they wanted to do it with others who shared similar views. The term “Radical Faeries” perfectly embodied this vision in that our founders’ defined “radical” as “to mean the root of” and “faeries” as “to reclaim our identity as gay men”. The majority of the articles in this issue focus on the actual first “radical faerie” gathering while others speak to earlier gatherings and their potential impact of the community which came to be identified as Radical Faerie. As you read through this issue, you will learn about one founder’s motivations for calling that first gathering, and his view of what we have lost, and gained, as gay men and radical faeries. This writer encourages us to look carefully at how society has tilted rightward over these past thirty years, and asks that we consider re-connecting with ourselves as a caring and compassionate people. Other writers speak of their experiences at those first gatherings, and those gatherings’ transformative impacts on their lives then and now. As the issue progresses, a few writers give us the larger context of who they were in 1979 and their introductions to the faeries, while Chicago faeries celebrate their 20th anniversary. Interspersed through out the issue, and montaged in the middle, are photos from the archive of Blase DiStefano of that first gathering. Thank you Blase, for sending these and allowing us to share these with RFD readers. We, as the Collective, are also glad to note that a few folks made this exploratory journey personal by interviewing our elders about their experiences and then sharing those conversations with RFD’s readers. It is wonderful to see how a magazine like RFD can continue to flourish with such powerful and personal reader input. As is always true, while much of the writing contained here is expository, there are also many poems reflecting faeries’ experiences with our past, present, and future. We urge you to take a moment, and carefully read each of these compelling contemplations. Speaking of present and future, we are pleased to share an interview with Steven Riel, one of our former poetry editors, on the occasion of his new book, Postcard from P-town. On personal notes, the Collective took enormous pleasure in receiving and reviewing these many reflections. We loved having the opportunity to speak with many of these writers, and learn more about their experiences. We look forward to our readers’ responses to the call for materials relating to our Canadian brothers and sisters Faerie experiences in British Columbia. If you have experiences, memories, photos, and stories you would like to share of your BC adventures, please be in touch via mail or our email, submissions@rfdmag.org with radfaeBC in the subject line. And as is always true, we encourage anyone who has an interest in RFD to consider being in touch about writing, artwork, or submitting photos for its pages. As so clearly demonstrated by this issue, RFD is a reader written sharing of history, joys and dreams, and passions. We hope to hear from you. And as we must always say... subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. Hugs—The RFD Collective RFD #139 • Autumn 2009 CONTENTS On the Covers On the front cover: Marc Kiska On the back cover: Fred Vassie Inside back cover: Keith Gemerek Production Bambi Gauthier, Editor in Chief Michel DuBois, Treasurer Matt Bucy, Typography & Layout Myrlin, Brothers Behind Bars Editor Middle, Health Editor Jason Schneider, Editor Eric Linton, Editor Image Credits Blase DiStefano .........5,6,9-11,14,17,18-21,28 Anthony Will ..............................37 Cindii ..................................34-35 Dino Raimundo ............................38 Endora ....................................25 Frances McCann ...........................41 Fred Vassie .................................4 Hyperion ..................................12 Ira Cohen .................................42 Kale .......................................27 Mark Thompson ...........................13 Night An’Fey ...............................38 Notre Dame des Arbres .....................26 Portland Yahoo Group ......................39 RFD Archives ............................3, 16 Steven Riel .................................29 Timo Elliott ................................24 Toby Johnson ..............................23 Willi Cole .................................36 Artist Links RFD appreciates the following artists whose work appears in this issue: Blase DiStefano <blasedistefano@comcast.net> Ira Cohen and Frances McCann images courtesy of Harold Norse website, <www.haroldnorse.com>. Cindii <evilhero.nathan@gmail.com> Marc Kiska <www.marckiska.com> Keith Gemerek <kgny@aol.com> Between the Lines ..........................................................1 This issue’s feature: Radical Faerie 30th Anniversary Issue Don Kilhefner Interview ....................................................4 Fred Vassie & Mark Blair Army of Lovers ............................................................10 Allen Page RadFae ‘79 ................................................................12 Hyperion A Day and A Night in the Desert ............................................13 Mark Thompson When We Were All Virgin Faeries: The First Two Faerie Gatherings .............14 Mykael Deva’d & Scotty Dog The First Faerie Gatherings & The Faerie Shawl ...............................16 Rosemary for Remembrance (Steve Muchnick) 1979 Faerie Gathering Photographs ..........................................18 Blase DiStefano Proto-Faerie Gathering at Fault of the Earth, 1972 .............................22 Toby Johnson The Pale Blue Summer Sky and the Grasshopper: Notes on the Radical Faeries ....24 Timo Elliott Labor Day 1979 ...........................................................25 Endora Then and Now ............................................................25 Notre Dame des Arbres Chicago Radical Faerie Circle Anniversary ....................................27 Kale Faerie Poem ..............................................................28 Nicholas Field The Faeries, Sleeping .......................................................28 Jason Roush Poet Steven Riel Has Written You A Postcard From P-Town ....................29 Franklin Abbott Poetry ...............................................................31-33 Poems Michael Mayo Buds Nicholas Field When Alex Holidays Alone Christopher Barnes When Something is Wrong With My Baby Christopher Barnes When Bryan Eats Chocolate Midnight Cookies Christopher Barnes Masturbation Matters ......................................................34 Middle Portraits from Short Mountain Beltaine 2008 .................................36 Willi Cole Remembrances ............................................................37 Brother’s Behind Bars ......................................................43 Myrlin RFD is a reader written journal for gay people which focuses on country living and encourages alternative lifestyles. We foster community building and networking, explore the diverse expressions of our sexuality, care for the environment, radical faerie consciousness, nature- centered spirituality, and share experiences of our lives. RFD is produced by volunteers. We welcome your participation. The business and general production are coordinated by a collective. The collective has a listserv for those who wish to get involved at http://groups.google. com/group/rfd-production/ Features and entire issues are prepared by different groups in various places. We print in New England. RFD (ISSN# 0149-709X) is published quarterly for $25 a year by RFD Press, P.O. Box 302, Hadley MA 01035-0302. Postmaster: Send address changes to RFD, P.O. Box 302, Hadley MA 01035-0302 Non-profit tax exempt #62-1723644, a function of RFD Press with office of registration at 231 Ten Penny Rd., Woodbury, TN 37190. RFD Cover Price: $7.75 a regular subscription is the least expensive way to receive it four times a year. Copyright © 2009 RFD Press. The records required by Title 18 U.S.D. Section 2257 and associated with respect to this magazine (and all graphic material associated therewith on which this label appears) are kept by the custodian of records at the following location: RFD Press, 231 Ten Penny Road, Woodbury TN 37190.RFD #139 • Autumn 2009 Image from the 1979 Gathering Call RFD Archives RFD #139 • Autumn 2009 Fred Vassie (FV), assisted by Mark Blair (MB) interviewed Dr. Don Kilhefner, cofounder of the Radical Faeries and longtime gay activist, at his home in Los Angeles. This is an abridged version of the conversation. A full version is online at www.rfdmag.org. FV - This interview is for RFD Magazine on the occasion of the 30th Anniversary of the founding of the Radical Faeries in 1979. MB - Don, do you have an opening com- ment? DK - My opening comment: This person [holding up picture] is as old as I am. How come she looks that way and I don’t? FV - It’s Cher — she wears a mask and you don’t. How’s that? Let’s look back 30 years and reminisce about the Radical Faeries Spiritual Gathering in Benson, Arizona in 1979, and see where we are now and what the future holds in the next 30 years. Don, can you tell us why the gathering was held, its purpose and hopes? DK - In 1978, I was at Rama, a Sufi retreat center in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico. When I left I stopped by San Juan Pueblo for a couple of days to talk with Harry Hay about the direction of gay liberation and what we saw happening that concerned us. By that time gay liberation was about a decade old. There was a great deal of movement to the center, towards what may be called gay assimilation. The revolutionary push of the original gay liberation movement was slowly being absorbed by the middle class and losing much of its power and vitality. We talked about having a conference where gay men would come together to explore deeper elements of gay liberation, such as gay consciousness and gay spirituality. We hoped that would revive and renew the vigor of the gay liberation movement. The original purpose was to get gay men to look at the questions: Why do gay people exist? What do gay people do in the world that makes us so important? We hoped to chart a new course in gay liberation. MB - Why did you choose the name Radi- cal Faeries? DK - First of all, both Harry and I come out of radical backgrounds, so that was a term we thought important. The word radical comes from the Latin word which means root – getting to the root or fundamental basis of something. The work was to be radical, both politically in the real sense of the meaning of that word, and getting to the root of what it is that gay people are doing in the world. Faerie has a long tradition of association with gay people. Those strange people in Celtic culture who live on the edge of society play a very important role in healing and creativity; they are magical beings. Other cultures also have faeries. Although Arthur Evans started some faerie circles in northern California in the mid-70s, they were short lived. We decided to own the name Radical Faerie. Actually, the name was proposed by Harry as we were writing the leaflet announcing the gathering. Harry said, “Why not Radical Faeries?” I thought it was a great idea. That’s how the name came to be used. FV - When you sent out the announce- ment for the gathering at Benson, it was before the age of the Internet. When I was talking with Bambi at RFD, he comment- ed there already were a number of gay or- ganizations, or faerie groups throughout the country. The Benson gathering was not the first such gathering. Still it was the first on a national level called Radical Faerie Spiritual Gathering. DK - As I mentioned earlier, Arthur Evans had started some organizations in San Francisco that were of short duration. Otherwise, I didn’t know, and Harry didn’t either of other faerie circles around the country. FV - How did you make contact? You had people not just from California or the West coast, but from the east coast and Canada. DK - In two primary ways. Harry and I were at my apartment in L.A. and Mark Thompson, who was cultural editor of the Advocate came to interview Harry on the 10th anniversary of gay liberation at Stonewall. At the end of the interview, Harry mentioned the gathering planned for the Arizona desert. Mark put that in the published article, and thereby gave the announcement a national distribution. An Interview with Don Kilhefner Fred VassieRFD #139 • Autumn 2009 We also created a leaflet [walks to wall to obtain framed leaflet]. This is the leaflet, one side had the announcement and the other had the call. This is largely what I wrote and sent to Harry to make a few minor corrections. We sent that leaflet anywhere we could find a gay organization, a gay community center, a gay church, a gay synagogue, anything that was gay. We distributed about 500-600 anywhere we could get names, including our own mailing lists, etc. You are right, it was before the Internet. It was a different kind of organizing. FV - The gathering occurred 30 years ago in Arizona. I lived in Tucson for a while and was privileged to visit the Benson site with Dimid Hayes [who attended the 1979 gathering] and Michael Donlan. Were there any follow- on gatherings to Benson, and if so, where and when? DK - First, let me go back to how we let people know there was a gathering. An important part was place because we agreed it was important to be in nature where there were no heterosexuals around, where we could really be among ourselves — and be ourselves. We needed a certain kind of location. From the Spring of 1978 until May 1979, we had looked all over and were getting desperate. I happened to notice in March 1979, an ad in the Advocate for an ashram in the Tucson area. I called Swami Anan Nanda and talked to him about our plans. He said he was coming to L.A. and we could get together. We met, but he was cautious about having a faerie gathering at the ashram. He said, “Why don’t you come and check it out?” So Harry, John Burnside, and I flew to Albuquerque and then drove to Benson. First of all, Harry got into an argument with the swami and didn’t think the place was quite what we wanted. I thought it would do just fine, primarily because it had the kind of commercial kitchen facilities needed; previously it was used by the County Juvenile Probation Department. It had a dining room and a room where people could sleep indoors in sleeping bags and plenty of room for tents outside and there was a swimming pool. I did the math and when Harry and John woke from a nap, I said financially it was possible to do here and I showed them the numbers. Finally, Harry agreed and we decided to have the gathering over the Labor Day weekend in 1979. There were three important elements in lining it up. First was finding the site. Second was moving Harry and John from San Juan Pueblo to Los Angeles. They were pretty much living in genteel poverty and fairly isolated, so it would be better to do the organizing from one place. We got a place in Hollywood, which became the first Radical Faerie sanctuary. I lived there with John and Harry and a young man named Michael Fleming. The third element was getting the leaflet into the mail. Let me add something here that’s very important. Before we moved, Mark Thompson did the Advocate interview with Harry on May 1, 1979. We had invited Mitch Walker from Oakland to come and help organize the gathering. Harry and Mitch went for a walk and got into a fight and Harry came storming back very angry. Mitch returned right afterwards, packed and left. He did come to the gathering in Arizona, but was not involved with organizing it. I mention this because he makes a big deal that he was involved, but he simply wasn’t. He was involved in the second and third gatherings, not the first one. FV - Yes. I’m aware there was a recent fuss over Mitch Walker. MB - As gay people, we segregate our- selves in so many ways and yet [often] we can focus on one thing, but divide our- selves in other ways. Why is it that some gays aren’t willing to compromise and come to a consensus and move forward in the direction we want to go? DK - I’ve done over 40 years of organizing in the gay community. As you are aware, I was involved with the early organizing through the Gay Liberation Front here in Los Angeles, which became the flagship of the gay liberation movement in this country. I was the founder of the first gay community center in the country, which still is the largest in the world. I also founded the first residential treatment program for gay alcoholics and addicts at Van Ness Recovery House. My basic style of organizing has been bringing a group of people together, developing a shared vision, and then working towards that vision. Probably 95 percent of people work that way. There are 5 percent who get very egocentrically involved and it becomes all about them. They may cause big disruptions, but most of the time gays can work together toward a common goal. Did I answer your question? MB - Yes, I wanted to hear your per- ception because I find it fascinating. DK - You have to remember that gay people are an oppressed people and part of this is what I call “pressure sickness” coming out. Oppressed people will take out their oppression on those closest to them, not their oppressor. There are hundreds of examples of this. FV - Let’s go back to Benson. What is your best memory from that first gathering? DK - Just the fact it happened, to tell the truth, because there was no guarantee this was going to take place. Harry and I thought we would be successful Benson, Arizona by Blase DiStefano RFD #139 • Autumn 2009 if 50 people showed up. Well, 150 people made their way to this little ashram in the Sonora Desert from all over North America. It’s amazing to me that people heard the call and what we were trying to do. It wasn’t just anybody who came. These people tended to be bright, had themselves more or less together, and were ready to take the next step in gay consciousness. In some ways they were special people — atypical gays at the time because they were politically and spiritually aware. They knew something else was needed in the community. It’s not easy to get to the spot where we held this gathering. That’s part of the mystique for me. Those who did show up went back and seeded future faerie gatherings. There was a lot of seeding of Radical Faerie activity that came out of that first gathering which was not anticipated by either Harry or myself. MB - You mentioned the spiritual aspect of the faerie movement, yet I find that it is lacking to a great degree. For me that would be some- thing — to get people to reconsider themselves as magical beings. There doesn’t seem to be any spiritual emphasis, or as much as there might be. DK - From 1975 to 1979, I conducted a series of workshops called Gay Voices, subtitled The Enspiritment of Gay Politics/The Politics of Gay Enspiritment. I was looking at gay visionaries from our history and what they were telling us about ourselves. This just didn’t occur at a gathering in the desert where we got together and talked about what might be possible. Harry had been studying this for decades. I had been providing workshops on it for four or five years before that gathering. When we came together in the Sonora Desert it was from a conscious point of view that both Harry and I had about what was possible for us as gay people. I would agree with you – it seems as if many of the radical faerie gatherings today are more like – I don’t know – vacations or social gatherings – people getting together to have a good time and the real intention of the original Radical Faerie gatherings since around 1983 or 1984 have been lost. FV - Don, going back to your memories, how has the experience at Ben- son changed you, or did it change you? DK - For me, I think the changes happened beforehand. They came out of gay liberation and doing the vision workshops. They changed me in terms of my understanding of gayness. The first Radical Faerie gathering for me was more in terms of sharing some of these understandings. If you read the call, one of the things we talked about was sharing our insights into gay consciousness with each other. It was meaningful to me that the organizing worked. It looked like there was a generation of gay men who were ready and willing to do the deeper work of examining gay consciousness and gay spirituality – gay centered reality. FV - Do you still identify yourself as a Radical Faerie? DK - Yes indeed! Many times when people have that experience and go to gatherings, it really changes them. Mark Thompson talks about how his consciousness was transformed by that first gathering. Many times gatherings have a profound impact on peoples’ thinking and consciousness. It’s something you carry with you. We gay men can come together, relate to each other, talk to each other but move in the world differently than others. FV - As you know, we tried to have a commemorative celebration of Benson, dubbed Queer Spirit Roots or QSR. We came together three or four times and did some planning. I happened to be involved. Our attempt was based on a vision that Scotty Dog [faerie from Portland, Oregon] had. We came to consensus but the overall attempt failed 1979 portraits by Blase DiStefanoRFD #139 • Autumn 2009 because of one thing. It’s sensitive. What is your thinking of the female being part of the Radical Faeries? DK - That isn’t where Radical Faeries come from. One has to honor one’s past and respect where you come from. The Radical Faeries were designed as an opportunity for gay men to come together and share with each other new insights into gay consciousness. Now over the years, depending on which part of the country you are from, Radical Faeries developed differently. It’s a very decentralized movement. I have no problem honoring that it grew in different ways. But if you are doing something to honor the first gathering, then it’s a gathering of gay men, for gay men. Anybody with any political understanding knows this. There are lesbian groups that get together for lesbians only – for women to come together without men [other groups do the same]. This is a fundamental political reality in our country. Why some people don’t get that, I don’t understand. There’s a time for gay men to come together, Radical Faeries to come together and talk to each other. FV - Whether there will be any large- scale commemorative event or not, remains to be seen. DK - There won’t be. We have a different climate in this country right now relating to gay men. We have a shrinking of the gay community taking place. We have gay assimilation taking place, gay people are not developing gay consciousness, gays are disappearing. We do not have either the political insight or the political consciousness, nor a sense of vision needed to continue something like having a gathering 30 years later. This June is the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, and nowhere in Los Angeles is that being commemorated, forty years after the central event that propelled gay liberation! It will be celebrated in New York and San Francisco, not in Los Angeles. I would imagine in most cities of the country it won’t be commemorated. Hear what I’m saying? We are in a crisis in the gay community right now. A crisis – we are slowly disappearing. MB - Two things. One is the devastation the gay community suffered from AIDS, and the other is mentoring. You talked about mentoring in Seeing in the Dark and said nobody is mentoring young people. So much emphasis is placed on drugs and sex that there is no self-identity – what I call the spiritual awakening of self to a greater essence of one’s being. DK - Right. I would blame the primary focus on the [so-called] Reagan “Revolution”. For the last 30 years our values and people in this society have been shaken and shaped by the values of the Reagan “Revolution”, which basically says your purpose is to make money and get as much of it as you can. Secondly, community is not important – family is important. It’s important that whatever you develop be family oriented, not community oriented. It’s based on the idea that identity politics needs to be gotten rid of because it is destructive for the nation. All of those tenets of the Reagan “Revolution” weakened the gay community. It was weakened because there was a swing to the right in the larger community. In the gay community there has also been a swing to the right. Our leadership tends to be more right wing than ever before in our history. They are not interested in community building; they are interested in fund- raising. There is a difference. FV - In light of what you have just said, what is the greatest challenge today for identifying as a Radical Faerie? Can one be a Radical Faerie and not interact with the community? If you want to be a witch you can practice Wicca by yourself, it’s not a problem. What about being a Radi- cal Faerie? DK - I would look at these questions by asking what common themes have characterized Radical Faeries during the last 30 years. They haven’t always lived up to them, but what was the intention, what was the vision, what were the central characteristics of the Radical Faeries? One of the central characteristics is that Radical Faeries are gay-centered, by that I mean we look at ourselves prior to looking at others. We are interested in who we are, and at the same time we realize what’s going on is larger than we (and they) are. Yin and Yang might be the right words, indicating a wholeness in society that involves gay people exploring our identity. It means going back to Walt Whitman, where for the first time he distinguishes a difference in consciousness between gay and non-gay people. In his poetry Whitman used the word “amative” to describe what we would call heterosexual consciousness. He used the word “adhesive” to describe what we would call gay consciousness. For the first time we have somebody saying we carry a different consciousness. Edward Carpenter says we are doing something in society, we are fulfilling certain kinds of roles throughout the world wherever gay people are found – as shaman, medicine people, healers, leaders, and what have you – this becomes important. Radical Faeries are continuing in the footsteps of Walt Whitman and Edward Carpenter by asking what we are doing. What do we contribute to society that makes us so important? Radical Faeries today, 30 years later, are an antidote to the gay assimilation that we find all around us. The second characteristic is that Radical Faeries are politically progressive. We tend to support progressive political movements, liberation movements of men and women, people of color, working people, ordinary people. We tend to support those political movements that represent the interests of the people. We get involved in electoral politics when integrity, honesty, and vision are involved. I think Radical Faeries like President Obama. We have to remember that there is a whole generation of 30 years of gay men who have been shaped not by gay liberation, but by the Reagan “Revolution.” All they know is gay conservatism. We are dealing with that in Los Angeles right now. They know nothing about a radical or revolutionary gay movement, or gay identity. I recently loaned a young man my copy of the first documentary that was made on gay liberation here in Los Angeles in 1970. It shows the first gay parade on Hollywood Boulevard and the Gay Liberation Front taking over an international conference of psychologists. When he returned the There was a lot of seeding of Radical Faerie activity that came out of that first gathering which was not anticipated by either Harry or myself.Next >