SPIRITUAL QUEERS

Meet the people dancing to the beat of their own drums

Some queer people have swapped mainstream life for spirituality, foregoing standardised religion and rejecting accepted beliefs about life and living. Photographer Mike Kear shares his experience and introduces us to others on similar consciousness- raising journeys

My spiritual journey, beyond a deep connection to nature, has been through various valleys and mountain tops, including many searches within Christianity. Church of England Christianity in my school years was followed by

Christian spirituality in my late teens, and at university I found evangelical Christianity.

This journey culminated in a yearlong 12- step programme to “cure” my homosexuality which had the opposite of the intended effect: rather than turning me straight, it helped me clarify that my sexuality was not something that society or religion could dictate to me — despite the American leader at the final retreat telling me that I was playing with fire and would go to hell for reaching this conclusion.

From then on, I wanted nothing more to do with organised religion and explored Quakerism briefly before I became involved with [ gay men’s network] The Edward

Carpenter Community. In my early twenties, I helped organise gay men’s weeks with ECC before “settling down” with a boyfriend, buying a house and pretty much living a regular gay life and eventually declaring myself a born- again atheist.

I’d been to Glastonbury many times and really enjoyed the hippier side of it, and wanted to explore the smaller festivals but felt inhibited as they seemed very family- oriented and not at all queer.

In 2016, I received an email telling me about Queer Spirit Festival and was very excited: was this the event that would nourish my spirituality in all its glory?

When I arrived that August, I found I was one of the first few people to book. I met so many beautiful, authentic people of all persuasions and genders. It wasn’t Utopia but there was a real sense of love in the air that I hadn’t experienced on this scale elsewhere. I was inspired to come out of my spiritual desert and consider the huge range of ways to relate to the universe. It was refreshing to meet such genuine people.

None of them told me their way was the only way, but that there is a plurality which allows us to celebrate one another’s spiritual paths and learn from each other, using anything that resonates.

I think I will always be a sceptic, but no longer a cynic. I often giggle at myself, thinking how my younger self would look at me now: having an interest in paganism and astrology, hugging trees, going on shamanistic journeys… it’s a long list.

Queer Spirit Festival opened up a whole new world for me. It excites me that so many diverse queer people are engaged in such authentic consciousness- raising journeys, as you’ll see from their stories on the following pages.

I now see embracing the plurality of spirituality as a part of my political activism against aspects of society that try to separate — and dangerously elevate — the human from nature.