Care Chats are short, mindful conversrations where we share what's on our hearts + minds.

Jonathan Koe joins us as we reflect on the year: what we have shed, what we are building, and our hopes for the new year as we enter the solstice. 

• Find Jonathan online at JonathanKoe.com
  
• You can also connect with them on Instagram @jonathankoeofficial
• Listen to Healing the Spirit podcast here

Queer Spirit is for ALL people + Queers + Allies.   Links + Resources + Invitations:

• An invitation to the private Queer Spirit Community to continue the conversation and connect with other listeners. 
• Join us for FREE virtual Care Circles meditation + chanting + breath work circles online. We meet monthly on the 1st Saturday, 3rd Sunday + 4th Sunday. 
• Support us
• Follow us on BLUESKY + IG!
• Join our mailing list to get the weekly QS Bulletin with Care Nuggets and news on upcoming Care Circle + podcast updates sent directly to you.

The Queer Spirit Community gathers on the 1st Saturday of each month for practices of guided meditation, breath work + movement. These practices are faciltated by TanyaMarck Oviedo (they/them) and Nick Venegoni (he/they). They are curated + inspired by the planetary + astrological + pagan wheel of the year energies in mind. Original music + sound care by Nick + TanyaMarck.

QS Care Circles are for ALL people - Queers AND Allies.

~ This month we work with the energies of a Gemini full moon moving into Cancer, as well as Jupiter in Cancer - inviting us to explore our emotions and expand our care.

We invite you get comfy, grab some hydration and join us together in queer community.

We honor with Gratitude + Thanks the sacred Practices + Traditions + Peoples + Lands: Yoga, Ayurveda – Sanskrit, Mantra, Raga, Hindi & Urdu language music traditions, Buddhism + Tibet + Meditation; Tongva + Kizh + Chumash + Ohlone; Tarot + Astrology + Magic + Witchcraft; the teachers who have carried this wisdom and shared it with us ~ Gracias.

As always, you can find all things Queer Spirit HERE. 

 

Links + Resources + Invitations:

• An invitation to the private Queer Spirit Care Community to continue the conversations and connect with other listeners. 
• Join us LIVE for FREE virtual Care Circles meditation + chanting + breath work circles online. We meet monthly on the 1st Saturday, 3rd Sunday + 4th Sunday. 
• Follow us on BLUESKY + IG!
• Join our mailing list to get our weekly QS Bulletin with Care Nuggets and updates on Care Cirlce + podcast updates sent directly to you.
• QS Resources: News, Education + Care.

QS Community Care Circle recording of August 17th, Chant + Breathe.

We invite you get comfy, grab some hydration and join us in chanting together.

The Queer Spirit Community gathers on the 3rd Sunday of each month for practices in devotional chanting, toning and song, as well as breath work + movement. These practices are faciltated by TanyaMarck Oviedo (they/them) and Nick Venegoni (he/they). They are curated + inspired by the planetary + astrological + pagan wheel of the year energies in mind.

In this practice we honor the astrological energies of the Moon in Gemini + Jupiter in Cancer + Saturn in Aries - reality + Neptune in Aries - fantasy.

The sanskrit mantras we chanted today:

• Om Gum Ganapayei Namaha
  translation - "Salutations to Ganesha, remover of obstacles."
• Om Gum Gurubhyo Namaha
  translation - "Salutations to the Gurus, I bow to you."

Gratitude for today's Mantras from "Healing Mantras" by Thomas Ashley-Farrand.

We honor with Gratitude + Thanks the sacred Practices + Traditions + Peoples + Lands: Yoga, Ayurveda – Sanskrit, Mantra, Raga, Hindi & Urdu language music traditions, Buddhism + Tibet + Meditation; Tongva + Kizh + Chumash + Ohlone; Tarot + Astrology + Magic + Witchcraft; the teachers who have carried this wisdom and shared it with us ~ Gracias.

As always, you can find all things Queer Spirit HERE. 

Links + Resources + Invitations:

• An invitation to the private Queer Spirit Care Community to continue the conversation and connect with other listeners. 
• Join us for FREE virtual Care Circles meditation + chanting + breath work circles online. We meet monthly on the 1st Saturday, 3rd Sunday + 4th Sunday. 
• Follow us on BLUESKY + IG!
• Join our mailing list to get news, Care Circle + podcast updates sent directly to you.
• QS Resources: News, Education + Care.

 

Ryan Loiselle is a non-binary queer person (using he/him or they/them pronouns) and has been exploring radical identity and spirituality since their early 20s. While that journey has involved enculturation as a gay male and initiation into some more organized systems their experience has always been foregrounded by deep interest in expressing and celebrating their own queerness and discovering the inherent magic that can come out of liminal being. Under the name Sister Sharin' Dipity, they became fully-professed member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in 2003 and continues that work today as the current Prioress of the Portland Sisters. In 2018, he was initiated as a Brother of the Unnamed, an ecstatic spiritual path for men who love men that focuses on service and personal work with ancestors and the deities connected to that path. In his secular life, Ryan is a licensed professional counselor and gender therapist in private practice in Portland Oregon where they also serve as the Clinical Supervisor for Brave Space, a counseling center devoted to supporting a transgender, non-binary and other gender expansive individuals and their families.

Episode Highlights

• Ryan tells us who the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI) are, how they began and what they do today. He also tells us how he first discovered them and his path to joining them.
  
• They share their ideas about the connection of the Sisters to the Radical Faeries.
  
• Ryan talks about how being a Sister shaped his spiritual life and his own queer identity.
  
• We discuss how the Sisters help us push and expand our ideas of gender through their own authentic explorations.
  
• Ryan talks about becoming a therapist and how he came to focus on gender and identity.
  
• They share how they use and practice existential therapy in their practice.
  
• We talk about breaking gender role norms, no matter what your sexual or gender identity is.
  

Web links

• Find Ryan at InContextCounseling.com or Brave Space
• Connect with the Portland Sisters

 

Grab your FREE Guide - Needs, Boundaries & Self-Care for Queer Folks.  Download it here.

Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes. 

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Join our mailing list  to get news and podcast updates sent directly to you.

Kerin "KB" Berger (she/her) is a physician assistant (PA) practicing in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from Quinnipiac University PA program in 2015 with a master's in health sciences. She works full-time at the LA LGBT Center in the sexual health and education department. Additionally, she performs high resolution anoscopy for anal cancer prevention. Kerin is an adjunct professor at Charles Drew University (CDU) PA program where she implemented the LGBTQI and nonbinary curriculum. Kerin travels around the U.S. speaking to medical professionals, students, mental health clinicians, community members and advocates. She lives in West Hollywood with her wife, Jordan and her dog, Rilo. She loves to cycle, travel, and drink old fashions.

Episode Highlights

• KB explains what a Physician Assistant (PA) is and how it's different from a doctor or a nurse.
  
• She shares how she got interested in medicine by being interested in science.
  
• KB talks about her podcast "Queer Meducation" and her inspiration to start it to bridge the medical and queer communities.
  
• She felt like her medical education didn't prepare her to work her best with the sexual health of queer folks.
  
• Later on she was invited to come give a presentation on queer health to medical professionals, and this gave her insight to the level of ignorance and inspired her to do more.
  
• She shares ideas about how queer folks can find queer and friendly medical practitioners. (GLMA)
  
• KB shares tells us what kinds of health issues queer folks might be overlooking and encourages us to pay a bit more attention to. 
  

Web links

• Find more at  QueerMeducation.com 
  
• iTunes,  Instagram, Facebook &  Twitter
• GLMA - Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equalilty

 

Grab your FREE Guide - Needs, Boundaries & Self-Care for Queer Folks.  Download it here.

Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes. 

And follow us on Instagram!

 Join our mailing list  to get news and podcast updates sent directly to you.

Gede Parma (Fio Aengus) is a Balinese-Australian witch, international teacher, magical mentor, author, and initiate. Gede (they/them pronouns) cherishes the initiatory mysteries of four powerful witchcraft traditions, and is a co-founder of the Coven of the Wildwood and midwife and initiate of the Wildwood Tradition. They are also an active initiate of Reclaiming and Anderson Feri. Gede has authored or coauthored five books.

Gede/Fio's work links animism to heresy to sorcery to poetry to spirit-work to sex to faerie faith to folklore. Most of their time is spent reading Tarot, working magic, teaching and celebrating the Craft, mentoring witches and spirit-workers, singing and drumming, and laughing with friends. 

They currently reside in the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal Peoples, in so-called Brisbane, Australia.

Episode Highlights

• Gede talks about their first spirituality came from being born into Balinese Hinduism which includes mysticism and Tantra. They started exploring witchcraft on their own in childhood.
  
• They share their ideas about what it means to be born a witch and to practice magic.
  
• We muse over the intersection of queer people coming out and discovering their own personal spirituality.
  
• Gede shares about their first experiences of racism and cultural appropriation within their multicultural experience growing up as a child in both Australia and Bali; and within pagan community.
  
• We discuss the practice of white on white calling out of cultural appropriation
  
• Gede talks about Intention vs. impact, and the relationship of money and spiritual appropriation.
  
• They talk about their engagement and influence from the Reclaiming tradition, and its embracing of multi-gendered identities in its community.

Web links

• Find more at GedeParma.com 
  
• Instagram, Facebook & YouTube

 

Grab your FREE Guide - Needs, Boundaries & Self-Care for Queer Folks.  Download it here.

 Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes. 

And follow us on Instagram!

 Join our mailing list  to get news and podcast updates sent directly to you.

Sâde Gryffin, MFA, is an Oakland based Mystic, Psychic Energy Healer, Teacher and Artist. Born and raised in Wales/UK, his practice is deeply rooted in earth-based Welsh mysticism. Sâde brings a bold and pragmatic sensibility to his work, through a unique combination of psychic lineage, intensive clairvoyant training, 30 years experience in the healing arts, and his former career as a seasoned arts professor.

Sâde is a GQ/Trans/Gay man. In all aspects of his practice he strives to create safe, nonjudgmental containers for LGBTQI individuals, communities and allies. Sâde loves to co-create intentional sacred space and earth-based ceremony. In his private practice, he integrates his intensive psychic reading skills with deep energy healing work to facilitate profound transformation for his clients, in all aspects of their lives.  

Episode Highlights

• Sâde describes himself as an integrated psychic practitioner, what that means to him, and how he uses energy healing in his practice.
  
• He and Nick discuss the importance of empowering their clients to take agency and sovereignty in their own healing work.
  
• Sâde shares how he first started doing energy and divination work by exploring earth based practices and herbal studies.
  
• He works with people on a variety of issues from physical, emotional and spiritual; including working with a lot of other healers and helpers.
  
• Sâde talks about deconstructing gender and decolonizing his work, especially by being mindful of his language in teaching and explaining what's happening with clients.
  
• He also shares about his work to uncover Celtic appropriation that happens in new age circles and the larger culture.
  
• We talk about connecting with sacred sites, and Sâde's particular interest in stone circles.
  
• Sâde explains more about his classes and online workshops, to help people dive deeper into their healing and energy clearing work.
  

 

Web links

• Find him at SâdeGryffin.com
  
• Instagram & Facebook

 

"Reclaim the Power of YOU" - An online course for LGBTQ+ folks. Begins October 5ht. Info & Registration here.

Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes. 

 And follow us on Instagram!

  Join our mailing list  to get news and podcast updates sent directly to you.

Gregory Foster has had a life long dedication to the exploration of queer men's spiritual and sexual well-being. He has studied Reiki, Healing Touch and Holistic Nutrition and has blended his interests in art, sexuality and spirituality into a self published magazine called "The Holy Male" where he curates the work of queer, gay, bi and trans male identified people into the quarterly publication.  Gregory has spoken at universities in Canada about his past experiences as a sex worker, shame, vulnerability and the role our sexuality can have in our spiritual healing and cultivation of self love. A self identified "polymath" or "multipotentalite,"  he is currently working on his latest project 'Folk + Foster', which is an online store and brand that is dedicated to bringing his multiple projects and personal vision to the public. Gregory currently resides on Salt Spring Island.  

Episode Highlights

• Gregory talks about his inspiration to start The Holy Male quarterly magazine as an idea for a book to explore gay spirituality, sexuality and art.
  
• The magazine includes art and writings from a queer male spiritual perspective.
  
• Gregory shares the path of his spiritual exploration as a queer man growing up in a religious home.
  
• We discuss connecting to nature as a way many queer folks find a path back to spirituality.
  
• Gregory shares his experiences and explorations of blending spiritual practice with sex work.
  
• He shares why queer spirituality is so important today - it's not all light and easy, but inner work is challenging and rewarding.
  

 

Web links

• Find Gregory & the magazine at  TheHolyMale.com 
  
• As well as on Folk+Foster, Instagram, Tumblr &  Facebook

 

"Reclaim the Power of YOU" - An online course for LGBTQ+ folks. Info & Registration here.

 Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes. 

 And follow us on Instagram!

 Join our mailing list  to get news and podcast updates sent directly to you.

rexylafemme (rex renée leonowicz) is a visual + performing artist, writer, and musician born and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens, NY. As a working class trans femme, rex's work is grounded in a politics of radical resistance, healing and witness. rex blends genders and genres, utilizing drag, comedy, visual art, and burlesque, to critically respond to the relationships people "on the margins" have with our surroundings and each other. rex's book of poems and illustrations, when there is no one and there is everyone is available from Magic Helicopter Press. rex is also a practicing witch and offers spiritual readings and mentorship with a focus on radical occultism. they co-create with bloom wave collective, a network of artists and organizers building revolutionary culture in New York City.

Episode Highlights

• rex talks about being the family entertainer growing up, which influenced their performance art.
  
• As a child, rex explored divination and had spiritual experiences with deceased relatives.
  
• We discuss the ways that witchcraft is inherently queer and trans.
  
• rex uses drag and performance art as ritual for healing and banishing, and talks about embodiment as a spiritual practice.
  
• They also use poetry and creative arts as a divination tool, and writing poetry as an oracle.
  
• rexy does an impromptu divination from their poetry about supporting the queer future.
  
• Their first experience of performing burlesque had an empowering and spiritual effect on them.
  

 

Web links

• Find them at  rexylafemme.com 
• Instagram, Twitter &  Facebook
• Bloom Wave Collective on Insta

 

Reclaim the Power of YOU - NEW e-course to Transform Your Relationship To Yourself & Others

Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes. 

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Phoenix Song is a licensed trauma therapist, expressive arts practitioner, certified hypnotherapist, and applied shamanic counselor serving healers, artists, and spiritual seekers in their own deep healing work. She is passionate about supporting others in reconnecting with the wisdom of our bodies and the Earth, taking back our own power, and connecting to our own creative and spiritual paths. She is in the process of opening a second business, Earth Based Wisdoms, with a focus on offering energy work and earth based healing services to individuals and groups. Phoenix is also a writer, poet, singer, dancer, and yoga student. She is deeply in love with the healing power of the arts and the greatest artist of all, this magical being of Earth.

Episode Highlights

• Phoenix shares how she became a healer by connecting to the mysterious energy of nature and asking for her "magic powers" to come to her.
  
• We talk about praying in an earth-based way by connecting to the different elements of nature.
  
• Our wild, queer nature has been taken from us and connecting to the earth and calling that essence back is empowering.
  
• Phoenix shares her ideas of healing the "sacred space of me" as a way of bringing back wholeness and compassion to ourselves.
  
• She talks about the intersection of psychotherapy, hypnotherapy and earth based wisdom practices (aka. eco-therapy or "shamanic" practices), and how she weaves those all together in her practice.
  
• We discuss biological cycles and spiritual initiations, and how they hold power and teachings for us when we are present to them. 

Web links

• Find Phoenix at PhoenixSongtherapy.com - Instagram & Facebook
  
• Also at EarthBasedWisdoms.com - Instagram

 

Grab your FREE Guide - Needs, Boundaries & Self-Care for Queer Folks.  Download it here.

 Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes. 

 And follow us on Instagram!

  Join our mailing list  to get news and podcast updates sent directly to you.

TT Baum is a Sacred Intimate, Sex Educator, and Bondassage Trainer based in San Francisco. He has been dubbed a pleasure activist and a warrior of love. TT's path to sexual awakening began over a decade ago. He has refined a powerful style of erotic facilitation that integrates his own sexual research in order to help his clients and student discover and integrate their own authentic sexual experiences. Since 2013 he has been teaching his own brand of adult focused sex education. He leads several Tantra based workshops across the United States.

Episode Highlights

• TT shares what it means to be a sacred intimate and a pleasure activist, and how he helps others to explore their erotic and sexual selves.
  
• He discusses how he came to doing this work after being inspired by his husband when they first met and going to his first Body Electric workshop.
  
• TT defines the tradition of tantra he studies, and explains his way of working with it.
  
• Pleasure is a foundational principle for healing, and TT strives to bring mindfulness to pleasure in the day to day.
  
• We explore the relationships of pleasure and joy, versus seeking the highs of happiness.
  
• We also talk about practicing self-care through healthy levels of selfishness in order to get our needs met.
  
• TT shares about his workshops and group work he does through his Intimacy Academy, to help others explore their desires, while giving and receiving pleasure.

 

Web links

• Find TT at Integral-Eros.com
  
• You can also find him on Instagram & Twitter 
  

 

Grab your FREE Guide - Needs, Boundaries & Self-Care for Queer Folks. Download it here.

Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes. 

And follow us on Instagram!

 Join our mailing list  to get news and podcast updates sent directly to you.

Dean Spade is a writer, professor, and activist, who has been part of struggles against policing, prison, immigration enforcement and poverty for the last two decades. In 2002, he founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a non-profit collective that provides free legal help to low-income people and people of color who are trans, intersex and/or gender non-conforming and works to build trans resistance rooted in racial and economic justice. He is the author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law.

Episode Highlights

• Dean shares how he first came to studying law through witnessing law enforcement from the perspective of queer activism in NYC.
  
• He then started teaching law as a way to create change from the foundation of the legal world.
  
• We discuss his forthcoming book, "It's Not You, It's Everybody," which is a self help book for people who want to change the world. It looks at the way that capitalism and hetero-patriarchy contribute to stress, and how we can bring communal healing to activist individuals and groups.
  
• We explore the difference between self-help, self-care and expanding those practices to groups and communities.
  
• Dean talks about being conscious of your autopilot behaviors, and how they are supportive and detrimental to your wellbeing.
  
• He shares new and radical ideas about self-care, challenging the capitalist and escapist ideas of self-care.
  
• Dean asks, How do we cultivate an economy of care? How can you be well while being of service?
  
• We talk about the different kinds of self-care which might not be what most think of.

Web links

• Find Dean at DeanSpade.net
  And his other projects BigDoorBrigade.com & QueerTransWarBan.com
  
• You can also find him on Twitter & Facebook 

 

Grab your FREE Guide - Needs, Boundaries & Self-Care for Queer Folks.  Download it here.

 Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes. 

And follow us on Instagram!

Join our mailing list  to get news and podcast updates sent directly to you.

Maisha Najuma Aza is a queer, black healer, teacher and spiritual mentor, co-parent of two teens and ecstatic lover of life. She erotically weaves her social justice roots, spirituality, shamanic practices, and energetic bodywork to co-create comprehensive, intuitive healing sessions. Her work impacts the multidimensional aspects of each person's social, sexual, spiritual, emotional, physical and energetic world. Maisha's light-hearted, deeply accepting, down-to-earth and empathic nature makes her private consultations and public engagements especially powerful and deeply transformational! Maisha's calling is sharing the erotic integration of spirituality, sexuality, embodiment and erotic empowerment with others through her healing sessions, consultations, experiential classes, workshops and speaking engagements around the world. Maisha is a certified Reiki Master Teacher. She is also certified in Integrated Healing Arts, Tantra Sacred Intimacy, Shamanic Reiki, and multiple modalities of Massage Therapy. Maisha holds a master's degree in Social Work, and is the Founder of Black Girl Tantra in the Atlanta, GA area, and offers virtual and in-person sessions.

Episode Highlights

• Maisha shares how she came to the work of sacred sexuality and overcoming sexual trauma through exploring different paths of healing.
  
• She shares her perspectives on the connection of sexuality and spirituality, and how it has been informed by her deep experience of the sensuous.
  
• Her training in Shamanism and astrology helped her understand her own personal erotic energy and sensuous nature.
  
• How she uses Erotic Astrology Consultations in her practice with clients to help them release shame and open up to your own sexual energy and embodiment.
  
• We discuss the interconnection of sexual, sensual, spiritual and erotic energy.
  
• The importance of self-care and being self-centered is healthy.
  
• Her Sexual freedom work with queer POC folk to overcome oppression and heal our self image.
  
• Ancestral healing work as a path to work toward undoing racism.
  
• How BDSM and leather community lead her to feel free in her body and explore her sexuality. 
  

 

Web links

• Find Maisha at BlackGirlTantra.com 
  
• You can also find her on Instagram & Facebook

 

"Reclaim the Power of YOU!" - a New online course of healing & transformation, with Nick in October.

Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes. 

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Welcome to our CareCast!

The Queer Spirit Community gathers on the 1st Saturday of each month for practices in guided meditation, breath work + movement. These practices are faciltated by TanyaMarck Oviedo (they/them) and Nick Venegoni (he/they). They are curated + inspired by the planetary + astrological + pagan wheel of the year energies in mind. Original music + sound care by Nick + TanyaMarck.

~ This month we work with the energies of Venus in Cancer; Lughnasadh - the pagan holiday of the1st harvest, generosity, compassion + community, abundance.

We invite you get comfy, grab some hydration and join us together in queer community.

We honor with Gratitude + Thanks the sacred Practices + Traditions + Peoples + Lands: Yoga, Ayurveda – Sanskrit, Mantra, Raga, Hindi & Urdu language music traditions, Buddhism + Tibet + Meditation; Tongva + Kizh + Chumash + Ohlone; Tarot + Astrology + Magic + Witchcraft; the teachers who have carried this wisdom and shared it with us ~ Gracias.

As always, you can find all things Queer Spirit HERE. 

 

Links + Resources + Invitations:

• An invitation to the private Queer Spirit Care Community to continue the conversations and connect with other listeners. 
• Join us for FREE virtual Care Circles meditation + chanting + breath work circles online. We meet monthly on the 1st Saturday, 3rd Sunday + 4th Sunday. 
• Follow us on BLUESKY + IG!
• Join our mailing list to get our weekly QS Bulletin with Care Nuggets and updates on Care Cirlce + podcast updates sent directly to you.
• QS Resources: News, Education + Care.

 

Hank Hivnor is a healer, artist, psychic & life coach, who uses psychic ability and other healing modalities he's learned along the way. For twenty-seven years he's been sharing insights, working with energy and transforming lives and himself, present in everything he does from working with Angels, inspiring beings and seeing the profound shifts in people's lives.

Episode Highlights

• Hanks defines what it means to him to be a clairvoyant and medium.
  
• His healing work is an intention to help people change, grow or transform.
  
• Nick shares a story about his own healing experience with Hank when they first met.
  
• Hank tells how he first discovered his intuitive abilities to be a psychic healer.
  
• We discuss how the trauma of homophobia many queer folks experience can be a gateway to tapping into intuitive and healing gifts.
  
• Hank makes paintings and multimedia art as a way of activating healing in others. We discuss one of his art pieces of "Heart Healing."
  
• We talk about the importance of play and art in the role of personal healing and empowerment.
  
• We discuss tuning into the moment and making healing spontaneous and common place without the bells and whistles; and bringing positive intentions to everyday life.
  
• Hank talks about being in the "Truth Time," the way that the truth is coming to the surface in our culture quickly and easily right now.
  
• He shares the importance of practicing self love and compassion to combat the harsh inner critic. 

Web links

• Find him at HankHivnor.com
  
• You can also find Hank on Instagram

 

Grab your FREE Guide - Needs, Boundaries & Self-Care for Queer Folks.  Download it here.

 Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes. 

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  Join our mailing list  to get news and podcast updates sent directly to you.

David Auten & John Schneider are the Debt Free Guys and hosts of the Queer Money podcast. With their writing, speaking and coaching, they help queer people live fabulously, not fabulously broke. Their goal is to connect LGBTQ people with the information and services we need so our community can do more and be more. They'll connect your brand and employees to the queer community and help your queer employees thrive financially. They're regular contributors to Forbes and their work has appeared in Motley Fool, Yahoo Finance, Market Watch, CNBC, Huffington Post, Business Insider and Time to name a few.

Episode Highlights

• David and John share how they started Debt Free Guys by confessing to each other about their personal debt despite their background in finance. They worked hard to pay off their debt quickly and decided to start teaching others to do the same through their personal finance blog and then coaching.
  
• We talk about how people get to acquiring large amounts of debt, using money to cover up feelings of inadequacy as a result of growing up queer.
  
• The Queer Money podcast started as a way to educate the LGBTQ communities on personal finance, and now also they tell stories of how others have overcome financial struggles.
  
• We discuss a recent episode where they shared big challenges they had in their business and how they really leaned into their spiritual practices for support and self care.
  
• They share some insights about what is preventing LGBTQ folks from achieving financial wellness.
  

Web links

• Find David & John at DebtFreeGuys.com & Queer Money podcast
  
• You can also find DFG on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram
• You can find Queer Money on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram

 

Grab your FREE Guide - Needs, Boundaries & Self-Care for Queer Folks.  Download it here.

 Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes. 

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Kaya Colin is a queer femme, social worker, witch, and accidental parent to an almost 3 year old. Her upcoming projects, both launching this summer, are inspired by vulnerability and isolation from community during pregnancy and parenting. The Mad Queer Parents podcast, explores the intersection of mental health, queerness and parenting. Kaya and her partner are opening, a counseling practice, Femme & Them, to serve LGBTQ families and pregnant people. In between foraging, parenting, and making tea and magic, Kaya is a crisis worker in rural Washington state.

Episode Highlights

• Kaya tells how she was inspired to study social work after having a chaotic childhood, and her desire to understand the system she grew up in by studying psychology.
• She shares the story of becoming a parent, which was unplanned but is learning so much from this new experience. She talks about being a single, queer mother-to-be and the challenges of navigating her identities in birthing spaces.
• During her pregnancy she tuned into the energies of grief and death by connecting with her ancestors as she became a parent.
• Now she and her partner run a therapy practice in Washington state, working with LGBTQ families.
• Her identity as a witch is a way of connecting to nature and finding support through that connection. She shares how the earth has taught her to be a parent.
• Her new podcast, Mad Queer Parents explores the intersection of queerness, mental health and parenting.

 

Web links

• Find Kaya at  FemmeAndThemPLLC.com 
  
• You can also find her on Instagram @femmeandthem & @madqueerparents

Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes. 

And follow us on Instagram!

Join our mailing list  to get news and podcast updates sent directly to you.

The Queer Spirit Festival is a five day celebration of the love, passion and creative spirit of the LGBTQ+ community. Now in it's third year, the festival will be held August 14-18, in Northamptonshire, England.

Al Head is a pagan energy worker who has been an lgbt activist and organiser since the early 1980s, as well as a peace, environmental and inclusion activist. They are also the author of "Queer Deity, Sacred Slut."

Shokti is a spiritual activist and Faerie Witch. He is one of the crew who worked to birth Folleterre Radical Faerie Sanctuary in France and who brought Faerie gatherings to the UK in 2006. Shokti is the workshop programmer for the Queer Spirit Festival, bringing together dozens of facilitators and activists working on the cutting edge of queer community and consciousness.

Episode Highlights

• Shokti shares how his HIV diagnosis lead him to explore spirituality and through this path connected with his current community.
  
• Al tells the story of their spiritual journey from radical Christianity to exploring the intersection of sexuality, spirituality and politics, leading them to paganism.
  
• They share how the Queer Spirit festival first began as an idea out of Queer Pagan Camp, as a way of bringing different tribes of queer spiritual folks together.
  
• They describe what it's like to attend the QS festival, what kind of workshops are scheduled and the different rituals and ceremonies which are offered.
  
• Shokti shares more of his ideas about the reclaiming of queer mystical power, and the weaving together of sexuality and spirituality.
  
• Al talks about how they use sex magic to help heal the land and brings these practices to the festival for restoring the energy of the earth.
  
• We discuss how learning about consent with people can improve our relationship to the earth.

Web links

• Queer Spirit Festival - Northamptonshire, England, August 14-18, 2019
• Find Queer Spirit Festival on FaceBook, Instagram & Twitter

 

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Rudy Loewe is a visual artist utilizing drawing, painting and printmaking as a means of building narrative and contributing to dialogues on social themes. They work with large scale, sometimes directly onto surfaces that then ensure their temporality; as well as small scale in forms such as publications.

The work itself is bright and colorful, referencing aesthetics from the Afro Caribbean diaspora. 

It also represents different kinds of bodies, highlighting differing races; non-conforming genders; sexualities; classes and (dis)ability. Rudy makes the work that reflects the narratives they would like to see in the world, the histories that are not getting the visibility or care that they deserve.

Episode Highlights

• Rudy shares how they grew up in a family of artists, but was the first to make a living from art, starting with making comics.
  
• They talk about using comics as a way to get art and the narratives of art, to those who wouldn't normally access other kinds of art.
  
• Using art to tell the kinds of stories they want to see in the world, especially for queer POC and others who aren't normally depicted.
  
• Workshops Rudy has facilitated to teach others to create zines exploring gender, sexuality and mental health.
  
• The way art helps one have access to, and explore the language of identity when words are not quite right.
  
• Rudy's zine sharing about their polarized experiences in therapy, to help people understand more about how to be mindful as a consumer of therapy.
  
• How mental health symptoms vary for different kinds populations and identities.
  
• The exploration of Afrofuturism and black feminist utopias in Rudy's art; the importance of telling POC stories in history, and removing white supremacy from images of the future. (Here is an image of the piece we refer to when discussing Afrofuturism.)
  

Web links

• Find Rudy at RudyLoewe.com 
  
• You can also find them on Twitter & Instagram

 

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Chiron Armand, founder of Impact Shamanism, is a spirit-initiated shaman holding additional initiations in such New World traditions as Haitian Vodou, Brazilian Quimbanda, and the Unnamed Path. He is a trained hoodoo root doctor in the Southern Conjure tradition and is the author of Deliverance!: Hoodoo Spells of Uncrossing, Healing, and Protection and Clearing Spaces: Inspirational Techniques to Heal Your Home. He holds an MA in Performance Studies from New York University and a BA in Ritual Anthropology and Queer Studies from Hampshire College.

Episode Highlights

• Chiron shares how he first started his mystic path through herbalism & tarot, and then through the Unnamed Path tradition of shamanic witchcraft for men who love men.
  
• We talk about the variety of spiritual and healing traditions he has studied and practices, which lay a framework for the ways he supports his clients in their healing work.
  
• He tells us of his recent experiences with Dionysis as a guide to help him heal family and ancestral lineage.
  
• How he weaves his education and practice of performing arts into his ritual work.
  
• The way that folk magic is a magic of the oppressed and shamanic practice works to undo trauma - both are ideal to support the queer and POC communities.
  
• Chiron explains soul loss and how he practices soul-part retrieval as a significant part of his healing practice.
  
• He explains the differences between unbinding, uncrossing and cleansing work as a result of curses or other negatively intentioned spiritual attacks.
  

Web links

• Find Chiron at ImpactShamanism.com
  
• You can also find him on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram

Grab your free guide "Needs, Boundaries & Self-Care for Queer Folks."   Join the Queer Spirit Community Facebook group to continue the conversation and stay up to date on new episodes. 

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Jason Hanasik is a filmmaker, artist, curator, and journalist. He originated the position of Storyteller in Gap's Global Marketing Department. During his tenure he made videos for Gap and Gap Inc including their contribution to the It Gets Better project.

Hanasik has a Master of Journalism from UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, a Master of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts and a Bachelor of Fine Arts Summa Cum Laude from the State University of New York at Purchase. He is currently a resident at SFFILM's FilmHouse where he is developing a screenplay and editing new films for The Guardian's Documentaries Division and the BBC.

Episode Highlights

• Jason shares how he first got interested in photography after working at a 1-hour photo shop as a teenager.
  
• We discuss themes in his work of invisibility & exploring what is hidden in plain sight, and layers of invisibility within subgroups.
  
• We talk about his exploration of the intersections of sexuality and masculinity within the context of military culture.
  
• Jason shares his perspective on the importance of queer voices and diverse perspectives in the media and the newsroom, and the responsibility of journalists.
  

Web links

• Find more at JasonHanasik.com
  
• You can also find him on Twitter & Instagram

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Rita Alma is a queer entrepreneur and coach on a mission to guide people to create the life (and world) they want to live in. Her work as a career coach for LGBTQ+ people catalyzes transformations in their personal lives, the workplace, and the wider world as she challenges and supports clients to be who they are, reclaim their dreams and put them into action. She uses her experiences in the LGBTQ+ community, her background in conflict resolution and peer counseling, and her insights from working with clients, to deliver programming on the importance of building meaningful relationships and fostering deeper understandings of LGBTQ+ issues as a precursor to enacting diversity in the workplace. 

Episode Highlights

• Rita shares how she came to doing career coaching for Queer people, to help them get fulfilling and meaningful work.
  
• She shares common "career fears" that keep LGBTQ people stuck in unfulfilling jobs.
  
• We talk about how the experience of fear can be an indicator that you're on the right path, especially when you're pursuing something you want.
  
• How to find your super powers and authentic self to convey into your work life.
  
• Showing up as your authentic queer self with your gifts in your work place is an act of helping to ending oppression.
  
• Rita is working to end LGBTQ oppression in the workplace through coaching and educating employers.
  
• She tells success stories about people she's helped to shift their career path towards fulfillment.
  

Web links

• Find Rita at BrazenYou.com 
• You can also find her on FaceBook, Twitter & Instagram

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Walt Odets is a clinical psychologist in private practice who has worked with and written about the psychological, developmental and social lives of gay men for more than three decades. His seminal book, In the Shadow of the Epidemic: Being HIV-Negative in the Age of AIDS, which Duke University Press published in 1995, was selected by The New York Times as one of the "Notable Books of the Year."

Odets's recent work has focused on the psychological aftermath of the HIV epidemic, the long-standing childhood and adolescent stigmatization and trauma experienced by young gay men, and the conventional idea of "the homosexual" and its negative influences on gay identities, self-realization and relationships between men. This work has culminated in a new book, OUT OF THE SHADOWS: Reimagining Gay Men's Lives, which examines the hopes and new possibilities for gay men today.

Episode Highlights

• Walt talks about how he went from being a photo journalist to becoming a psychologist.
  
• He shares stories about how it was to start his therapy career right in the middle of the AIDS epidemic, and how that influenced his first book, Into the Shadows, which depicts the relationships between negative and positive gay men.
  
• His newer book, Out of the Shadows, is a continuation from the first, and is a response to the way gay men are relating now, twenty-five years later.
  
• We discuss the way young gay men today relate to HIV, AIDS and PrEP/Truvada.
  
• Walt shares his ideas about the difference between what it means to be "homosexual" versus "gay."
  
• He shares his thoughts on how gay men develop shame from the way most men in our culture are raised, and societies relationship to the feminine. This  effects the way they experience isolation in community later in life.
  
• Walt offers some insights about how to begin to overcome shame. 
  

 

Web links

• Find his books & more at WaltOdets.com
• Find Walt on FaceBook

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KB Boyce is the Co-Founder and Director of Queer Rebels, a Queer People of Color arts company that connects generations – and honors our queer legacies with visionary art for the future. Musician and media artist KB Boyce is a Gender Non Conforming / trans masculine performer whose adventures have brought them from teenage punk band appearances at CBGBs in NY, to B-grade horror movies in LA, and on to solo blues performance as The Drag King of the Blues in San Francisco. Boyce composes and performs music that pays homage to African-American and Indigenous legacies of resistance through art. Boyce conjures the spirit of cross-dressing Blues performers – reflecting the history, creativity, and aesthetics of the ancestors.

Crystal Mason co-founded and co-directed Luna Sea Women's Performance Space. They are the former Executive Director of the Jon Sims Center for the Arts. They lived in Berlin, Germany for 9 years, where they co-owned and operated Schoko Café, a women's art and culture center. Their last project in Berlin was a two-year long European Union funded film project dealing with multi- dimensional discrimination faced by lesbians of color and immigrant lesbians in Berlin. In San Francisco, Crystal was an AIDS activist and organizer working with ACT UP and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in the Women's and Children's Program. Crystal was also a regular behind the scenes and in front of the camera on Electric City Queer TV for several years. They co-produced the multimedia theater piece Hey, Sailor and created 3 short films: In My Blood, I Know My Soul, and In My Own Hands. In 2016 Crystal created a multimedia performance/installation at Fort Mason as part of the THIS IS WHAT I Want Festival 2016 called There is No Other, Fractured And Complete, Tell Me Something True. They have been a Queer Rebels Board Member since 2012 and is now the Managing Director at Queer Rebels Productions.

Episode Highlights

• KB tells about how the Queer Rebel Festival first began in San Francisco in 2008 as a way to create a space for centering queer/trans people of color (QT POC) artists.
  
• KB & Crystal share about their own backgrounds in art and activism. KB group up in a New York family of artists, performers and activists. Crystal grew up always being creative and a storyteller, and explored using story as a tool for liberation activism.
  
• They each discuss their visions for the future of QT POC and how Queer Rebels helps to support that vision.
  
• We discuss the importance of intergenerational collaboration in art, and the introduction of the Queer Rebels intergenerational residency program.
  
• They share some samples of what the audience can expect at the festival this year.
  
• Crystal shares how collaboration has been a source of hope and inspiration in their activism and art.
  

 

Web links

• Queer Rebels Fest - San Francisco, June 7th & 8th - Buy Tickets HERE
• Find more at  QueerRebels.com
• Find Queer Rebels on FaceBook, Instagram & Twitter
• Tomorrow We Inherit the Earth: The Queer Intifada - San Francisco, June 20th - 22nd

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QS Community Care Circle recording of July 20th, Chant + Breathe.

We invite you get comfy, grab some hydration and join us in chanting together.

The Queer Spirit Community gathers on the 3rd Sunday of each month for practices in devotional chanting, toning and song, as well as breath work + movement. These practices are faciltated by TanyaMarck Oviedo (they/them) and Nick Venegoni (he/they). They are curated + inspired by the planetary + astrological + pagan wheel of the year energies in mind.

In this practice we honor the energies of astrological retrogrades and the rosemary plant.

The sanskrit mantras we chanted today:

• "Om Nama Shivaya"
  translation - Salutations to Shiva, the auspicious one.

We honor with Gratitude + Thanks the sacred Practices + Traditions + Peoples + Lands: Yoga, Ayurveda – Sanskrit, Mantra, Raga, Hindi & Urdu language music traditions, Buddhism + Tibet + Meditation; Tongva + Kizh + Chumash + Ohlone; Tarot + Astrology + Magic + Witchcraft; the teachers who have carried this wisdom and shared it with us ~ Gracias.

As always, you can find all things Queer Spirit HERE. 

Links + Resources + Invitations:

• An invitation to the private Queer Spirit Community to continue the conversation and connect with other listeners. 
• Join us for FREE virtual Care Circles meditation + chanting + breath work circles online. We meet monthly on the 1st Saturday, 3rd Sunday + 4th Sunday. 
• Follow us on BLUESKY + IG!
• Join our mailing list to get news, Care Circle + podcast updates sent directly to you.
• QS Resources: News, Education + Care.

Ed Wolf has been working continuously in the HIV/AIDS epidemic since 1983, as chronicled in the award-winning documentary We Were Here. He has developed HIV-related curriculum and trainings for a large number of national and international organizations and institutions, including the California State Office of AIDS, the Shanti Project of San Francisco, UCSF AIDS Health Project and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Los Angeles. He's facilitated trainings for counselors working in clinical trials in Lima, Peru as well as South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. His stories and articles have appeared in a wide variety of publications, including Christopher Street, the James White Review and Prentice Hall's Discovering Literature. Ed has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and was awarded the HIV National Educator of Year Award from thebody.com.

Episode Highlights

• Ed shares how he became a story teller by learning from his mothers skill to do so, and how he began to weave that skill into his work as an AIDS activist in the early years of the epidemic.
  
• Ed was a volunteer supporting people with AIDS very early in the 80's, and took leadership and training roles. He shares some stories about what it was like in the early days of AIDS.
  
• He has traveled to South America, Africa and Russia, offering training in AIDS prevention and healthcare; as well as gay rights activism.
  
• He shares a story about visiting Lima, Peru to help people who were part of the first clinical trial of PrEP/Truvada.
  
• His blending of spirituality with activism, and using the support of a higher power to help others through challenging times.
  
• His one-man stage shows touring the US, telling stories of his life as a gay activist.
  

Web links

• Find more at EdWolf.net
• Find Ed on FaceBook

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Larry Armstead II is an expectation coach and inspirational speaker who is taking the world by storm. Seeing a need for a step over the law of attraction, Larry heard these words during his nightly meditation that forever transformed his life:  "In life, we don't get what we want. We get what we expect." That caused him to chase this wisdom like a madman. He holds a Bachelors of Arts in Sociology and Spanish, and a Bachelors of Science in Information Technology.

Episode Highlights

• Larry tells us what the law of attraction is and his new spin on it.
  
• He shares his merging of expectation and anticipation: Exp-anticipation
  
• Getting clear on your internal mindset to match your expectations in the world.
  
• His new book "Where's my pizza?" as a road map to help you get clear on your life intentions.
  
• His story of awakening his psychic abilities when he was a teen and foreseeing the death of his older brother.
  
• How he helps people get clear on what they want by getting clear on who they are.
  
• The challenges queer people have being vulnerable and open to loving relationships.
  

Web links

• Find more at larry-armstead.com
• Find Larry on  Instagram

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Lis Goldschmidt is an acupuncturist and herbalist who has been practicing in San Francisco for ten years. She works with people with a wide variety of conditions and has advanced training in the treatment of Lyme Disease, hormone balancing, pre + post natal care and mental/spiritual issues. Lis approaches Chinese Medicine with the sensibility of an artist and activist.

Episode Highlights

• Lis tells us how she first got interested in acupuncture by being gifted a few treatments from a friend, and she noticed all the ways it benefited her.
  
• She gives us a brief overview of what acupuncture is and how it works - it comes from an ancient practice of Chinese medicine working with energies in the body.
  
• Lis shares how she approaches Chinese medicine from the perspective as an artist and activist, as well as the connection with the subtle energy bodies.
  
• How she used to work with more members of the queer community, and still sees her practice as queer despite the demographic change in San Francisco.
  
• The ways that she uses acupuncture to treat queer people, particularly folks in gender transition.
  
• Lis shares what she notices about the differences in energy patterns of queers and outsiders.
  
• How Chinese medicine works on an emotional and psychological level.
  
• We discuss the importance of self care in a world that asks us to work more and more.
  
• Lis comes out about honing her abilities for energy work in combination with acupuncture by touching clients feet.
  

Web links

• Find Lis at FivePinsProject.com
• Find Lis on Instagram

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Christian de la Huerta has been a writer, speaker, retreat and group facilitator for over 25 years. Author of the award-winning and critically-acclaimed "Coming out Spiritually," he is currently working on a new book, "Calling All Heroes." Christian is creator and teacher of several self-development programs focusing on personal growth and awareness, advanced transformational practices, understanding sex and relationships, mechanisms of ego and projection, life purpose, and reclaiming personal power. He is an acclaimed speaker at universities, conferences and spiritual communities nationwide, where audiences find Christian's message particularly relevant in these times. Christian also practices as spiritual coach and a leadership development consultant whose work ranges from individuals and couples in private practice to major corporate engagements and non-profit groups. Retreats, workshops and other events led by Christian are known for their life-changing experience and for their inspiring and transformative exploration of our inner human potential. More about his work may be found at SoulfulPower.com

Episode Highlights

• Christian tells us how he was on a path of becoming a psychologist, but then he discovered breath work and found the practice of it to be powerful and transformative.
  
• He explains the different kinds of breath work practices and how they work, as well as the ways they offer healing and insight on all levels.
  
• Christian shares what Soulful power is and how he helps others tap into their own aspect of it.
  
• He discusses his is passion for empowering women through spiritual healing and changing their relationship to power.
  
• We discuss the way he brings this wisdom to the LGBTQ communities to heal their relationship to spirituality.
  
• Spirituality vs. organized religion, and the important of questioning both.
  
• We talk Queer people a catalysts for the planets evolution as outsiders, gatekeepers and other archetypes.
  
• What it means to be a hero and to live heroically in the modern day.
  
• Cultivating soulful relationships and looking at the ways relationships can shine a light on unhealed parts of ourselves.
  

Web links

• Find Christian at SoulfulPower.com
• Find Christian on Instagram, Facebook

Upcoming Events

• Soulful Relationships, Miami, FL - May 16th
• A Call for LGBT Heroes, Big Sur, CA - July 19th

 

April Harter is a black, queer, radical feminist who specializes in reforming the perpetrators of racism through the Racist Signature™ Anti-Racism Method. 

"I teach anti-racism without shame and with loving compassion for my fellow human beings. We all have things we are ashamed of, and it is in those dark nights of the soul, that we convince ourselves that we do not deserve love or compassion.

"I reform the perpetrators of racism to learn to love themselves so that they can learn to love people of color (POC) authentically, and in so doing, love all of humanity on the deepest of levels."

Episode Highlights

• April tells us how she unexpectedly got into anti-racism coaching by working in her private practice to help white psychotherapists, and also after the events of Charlottesville.
  
• She discusses the importance of healing her own racial trauma before she could help perpetrators of racism.
  
• We talk about the difference between performative allyship versus actual healing from racial trauma through intervention; and how it's a kind of deep shadow work and tuning into unconditional love.
  
• She unpacks the relationship of shame to racial trauma, and the effects of racial battle fatigue on POC.
  
• We talk about the deep commitment it takes to do the healing work necessary to heal racial trauma and overcome unconscious racism.
  
• We compare and contrast unconscious racism and unconscious homophobia, and she exposes the thread of narcissism  running through unconscious perpetration.
  
• April lays out her model of identifying Racist Signature™ patterns as a form of defense mechanisms in unconscious racist behavior.
  
• She shares about her different offerings to help people work on their unconscious racism, on social media, free e-book and e-course, community network and coaching programs.

 

Web links

• Find April's coaching programs at AprilHarter.com 
• Join April's Anti-Racism Network
• Find April on Instagram & Facebook

In 2017 Jack Davis retired from being an office worker, which means that he can now devote as much time as he wants to being a visual artist, a witch and a radical faerie. His most recent visual art show, called FAGGOTS, was at the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco in January 2019. In December of 2018 he created the dancers' costumes for Winter Circle X, a ritual/performance piece instigated by Keith Hennessy in collaboration with Snowflake Towers.

Episode Highlights

• Jack tells how he first started studying art and education in college, and then got a masters degree in textiles. He started making crocheted penis shapes as his own way of glorifying sexuality during the sexual revolution of the 70's.
  
• He shares the history of the word faggot, and about his exploration and usage of "faggots" in his artwork as part of queer liberation.
  
• We discuss the public's response to his art, and how censorship and exclusion of his art has been part of that response.
  
• Jack uses performance art and ritual activism, such as in "Faggots around the Labyrinth," in San Francisco prior to the 2016 presidential election to protect queer youth.
  
• He gives us a brief history of the Radical Faeries, starting in 1979 with a gathering of gay men who were anti-assimilationist, who believe that gay men are different and have a special purpose.
  
• Now Radical Faerie community is co-created in cities and sanctuaries around the world, with gatherings that are open to all gender identities.
  
• Jack got involved in '82 and eventually became the treasurer of a local division. He was also part of the support team to care for two of the founding members (Harry Hay and John Burnside) at the end of their lives.
  
• He offers his ideas about how and why the Radical Faerie communities have been, and continue to be, so influential in queer culture.
  
• Jack shares how he uses pagan prayer beads, which have been a significant part of his spiritual daily practice.

 

Contact Jack Davis

• Contact Jack by email here.

Visit the Queer Spirit episode page to view some of Jack's art.

 

Langston Kahn is a New York City based shamanic practitioner specializing in emotional clearing and radical transformation. He stands firmly at the crossroads, his practice informed by the western modality of Inner Relationship Focusing, initiations into traditions of the African Diaspora, the contemporary shamanic tradition of The Last Mask Center, and the guidance of his helping spirits and ancestors weaving it all together. He joyfully endeavors to bring spirituality out of the dark dusty recesses of esotericism and into our daily existence, where it can aid us in re-aligning with the ecstatic energy of our soul's purpose and allow us to become the people who can create the change we wish to see in the world.

Episode Highlights

• Langston us how he was always a helper from an early age, wanting to support others in need.
  
• He looks for solutions in witchcraft to change the way larger culture affected our mental health, and tells how a dream lead him to explore shamanic practice.
  
• His journey of deep shamanic education and practice to heal himself and move into spiritual adulthood, and taking those experiences to help others.
  
• What it means to be a spiritual adult and how to achieve that, especially with the support of elders.
  
• The particular importance that queer youth get the support of queer elders to guide them into adulthood.
  
• How ancestral healing fixed his love life by reconnecting with his dead grandmother and doing the work to support their own healing.
  
• His practice of Deep Liberation Process to help others to respond authentically to life more clearly and easily.
  
• The importance of having strong healthy boundaries from the inside out.
  

Web links

• Find Langston at Occupy-Your-Heart.com
• Find him on Instagram &  Facebook
• Upcoming classes:
  - Masks of Illusion & the Authentic Self, retreat in Arizona, June 2019
  - Energy Body Mastery, online class, September 2019

Seraphina Capranos is a homeopath, herbalist, and educator who is passionate about bringing more healing, communion, and earth magic to the world. She grew up learning natural medicine from her elders, and this rooted her in the confidence and power of the body's innate healing wisdom, which inspires her daily. Seraphina's greatest passion is educating and empowering people in the wisdom of natural medicine through one-on-one consultations and classes at her clinic, The Green Raven Centre on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada, where she's been in practice since 2004. She also offers online consultations.

Episode Highlights

• Seraphina gives basic descriptions of western herbalism and classical homeopathy, their differences, and how they fall under the umbrella of naturopathy.
  
• She shares her story of being a 3rd generation herbalist, using plant medicine for common family ailments; and how she used natural medicine to help her through a spinal injury.
  
• How to make the decision to use natural medicine instead of prescription drugs, particularly for prevention and comfort.
  
• She describes how most herbs are often safe and tested over centuries to offer ease and support.
  
• Using magic for healing by connecting to the energy force of nature, spirit and the unseen world.
  
• As queer people are often more sensitive in their environments, which is a gift and challenge, Seraphina talks about how she supports people to manage their energy levels.
  
• Queer people are natural wounded healers as a result of our path in the world today.

Web links

• SerpahinaCapranos.com
• Find her on Instagram &  Facebook

Josh Hersh is an entrepreneur, writer, seeker, and curator of community. Over the years, he's focused on creating mindful, heart-centered spaces for queer people, such as The Thoughtful Gay Man and queeret (pronounced queer-it), a global community for queer introverts. He believes in the power of belonging and connection as a means to bring healing and a sense of togetherness to queer communities.

Episode Highlights

• Josh Shares his inspiration to start social events for queer introverts after watching the Hannah Gadsby special and her asking, "Where do the quiet gays go?"
  
• Nick & Josh discuss the difference between introverts, extroverts and ambiverts, and what kind of environments they feel most comfortable in; and misconceptions about introverts being shy, anxious or loners.
  
• The process of self-discovery and self-acceptance of being an introvert, and the challenges of that identity in the larger queer culture.
  
• Josh talks about being sober curious, and bringing in the additional aspect of sobriety to his Queeret social gatherings.
  
• He describes the different events that Queeret produces, such as Qalm and Book Qlub.

Web links

•  queeret – a global community for queer introverts.
• Find queeret on Instagram &  Facebook

Lance Moore is a Anderson Feri witch, a science fiction geek, and a colon cancer survivor, as well as a Silicon Valley high tech guy. He's also an activist in the transgender community.

Episode Highlights

• Lance shares how he first learned about his diagnosis of colon cancer that came out of the blue.
• His first few days of surgery recovery in the hospital and then immediately starting his course of chemotherapy.
• The challenges of dealing with the side effects of chemotherapy and navigating life in this new way.
• Nick and Lance discuss the difficulty of mental focus and concentration as a result of the fogginess of "chemo brain."
• They share different spiritual and meditation practices that were helpful, such as guided meditation; as well as the different kinds of music that felt supportive.
• Lance talks about the different kinds of herbal and alternative medicines which helped him, such as CBD products, acupuncture and physical therapy.
• They answer listener questions:
  – What were your first thoughts after your diagnosis?
  – Did this experience change your ideas about death or the afterlife?
  – What support was most helpful from others?
• Lance shares about the upcoming South Bay Day of Transgender Visibility in San Jose, CA.

 

Care Chats are short mindful conversrations where we share what's on our hearts + minds. 
Join TanyaMarck + Nick for this timely chat about Exploring Allyship - What is allyship + how do we cultivate it? What are our shadows and blocks to allyship? How can we be better allies?

Links + Resources + Invitations:

• An invitation to the private Queer Spirit Community to continue the conversation and connect with other listeners. 
• Join us for FREE virtual Care Circles meditation + chanting + breath work circles online. We meet monthly on the 1st Saturday, 3rd Sunday + 4th Sunday. 
• Follow us on BLUESKY + IG!
• Join our mailing list to get the weekly QS Bulletin with Care Nuggets and news on upcoming Care Circle + podcast updates sent directly to you.
• QS Resources: News, Education + Care.

Nick Venegoni is the host the Queer Spirit podcast. A few months into beginning the podcast, in July of 2018, he discovered that he had stage one testicular cancer. With the support of doctors and nurses, integrative practitioners, family and friends, he made it through surgery and nine weeks of chemo therapy.

In part one of this topic, to kick off the second season the podcast, he shares the story of his journey from diagnosis to completing chemotherapy.

"It feels important to me to tell this story because I don't really hear these stories being told, especially in a queer context. I hope it will help others to understand what it's like to go through cancer, and others to feel less alone in their own healing journeys."

Episode Highlights

• Nick tells about the discovery of his tumor and the speed at which he went into surgery.
• He shares about the different complimentary and integrative therapies he employed to support him through surgery and chemo, including herbs, homeopathy, flower essences, acupuncture, guided visualization and more.
• Nick discusses the challenge of dealing with the multitude of side effects from the chemo and how he managed that.
• He talks about the importance of self care and asking for help from others during recovery.
• In part 2, on the next episode, Nick will compare and contrast his stories with a friend who went through colon cancer last year.

Web links

• National LGBT Cancer Network
• National LGBT Cancer Project
• LotsaHelpingHands.com - a free site to organize support for people in need.
• Movember - promoting awareness of cancer in men.

Desiree Cervantes: "​I'm a shaman, intuitive healer and empath. A modern medicine woman with a creative soul and the gift of clear sight. A wild woman with a tender heart. I see magic everywhere and in everyone. ​I am the kind of woman they used to burn at the stake and I am reclaiming the word Witch. I am an Oracle Witch but I am not a fortune teller. I have a number of psychic gifts including the ability to see, hear and channel messages and communicate with my guides and yours. I am not afraid of my shadow side or yours. I'm great at helping people process raw emotions and release pain and grief. I won't give you the answers but I'll help show you that you had them all along inside yourself. I dispense truth and wisdom with honesty, a fierce tenderness and sometimes a bit of tough love. I sometimes speak to non-breathing people (call them what you like) if I feel that communicating is helpful or needed. I give myself permission to want what I want and feel how I feel. I am learning how to lean into my desires to uncover what they are trying to show me. My core desired feelings are vibrant, powerful, sexy, abundant, magical and wild-hearted. I'm an artist, designer, truth teller, mother, warrior and seeker. I am large, I contain multitudes."

 

Episode Highlights

• Desiree shares how she discovered her ability to read other peoples feelings and energies as a young child.
  
• She discusses hearing the call to study shamanism and become a "witch doctor."
  
• Being an empath and learning to honor the boundaries of others while balancing the ability to help.
  
• Working with the common challenges of empaths, such as energetic overwhelm or overriding your intuition.
  
• Tuning in to wild spirituality and sacred clowning as a form of creative disruption to shake up and shift energy outside of your comfort zone. 
  

 

Web links

• SpiritFireShaman.com
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Pinterest

Kevin Truong is a documentary photographer and journalist. He first received recognition for his work with The Gay Men Project, a photo project in which he has documented the lives of gay and queer men across 37 countries. His subjects include the first openly gay member of Congress in Peru, HIV outreach workers in South Africa, a retired Justice of the Australian High Court, and a gay prince in India. He also regularly writes stories for NBC OUT at NBC News, where he has covered a range of topics, including the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, the LGBTQ movement in Vietnam, and the rise of social media activists in Brazil. 

 

Episode Highlights

• Kevin discusses how he became a portrait photographer after leaving the Peace Corps and going to art school.
  
• Kevin tells how he started his Gay Men Project using photography to show the diversity of queer men around the globe.
  
• His experiences of meeting gay men in countries where being out is taboo, unsafe or illegal.
  
• The power of story telling to help others who might be sharing similar experiences, and to expand understanding of those who are different.
  
• What gay men have in common around the wordl, and what is different.

 

M'kali-Hashiki is a Renegade Sexual Mystic, a Tour Guide to the realm of Eros & a Teacher of Somatic Erotic Possibilities. She holds certifications in Sexological Bodywork, Sound, Voice & Music Healing and Tantric Sacred Intimacy. A published essayist, a former professional social justice organizer and an Ifa devoteé, she believes the sexual & the spiritual are irrevocably intertwined. Her politics, spirituality and lived experience as a queer, feminist, polyamourous, middle-aged, fat, kinky, Black Femme Dyke trauma survivor inform all aspects of her work.

She is the author of the popular ebook, Turn Your Junk Into Treasure: Five Steps to Deepening Your Relationship with Your Nethers. She offers both individual sessions &  transformational group journeys helping QTIPOC & allied folk access their erotic energy for radical transformation fuel. She also offers Enstatic Breathwork™ for Collaboration & Employee Wellness to companies & social justice non-profits.

Episode Highlights

• M'kali-Hashiki discusses how she became a renegade sexual mystic early in life through discovering how to channel sexual energy to connect with universal flow.
  
• Deepening her connection to sexual energy through her studies with Joseph Kramer at the Body Electric school, and in Sexological Bodywork.
  
• She discusses the interconnectedness of sexuality and politics, and bringing in her renegade activism to that connection.
  
• M'kali-Hashiki teaches marginalized people to use sexuality to make space for joy through sex as a form of activism.
  
• "Oppression requires the repression of the erotic." - Audre Lodre
  
• What happens when we lose connection to passion, and connecting with pleasure in the body instead of falling into the spell of consumerism.
  
• The 3 pillars of fierce passion - presence, pleasure and prayer; and the difference between the sensual, sexual and erotic.
  
• "Our sexuality is a source of infinite power and transformation."
  
• Her specific work with fat, queer, black women and other marginalized people explores helping them take up space and find safety in their bodies.

Workshops

• Erotic Breathwork for Women of Color : Oakland, CA  Oct. 6 - 27
• Queer Eros: Embody, Enhance, Explore : Oakland, CA  Dec. 15

Lou Florez is an internationally known Spirit worker, medicine maker, priest, activist, and artist who has studied with indigenous communities and elders throughout the globe. Lou grounds his teachings and practice in the idea that connectedness to ourselves and our physical, emotional, spiritual, and environmental landscapes is a fundamental necessity for any long lasting change to occur. He holds that through creating these living, dynamic relationships we become conscious of the inherent power available to us in every second of our lives.

Episode Highlights

• Lou discusses how he became a spirit worker based in folk traditions of magics from the American south that comes out of connections to the Earth and the land, and rooted in communities fighting against oppression and colonization.
  
• He tells the story of growing up on a farm and being introduced to different folk spiritual practices in a church bingo parlor.
  
• His activism supports diversity among multicultural pagan and spiritual communities, particularly around issues of safety, accessibility and justice.
  
• Intentionally inviting Queer people of color to the table or altar for their particular prayers and spiritual needs.
  
• His three year Audre Lorde spiritual practice, and how it helped him heal his connection with his body as a queer brown man. 

Gerri Ravyn Stanfield, LAc. is the author of Revolution of the Spirit: Awaken the Healer, a guide to liberate the healing super powers within each of us. Her fiction and essays have been published in The Rumpus, Manifest Station, and others. She is the executive director of Acupuncturists Without Borders, a nonprofit organization providing trauma relief in the wake of natural disaster and human conflict. She designs trainings for emerging leaders and healers in the US, Canada, Europe, Nepal, Israel/Palestine, and Australia. 
Ravyn uses her background in trauma recovery, neurobiology, psychology, writing and performance to coax more of the extraordinary into the world through the cracks in Western civilization. She has a private acupuncture practice in Portland, Oregon.

Episode Highlights

• Ravyn talks about how her experiences of illness lead her on the path of becoming a healer.
  
• She discusses her inspiration for her book, "Revolution of the Spirit," as a way to record and remember alternative forms of healing.
  
• The connection of spirituality to medicine and other forms of healing.
  
• Exploring the ways that ancient healing practices, such as Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, have maintained their spiritual aspects.
  
• What it means to be a healer, and who can be a healer = "to make whole" by simply doing your thing.
  
• Exploring the concept of being a "global revolutionary healer" with your own soul fire.
  
• We discuss what is ailing our culture at large now - the interlocking systems of oppression and the greedy residue of colonization; and healing this by turning back towards the sacred.
  
• Alchemy as the art of change and transformation, and using it personally and globally.
  
• Bringing the power of alchemy to heal the queer communities.
  
• Taking a holy risk and moving toward what scares you.

Holcombe Waller is one of America's most unique voices in music theater. He is a 2011 United States Artists Berresford Fellow in Music, an award that noted his mournful, folk-inflected style as well as his approach to music "as total theater." He is a Creative Capital artist, a four-time recipient of the MAP Fund grant, and a Joan Shipley Fellow of the Regional Arts and Culture Council of his hometown of Portland, Oregon.

Episode Highlights

• Holcombe's approach to music as total theater, incorporating multimedia into concerts for a different kind of performance experience.
  
• The upcoming performance of his community piece, Requiem Mass: A Queer Divine Rite, to invoke a peaceful repose & celebrate queer history.
  
• Bringing diversity of community involvement within the work to exemplify and bring forward inclusion and representation.
  
• The origin of Requiem Mass as a church performance to explore the persecution of gender and sexual diversity.
  
• Holcombe's experience of talking to church goers on a phone bank about marriage equality, and wanting to bring a queer voice to liturgical music.
  

Web links

Requiem Mass, San Francisco - Fall 2018

• September Free Community Workshop series
• Performances: November 16 & 17

•  HolcombeWaller.com
•  Facebook 
• Twitter
• Vimeo

Amber Field is a queer, non-binary Korean American adoptee singer, musician, performer and teacher featured in San Francisco Magazine's Best of the Bay for yoga music. They have performed and taught at SF Jazz, the Queer and Asian Conference, UC Santa Cruz, and more. Amber specializes in world fusion music and plays didgeridoo, djembe, esraj, Native flute, and piano, and sings like an angel. They love to free people's voices so they can sing, sound and speak their truths. Amber facilitates somatic and expressive arts workshops for adopted people. They also conduct trainings and workshops on diversity and solidarity. Amber is available for private and group sessions. Their latest CD Serendip is available on AmberFieldMusic.com.

 

Episode Highlights

• Amber discusses how they became an "artivist" - combining art and social activism on their healing journey.
  
• Amber offers transformational workshops to support others to free their voice to speak their truth, using sound healing, improv, expressive arts and more.
  
• They work with queer people who are shifting their identities, to get more comfortable with their body and voices.
  
• Using sound healing and meditation as energy medicine, and transmitting a frequency of love through song.
  
• Falling in love with ourselves is a path of self acceptance.
  
• Amber's gift of creating rites of passage with sound and song for all life occasions. 
  

 

Web links

• AmberFieldMusic.com
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram

Veronica Kirin is an Anthropologist turned Serial Entrepreneur. Her career has taken her from Disaster Relief through the Startup world. She is founder of the award winning GreenCup Website Services, author of Stories of Elders, and Entrepreneur Coach to LGBTQ Women certified by the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce. She is also the founder of the Fempreneur Forum, where women Entrepreneurs can build community and get Coached in workshops and Live Q&As.   

Episode Highlights

• Veronica discusses Instagram videos of her morning practices for entrepreneurial productivity, using self-forgiveness and self-compassion.
  
• How her experiences of PTSD and chronic pain inspired her to create self care tools for her clients.
  
• Her new book interviewing elders about their experiences and perspectives with technology - how it's effecting us and the future of our culture.
  
• Stories from queer elders about the importance of human connection, and how it's dwindling as a result of the proliferation of technology.
  

 

Web links

• VeronicaKirin.com
• Book - Stories of Elders
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• The National LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce

Leo Herrera is a Mexican self-taught visual artist, activist and writer based in San Francisco. His work focuses on the American queer experience, politics and history. His short, viral films have been seen by millions, featured in global media outlets and museum exhibits. He travels extensively to discover facets of queer culture/history and expose them to a new generation while paying homage to the past.

Leo's current passion project is Fathers, a sci-fi documentary web series and multimedia project that imagines the world if AIDS never existed and a generation had lived. Weaving real-life events, survivor histories and fictionalized events, Fathers creates a surreal vision of an alternative universe.

 

Episode Highlights

• Leo discusses how he started making films for nightlife events.
  
• The Fathers Project started as he made art about HIV/AIDS, then morphed into the idea of the absence of AIDS.
  
• His interest in sci-fi and technology, and how that is woven into the Fathers project.
  
• Talking to the ghosts of other artists who died of AIDS as a guiding influence in his work.
  
• What it means to imagine a Queer Utopia as a vision of hope for our community.
  
• How being an immigrant is an influence on his work, looking from the outside at the fictitious future of America.
  
• The blend of queer and immigration politics in his art to reflect the current political climate.
  
• The Fathers Project as an antidote to fear in the queer community.
  

 

Dara's web links

• The Fathers Project

• LeoHerrera.com
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Vimeo

Welcome to our CareCast!

This year we're are posting recordings of our monthly CareCircles to the podcast - this is our "CareCast."

The Queer Spirit Community gathers on the 1st Saturday of each month for practices in guided meditation, breath work + movement. These practices are faciltated by TanyaMarck Oviedo (they/them) and Nick Venegoni (he/they). They are curated + inspired by the planetary + astrological + pagan wheel of the year energies in mind. Original music + sound care by Nick + TanyaMarck.

~ This month we work with the energies of Resetting + Receiving.
We are joined by a community member and guest musician GOLDbard at the end of practice.

We invite you get comfy, grab some hydration and join us together in queer community.

We honor with Gratitude + Thanks the sacred Practices + Traditions + Peoples + Lands: Yoga, Ayurveda – Sanskrit, Mantra, Raga, Hindustani Music, Buddhism + Tibet + Meditation; Tongva + Kizh + Chumash + Ohlone; Tarot + Astrology + Magic + Witchcraft; the teachers who have carried this wisdom and shared it with us ~ Gracias.

As always, you can find all things Queer Spirit HERE. 

 

Links + Resources + Invitations:

• An invitation to the private Queer Spirit Community Network to continue the conversations and connect with other listeners. 
• Join us for FREE virtual Care Circles meditation + chanting + breath work circles online. We meet monthly on the 1st Saturday, 3rd Sunday + 4th Sunday. 
• Follow us on BLUESKY + IG!
• Join our mailing list to get our weekly QS Bulletin with Care Nuggets and updates on Care Cirlce + podcast updates sent directly to you.
• QS Resources: News, Education + Care.

DARA HOFFMAN-FOX, LPC is a queer-identified gender therapist in private practice in Colorado Springs, Colorado. As a subject-matter expert on transgender and nonbinary issues Dara is the creator of the "Conversations with a Gender Therapist" YouTube channel as well as the author of the Amazon #1 bestseller, You and Your Gender Identity: A Guide to Self Discovery.

 

Episode Highlights

• Dara discusses their path to becoming a therapist specializing in working queer and trans folks.
  
• Starting an online academy for therapists to learn more about working with trans and non-binary clients.
  
• How Dara has reached people all over the world via social media to offer help and support exploring their own gender identity.
  
• Their book, "You and Your Gender Identity," a workbook to help those questioning their identity find more clarity.
  
• Creating a team to help you on your gender exploration journey.
  
• Confronting your fears as you begin your gender exploration.
  
• How to find a gender affirming therapist (WPATH.org standards of care).
  

 

Dara's web links

•  Dara Hoffman-Fox.com

• Trans Affirming Therapists Academy
• Facebook
• Twitter

Elizabeth Cooper grew up in Japan and Brazil, and moved to the Bay Area for its queer, experimental performance art. She studied Anthropology, Gender & Sexuality Studies and Dance at Princeton University and has completed immersive, residential programs at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Massachusetts and Antioch Buddhist Studies Program in India. She blends her academic background in cultural politics of the body, feminism and queer theory with her passion for the power of movement and meditation in her Queer Body Love coaching business. She explores the question "How do we love ourselves, our bodies and each other in the face of oppression?" through her work. 

 

Episode Highlights

• Elizabeth discusses working with people who ask, "How do I love myself when I struggle to accept my body?"
  
• Being a third culture kid, growing up in multiple foreign cultures in a white American household.
  
• Using movement, dance and art to heal from oppression and become more embodied.
  
• Healing her connection to her body through yoga and movement deep practice.
  
• "If I really listen to my body, there is both an impulse towards rest and an impulse towards movement."
  
• "If you can create enough space to really begin to rebuild trust and listening and intuition with your body, it will tell you what it needs."
  
• How consciousness and connection with our bodies can set us free to relate to ourselves and others more fully.
  
• Using the Buddhist principle of fierce compassion to set clear boundaries as we can heal ourselves.

 

Elizabeth's web links

• Queer Body Love Coaching

• The Queer Body Love Speaker Series

Dr. Kirk Prine, CMT is a Body Story Life Coach, integrative bodyworker, Reiki Master, Ritual Master, former psychotherapist, primary facilitator of Flesh & Spirit Community and co-founder of The Missing Thread Mystery School for Entrpreneurs. He is also the author of "Erotic Body Prayer".

 

Episode Highlights

• We discuss how life experiences get stored in the cells and the energies of our bodies, and how they effect the agreements we have with ourselves.
• Kirk helps people unpack and clear those stories through the body to heal the mind and the body.
  
• How queer people struggle with intimacy and how that shows up in our bodies.
  
• Kirk's own experience of abuse and trauma lead him on his path from survivor to thriver, and honing his ability to tune into more subtle energies.
  
• How to begin to listen to the stories of your own body through sensations and feelings.
  
• The ways in which body work and massage can help to release and transform our relationship with our bodies and ourselves.
  
• The connection between the spiritual and the physical, and how it can bring healing to queer people.
  
• The erotic and the spiritual are not separate, but one in the same.
  
• Queer people came to be part of healing ourselves and the planet.
  
• The path of the wounded healer as a helpful teacher to help us grow.
  

 

Kirk's web links

• Flesh & Spirit Community

• The Missing Thread Mystery School

• Event: September 15th in San Francisco - "Matters of the Heart: More Intimacy - The Lover's Journey"