with Barbara Buckley, Kirk Prine and Donny Lobree

A workshop for queer women (lesbians, bisexual, and transgender) and brothers from Flesh & Spirit Community to experience the Divine through their bodies.

Sappho to Whitman, Vergil to Audre Lorde, St Teresa of Avila to Rumi mystics can be found in every spiritual tradition and yet committed to an inclusive spirituality of Oneness beyond their tradition. Seeing the face of the Beloved in all beings and all of creation has been the signature of the mystic. Considered "foolish", they were men, women and transgendered people who would not and could not be contained in a box of dogma or tradition.

Mystics have often understood the union with the Sacred, God/Goddess, Spirit, Life Force, the Divine, the Beloved and the nameless as the juice that connects us all. Our willingness to release our fear of appearing foolish and live our lives in both longing and passion for those sacred connections is the charge of the mystic.

In Flesh & Spirit Communities we speak of the ecstatic path demonstrated by the archetypes of Peaceful Warriors, Lovers, Sacred Prostitutes and Elders. Mystics embody the qualities of these archetypes in their ecstasy quest to experience the Divine and the Sacred through their bodies. They are people of all genders who listen with their bodies and their hearts. Mystics like these other four archetypes have "been their own authority".

How they experienced the Divine was not defined by anyone or any institution. Thus they were described as "foolish", not seeking the approval of others for their experience to be validated. Queer people by their very nature are given this opportunity to live outside the box as the mystics, bridging the worlds of separation.