Circles of Care: Queer Intimacy, Radical Fairies & Healing Through the AIDS Epidemic

Welcome back to The Circle, the podcast where we go all in on men's work, embodiment practices, and personal growth from our queer perspective. If you're enjoying the show, please be sure to share your favorite episode, leave a review, and subscribe. And if you have a question about anything you've heard us talk about, please send us a message. We'd love to hear from you. And now onto the show.

Today, we're joined by Jonathan Scott, also known as Wild Blue Yonder and Esther, the village mermaid. A province town radical ferry, you'll find him swimming in the bay, singing to birds, making flamingo pink jam from wild beach roses, and walking his Jack Russell keto. That's keto with a q, like the capital of Ecuador, not the diet with a K. Jonathan is also a lifelong community organizer. He's founded the Victory Programs and built 30 treatment homes for people facing HIV, addiction, and homelessness.

During the height of the AIDS epidemic, when fear and stigma were everywhere, Jonathan leaned into community, gathering in circles of care that became sacred ground for healing and resilience. We're so honored to have him here today to take us back to that time and share a vital part of our queer history. Tim, Jonathan, are you ready to go all in? Ready. I'm ready.

Let's go. Jonathan, I'm really, really happy that you're here with us today. We first met a couple years back on the beach when we were walking our dogs, and you welcomed me into town with with lovingly social distanced arms. And you taught me so much during our first walks together about life and love during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the eighties and nineties. And now today, we get to go even deeper because you've been coming to the men's embodiment circles here in town.

And it was at one of these circles that you mentioned how important gatherings like this were and are, and you told us about how you participated and helped create what you called circles of care, spaces where people could come together, be seen, and begin to heal in the midst of the AIDS crisis. I'd love it if you could bring us back to that memory. What do you remember about those early gatherings?

Well, I wanna, first of all, thank you both for the men's embodiment work that you are doing in creating this incredibly beautiful, lovely container and ritual for people to come together, and it's a really sacred thing whenever anybody can share from the heart. And I, you know, I have, you introduced me with three different names, and, you know, we all, I think, live many lives and many roles the longer we go. And, yeah, Jonathan is, the professional, and he had a lot of checklists in life and did a lot of things, know, lots of pats on the back, chair of the board of mass equality, fighting for equal marriage, and chair of the board of Ryan White Planning Council, and and running victory programs for the homeless living with HIV and AIDS, also addiction. And Esther, the village mermaid, was really who I was in when I wasn't doing that, and I would come down to Provincetown in the seventies and eighties, and we had this really wildly fun beach party where everybody all you had to do is bring a bathing cap, and we had this wild mayhem party on the beach, and everybody came, lesbians and gay men, and we would do this water ballet at the end.

And, you know, mostly, it was naked except for the bathing cap. And I was crowned Esther because I happened to own a really big tiara. So that's how I got to be Esther. And, you know, Wild Blue Yonder is really who I aspire to be today. I call myself a homeschool radical fairy because I, you know, I never had time to go to a a spiritual gathering of the radical fairies, and it's, you know, all around the country and around the world, there are these really sacred lands where gay gay people have, found places to have containers.

And, so I got to the radical fairies late in life, in terms of going to the gatherings, but I really believe that the principles that they practice, which are caring for others and volunteering and attention to the earth and natural farming and a lot of the work that men's embodiment work does. And the and the heart of radical fairies is starting every day with art circle, which is, which is a rhyme for what you two do and what you two offer people. You know, all circles are a little different, and they all have their own way and, depending on, you know, the the theme, and you bring in breath work and, topics. But for me, it's the the power and empowerment is when you can bring people together to do that. And when I was running victory programs, you know, we we and and you you, you know and and especially in the height of the AIDS epidemic when all institutions had abandoned gay people and homeless people and people living with addiction, religious institutions, medical institutions, political institutions, all we had, and the heart of my treatment program was heart circles every single day.

And, you know, some people listening may know them as 12 step meetings, but it's for me, it's all the same kind of opportunity to to find your feelings wherever they are today, however imperfect they may be, and to the the power of participation by just listening. Mhmm. So, you know, I was out before the AIDS epidemic, you know, was part of our vocabulary, and it was a wild time in the seventies and early eighties for gay men and bath houses and outdoor sex, and you had to go out to meet people. You had to physically meet people and get to know them, you know, whether you know, I there wasn't a weekend in my early twenties that I wasn't at the clubs Friday, Saturday, Sunday tea dance, and, you know, and it and it's also why the clubs in Provincetown were so important because people coming around the world, you know, finally had a place to go and to meet people. It's very different today with the apps when you're sort of judged on a photograph or 10 words, and you think you know somebody.

And and, of course, none of us ever are are photographs are the 10 words that we pick. But I you know, when when we first discovered this terrible disease that was happening to people we knew in the community and our friends. And for me in Boston, the big year was 1986. Although AIDS had been, you know, happening very swiftly in New York and San Francisco and LA and the bigger cities, the smaller cities seem to have a little later impact. And, you know, those of us in Boston were a little like, well, it's not affecting us yet.

But, boy, it when it did, it did. And 1986 was you know, my three best friends died that year, and they all died very, very quickly. And I got tested in 1987, and in what is now, I think, historically, the longest procrastination in picking up test results, it took me two years before I went back to the Fenway Health to get my results, and they were positive. And the reason why I didn't wanna pick up my results before that is because there was nothing anybody could do. But we all knew about safe sex, and at that point, we were all really pretty sure about most of the transmission, blood to blood through sex, through needles, through, you know, the if you're if you're receiving an infusion.

So hemophiliacs, gay men, people from Haiti, IV drug users, sex workers, and, and nobody cared about this group for years and years and years. You know, when I met you, Eric, we were in the midst or just really starting another worldwide pandemic, and, so I've had the this the the exciting opportunity to live through two worldwide pandemics now. But a couple of the major differences when I met you is we we couldn't, well, the one thing that was absolutely clear was the rush to get a vaccine around COVID was immediate, and it was all people talked about, and every scientist, and every pharmaceutical company was at a race. The lethargy around HIV and AIDS was was beyond disheartening. It was murder, and, thousands of people died because nobody nobody who could did.

And, and, even our president Ronald Reagan never once during his term publicly mentioned the word AIDS. So I got very involved in ACT UP, and because there was no kind of medical care, at all, there was no nothing you could do, All we had was each other, and an amazing thing happened to me. You know? It was right after I was diagnosed, and I was a young young guy in my, you know, late twenties. And, you know, at that time, all I really wanted was a boyfriend, or I wanted love, or I wanted all the things, you know, the fairy tales told you about.

And here I was harboring a fatal and incurable disease, and at the time it was, and we didn't know if we would be alive within six months. And the disease side of it was really horrible, and we had all these acronyms like crypto was for cryptosporidium for people that just lost weight. You know, you would have these handsome bodybuilders that would become skeletons, you know, really literally overnight, KS for Carposis sarcoma, which was horrible, horrible lesions on your body. I remember visiting my friend Mark in the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, and his legions were everywhere. I he was unrecognizable, and it was so, so horrible.

PCP, pneumocystis pneumonia that, you know, would fill your lungs. It was the first time I really understood and heard the word intubation because we knew that if a friend of ours was intubated, that was it. They probably had a day left to live. And and, you know, the and the worst for me was, CMV, cytomegalovirus, which blinded you. And my my partner, Kevin, who was 30 years old, and he was a beautiful bodybuilder and, gym trainer, he he got CMV, and and most people had all of these at the end.

It wasn't just one. You were it was a total collapse of the immune system. So what do you do when you're facing all of that and you're about 28 years old, and all of a sudden, every time you meet somebody, you have to disclose that you have a fatal and incurable disease. Do you wanna date me? And I you know, at the time, I, you know, I had once I had somebody get up in the middle of a of a dinner date and just say to me, I can't handle this and leave.

And it things like that happened all all the time. But I had gone to an event where they were honoring people who were doing work with AIDS. It was an AIDS action committee event in Boston, and a person getting the award was a woman named doctor Anne Webster, and she she was beautiful. She looked like Julie Christie, if you remember her, the old British the movies British movie star. She had red hair, ringlets, and a beautiful smile and green eyes, and she had just wonderful, wonderful energy.

New Yorker who was doing her work in Boston with doctor Herb Benson at the Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, in the mind body program, and they were doing evidence based work on the relaxation response, which was teaching people how to breathe, teaching people how to meditate, teaching people really facilitating visualization. And I and at this event I went to, she was getting an award, and when her name was announced, I I saw dozens and dozens of guys I know stand up and cheer. And I knew, you know, I knew I was gonna take her group. And it was a ten week program, and she was really the first person that really taught me the power of breathing. And so when I began going to the men's embodiment group, it was it was for me both familiar, but also something that I really wanted to I really wanted to integrate in my life.

I wanted not just Jonathan and not just Esther, but really the person I wanna be, the Wild Blue Yonder, which is my radical fairy name. You can call me Wild Blue for short.

And Can I jump in for something? So so first of all, thank you for sharing all of that. And I want I wanna get into more of the minutiae of of that group that you just talked about, the breath, and how it how it serves because, obviously, that's what we love doing. But before we do that Right. Something that I really heard you saying in so many ways was this power of togetherness.

And at one point when you were telling the story and you were saying that these groups that you were working to support and some of these groups to which you belonged felt without help, without support, without acknowledgment, and you said all we had was each other. Right. So I wonder if you could just speak a little bit to the power of coming together consciously. And in the context of right now in this moment, it feels like that understanding of

the power is there, and it feels like it's part of why they're trying to separate us and, like, why they're pulling trans people, for example, and and sort of separating us from our because there is power when we're together. So I'm wondering, do you have So it's you're you're right, Tim. I mean, I I think it it was all we had was each other. And I I went for everything because there were no doctors that could help you, and everybody had sort of turned their back on us. So, you know, AIDS, Medicine, and Miracle, you know, conference with Mary Ann Williamson, Positive Directions, Northern Lights Alternatives.

I mean, there were just so many groups that I did, and and the heart of all these groups was heart circle work, which is what both of you and the container you're creating with your men's embodiment group is very, very much the same. And it was what I was attracted to, and it was very, very much a part of my personal life, even though I was also doing that work and my staff was doing that kind of work in our treatment programs as well. I it wasn't until I went to my first gathering, a spiritual gathering of radical fairies. It was Beltane. It was May 1.

And, again, I came very, very late to going to a radical fairy sanctuary. But in the heart circle, I really discovered, and it was Harry Hay as controversial controversial as he could be, he was the founder of the radical fairies and the Mattachine Society before that and had spent decades and decades living with Native Americans, and he brought the ritual of heart circle to gay men. He brought the ritual of of creating magic spaces for each other where we could be whoever we wanted to be. And I think, you know, his basis, and it's also very much what you two are doing is I'm a subject. You're an object.

And we look at each other as subject object often. You know, you go on any of the apps, and it's like you judge somebody by a photograph or, again, a few words that they put down. You think you know them and, you know, contact them for a hookup or a date or whatever it is. Aerie was like, no. No.

No. No. No. We should never model our relationships after heterosexuals, but they must always be ethical. And I love that word because ethical is really what does that mean to you?

And, but the other thing he he I I think that I really found, which is the heart of the radical fairies, is to move from subject object to subject subject. How do you get to stop looking at somebody just in the most superficial way? And the big word, the big I word is intimacy. And intimacy is happen is what happens in a heart circle.

Mhmm.

So you've both integrated this beautiful technique of breathing and sharing through a whatever the discussion topic or the word is, but you've also created this magic container where people can can be, for this one moment in time, free and safe to say whatever is in their heart without judgment and without, or instruction. Nobody's saying you well, do this, do that. You know? And I think, really, all of the the heart circles that I am in are very much, very much like that, that it's as important to be a listener and part as you're a participant as it is when it's your opportunity to speak.

You know? I can't tell you how many times in men's workspaces and many of the men's workspaces I have been in have not been exclusively queer. But because men typically have been conditioned to be so separate from their emotions and their feelings and their experience, just listening to another person share their experience, which almost certainly you can relate to on some level, is can be the opening, can be the beginning of you sort of, oh, I'm not so alone. So this listening to other people, even if you never share in the first few circles, can be the medicine you need. And so you that's what I'm hearing you say, and I and I've observed it.

I think you're absolutely right. You just need permission to know this is something we can do. And then oftentimes also, oh, you felt that too? Right. I've been feeling that, but I've been over here thinking I'm the only one.

Right. And then you're like, oh, no. You and you and oh, okay. We have more in common than I thought.

Right. Especially when if we go back to one of the examples you gave of this time where doctors wouldn't even work with many people with HIV and AIDS. And it's like when you don't feel seen by people that are supposed to be there to take care of you, The importance of gatherings like this, of places where you can bring your fullness to be seen, to be heard, can be lifesaving. And I think we see that work today of the feeling that you get just by coming and participating, by listening, by being in that environment where you can bring your fullness, where you can bring all of your authenticity to one place, even if it's for just a couple minutes.

And it goes you know, and you too as facilitators are also very much a part of the group too, and I think that's a very radical fairy thing that there's no real leader or somebody telling you this is the way or these are the rules, but you you facilitate to move the circle and allow it, all these things to happen. But

That's really that's a really big part of my teacher's lineage, and which is partly why I was so excited to have Eric join as a facilitator because that's exactly right. There there there isn't meant to be a hierarchy. But now when someone's facilitating, they're creating a structure, and so that that exists. But, the power of being able to one day be leading and then the next week sit down and be led because it isn't about any one person. It's about us.

Right. And I think that's so powerful. Like, the circle doesn't belong to one person. It belongs to everyone who wants to come to it. Yeah.

There's real power in that.

Absolutely. I started the circles off. I have a little message that I say about we sit in a circle because in a circle, we all can be seen and heard equally. If we are equidistanced from the center, all of us are on a spoke. Right?

That that creates that that equality, that equilibrium within the the space.

Can can I jump in for I I I'm curious because I remember when I was a young boy, in the eighties, you know, outside of Pittsburgh, and there the this image of gay people, and the way that my family would talk about it, you know, they had all these different things. And one of the things was about, like, how flamboyant and, like, over the top. And, of course, the only picture you would ever see if you were me or you know, was, like, that one picture from the pride parade. You know? But now as I'm talking to you and I understand more about radical fairy culture and all this, I wonder if part of it was, especially at that time, needing a place where you could be so unapologetically authentic because so many other places you were either forced or being asked to suppress either parts or all of you.

Can you speak to a little bit about, like, the importance of that, like, full unapologetic expression, especially with regards to healing?

Yeah. I mean, you know, when I went to the the first radical very spiritual gathering, and again, it was Beltane, so there were a lot of people there, you walk in. It's a little like opening the gates to the Land Of Oz. I was completely unprepared, and there were probably half a dozen people at the entrance gate. They were just, you know, dressed like they had just stepped out of Cirque du Soleil.

I mean, they were wearing whatever they wanted, and I could look in the distance and see people wearing nothing. And and every single one of them, as we entered, just said, welcome home. Oh. And it was really you know, it was like, okay. And it was, you know, I think, again, when you you, you strip away all of the the the roles that all of the people inside you, you know, you shed all of these lives, you go and, you know, at the at the fairy sanctuaries, many people are create a new name or, you know, you nobody really cared about what I did professionally, but people really cared about how I was feeling and how I was coping.

And, again, every day begins with a heart circle, and that's how you got to know people. I a couple years ago, there's sort of this offshoot of a a workshop that, radical fairies have been doing since Harry Hay for forty years called sex magic, and it, for gay men, you know, that's like, wow. This sounds like fun. And, so I did a sex magic workshop in Spain with 15 we went to the woods for ten days with a dozen 15, you know, gay men from all around the world, Germany, Holland, Sri Lanka, Israel, United Kingdom. I was the only person actually there from The US, and, every day began with with, heart circles.

And, you know, I had all I realized then I had I was making all these judgments about people in the group or assumptions about who they were and what they felt. I was really and by day three and, you know, these sort of this kind of sharing and talking, I realized I don't know anything about anybody. And, Jonathan, what you know, shut up. Just listen. Let other people be, and, maybe you'll really learn something.

And so by the end of the workshop, I I like to say that there was a lot of magic for me, but there was no sex at all. But the magic but, you know, when I held hands at the very end with these 15 people, it was, for me, like, the best sex I've ever had because it was the most intimate I had ever been with a group of people about being a gay man. And and and all the struggles we've had in coming out, and, you know, and my story was repeated in a rhyme form with everybody in the room. We all we all feel often very much the same way, all although, you know, our our roots getting there, you know, comes from different places.

I love that story so much because there is such an intimacy when we stop trying to figure out who a person is. Right. And we get curious about how they're doing. And by sharing stories of our coming out, of our vulnerabilities, of our vulnerable moments, even in the present moment of how we are or how we were in that, we really get to see people. We really get to experience them.

And it's moving beyond the who are you, what do you do, to how are you.

Right. And I find with your group too, I mean, P Town's a small town, and I live here full time. And I might not, you know, know everybody, but I certainly see people all the time. And there are a number of people that have come in and out of your group that I have seen, talked to, said hi to, or or maybe not. And how powerful that's been to just say, wow.

They are. There's a lot. You know? If I open up my heart, you know, I can really get to know somebody, and, it's been really, really beautiful to get to know other people in this town in a very different way, you know, than I don't go to the clubs anymore, but, you know, it is it's really been a beautiful way as well as also learning and reminding myself, you know, when all else fails and all else fails a lot, the power we have in our own breath, and we can't you know, we have no control of another person, place, or thing, but we have control of our own attitudes and our own behavior and what we say and the words we use. And I find that your group, helps ground people in creating that kind of language and that kind of vocabulary, which is not natural for most of us on a you know, we're not living all the time in a fairy sanctuary or going to, you know, groups all the time like this.

Well, I'd like to ask you, what I've noticed in the group over the, what, two now maybe two and a half years ish that it's been happening is that the men who are coming are are wanting something a little different. And it feels like there are a lot of people, I'll speak for myself, but I think a lot of people have voiced to me sometimes feeling overwhelmed with the expectation of a queer person or more specifically maybe a gay man. Right? And that the places we're meant to go, you know, we we have tea dances and and dance parties and clubs. And and can you speak a little bit about how these circles can help create a necessary balance?

Because it isn't really about getting rid of anything, but it's about having the opportunity for many things, it seems to me. How do you feel about that?

Well, you know, I think you're totally accurate, and I think, you know, it again, it's it we all want love, boyfriends, and we all want friends, people in our lives, and, you know, this is a way to really begin to cut through, I think, a lot of superficial stuff. You know? It's not a club. It's not a a dance party or or or some event, but you're really mindfully making a decision to, you know, find a place of of peace and serenity and whatever courage it takes to come to a group. You know?

I feel like a newcomer with whatever group I'm in. Even though I've been to your groups a number of times, I feel like every time I come, it's a new day. We're sitting in different places, and that I, you know, I don't feel any more confident than anybody else in the room whether somebody's coming for the first time or has come to every one of your groups. So I think there's this real beauty of creating a platform that we're all equal. And I think for me, that's the difference between some of the, you know, other ways we interact to try and get to know people, and, you know, it's it's not artificial.

I mean, this is the way we have told stories since the beginning of time. You know,

humans have been gathering in circles for a very long time. And Right. The the the main difference what I'm hearing you say and what I've experienced is the intentionality of the space. Right. You said earlier that through ritual, we create magical spaces.

Mhmm.

And that's what we do. And this is not a slam at the clubs because they do serve a purpose, a time, and a place. There is very little ritual around many of those spaces. There's very little conscious intention behind those spaces. So being able to be in space that was ritualistically, intentionally set so that the magic of being together can really blossom to say, hey, we're gathering today.

And I've met left many clubs and many events not feeling really good about myself or feeling kind of more lonely than when I got there or feeling just kinda tired. But, you know, when you choose to go to a group like this, there has never really been a time where I haven't you know, a secret shared is a secret cut in half, and at least. And I think

I love that.

I I think that, you know, again, we're we're all equals. I've had this whole life experience and, you know, different from other people's, but it it's all you know, history doesn't repeat itself. It only rhymes, and I think I really see that in all of us.

Well, you know, my teachers would say, like, ritual and ceremony, is important because things are important when we say so.

Right.

And so when I was doing my Jeeva Mukti yoga teacher training, I've mentioned this many times, the 14 points. And so these 14 things you have to include in order for it to be an open class. And when we first learned it, some of the people were like, well, isn't that gonna be confining? Isn't that and then what we discovered was it allowed that structure allowed for unbelievable creativity and almost like infinite possibility. And so I wanna draw this back now to a few years ago shortly after the embodiment circle had started, I ran a conscious connection workshop that was it was it was gonna include nudity, and it was like, it wasn't marketed specifically for for only queer men, but it was a men's, you know, workshop.

But there were some parameters around it. And one of the parameters was like, there's not gonna be any sexual activity in this workshop even though there will be nudity. And the and the the response that we got, the men were so one one man said it restored his faith in humanity. It a lot but so in some moment, I feel like, oh, you got to relax in some way. You didn't you didn't have to worry about whether or not you had to, like, perform in a particular way because the structure allowed you to not do that.

And so then it all became about intimacy, which is why I bring it up because you mentioned earlier the importance of intimacy. And I think it's so important for us to understand that there are so many kinds of intimacy, so many valuable healing things that can be intimate that aren't necessarily sexual, even though sex can obviously be intimate, and that's important. So we're not saying no. Actually, I'm saying more, please. But but but but but and can I sit and stare at you in the eye as a friend?

Can I can I connect with you in all these other ways also, like, in addition to it? So Right. Like, can can you speak to that a little bit?

Well, I mean, again, it's it's when you create the container for subject subject, and, you know, you just you you, you know, can you you develop you it's a quantum leap in in in not only your development, your openness, but really your friendship with other people too and how, you know, I think how you you The way that you engage. The way that you engage. Right.

When we move from subject to object, if I'm just looking at you as an object of which something I can get something from you, whether that is a favor or sex or money or job, whatever it might be, and I start looking at you as a human being and as a subject, that engagement automatically shifts. And when we create these magical containers in which we can bring people into that manner of engagement, that's where the intimacy starts to

happen. And I would like to bring in a lot of compassion because and I know that I know that it's there, this idea of, you know, if I look at someone as an object, well, I might be doing that because I've grown up being modeled that. People have been looking at me as an object. And it really becomes this sort of reframe of how we think about the world we live in and the people and our connections. So for the people who might be in subject object manner of engagement, it may not be because they're some diabolical person stroking their fluffy cat.

They'd be like, oh, you may not have known that there's this is even possible.

Right?

And so one of the things one of the reasons this podcast exists and why we do the circle is to help people, oh, there are other ways of engaging. And so just a lot of compassion there because, you know, when I think about when I think about the work I'm doing now and some of the stuff that's been in my life now and my, you know, growing up in Pittsburgh in the eighties and nineties, like, everything I'm doing now, my family would have thought was the weirdest, craziest stuff. I needed people to introduce me. I mean, I'm an acupuncturist. And in Pittsburgh, that would that would have sounded like lunacy.

You're gonna put needles in you, and I needed people to that I trusted. So it was a long process. So for people, it's like, it isn't gonna be a light switch where suddenly everything changes, but come try. Feel give things a shot. Talk to people.

Hear their experience because people are getting benefit from it. People are finding ease, finding depth, finding connection, and how unbelievably valuable that is. I mean, I'm thinking about I remember meeting you at the brewery. Right. Right.

And I don't know. That was, what, a year and a half ago maybe? And how much I value the depth that we've been able to create over that period of time, you know, much in the last few months, but that is really valuable to me. Lots of people can have that if they know that there's permission and that there's there are places and ways.

And yes. And especially in circle work, it's very active to just be a listener, and that's also very hard for me because, oh, I've got so many stories, and, oh, I can tell you all the all the

things really fun stories. Shoulda,

woulda, coulda, you shoulda done with your life and how to make things better and just to shut up and just to listen. There's a there's a 12 step acronym called wait. Why am I talking? Or waste. Why am I still talking?

And so for me, it's it's really, I mean, I can get on the phone and just blab to anybody about what's going on, but for me to just really, really actively be a witness to to other people's journey, whatever way, shape, or form they take it, and it's it's very, very powerful.

And It's not just the facilitators who are actively engaged in creating the space. It's all the participants. If everyone joins in with that same mindset, the power of that container is incredible. It is so potent when everyone comes in with that of like, Oh, let me participate by listening. Let me participate by witnessing.

Right.

And listening and witnessing from so many levels. So in the embodiment work, having like, listening with our full body. How how does it feel to stand in front of this person? Like, what am I feeling in my body? What am I sensing?

Not just necessarily their words, although there's opportunity for that too. And this brings me back to this image of the radical fairies and I think some of, like, the work that they're doing and the importance because we can listen to a person's expression when we allow them the opportunity to dress and express the way they want to and and and how powerful that can be. And I'm thinking I've never been to a radical fairy gathering yet, although I did get my first invite, and so I'm excited. I'm excited. But prior to that, like, here in Provincetown, I have had powerful experiences during carnival when I've been really involved in creating whatever the thing is I wanna create.

And I realized later, oh, it's because I was able to bring an expression that mattered to me, and then I felt seen in that expression. There was power there. And so it sounds like the radical fairies are creating that opportunity. Am I hearing you right about that?

Oh, And you go to a gathering and, you know, you go to a lot of workshops in your life and and, you know, or conferences, and every hour, there's a different speaker or a different group that you can go to. Well, there's a lot that goes on at the spiritual gatherings of radical fairies, but there's nobody really in charge. So if people wanna do a group, they just write it on a board, and there'll be a yoga group or there'll be a group for, you know, people dealing you know, gay gay men who's who've survived cancer or or or just heart circles. You know? The the when you finish a sex magic workshop, and it's really the most beautiful, beautiful gay term, and I I love it.

But when you finish it, you become and it's a phrase that Harry Hay coined. You become part of a circle of loving companions. And you are also creating your own circle of loving companions. It's not the same intensity and all of that other work that goes in, but it doesn't matter because it it it launches people to discover all the other things they wanna wanna do and can do. And there's you know?

My teacher would delight in hearing you say that because I I believe it's true. I believe all the all the circles that I've been a part of, the ones that I've created and the ones that I've participated in, have been that, and how beautiful that is.

Right. Thank you for that. Circles of loving companions. And it's a really, to me, a really beautiful way of just describing gay relationships, and what Harry Hay said was we should not model our relationships after heterosexuals. We should create our own language and just keep them ethical.

So this is why this is why I'm so glad you brought that up because, I have been honored by my teacher to run my first MWI program in in the embodied masculine method, and I'm gonna do it for for queer men. And some people have asked about why. And and I and I do believe that there are aspects of our experience that are different. And not that they can't be shared or, like, understood, but there is power in the in the possibility of relating in a way that is more truly authentic. And I feel like that's what I'm hearing.

So it it isn't necessarily about separate, but it's about a foundation and possibility for our fullest authenticity.

And also a beautiful word because I was a philosophy major in in my undergraduate work, and, really, it every philosopher is really about how how to become the most authentic person you can be, and I think, you know, that is the journey. That is really the journey, and you you know, I'm just really grateful to live in a town that isn't just a resort town, but, you know, it has this real depth to it too. And it can be superficial, but but I think there are plenty of ways that we can create, and you have created, and others are creating these really, really beautiful ritual spaces for people to come together. And, you know, we went to this beautiful moonlight Beltane on the beach bonfire last night, and probably, you know, 30 people were there, and people dressed however they wanted to dress and put on hats or whatever they want, and it was, you know, really, really magical. And we created a magic space and a sort of fire bonfire facilitator, you know, led us in a way of really just thinking about where we were and why we're together.

And even you know, it can be done in really beautiful ways as well, and and we live in an environment that, you know, everything is moving here. The wind moves. The leaves move. The birds move. People are up and down the street on bicycles.

The land is literally moving. The land is always moving, and it's so stimulating, and it's so exciting. People often ask me, you know, oh, aren't you, like, how can you live there off season? I'm like, this is baby. You know?

I am never bored, and I'm never lonely, though I'm often alone, and, you know, I'm I I'm often doing the same kind of things I do every day, walk my dog and go swimming and ride my bike and call people. And but I I find that, just to be a part of this land is is really special. The fairy sanctuaries are very special land places too. They have been been created through blood, sweat, and tears, and, you know, I I don't even know how how you can do that, how how how we've been able to do that. But

I wanna have a little bit of a appreciation. Last night at this Beltane bonfire, which was really beautiful, I was reminded of the variety of people that exist in our community here in Provincetown and some of their traditions. So Tangle calls in the four directions differently than I do and my teacher does, but it was powerful and magical and so how wonderful that was. But also the creation of a lineage. And we started this conversation by talking about the HIVAIDS epidemic, and we think about all of the people that we lost, all of the people that would now be in the place of wisdom keeper, storyteller, mentor, all of that.

And so we are in a moment now where we could start to rebuild and recreate that. And it is of such importance, so valuable. I feel very fortunate that I had some men in my life, some older men who really taught me things that I needed to know without whom I would not have not have come to understand it. And as we build the circle, as we build this community, as we build the podcast, that the intention is to have this as a resource because because we need it. And we need to recognize some of the things that we have today, like prep, for example, came because of so much hard work and sacrifice and loss and death.

And we need to honor that in the same way that we honored the first people in the Beltane bonfire. And and then we need to build that and and and value it, cherish it, and bring it. So thank you so much for coming with your stories because this is part of that process as far as I can see. And that's how it feels to me.

Well, thank you, Tim. I mean, you know, there was a beautiful poet, Paul Minette, who who died of AIDS, and he once said that that losing all the lovers and friends and people to AIDS was like tossing handfuls of diamonds into the wild surf. And I feel like what you all are doing is sort of finding those diamonds again. I, you know, I mean, I am very aware that I am now twice as old as so many people I loved, and how I've gotten to travel around the world and did my professional thing, and even adopted a kid, and how I've, you know, had these beautiful bonfires and made friends and had lovers and made mistakes and really gotten to live, and how gypped all these people were on that, except what they left behind is, you know, everything in my heart. It's indelible as a fingerprint, and I think, you know, what you're doing is exactly, you know, what they would want.

Really. It's really, you know their death is not in vain because of the work that, you know, you continue to do and to bring people together, and, you know, we don't have to wait for a COVID crisis or AIDS crisis to, you know, be in a circle and hold hands or or or learn how to relax and breathe. And I think, you know, this is our watch. You know? We deal with planet Earth experiences, whatever happens on our watch, and I had some pretty crappy things just unbelievably, you know, tumultuous and and heartbreaking.

And and and, you know, I built victory programs from that, and, and it's, you know, still going today, and thousands of people go through it. And, you know, I you know, it's their journey. I just I just did the bricks and mortar, but people come. If you build it, they will come, and what you're doing is building it. And people are coming because there's hunger, or I really believe a hunger for the kind of intimacy, the kind of caring, and the kind of ways of just learning how to cope and not having to do it alone.

Well, it's the mission it's my mission and I think our shared mission and the mission of this podcast to continue to sharpen what we bring to to be able to expand it so that as many people that want it and can benefit from it have it available to them. And so there's this very particular way because you've been teaching us so beautifully today. A very particular way in the yoga tradition that I am been taught to honor teachers, and that is thank you for teaching me. Please stay in my life. So let it be on the record now.

If you are open to continuing to help us understand and share this with the world, it would be a huge honor.

And we'll have a lot of fun doing it because if you don't have a sense of humor, you know, you gotta do all this with a little sense of humor. That's absolutely right. That's absolutely right. Oh.

This is a beautiful episode of conversation experience today. Be able to sit and hear these tales, to be able to explore this topic, to take a moment from Tango last night, bloom, baby bloom. Yeah. Bring your

baby bloom, baby bloom.

Like truly sitting here and witnessing authenticity and being in a circle of men, of loving companions. That's what we are today and that's what we'll continue to be. And we're gonna keep finding those diamonds. Yeah. And we're gonna keep polishing them up so that they can shine bright for years and generations to come.

Yeah. We like things that sparkle.

Hell yes. We do. We're all little magpies at heart.

Thank you. I'm feeling very complete. How are you, Tim?

Thank you. I feel complete. And Jonathan? Well, I feel complete.

Thank you.

Tim, will you take us out, please?

I will. So let's close

our eyes and take an inhale through the nose and a soft exhale through the mouth. And it is with the deepest appreciation and gratitude for any insights, awarenesses, understandings that we may have gained in today's sacred circle that we now release the archetypes and the spirits. And it is with these words that our container is open but not broken.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Oh.