Samhain Spiral Dance
Saturday, Nov. 5, 5:30 – 10 p.m.
Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church
3215 Powder Mill Road, Adelphi, MD
Tickets: $10 in advance, $15 at the door www.spiralheart.org
Leather Sabbat
Saturday, Oct. 29, 9 p.m.
D.C. Eagle
639 New York Ave., NW www.dceagle.com
Party at the Jefferson Memorial
Friday, Oct. 28, 8 p.m. – 12 a.m. www.openhearth.org
A PAGAN DICTIONARY
Pagan - According to Shea Thomas, chair of the board of directors for the Open Hearth Foundation, “Pagan relates to a family of [religious] paths that are earth-centered, including Wiccans, Druids, Asatru [think Vikings], Santerian - a whole spectrum of paths.”
Samhain - Pronounced “sow-in”, is the Celtic word for Halloween, and the celebration on which the American holiday is based. Many pagan traditions view this as one of the high holy days where celebrants usher out the old year and welcome the new. Most groups also pay homage to their ancestors by inviting them to the party and creating altars in their honor.
Ritual - No, there are no sacrificed chickens or infants among these groups. Many pagan rituals follow a standard order that includes, but is by no means limited to, gathering in a circle, creating sacred space by honoring the natural world, calling on divinity and ancestors, meditating and lots of singing, dancing, and wild drumming.
Gay acceptance - All of the groups profiled for this article are welcoming of queer people. Many pre-Christian indigenous cultures revered same-gender loving folks as sacred necessities for the health of a community.
HALLOWEEN IS LIKE gay Christmas, and once again the holiday season is upon us. D.C.’s annual Halloween events, like the Miss Adams Morgan Pageant and the High Heel Race, ushered in a weekend full of drag queens, leather extravaganzas, and devilish dance club madness that is often the party of year.
If you’re too old for trick-or-treating and tired of the same old masquerade balls, you might want to consider some of the other options in town.
Halloween can be a time of intense spiritual revelation, charity work and craft making. If you’re looking to do something different this year, here are a handful of options that are beyond the typical gay celebrations.
Radically fabulous
Plenty of gay men have been called “fairies” in their lives, but among the D.C. Radical Faeries, this word is a revered title.
Started in the 1970s by gay civil rights pioneer Harry Hay and a collective of queer men, the Radical Faeries is a national, earth-based spiritualist group committed to exploring queer spirituality.
“It’s somewhat difficult to be queer in this city,” says “Eldritch,” 44, one of the D.C. chapter’s long-standing members who defines queer as being unafraid to cross and transcend societal boundaries and constructs, especially in terms of gender roles and sexuality.
“The city puts a high priority on being respectable homosexuals, but it’s perfectly okay to be queer, too. We try to nurture each other’s essential fabulosity.”
This year, the D.C. Radical Faeries are holding a Samhain (pronounced like “sow-in”) celebration on Friday, Oct. 28, at a private residence in Takoma Park, Md.
Samhain is the tradition pagan celebration of the new year that eventually spawned the (barely) Christianized Halloween holiday.
“We’ll be looking at those past people who have influenced us as queer people,” says “Fritter,” 29, one of the ritual leaders for the Halloween event. It’s customary for Radical Faeries to take on or be given an alternative name that mixes mirth, reverence and a new identity.
“We’ll honor the past by naming the names of those who influenced us. For the present, we’ll dance around together, honoring ourselves as living beings. For the future part of the ritual, we’ll be thinking and dreaming together, opening our vision of what we could be as queer people in the future,” he says.
The evening will feature music, channeling the dead and feasting. Last year, 30 to 40 people arrived, and the group expects a similar number this year. Attendees can dress as they please, from drag to prep, and it’s polite, but not required, to bring some type of food dish.
Season of the witch
As usual, this Oct. 31 there will be kids dressed up as witches, but what about spending time with some real practitioners of the ancient art of witchcraft?
Spiral Heart is a non-profit corporation that was established to educate and train people in the “Reclaiming Tradition” of witchcraft. The group holds an annual Spiral Dance ritual to honor Halloween.
The Reclaiming Tradition grew out of a teaching coven in San Francisco, the most famous member being Starhawk, author of “The Spiral Dance” and other novels about following an earth-based spiritual path.
Evelyn Wright, a 34-year-old bisexual, describes the Reclaiming Tradition as, “believing very seriously that divinity is inherent in all things, inherent in the earth and its people,” she says.
“The sacred world is here and now. It’s a tradition that focuses very much on liberation and healing on the individual and societal levels,” she says.
The evening will start off with the creation of sacred space, welcoming earth, air, firez and water, plus the ancestors and divinity. This will be followed by a trance journey (similar to guided meditation) to speak with the ancestors, and the evening culminates in the spiral dance, where attendees hold hands in a line and form a spiral.
“The Spiral Dance is a ritual that honors our ancestors and gives people an opportunity to celebrate their lives,” says Wright.
Attendees are welcome to participate in the ritual’s singing, dancing and trance journeys to the extent they feel comfortable. No one’s hand is forced, and they won’t put a spell on you if you don’t join in.
The Samhain Spiral Dance regularly attracts about 100 people, and the community is open to all forms of diversity in sexual orientation. The mode of dress is everything from everyday street clothes to Renaissance fabulous and punk trash.
Leather up
For the last 30 years, the D.C. Eagle, the city’s stalwart leather bar, has been holding its Leather Sabbat at Halloween time. In conjunction with local leather clubs from the D.C. and Baltimore areas, the Eagle holds an epic party focused on raising funds for the hosting clubs.
“The clubs are all-volunteer organizations, raising money for gay charities and AIDS organizations,” says Bill Cappello, one of the bar’s owners.
Averaging between 600-700 people a year, the event fills the coffers of the clubs who have representatives at the front door handing out Halloween goodies and asking for donations. There is no cover charge for the evening’s festivities.
The Leather Sabbat is not a pagan event, but donating to a good cause on Halloween is nothing new to the holiday’s history. During the Middle Ages, beggars and children in Europe went door-to-door asking for “soul cakes” from homeowners, and it was considered bad luck to be uncharitable.
All those looking for both tricks and treats would be wise to remember that.
Many bars in town will hold a costume contest, but no one does it quite like the Eagle. Categories such as best leather, best uniform, and best original costume are all part of the fun, and the winners receive cash prizes.
The second floor of The Eagle opens at 9 p.m., and by 10 p.m. the party really gets rolling.
As for recommended attire, Cappello says, “It’s the one night where you can let it all hang out. It’s one of the times when leather guys can get together and show themselves off.” Expect chaps, armbands, harnesses and, of course, leather galore.
Party with Jefferson
The Open Hearth Foundation is a non-profit pagan organization founded in 1999 for the purpose of creating a pagan community center in the D.C. area. The foundation sponsors Pagan Pride Day held in September, a Samhain drumming extravaganza and a large masquerade ball in conjunction with May Day.
For the last nine years, the organization has staged a yearly drumming and dancing ritual at the Jefferson Memorial for Halloween. People bring their drums, warm clothes and high spirits for a night of dancing and revelry.
The evening primarily consists of community drumming and dancing where everyone can get their primal groove on and party to the witching hour. Last year, nearly 150 people came out to feel the rhythm.
“Having a ritual at the Jefferson memorial, dedicated to one of the principle architects of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, acknowledges the religious freedoms we enjoy,” says Shea Thomas, a 38-year-old straight man involved with Open Hearth.
This year’s drumming event is partially led by Tigre, a well-known gay drummer in the D.C. metro area.
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