Calling the Queer Corners by Oshee Eagleheart
T
his piece has been germinating for about sixteen years—as long as I’ve been calling myself transgender—maybe even longer. I trace the idea back to a conversation with my friend Zot1, the first person I knew who was openly trans. Ze was telling me about a maypole rite (like Beltaine at the Mountain, but led by straight/cis people), at which the queer people present were looking for ways to participate without having to choose between going with the men to cut the pole or with the women to dig the hole. They ended up playing the role of communicators between the two groups, dancing around and exhorting the men to “raise it higher!” and the women to “dig it deeper!” In another conversation with Zot, years later, ze shared hir experience of a ritual at witch camp in which ze assigned hirself the role of sweeping unwanted energies out through the corners of the space, in between the cardinal directions, and spoke of how natural that felt to hir. That was the key for me: “in between the cardinal directions”! It explained why I’d always loved the cross-quarter-day festivals, the ones that are celebrated at the points midway between the solstices and equinoxes. Radical Faeries love to gather to celebrate the cross-quarter days, and often use the traditional Celtic names for those four turning points of the wheel of the year: Samhain (aka Halloween, pronounced sah-wen), Imbolc (aka Brigid, Groundhog Day), Beltaine (Mayday), and Lughnasadh (pronounced loo-na-sah, and also called Lammas). These four Fire festivals are celebrated around the beginnings of November, February, May, and August. If you picture the year as a wheel, with Winter Solstice in the North, Spring Equinox in the East, Summer Solstice in the South, and Fall Equinox in the West; then Samhain is in the NorthWest, Imbolc in the NorthEast, Beltaine in the SouthEast, and Lughnasadh in the SouthWest. In many Earth-centered traditions, each of the four elements is associated with one of the cardinal directions, with some variation depending on tradition and geographic location. For me, Earth is in the North, Air in the East, Fire in the South, and Water in the West. My wonderings about what elements would be associated with the in-between directions led me to these, the ones I now call the Queer Cor-
ners: NorthWest is between Water and Earth, which mix together to make Mud; NorthEast is between Earth and Air, which combine as Dust; SouthEast is between Air and Fire, which interact to make Smoke; and SouthWest is between Fire and Water, which together generate Steam. So, the in-between elements are Mud, Dust, Smoke, and Steam, ingredients that are so often essential to working the most powerful magic in fairytales the world over. What about the other in-betweens, the ones in the Center that don’t correspond to any particular direction? Well, between Air in the East and Water in the West are Mist and Fog; and between Earth in the North and fire in the South are Lava and Magma. And between Heaven and Earth—between Above and Below, between Mist and Magma—is where we humans stand on our two legs. We are in-between beings, channels and conduits of all the forces of Nature, bridges between the worlds.
In addition to the elements and seasons, the wheel of the year—or medicine wheel—represents and embodies every stage and aspect of life. For example, the in-between stages of life, the times of the most intense growth and transformation,
Left: “The Crone” by @hommage_aux_femmes, extract of the ritual : “The Lone Wolf ” Above: “What a Queer Medicine Wheel Might Look Like,” illustration by the author.
RFD 180 Winter 2019 15
