Communing with Queer Ancestors

How do you commune with our queer ancestors?

​"These dead are hungry. Fuck, dance, run, kiss, steal, eat decadently, sing, destroy, create. The energy of life, ecstatic life, draws them close, nourishes.

Let your kissing, dancing, fucking, creating, destroying move you into trance.

Give them space and adorn it lavishly. Speak to them there, where they are comfortable and at home.

The dead, and especially the queer dead, are unorganized, chaotic. Don't expect organization. Instead find nodes, affines, contact among them. They'll coordinate amongst themselves.

Learn their names, all their names, the secret ones too. All the better to call them by.

Research obsessively, research frantically, research ecstatically.

Study their codes, commit yourself to the argot, the signs, open yourself up to veiled messages.

Pay attention to subtle omens—on the radio, in thrift stores, bookstores, passing conversations—they work through synchronicity.

There is no such thing as a coincidence.

Pay especial attention to outcasts, ranters, mad-ones, drunks.

Experiment with divinatory modes: practice bibliomancy, pay attention to birds, scry in wine, quiet your mind.

Alter your state of consciousness with drugs, with fasting, with dance, with chant.
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Hold vigils, visit memorials, pour libations, light candles..."

These are just some of the many suggestions and directions in First Protocols of Queer Goetia, a small zine I found at The Scarlet Sage in San Francisco. It has no attributed author; rather, it reads as if it has been authored by our honored queer dead. You can order your own copy of First Protocols of Queer Goetia from Contagion Press.

I hope today and every day you find ways to honor the ancestors who came before us, who lived in ways that made it possible for us to live our lives in freedom and struggle.