THE RADICAL FAERIE AND THE NONDUALIST
Joe Perez is a spiritual philosopher, writer, and teacher of the Unitive Way, a contemplative path integrating nondual spirituality, queer mysticism, and integral philosophy. He is the author of Soulfully Gay and Nondual Recovery, and his work explores how gay love and eros can serve as divine metaphors for spiritual wholeness.
Orion Starfire is a composite character inspired by Radical Faerie elders, queer theorists, and ritualists. A long-time community builder, Orion blends pagan spirituality, queer ecstasy, and anarchist critique into a living tradition of embodied resistance and joyful disruption. They are known for their glitter-drenched wisdom and fierce heart-centered activism.
The following dialogue takes place at a Radical Faerie sanctuary, in a forest clearing after a shared ritual. Candles flicker in a circle of stones. Joe and Orion sit on a log, sipping herbal tea. The air is charged with stillness.
Orion Starfire:
Joe, thank you for staying after. I’ve wanted to ask you something ever since your talk at the circle. You said gay love is a divine metaphor, pointing us toward nonduality. Beautiful words. But I wonder—why use philosophy to approach what we Faeries know through our bones and our orgasms?
Joe Perez:
(Laughs gently) That’s a fair question. For me, philosophy isn’t separate from the body—it’s a way of honoring experience by giving it a frame wide enough to hold the paradox. When I speak of divine metaphor, I’m naming the sacred pattern in our lives. I’m not trying to replace the body—I’m trying to help it sing in tune with the cosmos.
Orion:
Mmm. We Faeries might say the cosmos is already singing, and our job is to remember the melody by dancing it—through drag, ritual, play. We trust the wild magic that erupts in community, in the tears and cackles and glitter. That’s our theology.
Joe:
Yes, and it’s a theology I admire. But sometimes wildness isn’t enough. Many of us carry wounds that wildness alone cannot heal. I work with polarity—addiction and avoidance, ascending and descending, sameness and difference—to guide people back into wholeness. That includes dancing, yes, but also deep silence. Even the pain we fear most is a portal.
Orion:
But do you ever worry that by framing queerness in terms of spiritual integration, you dull its disruptive edge? We Faeries exist to disrupt society—to expose its hypocrisies, to play with its gender norms, to resist the bourgeois fantasy of gay people as just “normal citizens with better furniture.” Hell, many of us opposed the gay marriage movement for that very reason. We saw it as mimicry. Assimilation. A narrowing of queer freedom into heterosexual form.
Joe:
I hear that. And I’ve known Faeries who burned their marriage licenses in ritual protest—and others who officiated gay weddings in lavender robes. Personally, I don’t see same-sex marriage as a threat to queer spirit. I supported the fight for marriage equality, and I still do. For many, it was about basic dignity, legal rights, and being seen.
To me, the right to marry doesn’t imply an obligation to imitate. It means we are free—to marry if we choose, or to reject it. To disrupt softly and quietly and subtly… or disrupt boldly and loudly by walking away from it. Freedom means freedom on every octave.
Orion:
But isn’t marriage still a tool of the state? Of property? Of patriarchy?
Joe:
Sure. And so is language, and yet here we are using it to seek truth. I don’t think institutions are inherently deadening. They’re vessels. What matters is the spirit we pour into them. For some, queer marriage becomes a radical act of love—of showing up for another soul, not because the world told them to, but because the soul chose it.
Orion:
You’re saying disruption can come in the form of… fidelity?
Joe:
Exactly. Sometimes the most radical disruption is not flamboyant—it’s a quiet refusal to abandon your own heart. Or your lover. Or your dharma.
Orion:
(Sits back, thoughtful) Huh. It’s not the answer I expected, but maybe it’s what I needed to hear. Still, I wonder if it’s enough. Is personal peace really revolution?
Joe:
That depends on what we mean by revolution. The Unitive Way isn’t about retreating from the world—it’s about transforming it from the inside out. The deepest disruption we can offer this world is to realize who we truly are: not just queer, not just wounded, not just political… but Spirit itself. Awake. Loving. Free.
Orion:
(Softer now) That’s… a different kind of Faerie fire.
Joe:
And it burns just as bright.
