The Ritual of Pride
Across time and culture we find examples of annual rituals - rites, festivals, feasts - that serve as anchors for community. These rituals might ensure a good harvest for the year, continued protection of the village, or ensure a peaceful afterlife for the dead. One of the most important aspects of these rituals is that they are done together by the whole community. There may be appointed leaders, spiritual or otherwise, who orchestrate or oversee the successful implementation of the magic, but every member of the community has a part to play.
I believe Pride Month, and the associated celebrations, are just such a ritual.
Instead of making offers to the land to ensure an abundance of grain we are instead planting seeds of hope to sustain us through the next year. We celebrate our continued survival in the face of systems and ideologies that would seek to erase and destroy us, and mourn those we have lost to violence and oppression. We lift up our dead in prayer, song, dance, sex, and celebration to ensure their stories carry on.
Pride is a ritual where we honor our Drag Mothers and Leather Daddies, past and present. Where they bestow their blessings and protection and joy on those of us who have come to celebrate under their tutelage and watchful eye.
Pride is a ritual marking the passage of time in our lives and the shared life of our community. Our first Pride is a rite of passage. Pride in the midst of tragedy is an act of defiance and resilience. The first Pride celebration in a town, no matter how small, is the first bloom in a field we continually tend. The first Pride you attend with a partner or spouse. The first Pride you attend where you realize how much you’ve aged and smile at the younger generations now filling the streets. The first Pride where you feel the absence of someone lost over the last year.
Pride is a ritual of ecstatic grief. Where we expel the demons of shame, insecurity, loneliness, homophobia and transphobia through dance, yelling, physical touch ranging from hugs and group selfies to handjobs and group sex. We shed the self-hate that others demand we carry and instead exalt in our queerness, our love, and our community. We hand the pain we’ve gathered over the year to the DJ and receive in return release through trance beats and Diana Ross.
Pride is a ritual of abundance. The world tries to tell us our lives are devoid of real meaning, so we gather together to show them how much our cup overflows with found family and rainbows and art and sacred love. In a world that increasingly tries to put us back in the closet, Pride is a wellspring of connections that beget more connections, building a web of support to carry us through another year.
Pride is a necromantic ritual of communion and remembrance. It is where we Say Their Names. It is where we grieve for those taken from us too soon, and invoke their spirit in the pursuit of justice. It is where we share our stories and our histories to ensure that what is remembered continues to live. It is where we dance for those who can no longer dance, and march with those who marched before us. Pride is a vigil for those we have lost and those who we will lose in the coming year.
Pride is a sacred space. I was taught that the sacred space created during ritual exists outside of time and space, that it is liminal and that is part of what makes the actions we take in that space so powerful. Wherever and whenever it takes place, Pride celebrations are all connected.
We all have our own part in the ritual of Pride and each is important in its own way. You may provide financial or material support. You may help plan events. You might host small gatherings or serve as the designated driver for your group of friends. You might march. You might stay out all night. You might express yourself in the bodies of strangers or with longtime partners.
You may still be in the closet and find strength in knowing there is a community waiting for you when you are ready to come out.
Every year we gather for reasons to innumerable to count, but what is important is that we gather. We continue the ancient practice of marking the end of one cycle and performing the necessary rites to prepare for the next.
Happy Pride.
