Queer Ecological Reverence: Exploring Our Devotional Relations with the Earth
Initiative summer-fall 2026
An idea to gather peers has been growing for me since the spring, and I'm grateful I've gotten to participate in The Belonging Studio's program Make a Mark with a great cohort for project development.
The project invites Toronto queer adults to build power together, owning our relationship with earth stewardship in various sacred or secular humanist ways. I embrace an eclectic paganism, and seek to host city park circles for sharing in mixed groups, across our multiple ways of expressing respect for the animate energy we recognize throughout the earth and all species. Many paths, no one way.
Our practices may come from various animist and mystic threads, including Sufi, Kabbalah, Shinto, Hindu, Yorùbá, other Indigenous spiritual lineages, and also from not assigning a spirituality but feeling a humanism orienting to our place in relationship among all living beings and parts of the earth.
Queer people bring a unique dimension to the potentials of stewardship with our non-majority perspective. Asking peers across traditions to be with each other in owning our relationship with the depth of meaning being of the earth has for us, let’s learn in respect, and make use of what we might build in a coalitional way.
I aim to reach to faith organizations, botanica supply shops and queer community groups to welcome folks to join casual yet intentional sharing circles, in central Toronto parks. These locations are public transit accessible, with washrooms, building structures and trees for some shelter if rain comes.
Attendees are welcome to join one or a few gatherings at different sites, and to decide together how we’d like to potentially share a public record of what we’ve discovered in exploring in common our earth reverence.
Why this now:
- I'm newer in Toronto and want to meet people of certain shared affinities.
- I want these people to meet each other.
- Bringing our embodied presence together in public space as queer people, affirming our many ways to attune to that which animates the natural world, is important at this time.
- Shared practices of faith and devotion help bind communities, which enables more committed solidarity and resilience in fluctuating conditions.
Some questions attendees could reflect on and optionally respond to:
What does acting in allegiance with earth's harmonies mean to you?
How does your queer life resonate with attuning to the world's animating energies?
How may we celebrate and honour, across traditions, our relations and earth?
What will the particular elements of a given park landscape beckon us to do?
What can we discover in the specific wisdoms of differing orientations, toward how we and all the luminous energetic expressions of the earth serve each other?
Beyond verbally, people are welcome to also share symbols, personal items, musical or physical gesture phrases, etc that are meaningful from their own practices and lineages. Could people be willing to co-create a small ritual from threads that emerge?
With a spirit of respectful caring openness, intending to learn and share the space generously - deciding how to spend the time ultimately is up to those assembled.
First circle: Dufferin Grove Park, Sunday Sept. 27, 1:30pm - 3pm
(meet southeast corner, below sandbox play area)
Second circle: Allan Gardens, Sunday October 4, 1:30pm - 3pm
(meet northwest side of buildings at the Children’s Conservatory, Farmers' Market grounds by the Teaching Garden)
Third (last of current goal): Riverdale Park West, Sunday October 11, 1:30pm - 3pm
(meet southwest, inside corner of Sumach and Carlton)
Note on locations:
none will be reserved; hopefully preferred sites in the parks will be open, but we may need to shift spots depending on noisy activities nearby, etc.
BYO snack if desired, to eat or share; bringing a traditional beverage into the circle is also an option, just No alcohol. If desiring to share a sample among attendees, let me know: I'll endeavour to bring enough cups. Estimating maximum of 30 participants.
We may end up able to use a space with an established fire pit, but there will be No fire building outside of such a structure.
Bringing donations for activity costs is also welcome, and optional.
Questions? Email: ForEnsemble AT pm.me – looking forward to discovering together <3
Below, images from my material, and peer program participants in Make a Mark's Open Studio event at Akin Gallery, August 23 2026
