Sister Apocrypha L’Poesie

When I first met Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, I somewhat saw them as clandestine modern pirates, in makeup. While working leather coat check in 2007 for a local leather competition, I saw my first sister. Sister Clara was working a table that had a smorgasboard of condoms, lube, safer-sex packets, etc.; and while I was keeping watch of the coat check, I studied her. She seemed steampunkesque, with peacock feathers from her farm adorning her whimple, her style & drag being so unique, radical faerie, very much her own, and something I’d never seen before. Being on the edge of queer theater culture, I was intrigued. Not necessarily certain if sisters elsewhere were as fabulous and service oriented as Sr. Clara was, I decided I’d ask her if I could join the sisters/her specifically.

Everything I knew then about the Sisters and radical faeries came through Sister Clara, & at Conclave, gallivanting around as a novice sister. Through her, I met founders Sister Missionary Position, Sister Vish, & Sister Hysterectoria/Banana Nut Bread/Knit-Wit (lovingly Agnes). The next year landed me at Vanderbilt for a weeklong Nationwide queer delegation of universities (called Campus Pride), being one of two representatives from my university, and afterwards I manifested with Nashville’s Music City Sisters opening ceremony for Nashville Pride. Then came fall gathering, I was robing and putting on face, finding myself in a clearing in the Tennessee woods surrounded by a flock of sisters, readying for the charity auction. 

I was part of something that attracted and fascinated me spiritually. Mish showed me through the archives of the Sisters at his home Three Sisters, and I lovingly learned the incredible, amazing, fantastic sistory of the S.P.I., impacting my own mentality on who I was/ and who we were as Sisters through the Missionary Order of Perpetual Indulgence. I loved it. These worldly sisters told me their sistories, while including me in a grand procession. Wow.

Still I was an outsider enjoying the ceremony and camp and beauty and feeling like not-so-much a part of it all. Sister Clara & Mish helped change that. They and the sisters have been powerful catalysts in my life, and not by setting out to fix all that needed fixing in me; just by spreading their fierce inclusive joy they can trigger change. This is a lot of what I see the Sisters doing; when the white faces and veils and bangles walk in the door, they spread absolute joy. The power of expiating stigmatic guilt can flow from painting on eye liner, showing up with glittery nail polish, dancing as if there won’t be a tomorrow. And joy can radiate from being of service to the community. 

Over time, I’ve dispensed condoms, food, clothing, needle drops/NarCan, lube, safer-sex pamphlets in English and Spanish to people on the street & at fundraisers. Connecting homeless youth & elders in need of care with testing at local health centers and AIDS service organizations has become my passion, raising awareness for better sexual health strategies, fundraising for local health organizations while operating a listserv for LGBTQ events. My journey with the sisters has taken me everywhere, from the Music City Sisters, Weird City Sisters of Austin, the Cleveland Rock & Roll City Sisters, the Montréal Sœurs, the Missionary Order of Perpetual Indulgence, the NYC Disorder, & currently, finding my place within the Baltimore/D.C. Sisters of Magnificent Intentions.

super flowery poem/hymn I wrote:

Sister Poem/Hymn

Fantastic jaunty whimples
Splayed multi-facet in splendour prescient
Sat slashed sideways upon shoulders that hold burdens
Upon manifestations the local HIV/AIDS clinics rely

The Sisters of Mythic Proportion and Integrity
We are untold tales of community work in queer ancient practice 
With praise in which witches divulge
Crimson remembrance of those giving their lives for us
Candlelight vigils spanning rural/urban divide

Throwing ashes of our fallen on white house lawns
Days of action, gov’t inaction in public health
Dying in churches fighting hypocrite Cardinals
Fruit pies in the faces of Florida juice spokespersonas 

DAPL Water Protectors, Free Palestine, solidarity with BLM
Reminiscent of this country’s contemporary protests
Undercurrents are our identities
Disruptive faggotry for masculinity and whiteness 

To the police gun and brusque batons’
Physical/Psychological damage in our brains 
Rebuke their words shouting shame in our hearts
We fabulously stand against you with giant condoms on your legislators homes

To those murdered by bigots’ hands: 
We are lineage of Marsha P. & Silvia R.;
Our Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries
May we continue your peace. 
May you be brought justice.
May you rest in power. 

Relaying messages of needle drop clinics & administering NarCan
Emergency service shelters, full-up beds of runaway Queer Youth yearning to be freed
Assisted-living facilities filled with depressed/lonesome elders 
To those still dying in streets without bed
For the unanswered aspirations of those 
We sing and shout our hymns

S.P.I. are the journeys of those lost
Who are found within the friendship of activism
Wisest crones and mothers to beget our better selves
Opening minds with open arms creatively since 1979

Kindly perpetuating joy, and expiating stigmatic guilt
We feel and think and care as much as you do
Shaking society, moving culture, we are memory That you are not alone
May your ritual circles be ever unbroken
Your peace be found in house/order/coven
Never give up, despair, or take for granted
So it goes, the world ‘round.

— Sr. Apocrypha l’Poesie