INVOCATION OF THE QUEER SPIRITS (GOVERNOR'S ISLAND) New York, June 25, 2009, 9:30 pm.
	We invite into this circle the queer spirits of Governors Island, and those who choose to reveal themselves here; We invite you to join us in constructing a collective memory of a queer community of the quick and the dead: We invite those who have been excised from public history; We invite the animal and plant spirits of the island; We invite the Algonquin natives who respected the bountiful island and set temporary camps to fish and to gather chestnut, acorns and walnuts; We invite the Dutch and English explorers, trappers, traders, pirates, and other adventurers of an all-male life; We invite the Dutch, British, and American soldiers and sailors stationed on the island during its various incarnations as a fort, as a military prison, and a coast guard base; We invite the spirit of Lord Cornbury, the first British Governor of New York and New Jersey and the first governor to live here; We invite the spirits of revelers who ferried to the island to attend parties held at the pleasure palaces built by governors to demonstrate their prestige and wealth; We invite the plague victims who were shipped to the island to die of smallpox, yellow fever, and cholera; We invite the prisoners incarcerated here during the civil war; We invite the military prisoners incarcerated here during WWI and again during WWII; also, those who were persecuted for their difference, and murdered; those who suffered from abuse as children, or adults; those who committed suicide because of their inability to live fully as who they felt they were; those who have died of HIV and AIDS; to all the dispossessed and abandoned; to all those who have died but cannot leave this place: we invite each of you to join us in this queer community of we the quick and you the dead. VOW: We are present in our bodies, to each other, and to queer spirit. We claim our queer voices and our collective queer history. We honor our queer community of the living and the dead.