To be blunt, faeries are mostly gay men. The faeries are rife with contradictions and tensions, and can be exasperating. But there is a spirit in the faeries of withholding judgment and going on with the show. And that's how we're radical in the root sense of the word . You can't make a ballgown from a pattern for a three piece suit.
Cultures live within the repetition of patterns.
Since I believe that faerie-ness is fundamentally a matter of remaking culture, the best way to understand faeries is to look at the patterns we play with. Fundamentally, faeries are a group of people who have agreed to listen to each other. This listening, this talking, occurs in the most elemental of faerie forms-the circle. A talisman is passed. Whoever holds the talisman is listened to.