Beyond Pink and Blue

We live in a world of many vibrant colors, especially now as spring is turning to summer, but when it comes to gender, society trains us to describe the world only in terms of pink and blue. Even as knowledge and ideas of gender have expanded in recent years, the gender binary is still too often seen as default. Beyond Pink and Blue uses poetry and photography to explore gender through metaphors of color and nature.

Session 1: Meditations on Gender
Day: Tuesday, June 7th
Time: 7:30-9pm
Description: This event will be grounded in Quaker worship interspersed with poems read aloud. You are invited to bring colorful art materials (pencils, paper, markers, magazines, etc.) to color, draw, or collage in further exploration of themes of color and gender if you wish. No art experience is required; it doesn’t have to be “good” as art is just another way to engage our minds.

Session 2: Inner Depths of Gender
Day: Tuesday, June 14th
Time: 7:30-9pm
Description: This event will use poems as a jumping off point for further discussions of gender beyond binaries in our world today.

Leader(s)

Cai Quirk (they/them or ey/em) is Pendle Hill’s 2022 Minnie Jane Scholar. Cai is a lifelong Quaker with passions for Witness, personal discernment, and diverse methods of spiritual deepening. With a gender that transcends binaries, Cai is practiced at deeply questioning societal expectations and norms and in shifting towards roots of individual and group integrity. Spiritual deepening, Witness, and integrity are expanded in Cai’s writing, photography, and music practices. Cai’s upcoming book of photography and stories, Transcendence: Queer Restoryation, connects themes of spirituality, mythology, and gender diversity, nature and storytelling. See more at caiquirk.com.

While at Pendle Hill, Cai has been creating further stories and writings that explore themes of gender and spirituality, some of which are interdisciplinary, weaving the words together with photography, video, and/or music. The powerful act of queer restoryation creates new queer stories and myths where others were erased. In this era when more and more people are openly identifying as transgender and non-binary – and wider society is struggling to keep up – such stories are a beacon of hope that invite readers beyond binaries and into ways of seeing and honoring fluidity and change as natural. These myths and stories live in liminal spaces, between and beyond male and female, night and day, land and sea, earth and sky, life and death, self and other, self and earth. They are stories not only of gender, but also more broadly of self-discovery, living authentically, and following Spirit.

Financial aid may be available. If you are seeking funds to participate in this program, click to review and complete our Financial Assistance Application and a Pendle Hill staff member will follow-up with you shortly (please do NOT register online). Thank you for your interest.

Travel directions to Pendle Hill.