The Beautiful Soul Circus: interview with Claudia Love Mair

EDITOR’S NOTE:

The Beautiful Soul Circus began in a dream.

Claudia Love Mair (aka “Ringmistress Love”) dared to speak this dream aloud on Facebook in January. She said, “I had a dream last night that I started a not-church for creatives, queers, and tender souls who were hurt by the church. It was so beautiful and expansive, almost like a lovely circus, and I’m kind of here for this idea. Who’s in?”

Many of us immediately raised our hands. We are IN for this idea!

Ringmistress Claudia Love Mair

Claudia messaged me, “Don’t think I didn’t argue with Spirit about why I had to do it. I said, ‘Me? I don’t think that’s a good idea!’” But she dared to answer her calling, and The Beautiful Soul Circus has quickly become a haven for tenderhearted people seeking community. Already, members are asking deep questions they may not feel comfortable asking anywhere else, and sharing stories about their unique journeys of faith.

The Circus feels like an especially comforting space right now as our world has been rocked by the pandemic, and as many are bravely partaking in the fresh rising of the civil rights movement.

Author of ten books, including Don’t You Fall Now (a heart-wrenching memoir about “a mother and son, mental illness and a traumatic accident,” and “the road to restoration”), Claudia is no stranger to bold honesty. That gentle fierceness has long drawn me to her, and pulls me into the Circus with both eager anticipation and a sigh of relief. The Beautiful Soul Circus feels like home.

I’m thrilled Claudia is joining us to share more about her community and where the Circus is headed next. Ready? Let’s cozy up and begin. —Amanda

Claudia, you say the Circus is for “people who want to engage in the spiritual practice of being exactly who they are.” Can you tell us more about that?

I think too many people make a huge deal out of spirituality. We climb mountaintops and trudge through valleys seeking a Divine light that’s already inside of us, inside of all of us. If we would just relax and BE, knowing that we’re always supported by Love, and that we don’t have to change the essence of who we are to be acceptable, a whole lot more of us would take up the mantle of a deep and abiding spirituality. I often quote Saint Francis DeSales, who said, “Be who you are and be that perfectly well.” That sounds like a spiritual practice to me, one that works because it’s doable. Just be you. You’re loved just as you are. Now, live and move and BE in that Love.

You told me that recently your faith has blown wide open. How has that influenced your effort in building this community?

I don’t think that Jesus is here to protect me from a harsh, vindictive God intent on kicking my ass anymore. God, Source, the Divine, Spirit—however you say it, it’s all the same—this BEing really is Love. Jesus came to demonstrate that Love. He was Love in skin. This was his work as the Christ. But it isn’t just Jesus showing this Love. Creation shows it. The Sufi masters show this Love, and poets, prophets, and dreamers from every tradition. No one has a monopoly on Divine Love. This Love is limitless and infinitely generous. So now I’m seeing the Divine as All Love, and that Love is in us, around us, above us, below us. No one is going to miss it. That’s impossible. In Love we live and move and have our being, so it’s not excluding the poor, the marginalized, the queer, the hurting ones with their rounded shoulders and heads hanging low. Anyone can tap into and live in that Love.

One of the things I’ve been most impressed with in the Circus is how you’re creating a brave space with fiercely kind boundaries. Deep questions are welcome and differing opinions are allowed, but only with respect. Has it been challenging to maintain this balance?

We’ve had our tough moments. People have left because our practices can get a little out there, and we’ve had members who walked outside of the boundaries of compassion and respect and I had to address the community, and sister here spoke softly, but carried a big stick. Balance came back to us. We moved right along in the Love that propels us.

The Circus is all about inclusivity, including LGBTQIA+ and “plain old weirdos who don’t seem to fit in religious institutions.” Why is this mission important to you personally?

Because exclusion is so very harmful. I’m African American and a woman, and I’ve got the scars exclusion beat on my back, scars that have their origins in centuries-old wounds that still haven’t completely healed. Right now we are experiencing a mighty uprising. It’s a revolution, with a lot of young people on the front lines. It behooves us to let ourselves be healed, and break the chains of oppression that join both the oppressor and the oppressed. We all need to be free! It’s not just about Black Lives Matter either, though that is HUGE. This revolution has the potential to completely change our existence globally. Right now, as a Black woman, I’m crying out to the world, “I can’t breathe, but if we do the work and dismantle the whole system that keeps us oppressed, one day, hopefully in my lifetime, I’ll take a deep, cleansing breath. At the very least my children and grandchildren and great grandchildren will benefit from the change this current uprising brings.” The LBGTQIA+ community just had a major win! The dreamers had a major win. We’re going to get the babies out of the cages, too. It’s exciting, and we get to be here making it happen.

But wait! There’s more! Lol. I wanted people that felt like outsiders in their faith communities and even their creative and literal neighborhood communities to come to the banquet me and Mystic Paula Clare, my soul sister, are already feasting at. There’s plenty to partake of, and it’s a really big table, and totally welcoming, except to harsh and judgy people who mistakenly believe that they’re right and everyone else is wrong, and can’t help but tell people how trash they are.

The thing about a circus is it’s full of beauty and wonder, but some wildness and freakiness too. Mystic Paula Clare and I want to celebrate everyone in the circus, from trapeze artists, to clowns, to tattooed folx and fortune tellers. Let your freak flag fly and we’ll be cheering as it flaps in the wind.

You encourage creativity as a spiritual practice, which I am all for, too! How has creative practice been part of your own journey?

I have been writing since I was a kid, and I’ve written through mothering five kids and two step kids, through a failing marriage, and through chronic illness. Writing sustained me, and through it I found a much more intimate relationship with the Divine. I started painting about nine years ago after my husband and I separated. I painted through my grief, but baby, I found myself! Painting does something altogether different than writing does for me. I’m an intuitive painter. That process brings out the wild woman, howl at the moon, magical being in me. You can paint your way to your highest self. I’m a witness!

The Beautiful Soul Circus is an online community for now, but you have plans to go bigger with in-person gatherings. What does that vision look like?

Already we’re doing grief work together, and Mystic Paula Clare, who is a professional counselor and ecumenical Franciscan, is offering additional support through private sessions. We have innerviews with special guests, and guest teachers, including Lisa Joy Samson, extraordinary novelist as well as massage therapist. Kay Day, an ecumenical spiritual director is coming on board. We’re also offering an altar making class and a six-week spiritual memoir writing class. That’s right now. As we grow I see us with a podcast, and a thriving community like what Nadia Bolz-Weber is doing with The Corners. It’s a very low cost subscription of curated content for people who can support the work financially. If someone can’t afford it, they get to join for free, so no one is left out. I also see us, as we grow, having many online and in real life retreats—Covid-19 permitting—and workshops on all kinds of creative endeavors. I also see a YouTube channel full of exciting content, including our own The Story of Us Tarot. Of course there will be local gatherings—again, Covid-19 permitting—in the spirit of joy and celebration of who we are as a collective, and the creative and spiritual things we do.

Claudia, thank you so much for being here. Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers?

I want to invite anyone on Facebook that would like to high vibe with us to do a Facebook search for The Beautiful Soul Circus and join us. Right now things have slowed down. 2020 has been super weird, and we’re all adjusting, but this ringmistress loves the circus. We’ll be stronger than ever soon. We are happy to welcome anyone walking in love, with boundaries, into our brave space under the Big Top. I hope to see your readers there.