Sky Falcon
DR: Did you grow up in regional Victoria?
SF: I was born in Queensland, in Southport. Into the Jehovah’s Witnesses cult. It felt like I was having aprison experience for 17 years. And then I left.
It’s a weird thing to grow up from the womb with this really heavy ideology and dogma. And this is what reality was for me. It was always so dark and grim. I was so depressed, but I didn’t know it at the time as depression – I was just a sad, sad kid. Always really sensitive and neglected.
Now I see that my parents were traumatised too, doing the best they knew with what they had. All I knew was this skewed worldview of a fear-based paradigm that I was born into. I didn’t know anything different until I started going to school. We could go to regular school, but we couldn’t have friends outside the church.
DR: What was it like when you moved here?
SF: When we landed in this magical, rocky, beautiful valley paradise, I remember writing in my journal, ‘It’s the end of the world but I am living in the best place
on the earth ever.’ I was so grateful we landed here.It felt so safe and so tranquil and so healing. It felt like finally we could just breathe. Because me and Wishy* had a pretty hard entry into this life. So to feel so held by that space and the land at that unpredictable time was very nourishing and reassuring.
It was so beautiful, and I was like, ‘Okay, there’s a cherry orchard outside, I guess I’m a cherry farmer now, and Wishes is having a baby. Woah! I’m a cherry farmer
but I don’t know anything about farming.’ So I volunteered at the local organic farm [Gung Ho] … I remember my first walks along the Goldfields track in Sedgwick and being like, ‘Oh my god, it’s beautiful. These rocks are like dragon eggs, huge rocks everywhere!’
I had been living in an artist community in Tassiepre-Covid and before that in Melbourne for many years, performing music and facilitating community events, but I felt like it was a bit vapid or void. I’d be doing gigs in the city but I was like, ‘What is the point? What are we doing? We’re channelling all of this amazing energy, but for who? Why?’ For me, being an artist and finding waysto express creativity has been pivotal in making sense of the world and navigating my mental health, but I think I was just questioning my own practice and what was important to me. And searching for a deeper and genuine connection to community and the land.
I had this reality shift when Wishes got pregnant. I just felt really responsible – a huge wake-up call kind of thing. Like, ‘Who do I wanna be to this baby?’ I was already on a path of living more consciously and harmoniously with the earth and looking for authentic pathways back to nature. Like I was being of service in some way or like it was reciprocal. Moving out to the country and being out on the farm felt like a good way to get to know the area, the land, the people, what’s going on here. And where to best put my energy. It was really grounding and saved my mental health.
DR: Can I ask you about your identity within the LGBTQIA+ community?
SF: I came out when I was 24. I wrote my mum a letter. Even though I’d had minimal contact with my parents since leaving home, I thought that’s what you do, you come out to your parents. I used all the words because I thought she would Google them or something. I remember writing, ‘I’m queer, non-binary, gender fluid, gender-neutral, pansexual,’ etc. I wrote down all these things and sent it, and she was like, ‘I’ll write, I’ll respond to you,’ but she never did. Now I think saying ‘they/them’ is easier than saying multi-dimensional dragon creature or something.
I feel like my queerness is ever evolving and has taken many forms and expressions over my life already. Queerness to me means transforming the status quo in service of collective liberation. It’s not about who I fuck or who I love. It is being true to myself. Questioning and remaining curious about all things …
I’ve never felt I fitted in anywhere. Growing up I didn’t understand why gay people weren’t allowed into the religion. The only guidance was that of suppression and repression, or in my case excommunication. I was like, ‘Why would God make people this way and then not
love them?’ But looking back, that was one of the first things that I think sparked my curiosity and started me questioning everything. I’m grateful that I’ve had the space and time to unpack all of that so that now it doesn’t affect my connection with myself and spirituality.
I feel like spirituality and queerness are so intrinsically interwoven for me. It’s weird, it’s like I don’t really care if people say ‘he’ or ‘she’. Especially when Covid was happening and I was wearing masks, I’d get ‘he’d’ a lot and then I’d talk and people would say, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry Miss.’ But I was like, ‘No, don’t be sorry, thanks for seeing me.’ And then I’d get confused looks. I feel like gender is so fluid and for me, it’s just so nice to be in the fluidity of it. I don’t feel like I get misgendered if someone says ‘he’ or ‘she’. I just feel like I don’t want to deny any aspect of myself.
I’ve always felt somewhere in the middle. Comfortable in the androgynous zone. I feel equally masculine and feminine. For me, those states of being are on a flowing spectrum and are not necessarily felt in isolation of one another.
Me and Wishes play with gender pronouns and stuff all the time, especially since having a child. They’re kind of interchangeable. I feel gender is the biggest illusion anyway. You can be whatever, and we are whatever in whatever moment. When some people who haven’t unpacked stuff say ‘she, she, she’ I can feel their energy and it doesn’t feel so nice because you know that you’re not being seen in your entirety. But I can’t be angry at that person. They are seeing an aspect of me that I have been, I still am, and I don’t want to deny that aspect of myself. I’m not ashamed of it, it’s just that I’m all these other things as well. To me, it’s more about consciousness than it is about getting my pronouns right, because I feel like
it’s evolving and I’ve evolved so much.
Even though I don’t care, I’ve got a responsibility to care in certain ways or with certain people. Because there’re people that have come before us and paved the way with their chorus … And maybe I’m post-gender or whatever, but there are still people struggling and being oppressed and it’s not as easy for them. I’m always trying to be aware of my privilege and aware of where I am situated on the spectrum and what I can do in those spaces with my privilege. I assume people have an open expansive awareness about this stuff, but you can’t assume anything about anyone. So I think that it’s just important to say, ‘I’m they/them.’
Assumption is like death. Never assume something about someone just based on who they are standing next to or how they might present, because what they’re presenting is probably not who they are. Or it might be? It’s about having that openness. We’re not our bodies and we’re not our names. These are just our flesh prisons or our vessels, this is just the form that we came in, to have this experience on this earth in this lifetime. We are so much more than our physical being. But our bodies are our spaceships and I feel we should have reverence for them too.
DR: Can I ask about your relationships with Wishes and Roqy? Do you see yourself as a rainbow family?
SF: Me and Wishy … Well, it’s so ancient and old. Because we don’t have any other immediate family, it’s like we’re not just siblings. Before Roqy was born we had heaps of space apart and grew in our own ways and then came back together and grew together. We have healed and transformed that relationship a lot and I’m sure we will continue to do so.
I just always think about what’s good for Roqy. And it’s helped me stay accountable and true. Sometimes you fuck up but you have this little kid that just needs people to be there for them. You’ve got to put your shit aside. Wishes has taught me so much about allowing Roqy to be part of the process – not keeping them away from certain things. Just showing them that people have emotions, and this is what you do. It’s like we are the mum and the dad, the grandma and grandad, the uncle and the aunty and we just hold all of these roles in this one dynamic, which is awesome, but it can be quite intense at times as well. Everywhere we go we make friends and include them in Roqy’s growth. I feel like our chosen family expands over many planes of existence and countries and realms. Roqy’s got all these uncles/aunties, entles/nuncles, who care about Roqy through Wishes’ and my relationship with them.
I feel very grateful to be a part of raising Roqy. Parenting is extremely rewarding and it’s probably one of the most spiritual acts anyone can do. I think it’s also one of the hardest things ever and I didn’t even have the baby. This colonised world we live in is not structured to support parents to raise good hue-myns. The best investment you could ever make is supporting people to raise amazing beings. To be there for a child, to help grow all the kids up really well, and end all the traumas and stop this inter-generational head-fuck.
It’s hard work. But what else is there? I’d rather try and fail than never try at all. We’re all going to make mistakes but every moment you can choose to do better, to have compassion, to act in love. I’m an eternal optimist but also realistic. I know I’ve got to live by example and put my ideals into action every day. I just hope to be a good role model for Roqy and all who I share this life with.
Sky Falcon (they/them/dragon) is a Castlemaine-based artist living on stolen land, Dja Dja Wurrung Country. A musician/activist/accomplice/tattooist/visionary/baker/radiant radical/grower/volunteer, they are presently writing a rock opera and cooking with the Murnong Mammas. Sky is the sibling of Yziouz and co-parent of Roqwynn (Roqy).
SF: I was born in Queensland, in Southport. Into the Jehovah’s Witnesses cult. It felt like I was having aprison experience for 17 years. And then I left.
It’s a weird thing to grow up from the womb with this really heavy ideology and dogma. And this is what reality was for me. It was always so dark and grim. I was so depressed, but I didn’t know it at the time as depression – I was just a sad, sad kid. Always really sensitive and neglected.
Now I see that my parents were traumatised too, doing the best they knew with what they had. All I knew was this skewed worldview of a fear-based paradigm that I was born into. I didn’t know anything different until I started going to school. We could go to regular school, but we couldn’t have friends outside the church.
DR: What was it like when you moved here?
SF: When we landed in this magical, rocky, beautiful valley paradise, I remember writing in my journal, ‘It’s the end of the world but I am living in the best place
on the earth ever.’ I was so grateful we landed here.It felt so safe and so tranquil and so healing. It felt like finally we could just breathe. Because me and Wishy* had a pretty hard entry into this life. So to feel so held by that space and the land at that unpredictable time was very nourishing and reassuring.
It was so beautiful, and I was like, ‘Okay, there’s a cherry orchard outside, I guess I’m a cherry farmer now, and Wishes is having a baby. Woah! I’m a cherry farmer
but I don’t know anything about farming.’ So I volunteered at the local organic farm [Gung Ho] … I remember my first walks along the Goldfields track in Sedgwick and being like, ‘Oh my god, it’s beautiful. These rocks are like dragon eggs, huge rocks everywhere!’
I had been living in an artist community in Tassiepre-Covid and before that in Melbourne for many years, performing music and facilitating community events, but I felt like it was a bit vapid or void. I’d be doing gigs in the city but I was like, ‘What is the point? What are we doing? We’re channelling all of this amazing energy, but for who? Why?’ For me, being an artist and finding waysto express creativity has been pivotal in making sense of the world and navigating my mental health, but I think I was just questioning my own practice and what was important to me. And searching for a deeper and genuine connection to community and the land.
I had this reality shift when Wishes got pregnant. I just felt really responsible – a huge wake-up call kind of thing. Like, ‘Who do I wanna be to this baby?’ I was already on a path of living more consciously and harmoniously with the earth and looking for authentic pathways back to nature. Like I was being of service in some way or like it was reciprocal. Moving out to the country and being out on the farm felt like a good way to get to know the area, the land, the people, what’s going on here. And where to best put my energy. It was really grounding and saved my mental health.
DR: Can I ask you about your identity within the LGBTQIA+ community?
SF: I came out when I was 24. I wrote my mum a letter. Even though I’d had minimal contact with my parents since leaving home, I thought that’s what you do, you come out to your parents. I used all the words because I thought she would Google them or something. I remember writing, ‘I’m queer, non-binary, gender fluid, gender-neutral, pansexual,’ etc. I wrote down all these things and sent it, and she was like, ‘I’ll write, I’ll respond to you,’ but she never did. Now I think saying ‘they/them’ is easier than saying multi-dimensional dragon creature or something.
I feel like my queerness is ever evolving and has taken many forms and expressions over my life already. Queerness to me means transforming the status quo in service of collective liberation. It’s not about who I fuck or who I love. It is being true to myself. Questioning and remaining curious about all things …
I’ve never felt I fitted in anywhere. Growing up I didn’t understand why gay people weren’t allowed into the religion. The only guidance was that of suppression and repression, or in my case excommunication. I was like, ‘Why would God make people this way and then not
love them?’ But looking back, that was one of the first things that I think sparked my curiosity and started me questioning everything. I’m grateful that I’ve had the space and time to unpack all of that so that now it doesn’t affect my connection with myself and spirituality.
I feel like spirituality and queerness are so intrinsically interwoven for me. It’s weird, it’s like I don’t really care if people say ‘he’ or ‘she’. Especially when Covid was happening and I was wearing masks, I’d get ‘he’d’ a lot and then I’d talk and people would say, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry Miss.’ But I was like, ‘No, don’t be sorry, thanks for seeing me.’ And then I’d get confused looks. I feel like gender is so fluid and for me, it’s just so nice to be in the fluidity of it. I don’t feel like I get misgendered if someone says ‘he’ or ‘she’. I just feel like I don’t want to deny any aspect of myself.
I’ve always felt somewhere in the middle. Comfortable in the androgynous zone. I feel equally masculine and feminine. For me, those states of being are on a flowing spectrum and are not necessarily felt in isolation of one another.
Me and Wishes play with gender pronouns and stuff all the time, especially since having a child. They’re kind of interchangeable. I feel gender is the biggest illusion anyway. You can be whatever, and we are whatever in whatever moment. When some people who haven’t unpacked stuff say ‘she, she, she’ I can feel their energy and it doesn’t feel so nice because you know that you’re not being seen in your entirety. But I can’t be angry at that person. They are seeing an aspect of me that I have been, I still am, and I don’t want to deny that aspect of myself. I’m not ashamed of it, it’s just that I’m all these other things as well. To me, it’s more about consciousness than it is about getting my pronouns right, because I feel like
it’s evolving and I’ve evolved so much.
Even though I don’t care, I’ve got a responsibility to care in certain ways or with certain people. Because there’re people that have come before us and paved the way with their chorus … And maybe I’m post-gender or whatever, but there are still people struggling and being oppressed and it’s not as easy for them. I’m always trying to be aware of my privilege and aware of where I am situated on the spectrum and what I can do in those spaces with my privilege. I assume people have an open expansive awareness about this stuff, but you can’t assume anything about anyone. So I think that it’s just important to say, ‘I’m they/them.’
Assumption is like death. Never assume something about someone just based on who they are standing next to or how they might present, because what they’re presenting is probably not who they are. Or it might be? It’s about having that openness. We’re not our bodies and we’re not our names. These are just our flesh prisons or our vessels, this is just the form that we came in, to have this experience on this earth in this lifetime. We are so much more than our physical being. But our bodies are our spaceships and I feel we should have reverence for them too.
DR: Can I ask about your relationships with Wishes and Roqy? Do you see yourself as a rainbow family?
SF: Me and Wishy … Well, it’s so ancient and old. Because we don’t have any other immediate family, it’s like we’re not just siblings. Before Roqy was born we had heaps of space apart and grew in our own ways and then came back together and grew together. We have healed and transformed that relationship a lot and I’m sure we will continue to do so.
I just always think about what’s good for Roqy. And it’s helped me stay accountable and true. Sometimes you fuck up but you have this little kid that just needs people to be there for them. You’ve got to put your shit aside. Wishes has taught me so much about allowing Roqy to be part of the process – not keeping them away from certain things. Just showing them that people have emotions, and this is what you do. It’s like we are the mum and the dad, the grandma and grandad, the uncle and the aunty and we just hold all of these roles in this one dynamic, which is awesome, but it can be quite intense at times as well. Everywhere we go we make friends and include them in Roqy’s growth. I feel like our chosen family expands over many planes of existence and countries and realms. Roqy’s got all these uncles/aunties, entles/nuncles, who care about Roqy through Wishes’ and my relationship with them.
I feel very grateful to be a part of raising Roqy. Parenting is extremely rewarding and it’s probably one of the most spiritual acts anyone can do. I think it’s also one of the hardest things ever and I didn’t even have the baby. This colonised world we live in is not structured to support parents to raise good hue-myns. The best investment you could ever make is supporting people to raise amazing beings. To be there for a child, to help grow all the kids up really well, and end all the traumas and stop this inter-generational head-fuck.
It’s hard work. But what else is there? I’d rather try and fail than never try at all. We’re all going to make mistakes but every moment you can choose to do better, to have compassion, to act in love. I’m an eternal optimist but also realistic. I know I’ve got to live by example and put my ideals into action every day. I just hope to be a good role model for Roqy and all who I share this life with.