The delicate unfolding of two sacred datura blossoms at midnight on a full moon wedding night was an unexpected and profound moment, a testament to nature’s intricate timing and perhaps a touch of the mystical. These toxic nightshade plants, sown from seed a year prior, chose this auspicious occasion for their inaugural, beautiful bloom, a spectacle that felt imbued with an almost otherworldly magic. This synchronicity, the author muses, might have been orchestrated by a clandestine queer coven of soil microorganisms, a poetic reflection on the hidden forces that shape our world. The previous year, the spiked capsule of Datura wrightii, commonly known as Sacred Datura or Desert Thornapple, had been cracked open, its deliriant seeds scattered into the garden, a deliberate act of inviting its potent presence into their lives.

The following morning, the once vibrant, trumpet-shaped flowers drooped, their nocturnal engagement with numerous sphinx moths concluded. Amidst the cleanup of a wedding celebration, a somber discovery was made: a juvenile cottontail rabbit, its chest bleeding, lay still as if presented in sacrifice. The grim reality suggested it was likely the victim of a recently hatched rattlesnake, a predator that had bitten off more than it could chew. Despite a gentle offering of water, the small creature had already passed by the time the last of the chairs were stacked. In a quiet act of reverence, the rabbit was transported to a wash basin and its eyes were covered with dried chia seeds, a small memorial forming from quartzy granite and datura leaves. This ritual, a practice often performed with deceased animals, was a way of honoring their passage and assisting their transition into the spirit world, a profound connection with their nonhuman neighbors.

Weeks later, the vivid imagery of the white datura blooms and the departed cottontail lingered, overlaying the author’s mind as they descended over 4,000 feet down the Twentynine Palms Highway to visit the Palm Springs Art Museum. The museum’s current exhibition, "A Queer Arcana: Art, Magic, and Spirit," presented a compelling collection spanning over a century of LGBTQ+ artists who have explored themes of magic and spirituality in their diverse works, including paintings, sculptures, performances, and photography. This exhibition is part of a broader, growing trend that highlights alternative spiritualities within the art world, evidenced by previous events such as "QUEER MAGIC" in Santa Fe in 2023 and "Sci-fi, Magick, Queer L.A." in Los Angeles in 2024, both of which delved into similar intersections of identity, spirituality, and artistic expression.

Many of the artists featured in "A Queer Arcana" share deep connections to the American Southwest and California, landscapes whose natural phenomena—vortices, boulder fields, and exceptionally dark night skies—have long drawn seekers and spiritualists to places like Joshua Tree, Sedona, Arizona, and Crestone, Colorado. These evocative spiritual landscapes often serve as a backdrop for the artists’ work, which frequently incorporates body-centric and fantastical imagery that appears to pierce the "thin veil" separating the physical and spiritual realms. The exhibition showcases a rich tapestry of artistic interpretations, from Ingo Swann’s 1986 painting Proto Adam, which depicts a galactic go-go dancer emerging from a desert river, to Clarity Haynes’ 2022 pastel offering, Altar for Laura Aguilar. Haynes’ piece pays homage to the late photographer Laura Aguilar, incorporating images from Aguilar’s renowned nude desert self-portraits, a powerful exploration of the body and its relationship to the natural world. Eric-Paul Riege’s chestplate [3] (2026), a black-and-white textile work, offers a more subtle yet equally profound connection, weaving together traditional Diné beliefs with Riege’s personal experiences of queerness.

The exhibition extends to more overtly mystical and symbolic representations, featuring works that explore cosmic themes, occult gatherings, and fantastical beings. A collection of magazine archives within the exhibit further documents historical explorations of witchcraft and New Age goddess worship, providing a broader context for the artists’ contemporary explorations. As curator David Evans Frantz noted in a press release, "Queer artists, activists, and cultural producers have long sought spiritual practices outside the mainstream to affirm their identities, build community, and envision new ways of being in an often-oppressive world." This sentiment resonated deeply as visitors entered the exhibit, encountering large text referencing the pioneering work of queer Chicana poet and theorist Gloria Anzaldúa, who described herself as a "spiritual mestiza" and viewed spiritual seeking as an inherently queer method of engaging with the world and the infinite.

A particularly immersive piece within the exhibition was Edgar Fabián Frías’s 2017 video, Give Us Home Spider: Ritual 5: TXI Cement Quarry, Bloomington, CA. As the viewer dons headphones and focuses on the screen, the video acts as an open portal, drawing them into Frías’s ritualistic practice. Frías, who identifies as a brujx – a gender-neutral Spanish term for a magic practitioner – and is a descendant of the Wixárika people, organized a series of rituals throughout Southern California to confront environmental racism and health disparities. Having grown up in close proximity to the quarry featured in the video, Frías witnessed firsthand the community’s exposure to hexavalent chromium, a toxic chemical compound linked to cancer and autoimmune diseases. The video documents Frías and thirteen other healers, adorned in vibrant fluorescent attire, participating in a ritual that involved playing a drone pipe to techno music, digging holes in the earth, vocalizing, and consuming pomegranates, a potent act of spiritual and environmental reclamation.

This ritual, performed nearly a decade prior to the exhibition, felt remarkably prescient, especially in the context of contemporary environmental crises. The lingering smoke from the Lineage Fire in Los Angeles’s Boyle Heights, which had spread toxic fumes from a food-storage empire, served as a stark reminder of ongoing environmental injustices. Frías’s ritual underscores the critical importance of addressing past harms in the present to forge a more intentional and just future. Regardless of one’s spiritual inclinations, acknowledging the damage inflicted upon both communities and the Earth is paramount. This recognition can offer solace, combat denial, and inspire meaningful action against injustice, sometimes as simply as pausing to honor the brief life of a desert cottontail.

The emergence of "A Queer Arcana" and similar exhibitions is not a spontaneous event but rather the result of deliberate efforts to bring together ancestral wisdom and contemporary community voices. These gatherings serve as a conduit, communicating from the liminal spaces between worlds to remind present-day audiences of the urgent need for connection and resistance, not only against queer repression but against all forms of oppression. Today, these artistic expressions invite viewers to actively challenge oppressive systems, perhaps by petitioning city councils approving detrimental developments like data centers, or by creating protective circles of salt to shield creative spirits from the "malevolence of AI-generated slop," a contemporary manifestation of societal anxieties. Furthermore, they advocate for forging coalitions with our nonhuman neighbors, recognizing our interconnectedness with all living beings.

The author’s visit coincided with another significant ritual: the observance of the Summer Solstice. Within the museum, displays of queer tarot decks, including the work of trans activist Rachel Pollack, offered guidance. For the author, whose spirituality is deeply rooted in nature—encompassing Milky Way worship, grounding Qi Gong practices, an appreciation for birdsong, and ceremonial river cleanses—tarot reading has become a valuable tool. As a Libra Sun with a Scorpio Moon, the author has found quarterly tarot pulls instrumental in navigating chronic indecisiveness and long-held grudges. The MotherPeace deck, one of the first feminist and queer decks to significantly influence the course of tarot in the 1970s, is a foundational element of their personal cosmology, assembled over time.

On this longest day of the year, the author drew a round, moon-shaped card from their deck. The revealed card, the "Son of Cups," was described by one of the deck’s creators as representing "meditative awareness." The image depicted a naked man serenely floating on the sea, playing a flute, with seagulls singing nearby. Beneath him, large datura flowers unfurled like sails, a visual echo of the night-blooming blossoms that had so captivated the author, bridging the personal and the universal, the sacred and the mundane, the art of the spirit and the lived experience of queer existence.