Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig
After six months in Ohio, I have moved back to Cascadia, commonly known as the Pacific Northwest. More soon...
Category: Musings
Welcome to Cleveland
One minute, I'd never considered living in Ohio, and the next, I am. Moved myself and the ashram 2,000 miles across country to the shores of Lake Erie in Cleveland. What adventures await!
Calling Out Cishet Men
[edit: changed many instances of cis to cishet to be more accurate]
At the time of this writing, I am almost 2 months into a journey of fueling this body with testosterone. And let me tell you, it has opened my eyes. I have a somewhat unique viewpoint, having been fueled by estrogen 48 years since puberty, and now seeing firsthand the differences between estrogen and testosterone. My experience is by no means universal, but I can speak to this particular body, with all its mobility issues, and what changes came immediately. It was like flipping a switch.
From where I sit, it seems like cis men literally have every single aspect of life easier than cis women and others whose bodies are fueled by estrogen. Estrogen fueled people expend way more energy to accomplish the same tasks, they have an exponentially wider range of things they’re responsible for, and they are denigrated and disrespected every step of the way. This has got to
A Chilling Tale
TW: Physical Abuse, Psychological Abuse, Cruelty, Authoritarianism, Religious Fanaticism.
I just finished reading Educated, A Memoir by Tara Westover. Anyone who has ever lived under a cruel, dictatorial power, be it familial or government, is likely to be rocked to their core reading this. Though the scale of what I endured throughout my childhood was much milder, and some of the themes did not apply, the resonnance with the handful of themes that did left me reeling.
More than just a memoir; it is a cautionary tale of what life will be like if Q-Cult and 45’s people get their way. People wave these popular conspiracy theories off as fantasy or delusion, but they are very real. There are always multiple realities existing simultaneously, and far too many of them are created by the cruelest person in the group. These realities can be possible to escape physically, but the ties go deep. People’s lives are regularly ruined, yet they keep going back for more.
Social Media
“I have a presence on SM, therefore I am.”
This should be the existential quote of the times. If I don’t have followers, do I exist?
Leaving fb has been difficult. I miss being able to reach out to all my friends and share what I’m up to or ask for a little support. It’s lonely not knowing what my wide array of friends around the world are up to in their lives, or what causes they care about and are involved in.
I’m human and I need to feel a sense of belonging, so I do have Twitter. I’ve never used it much, so I have maybe 1 – 3 people reading my Tweets, if that many. I’m not going to jump through hoops to build a following. That feels inauthentic and inorganic, and that is so not my style. It’s lonely, though, and I feel invisible in this day of ubiquitous online presence.
My cravings to log in, just this once and
Capitol Hill Peaceful Protest Zone, My First Person Account
Play Video
This is a video of my first visit to CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupation Protest) on Thursday, June 11, 2020. As you will be able to tell, I was extremely moved. I wanted to make a visit to support their community garden, plus my heart was hurting from reading so many hateful tweets on Twitter and comments on Fox News stories that I knew were not true from watching the live streams, so I had to go in order to help document the reality, which is peaceful, inclusive, compassionate, and a bold, historical move. Watch it and see for yourself. Note: You will not see the most substantive conversations that were happening in multiple places around the Zone. I deliberately did not film those out of respect for their privacy. My primary intention was to counter the “terrorists have taken Seattle” propaganda that Fox News and other conservative media outlets have been spewing and amplifying.
The next day, Friday, June 12, 2020, I
Bane or Blessing
Many people are pooh-pooing the Coronavirus, saying it’s an overblown scare. What if it could end up being humanity’s greatist gift? Let me explain. Has there ever been a time in your life when have you wished you had paid attention to a suggestion to change something about your life earlier, when the suggestion was gentle, only to be forced into changing something by a traumatic event? I fully believe this is what the COVID-19 event is all about.
To the Edge, and Beyond.
I was recently pushed past my percieved limits during an 11 day Ayurvedic (traditional Indian medicine) treatment immersion. I love Ayurveda because it is precise, it has been researched and proven effective for thousands of years, and it’s all herbal, so it is in total alignment with the natural order. It targets restoring the body’s innate balance, so that it then heals itself. My series of treatments were similar to Pancha Karma, if you want to Google that to get some idea, but tailored to my specific health issues. Think hours a day, every day, filled with massages with various medicinal herbal substances, steam treatments, purges, and drinking, swishing, and snorting various herbally medicated substances. Day One was heaven, but by Day Three it had devolved into a hellish passive endurance test of being poked, prodded, and pummeled, and there were nine days still to go.
On Day Six, I felt like they broke me. I was shattered. I couldn’t imagine continuing. The thought Read the rest
A Word on Tantra* and Bhakti
I am a shameless Bhākta. I am head over heels in love with divinity in many of Its forms. So why Tantra? It is said that Bhakti is the fastest and most enjoyable path to enlightenment, so why not just stick to that? That’s where I started, so why the emphasis on Tantra these days?
It’s like this: Bhakti is indeed a very fast and enjoyable path. I don’t know about enlightenment because I am not enlightened, but I trust what knowledgeable people say about that being true. I do know from experience that it is a lightning-fast method to obtain Oneness. When I’m chanting, the bliss of that Oneness is unsurpassed. The effects of the vibrations change matter, as I found out when I healed my body with chanting. However, the Oneness fragments back into the many when I stop chanting and come back to the relative world. The echos of the vibrations definitely come with me, and ripple out into all areas Read the rest