If you know that you can’t easily get what you want and need, you have two choices. You can suffer, always feeling hurt and deprived, using your own awareness of what you don’t have to justify whatever actions you take, even if they are grasping or vindictive. At one point in college, I was in … Continue reading Denial As Life
The blessings of the one true and ultimate God is that he wants you to be as successful as you can dream of being, having all the joys and luxuries that you are entitled to as his child. This is the essence of the prosperity gospel, an occult blending of Christian words and success ideas, … Continue reading God Loves My Ego
Who is a woman without someone to love? I loved the people assigned to me, my birth family, in ways that cost me dearly. That love, though, was at the heart of my feminine nature. And now, I need someone else, something else to love. This time, though, when I am choosing, I want one … Continue reading Heart On
“I have to watch myself because I often put other people off by being too _________.” What do you believe that you have to tamp down, to keep small and hide for other people not to find you off-putting? It’s those aspects you have been told that you have to police which form much of … Continue reading Too Much, Too Little
At “Rooted,” a retreat for Trans-Christians held last month in Chicago, one of the exercises was to write a “love note” to other trans/trans affiliated people. Because trans is so often rooted in negative identity — we are not sure who or what we are, but we are very clear on what we are not … Continue reading A Love Note
My doctor is changing their patient portal, so it was suggested I download my charts for archiving. One diagnosis in the list caught my eye. Grief. It’s on there because they know I directly cared for my parents in their last decade. I don’t think, though, my doctor understands how grief is part of the … Continue reading Good Grief
“It’s not the frivolity of women that makes them so intolerable. It’s their ghastly enthusiasm.” — Horace Rumpole, “Rumpole Of The Bailey” (John Mortimer) When you are a delightful gamine creature, enthusiasm is seen as a charming affectation. When you are a big, hulking lug, though, enthusiasm is seen as a terrifying potential lack of … Continue reading Impassioned
I’m dying as fast as I can. Æsthetic denial demands letting go of desires, of wants, releasing the projected needs that serve our comfort rather than our existence. In many ways, the death of the ego is a key part of the death of the temporal. By choosing to feed the call of spirit rather … Continue reading As Fast As I Can
It turns out that the perfect training for being a guru is having your ego destroyed before the age of two. Apparently, the earlier you find out that your desires & intentions are irrelevant, that the only way to be smart & safe is to let go of your own needs and serve the universe, … Continue reading Ego Blown
Helen Madden, the licensed joyologist played by Molly Shannon on Saturday Night Live, understood the key for moving from shame to joy. You have to “Love it, love it, love it!“ Helen was joyously exuberant in her love, over the top and unable to sit still as she delighted in very single part of her … Continue reading Love It, Love It, Love It!
“The neighbour says that we just have to keep moving,” my sister announced to me after making me wait over a half hour to show up so I could give her the food I had made for her. “I’m not sure that’s true,” I mumbled. “Yes,” she sneered back. “I didn’t think you would be.” … Continue reading Performing Past Tragedy
I know why I don’t show myself. My expectation is that I am too much for the room and nobody will get the joke, as in “God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh,” as Voltaire put it. This is my lifemyth and it contains truth. My soundly reasoned explanation of … Continue reading Revelation
A woman is someone who makes the choices of a woman. If you believe that we are what we choose, then that definition is clear and perfect. If, on the other hand, you believe that woman and female means the same thing, it will sound stupid to you, but gender is about much more than … Continue reading Woman Choices
While I have supported any changes transpeople choose to make to their bodies, when I first came out I looked into the mirror and decided that I would never be able to female my own body to my liking, to anything that would make my passage though male puberty less than visible. Bones don’t lie. … Continue reading Present Callan
It has come to my attention that after a lifetime of living defended, in my head, I don’t really know what happy is anymore. I know what focused is, what professional is, what contemplative is, what smart is, all those things. Happy, though, well that has never been a place I know how to go. … Continue reading Happy
Humans, well, we have a strong drive towards survival. We look for strategies to support our needs, ways to stay defended and functional in the continuing fight that is life in this world. Awareness is an important part of these strategies, having a sharp sense of what you need to focus on. Ignorance is an … Continue reading Strategies And Survival
I really admire extroverts. Those people who can just stand up, draw attention and be the nucleus of people coming together to share something important, be that art or organization, they are really something. Amanda Palmer, in The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help is absolutely correct: when … Continue reading In, Out, Eros
Callan 