Discovering Humanity
I’m discovering that many of my relationships have been complicated – especially the older those relationships are. Some of that is attributable to growing together, some just the compromises two personalities make to try to find joy in one another.
My best friend and I have a very complicated relationship. We’ve known each other for nearly 40 years and have been through a lot of changes. He’s been without a girlfriend for about 4 years now – and sitting at the bar with him the other night it dawned on me that I had become his nurturing relationship. In that moment I felt my feminine side, and began to understand something that I’d already begun to think about.
In simple terms, I’m redefining my archetypes of masculine and feminine. Reframing my belief that equality AND differences in nature can exist at the same time. This shouldn’t be a revelation to anyone – and wasn’t really to me… but the way I chose to frame it is new to me. My inability to ascribe natural sexuality relevant to gender was really called out in that conversation – that’s what set the lightbulb on.
As I was growing up, when I developmentally tried to build personal archetypes I used my parents as models – much in the way I guess any child would. The only way for me to wedge my sexuality into that archetype (built on my mother as archetypical female) was to build a construct around it that would legitimize sexuality. My mother’s personality and my parent’s marriage & partnership was asexual. No physical contact, they did not sleep together, and any displays of affection were perfunctory at best.
Now that she’s gone – I’m finding the archetype is collapsing… and I’m awakening to the blending of strength and pliability, dominance and submission, masculine and feminine in the same space – just to varying, and oftentimes shifting degrees. I’m beginning to build a more complete (and admittedly complex) archetype now – one where a woman I am attracted to can both go play in the mud AND rock a little black dress. The internal transformation in my worldview is profound right now. I’m discovering a world where I don’t have to be “Dominant” to be sexual. A world where I can just be “me”.
It’s late in the game for me to be coming to all of this. I’m trying not to regret so much time wasted and so many hearts dismayed. But maybe I can bring all of this around and become balanced, fun, joyful…
…or as a trusted and loving soul recently said… Human.
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New Moon – May 2017
This afternoon brings another New Moon, and my evolutionary journey through 2017 continues – each new moon brings a different facet of myself to pay attention to or work on. January was self-awareness, February was self-discovery, March was self-forgiveness, and April was self-determination. Interesting that about half-way through self-determination my mother passed away.
I was involved in a very powerful and personally profound healing ritual at the retreat over the weekend. Building on the themes that it uncovered, this lunar cycle’s work will revolve around self-expression. I’m not sure what form that will take yet – but we learn as we go!
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Freedom
The story is my truth, but it may resonate for others as well.
My mother is now dead. Sounds cold and callous, I know – but I feel like a book has closed. She passed away on Monday morning, with family in attendance – by all accounts it was peaceful. I do wish her well on her journey – she didn’t ask for, or want, what this life provided her – and I forgive her based on that. I hold no malice toward her or her spirit. She did what she was capable of – she just wasn’t capable of what she was called upon to do.
My oldest memory is standing in the kitchen with my father – I couldn’t have been more than three years old – when he said to me “you’re mother is coming home from the hospital tomorrow, now we have to be good so she doesn’t get sick again”. My dad was looking for an ally – I know that – but my brain at the time crafted the scenario where aberrations in my behavior could send my mother away. This was when I still believed that there could be care, love, and nurturing found there. It was all up to me – I had to be “good”, to go along, to not make waves.
This informed every relationship I had up until four years ago. I fully admit that I was the one who’d held myself hostage with this emotional blackmail for almost all of my life. I subjugated any needs or wants I had in favor of either keeping my mother or her surrogate (whoever I was in a relationship with) happy. Naturally, I gravitated toward the worst kind of co-dependent relationships. I wasn’t allowed to have my needs met, so why not lock myself into a situation where it was impossible anyway. I lived my life governed by a fear of abandonment. To this day I’ll occasionally still find myself in that same, comfortable, apologetic mode. There’s nothing wrong with being contrite for something you might have done to offend someone – but when you end up with a nickname of “Sorry” because you say it all the time – that’s the sign of an unhealthy relationship.
Thankfully, for the most part, I’d broken that pattern after the last conscious time I’d seen my mother – in 2011. We still kept in touch for two more years – but in 2013, I walked away for good. The catalyst was trivial, but it was enough. Since then, I have tried to find myself in whole, compatible, nurturing, and non-destructive relationships with people who are genuinely self-aware, or at least on that path. Much like a substance abuser not associating with the “old crowd”, the new souls that tend to populate my life help me affirm that this is the way I want to live.
My spirituality gives me occasion to make a monthly vow to myself. This month I had chosen “Self-Determination” – and now during this time, my mother passes away. I feel as though a weight has been lifted, curtains opened, and skies clearing. I have made more choices in the past few days based on what “I” need than I can remember. It’s getting reflexive, and I think I’m on the right track.
There are going to be a lot of changes – some profound, some subtle, but I’m anxious to know what this life can be like lived on my own terms.
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New Moon – April 2017
Every new moon I pick a new topic to reflect on. In January it was self-awareness, February was self-discovery, and March was self-forgiveness. I really had planned on this new moon being about something else… but it’s just not time for that yet. Instead, this cycle will be about self-determination.
There are times in our lives where we act against our own best interests – we do things that inadvertently hurt ourselves or others – but good or bad, we always have a choice. Over the next few weeks I want to try to be more mindful of those cusps and try to lean toward nurturing and fulfillment – not just for myself but for those around me as well.
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Don’t Change
I’ve been singing this song with the band for a few months now – but I always struggled with the motivation. I don’t want to prevent a partner or someone in my life from changing and growing – I always want them to be their best selves. Coming off of last night’s full moon though – I found something deep in myself that I hadn’t felt in about 7-8 years. Suddenly the lyric “I found a love I had lost” makes perfect sense.
We shouldn’t need to change for one another, nor should we need others to change for us. We are all beautiful and flawed and perfect. If we can meet in that space – and embrace the perfect love and trust with and for one another – that’s where the magic happens.
The lyrics:
I found a love I had lost
It was gone for too long
Hear no evil in all directions
Execution of bitterness
Message received loud and clear
~ INXS, Don’t Change (Andrew Farriss & Kirk Pengilly)
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Shenpa and Self-Improvement
For the past few months I’ve been working on different areas of self-improvement. First was self-awareness, then self-discovery, and right now I’m in the middle of exercises in self-forgiveness. That can take on many forms, but it begins with understanding one’s need for forgiveness in the first place.
With time to reflect today, I returned to the Buddhist concept of Shenpa and decided I wanted to see what more I could read about it – because that Shenpa, or attachment, seems like it sits at the heart of my being too hard on myself. When I did a search today, I found an article published just this past Friday from Pena Chödrön – a Buddhist voice I respect very much. The timing and synergy suggested it was important to share this. Click here to read “How We Get Hooked and How We Get Unhooked“.
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New Moon – February 2017
During the past lunar cycle I focused on self-acceptance. Three days after the last new moon I was in the accident and spent the rest of the lunar cycle forced to do little else but accept each moment as it came. It was interesting to “watch” my brain recover from the concussion and accept that each moment was as it should be.
I ended that period of acceptance by acknowledging that I had a role to play in affecting change and spent the last few minutes of the cycle, combined with the solar eclipse, focusing on letting go of that which does not serve me. Part of this references the “thermal exhaust port” post from the Friday.
With the new moon I start a new cycle, and this time I’m choosing to move from self-acceptance to self-discovery. I’m not sure exactly what that means yet – but that’s also part of the adventure!!
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New Moon – January 2017
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more…”
I’m back online now.
There are battles to be fought, and wars to be won.
This past Friday’s New Moon brought a vow to focus on the work of self-acceptance – both personally and professionally. This follows the teachings of Sun Tzu who said “So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be put at risk even in a hundred battles.” – it must begin with self-acceptance.
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Zeus
There have been so many changes in my spiritual path over the past two and a half years that sometimes I don’t even know where to start. I’ve wanted to journal out here for a while, but each time I sat to write it became clearer to me that I was obligated to tell another story first.
In late 2013/early 2014 the grove that I was a member of was focusing the work of our rituals on the study of the Major Arcana of the Tarot. Through the course of that schedule, The Emperor card fell to me. Through my study of the card and its symbolism, I had locked-in on Zeus as a deific personification of the card.
At the time, from everything I’d read, I came to see Zeus as an opportunistic bully. Manipulative and self-serving, with little regard for anyone else or the consequences of his actions. This makes sense considering his place in the pantheon – he doesn’t have to care, so why should he? When he does express what could be seen as affection it comes across more as favoritism. In this way, he reminds me a lot of a dictator.
This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for the Olympians. Much like Iraq seemed to function better with a dictator in power, perhaps the Olympic deities needed that kind of authoritarian control – but in my view, he imposed his power and control – and in return he received obedience, but not necessarily respect.
I’d been talking this through with friends and was given an interesting spin one day. I came up with “hmm, maybe he’s a bully?” and floated the idea. A trusted friend came back with “most bullies act out of insecurity” – which caused me to look at it from a different angle. What could Zeus be insecure about?
I was contending with a great deal at the time and felt “bullied” myself on a number of different fronts. Grasping for something within my control, I turned to wage war against Zeus. I tried to reconcile it, and somehow find compassion for him, but it just wasn’t coming.
Then as I was getting ready to go to a conference in March of 2014, I was walking through the apartment and my internal dialog spoke… “You’ve heard the legends, but do you know the truth?” I don’t understand how I knew it was Zeus calling to me. I stopped my packing and sat for a minute. Okay… you’re right. All I know is what’s been passed down – I don’t know any facts about you… just the stories. My war ended there. To quote Sun Tzu, “Know thy self, know thy enemy.” In that moment I no longer knew my enemy. (in retrospect I really didn’t know myself either, but that’s a tale for another time). In the peace of that moment Zeus spoke again – “you know what I was dealing with, could I have been anything else?”
Zeus was the King of the Olympians – surrounded by and ruling some very dysfunctional personalities. He could not govern by consensus – no one could with that crowd. He did the best he could with what he had.
Those two sentences from Zeus became great comfort for me in those following months.
Two days after He gave me those gifts, I was ‘unwelcomed’ from my grove, and (unbeknownst to me at the time) from my entire tradition. In the ensuing years, when I’ve been asked to recount the hows and whys I’ve been brutally honest both with myself and those asking. I’ve told the whole truth – including how I could have managed things much differently. Hindsight is always 20/20 – but given who and where I was back then, could I have been anything else? And to those who never bothered to ask, I’m comforted by the fact that they know the legends, but might never really know the truth.
In the past two and a half years, Zeus has been one of three deities who has stuck with me, counseled me, and protected me. My personal gnosis of Zeus is complex, but feels right. He interceded for me with a work thing earlier this month – one of the few times I’ve agreed to being okay with him working on my behalf. The next day, after things inexplicably fell together, I thanked him. Then I wondered – He does so much for me what can I possibly offer in return? The answer was immediate – I give him compassion and understanding. I don’t accept stories as truth and I try to understand what I can in context.
There can be more journal entries now. I needed to move from the past into the present. Thank you Zeus, I hope this pleases you.
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Polyamory
I’m sitting in an interesting place these days.
About 6 1/2 years ago I was presented with the notion that I could enter into an Open Relationship. We’d talked about poly, how my partner at the time had practical experience, and while I’d had none, I felt like the option of unlimited love was a thing I’d been chasing my whole life.
One way I tend to refer to that relationship is as my “poly-goes-boom” experience. It was horrific, but it showed me by contrast how I wanted to be poly. If it was going to work for me – there had to be clear, open, and adult communication. There couldn’t be retreat in the face of upsetting your partner. Partnerships were supposed to weather those storms together, or they weren’t true partnerships.
A few months after that debacle, I found someone who was also wounded… she was dating casually and “taking the year for herself”. Neither of us had any business falling in love, or being in a relationship… so I’d mention Poly to her and basically said ‘under this framework, we can have both’. She approached her current partner who was receptive to the idea, and that journey began.
Through a number of deep and caring relationships on her part, we kept talking. We weathered storms, we got hurt and then helped one another heal. We were partners concurrent with her other relationships.
That was tested earlier this year when she fell hard for someone just before February’s PolyCon. We had both said we would wish each other love if we found someone we needed to leave the other for… to shift, or even close our relationship – I had the fear that moment had come. It was a real test – and for a while I doubted that I could truly be poly. Poly in the face of dating is one thing, poly in the face of Love – actual polyAMORY is different. But we talked, we were vulnerable, she was honest and we walked through it all together.
Through these years I’ve dated – sometimes successfully, sometimes not. There are souls I still value deeply and count as cherished loved ones even though, for whatever reason, ‘dating’ didn’t quite work for one or both of us. But to establish something more than just dating… I just didn’t know if I could open myself up that much. I knew I wanted to – I just didn’t know if I could push my own edges far enough.
But now I sit wondering at the possibilities. Looking at the landscape of my life, and the quality of my heart, and feeling like ‘yes, I really can do this’. It’s still early, and taking this slow is proving to be a beautiful journey itself. Much like driving a long country road – you don’t know when the next beautiful vista is going to appear over the hill… but take your time, and let the wonders unfold as they will.
This has been a great year of healing – and some of it has been chronicled here. I am so, so very grateful for everyone who has been part of the journey, and part of the healing… and I feel remarkably blessed to be where I am right now.
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