New Becomings

  When a woman's response/reaction to deep disrespect becomes a problem for those around her - there's a much bigger issue.  We're not talking about unintentionally hurtful remarks/actions or drunken outbursts with the heat of emotion, we're talking deliberate deceptions that feel like a slow death by a thousand cuts. The mind can't comprehend it, the heart is bewildered, broken, and the nervous system is on constant alert.  I've always been pretty good at bringing calm back into my being through rhythmic breathing, meditation, and stream-of-consciousness writing... these things have barely scratched the surface over the past few months. I took a much needed break from social media, unfriended a bunch of people, and visited with those who've known my soul for eons. I cried the kind of tears that needed to escape, else they'd drown out the light. I lost trust in everybody around me. There are a number of peer-reviewed studies that suggest emotional trauma...

 Though people profess to admire transparency, they are curiously fond of secrets; wearing them like finely tailored coats, too heavy in the summer heat, yet impossible to shed for fear of feeling exposed. To stand bare and firmly in the light seems a kind of death, so they build little fortresses for a sense of control, however momentary - an illusion of safety, as though a hidden truth might preserve them from judgement or loss. The irony lingers in the air like perfume: what they fear most - the gaze seeing them whole - is the very thing that would save them. Only in the fragile risk of transparency could they hope to touch something like inner peace. People cling to their secrets not out of malice, but from the quiet dread of accountability. To keep something hidden is to escape the mirror, to delay the moment when truth demands its due. They tell themselves it is about privacy, discretion, even dignity - but beneath it all is the fear of being measured, of having to answer for...

 Cue the Bongos, Flutes, Sitars, Ouds, Tartarian Bells, and Birdsong...   If the universe were a poker game played in the back of a cosmic jazz club, it would seem that the narcissists, charlatans, and oily-palmed power merchants are starting to fold. Not because they’ve grown a conscience (don’t hold your breath, sweet summer child), but because the very cards they’ve been cheating with are disintegrating in their hands—turning into truth-serum-soaked-star-shaped biodegradable confetti. The world is shedding its snakeskin and cracking its old, crusty carapace of corruption to reveal a softer, more luminous underbelly:  Integrity. A word once considered old is now back in fashion like bell-bottoms and vinyl records. But how do we know the rot is collapsing and that Honesty is having its moment in the sun? Let’s take a peek- Whistleblowers and Weirdos with Truth Lasers... The whistleblowers—those brave souls with flaming hearts and fireproof underpants—crawling ...

Many people assume I'm naive at best, stupid at worst..  and that my existence, appearances, and talents are lucky draws, having nothing to do with continually overcoming self-imposed limitations. Many people don't think I deserve what I have, don't deserve to be happy or successful, feeling the need to trigger me into a negative reaction, making them feel superior - because those people also assume that  I'm superior to them - Meanwhile, I'm just trying to master mySelf and leave others to master their own processes.  You may not understand this, but, over my lifetime, people monitor what I do and even mimic my expressions in an attempt to gain access to some kind of perceived circumstantial privilege..? What they don't understand is that it is not about exterior circumstances, it's about who and what I am . I've chosen to hide these understandings until now. Here is where I am: Standing up in Full Force, looking Life straight in the Eye, and letting It...

I'm figuring out how to get on with the rest of my life here without screaming into the void and succumbing to the 'that's-just-the-way-it-is' attitude of many generations before now - This may just be another feminist cry against the patriarchy, wailing in the distance, not enough to affect anything or anyone, but I need to call it out: To the men who subconsciously listen in rapt to the systemic sexism that has been stroking their egos since before they were born, as their 'hard wiring' allows them to treat women as objects and servants, yet wear carefully crafted public masks of allyship - I Call You Out. And, to the women who use their objectification, utilizing the same inherited and ingrained system, to control people and climb proverbial ladders - I Call You Out. Why would anyone try to change anything if they benefit from it? What is the benefit? Superiority? Domination? Survival? This system of imbalance, inherited and ingrained, is yet another privileg...

  Here’s the thing about not caring what happens: it’s liberating.  Don't get me wrong, I float in a boundless well of compassion, but it's detached from personal affect even as I feel things to the core - that visceral heaviness punching the gut doesn't actually impact my beingness. I experience good, bad, and indifference, then watch what happens. And, I still take actions I think might help situations or people in some way or other - whether anyone knows it or not makes no difference to me - I do it anyway for some reason. Sometimes people thank me, and sometimes they get angry about the things I choose to say or do... Whatever.   It's like stepping off a carousel you were tired of riding - you watch the painted horses bob up and down, endlessly looping, and think, “Well, I guess it just goes on with or without me.” And you’re fine with that. You’ve got no grand illusions about saving the world or stopping it from spinning. The world, after all, doesn’t need saving. ...