“This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall, this is how magic is done…
…by hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering that it’s a feather bed.. there’s no other way to do it.”
— Terence McKenna
Yearly Archives: 2015
That Becoming Dance
Jokerman
Standing on the waters casting your bread
While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing
Distant ships sailing into the mist
You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing
Freedom just around the corner for you
But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman
So swiftly the sun sets in the sky
You rise up and say goodbye to no one
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread
Both of their futures, so full of dread, you don’t show one
Shedding off one more layer of skin
Keeping one step ahead of the persecutor within
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman
You’re a man of the mountains, you can walk on the clouds
Manipulator of crowds, you’re a dream twister
You’re going to Sodom and Gomorrah
But what do you care? Ain’t nobody there would want to marry your sister
Friend to the martyr, a friend to the woman of shame
You look into the fiery furnace, see the rich man without any name
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman
Well, the Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy
The law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers
In the smoke of the twilight on a milk-white steed
Michelangelo indeed could’ve carved out your features
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space
Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman
Well, the rifleman’s stalking the sick and the lame
Preacherman seeks the same, who’ll get there first is uncertain
Nightsticks and water cannons, tear gas, padlocks
Molotov cocktails and rocks behind every curtain
False-hearted judges dying in the webs that they spin
Only a matter of time ’til night comes steppin’ in
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman
It’s a shadowy world, skies are slippery grey
A woman just gave birth to a prince today and dressed him in scarlet
He’ll put the priest in his pocket, put the blade to the heat
Take the motherless children off the street
And place them at the feet of a harlot
Oh, Jokerman, you know what he wants
Oh, Jokerman, you don’t show any response
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman
Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music
The Gift of Love
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
The Triune Choice of Transgender Humans in a Binary World
I wanted to press this because I admire the courage of this person, and I wanted to call attention (again) to the plight of transgender people. Sadly, we are limited to just a couple of options:
1. Be true to ourselves, and get harassed, bullied, and very likely even assaulted and/or killed.
2. Hide, and be subject to awful harassment, bullying and assault from ourselves from inside our own being.
Of course there is the 3rd option, the one I took:
You can always just rip yourself in two…dissociate, so you don’t “know” about yourself (and neither does anyone else), and you can simply study the prison that you have been given and called life and learn how to perform.
Perform well, and get rewarded with praise, affection, what is termed “love” (and from the perspective of the givers surely is love, but from the perspective of the dissociated person it’s never really known for sure if they’re loved), and all the privileges accorded to one who conforms to their prescribed role.
But the fallout from this…the gender role half life, if you will…is terrible. Stress, dysphoria, depression, and ultimately despair. The ripples of that rending of the soul in twain go forth from that moment…
…but they don’t diminish with time, they magnify, grow larger and have increasingly more destructive results in the lives of all who intersect with that person.
I know. This is what I did…and I’ve been informed by those who had the grave misfortune to exist in those waves and troughs that I ruined them forever in my cowardly and hypocritical choice to dissociate rather than displease (or worse) my parents.
Hey, I was 6 years old…I shoulda known better…I did know worse…eventually.
So there you have it, folks…the 3 fold option for prisoners of the gender binary back in the mid 60s. If you know a family with a gender variant member, and they are seeking to grapple with it now in a world that is slowly growing more flexible as attitudes and superstitions change…reach out and give them love.
They will certainly need it.
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly
Charissa
riverheadlocal.com
Transgender youth skip school rather than face discrimination, humiliation from educators and peers
The N.Y. Civil Liberties Union is calling on the State Education Department to provide detailed guidance to public school districts on preventing transgender youths’ discrimination and harassment by students and teachers.
Many trans* youth don’t get the education they deserve due to undue harassment and discrimination from both educations and peers.
This is why EVERY school should have a fully inclusive non-discrimination AND anti-bullying policy which protects youth and educators alike on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender presentation.
Neighborhood Bully (Apologies to Bob Dylan for the Adjustments)
Well, the neighborhood bully, she’s a woman
Her enemies say she’s on their land
They got her outnumbered about a million to one
She got no place to escape to, no place to run
She’s the neighborhood bully
The neighborhood bully just lives to survive
She’s criticized and condemned for being alive
She’s not supposed to fight back, she’s supposed to have thick skin
She’s supposed to lay down and die when her door is kicked in
She’s the neighborhood bully
The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
She’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen her family scattered, her people hounded and torn
She’s always on trial for just being born
She’s the neighborhood bully
Well, she knocked out a lynch mob, she was criticized
Old women condemned her, said she should apologize.
Then she destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for her. She was supposed to feel bad
She’s the neighborhood bully
Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That she’ll live by the rules that the world makes for her
’Cause there’s a noose at her neck and a gun at her back
And a license to kill her is given out to every maniac
She’s the neighborhood bully
She got no allies to really speak of
What she gets she must pay for, she don’t get it out of love
She buys obsolete weapons and she won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by her side
She’s the neighborhood bully
Well, she’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
She’s the neighborhood bully
Every empire that’s enslaved her is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
She’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command
She’s the neighborhood bully
Now her holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract she signed was worth what it was written on
She took the crumbs of the world and she turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and she turned it into health
She’s the neighborhood bully
What’s anybody indebted to her for?
Nothin’, they say. She just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed
She’s the neighborhood bully
What has she done to wear so many scars?
Does she change the course of rivers? Does she pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully
Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music
Lyrical adaptations by Charissa, in honor of courageous women everywhere, especially transwomen
The Triune Choice of Transgender People In a Binary World
I wanted to press this because I admire the courage of this person, and I wanted to call attention (again) to the plight of transgender people. Sadly, we are limited to just a couple of options:
1. Be true to ourselves, and get harassed, bullied, and very likely even assaulted and/or killed.
2. Hide, and be subject to awful harassment, bullying and assault from ourselves from inside our own being.
Of course there is the 3rd option, the one I took:
You can always just rip yourself in two…dissociate, so you don’t “know” about yourself (and neither does anyone else), and you can simply study the prison that you have been given and called life and learn how to perform.
Perform well, and get rewarded with praise, affection, what is termed “love” (and from the perspective of the givers surely is love, but from the perspective of the dissociated person it’s never really known for sure if they’re loved), and all the privileges accorded to one who conforms to their prescribed role.
But the fallout from this…the gender role half life, if you will…is terrible. Stress, dysphoria, depression, and ultimately despair. The ripples of that rending of the soul in twain go forth from that moment…
…but they don’t diminish with time, they magnify, grow larger and have increasingly more destructive results in the lives of all who intersect with that person.
I know. This is what I did…and I’ve been informed by those who had the grave misfortune to exist in those waves and troughs that I ruined them forever in my cowardly and hypocritical choice to dissociate rather than displease (or worse) my parents.
Hey, I was 6 years old…I shoulda known better…I did know worse…eventually.
So there you have it, folks…the 3 fold option for prisoners of the gender binary back in the mid 60s. If you know a family with a gender variant member, and they are seeking to grapple with it now in a world that is slowly growing more flexible as attitudes and superstitions change…reach out and give them love.
They will certainly need it.
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly
Charissa
riverheadlocal.com
Transgender youth skip school rather than face discrimination, humiliation from educators and peers
The N.Y. Civil Liberties Union is calling on the State Education Department to provide detailed guidance to public school districts on preventing transgender youths’ discrimination and harassment by students and teachers.
Many trans* youth don’t get the education they deserve due to undue harassment and discrimination from both educations and peers.
This is why EVERY school should have a fully inclusive non-discrimination AND anti-bullying policy which protects youth and educators alike on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender presentation.
Work In Progress
Found this morning:
“You are in a time of transition, of growth –
of becoming more than you’ve allowed yourself to be.
It’s bittersweet. It’s painful. It’s beautiful and it is so very necessary.
Don’t stop trying. Don’t hesitate to dream big. Don’t give up on yourself.
Don’t give into your doubts. You are a wonderful work in progress.
Day by day you are planting seeds and soon the harvest will come
and you will reap glorious things.”
—
With love,Dele
Reaping Waves
I’m no Viking, not me!
Charissa Grace?
Pshaw…I do not sail
on waves like crops,
oars for ploughs
and battle lust for seed.
I shudder at the thought!
Of harvest moments
in peaceful lands
and no limits but my lusts
and the certainty of loss
at the end of Ragnarok.
I sail on clouds, on streams
on brook-magic mists rising
in the gentle night and dusky dawn
and sow in rose-glow song
to the fields of new morning
by the light of the Morning Star…
tears are my seed
laughter my harvest
in grace taken and shared
in the cycle of that itty bitty seed
so small, so unstoppable
so certain at the beginning
of the Endless Day
Breaking Beans
the *snap* of crisp green beans
the smell of the fresh linen
infused with lacy scents
of baked bread lingering
the sound like
*past* and *present* and *future*
punctuated with
period. period. period.
and my heart the ellipsis that lingers
like the freshly baked bread.
I toss snappy green bodies
*broken for you*
into the big tin tub
that has held generations
of bloody green beans.
I hear the sound, somewhere between
a thump
and a ting
and the tremor of a gong,
the tolling of a bell
and you,
I hear the sound of you
breaking, snapping
and thumping into your tub.
This season could last forever
as far as I am concerned.
This season cannot roll past fast enough
if you want to know the truth.
Truth.
Thump.
Ting.
Tremor.
Toll.
I stare at the horizon (beyond)
as my fingers find familiar quan
in green beans
*snap*ping like
castanets
Father’s Day Aftermath
I’m down and troubled and I need a helping hand
and nothing, whoa, nothing is going right.
I’ve closed my eyes and thought of you,
and yet you’re just not there
to brighten up even this darkest nights.
I’ve just called out your name, but I know wherever you are
you’ll start running to never see me again.
Winter, spring, summer, or fall, every time I reach out to call,
you are not there, no no no
I need a friend.
Well the sky above me has turned dark and full of clouds
and that old north wind so chilly’s begun to blow,
I try to keep my head together and call your name out loud.
It’s in vain, you will never be knocking on my door.
I just call out your name, but each time, it’s always the same
You go running the other way to never see me again.
Winter, spring, summer, or fall, every time I reach out and call,
you are not there, no no no
I need a friend.
Hey, it’s so hard to know that I got no friend? People can be so cold.
They’ll hurt you and desert you. Well, they’ll take your soul if you let them,
oh yeah, but even my soul’s not enough for them.
I just call out your name, and I know where ever you are
You go running so you never have to see me again.
Winter, spring, summer, or fall, or any other time at all…
Lord, there’s just VM yeah yeah yeah
I need a friend. Yeah, I need a friend.
The House of My Heart
If you sit down in my life
and find it snug, merry, warm
and full of the smells
of bread baking and
food cooking…
then you have made it to the porch.
If you stand in horror
at the mess you see
the dirty laundry next
to the washer running
24×7…
then you have made it to the mudroom.
If you walk, amazed
and cannot find words
for those rooms unfolding
and full of art, of music
of funny lil knic-knaks,
and the only uniting theme
is wonder…
then you have made it into my heart.
And if you find the stillness
filled with golden light
and fierce joyful gladness…
then you have made it to my soul.
Charissa’s Transition Fund…
…is going fairly well.
Won’t you consider a contribution? Then I can deal with this:
giggles…
Change Your Attitude
“Stay honest. Stay vulnerable. Stay present. Stay hopeful.
Through the hard days, broken moments, frustrating experiences,
sad nights, tearful breakdowns, and hopeless feelings stay awake.
Through the hard days, broken moments, frustrating experiences,
sad nights, tearful breakdowns, and hopeless feelings stay awake.
“Stay faithful. Stay alive.
This moment you are in right now is a turning point.
A time of change. A season where who you were
and what you felt doesn’t have to be forever.
“You can change your life.
Change your path.
Change your attitude.
Change your story.”
Change your path.
Change your attitude.
Change your story.”
| — | Dele Olanubi |
Then Read It Again
Do not allow your loneliness to lower your standards.
40 questions for Christians who oppose marriage equality (GUEST COMMENTARY) – Corner of Church and State
A VERY interesting and thought provoking article and series of questions…Reader, this is posted more for you than anyone else. See if you can hold your need to “binary-ize” things into your “either-or” world view…just for a second or two.
I am less interested in answering the question of right and wrong at this point, and more interested in asking what kind of heart are you showing, advocating, and modeling by your current approaches to relationship with LGTBQ people?
I mean…33 plus years of relationship was over in the flick of a heartswitch and the drop of an envelope in a mail-slot…
Boom.
My life has gone on. No…more accurately, my life has finally begun and I have been blooming and growing spiritually and emotionally and growing more healthy physically. The loss of relationship has in my case been a very healthy pruning in that so many new people have come into my life bringing messages to me like I have rarely experienced in my past years done in the dungeons of christendom.
But I do think about you, Reader…and the life you live of inspection and constant lifting of yourself and others into scales that are not even accurate…
…and I encourage you to read these questions and ponder them…
because to answer them and be challenged by them will require you to change your lifestyle, spend your time differently, and draw your boundaries very different!
You never know…you just may find that the river you say I have crossed that you won’t be crossing is the River of Life and that what matters is the water, and not the bank you stand on…as if that matters…as if you could really make that claim, that your bank is “the bank”…as if that pleases God who left heaven and took on the form of a bondslave…
…and as if that River of Life doesn’t have twists and turns to the human eye that could end up with us actually still “on the same side” (cus that’s a thing in this divisive binary world, being on the same side is far more important than belonging to Jesus *SARCASM*) and you not even realize it.
Just let go.
The list is getting sooo long, and the burden is getting sooo ponderous, all the things you must inspect and check and ascertain…how bout just letting all that go, and simply doing this: Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, and loving your neighbor as yourself with something more than a letter that slashed and burned and then preened like Little Jack Horner…
Here Are the Real Reasons Why We White People Struggle to Admit That Racism Still Exists — Everyday Feminism
Constance: there is a lot of this sort of talk running around these days…WASP types complaining about racism. This article addresses that sort of thinking and does it very well.
If you think that anyone can be a racist, you are likely missing the point being driven at regarding a system in which racism is endemic and deeply rooted so badly as to be like a cancer riddling an entire body.
But what troubles me most in all of this is that we are so invested in proving that people of Color are “more racist” than we are or that we’re not racist, we are more upset by allegations that we might be racist than about the very real ways that racism plays out in the society around us.
I see my fellow White people so wrapped up in defending the idea that systemic racism doesn’t exist that we are unable to empathize with the real pain caused to people of Color by racism, both interpersonal and systemic.
For goodness sake, even the McKinney police admitted Eric Casebolt was out of line in assaulting a young Black girl for legally observing his actions, yet White people in my life were trying so hard to explain how the officer was in the right and how this “isn’t racial.”
All of this leaves me wondering about the roots of our defensiveness to admitting that racism is alive and well.
Why are we so resistant to acknowledging the countless examples of our racial privilege?
Wishing, But Not Hearing
This long quote. It’s a thank you to someone for their endurance under depression. It captures the place well.
I suffered in dysphoria for 50 years, and one of its horrible side effects was depression. Staying alive was a pretty big achievement. And yet there are people in my life who communicate something to me very different than this quote…or just don’t speak at all.
The words spoken are awful to read (at least I am spared them being given face to face)…but the silence is the worst. Looming, frozen, hot hell…where there used to be the core and comfort of my heart.
If you know someone in your life who wrestles with despair, and gets up alive everyday? Say something like the below to them…it will mean the world.
“I am so unbelievably proud of you. Every day you get out of bed even though all you want to do is stay under the covers. Every day you take a shower, you get dressed, you put food in your body, and you leave the safety of your home for the chaos of this world.To me that’s an act of profound bravery. You are choosing to live and try despite your tiredness, hopelessness, and brokenness. You cling to the light instead of the dark. You leave your comfort zone every day for the unknown.
I’m proud of you. I hope you are proud of you. I hope you know how those seemingly little acts of courage are really the greatest moments of bravery. I hope that you will continue to rise each day and live your life.
Thank you for living. Thank you for staying. Thank you for fighting. Thank you for trying. Thank you for being in this world with me. Thank you for holding on when you want to let go. Thank you for trusting in tomorrow.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.I am so proud of you. These words cannot explain the depths of gratefulness I feel for your life. I pray that you would always rise just as the sun does every morning in the blue sky.
— With a whole lot of love, Dele”
My Alone
“My alone
feels so good,
I’ll only have you
if you’re sweeter
than my solitude.”
— Warsan Shireஇڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—…இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—இڿ
Affirmation
Deconstructing Masculinity & Manhood with Michael Kimmel @ Dartmouth College
YAAAAEEESSSSSSS
You know what I like, and feel is so important? That he doesn’t say “Men thinks those are THEIR positions”. He says “We think those are OUR positions.”
As a male feminist, he still doesn’t exclude himself from the group of men.
Bad Logic
Constance, check out the quote below:
“Claiming there is no other life in the universe is like scooping up some water, looking at the cup and claiming there are no whales in the ocean.”
— Neil deGrasse Tyson, reply to “Aliens don’t exist because we have not found them yet
Of course, this is very cute, and one of those zingers that makes a certain sense…but one could also say
“Claiming there is other life in the universe is like scooping up some water, looking at the cup and claiming that I just haven’t found a whale in a pond because I haven’t checked every single pond yet.”
My point is more about logic and how it’s used (or ignored) rather than so-called alien life-forms.
That topic is somewhat moot, as the potential presence of aliens still does not address that thing that’s off inside of humanity. The topic of logic and thought, however, is pretty relevant at all times for humanity.
I Lost Time Today
I lost time today…misplaced it completely
as I sat, wondering how
the lavender takes body and position
in the skies above.
Does it wish its way up there?
Does it woo with song and dance?
Notes so sweet floating on air
to paint and wash and seize its chance
to smear its bloody beauty stain
upon the sky’s face once so plain
just blue…and now in wonder-grains
of beauty brief that won’t remain…
I lost time today…
It’s The Wonder
Lately it’s been getting harder,
harder to breathe…my chest
is burdened, weighed down,
constricted and heaving
and breath, a woman writhing in labor,
gasps and tears at air so thick
it only gives up in pieces ragged
and jagged and grippy.
The older I get, the harder it is
to breathe.
Doctors call it asthma, they say
I’ve had it all my life
(who knew? Not I!)
And me none the wiser, I just
worked so hard and suffered harder
and swam straight on thru strife.
But recently, I coughed real hard!
And what I thought was sputum
was really a fresh bud coughed up
and then spit out for good!
That’s when I realized, my lungs
have turned into a flower bed
of Mama’s Blossoms Fragrant
and oh so beautiful.
To Be Standing Under
“We’re all so desperate to be understood,
we forget to be understanding.”
we forget to be understanding.”
| — | Beau Taplin // U n d e r s t a n d i n g |
I Fly Steady On
Past Lady Liberty, looming silent still
thru slant snow, icy, cold,
frozen feet firmly planted
atop the broken chains
of captives loosed, unbound.
Past her seeming sightless eyes
fixed on an end unseen (as yet)
by mortal eye, and unfelt by
frozen human hearts transfixed,
addicted to poisonous demon draughts,
dolorous naughts of racism,
oppression,
of hate.
I fly steady on…I fly.
My breath a billows sucking air
frozen cold in sips so sharp
in hurty breaths constricted, choked,
and exhalations honk their way
from my leaping, working chest
tugging me on towards Her Light,
into Liberty’s coming sun.
Follow…follow past frozen
Liberty so stark and solitary
standing witness silent
but never mute!
Follow me bravely
and let your frozen breath
be transformed into
HONKS of freedom
to the ones enslaved
still by fear and hatred.
I fly on, true.
I fly on.
The Birds of Desire
“She was like a forest,
like the dark interlacing
of the oakwood,
humming inaudibly
with myriad unfolding buds.
Meanwhile
the birds of desire
were asleep
in the vast interlaced
intricacy of her body.”
— D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Save Your Magic
I saw these pictures laid out just now…and oh how I laughed!
Constance, how often have you found yourself
in a situation in life that is basically just uncooked fries?
They are raw, frozen, and must endure some heat
to be transformed into something
edible and delicious.
And yet, you fear the flame, you dread the pain
and thus you look to magic for escape
the magic place inside that we all have.
Magic isn’t free, no! It involves
a different kind of pain, more permanent,
more costly and more precious in its gift.
Hey, open up your heart and let a smile
consume your face like sun consumes the night!
And get you in the oven…get you in your fight!!
and let your fries be cooked so you can eat
and with such joy your days you’ll rise to greet!!
He Said…She Said
“…I have remained a poet, in the most radical sense of the word.”
| — | Friedrich Nietzsche, from a letter to Peter Gast |
I am laughing as I read this quote
this poor man sounding like Bill Grogan’s Goat
who swallowed the farmer’s red long underwear
and now has indigestion everywhere!
remain…poet…radical…sense…the word
that sentence is red long underwear
giving me indigestion, and as I bleat
I cough it up down at the rail road tracks
and flag the passing train that hurtles by
rolling towards the trestle out, destroyed!
how can I remain a poetess? I am still “main”
and thus have no access to “re”…just main
and Poetry? She scoffs at notions, high pretensions
such as “most” and “sense” when grafted
to the context of the Word.
NAY! This heart poetic, precious is defined,
is described, is found and measured
in the shadow cast and context of the Word
*in the beginning was/is/shallbe*
and in the Word “sense” is mere nonsense,
and radical is a sub-atomic particle straining free
and remain is so redundant, oh so boring
and goats munch red underwear and choke
I am a poetess, because the Word
and Poetry my mistress and my Queen
and nonsense is outside sense as dark is light
and I “main” my flow, my creative Delight
I am Charissa Grace and I am free
so sorry for Nietzsche, too fearful to be
THE FACTS (about transgender kids)
Originally posted on gendermom:
A couple of weeks ago, I read the following words in an article on the home page of The New York Times: “…studies suggest that most young children with gender dysphoria eventually lose any desire to change sex,…
Catacombs and Caverns
I heard caverns deep behind your words of wonder.
I heard water dripping softly from wet ceilings
in those hollow places that you talked
so gingerly around…I heard your words resound,
your words of wonder…
in catacombs within so dark with dying
and dismal longing smothering and sighing,
the death to self and terrible becoming
in places of deep grief and self-discovery
those spaces once full, quick became so hollow…
I hear your hollow places faintly filling
with sorrow bleeding, and thus filled becoming
drained, emptied in the lonely tearful crying
that hallows fearful places looming darkly,
places of slow death so severely emptied,
bereavement fresh yet ancient,
everlasting and then grief become
dark resurrection hinted at
in every birth brand new,
in every dying….
I found your trails familiar, well worn, hidden
so deep within the kidneys of your words
and yet those trails well known in rising darkness,
(a left at that root ragged there, then quickly
around that rugged rock jutting sharp right here).
I have been walking word roads too, becoming
and finding that my caverns dark and thrumming
catacombs full, then empty, full then empty
more times than I can count or e’en remember
and I wonder in such a holy horror
when my wonder became wander…wander…wander!
Yet I am here! Alive and breathing! Singing!
I’m here to tell you, it gets better, Darling
But only on this singular condition:
the losing of your everything in dying
and thus it is
you can be born
again and live
so lively new,
again.
Today, as I sit, listening to your heart, Dear
I look back at what I have lost…oh my God!
The stuff of Titans, losses heaped and horded,
my trinkets, treasures tossed, honors awarded
all tumbled in the twilight, gleaming dully
in the hot noon listless sun, laying there lifeless
and in the evening gloaming calling mutely
midst catacomb become my living darkness,
that cavern now my womb filling with wonder
all finally lost…and now? And now…The finding…
truly nothing
can compare
to the all surpassing
wonder of a world
made brand new
and my
Catacombs and Caverns
filled forever,
never failing, filled
and brand new
every morning,
every mourning
every warning
made brand new
and full of wonder
full of wander
full of You.
But The Thing Is…
…we still will not leave, not until you force us to, with repeated betrayal…
…or with indifference…
We’ll just keep you at arms length, and you not even know the difference, other than the air somehow smells different, the food tastes narrower, and the golden light of the sun is a bit muted…be worried then.
Teachers: Take Note!
That time when Raven actually said what most of us want to say to a teacher who picks you for the answer when you clearly don’t know it, for usually no other reason than to embarrass you and make you look stupid. One of the main things I hate and always will hate about school.
To The One Who Seeks My Faith’s Tender Throat With Teeth
I will never turn back.
I will never not Love God…why do you keep making that a condition?
When God has chosen (for what reason I know not, certainly not based on any merit I have, being the worst example of a human being that has walked the planet) to reveal Themselves, Their Beauty, well…
…the one to whom the revelation is given is slain forever…wounded forever and will forever bleed
love
and love
and love and love and love.
This is not about me, or about righteousness…it is about adoration.
I shall always always love Them, for They are Good and Kind, Clean and Pure, and have no shadow or smell of evil in Them.
If me renouncing Them is a condition for you, then you might as well go rave at Kilauea, go worship Krakatoa (if you can find him, blown apart in his own powerous pouty poofery)! Go lay hands on gouts of liquid rock, let them run through your fingers and clench down their flow and see what happens…
your flesh will not burn nor melt neath their heat…for you are ice and icy, austere in your inviolate Olympus of self, and I find myself cast out of your heaven and consigned to your outer darkness midst the sound of your gnashing teeth…
But you have thrust me deeper into that side pierced and bleeding…you have pushed my face into His Heart Bloody with Boundless Love…you have cast me on my Mama’s Breast (the one for me, contained in Her deeps, She: El Shaddai, the Many Breasted One with place for whosoever will…even you, dearest, even you…no…especially you).
I am my Beloveds’ and They are mine…it is by Their Hand and Word and what can I do?
To even renounce is to affirm for I use the Voice They gift to utter forth a word and thus it turns and leads me home again…
I will never
EVER
turn from Them, for with Them have I trusted my soul and I shall seek Them all the days of my life.
And the rest of you…who think that I have fallen into “sin”, into “sexual perversion”, into (you don’t even know, you just “know” it’s bad and tragic)…to the rest of you?
I cannot convey to you how truly irrelevant to life and love your gossip and gibbering is. It is as consequential to me and my fate in the Hands of the Lord God Almighty as a flea is to the ocean.
I love Jesus and follow Him, for He has accepted me and declared me His own and worthy.
I love Holy Spirit, blessed Holy Spirit, my Mama who calls me Her own and instructs me in Her way.
I love Father…who is good and kind and generous and forgiving and always always smiling on me in the darkness.
I care not if you read this and judge me…don’t you get it yet? My faith is not about you, and it never will be. It just isn’t. I no longer live to try and impress you, or please you, or deserve you.
I do not require you to say or do or believe or be like me in order to connect and laugh and love and live…why do you lay such requirement on me? Because you will never get it.
I will never leave Them. Never.
Found, at last, and in Them I shall dwell forever.
*All others, forgive this lil soliloquy…it is not for you unless you know it is…nothing to see here, move along quick*
Sometimes
sometimes i run out of words
(yeah, me, speaker of torrents
dropper of waterfalls
fountains of rivers
of words and more words)
how can i talk this feeling away
when i feel so ugly in every way?
how to describe that gulf so vast
laying between the me i feel
and the me i see?
looking out from inside this place
and seeing with heart-eyes
beauty where others recoil
and horror that others call beauty
and me always out of step?
out of my time, out of my place
in my own rhyme but dissonant chime
to the swan song of youth
and its foolish pronouncements
so expertly made with no history?
and words fail me,
no…i fail them, words.
and i am lost in seas of ugliness
and i am stuck in swamps of clumsiness
and i am doomed in deserts of desire
and no words
no words
no words
sometimes i run out of words
Here’s What’s Okay (And Not Okay) to Say to a Trans Person – Once and For All — Everyday Feminism
Here’s What’s Okay (And Not Okay) to Say to a Trans Person – Once and For All — Everyday Feminism. Dear Constance, this article will be good review for some, and a great beginning for those who are interested but don’t know protocol.
The one that is most crucial to me? The one that says my story is mine and not yours…and you have no right to out me to anyone…even though people have done this to me. It’s sorta weird to meet someone I knew then and hear that there is all kinds of gossip about me happening…that means that the paragons of virtue who told me I was beyond a river they refused to cross and that I was demonized?
They started the rumors and passed them along…and likely think they served Jesus in doing it. The trouble they caused me…I weep still at times over things that I could have shared in my own way and time that got shared and soo distorted… …but that’s the way it goes when you deal with the privileged…whatever they say is God’s will becomes God’s will…
because they say so (which makes them God, I guess).
TransWhat? • Allyship: first steps
TransWhat? • Allyship: first steps.
Fabulous aggregation of basic information!
The Easy Walk-Away
It’s getting so old, so tired,
and it acts so new, so hep
so revolutionary…
It’s mere cold-love
all-dolled up in
cherry chapstik
and cheap mascara.
Nowadays it masquerades
as a mantra, this year’s model
on last year’s red carpet walk
while the fawning gather
and swoon…
while cold love kisses hearts
with curses, vows, orders
to walk away quick at the first sign
of imperfection or humanity.
Well, I like the trees that twist in the moonlight
and scrabble hard on the stones
and grab rocks, not to throw
but to grind into dirt
and eat from!
Joshua, Bristle Cone, Pinyon,
Mesquite, Juniper…
yeah, I’ll take them anyday,
thorns, stingy stubbornness
and faithful all day long
for centuries…
ain’t no walk-away in them
for sure…
ain’t no easy walk-way,
and my kind of people
those bristly-ass trees of
gnarled stubborn stick-to-it.
Big Mamas and lil mama
with a call of wake up
the moon is up
and canyon calling clear
in the night,
away from the easy walk-away
and into the long present
Today
Curiously Creative
“I have noticed that when all the lights are on,
people tend to talk about what they are doing –
their outer lives.
“Sitting round in candlelight or firelight,
people start to talk about how they are feeling –
their inner lives.
They speak subjectively,
they argue less,
there are longer pauses.
“To sit alone without any electric light is curiously creative.
I have my best ideas at dawn or at nightfall,
but not if I switch on the lights –
then I start thinking about projects,
deadlines, demands,
“and the shadows and shapes
of the house become objects,
not suggestions, things that need to done,
not a background to thought.”
— Jeanette Winterson, “Why I Adore the Night”
The Teacher
“Problems, weaknesses, setbacks, regrets and mistakes
teach you if you’re willing to learn,
or they punish you if you’re not.”
— Ralph Marston
Thoughts of Connection
I love thought that runs in this fashion…not on “eros” as a topic…but the way in which it is discussed.
This is Signifier and Signified Thinking and a good example of it.
“Eros is an issue of boundaries. He exists because certain boundaries do. In the interval between reach and grasp, between glance and counterglance, between ‘I love you’ and ‘I love you too,’ the absent presence of desire comes alive.“But the boundaries of time and glance and I love you are only aftershocks of the main, inevitable boundary that creates Eros: the boundary of flesh and self between you and me.“And it is only, suddenly, at the moment when I would dissolve that boundary, I realize I never can.”
— Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet
Be Soft
“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard.
Do not let pain make you hate.
Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness…”
—
Kurt Vonnegut
Is Your Trans Allyship Half-Baked? Here Are 6 Mistakes That Trans Allies Are Still Making — Everyday Feminism
Constance…you are all so kind to me, supportive and for me. And sometimes, you just put your feet right in it, and not even know it!
Because your comments are not intended to harm or other or police me, I nearly always do not give a clue as to how they have hurt me…but they do.
Like when you say “Oh wow, you’re looking so great today girl, and you’re gonna look even better when you get that 5 o’clock shadow” lasered off”
*OOooffff!* That hurts…especially because there are many cis-females that have more naturally occurring facial hair than I do!
Or this one was particularly cutting: “Why don’t you consider getting your Adam’s Apple shaved? It will make you look more feminine”…
…so I went home and cried after that one…cus lots of reasons, but one of the biggest is that there are many drag queens and transvestites who look 100% feminine and completely identify as gay males and in no way consider themselves female…while here I am, female thru and thru and yet told that I need a shave of my Adam’s Apple to look (read “be”) more feminine.
Or “you sound like a boy so you are a boy”…wow, don’t know where to go with that one because here is the fact: any human being whose vocal cords are exposed to testosterone is going to have those cords damaged by that exposure and it will be permanent, irreversible damage. The result is that person’s voice will then deepen, coarsen, and sound like what we have been socialized to believe that men sound like and not women.
I would add one that the author leaves out: we trans-folk are not your personal research assistants! “Why Charissa, whatever do you mean?” Here is what I mean: many of you have taken baby steps out into the jungle, and trans-misogynist tigers have roared loud at you, eyes glaring…and you scurry to me and say “CHARISSA!!! There’s beasties out there! Give me some bullets PDQ!!! What do I say???!!”
Umm…so here is what I want you to know: we are not born the “Golden Child of all knowledge trans!” We were born inside these skins, as tabula rasa as you…what we learned was from hard work, investment of time, research, learning Google-Fu and using it, and then more of the same! The information is out there…the same things I found and tested and tried and learned.
I cannot be an ally for you! You either are or you aren’t.
You can’t just show up when it’s convenient, and expect me to carry the ball the rest of the time, give you your lines, take all the arrows so you won’t be harmed…I am already taking arrows and dealing with that.
It’s the nature of being an ally…get some skin in the game.
It makes me heartsick when “allies” come around because they need something, but they aren’t around when I am under assault and feel like I am fighting the Battle of Bastogne all by myself.
Oh…and please, PLEASE: don’t get all hurt and go away pouty when you ask me to give you all the answers and I reply with “It’s out there…go dig!”
Allies…by now, you could be eating meat…why do you content yourself with milk?
Awwright…lecture over…go read the article if you still are here LOL!!
When we talk about biological sex being “what’s between your legs,” we’re forgetting that sex is actually much more complicated than that. Genitalia, chromosomes, hormones, and secondary sex characteristics all contribute to our assigned sex at birth, but ultimately, sex is just that: assigned.
Biological sex is a social construction, meaning it’s something we as a culture have created. That’s not to say it isn’t relevant to our health or that it doesn’t influence our personal realities, but the categories of “female” and “male” must be recognized for what they really are.
My Baby…My Dear, Dear Baby
Love you, Dearest Darling!!! You’re the Best Grinch Ever
Silences and Storms
…and as these moments roll along
across the mountains, over hills
and I listen to soft windsong
because your voice has grown so still
and time passes, by waterfalls
while clouds grow black and threatening
and sulfurous gouts of thunder roll
and lightning graphs your fearsome name
it’s silences and storms these days
my heart is torn in these two ways
the words I need, you fail to speak
the words that kill…they slice my cheek
and also cheek I turn to you
and that one, that one, then…adieu
i find myself alone, just me
winds, waterfalls have set me free
to see you in your silent tower
and you in thorny violent bower
and you who will not talk at all…
it’s you who’s deaf to Love’s pure call
I’ll sit me here in peace, just so
and breathe the earth’s exhales, and know
I’m fine in Jesus’ nail scarred hand
And marked forever with Grace’s Brand
One More Old One
This was very early on…I had internally chosen transition, but I was waiting. I wanted to interact with family members and discover what response if any may result from the news of my gender journey.
At the end of that year those discussions occurred and support/affirmation was given, so I embarked on the journey.
Since then much has changed…
I doubt that I would have gone forward had I known then what I know now.
But then again, that’s why God set up time the way it is. Because the truth? In spite of the horror words spoken and the ineffable sadness of those words that used to be spoken not being spoken now, I am better off for the transition.
Fascist Architecture and all that.
It’s hard to know if all the things presented in evidence against me now were there all along and just hidden…or if they are the after-the-fact distortions of individuals who are deep in major cognitive dissonance now…certainly I feel like the email/artifact record presents a dramatically different story…I lived a dramatically different story!
No matter…it is what it is now, and those things are held as axiomatic and reality.
Anyway…this poem was at the very beginning…such naivety, such anticipation!
Old Poem Repost: “Hobson’s Choice
STUNNING Quote!
“There are sights too beautiful to swallow. They stay on the rim of the eye; it cannot contain them.”
— Olivia Laing, To the River
I Prefer Cats
long letters, diatribes, litanies…
…i prefer cats.
short notes/band aids for skin deep cover…
…i prefer cats.
silences/absences or being on to-do lists…
…i prefer cats.
decisions made/enforced and handed down hard…
…i prefer cats.
soft.
silky.
minds of their own.
love hidden in kitty paws
and Mama purrs
and rough comfort tongues.
I prefer cats
Link To Last Year’s Father’s Day Poem
Oh Constance…it boggles my mind how much has changed.
How much has changed…
It’s good that I knew not what would happen…and yet, no way I would go back.
Back to the bondage of those days, back to discontents concealed and blame laid up yet hidden and at the ready to be doled out…back to that skin, that servitude to a virus that has infected this entire planet and its mammon-serving economic blood.
Bruce Cockburn said this…in his amazing song “Fascist Architecture”
“you tore me outta myself alive”.
Here is the link to last year’s poem written on Father’s Day…it makes me laugh ruefully…I was so proud of it.
I was so proud of us…thinking we would be different than…better than.
Pride was my downfall, as it is for every person prideful.
Praise our God of Grace and Humility, for Their Mighty Deliverance and Salvation from the Hell of ourselves!
Why don’t you click Play on Bruce below…listen to him tell the truth, and read of my naive optimism?
Thank God that though optimism fade in the heat, Faith remains unconquerable!
Beside This Ring Of Ashes One Year Later
One year later,
in this year of grace
I sit in stillness
ringside once again
but only with dead ashes,
no flame.
Instead, I warm myself within
with thoughts of fires long ago,
long gone out but flickering
strongly in this quiet night
of lonely memories.
I know it has to happen, yes
this death of me, this death
of who I was, no…
what I was, or rather
what you thought I was
and what I wasn’t too.
You thought me as a god,
and just a little lower than a god.
Your “glorious glorious father”
shining strong and tall,
quick and certain, no one knew
that was but wooly curtains drawn
over a stage making the ready
for a play to become real-life…
finally…at last…
But…what’s a child to do when god betrays?
When god is thus unfaithful and capricious…
that god must become monster,
and vicious harsh taskmaster,
when god must be recast as sick pretender
(your words, love, not mine, those are your words)
as just the “other”, empty, just a mask?
Well, Nietzsche showed the way, now dint he?
He sussed the death of God and birth of crisis…
He understood the very underpinnings
of everything are quivering like liquid,
all foundations kicked asunder
and this hollow edifice
left floating in the shell-pink air.
Nietzsche called for total transformation,
he demanded blood, the death of God,
and also everything He stood for.
I get it…I do…the death of god
No really, I know it’s me, not you…
Problematic in my breathing
and offensive in my joy, well
this aggression will not stand, man!
And so it is that I must die…well,
he must die and be defamed
for every single gripe,
complaint or wound or sling
he must be destroyed
because he wasn’t He
and now it’s clear
that he would never be…
but I will be…me.
Go ahead, beloveds,
it’s true that I must die
so you can be set free
and God at last can finally BE
that God of Wonder
far beyond the Galaxy,
high above and right beside us
bringing life again to you and me.
Use what silver knives you have
(I placed them in your hands so long ago,
carefully planned, bequeathed to you your
weapons of words, of music and of comprehension).
Use the ropes you find inside your packs,
laid lovingly from Lorien in wonder
and in sober long anticipation yes,
that someday your blood be required
of me and on my head as well
(but it’s in my heart forever).
No crucifix for me, how gauche,
how gothic and old fashioned!
No…a shiny scaffold glittery
erected stainless steel there, gleaming
austere, so implacable
and one thin razor wire noose
with my neck’s name writ there
*Charissa Grace* 
(except it’s not so plain as all that)
no…the old name that speaks of
blood and
the price and all things made
white as snow again.
I have confidence in you
(this is not stupid or myopic,
this is love, Lovelies).
I see this execution
is but you living out
what I have taught you
that there is no god but God
(not even glorious father)
and all things that you love
descend from His Great Goodness
and Mama’s bag of riches
*beauty of the Leaves of Grass
haunting grace of purity ring
simple joy in eyes of beloved boys
furious flow of men and balls and love*
I wish you all good always
and hope that someday your mouth won’t be cursed
with this burnt aftertaste of death,
and me just acrid curse to you…
if my death expiate your soul
and bring release and freedom to you all
then quick, oh Hangman, let the black bell toll
and pull your lever that I may hard fall
and snap…snuff…poof
and on you live, free
building brave new worlds
but I will still be like those flickering fires
that linger in my mind while I sit here
beside this ring of ashes never warm
and those seats empty in this quiet storm
of memory, of love, of sorrow held so dear
God knows I gladly die and wish you near
and trust that I will rise and know no fear
forever, just Love’s Fires always here.
“The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. ‘Whither is God,’ he cried; ‘I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I! All of us are his murderers…Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder?…Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.'”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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