For JJ
Author Archives: charissagrace
They Are Real Words
Constance…google the odd words in my F-Word Challenge…they are all real
Fishy Truth Flopping
Fabrefaction can sometimes just be false and fiery
fallaciloquence, and kindness forgotten in that findible
fountain gushing from a feckless friend’s
flosculations…white lies become just lies that fumificate
frenigerant fillies and leave fishy truth flopping…flopping
No one nominated me, but this looked fun…here it is: The F Word Challenge:
Write a prose of five lines, in which every line should start and end with a word that starts with ‘F’. Keep the link of the original F- Challenge in the post, so that the creator may get a pingback. This challenge is open to anyone who sees it, or reads a F- Challenge post from someone.
here is the original link:
https://erikakind.wordpress.com/2015/07/17/the-f-challenge-2/
The only way to respond to my transgender child’s desperate plea was with love – The Globe and Mail
The only way to respond to my transgender child’s desperate plea was with love – The Globe and Mail.
Oh Constance…oh. This. I felt this myself, and I rejoice in the knowledge that this child can benefit from the progress we are making in understanding gender identity and what it is, where it is, and how to live and be fruitful when the body and mind are at opposite ends of this spectrum.
Oh Reader: the stories like this are multitudinous…how long will you dwell in that territory staked out by your ignorant and obstinate predecessors who labelled the epileptic demon possessed or the sufferer of birth marks on the face as touched by satan?
Reader, how long will you add the talmud of your own carnal mind to the Word of God and then use that as a club on your fellow image-bearers who are different than you?
How long will you continue to push your chips into the middle of the table and bet on a losing hand?
It makes me sad…it makes me glad that I have been delivered from that place, and yes, I have “lost all things” but here is what I have gained: knowing what it means to walk with Jesus “outside the city”, having counted all things loss for this Honor and Delight. He cut off all other sources of life, and all the more to His glory that it would be not me who lives but Christ who lives in me.
But keep reading…maybe one of these days it will penetrate your fear that nothing can separate you from the love of God: not even swimming in rivers that you imagine I have crossed.
(c) Salford Museum & Art Gallery; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
Fractured Fairy-Tales: The Tumble of Goldilocks
“That’ll teach her to respect other being’s things!!”
Walking Backwards Thru Snowy Fields
It was a bird’s eye view,
a bride’s eye view,
all in white inside those
clean inviting borders
and me suspended overhead
and anxious in the tale told below.
I could see the tracks I left
there in your field, small
hot holes in the icy frosting
so beautiful, or buttons black
against that argent wedding cloth
in the pristine cold and dusky dim dark.
I felt shame in their
crooked, casual assumption
that anywhere inside the fence
was safe and I could wander freely.
I saw that my crooked beadwork
detracted from your day’s pure garment.
But that is why I am here,
whispering down your chimney
in the voice of the wistful winter winds,
soft, mellow, sorrowful and sheepish
and urgent too! Cus I never meant anything
but a blessing and admiration.
I wanted you to know…
I walked backwards tonite
in my snowshoes and those
actually worn backwards
and as I stepped into the telling tracks
one by one
they filled themselves in
and I took my birch branch
and waved it gently
across the surface
and thus erase any trace
that I had ever been there.
I shinnied over the fence
and up the roof, and I think
Ima stay here awhile, in this nook
on your roof next to your chimney
where the faint heat speaks of warmth
below and laughs within and a time and place
where all are home and all is well again.
If I Could
I would open up the boxes
if I could…
take out all the hurtful things
and replace them with surprises
and treasures and delights.
I would take out death and horror
I would remove all harmful additives
I would open up the cigarettes
and replace them with
the weapons of a happy childhood
If I could
I would
Tripping On Mountains
When I looked upon your
crags and cliffs, their sheer faces,
granite and lacy lined in clouds
and light reflected in the facets
created in the interplay
between ephemeral and substantial…
When my heart rose, unbidden even
and reached for stars those ramparts high
pointed at in joyous and triumphant
anthems of liberty and struggle
to cross the gulfs of space so dark
and find the threshold of that light…
When my feet flew, up trails brand new
and yet paths that felt so warm familiar
that I could run with my eyes closed
and have no fear that my mind’s eye
saw clearly every twist and turn
but I failed to see the burn…
When I stumbled, over root and rock
and tumbled right back down the scree
and the scattered talus slope…of me…
in the way again
caught up in delight again
carried in short sight again
feeling foolish and too fast…
again…
When I looked upon your cliffs and crags
so beautiful, so austere,
so far above me
As Is
The sounds it made were bold, cavernous,
an opera in a wooden box.
The grown ups said this was an early model
and it was in mint condition.
They spoke in hushed tones.
A perfect treasure, a magnificent and flawless toy.
It was not sold “as is”…
“As is” marked the clock that had stopped ticking,
or the rocking horse that had a crack in one of its legs.
That label also conveyed a certain sense of defeat,
a lost cause—a treasure bearing some distinguishable,
irreparable flaw.
I have always felt “As is,”
that label covering over
the tag inside my collar
that says “As I long to be”
and the treasure of me
going awry…in only a matter of time.
Well, thank God
They delight in “As Is”
rather than sacrifice,
They dote on broken spirits
They comfort contrite hearts
and will not despise the humble.
“Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows…
But he was pierced
for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities.”
Isn’t it strange
that we who are saved
by One who was broken
should struggle in the presence
of brokenness at all?
we are never nearer
than when we come
with nothing in
our hands to offer.
And “As Is” gives a certain hope,
for in this recognition of brokenness
we see the promise of
wholeness.
For Jack…whom I love
…sometimes we experience life and it brings us to a place. A place…not the summation of “things that happened” but to the place of “being happen“…it’s more about our experience of being in the happening, and the way that these happenings pass thru us and are colored by us.
Sometimes that ends up as a “result” where we can hear one thing…and think another thing that is entirely other than the speaker thought, meant, or was even aware.
And time passes…and then we gain a new perspective, like seeing a mountain from a valley, and then seeing the same mountain from a neighboring peak, or looking down from a cliffside into a canyon and then experiencing the canyon from the canyon floor.
Perspective is everything, midst the actual reality of experience.
In the meantime, this quote is a reliable compass as we experience a one direction life in a multi-direction being.
In Flames And Becoming (For Charissa, on her first birthday)
I lit myself on fire last night,
so deep within the forest green,
deep in the dark, and black with night,
this full sloe night of birth and dreams
and true becoming in earth brand new.
I found the heart of that deep secret wood
and there in its tough-tender core that lay
so quiet, t’was forever winter and brilliant
and glad in the glade and the still and the snows
and the frozen mists wreathed round that door (Her Door)
and crystal light skittered in ice jewels that glittered
on burnished ground gritty, substantive and pebbled
and real…real like me…and that Ancient stone table
awaiting me waiting there, and charred remains…
hinting at that dazzling “forever-more.”
There…in the frozen deep heart so pure,
so true and alive in that rooted green wood
that beckoned me step into it with my courage
and my heart, my faith and my love,
my faith…in love and in Grace.
Why, you ask?
Why did I immolate my tender heart,
and my teary soul?
Because…
I’ve grown tired of misuse,
I’ve grown weary being taken
there, for granted and discounted,
not allowed to breathe or be…
and so I lit myself on fire
with the living breathing flames
and unbecoming sticks of me.
Why? Because…
The river called me, bid me come,
the fields wooed me to walk in them
amidst their wheaty woven tresses
and their rustly whisper blessings
words so urgent, speaking of
the needed fires that would burn
deep in the forest, fires of love
and burn me straight down to the ground
where Phoenix waits, my lost and found…
because the stars swam overhead
and flew across unfathomable deeps,
because the fox ran on the night
because its paws tattooed me sweet,
because the fires beckoned me…
I lit me there, me…blazing bright.
There, in the flames my starved soul
it did remember its deep song,
words springing full in fiery dance
and I sang there in my one chance
to reclaim me…
and my own knowing of myself
and knowing this Divine Romance…
I came,
ghosty, buried, squirming there
outlawed by law, thus qualified
to call out Law once and for all,
as mere smoke drifting in cool night air
and dissipating…then disappeared!
OH! How I burned!
I danced in red flames fundamental,
so elemental and essential
in the drum beat, and embodied
in the whistle, in the call
and hue and cry, in fragile beauty
and in loss and in the cook-fires
and the dreamtime, when bereft and full of longing
OH…I burned there…
OH…How I burned!
In the forest…
In the snow…
I burned there…
Burned for Her…
I burned for me.
I’m not going on without me any longer
and I’m not a mark, or soft sweet honey pot
for strange predacious thrusts of others, NO!
I know when things must die, must die
…and when those things must live.
I’ve learned to walk away,
I’ve learned to stay
as the watcher and the knower,
oracle and visionary and intuitive gold maker,
as creator, quiet listener, inspiratrice, clever inventor,
and a guide to vibrant life that lies so deep in the deep green wood
and that same life it glows in me, it grows in me and goes beyond
me always and no matter what may matter, what may come,
Come what may, come my way…
That was last nite…
the fire of my bones
Today I have me risen…
and walk the path of crones
I am centered, un-apolo-getic,
rooted in the truth and all that I am now is…
is raw and wild
with ancient knowing
of the blood
so fiercely flowing
thru the rivers
and the streams
in the creek-beds
of my bones.
Today’s the day
to rise from ruins
(necessary ruins precede my rise).
Today’s the day to burn away,
the old that is just not aligned
with truth that feeds
those fires hot
and fuels transformation.
All of the animals gathered and watched
what they thought was a glorious sunset
on the horizon, that far lost horizon.
But it was just me, burning, on fire,
and all ruins falling and Phoenix arising,
cus I lit myself on fire last nite.
I lit myself on fire…last nite.
I Think It’s Memory
There’s deep green truth
in the spectral grey heart
of this ghastly pale notion
haunting our desperate minds:
our own truest blue heart
is most deeply discovered
in desperate ragged edges,
jagged, sharp, contrasted,
in tight precipice moments
(both high, and oh so low).
It’s on those thresholds,
in those moments
of “life”, of dismal death,
weighted and full moments
where indecision and decision
wrestle for supremacy,
where comfort lulls,
boredom deceives,
and indifference dulls…
Tell me, what’s the essence of a heart
delivered from this life lived badly
to a certain death well-died?
And there and back again
into life lived and risen
from the bony spectral grip
of that small death called
cowardice?
Iris Fox ©2013 Gretchen Powers all rights reserved
I think it’s memory,
(and of course courage
to forget what is dead
and press on in pursuit
of those matters that matter)
to bravely (courage)
recall (re-member)
those things long ago
when first love was
fresh, free, fragrant…
that gives us perspective
to risk a decent death
and choose to lay down all
in hopes that we will rise
before the Great Rising.
It’s when we remember
in poised precipice moments
that we can see most clearly
how our affections flow
and what and who we are…
But:
what we remember deeply,
all that we have ingrained
into identity assumed
(like costumes for the play)
it’s far more likely we’ll recall
when crisis, pain or comfort make it
hard to remember anything,
the deep memory will hold against
temptation of forgetfulness in
“the Forgetful Green.”
If we refuse to actively remember
the story in which we participate,
(moments where God
has acted mightily,
the times humanity
has learned in tears
of reality and immortality,
of the autonomy of God
even in this)
then in sickness and in health
undoubtedly we will forget
that memory even is a thing
in this world that’s forgotten
and bids us forget as well.
Lay aside the panaceas, cure alls,
life supports, and take up courage
to embrace a good death given
Die a Decent Death, in faith
that such thing does exist!
What is a good death?
The question’s asked and answered
by people who mourn and lament,
who weep at gravesides lingering,
who live and die and live as those
who follow That One gone before
in boldness and then risen high
above the false finale of
the gasping gaping grave!
A decent death, a certain hope…
I think it’s memory…
I think it’s memory.
It’s An Artform
To practise this quote, and to also be one who extends Grace…it’s an artform.
But I get this now, in ways I never did before, and I have been walking in it…early and often.
It has been a wise move, and I have grown well in it.
“Don’t let someone get comfortable with disrespecting you.”
In Dreams…Dreams
That Becoming Dance
“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
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
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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