Heartwalks and Higher Places

Posted on October 2, 2014 by charissagrace

when i woke up this morning, it was gone…
that dull ache of nothing
being where something should be,
that dull blade mechanically, relentlessly
sawing back and forth and
twisting in time to every ticktock.

gone.

my soul ran frantically inside my belly
like a tongue darting to the missing tooth,
but now it found words spoken where
there was only a hole before:

“…heart of my heart, marrow of my marrow”

(yes, those words were said to me, and a
4 hour conversation became a grain of sand)

i felt something different…happy?
present? I dunno…because
I had always looked askance at happiness,
mistrusted its promise of meaning
in the hearts of other hearts.

but there is no mistaking the words
of that heart…your heart…
there inside me broken jagged and worn smooth
by the blows of grief and the waves of mourning
and flooded with raw, pulsing, vital and golden
sticky absolute resolute present!

you ask…no, that is not right…
you demand burdens from me
whether your limbs are
green and supple
or dry and brittle…
and you have looked, and
it was scary to be seen!

don’t get me wrong:
i wanted, i want to be seen,
to belong in our heartwalks and higher places…
(you speak my braille so well!)
i want us, and am joyful in your knowing
that you are safe to me
and glad.

but that is a dare I have never dared,
a deed before that always was so full of death
(to want)
for I was earthbound, Sis…
i am born in the dirt, Heart,
and not living breathing flesh (you)
and grace gathered (you)
into body and soul (you)…

but you shared your wings with me
(wings, oh wings oh wings ablur!)
and yeah, I can fly abit already
dodo, become duck, and becoming swan!
and i have looked…
to see that you prefer
the company of John the Beloved
and Mary the Mother and Mary the Magdalene over
the company of James and John and mighty thunder!
and i see that in your electric broken wholeness
i have been given priceless sparkling wonder…
i am unfolding, i am blooming and becoming
in those showers silver and shimmery glad.

when i woke up this morning …me there…
and you there too, speaking shalom
and I exaltation and us saying
life life life again and again
from this day forth until That.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life!

Posted on October 2, 2014 by charissagrace

Dear Constance…it is official! At 1:15:15 PM yesterday, the judge said the words…and I legally became me.

Charissa Grace White

I guess I am out there now…still have yet to do the entire company sit down and talk, which will be about 15 minutes…but things are moving along.

And yes…I did wake up this morning and feel totally different. Not some massive quantitative change, but rather a deep and profound qualitative change. I have often jokingly sang to myself “I Got a Name” by Jim Croce…well, now for real I do.

I went out to my car to leave work around noontime, to go home and get ready. I see a yellow legal pad with writing on the seat…and there is a vase with 6 beautiful lavender coloured roses!. They were from my darling darling DARLING!!

I dressed nice, in a style that gets me lotsa compliments (Scorpio-Patrol I think you have seen the outfits??), and arrived walking straight and tall and in the right sort of way proud. I looked everyone straight in the eye and smiled. I was treated with deference by this old man there…I honestly do not think he realized I was transgender! He was kind and interactive.

The clerk office opened, and within 5 minutes I had my papers and was on my way to a teeny courtroom. It had 5 rows of benches, and felt like a mortuary funeral service chapel.

In the back, there was an advocate for battered women talking to a woman about a very very scary sounding man that she had been involved with. I thought about how I had been treated by the old man. I prayed that I would not have to sit through that case.

When the judge arrived, she walked forward…slim, serious, no nonsense, and appeared highly competent. I was equal parts afraid and excited.

She called for me, and I stood, and then…

…she did this thing with her eyes and face that told me non-verbally “you are so brave for being here!” I just know that is what she was saying. I turned in my papers, and she read them over, the ghost of a smile playing at her eyes and hovering at the corners of her mouth…and then she took her pen, and brandished it!! And then she signed…announced that I was now Charissa Grace White, and openly congratulated me.

I walked out and down the stairs, and then in a rush I began to weep, overcome in the moment with the monumental implications of one loooonnngggg journey at last drawn to a close, and a new one well and truly begun.

The clerk was moved by my tears and much nicer…mayhap she figured out that this was a big deal?

I was alone.

Oh, I know you were there, but Mama had distanced everything, everyone…it was just me…and Her. I went home and stood in our house, raised my hands in the air and upturned my face, and I prayed out loud to Her, thankful, grateful, supplicating…

…aware that I had started the first life ignorant of Her…and was beginning the second in relationship with Her, the most amazing indescribable being ever.

Later in the day, I was able to have a short conversation with my bff, and her words of life just laid down right beside the prayers I prayed, and then later in the evening, my darling and I opened a bottle of pink champagne and toasted many things.

I am out.

I am free.

I am Charissa Grace, my Mama’s daughter of grace and sister to the Great Precious One.

I am at last glad to be alive.

Mama You Told Me

Posted on October 1, 2014 by charissagrace

You told me there would be silences,
differences between
mountain streams and valley brooks,
You told me Your flow was warm,
liquid collecting of the gifts
and graces of valleys.
You said my bracing quick lightning was
“clear and quenched thirst, but good lord girl,
to bathe in that electric chill??
I might never sleep again!”

You said.
You told.

And Your Face
so still and mobile
and wreathed in grace,
always grace…
and determined healing.
You wear tears naked
like jewels, like crystal
chips of Your Clear Heart,
intimate on Your face.

and me…spit up and emptied
and waiting for You
to fill the silent spaces
that ate grace and jeered
while feasting on my food.
me emptied, waiting …
and my heart,
ego-stained and washed clean,
captured
by Your face,
Your gift,
Your grace…

waiting…for that one grain of sand
to start an avalanche within me
of hope, nay!
of Hope,
sure and certain of its end,
like a leaf on a stream floating easily
on its way to the sea is certain
that it shall the voyage endure
and enjoy rejoicing!

You told me there would be…
You told me warm…
You told me…
You

Jacob’s Half-Sister

Posted on October 1, 2014 by charissagrace

words.

swallowed in medicine times
but found to be only poison
slow half-life killers
just in time spat out
in relief,
in apprehension,
in hope…

i am jacob’s half-sister
confessing her sin of being…
her…

“guilty of wasting a perfectly good man”
say those words that lay writhing
in a painful pile of self-loathing
at my feet, finally, and not
at my throat, those words
with their acrid foul smelling stench
befouling my legs and
the air around me.

i am expiated.
and my Mama is well pleased
and readying me.

the stone under my head grows soft
and i think about my long ago
half-brother, and his ladder.
i search the brooding night sky
for mine, my eyes
pleading like puppies
hungry for milk

but my ladder is my heart.
i know that, finally,
and the skies will open
only as my heart pries open
to spit the pearls formed
within this shell-shocked soul

the stone under my head becomes flesh
and i think about how jacob named
that stone, that ebenezer memory
of open skies and accessible heavens…
bethel…and it echoes in the dark,
rings midst the stars and
chimes in cloudy choruses.

that stone,
that living stone had legs
to wander, God’s house sojourning
from place to place and time to time
ever wandering…
the stone of Scone
stone of destiny
stone of coronation
old, red, sandstone

the stone under my head becomes red
and throbs and thrums and thrills
my soul open and searching the skies,
and i sense it will speak
as it spoke so long ago
and whisper my name,
my new name from heaven.
but it pushes me to listen elsewhere,
my answers not from
rock and sand and ruin
but from the Cornerstone Rock
and its bloody open hand
red and throbbing and thrumming

my half-brother was grasper
and then God Persists…
and me…
i was messenger,
herald blood bought
price paid
white as snow
washed.
but now,
named now…

the stone under my head becomes blue
and then becomes wind,
and disappears to run
in trees and mountains and back to me
from Mama singing Her sweet answer
to my bitter long palaver…
singing my name’s song,
yes, my stone singing
the singing stone
the wind stone singing
my name-song on my face,
singing Love on my face
and my name, my name
echoes ever in me singing
charissa grace

Privilege 101: A Quick and Dirty Guide

Posted on October 1, 2014 by charissagrace

So Constance…I was wracking my lil pea brain, trying to find a way to begin to teach others around me about privilege.

The man that I interacted with last week was so steeped in privilege that he was like a fish in water, who would be befuddled if you tried to explain privilege to him…

…and I am going to have to become erudite on this topic, beginning today. So when I found the article below, I decided to just post the whole thing here…I hyperlinked the title so you can go to the website itself, Everyday Feminism (which I highly recommend as a good source of information).

Join me on the journey? Let us resolve to live like this: giving to others the privilege we want for ourselves, for if we all of us did that…

…yeah, that would mean that we

did justly
loved mercy
walked humbly.

Love, Charissa

Privilege 101: A Quick and Dirty Guide

September 29, 2014 by Sian Ferguson

Source: No Greater Joy

“Privilege” is a word you’ll hear often in social justice spaces, both offline and online.

Some people understand the concept easily. Others – and I was like this – find the concept confusing and need a little more help.

If you’re willing to learn about privilege, but you don’t know where to start, you’ve come to the right place!

Before we get started, I want to clarify that this article is not entirely comprehensive. That is to say, it’s not going to explain everything there is to know about privilege. But it’ll give you a good foundation on the basics.

Think of privilege not as a single lesson, but as a field of study. To truly understand privilege, we must keep reading, learning, and thinking critically.

Defining Privilege

The origins of the term “privilege” can be traced back to the 1930s, when WEB DuBois wrote about the “psychological wage” that allowed whites to feel superior to black people. In 1988, Peggy McIntosh fleshed out the idea of privilege in a paper called “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies.”

We can define privilege as a set of unearned benefits given to people who fit into a specific social group.

Society grants privilege to people because of certain aspects of their identity. Aspects of a person’s identity can include race, class, gender, sexual orientation, language, geographical location, ability, and religion, to name a few.

But big concepts like privilege are so much more than their basic definitions! For many, this definition on its own raises more questions than it answers. So here are a few things about privilege that everyone should know.

1. Privilege is the other side of oppression.

It’s often easier to notice oppression than privilege.

It’s definitely easier to notice the oppression you personally experience than the privileges you experience since being mistreated is likely to leave a bigger impression on you than being treated fairly.

So consider the ways in which you are oppressed: How are you disadvantaged because of the way society treats aspects of your identity? Are you a woman? Are you disabled? Does your sexuality fall under the queer umbrella? Are you poor? Do you have a mental illness or a learning disability? Are you a person of color? Are you gender non-conforming?

All of these things could make life difficult because society disenfranchises people who fit into those social groups. We call this oppression.

But what about the people society doesn’t disenfranchise? What about the people society empowers at our expense? We call that privilege.

Privilege is simply the opposite of oppression.

2. We need to understand privilege in the context of power systems.

Society is affected by a number of different power systems: patriarchy, white supremacy,heterosexism, cissexism, and classism — to name a few. These systems interact together in one giant system called the kyriarchy.

Privileged groups have power over oppressed groups.

Privileged people are more likely to be in positions of power – for example, they’re more likely to dominate politics, be economically well-off, have influence over the media, and hold executive positions in companies.

Privileged people can use their positions to benefit people like themselves – in other words, other privileged people.

In a patriarchal society, women do not have institutional power (at least, not based on their gender). In a white supremacist society, people of color don’t have race-based institutional power. And so on.

It’s important to bear this in mind because privilege doesn’t go both ways. Female privilege does not exist because women don’t have institutional power. Similarly, black privilege, trans privilege, and poor privilege don’t exist because those groups do not have institutional power.

It’s also important to remember because people often look at privilege individually rather thansystemically. While individual experiences are important, we have to try to understand privilege in terms of systems and social patterns. We’re looking at the rule, not the exception to the rule.

3. Privileges and oppressions affect each other, but they don’t negate each other.

I experience my queerness in relation to my womanhood. I experience these aspects of my identity in relation to my experience as a mentally ill person, as someone who’s white, as someone who is South African, as someone who is able-bodied, as someone who is cisgender.

All aspects of our identities – whether those aspects are oppressed or privileged by society – interact with one another. We experience the aspects of our identities collectively and simultaneously, not individually.

The interaction between different aspects of our identities is often referred to as anintersection. The term intersectionality was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, who used it to describe the experiences of black women – who experience both sexism and racism.

While all women experience sexism, the sexism that black women experience is unique in that it is informed by racism.

To illustrate with another example, mental illness is often stigmatized. As a mentally-ill woman, I have been told that my post-traumatic stress disorder is “just PMS” and a result of me “being an over-sensitive woman.” This is an intersection between ableism and misogyny.

The aspects of our identities that are privileged can also affect the aspects that are oppressed.Yes, privilege and oppression intersect — but they don’t negate one another.

Often, people believe that they can’t experience privilege because they also experience oppression. A common example is the idea that poor white people don’t experience white privilege because they are poor. But this is not the case.

Being poor does not negate the fact that you, as a white person, are less likely to become the victim of police brutality in most countries around the world, for example.

Being poor is an oppression, yes, but this doesn’t cancel out the fact that you can still benefit from white privilege.

As Phoenix Calida wrote:

“Privilege simply means that under the exact same set of circumstances you’re in, life would be harder without your privilege.

Being poor is hard. Being poor and disabled is harder.

Being a woman is hard. Being a trans woman is harder.

Being a white woman is hard, being a woman of color is harder.

Being a black man is hard, being a gay black man is harder.”

Let’s look at the example of people who are both poor and white. Being white means that you have access to resources which could help you survive. You’re more likely to have a support network of relatively well-off people. You can use these networks to look for a job.

If you go to a job interview, you are more likely to be interviewed by a white person, as white people are more likely to be in executive positions. People in positions of power are usually the same race as you, so if they are racially prejudiced, it’s likely that they would be prejudiced in your favor.

A poor black person, on the other hand, will not have access to those resources, is unlikely to be of the same race as people in power, and is more likely to be harmed by racial prejudice.

So once again: Being white and poor is hard, but being black and poor is harder.

4. Privilege describes what everyone should experience.

When we use the word “privilege” in the context of social justice, it means something slightly different to the way it’s used by most people in their everyday environment.

Often we think of privilege as “special advantages.” We frequently hear the phrase, “X is a privilege, not a right,” conveying the idea that X is something special that shouldn’t be expected.

Because of the way we use “privilege” in our day-to-day lives, people often get upset when others point out some of their privileges.

A male acquaintance of mine initially struggled to understand the concept of privilege. He once said to me, “Men don’t often experience gender-based street harassment, but that’s not a privilege. It’s something everyone should expect.”

Correct. Everyone should expect to be treated that way. Everyone has a right to be treated that way. The problem is that certain people aren’t treated that way.

To illustrate: Nobody should be treated as if they are untrustworthy based on their race. But often, people of color – particularly black people – are mistrusted because of prejudice towards their race.

White people, however, don’t experience this systemic, race-based prejudice. We call this “white privilege” because people who are white are free from racial oppression.

We don’t use the term “privilege” because we don’t think everyone deserves this treatment.

We call privilege “privilege” because we acknowledge that not everyone experiences it.

5. Privilege doesn’t mean you didn’t work hard.

People often get defensive when someone points out that they have privilege. And I totally understand why – before I fully understood privilege, I acted the same way.

Many people think that having privilege means you have had an easy life. As such, they feel personally attacked when people point out their privilege. To them, it feels as if someone is saying that they haven’t worked hard or endured any difficulties.

But this is not what privilege means.

You can be privileged and still have a difficult life. Privilege doesn’t mean that your life is easy, but rather that it’s easier than others.

I saw this brilliant analogy comparing white privilege and bike commuting in a car-friendly city, and it inspired me to broaden the analogy to privilege in general.

So let’s say both you and your friend decide to go cycling. You decide to cycle for the same distance, but you take different routes. You take a route that is a bit bumpy. More often than not, you go down roads that are at a slight decline. It’s very hot, but the wind is at usually at your back. You eventually get to your destination, but you’re sunburnt, your legs are aching, you’re out of breath, and you have a cramp.

When you eventually meet up with your friend, she says that the ride was awful for her. It was also bumpy. The road she took was at an incline the entire time. She was even more sunburnt than you because she had no sunscreen. At one point, a strong gust of wind blew her over and she hurt her foot. She ran out of water halfway through. When she hears about your route, she remarks that your experience seemed easier than hers.

Does that mean that you didn’t cycle to the best of your ability? Does it mean that you didn’t face obstacles? Does it mean that you didn’t work hard? No. What it means is that you didn’t face the obstacles she faced.

Privilege doesn’t mean your life is easy or that you didn’t work hard. It simply means that you don’t have to face the obstacles others have to endure. It means that life is more difficult for those who don’t have the systemic privilege you have.

So What Now?

Often, people think that feminists and social justice activists point out people’s privilege to make them feel guilty. This isn’t the case at all!

We don’t want you to feel guilty. We want you to join us in challenging the systems that privilege some people and oppress others.

Guilt is an unhelpful feeling: It makes us feel ashamed, which prevents us from speaking out and bringing about change. As Jamie Utt notes, “If privilege guilt prevents me from acting against oppression, then it is simply another tool of oppression.”

You don’t need to feel guilty for having privilege because having privilege is not your fault: It’s not something you chose. But what you can choose is to push back against your privilege and to use it in a way that challenges oppressive systems instead of perpetuating them.

So what can you – as a person who experiences privilege – do?

Understanding privilege is a start, so you’ve already made the first move! Yay!

There’s a great deal of information out there on the Internet, so I’d firstly recommend that you read more about the concepts of oppression and privilege in order to expand your understanding. The links in this article are a good place to start.

But merely understanding privilege is not enough. We need to take action.

Listen to people who experience oppression. Learn about how you can work in solidarity with oppressed groups. Join feminist and activist communities in order to support those you have privilege over. Focus on teaching other privileged people about their privilege.

Above all else, bear in mind that your privilege exists.

Sian Ferguson is a Contributing Writer at Everyday Feminism. She is a South African feminist currently studying toward a Bachelors of Social Science degree majoring in English Language and Literature and Gender Studies at the University of Cape Town. She has been featured as a guest writer on websites such as Women24 and Foxy Box, while also writing for her personal blog. In her spare time, she tweets excessively @sianfergs, reads about current affairs, and spends time with her gorgeous group of friends. Read her articles here.

“Let It Go” from Frozen: It fits!

Posted on September 30, 2014 by charissagrace

Constance, you know the movie Frozen, yes? Well, these lyrics are amazing in how they depict what life is like so often for me…on the inside.

“Let It Go”

The snow glows white on the mountain tonight
Not a footprint to be seen
A kingdom of isolation,
And it looks like I’m the queen.

The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside
Couldn’t keep it in, heaven knows I tried!

Don’t let them in, don’t let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be
Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know
Well, now they know!

Let it go, let it go
Can’t hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door!

I don’t care
What they’re going to say
Let the storm rage on,
The cold never bothered me anyway!

It’s funny how some distance
Makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me
Can’t get to me at all!

It’s time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me I’m free!

Let it go, let it go
I am one with the wind and sky
Let it go, let it go
You’ll never see me cry!

Here I stand
And here I’ll stay
Let the storm rage on!

My power flurries through the air into the ground
My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around
And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast
I’m never going back,
The past is in the past!

Let it go, let it go
And I’ll rise like the break of dawn
Let it go, let it go
That perfect girl is gone!

Here I stand
In the light of day
Let the storm rage on,
The cold never bothered me anyway!

Yesterday: A Quote

Posted on September 30, 2014 by charissagrace

“One day I just woke up and realized that I can’t touch yesterday. So why the heck was I letting it touch me?”

—	Steve Maraboli

petrified

Posted on September 29, 2014 by charissagrace

I am petrified stoney
of all the jammy things
I will come to forget,
their juice wrung dry
from my mind.

What if one dread day
I wake up wide and can’t
remember how my
Dad’s voice sounded
(like cannons, like rivers, like trees)
when he was
trying to tender-tell me
he loved me?

Or that loud unspoken
change in the living air
that I tasted quick and lively
when I opened the window this morning
and knew that airy Summer
has turned to earthy Autumn?

Or how the wind
burnt in clear flames
that night when I climbed sweaty
up the old hill from my house
and suddenly realized
I was no longer a child
and on fire?

key moments in my life,
simple sensations, brief instances,
and every day, they fade
a tiny bit,
dissemble, dissolve.
one dull day
what if I am
an old lady
dried and pressed flower
with nothing but ghosts of fleeting moments
inside my brain that
I can’t catch hold of?

maybe those forests
got it right, way back then
when they bathed in lava
to capture the moment then
forever,

petrified

Fluttering Fingers in God’s Face

Posted on September 29, 2014 by charissagrace

how much is enough?
I ask this because…growth.
Right?
how much is enough?

is growth a candy-cane, a barber pole
spiraling and twisting twins of
life and death entwined?

or is it a mountain trail,
switchbacks and double overs
and 2 steps back for every 3
each time you’ve gone a hundred.
and sometimes you just march in time
or stay beside a bush
to see if there really is a bird in it.

oh wait! maybe growth is
the wind, catching us up in it
like kites to kiss the sky and dance
while our bones are picked clean
by its breezy nips and us clutched in
airy talons by our hips.

if that is the case, then
the answer is never!
Growth is never enough.

No, what we need to go along
with the never of growth, is loyalty!
Cus loyalty is either there,
or not there…no one can be loyal
only when they feel like it!
you either are, or you aren’t…
loyal.

so spin that barber pole of
growth and loyalty
while we wait, and wait,
10,000 little prayers like
fluttering fingers in God’s face.

your hands are muddy from
digging and investing in growth.
my hands are hot from
stoking and cuddling fire!

together, we can answer the question
that cannot be uttered by only one person:
how much?

enough.

What happened to me in 1965…

Posted on September 29, 2014 by charissagrace

When I had just turned 6, I was pulled in two…for the next 45 years…

45 years. Sounds like a prison sentence, doesn’t it?

“Charissa, we the jury sentence you to 45 years hard labor

in the male body penitentiary, no parole, no time off for good behaviour.

And you can never know what exactly is wrong with you

just that something is…wrong with you.

You are required to only know about part of yourself,

the other half belongs to us, in the name of gender, amen.”

*Gavel slams down and logs go bang in the fire*

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Mama and Me

Posted on September 29, 2014 by charissagrace

I am the wings of birds

Posted on September 29, 2014 by charissagrace

Time flies by in birds’ wings
and the sounds of flutter and
rustles of winds
tugging at leaves,
leaves that want to leave
and yet still hang on
still hang on.

and me? I stand still
while time whirls by,
seasons twirl by in
turning unfurling
display, all
pomp and pageantry.

but sometimes I think
secretly, that I am the
wings of birds flutt’ring
and the wind rustling…

…but mostly I am
the leaves
groaning to let go
but still hanging on
still hanging on

Today’s Resolve

Posted on September 29, 2014 by charissagrace

The Sound of The Name of Your Kiss

Posted on September 28, 2014 by charissagrace

last night
i heard your kiss calling me.
in the night it sang,
flutes forlorn in fog, i think,
in mist it sang of
how your heart has missed me.

i think
i’m the only one who knows
the name of your true kiss.
it’s on my salty lips and in my utterance
it takes wing in song and then flies past me.

i breathed
out of my heart, into my throat,
your kiss’s secret song.
on my tongue it sat and pushed
with pepper palms, it tapped
its fudgy fingers on my teeth
in code to thus release me.

your kiss
it scratched my lips until they bled
in love, stained permanent in song
and joyous sound of your kiss’s name,
Joan of Arc of Hearts,
in the precious fading night and morning mist.

in dreams
you’d struggled soundlessly
to speak, to sing, and waking here
you gift wrapped me in wandering hands
and kisses, beautifully, tongue tied
and heaving against traces, time and reins
to lay against me.

last night
this morning
and always I can hear
the sound of the name of your kiss

If you don’t tick like I tick you’re a heretic!

Posted on September 28, 2014 by charissagrace

Yes, there is…an intentionality in how my latest poem Of Women and Wolves follows the post Never Again.

It is like being around a hungry wolf…when you are in an encounter that feels like it will devour who you are, what you are, if you are not careful…and if you are careful.

The only way to appease a wolf is to feed it, and that is to diminish yourself or others…

And no…the man I talked to is not a “wolf” in the biblical sense of a deceiver who is seeking to destroy other people for the sake of his own gain.

No…he is more the garden variety religious person who has found meaning and purpose both in the search for those specific thoughts and those specific actions that “please God”…and then being “diligent” to make sure that others whom they define as part of “the body of Christ” are “taught” those same thoughts and do those same deeds…and if they don’t, if they think different thoughts based on the bible, and are led by Lady Grace to different actions expressing their understanding, then they must “correct the deviant” (and it is for their own good, only, of course).

It is the old saw “If you don’t tick like I tick, you’re a heretic!”

Thus the poem, and its metaphor…at least on one level…the fabulous women who read here will find the other levels over time…all of them.

Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly,

Charissa

Of Women and Wolves

Posted on September 27, 2014 by charissagrace

let’s talk about our bleeding hearts,
what it means to call those bloody parts
by their names…

yes, here we are telling stories about them,
telling stories about women and wolves.

there are also stories

–corollaries to these lupine tales–

of feminine triumph and guile,
(stories of the torn, the disappeared and devoured)
elegies…

and to whom would we show them to?

so let’s us weave with words
epistolary and elevated,
eloquent and ebeneous.
let’s tell us our secrets
and set each other free.

and then
we can walk
down by the river
deep, and dark with
told secrets, cold silent
secrets told in winds and
moans, shrieks, of lightning
shimmering, flashing, and
dancing down to earth
called by our long
sudden bright
summons.

our pockets will be full of stones
there, down by the river deep.
our mouths will be safe, closed
over all the words we spoke,
the secrets that we shared
for keeps…

and the words
we wished we’d said
(and the words that wished
we had said them too)…

why, they shall be our catechism,
our communion for sisters of blood
and dull loss and bright victory
over empty wombs and hurt that looms,
lurking and lappaceous.

and those wolves, those lonely wolves
shall fall silent, denied their howls by ours
and our words spoken and unspoken,
our silence shattered and unbroken,
our secrets shared
for keeps.

and the river will ever again always
be ours and carry the flow of our tales,

our stories of
women and wolves
20171002_113730

Never Again

Posted on September 27, 2014 by charissagrace

Constance, I want to write here my commitment to myself and to you, and also state ahead of time that I recognize the result of this commitment will be quite a bit of ostracization from many people who call themselves Christians, but want to use that name to police me and my life decisions.

First of all, let me state that I am not removing myself from the scope and majesty of the wonderful word of God. When read and understood properly, it is a document of collected writings that show a God of love and advocate a relational ethic, not a legal ethic or a behavioral ethic. Right standing with God is found in right relationship! Not right deeds or right thinking (though each will likely result when you focus on maintaining a whole relationship first).

Given the pre-eminence of my commitment to this relational ethic, I am fair game for being called into account for anything that violates this ethic…things like committing adultery, committing murder, stealing, cheating, assaulting another physically or verbally, harboring hatred in my heart, and other things such as that. See the thing in common? All of them involve a relational breech with either myself, my neighbor, or God.

But:

BUT:

I am no longer going to subject myself to the inquisitions that I previously felt I owed anyone who wanted to “correct me” or “express their concerns” to me about who and what I am. For the record: there is nothing in the Bible that is prescriptive on the subject of being transgender, and there is less than that on the subject of whether or not a transgender person should pursue transition.

Therefore, anything beyond genuine questions seeking to ascertain what I face in order to stand with me and help my life to glorify God is off limits. I am not going there again.

Here is why:

In my recent encounter with a man that I have known for about 25 years, I spent 4 hours of my life in the attempt to reach this individual’s heart. Truth is? I never had a chance. He listened to me about an hour and a half, with a few questions, and then began to interject with a list of “concerns” which he had written before he even heard my story! He began by saying that he might (might!) modify what he had written if he had heard my story first…but since he was soo upset, he felt justified in going ahead.

He then proceeded to list for me several concerns that ranged from things that simply were not true factually about what being transgender is, all the way to accusations that I was under the influence of a demonic spirit!

He thinks that transgender people are victims of the fall (we all are victims of the fall…whether or not being transgender is a direct result of the fall or not is moot, as the Bible simply is silent on the topic). He also thinks that transgender people are bound by the words of Jesus that we “take up our cross and follow Him”…meaning that verse prohibits us from pursuing technological help and remedy which is readily available and so swiftly brings about such immediate change emotionally and spiritually, and is documented in so many places and in so many ways.

(Constance, I am very capable of nuking this proof-texting rape of these words, if you are interested, please let’s pursue that in the comments or via email, but trust me, it is not about transition specifically!).

Clearly, this man had seized upon this verse and wrenched it to fit his preconceived judgement that transition should not be undertaken…an opinion of his, not a biblically given command. He did not think it was wrong for someone born with a hole in their heart to seek surgical repair, or someone born with a cleft palate to seek surgical repair, or any other number of examples…just transition! he was intractable in this opinion, and I was considered by him to be indulging the flesh.

Next, he told me that I was under the influence of a spirit of deception that he called “the impostor”, and that this spirit opposed my becoming who God wanted me to be (which was code for him saying I was not becoming who he wants me to be). When I asked him if he thought I was bearing more fruit in my life in the last year than he had seen before, he affirmed that this was noticeably so, and so I then pointed out that it seemed to me the impostor was doing a pretty counter-productive job, as I was becoming more, and not less like Jesus…reminded me of the Pharisees who accused Jesus of casting out demons by demonic power!!

Then he told me that I was going to lose out on the blessing of being a patriarch of my family (nope, didn’t touch this…it would have been like telling a fish that it is in the water).

Next I was informed that he had never been so devastated since he was divorced from his first wife and that marriage totally fell apart…that he was just barely more devastated by that than he was by my decision to transition! When I asked him how many times we have had dinner together in 25 years, he answered none. When I asked him if we had ever done anything…anything socially together, he said no, never. When I asked him if he had ever come to my house, reached out to me when my father died, or when my children experienced growing pains, when I was injured and couldn’t do chores, he said no. When I asked if he agreed that we had not truly been a part of each others’ lives with the exception of the occasional church activity and our seeing each other at work where we casually interacted, he said yes, he agreed…

…so when I pointed out that this seemed to indicate a judgement of me made from the outside with no real knowledge of me what so ever, and thus would point to his devastation being far more his own issue rather than my “violation”, he denied it! He said that the Holy Spirit was laying it on his heart! That my claims that Mama had been gently leading me, confirmed by my wife, by my therapist whom I have opened my entire life to, by my naturopath who knew I was transgender at least a year before I did, and by a few close friends who lived everyday with me…that all of that was purely subjective and his own subjective “feeling of conviction” had just as much weight and legitimacy!

I kid you not.

When I asked him to show the biblical passages upon which he rested his “concerns”, he confessed this: “the bible is silent on this subject so I can’t actually say this is sin“. Shocked by his terminology, I asked him “Do you want to be able to say this is sin?” He got offended with me, and said that I was being harsh to him (!!! Yes, he went there). I said “no, not at all. I am so struck by your word choices. They reveal so much to me, for I would have phrased it something like this ‘Since the bible is silent, I would never say that someone was sinning in their pursuit of transition, absent knowledge of the relational parameters between the person and God, and friends and family.'”

He sought many times to other me and police me, and I gently and firmly rebuffed every attempt.

And then at the conclusion, he said that I had shocked him, because he thought I would blow up at him (“blow a gasket” is what he said)…Constance, when I was dissociated from myself experiences like this were very threatening to me, and I did tend to react very strongly and vehemently when accused unfairly. But I was calm, peaceful, and sorrowful far more for him than for myself…this bothered him, because it didn’t jibe with the picture of a demonized deceived person who was in rebellion to God.

But it wasn’t enough…he told me that he (and this is a quote) “had to obey his conscience above all else, and that when people asked him about me it was his duty to tell them his opinion and concerns regarding me”.

Yes, Constance…he has elevated his own conscience even above God, for when I inquired what he would do if God told him to remain silent, he said that God would never ask him to deny his conscience! I think you can see the problem with this…essentially there is a conflation of his conscience with what God wants! If he feels something strong enough, and labels it his conscience, then it is the same as God talking!

I did not have the heart to point out to him that even a cursory examination of biblical teaching regarding the conscience commands us to put the conscience and behaviour of our brothers/sisters as preeminent to our own…besides, it would not do any good. He considered it his right to out me, to anyone, in the name of conscience.

(Charissa before she decided to refuse to let others savage her)

(Now here is a little secret, Constance…part of the reason I agreed to meet with this person is that I suspected this might be the endpoint of things…and the truth is that I am ready to come out…I want to move on, get it over with and get on with an effective and fruitful life lived free and without a mask. So I sort of planned to use him as a stalking horse. If I wasn’t ready, I would have not met with him. Nevertheless, it was staggering to me…the arrogance that he so blindly bathed in, wallowed in…oh, and by the way, he has no “official ecclesiastical authority” in any denomination, or for that matter in my own life! He is simply a fellow follower of Jesus…and make no mistake, he does indeed love God and love people…just within the boundaries he has chosen to call legitimate.)

He specifically said his conscience demanded it of him. I didn’t even bother to ask him what he thought would be the consequence if he decided to not speak, to be silent and urge people to come to me if they had questions…I already knew his reply would be this: if I am not true to my conscience, then your blood is on my head…a phrase that indicates he considers me blood guilty of something or other, and also believes he is both qualified and called to be the bringer of correction to me, never mind by what credential or authority…there is an old testament comment in Proverbs that uses this phraseology…people who have adopted this as a moral code use it to justify all kinds of things including bombing abortion clinics and other heinous acts like that. The people at that crazy church who are so virulently anti-gay use this idea to justify their own evil deeds.

So his conscience is more important to him than I am, than the lives of the people who he talks to that may have been open to actually getting to know for themselves where I am at and what I am going thru but after he gets done will almost certainly avoid me…and the lives of the people who may have been touched by newly open-hearted lovers of God who would reach out to transgender people in love because of knowing me, and who I am, and my being transgender makes it not as weird as they thought it was…

And lastly, he said he would never ever call me “Sister”, or a woman…that this would be him empowering my lie and participating in it by proxy! What does one do with that…besides just shake off the dust and move on?

Constance: I had no chance of persuading him that this was a good thing, a fruitful thing, a blessing. None.

Everything I said to counter him was evidence of my deception and was a regurgitation of the evil that the deceptive spirit had spoken to me…and everything I was silent to I was silent to because I was incapable of refuting his great convicting words (he is wrong…I was silent because I didn’t want to destroy him by stripping him of every vestige of intelligent discourse and exposing his xenophobic foundations…when someone says they read about transgender issues for a few minutes the night before, and really don’t need to do any more research because God is speaking to them…well, there is nothing to be said there, is there?).

So here is my resolution: I will never again submit to such so called “expression of concern”. I will seek to find out ahead of time why someone wants to discuss my transition, and if it is for right reasons I will go ahead after giving the caveat that if they begin to “correct me” I will shut them down and leave the situation.

This is not evidence of my not being correctable…it is evidence that I am finally going to not be a dormat and put myself in harms way…which I have always done before (ask my wife, she can tell you of years and years…)

This man right this moment thinks me in error…nothing I said made a difference…and the others who will be coming, and many far worse than he, for he is at least merely passive aggressive, so his demeanor and voice are calm and pleasant…well, they will be even less persuadable!

They will do this (and it is a fact…ask any of your church friends, they can tell you): they will conclude that I am deeply deceived and in sin…because I won’t let them befoul me with accusations…so why should I even try to persuade them?

My therapist said something very powerful…she asked me what would be the result of my refusing to allow them to savage me so…and I said if I don’t, they will think me a heretic and not a true christian…and she then asked me “and what will happen then? Will you become a heretic? Do you care what those people think right now? Does their thinking anything change you or effect you in any real way?”

and I laffed!! Cus the answer is “no”.

This I resolve:

To do justly

to love mercy

to walk humbly…and love Them with all my heart

to be kind and gentle and full of Grace…upon Grace.

Love, love always,

Charissa Grace, beloved of her Mama the Holy Spirit, joint heir with Jesus the first fruits of the resurrection, and a daughter of the Father of lights, from Whom comes every good and perfect gift.

He shouldn’t feel too awful bad…

Posted on September 27, 2014 by charissagrace

…I never could either.

“I can’t stand my own mind.”

—	Allen Ginsberg, from Collected Poems: 1947 – 1980

NOW I get why I have ALWAYS…

Posted on September 27, 2014 by charissagrace

…hated these authors! I mean, never in my life have I been able to enjoy Kerouac, Mailer, Bukowski, Miller, etc.

Each time I tried, I felt filthy dirty…and no, I am not offended by smutty language perse…it was far different than that. I just felt there was something wrong, something off. My heart didn’t sing as I read, it puked.

So anyway, here is the quote:

“For many of these women, the reading experience begins from a place of seething rage. Take Sara Marcus’ initial impression of Jack Kerouac: “I remember putting On the Road down the first time a woman was mentioned. I was just like: ‘Fuck. You.’ I was probably 15 or 16. And over the coming years I realized that it was this canonical work, so I tried to return to it, but every time I was just like, ‘Fuck you.’”

“Tortorici had a similarly visceral reaction to Charles Bukowski: “I will never forget reading Bukowski’s Post Office and feeling so horrible, the way that the narrator describes the thickness of ugly women’s legs. I think it was the first time I felt like a book that I was trying to identify with rejected me. Though I did absorb it, and of course it made me hate my body or whatever.”

“Emily Witt turned to masculine texts to access a sexual language that was absent from books about women, but found herself turned off by their take: “many of the great classic coming-of-age novels about the female experience don’t openly discuss sex,” she says in No Regrets. “I read the ones by men instead, until I was like, ‘I cannot read another passage about masturbation. I can’t. It was like a pile of Kleenex.”

“This isn’t just about the books. When young women read the hyper-masculine literary canon—what Emily Gould calls the “midcentury misogynists,” staffed with the likes of Roth, Mailer, and Miller—their discomfort is punctuated by the knowledge that their male peers are reading these books, identifying with them, and acting out their perspectives and narratives. These writers are celebrated by the society that we live in, even the one who stabbed his wife.

“In No Regrets, Elif Bautman talks about reading Henry Miller for the first time because she had a “serious crush” on a guy who said his were “the best books ever,” and that guy’s real-life recommendation exacerbated her distaste for the fictional. When she read Miller, “I felt so alienated by the books, and then thinking about this guy, and it was so hot and summertime … I just wanted to kill myself. …

“He compared women to soup.””

— In No Regrets, women writers talk about what it was like to read literature’s “midcentury misogynists.”

Trans* Women Are Not Drag Queens — Everyday Feminism

Posted on September 26, 2014 by charissagrace

Trans* Women Are Not Drag Queens — Everyday Feminism.

Constance…yes, it is very early. I cannot sleep. Usually I am good until the dread 3 AM. But tonight sleep is shy and skert of the potential I face for conflict today…

I am meeting with a person who has indicated that he has “great difficulty” with my choice to transition.

Think about that: this is a person I see less than a half hour a day…a person that I run into infrequently in everyday life…and yet somehow knowing that I am transgender is a burden unbearable to him, and the choice to transition is anathema and repulsive to the point that he wants to meet with me, so he can…what?

Tell me I am a freak? Tell me that I should not transition? Tell me to just suck it up and tough it out?

What…does he really think he is more creative, more insistent than my own heart for the last 48 years??? That I have not said these things to me already…and worse?

How does his life change if I transition…and how does it change if I do not (which is too late, by the way…I am never going back. It is Charissa Grace full and free or the grave)?

No…I think what he doesn’t like is that someone whom he knows and assumed many good things about is now acting in ways that are unexpected and unusual…and this is stretching him. It is challenging his lil boxes and tightly drawn lines…it is forcing him to confront things without the luxury of being able to write off the source of the conflict as a monster or immoral pervert…for he knows I am not that.

I ran across this link again today…and I may have posted it once already. No matter…it is a pretty good piece defining things well. I ask that you please read the piece…

…and then give us the chance to be. Please??

Charissa

Charissa will be working on this outfit…

Posted on September 25, 2014 by charissagrace

Saving my dollars and pinching my pennies…

How Bones Feel

Posted on September 24, 2014 by charissagrace

together
like dry kindling and hungry fire
like full fire and eager air
like clingy air and cool water
like glitter water and thirsty earth
like yearning earth and welcome sky
like starry stars and nitey-night
like secret night and tender love
like burning love and full desire
together.

i think i know
what my clothes feel like
when I put them on,
fill them out and move, inside them,
them wrapped around me
in warmth, softness
scratchy sibilance singing
socks sliding over feet

and when I met you
I felt like my clothes feel
after,
and all full and moving and powerful…

when I’m with you
I know how bones feel,
inside bodies
moving, running,
free and full of being
full of knowing

I know how kindling feels
when it is near fire,
shivering, eager
enamored and wanting
to be thrown and thrown and thrown,
burn free, be undone

I know how the silver spear-point
diamond-shiny and sleek
feels with the weight of that shaft
so smooth,
so long,
so heavy,
pushing it thru air
to pierce dead center every time
and know you are following
solid and substantive
and remaining there
behind when I am buried.

we work together
thru much
we walk together
thru more
together

If Only…

Posted on September 23, 2014 by charissagrace

If Only…

Fated words, uttered loud and forceful
(expletives deleted) with hot breath fast and panicked.

If only…
*sigh*

if only…

those words have marched in lock step
with this silly goose so desperate to be a swan
goose stepping right along with the best
of the fuhrer’s furor-troops and shock tropes.

my friend spoke of these, and sentences that
jail themselves with these bars “if only”.

well, I “if only”-ed myself into Horner’s Corner
and stuck in a thumb to pull out

if only i had not said that
if only i had thought before i moved
if only i was smaller
if only i was quieter
if only my body…yeah.

that.

if only the blood didn’t come out of the wounds
if only…
if only…

(i whisper this, shame steals my voice but not the evil thought)

if only i had never been…

Those are my “if only”s.

So, how to go on to “yet shall I”

“yet shall I praise Them”
“yet shall I lift my eyes up to the mountains, from whence shall my help come”
“yet shall I bow”
“yet shall I breathe”
“yet shall I hope”
“yet shall I say sorry until the word is a worn out Hush Puppy”

“and yet shall I love, shall I love, shall I love thru it all”

This is like my poem Across the Aching Blue Sky

Posted on September 23, 2014 by charissagrace

Across the Aching Blue Sky

“You will always be too much of something for someone:
too big, too loud, too soft, too edgy.
If you round out your edges, you lose your edge.
Apologize for mistakes.
Apologize for unintentionally hurting someone — profusely.
But don’t apologize for being who you are.”

*charissa nods solemnly*

The Pull of the Moon

Posted on September 23, 2014 by charissagrace

Part One: High-tide/Crescent Moon

the moon
the pull of the moon
is gentle in grip
but
fierce in fruition!

we all, yes…all.
we all are like
either the sea or the moon.

Do you ken the difference between
Treasure and Riches?
Money and Wealth?
Bauble and Gem?

(…either Sea or Moon…)

No?
Oh, Sea, then you,
you are storm tossed and windswept,
and without strength you quail
and bend you to the moon’s soft mastery.

Yes?
You do?
Good, Moon. good.
you will pull tides hither
and push waves thither and
write your calm and placid face
across the depths of the
changing but never changed deep.

Part 2: Low-tide/Full Moon

your heart thrummed,
a bird trapped in a room of windows
and just a transom cracked thru which
you flew on vague and careless whims
of winds still racing with the moon.

your wings battered walls and ways out
implacable and illusory, and
the sound of many waters
rushing over gurgle stones
and running from the moon
and losing
filled the fluttery desperate room.

your wingtips grew wet and red.

i stood there, horrified and still.
my rotted wooden bucket was
half full and leaking water salt as blood,
liquid moonlight stolen from
her treasure ponds.
I was going to wash those ancient flagstones
beneath your fluttery flight.

i dropped the bucket and ran to you,
hand upraised and palms open and soft
and scared of your rustle and bustle and frantic frenzy.

i pushed like the moon,
arms waving and wordless voice wooing
“there, there”,
i reached like the sea and grasped
handfuls of beak and blood
until I had you at last
and safe from yourself and walls and ways out,
and slowly hurried to the transom high and sideways
and thrust you out to freedom in the dusk.

you flew to branch and twig and lit,
heart a fluster and hard with anger that
was pulled over fear and hurt like
some feathery mackinaw
and there you glared glitter-eyed and beady black at me,
my rotted bucket and water everywhere.

and then to air you took, to wing,
soaring on the lines unseen,
the traces invisible
that followed down those beams,
those living lines of light
hitched to us one,
hitched to us all in night.
all.

then i, sorrowful and glad in the darkening wet room
so hot and still alive with evil fates escaped,
i watched you go, trailing cries and wing-tip red,
fly and tinge that golden glow deep crimson
with the bloody brush of wingtips caught
but now made free again,
and I felt me within, I felt me outside in,
I felt that ever always draw as well…
the pull of the moon

Soul As Big As Autumn

Posted on September 23, 2014 by charissagrace

“People choose what they want,
but do they always want what they choose?”

This question floated to me
on the grey water-laced wind
across the busy square filled with
lunchers and loungers, and orange clad
crossing guards.

It caught at my ear and clung there, leaf
clinging for dear life to the gutter grate
to hold out against gravity and the mass of
watery opinion that we should
all rush down and away.

I saw her, hair caught,
transfixed on dancing
wild breezes that lifted,
poofed, primped and pinched
braids and bangs and barettes and her eyes
lit with that autumn afternoon fading fire
gleaming from behind the clouds
carrying water for Miss Autumn in Her sudden rush and approach.

Her friend was eating a PB&J, and nodding,
and I was knowing suddenly
this tableau played out
on that milling stage of common strangers
every day…together they would walk,
our prophetess of Autumn, our herald
lifted high to purposes Platonic and ideal…
and our girl “Monday-thru-Friday”
whose job and pleasure was to
listen to things that sounded like winds in mountain crags
or in castle eaves, and were just as understandable.

But they made her feel alive,
those windswept high and wild sounds,
made her aspire to truly enjoy that PB&J!!
And she knew that she would
ever always choose
to be with her friend,
and want it too…

…for her friend? OH!
Body, like the mountain
Heart, like the ocean
Mind, like the sky…

and Soul as big as Autumn
in all Her Glory

Each Fleeting Moment

Posted on September 23, 2014 by charissagrace

Goodness…and all this in return
for the names you cannot say,
names I cannot say
names that cannot be said
or they would no longer be names.

simply to love from the bones!
Love, radiating upward and outward
like the warm cherry glow of
crackly drowsy evening fires
in the dusky autumn nightfall
wreathed in smoke and peace.

Each fleeting moment,
fleeing away daintily and quick
darting, into that bush
and up that tree
where it sits and scolds,
taunts? No…
sits and serenades and calls to me,
take wing
take wing,
take wing
for time is short
and the sky is fading
but still so brilliant
blue and resonant with love.

This Knowing In My Heart

Posted on September 23, 2014 by charissagrace

relief…can you see this word is a bottle?
it has a message stuffed inside it
a sprawling message scrawled
by the pen of your heart’s heart
that whispers its ever poem to you.

but…

there is a remove…always a remove
somewhere there
between you
and what you have written.

you there…
your words there…

observed,
watched
spied on

they are constantly observed,
and thus they sit silent
and never sing.

for words to sing, we must
somehow be entered into them,
so that we are not watching them,
we must become the word incarnate
for they are us

our essence

in squiggles and symbols,
and when we have the faith
to possess them bodily
(and be possessed by them)
they become contagious,
we become contagious
beyond the most virulent virus!

our words replicate themselves
in the heart and soul of the hearer
and then…
mutate
into something else
if guided by love something grander
if guided by hate something murderous
if guided by indifference something monstrous.

yes
we are our words, and
whether we are entered in
or not
is purely a matter of awareness
not of essence.

so find your pulsing core
sacred white hot nature
and let your heart be displayed upon
the canvas of your body
and let your soul give utterance
of your primal deepest cry…

…and then find someone you love
and who loves you too
for you
and wrap yourself,
curl around them (and enter in)
like a precious flame protected
in a wind storm punctuated
by the rain lashing from outside
(and thus creating your
“warm within”)

I am glad of this knowing in my heart
that not only can I ask this of you
but that you would be insulted if I didn’t.

this knowing in my heart
so wonderfully banked and tended now
fuel just right, air even righter
trust love

this knowing in my heart
this knowing in my heart

Message In A Bottle

Posted on September 21, 2014 by charissagrace

I found a bottle bobbing in the tides along the shore,
slick with slime and battered by the storms that came before
it found its way to me. The cold wind moaned and nipped my face
as I waded out to snatch it up safe, from that murky place.

It was roughly crusted with a barnacled hard shell
and smelled of desperate furlongs traveled far too close to hell,
and loneliness…for hell is total isolation, stark…
just self forever chained to self in utter endless dark.

I held it up against the muddy skies just tinged with red
and golds as the earth turned and spun and day stood on her head
to mark another moment brief and echo all the days
gone tumbling by since the first sunset sky was set ablaze.

Hidden there, just barely seen thru crusted colored glass
I saw a wispy paper stained and dull like tarnished brass
neglected for some 50 years and put there then by me…
I’d written it to this me now, and cast it in the sea.

My heart, my tears, my blood combined to fall upon that page
and tell of longings, tell of sorrows, tell of that locked cage
of flesh and words and hammer-fists and heartbreak ever more
and tell my future me about the life that I’d abhorred.

My knees grew weak, then buckled. I remembered that hard day
I’d put my heart into that bottle, hurled it far away,
thinking I could rid myself of all my hurt and ache
but knowing not that we can never outrun life’s heartbreak.

My hands shook, fingers fumbling as I freed my desperate cry.
The bottle birthed its message, gave a tiny copper sigh
and then began to sing to me in querulous hopeful song
of future hopes and me made free instead of me born wrong.

I’d written there “Dear Me, please do not tire of our fight
but be courageous in the midst of darkest blackest night.
Rise up inside yourself and let your beauty blooming free
become the joyful woman that we know ourself to be.”

The message trailed off in a scrawl, the letters marred by tears
I’d cried that day I’d cast away my me, then, all those years
I’d lived in sorrow, days passed dead within my mask, my shell…
that scroll was me, a message in a bottle prison cell.

I sat there for awhile until I’d caught back up to me
and let those words become living and vital, strong and free.
And then I blew into the bottle grace to there reside
Forever, then I corked it and returned it to the tide.

I watched the bottle drift away until I had to go
and saw the years marked out thru tides of time, and ebb and flow
How our hearts return back home to whisper secrets from the past
to help us lay our burdens down and find True Rest at last.

Something my darling says…

Posted on September 19, 2014 by charissagrace

…and my bff echoes:

“Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose.”
— Eckhart Tolle (via milkspilled)

I, on the other hand, can attest that worry works! Because approximately 98% of what I worry about never happens, and the other 2% is nowhere near as bad as I feared…

See? It works!

(Darling and bff both roll their eyes and shake their heads at my silliness…lol)

October 1st, 2014

Posted on September 17, 2014 by charissagrace

Hi Constance…

Well…it is going to be official on October 1st, 2014…my new name, Charissa Grace White will be my legal name. It astounds me and truthfully I feel weird. Not bad at all…but I am not quite sure what to feel, getting ready to officially have a name that means me, and not someone else I felt chained to.

I will still be going by my old name at work for awhile…in talking with HR they are fine with that, and the important thing is that I get it done.

And…it looks like the methods at work to police me will be along the lines mentioned in the “Tolerance or Acceptance” article that I reposted. Some things happened today that discouraged me, greatly.

Ima declare it right now…like Daniel, in the lion’s den…I want to do and say and be the right thing. So I am going to keep on:

doing justice
loving mercy
walking humbly

a sad, giddy/weird feeling Charissa Grace who finds her name sustaining her in Lady Grace’s courts.

Later, after I started this:

PS: omg…thank you ddh!!

❤ always ❤

for you, as those Sacred Lines we trace

Posted on September 17, 2014 by charissagrace

“I believe that
your soul
and
my soul
are
very
old friends.”

— Mandeq Ahmed
“Mates”

Posted on September 16, 2014 by charissagrace

Quartet

One the 1st

there.
back there.
where was it, when was it?

somewhere,
between the ends of the rainbow,
in the middle,
where the gold pushes east
and the gold rushes west,
and leaves green, leaves mossy green
and bowed by light.

my eyes dazzled…there.
gleamed.
your eyes,
soft and intent, hawklike and cowlike
all at once as you took me
in glance and
then in glitter-glance
and then (shiver) in hungry glance and I,
I was still and not moving…
between the legs of the rainbow…

but between my own, I was alive (again),
I was the heart of a star,
my light wet and my gravity heat
pulling you there by your eyes,
to me, and then

there. oh
there. oh
there. oh

After…when you…yes…
your eyes and their leggy light
gone there and then gone out,
I lay wakeful, still in the moonlight streaming
thru gossamer curtains, swaying slowly
‘neath the wind’s caresses.
And my smile,
my endorsement of you
played round the corners of my mouth
and moved in time to sounds,
the symphony of many waters
rustling in me now,
rapid, and rushing runny…
there

and I held my life-your life,
I held our life
there, curled round it
with my galaxy curves
and molten churning spark.
I thrummed, hummed,
taut and unstrung all at once,
and waiting for that java-jolt,
that move, that kickback…
there.

until there was
no there.

and we…here?
Eyes dulled
in pain’s muddy waters dirty,
hearts torn. Just torn.
Nothing fancy,
just brutal grip,
grab, tear, shred, toss
and then I was empty

there

I journey steady now,
come to (that)
grips, come to terms
with that day but
never
come to heal or honor it because,
my heart wanders
there,
it sneaks off from the chain gang
and floats, up,
circling the rainbow’s middle spaces…
never in Oz, never in Kansas,
but always
there, looking
looking there,
for us, come and torn away…
and finding footprints, hearing echoes, touching ashes
of what never happened but should have,
there.

when I walk I get tired.
when I get tired, I sit down,
here, or on the wet grass,
and I remind myself that
there’s a cure for all and
everything, somewhere
there and I content myself
with knowing that,
I trick myself with knowing that,
I choose to know our us-life…
waits…for us

there.

Two the 2nd

stare.
that’s all I could do, waking up
in warm and darkness close and clothed
in the warm velvet of you.

I heard steady “Luv u. Luv u. Luv u,” together
with some sound like wind out in out in
around me, thru me…it felt good to be, swaddled
and surrounded with you

(by you)
(I stare),

I strained, tippy-soul up to surround you back,
around your voice, around your breath, to add to you my “luv u. luv u. luv u.”
back, in octaves high and beyond, but in dark.
I saw blind, inside wonders but I still sang, I still stare.

you held me careful as you sang and told me things without words
(in your colors and shades), remembering yourself (then)…and him…
(and me there, almost, but still here too), you stared at you,
youth and inexperience veiled in optimism and immortality…

you saw, that then time…(the rain, pouring steady
crackling like forest fires, popping like firecrackers,
water splashing and sweat spouting in the dusky light flicker-dash-streaks,)
you told me that you clicked your tongue in time and tempo

your slick and graceful grappling torsos, tissues, tangos,
and on your lips the glorious taste of salty skin like mangos…
and you moved…in time…with him…and you…and him…and you…
stare, dance, that then time…different from this one…now.

you hummed, he thrummed, near bursting in the joyous moment
and incense of recovery from the tragic, fluky lash of death’s
hungry whip o’ nine tongues, til rejoicing, rising, falling safe and one
then me, brewing and becoming, moving future of hope fulfilled.

I was me there, with you inside your song and center
while you gathered courage still to stare unblinking into dark unknowing gaping,
you sang of me…

then silence…

and I was spun afraid and cold and oh the wrenching rain
in the dark dawn hours
of that green field clotted
in stone and searing sorrow.

you keening, fallen on your knees and wordless,
empty agonizing grappling with that monster blind and mute,
that just rolled over, ripping you in two,
ripping every goodness from the heart of greatness,
leaving all creation crying in the center of every bitter moment.

I float over you since then, and now, here in front of you,
your face tattooed forever with the tales of me writ large and hidden there,
and I try to wipe those silent tears and dry them with my hair
and then I stand in that spot, there, the one you focus on to live

the one you wish hard on, will hard in, try hard to go on within…
well I wish too, will and try hard, to get in, become, break out and
to burst in, be born into your world from mine. but there is always that…

shadow and space…

between me here and you there in time.

and so I wait and follow you, learn you and I shout to you
it’s not your fault, I don’t know what or why but it was not!!
your fault…or mine, and like you, I am waiting…mama.
Love you cross the years, as you are loving me, we wait…

we
stare.

Three the 3rd

Sissy!! Dani!!
Where are you?

You walk
(there)
in time
(here)
at pace, keeping place, for them
step steady…
step steady…
step steady…
for them
silent beat…
silent beat…
silent beat…

but oh god bereft of them
(oh! oh! OH!!!)

you walked alone inside (me too)
and haunted, by ghosts of your regrets (me too).
You, bereft of a full womb, and I,
a womb bereft of a full me!

Dani!!
My heart keens, cries, with you
and for you, thru you

But now…
(why we met now, and not before…)
where am i to go?
Where is there now for me that you are not as well,
sister-friend, walker on the paths of the dead
and thru?

questions turn and spin in wonder,
longing to have been
there, then,
and afterwards to be
here, now…
pouring river-deep-consoling,
over pain and empty sorrow
and then break a hundred times
and heal a thousand more!

I could shatter endlessly
(oh please, I can, oh please let me)
shower pieces teary wet
this red heart over you, and then
extinguish grief-fires and wild questions
drowning all conflagrations of
there
and drain that bitter cup of black despair…

Let me take some…sister-grief?
I practiced 50 years for meeting
here and feeling there, my sister,
me a sea-sponge wrung out dry
of love so I can sop up sorrow
mop up gall into this hyssop, I–
made for so many things, I–
made for just this one thing…
by your side, in your shoe,
I will walk with you and dance then walk
with you and sing then walk some more
and cry then walk with you
and then just sit and sigh.

Let me bleed over your feet,
over your way, don’t worry,
ddh, there’s plenty blood enough
for grief and for me both!
When you kneel at graves, me too
When you walk, tears dry and stale
me too with tissues in my glove.
When you sit, remembering? I’ll serve you “Cookies Rissa Roo”
and love-tea…and when you are smiling
I’ll rejoice and shout nonsense,
the world’s best Fool of all.

that’s all I got, sissy…
and Dani…that’s all you need and that’s the truth…
wait…
wait…
that and Mama always…

love, forever,
from your sister
friend devoted me

Charissa Grace

Four the Fourth

My daughter Dani bends low.
Her hair drags feeble thru the scraggly mud.
I watch her there, hands on her knees
and stomach clenchy sick.
My heart breaks resolute and sure
on schedule as I feel her…
sad…grieving…torn…
and empty-numb.

I approach her and she knows,
somehow…she starts and stands up quick,
a gold-brown willow springing up
resilient and released from ill winds blowing…
Her fine hair frayed and flying, she looks
right at Me! Straight into my eyes, but she saw
only the white leaping fox, her tail flickering quick and neat,
the silver hare hopping and skittering
into her warm burrow waiting
and the glinty moon reflecting
frosty on the secret owl-wing gliding,
silent in the still soft ebon night.

I step to her, she feels Me as the Wind in her face,
smells, scents, wafting cleansing arctic hymns
and fragrances following spicy with that joyous island song.
I touch her precious tear torn cheek,
and her eyes close and she smiles low
imagining that holy flakes of ice falling from heaven
bless and beautify her solitary suffering and sorrow.
Then she stills, she lets go and My Love washes her over.

Glancing right I see her sister
(My daughter Charissa Grace)
kneeling in the silent softness,
tears like diamonds in the incandescent moonlight and the snow.
Her crimson garments caked with ice at knees,
but she does not take notice of these, for her heart is fixed on Me,
and her eyes fixed upon her sister.

I nod, Charissa jumps up, ever eager serving vessel
cracked and faithful broken…quick she runs unto her sister
and she wraps her arms around those shattered shoulders
And I watch how Dani flicks her eyes wide open,
pools of night and galaxies of stars therein those touching depths.
Charissa gently touches her dear sister’s cheek and nods,
she deftly touches hand to belly, heart to heart,
and Dani breathes and sighs released and reaches
out to touch Charissa’s back with fluttery grateful hands.

I smile, happy and rise up wings spread,
healing flowing forth.
I am well pleased because My daughters,
sisters of My Heart and in the Sacred Blood,
My Brood is well.

Loving you with my life, for the rest of our days.
Pledged to you as sister, pinkie-swear,
Love and all my gooey heart…

Charissa Grace

I Choose…

Posted on September 14, 2014 by charissagrace

I Choose…
To live by choice, not by chance;
To make changes, not excuses;
To be motivated, not manipulated;
To be useful, not used;
To excel, not compete.
I Choose self~esteem, not self~pity.
I Choose to listen to my inner voice,
not the random opinion of others.

Lassos and Lanky Lines

Posted on September 13, 2014 by charissagrace

For too long
lassos and lanky lines
have spun round my neck
and held me to this dirt in time.
I listened, a few words here like grime,
a big fat echo there like slime,
up in the sandstone and
limp mountains like bars
around my world.

I believed them,
I let them choke me
tame and chain me
to plantations of shame
and fields of blame

Well, I am rearing now…
I smell water in the air!
My Mama tells me I am
Her work and She is
Filthy with loving me!
____5894820_orig

Streaked and smeared
with my red clay,
with my white heart,
Her hair standing
glowing, flying as
She works the treadle
and spins me loose
and into my shape yet born
but always known.

The dry skies crackle, and victory rumbles
in my throat like thunder,
in my heart like lightening
and the cowpoke slides sideways
and decides it’s time to go have lunch
and forget to ever come back here

and I will run on winds
my passion-fires will ever burn
in freedom so fine, so full.

How I love this, aspire to this!!

Posted on September 13, 2014 by charissagrace

Thanking Laverne Cox

Posted on September 13, 2014 by charissagrace

I have been thinking about her recently…and I just want to say here that she is really walking an amazing example so far of being a visible and vulnerable woman in the public eye.

She is inspiring to me as a transgender person and someone I am somewhat looking up to…

…and I want to say thank you to her. For being calm, collected, articulate and passionate. For never giving in to hatred and striking back, but always affirming acceptance and kindness.

May Lady Grace bless you for the sacrifices this must entail.

Much respect, Laverne…love,

Charissa

The Only Thing Unusual About Ray And Janay Rice Is That Anyone Noticed

Posted on September 13, 2014 by charissagrace

The Only Thing Unusual About Ray And Janay Rice Is That Anyone Noticed.

Good Morning Constance…if you would, please check out this link and read the article it goes to. It is the smartest and most context-giving thing I have read in the latest uproar-media-storm about a high profile case…on something that has been going on so long and so much that probably most of you are not even aware that things like this and worse are happening right under your noses in your very own communities.

It is important to attempt to get a grasp of the scope of this issue…so that you, Constance, can begin to consider and weigh how you yourself think! It is mindblowing, really, when you consider how language and the way you think affect your position on issues, your understanding of them…at least, that is what happens with me, so I assume that it is the same for others.

When you are done reading the article, take it a step further…the rate of the abuse and attack of transgender women as a subset of women happens at a rate so much higher per thousand, that in order to maintain the same ratio of attacks on women compared to attacks on trans-women there would need to be over 2 million assaults on biological women annually that ended up in serious hospitalization and/or death!

Trans-women of color are even at greater risk.

Constance, everyday I am out further and further. I am having wonderful experiences and meeting so many great people…but I actually consider the wisdom of places and events before I go…and avoid places that I am likely to be assaulted!! ME!!! Charissa, the one that is dedicated to Grace and kindness! Why? Because there will be men there, intoxicated, and they will resent me for becoming myself and shunning male roles and all the privileges accorded them for the subservient place and role that women are consigned to…or, they may find themselves attracted to me in some way (though I dress very modest and am quite unassuming in the presence of strangers), and they attraction is likely to be accompanied by feelings of self-loathing, as they will assume that it implies they are gay

(which is foolish on so many levels and indicative of how our binary has stigmatized all orientations but male/female/hetero, and sadly the church has given its seal of approval on this approach and empowered this hate by not realizing the bible’s most basic teaching regarding sexuality is character teaching in areas of fidelity and faithfulness and the true loving and serving of one another).

For instance…my baby and I want to go to our city and attend the Octoberfest celebration…drink a few beers together, share a sausage or two, wallow in bad oompa music, and then walk along the waterfront holding hands and laughing…and if we do? And if there is a drunken belligerent there? And if he decides to “grace me” with his attentions, and then decides to force me into his world view…or worse? No thanks.

Or, Constance…what if you and I were out one night as friends, having dinner, say at a sports pub or someplace where there was nightlife…and we had a grand time and were walking happily back to our car, when 4 or 5 drunks appear who had noticed us…and started to verbally batter us, insult us, sully us…and then worse…

No.

In the same way that I exhort you cis-gender readers to make a way, Abraham Lincoln style for we trans-gender human beings, I am exhorting you men to do the same for women. Flat out fact: until you men cease from viewing we women as “the weaker vessel” and that meaning anything other than finer, more intricate, delicately formed and less robust in the same way that a computer is more delicate than a sawhorse, you will yourself remain an oppressor of women and not even realize it!

Gentleman Reader: when you first read of me being transgender…and leaving the shipwreck of manhood (for me it is just that) for the homeland of womanhood, did you recoil inside? Think it odd? Strange? Feel a sense of derision or something similar? And casting the net broader…have you ever teased or ribbed a male friend or associate by telling him he is “acting like a girl”? Or “you are such a chick!” (use of the word chick, and then even deeper why is that insulting to a man).

These things dehumanize women! They undercut the very love and commitment you profess to wives and daughters! They reveal that at the core, you see us as less than, and thus will without thought manifest ownership and objectify us…your own wives and daughters!

There is a bible verse that says that a good wife is a crown to her husband, and a crown is something that confers royalty, authority, regalness. A crown separates royalty from commonness and is worn on the head…higher than the head!

Well…I once had a dream (when I was still forcing myself to adhere to the role I was consigned to and blind to my own soul) and in the dream I saw a bunch of men from my church dressed in overcoats…they looked like flashers…and they were furtive and surreptitious…in a group like a bunch of adolescents gathered round a porn mag…and then, when I got close enough I could hear the conversation “…Hey, check out the crown I own!” and “Hey, ya wanna see my crown? It’s amazing…” and they would pull open their overcoats and “flash” one another with this crown they had attached to their body and dangling off like a careless canteen half full of water. It was sickening, actually, because they imagined that this was honoring to their crown!

Of course, the symbolism here is men who subjugate women and then call it protection, or covering, or shielding…instead of having the confidence and faith to actually place women in that place that a crown belongs!

I woke up, and that verse was ringing in my ears, and I could see it against the darkened ceiling in flaming letters…and I began to cry…and my baby woke up and asked what was wrong, and I told her…and lamented all the times I had unwittingly done that…she graciously assured me this was not one of my flaws (thank god!), but that she experienced this sort of treatment so regularly it was shocking to her to have this view of the phenomenon!

We have a long way to go, Constance…

I have friends who have loving spouses who are so blind to this that they see my friends as extensions of themself, and thus will not allow them to do or be anything that is threatening to them! Oh, they are blind to it, and that is all the more tragic, it is that deep.

Anyway…read the article…and then, think about it…your language (what you say if you are male, and how you just take it if you are female), your assumptions…the next time you want to compliment a woman and she is “a wonderful little lady” (instead of an intelligent human being) “…such a sweet thing” (rather than committed to servant-living).

This is Charissa…and I want to actually be!

Kind
Generous
Committed
Courageous
Strong
Vulnerable
Visible
Articulate
Tender
Full of grace and mercy
Devoted

May Mama grant it be so, to Their glory forever and the benefit of Their world, Amen.

Your Light Feet

Posted on September 12, 2014 by charissagrace

Did I hear you there, your footsteps near
approaching on the shore?

I’ve held your heart while we, apart
await that open door.

I never knew your spirit true
was keeping me in tact

Until that day, and you away
did go with no glance back.

Was distance great and casual fate
a mountain far too high?

No matter, dear, my spirits cheer
for your light feet step nigh.

The Difference Between Tolerance and Acceptance | Brynn Tannehill

Posted on September 11, 2014 by charissagrace

The Difference Between Tolerance and Acceptance | Brynn Tannehill.

Constance, this article sums up perfectly what is happening to me at my work as transition gets further and further along…and it is a shame because I am truly becoming a better person everyday. It is also another article on a topic I have previously written about.

Deep down inside? If I am honest? I truly feel sorry for them…because my Mama has been helping me to believe that I am actually a pretty cool person, and that She esteems and likes me very much.

BUT: though I may be able to weather this, the fact is that this problem is due to the usual phobias and hatreds and superstitions that I have commented on here before and sought to dispel by open display of my own life and heart. And those things are power things…not good power things. They harm everyone who participates in them, not only the trans or LGTBQ humans who it’s directed at, but sadly it also affects the practitioners as well. It truncates them, stunts them, dulls them, and ultimately enslaves them to ignorance and darkness of heart and mind.

As always, Constance…Charissa sez check it out…and when you see someone who is on the outside, offer them a smile and a hand.

Love, Charissa

Falling Like Snow, Falling Forever

Posted on September 11, 2014 by charissagrace

I remember your fall…silent, turning
skin burning and flakes
falling like snow.

I remember the shaking…plumey ash
(demon of dachau come home here)
and more, falling forever.

the ones who ran forward, ran up churning
to with bodies breach tragic tear
and then hurtle down, falling like snow

and I have watched memories fade
media circus turning and truth burning
and falling forever.

but my tears will come
every year on that minute
falling like snow, falling forever

“Not the Dogmatic Kind”

Posted on September 10, 2014 by charissagrace

Constance, I just read this lil comment elsewhere…and the writer exhorted the reader to have faith, and then added parenthetically “not the dogmatic kind”.

Full Stop.

I knew what the writer meant…they were trying to distinguish between the kind of attitude that presses forward with courage and hope stronger than wistful wishing, and that sort of blind jaw clenching bull headed obdurateness that has come to be called faith in our times.

It is tragic that the word “faith” has come to feel like a dirty word in the modern mouth to the point that the need to make such a distinction is felt…and even the more so, because it is an inaccurate understanding of what faith truly is!

Listen…if there are dogmatic claws and paws on your faith, then you do not have faith…you have belief, and belief all by itself is just like gasoline, an accelerant and fuel source…a potential energy put in service of a higher purpose to accomplish that purpose. Right? The old saying tells us “even demons believe and tremble”.

Belief can be the jaw-clench, lip curl, chin raised, nose-pinched blind and maddening mindset that we have all bashed against like waves on rocks…the dangerous powerful set of blinders that can potentially narrow the field to the goal and just the goal…which might empower the beginnings of faith, and might empower the beginnings of hate.

Faith on the other hand…ahhhh…faith is a state of being! A living and active thing! By definition, faith precludes dogma! What is the old and tried and true definition of faith?

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”.

The substance of things hoped for…
things hoped for…
substance…
evidence of things not seen…
evidence of…
things not seen…

Oh my…now we see jaws unclench! Eyes open! Dogma flee, and wonder flood over souls! Suddenly the throne is empty and there is a possibility of turning one’s heart and will outward, to consider Hope…and to place that hope in things worthy of hoping in…

Used in the context of faith, substance derives from a Greek word which essentially denotes “that thing placed under”, or “foundation” or “substructure”. Very simple, and when combined with various connotations such as

“that which has foundation,”
“is firm”,
“that which has actual existence”
“the substantial quality, nature, of a person or thing”
“steadfastness of mind”,
“firmness, courage, resolution”
“confidence, firm trust, assurance”

Clearly, faith depends on a previous encounter with that in which you are placing it in. Boards, stone, cement, and blueprints all combine to give builders the (insert any of the above connotations here) to continue to build, and then confidently construct the rest of the structure….

…confidently construct…

Sorta like saying “hoping for”, no? Hoped for…this is rooted in that Greek word which conveys this:

“to wait for salvation in joyous full confidence”.

Ima stop there, Constance…but the many-faceted wonder of the place of faith…the state of being…well, clearly there is no room for something that is “not-faith”…such as dogmatic jaw clenching! That is just flat out stubbornness.

Now…here is the pay-off pitch, and the reason ‘Rissa decided to get out her harp and strum some strings:

In what do you place your faith (which would be the foundation of that state of being you inhabit without thought each day)?
In whom do you put your faith?
Is a what more appropriate to put faith into than a whom?
What is the track record of that in which you place faith?

All questions that are like can-openers, and boy are there some cans that need to be opened, cleaned out and disposed of, given some of the whats that have snatched preeminence from the whom…and some of the whoms who have masqueraded as the Whom, and made Them out to look small and mean, and miserly and cruel…or worse, as buffoonish backwards senile old uncles who need to be shoved out onto the back porch and eventually left behind in favour of…

Let me make a bold statement, okay?

If there is anything here, at Grace Notes…ever…that you like…
If there is anything here ever that is beautiful, or true…
If you find here joy, or wonder, or splendour spoken of…
If you find here consolation and comfort, encouragement and exhortation…
If you find here compassion, kindness…

If you find here grace…

That is all…all…due to They in whom I have placed my trust and belief, and it is the life lived fueled by that trust which has resulted in my entering into a state of being which is this: I have placed my confidence in Them, and yielded to Their living and active Presence within me…and all the things you may find here that stir you and make you hungry and feed you all at the same time…it is Them.

They are graceful enough to lift me up out of death…so if They will do it for me, I am confident They will do it for
whosoever will…

With jaw gloriously unclenched, and dogma sleeping in the “dogma house”…

Charissa Grace

Ummm….freaking LOVE!!

Posted on September 9, 2014 by charissagrace

How about you Constance?

I am finding this is true…and truer everyday…

“Once you’ve accepted your flaws, no one can use them against you.”
— Tyrion Lannister (a character from A Song of Ice and Fire by GRR Martin)

A Doer of Hard and Holy Things

Posted on September 9, 2014 by charissagrace

I was talking to Mama early this morning…

…and as I was talking with her, I ran across this:

thanks, Mama…forever…for Your Love…

Thanks even more for sustaining me, and renewing my courage!

*Charissa draws a deep breath, sets her jaw, squares her shoulders and jumps back into the river!*

One Conversation

Posted on September 9, 2014 by charissagrace

Haaayyyy…just in amazement this morning at the happy wonder of something so miraculous being so solidly common…like the very best ever hot stew after the very funnest ever walk in the crisp autumn morning on the very finest ever High Saturday of Fall just before the funnest ever slumber party.

Sometimes miracles are striking in their sudden lightening rivening of the drab clinging mendacity of the ordinary, allowing the brilliant and swelling wonder of eternity to muscle thru the tear and take up residence forever here, beautifying it and sanctifying it…

…and other times, miracles are spiderwebs wreathed and decorated in lil diamonds of dew backlit by sun peeking thru the wind-caressed stalks of the cattails…

you the web, me the dew, the sunlight making us Her miracle.

Blessings…friend. And love

Blessings

❤

(I slept til 4 AM today…that never happens…3 AM was biffed in the nose this morning! Hope you didn’t bruise your fist? Ka-POW! 🙂 )

Thinking of you today…and biking at that time…

Across the Aching Blue Sky

Posted on September 8, 2014 by charissagrace

When you see that I have died,
when you look into that place
where my odd, quirky connections
once melded luminous and
found resonant red splendour
in heart…and in hearts too

and you see the ashes, chilled,
overlaying stone cold coals,
become grey overcoats
covering what I finally learned
to be so ashamed of?

Scrape those cinders up
shovel and shoe them,
trowel and trough the grits,
find a yearn to place them in,
decorative and strange,
intricate and engraved
and singing,
like me back then…

and carry that vase back
across the silent square,
and toss my ashes high,
yes toss them in the air

Let them fly across the sky
in one last kiss, then wave goodbye,
and falling, floating, snowing what made
me special and vibey…

I will let go gently…and slip away,
away…

Oh…I’m still over there…
where everyone stands, and sips
hot tea and nods so sagely…
I’m in the roundabouts,
just staying in my lane

and signalling (my intentions clear
finally even to the least
of these), signalling easy…
now that I float across
the sky…and drifting, wispy
and fading into sameness
into just like everyone else
everything everywhere else…
fading…just like that.

what was it, that made me…
made me me? Different? ME?

What? My song? My sing?
My voluminous preludes?
My silly rhymes, word crimes?
My heart that cries at bird wing flashing
or a dove cooing or a dark look
looming long and loutish?

Alas…the sky awaits,
the sky opens, beckons,
but can’t contain and hold, no.
It’s just Stygian canvas for
a murky ash calligraphy
of unique but too too me.

And now I’m seeing traces,
in smoke and empty vapors
of ‘trodes and tendrils, shocks that curb,
that cut back hard, that make all things
not new…but same…
and safe…for others but
not for me.

the glitter of dreams,
the flakes of hope,
and the ashes of a heart…
a heart…what…
dripping?

Fire does belly up,
hungry, focused on eating,
fire does purge, does pardon,
and place me there unseen
in the park, soft on the swings,
the teeter totter tamble,
in the quail and quay and quiet
at last…no scramble, still…
and still.

Spread them, fling them, across the sky…
across the aching blue sky.

It’s true…

Posted on September 6, 2014 by charissagrace

“And I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you.”
— The Chaos of Stars (Kiersten White)

This is why the subject of Acceptance is soo inportant

Posted on September 4, 2014 by charissagrace

Found this online…Constance…oh, Constance, this could have been me. I myself have written of identification with the monster that Viktor Frankenstein gave unholy birth to in that tragic and terrible story (terrible in an awe-ful way).

This could be me…without my Mama, without my baby, without Heather…

Constance, as late as last November, I was on the edge. Go back and read some of those fall poems from 2013. I have actually been reviewing the last year, and I marvel at where I am now, but I tremble at where I was then.

Here is the story of a woman who had no one, and nothing but everyone’s hatred, in black and white.

I recently heard that “no one is quite as mean as those people who are ‘mean for Jesus'”…and while there is a sad truth to that sometimes, the actual fact is that mean is mean. Period. Here is the story of Filisa, the sister of Charissa. If you love Charissa, or if you have fondness or admiration, I would ask for a favor: find someone outcast in your region…trans, cis, gay or straight…and go love them.

Just.
Love.
Them.

Charissa

“On January 5, 1993, a 22-year-old pre-operative transsexual woman from Seattle, Filisa Vistima, wrote in her journal, “I wish I was anatomically ‘normal’ so I could go swimming… . But no, I’m a mutant, Frankenstein’s monster.”

Two months later Filisa Vistima committed suicide. What drove her to such despair was the exclusion she experienced in Seattle’s queer community, some members of which opposed Filisa’s participation because of her transsexuality — even though she identified as and lived as a bisexual woman. The Lesbian Resource Center where she served as a volunteer conducted a survey of its constituency to determine whether it should stop offering services to male-to-female transsexuals.

Filisa did the data entry for tabulating the survey results; she didn’t have to imagine how people felt about her kind. The Seattle Bisexual Women’s Network announced that if it admitted transsexuals the SBWN would no longer be a women’s organization. “I’m sure,” one member said in reference to the inclusion of bisexual transsexual women, the boys can take care of themselves.”

Filisa Vistima was not a boy, and she found it impossible to take care of herself.

Even in death she found no support from the community in which she claimed membership. “Why didn’t Filisa commit herself for psychiatric care?” asked a columnist in the Seattle Gay News. “Why didn’t Filisa demand her civil rights?”

In this case, not only did the angry villagers hound their monster to the edge of town, they reproached her for being vulnerable to the torches.

Did Filisa Vistima commit suicide, or did the queer community of Seattle kill her?”

Longing to be Released

Posted on September 4, 2014 by charissagrace

This is how I feel inside today…if you have a knife prayer, use it on these!

In trembling gut-aches

Charissa

Greater than Kindness?

Posted on September 4, 2014 by charissagrace

“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?”

unknown quote this morning

*It is a true and high
aspiration of mine…to be kind.
Period.
Pure and simple.

To you precious loved ones
whose consciences lead you
to places other than
Their Happy House,
I say to you
that kindness is
our common bread,
our communion bread,
and love our wine.

To you beloved spiritual family…well is not all
the law,
the prophets, and
life in God
summed up in this: Be Kind?
For how will we be kind without Them…right?
Or, to gussy it up
(cus we spiritual people love the gussy-up, giggle):
Love God,
Love your Neighbor as yourself,
do what you want others to do and
be what you want others to be.

Full stop.

love, Charissa
(shivering and
trembling with
dread, and
determination)

I am a broken girl and I am

not so easy to love like
carefree normal confident girls
next door in cotton and flannel and lace.

I live inside a fortress and I hide

inside shields and my soul
lives centuries in seconds
I am a survivor of wars
that break the strongest
men so flimsy.
tumblr_nydpaoedn41qas1mto1_1280
Can you love me so strong that mountains
collapse into the dust of quiet surrender?
Can you melt my doubts and burn my soul
hotter than cold death and abandonment?

Can you endure my very worst days and stand

me not knowing that I am beautiful,
can you erase the thousand tormenting words
the sibilant whispers from hell’s pits of isolation and horror? tumblr_nycmluCX5a1qat5pio1_500
Can you stand that I am thinking even now “Why would you?”

Why would anyone?

I run from you,
but do you see that I run
far slower than I could?
Do you even know
what that means?

Why won’t you chase me?
tumblr_ny2eewVQ1e1tbryhwo1_1280

Could you provide me anything
that I can rely on, any routine
that will be as sunrise and sunset
again and again?

Could you give me a pet name?
Could you kiss me, touch me?
Then do it again, and again.
tumblr_nu4grakCop1rthbito1_540
I am a broken girl and I am
thirst itself so strong that Sahara is oasis.

I am a broken promise but I love
with loyalty that is the stars’
commitment to shine in the night.

I am a broken girl and I am
dust_and_ashes_by_art_de_viant-d6ci8m9

via I Am A broken girl And I Am

I Am A broken girl And I Am

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Defining Privilege

1. Privilege is the other side of oppression.

2. We need to understand privilege in the context of power systems.

3. Privileges and oppressions affect each other, but they don’t negate each other.

4. Privilege describes what everyone should experience.

5. Privilege doesn’t mean you didn’t work hard.

So What Now?

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Part One: High-tide/Crescent Moon

Part 2: Low-tide/Full Moon

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Quartet

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