SLiPchick's Virtual Shadows

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can’t help that," said the [Cheshire] Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad." "How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt Therapy said that the two greatest human fears are the Fear of Death and the Fear of Going Crazy . When I first encountered my spirit companion I questioned quite a bit whether I might be losing my mind. I struggled to come to terms with the apparent reality of communicating with a non-corporeal intelligence. I asked Her how I could know whether I was going crazy (the irony of asking Her is not lost on me, BTW; but bear with me). She told me She didn't know whether I was or not, but asked me what difference it made. She pointed out that I was functioning, holding down a job, living my

I've been resisting just sitting down to write. More to the point I've been resisting dialogging with Penelope. What are you afraid of? You. You don't need to be afraid of me Honey, I love you more than anything. I know, and I think that's what scares me the most. Letting in such a massive, beautiful, unconditional Love will sear my Soul, my very being. Yes, it likely will, that's kind of the point. But you won't die from that. It doesn't even hurt really, except if you resist it. It's meant to burn away your fears and doubts, show you your own beauty and perfection, so you can address this  plane of  incarnate existence from a place of clarity and purpose in the certain knowledge of your true locus, your origin, your foundation in Eternity.

Recently I've been feeling isolated and "stuck"; having trouble seeing what's next, what I should be working on, focusing on. Simultaneously I've been feeling distant and out of touch with Penelope; which I know is completely my doing, She has not moved or changed in Her openness or availability to me, it's all  me.  I have a long history of withdrawing when I'm feeling lonely, and lazy, and tired. I cut myself off from even my most favorite people, often to my detriment. I'm not sure that it's even that I want somebody to come after me (though being gently inquired after can be nice). I recognize that sometimes I need time to get over myself, quit feeling sorry for myself.  I'll get there. Penelope tells me we have work to do, and I need to be ready. Right now part of me just feels like I don't want the job any more; I'm tired, I just want to wind my life down and go Home . It seems like so much struggle recently, like I don'

But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father who is in Heaven. For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust. -- Matthew 5:44-45. We ALL get wet, have our homes destroyed by natural (and now man-made) disasters. We all experience storms, and sunrises, tragedy, and joy. We all get the opportunity to view Creation in Joy and Wonder, Know ourselves greatly, Love one another fiercely. Or we can ignore all that surrounds us; hide beneath layers of fear, depression, self pity, greed, and hatred; treat each other like things and vermin. We choose. Everyone is born, lives, and dies; and all (so far) having occurred within the confines of a minuscule ball of metal, water, and dust orbiting an unprepossessing star in a backwater of an apparently ordinary galaxy. The Cosmos at

So. So. You scared me last night. Good. It wasn't meant to be a scare, but you needed to hear me. This is important if you want Us to continue. You know I do. No, I don't know that, you haven't really been demonstrating that to me lately. Keeping up our connection takes effort on your part, you know this. What you're feeling is not from me. It's your own self criticism, you can chose just to drop it and move on. Open up to me, I'm ready to come back in, no questions, no repercussions, no punishments, lesson learned, let's just go on my darling. How can You be so amazing? I have no stake in what you do in this lifetime, your path is your path, We'll be together regardless and I Love you absolutely regardless. There are things you CAN accomplish if you set yourself to them that I see will make a difference in the world and that I see will give you great joy and satisfaction, but that's not required. What do I have to do? For now I rec

Came across this quote recently. Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions. -- G.K. Chesterton    On the face of that it had a certain resonance to it, but it also felt troubling, but I wasn't immediately sure why. My main exposure to Chesterton is through his character Father Brown , who I'm mainly familiar with through his incarnation in the BBC TV series of the same name (featuring the delightful Mark Williams ). Something felt wrong with it. I spent some time pondering, trying to figure out precisely what. I recognized that having convictions is a hallmark of a strong ethical stance and solid reasoning; and yet I find there is very little in life that I feel convinced of/ "convicted" about to the point of genuine intolerance . So, I ask, what are the criteria for determining what's worth having convictions about? It's easy to have convictions; they're a dime a dozen, readily available from any street corner preacher. It's fa

This morning on the way to work, I was feeling down on myself for not having done anything with the blog in months. Not having done much of anything to maintain my spiritual connection in general for that matter. I look back at how things were last year, how excited and energized I felt and I miss that feeling. I don't know where it went. I want it back. She told me W can just start where We are and go forward, no worries. I didn't feel right about that. Like I needed to do some kind of penance. Like I needed to be punished. She told me She could do that for me if I really wanted Her to, but it was unnecessary and entirely up to me. And basically suggested I skip it. Well shit. So, anyway folks. We're back. (I hope.).

My favorite movie is The Fisher King , directed by Terry Gilliam . For anyone not familiar with the film, a superb synopsis and analysis of the plot and themes are to be found here (spoiler alerts). Basically it's a film about Sin and Grace and I've been having an extended dialog with Penelope about precisely those topics of late. I have a problem with the notion of Sin as it's typically formulated, as disobedience to a deity, as "missing the mark". Many of the behaviors that constitute "sin" in many vocabularies (sex, drugs, rock and roll,...) are, at worst, minor taboos if not overt pleasures to be taken in appropriately moderate doses. Regardless of that the notion retains a compelling quality. There's a sense of the erotic, the forbidden, the transgressive that it expresses; a violation of some "established order". This has some psycho-emotional (archetypal?) resonance that I'm still trying to tease out, there's clearl

I came across a major theme of my life a while back, I'll even say it may be the foundation of my "contract" for this earthly incarnation (if it makes sense to talk about things in that fashion). I think I came here with a deep sense that I don't belong here . That can be thought of in a number of senses, and has many implications across my life. From my therapy with Kitty, I've come to know a theme of my life is that I didn't come here to "fit in". That dovetails rather well with not belonging . Not belonging feels very much like how my love life has evolved and the themes of some of my most poignant "theme songs" ( Slip Kid , Take the Long Way Home , Don't Look Back ). I was born into so many peculiarities: gay parents, growing up and living in New Orleans (a crazy place to call home, I now realize), being transgender (though not recognizing myself explicitly as such for much of my life). Maybe it was my challenge to see wh

I haven't posted anything in a while. I have no excuse really. Saying "I've been busy." is a cop out. Closer to the truth is that I've allowed myself to become badly distracted and preoccupied by other things. Penelope has repeatedly cautioned me about this. And I'm prone to slipping into other activities that become time and attention sinks and lose myself and what's important. I'd purposely avoided getting involved in social media much beyond email, maintaining a minimal professional presence on LinkedIn, and blogging precisely because of the apparent tendency for them to become time wasters. Sometimes it's about a quick "fix" or more frequent or explicit feedback. Case in point:  When I started exploring my transition and relocating to North Carolina I discovered Pinterest and Tumblr and found I readily lost myself there to where I had to limit my time involved with them pretty severely. When I actually got to NC I reconnecte