The bewilderment and adventure of living with mirror touch and other polysyns
After living over thirty years wondering why other people didn’t taste butterscotch when they said, heard, or read ‘interesting,’ learning about synesthesia was a welcome wave of awareness amidst the chaos.
I remember being in elementary school and watching a friend fall from the top of a structure we called the ‘Cheese,’ a molded concrete structure that only a 1980s playground could sustain due to its unmitigated risk of bodily harm. When he hit the ground, I couldn’t breathe. Grabbing at my chest and gasping for air, I paused feeling the tap on my back, followed by “you’re it!” Trying to maintain myself as part of the game of Tag, I took a few steps, but still out of breath couldn’t yet run. Mercifully, the bell rang and we had to adjourn inside for some Math Baseball. …
Reflections on Self-Mothering
Sitting here sipping a nip of Amaretto, not because I like it, but because it helps me feel close to Mom. It’s the same reason exactly twice a year I buzz through the McDonald’s drive-through and get a Filet o’ Fish or buy my sons the candies, Sixlets, and white Tic Tacs.
Tomorrow would have been Mom’s sixty-eighth birthday. Gratefully seventeen years ago on that day, we were able to celebrate together the birth of my second son’s birth on her day. That is so special to me. …
Healing and Amplifying the Integration of the Erotic Self in the Waning Patriarchy
In American culture, we often hear about the pursuit of happiness. It is a worthy pursuit, a pursuit in which we wouldn’t get very far without pleasure. I offer the pursuit of pleasure holds the promise for peace, fulfillment, and personal power. However, did you ever ask yourself why our pleasure is always served with a side of guilt? It is time to change all of that. And that is my job.
As a consciousness coach who is also a sexologist, I have committed myself to being a passion instigator and a pleasure advocate for those seeking guidance, healing, and reintegration of erotic life force into their existence. I encounter so many whose light within is dim and they can’t identify why. …
on seeing the truth of it
The soldiers of the patriarchy
are panicked and weak,
carrying their automatic ejaculatory
death machines into our Capitols.
Self-congratulatory sentiment
all around for invading the halls
they built to keep us down
to tell the world they are
too manly to wear a mask.
They will not be controlled
as a woman waits for seven days
to control her own body.
They will be heard
as a black man dies
while saying the words
“I can’t breathe”
to the white police officer
with a gun.
And yet I still have hope,
because I see the fear
behind the bravado.
I see the implosion of their world
happening in slow motion.
They don’t show up screaming in faces
with guns because they feel secure.
Their foothold is tenuous
and they feel it.
Teargassing citizens is not
an act of bravery,
but sitting in protest
channeling love
while being gassed is. …
It’s my birthday as I write this. An odd birthday, as I imagine all birthdays happening during this mindful isolation to flatten the curve. A global pandemic puts things in perspective for us all, at least I hope. If anything, many are noticing experiences previously taken for granted: a grocery run, gathering to celebrate a birthday, and I can’t not say it, toilet paper. What a culture we’ve designed for ourselves.
Mama Nature, the universal guidance, whatever you may deem it, has led us here. Whether you believe we are to gather messages from these experiences or this existence is simply a random accident, we can all decide for ourselves how we may wish to consider shaping our behavior whether for the greater good or to make our individual life feel more easeful. …
As parents during this time, we are experiencing an unprecedented parenting phenomenon. With school interrupted during the eventful time leading into spring celebrations and graduations, the impact of remote learning and online instruction efforts can feel even more challenging. The 2020 school year looks nothing like any of us expected, especially to the students.
I am the deeply grateful mama of two balanced and thoughtful young men, one in high school and one in college, both home respecting our family’s decision to self-isolate as much as possible. …
It was Friday, March 13th and as I sat and organized my client session calendar for the next week my Friday afternoon ritual felt different than every previous Friday.
The day before I was grateful to attend case conference, a regular gathering of my most beloved and trusted colleagues. We greeted each other with a stilted levity considering our normal hugs or if we were breaking some sort of new social order that had yet to be fully adopted. We chose to share hugs and then, with some disorientation, started to explore what the future of our practices would be.
At case conference I was still uncertain whether I would continue to see clients in my office or do all my sessions via video connection. A mere twenty-four hours later during my Friday afternoon personal planning session, I wasn’t even considering in-person sessions. That’s how fast the understanding of our circumstances shifted. …
I live in constant gratitude and yet I’m utterly jaded by the constant demand for gratitude by our good vibes only culture. That’s not how gratitude works.
If you are not grateful for all the experiences in your life, yes, even the horrific ones, then you are employing a saccharine and commodified gratitude practice. Cherry-picking the life experiences to be grateful for is an empty practice. Anyone can be grateful for that new fantastic job or that awesome new relationship or that unexpected check in the mail. Those are the low-hanging cherries right there. Anyone can reach those. …
Take a moment to reflect on how often you experience silence. Likely your reflection called attention to the fact that we are a silence-resistant culture. It is rare to truly experience silence.
While eating breakfast, the news is reporting. In the car, the radio is on. While working out, music is pumping into our brains. Throughout our days, people come and go and we act beholden to our devices. Our evenings are spent watching the television or busying our mind with reading. For many, the only time of silence in their lives is in bed before sleeping. …
How awake are you? If you are reading this, you woke up today. You had a moment earlier when you moved from sleeping to perceiving the world around you through your senses again for the first time.
Yes, for the first time, again, and again, and again. The fact that the date is, or is still close to, January 1st is irrelevant, a human construct to keep us marching forward in a nice, neat, organized [read: brainwashed] fashion that keeps you from designing your life and harnessing your awesomeness.
We civilized humans have the silly notion that each morning we awaken to the same reality. I mean, you can if you want to, but you can also wake up to a whole new reality every single day. You are that powerful. You are so powerful you can wake into a new reality every single day. You can even wake into a new reality in every single moment. No need to wait until morning. That’s some advanced mindfulness right there. But tomorrow morning will work too. Remember you are the one with the power. …
