THE CLOSET MYSTIC

i learned that the nature of sin is all of the ways in which we betray god’s love.

i learned that forgiveness is allowing ourselves to love and, sometimes, be loved again.

rumi told us our task is not to seek love but to find and demolish all barriers we have built against it — forgiveness is the act of demolition.

i learned one of my greatest sins is in how i refused to pass forward the gift of forgiveness that was so freely given to me.

I hope you fall back in love with being alive; 

I hope you rediscover the magic of being alive;

I hope you rediscover what it means to be alive, what it means to be in love, to love being alive and to love the magic of living.

There are periods of my life — months, maybe, seasons, years, even — where all feels dead. These years can pass by without immersion in the experience of being alive; where one goes through the motions for so long that they forget there is another way.

There are seasons where this is my experience of “aliveness” — not aliveness at all, but a puppetry of it. 

And then, there are days where suddenly… even though I am breathing the very same air with the very same lungs, I can suddenly taste the crispness of the air. Suddenly, my lung capacity triples. Suddenly, there is a relationship I experience with all things around me; suddenly, I feel alive, and everything around me reflects that aliveness; everything feels alive, is alive, coursing with life and vitality. 

Looking out the window from a classroom at trees being blown around by the breeze is no longer mundane; it is a leap from two dimensional to three or four or five or umpteen dimensions. The very sight is moving, for no reason at all and yet for every reason there could possibly be.

Suddenly, the magic returns. I am alive, and I am experiencing it as if it is happening to me, not someone else I am along the ride with.

Is this health?

Time is money, but not quite in the literal sense that your time should be thought of in terms of its potential for literal, monetary profitability;

Rather, time is money in the sense that it is the primary currency that exists for all beings. The economy of the universe is communist in this sense; there is a universal basic income afforded to all that is both our economic floor and ceiling. The allotment to each being is afforded daily — can you guess its quantity? It is that day.

We are all given the same amount of time. You might think, “that’s not true — what about people who die young?” And yet, who is ever truly promised tomorrow? All that we ever truly have is right now; in this sense, we all have the same amount of opportunity for meaningful life, for a life well-lived. 

All that we are ever truly given is today. All that we are ever truly given is this very moment. It is up to you how you spend this most fundamental currency. Time is money in that we all, more or less, have the very same amount of it to spend. You can be someone with all the money in the world who wasted all of their time; you can be someone of humble socioeconomic status who spent every second to its highest and most beautiful potential. 

Who is ever truly promised tomorrow? You still may wonder, “what about those who die young?” And yet, there are people who live long lives who never truly live; there are people who die young who made every second — or cent, maybe — count. 

Time is money. Time is the only resource you ever truly have…

How will you spend it?

out in those strawberry fields,

i heard that old tune:

“living is easy with eyes closed.”

but out there i learned this

that i love unconditionally;

that is until

I find out you’re not perfect.

but my love is deep and true and all encompassing

until i hit a wall.

yes, the hue of my heart is pink

until i remove the glasses.

i learned

that loving is easy with eyes closed.

please don’t open them.

don’t you know

my cradle was a coffin?

the beginning was the end,

sunrise seen from a graveyard.

the blackest night 

hidden behind sunshine 

but only in the depths

yes, only in the depths 

did i see how deep

the light could reach.

oh, yes, and it was far beyond 

a mere six feet —

and only in the depths

did i find the Sun

that never sets.

a light within 

untainted by the world 

a flame that couldn’t be snuffed

an eye turned inward 

is an eye truly opened.

there i found my light —

my spirit — unbroken.

only in the depths did i learn 

to see beneath the surface.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

i found that god’s love

was my bedrock 

there to catch me

.

.

.

.

.

no matter how far

i fell.

________

i’ve always believed that queerness and the validation of queerness are innately spiritual.

to me, from a spiritual standpoint, queerness is when the essences of the masculine and/or the feminine can express themselves freely regardless of the sex of the physical body. the feminine and the masculine, in this standpoint, are distinct from the male and the female; the feminine and the masculine are spiritual essences that can appear in either a male or a female body. feminine and masculine are descriptors of a spiritual essence or quality, whereas male or female are descriptors of the physical body.

anyone under the queer umbrella, to me, is one who sources from a spiritual essence that may not, under the conventional view, “match” their physical body. queer expression is about finding actions, expressions, or alterations of appearance (or of course even hormonal makeup, physical chemistry, or physical anatomy) to suit the spiritual essence possessed by the individual that may not reflect what our society declares is the corresponding, suitable expression for the physical body they’re born into.

this is semantic, but it is the language I will use: that is to say that a male might have the feminine essence strong within him; thus, he may express himself in “traditionally feminine” ways to give expression to the spiritual essence he holds. or, the feminine spirit might be so strong within a person born into a biologically male body that it defines the identity of the individual, such that, regardless of the appearance, chemistry, or anatomy of the body, the gender of the individual matches the dominant feminine spirit within them.

That was all, of course, completely and utterly semantic, and there may be individuals who describe it in different ways; however, we are in territory that is difficult to describe, and that is how I’ve come to make sense of it (from a spiritual lens, at least, which I am always readily able to suspend in favor of more secular or scientific conversations, which I find equally important).

So, the driving point I would like to make here is that queerness validates the dominance of the spirit. Queer expression says that the composition of the spirit and soul hold sovereignty over the physical body. This, to me, is innately spiritual; it is innately transcendent. To transcend is to reach beyond what we can immediately sense, to reach beyond the mundane into something higher. Queer expression is just that; the spiritual, which is invisible and intangible, is not just reached for, but brought forth into concrete expression, not only often in spite of the established norms and confines of the times, but in spite of the risk of being met with ostracism and hate.

What could be more spiritual than this? What could be more transcendent than this? What could be more defiant of the confines of materiality and the body but to express a spiritual essence seemingly beyond it?

What could be less spiritual than deciding that the anatomy of your physical body should dictate the expression of an individual? What could be less spiritual than denying one’s heart in favor of the material vessel, that which is actually regarded as inferior to the spirit by many spiritual traditions?

How could anyone use religion, that which is supposed to represent an organized path of reaching for the spiritual, to deny the spiritual? How could anyone use religion to declare the dominance of the body over the spirit, the dominance of the vessel you are born into over the spirit that is born into it? This is categorically anti-spiritual. Those who use religion on these grounds pervert the intended effect of religion, using it as a means of confining the soul rather than liberating it.

I adore freedom. Freedom at all costs.

i think death is freedom, death is the greatest form of freedom. dying one day is the guarantee of freedom and release; reminding myself of my death that will approach one day, guaranteed, offers me the means to live more freed while I am here.

I will say that again: death is freedom for so many reasons, but particularly because the realization that the only way out of this life is through death, the end guaranteed to all, reminds me that I have no reason to not live to the fullest. die before you die and you shall truly live.

today i saw my potential selves

and my actual self

my potential selves were clouds, gaseous possibilities, not quite condensed into form but in the ether of mind 

my actual self was dry, caked earth

i sought to honor both. i wanted to shape my actual self into what was possible while letting myself be an imperfect human, still. god made us from the clay, but clay will never be mind. such is the dilemma of the artist, the form might never fully emulate the vision of Nirvana one seeks to bring forth 

but the earth was too dry. the earth was too dry to shape without the risk of it breaking into a million pieces 

but the possibility of those potential selves grew too heavy, those clouds condensed and condensed and condensed until the rain fell. i let the storm happen, my tears softened that long-dried earth.

life returned to that earth, then the clay was softened, then i could shape that clay that was me more easily. 

i let go of the past in tears, and my future opened up to me. 

my social anxiety moved in proportion to how much i pretended

i let go of the pretending and then the fear too went away

i found that fear was the glue that kept the mask stuck to my face 

i found liberation, liberation was the solvent, and then it fell.

i was free.

you thought you were just locking away the pain

but you put your inner child in that jail, too

feel, feel, feel —

the only way out is through.