16 posts tagged “queer ethics”
The view from my hotel room window. I'm sitting in a comfy chair with my feet propped up, enjoying the view, and reading:
It seems appropriate, given that I'm here to attend a GLBT Catholic conference.
Last night, I saw bats fly out of the world's largest urban bat colony--the Congress Ave. Bridge, on the right side of the photo to the left. Later in the evening, after I'd gone for a stroll around, post-fireworks, I saw that bats were flying around the parking lot lights, catching moths and the like.
Today, my Dad and I are going to go wander around downtown Austin, and tonight there's some kind of fancy reception banquet I have to dress up and look queer for.
My most significant pondering of late: how out can I be/do I want to be? My parents are effectively outing me all the time. And it's not like I'm in, but it does raise the question of: how out can I be when in the most mundane settings, like in the elevator in the hotel, walking down the street, getting a beer at the bar, etc? Does not my general appearance speak volumes? I don't pass as straight. I'm too flamboyant :)
Yesterday morning I attended a pancake breakfast at the abode of daisywarrior, at which I tried to briefly summarize (I was asked) just what it is that I'm doing with this queer dharma thing, both from the standpoint of my thesis and personal practice. As time passes, my vision of it is enriched with experience and reflection, and yet I've not yet had a moment to begin fleshing it out in writing again, what with the packing and moving and all that. As I stumbled over trying summarize what I was doing, and also trying to adequately meet the precise questions M asked me, I find there are some details I'm starting to chew through that never made it into my thesis, but are a necessary element to work on.
M often reminds me, either intentionally or just by the synchronistic nature of her being, of pedagogical and mentoring relationships. Yesterday she put on a tape (from the AGL) about the best practices of teaching as exemplified in 25 teachers, which brought mentoring to mind, and so I reminded myself to inquire into that again.
Why mentoring? In short, I think I'm looking for a mentor. At the start of my thesis is an acknowledgements page, in which I thank many people. I regard each of them as a teacher, insofar as each of them contributed some critical piece of insight that helped craft my final paper. However, I feel there's a difference between a mentor and a teacher, despite the overlap betwixt. Perhaps it would be simplest for me to define the kind of mentor/mentoring I'm thinking of.
First, we have to contextualize it: queer dharma and the practice of fearless intimacy. In that setting a mentor and protege might bear a resemblance to something like the classical dyadic older aristocratic man/younger aristocratic male relationships that Foucault was curious about the ethical problematization of, but I feel there's a resemblance only insofar as there is an age difference and a generally-regarded (from the exterior to the dyad, not necessarily so) overtone of sexualization. What I recollect of the way Foucault looked at it is informative (methodologically speaking) for how I might problematize my own intimate and mentoring relationships. For example, I keep dating women who are younger than me, usually 7 years. This sets me up in the elder portion of the hierarchical relationship. However, I don't think the difference in age dictates where, in the queer dharma I envision, the mentoring flows.
Which brings me to point two: mutual mentoring. Although I've been consistently involved with younger women this calendar year, I find that I'm learning/growing so much from my interactions with them, that the age hierarchy doesn't describe so solid a line about power. But of course, as the person in the position of privilege, I get to say that with ease--it may not be true. I should inquire with my younger lover(s) (present and former) to find what they think of this.
Regardless of the subtle power dynamic of age, when I've got a particularly thorny ethical/queer/dharma issue I'm trying to figure out and need either/both a sounding board and a solid critique, I turn to one particular lover and three particular friends, all of whom are younger than me. However, I note that among the older of those friends (who are both 27), I go to a deeper level of my inquiry because they're able to meet me there from their own experience. That's really what it comes down to: being met.
Which brings me to point three: I would like to invite an older lover/mentor/friend into my life. @Naropa, I'm likely to develop the friendships that involve some incidental mentoring, but no lovers. I've set a (tentative) rule about not dating other Naropa staff/faculty, and otherwise keeping my Naropa dating to 1 at a time. So she must necessarily be found outside of the "official" boundaries of the professional community. I don't know if she's out there, but perhaps I'll meet her. For now, I'm more keen on a mentor than another lover, although I'm intrigued. What would that be like? What might I learn? How could I further hone my queer dharma from within a different dyadic approach than I've experienced so far?
Which is not to to say that I'm losing any interest in younger lovers ;-)
In my recent offline musings, I've been contemplating my personal responsibility to the other in regards to the ethics of seduction. My framework so far has been: insofar as I am intentionally engaging this queer ethics as a life path, as dharma, I have the same responsibility as any practitioner to continually develop lovingkindness and compassion. I must treat the other with such care. However, I've been realizing that I've gradually setup a subtle hierarchy: I, as the queer dharma practitioner, know best, and therefore can make some decisions about the other in a way that is in line with my expectations. Granted, all of this is happening in theory/in my head, but it's a form of judgment and valuation based entirely on what I think, which is not necessarily true of what I sense or feel. It's a subtle idealism for what I'm looking for in my radical intimacy. It's also profoundly disrespectful to the other, to whom I am committed to meeting where she is; not where I expect her to be, think she is, or want her to be.
Last night, while having a lovely home-cooked dinner on my patio with the oh-so-fabulous Miss Elena, I started fermenting the understanding for this area of my developing sense of queer ethics. Actually, Elena, genius that she is, pointed it out to me: It's not up to me to manage the other's understanding and feelings. It's not up to me to manage their expectations. It's not up to me to guess their intentions. If I'm honest, if I put it all out there, if I keep up my end of communication and am clear about my intentions, involvements and aspirations, then I'm done. It's all I can do. It's not for me to project/decide what might happen if. It's entirely up to the other person as to whether she wants to pursue me and get involved with me (if it's mutual interest). It's entirely up to the other person to analyze her motivations, inquire into her needs and wants, clarify and state her intentions and expectations to me, etc.
However I may relinquish my attempt to take on responsibility for the other, it doesn't absolve me of any responsibility when we do become involved, but I am not responsible for her reactivity when it comes to things that push her edge.
It's just like how I'm responsible for my reactivity -- when I get triggered, it's for me to own, examine, sit with, explore, take to the cushion, etc. I can talk with my other about this, but it's still my shit to own, regardless of whatever triggered it. Together, we can take care around triggering issues, but not by trying to avoid it--instead, we must engage it directly, either when it's happening, or later after (or while) decompressing.
In my previous musing on the ethics of seduction, I was really concerned with my end of things vis-a-vis my motivations. Now I'm concerned about how I might subtly try to manage the expectations and feelings of the other vis-a-vis me, my motivations/intentions/activities, etc. I must again keep an eye on the role of privilege and power in relationship. I'm always going to be in a different place emotionally/developmentally/spiritually--it's a given. I must take care of my too-frequent assumption that my different place is necessarily better or more advanced, regardless of the age of those who walk into my life.
And so, when I say, "This is where I am with this queer dharma that I am attempting to create via living it as best I possibly can, it's a work-in-progress, it's necessarily messy, but I'll be honest with you and try to state as clearly as I can what's true for me," then it's up to you to pursue me, to make your intentions known. If we meet there, perhaps we might explore the mutual curiosity and interest together, see where it takes us.
This weekend I spent most of my time packing, but I did make it to the Boulder Creek Festival for a while, long enough to remember that I hate crowds and to sit by the creek and watch the rubber duck race. I also went to a dinner party on Friday and to a play on Saturday, and attempted to go to Trilogy on Sunday to dance, but Trilogy is temporarily closed due to liquor law violation. Bummer.
Tuesday start of the week at work feels a little off. It sounds really busy here at the office, but I don't know what that means. My workload is consistent with Spring 2008 scheduling, which is rather refreshingly mind-numbing, compared to the challenge of learning to co-facilitate a committee and get back into chairing another one.
Space and the awareness of space; this is my job.
I have therapy later today, which is promising. I'm going to look at what productive change might be wrought via attempting a new processing style. On one hand, how I process is just how I process, but on the other, trying a different style is nothing more than a methodological shift. If the method gets me to right view/understanding, right intention, right speech/action, right effort/mindfulness/concentration more quickly, then all the better. I learn best from making mistakes, but I don't have a lot of time to make mistakes, nor do I want to sow chaos in my wake. So, let's try a new method of self-engagement.
I want to do this right, this queer ethical thing I'm trying to do. And as much as it's a project, I want to avoid too much of a goal/teleological orientation in my practice. Oy, it's tricky. But it's worth it.
In other news, I'm taking Friday off to begin my move, doing SPAN training on Saturday, and finishing my move on Sunday. I think I might have at least one night (Friday) on the couch at the mountain house, for the sake of my cat, who does not need to spend a whole day (Saturday) alone at the new place. No need to freak her out more than she'll be already.
Tues/Thurs nights, plus all day all Saturdays, for the next month, are absorbed by SPAN training. Oy.
Incidentally, during my SPAN volunteer interview, I was asked what my definition/understanding of critical thinking is. I came up with something relatively brilliant on the spot:
For me, critical thinking is a multi-layered thing. The first layer, both outermost and immediate, is a self-skepticism. In any given situation or circumstance, I'm going to react to what I perceive within the scope of the influences on my life and understanding. When those influences are things such as: family-of-origin, the religion in which I was raised, my white privilege, my socioeconomic privilege, my gender, my level of education, and so forth, I need to keep a sharp eye out for perceptions which are framed within those views, rather than what is actually happening. My first thought may not be my best thought, in other words.
The second layer of critical thinking is the process of honing my view and examining my perceptions/thoughts through the lenses of theory as I've learned it so far, particularly feminist theory, but also social theories which emphasize the intersectionality of oppression. Does my understanding of theory inform my view? Is the theory consistent with what I see, or is it something new/different? Am I looking at it too much through the lens of theory without seeing what is occurring? Am I too much in the details of what is occurring and ignoring the broader view?
The third layer of critical thinking is the deepest: what am I actually feeling in a given moment of perceiving/experiencing/thinking? How does my heart inform? Am I open or closed to this person/situation, and why? Am I breathing? Where is there tension in my body in that moment, and is it relevant? Can I relax more, open more gently to that moment, and make it welcome, regardless of its content?
As a queer dharma practitioner, I must keep mindful of the sort of agency I exercise when willfully engaging the edge: what are my motivations, where did those motivations come from, and what are the emotional/mental/somatic processes involved in translating these motivations into actions? (creds to Knobe & Leiter's essay The Case for Nietzschean Moral Psychology). While this is certainly a broad method of self-observation and intentional engagement that can be applied just about anywhere, I'm going to look at the idea here vis-a-vis the ethics of seduction.
Why the ethics of seduction? It's on my mind, as a part of processing a tangent of recent conversation with a beloved friend: something along the lines of full embodiment versus motivation being carried in specific areas of the body. Also because: casual sex is one of those hot button items of debate in most communities, but particularly, for my concerns, the queer community. Also because: I think this is a critical thing for women in particular to come to their own place of relationship to and opinion on. Women in this culture are, broadly speaking, presented with a certain hyper-sexualized-while-simultaneously-hyper-virginal expectation, and sex is, for women, again broadly speaking, not something we're supposed to want. I call bullshit on our cultural norms, and hereby invite all women of consenting age to become the sexual being they have every legitimate right and desire to be, in whatever way they want that to look, in whichever way is truest to their hearts.
But this blog post is a drafty musing (i.e. it's full of holes), so please take it salted. Perhaps even with vinegar.
An ethical self-inquiry vis-a-vis contemplating seduction: when desiring an other, what's my motivation? What drives me? Does that motivation arise from a specific area of my body? Is it rooted in psychological complexes derived from family-of-origin and culture? Is it related to aspects of identity, such as self-image? Is it related to interpersonal (in)security? Is it in any way about leveraging power and privilege in a relationship? What is my goal, if any? How do I self-criticize and self-judge regarding said goal, and is that level of critique a form of internalized oppression, or to what extent is it a valid ethical self-examination?
Let's start with the thin line between an ordinary guy and a rapist. I bring this up because it's an excellent summary of the of the sort of "ideal type" we (queer dharma practitioners or otherwise people who want to develop and practice a non-normative sexuality which is still highly ethical) want to not only avoid creating, but refuse to participate in and seek to eradicate.
His approach to sex is based in manipulation, and coercion, not about mutual flirting and seduction and fun. Maybe he’ll luck out and not hurt whoever he has sex with; maybe she’ll have wanted it just as much as him, maybe she’ll tell her friends “I hit that.” But maybe not. Maybe she didn’t want it, maybe she was manipulated, and maybe she’ll be left emotionally hurt and appalled by the whole relationship.
He’s a misogynist because he was willing to take that chance. He didn’t care enough to make sure it was the former, not the latter — and in that utter indifference to what the woman wants, he’s on common ground with rapists.
Frankly folks, while sex is a central feature of the ethics of seduction, sex alone is not the motivation. I think that when sex itself is the motivation that it is actually a nasty combination of internalized social values (men are supposed to have as much sex as possible with as many women as possible in order to really be really real men), interpersonal insecurity which is part of an inability to achieve intimacy in any form other than sexual contact, and a sense of self-worth and identity based upon attainment and/or conquest. This kind of sex is not joyful, not fulfilling, not mutual, not intimate. It's not what I'm looking for.
I feel myself slipping down the slope into a kind of sexual morality, and so I must take care here. I don't want to line up any particular kind of sexual scale of good to bad. I think it's entirely possible to have sexual affairs which are both casual and intimate, for example, as well as freed from the bondage of internalized "morals" and the expectation of conquest. But what I'm looking for is something that is, while not precisely committed to exclusivity, of a deep and genuine intimacy--a relationship between two beings which has the space for the full range of human emotion, laughter to tears, sexiness to silliness.
Actually, for me, sexy and silly are not always or necessarily or opposite ends of a scale from one another, and some of my favorite moments with a lover are when we are being rather silly together in the most intimately sexy of spaces.
In the ethics of seduction, I believe the motivation needs be: to make a real, heartfelt, embodied connection which is sexual in nature but not in its entirety. This motivation is, as I've experienced it, a full-sweeping expression of my body, from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair. Some regions of my body are more involved than others in a given moment, such as: where my lover's lips and teeth meet my neck, where my hands grasp her waist, and so forth. Some moments of contact are so rich as to overwhelm all senses and I am spinning in and out of my sense of self, dissolving across the lines of bodies, into and of her, until I wear her flesh like her scent on my skin the next morning.
When seducing my lover, I keep mindful of what I have internalized as the core values of sexual congress: frequency and variety. I discussed this particular feature with a male friend and classmate of mine the other day: he too is dating multiple women at the same time, but we differ in that I am forthcoming about what I'm doing, and he doesn't talk about it with his lovers at all. He seeks frequency and variety; I keep mindful of that false universal when it pops up in my mind (it does not manifest in the craving of my flesh, which is always particular, specific, never broad-sweeping and generalized). When seducing my lover, it is never about tallying numbers or seeking difference and novelty--it is about her, only her, and what the thought/touch of her evokes within me.
When seducing my lover, I keep mindful of old patterns of relationship which were, for me, means of securing a portion of my identity and stabilizing my self of self-worth. I also keep mindful of what may possibly emerge as a new pattern for me, with my younger lovers: my relatively greater age and experience, and how that is a factor in intimidation (and also my appeal). I don't know how that's going to show up in the near and long term, but I note that as a) a top and b) the older woman, this does setup a power dynamic I wish to be mindful of, and not ever leverage as a way to speed my lover up to my pace, my risk-taking.
When seducing my lover, it is more about her than me, despite the range of my self-exploration and examination within the context. How might I please her? Can I, by careful observation, discern what she likes, what she wants? Might I ask, and encourage her answer past the timorous uncertainty about what is so fresh, new, unknown? How may I, with gentle fierceness, evoke her cries? How might I elicit her fierce self-confidence, invite her into the joy that I experience as her body?
The hardest part for me, in all of this, is the self-criticism which is in no small way rooted in the internalized oppression of the female sex: I'm not supposed to want sex, it's not supposed to be that important to me, it's not something I should pursue, to want/pursue sex means I'm a slut or whore, to actually want sex enough to pursue it with a specific woman means I am evaluating that woman's worth to me solely based on her body and availability and deriding her numerous other qualities, to be giving it out myself to more than one woman at a time means I'm a slut/whore. Gah, it's a mess. Sometimes it's a wonder to me that I can go beyond kissing. Thanks, Catholicism. Thanks, modern American christocratic "morality". Thanks, misogynist patriarchy. Why is it that men are never sluts or whores?
Another hard part, which is truly the dicey/sticky/challenging point I truly desire to engage is: staying with the intensity and not tipping past the edge. Meeting as flesh sliding against flesh, tongues, lips, teeth, hands, fingers, skin; weaving an increasing arousal together until near frenzy, and then backing off. Meeting there again, and backing off. It's so easy to jump past that edge, in my past experience, which leads to sex becoming something somehow more rote in subsequent encounters. I'm not sure what it is about that precipitous point, but I want to keep exploring it for so long as I can without going completely mad (and losing sleep) with wanting. I want to know myself/her/us in those moments of near-overwhelm--what draws us together, what drives us apart? What is total readiness? What is the highest point of arousal? At what point am I completely, fully, wholly capable of receiving her, wanting her touch with an unimaginable intensity which erases all the world save for where skin meets skin? Where is that point for her? Might we meet there in the same moment?
At the beginning, end, and throughout, what I want to know most is her heart, and to offer her mine. This exchange of two lovers occurs in each moment of all forms of intimacy.
There is lots of room to make mistakes. That's true, absolutely true. But such room for mistakes cannot be created unless there is surrendering, giving, some kind of opening. It cannot take place if there's no basis for it. However, if there is some basis --if we can give away our aggression or attempt to give it away, if we attempt to open up and strip away our territoriality and possessiveness -- then there is lots of room for making mistakes. That doesn't necessarily mean there is room for dramatic mistakes, but lots of little dribbles of mistakes can take place, which usually occur in any case -- we can't avoid it. We have to allow ourselves to realize that we are complete fools; otherwise, we have nowhere to begin. We have to be willing to be a fool and not always try to be a wise guy. We could almost say that being willing to be a fool in one of the first wisdoms.
--from Dharma Art by Chogyam Trungpa
"I don't want to be that jackass," I've said often of late, in conversation with friends and lovers regarding the complications of trying to date multiple women simultaneously, while being in full integrity, honesty and coming from the heart in all of it, with everyone. Why am I doing it? Because I've made a commitment to myself to not get into a significant and mutually exclusive relationship for a while. (How long this "for a while" is something I trust myself to know.) How am I doing it? I'm making it up as I go along, relying on what I've learned of the Dharma from teachers, from my own practice, from living and working in the Naropa community, and synthesizing that with what I learned of Queer Ethics care of a course of the same name, and my integration of it.
For my speech and activity in all of this, I'm relying on my heart to tell me what is true, within the context of what the whipsnap quickness of my mind can discern, what my senses perceive, and what comes through intuitively as a gestalt or a tiny detail or anywhere in between. I'm also continually nudging myself along the edge of what feels like slightly risky or potentially embarrassing self-disclosure because the only way to make any of this workable is for ongoing and open communication to be the ground of relationship.
"I don't want to be that jackass" means that I want to do all of this right; I want to be true, I want to be real, I want to be a living breathing expression of what a queer ethics is, in practice, not in theory. But the thing is, I'm going to screw up. Sometimes, I'm going to be that jackass, whether out of ignorance or perhaps even the best intentions. And sometimes, you're going to screw up. We're going to hurt each other. There's no guarantee of not getting hurt in committing to one-to-one relationship either.
I don't think this will ever work without the room to make mistakes. Without the chance to just blurt it out, saying the wrong thing, or saying the right thing poorly. We can always go back and edit later. We can converse, we can discuss, we can debate, we might even argue or fight. We may reach agreement, or at least an understanding. Wounds can be salved, bruises kissed. I cannot promise to be perfect. I can't even try to be perfect. I can only promise that I will be true to my heart and as real and as present with you as I have the capacity to be in any given moment. And that I will tell you when I'm shutting down and checking out. And that I'll come back. And I'll work with my shit, your shit, and our boundaries. And I can avoid the major deal-breaking blunders and other jackassery.
I am completely willing to be a fool.
However, I realize that not everyone is willing to be so foolish as I. Regardless of my clarity about interpersonal queer ethics, theory is not the same thing as practice. This is not a game, regardless of how playfully I may engage it. This is not an experiment, although this practice is, due to its newness, rather experimental (I have to develop my ethics into a method, approach, or way of being, which is always going to be a trial-and-error process).
This is me seeking the fullest bloom of my heart
...
or something romantically foolish like that :)
Through destabilization practice, Queer Dharma methodically churns up and chews through the burden of karma. But what is destabilization practice? Meditation, just sitting, can be regarded as a kind of destabilization practice: through repeat practice, you come to the realization that the central “I” or “me” who you believed to exist, is not as central, solid, or real as you believed, but is instead a process, always in transition, an approximation, a relationship. However, meditation is the ground practice to which you must continually return. Queer destabilization practice is a more intentional contemplative activity which involves exploring the boundaries of self and other. The most visible and visceral of these involves desire and sexual intimacy.
-- from my senior thesis, page 32.
I realize that I cannot summarize any part of my thesis: it is itself a summary of an introduction to what will be a multi-volume work. And therefore, I'm going to try to unpack this idea, but I will only scratch the surface.
What is destabilization practice? Contemplative practices with the intent to disrupt one's sense of self as separate and contained, and to engage that disruption with mindfulness, and to integrate that disruption into an expanding sense of self. It's a little teleological insofar as growth and change are held as intent, but it's more of an exercise and a process than a goal-oriented activity.
Destabilization practice is not necessarily sexual in nature. For example, examining and exploring my white privilege is definitely something that disrupts my interpersonal container. Speaking the thought "I am a racist" and looking at how I react to that (viscerally, emotionally, mentally) does decidedly reveal the inconsistent and unstable nature of my sense of identity. For, however open-minded and kind as I may like to think of myself, part of my dynamic of interacting in the world when encountering people of color is to Other them in a way that comes directly from my white privilege. Working with and countering my self-constructing and self-stabilizing (i.e. ego) beliefs, whether true or false, is part of a destabilization practice, and therefore can take a variety of forms.
Queer destabilization practice intentionally explores the boundaries of self and other along the lines of sex, gender and desire. Therefore, for the sake of the rest of this unpacking, I'm going to try to give a concrete example of destabilizing practice that is non-sexual and works with an ego belief, and then develops into an engagement of self/other along the line of desire. It always makes the most sense to myself and others when I write from my own experience.
Polyamory: according to Wikipedia, polyamory is the desire, practice, or acceptance of having more than one loving, intimate relationship at a time with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved.
A burden of karma: Eight years ago, I made a sincere effort to attempt a polyamorous relationship with the woman who was to become my partner, and her then-husband. Suffice to say, it didn't work out. For my part, I was not yet mentally/emotionally ready to be with such a relationship in full health and consciousness. In the intervening years, my partner remained poly, although we practiced a monogamous relationship. In time, I grew to despise polyamorous relationships, and was harshly judgmental of those who engaged in them. For example, I once wrote, "Polyamory is a lie that the emotionally and sexually insecure tell themselves to create a false sense of comfort against the intimate isolation that is, ultimately, the human experience."
In some cases, I still believe that holds true. But mostly, I was projecting from what was my self-judgment with regards to my actual capacity to be in multiple intimate relationship at the time I was trying to practice it.
The irony is, of course, that now I am intentionally attempting to practice such a practice of relationship -- being open to fearless intimacy. At this point, I cannot say that it's a good idea, nor that it works, nor that I'm sure that I actually want to do this. But I'm trying it because this is what is arising in my life as an opportunity now, and I now have, I believe, the capacity to be this fearless, this open, this alive, this in love.
The destabilization practice part of this is: working with myself (alone, and with my therapist) on the very topic: how can I be in and pursue relationships of fearless intimacy when so much of my personal shit about being in intimate relationship is about:
- stabilizing my sense of self/identity in that relationship
- finding and relying on emotional/mental security in that relationship
- using that relationship as a buffer against the vertiginous effervescence of life
- using that relationship as an excuse to ignore the truth of my heart
And yet it also sings of her. And her. And her. And myself. And my friends, all of them. And my ex-lovers (even with the pain that lingers). And my ex-partner. There's so much love in this heart, and so much room as that the whole world can be (potentially) held without the least crowding. I find that the more I sit in meditation, the more I practice, the more love I have to give.
I have so much love to give. It sounds like .so. .much. .bullshit.
The practice is: critical self-examination, which is to say, really looking at myself. Finding the sharpest edge of my experience and pressing there, until I am cut by the truth of what I see about myself, or what is pointed out by my therapist, or what reveals itself in meditation. The truth is:
- I can't rely on relationship for my identity, sense-of-self, emotional or mental security
- Life is always arising with an exuberance which cannot be denied, ignored, or suppressed
- The truth of my heart is that it is always open, unconditionally, to all that is arising. The filters exist only in my head, but my heart always already knows what the mind cannot grasp.
- All that I long for may never be mine, but what I receive in each moment is what I need for the next.
What occurs in my life now, this moment is: the love and the pain are one. With a mind torn between the two but a heart that knows them as not-two, I return to the cushion, to sit, to sit with, to breathe.
And I wonder if I might ever let go of my desire for her to simply just breathe with me and let the breath take us where it will.
. . .
this is still a work in progress...
I've been up since about...oh, 7:45am, working on my thesis. I'd only gotten to bed around 1am, so it's no understatement to say that I'm a bit tired. However, I've been taking a break for the past hour, eating lunch, drinking a lovely beer, and reading Bataille (which makes it not quite a break, but close enough).
The thesis is going quite well. I've reached page 30 (the first 9 pages don't count), so in theory I can fill up to 9 more pages. I think I'll just squeak by at my max of 30, and trim down a bit here, flesh out a bit there, and it'll be done by tonight, with phases of revision to come in tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and then...print & bind a minimum of 2 copies. Perhaps I'll make a third for folks to thumb thru.
After Thursday, I'm done with my BA career. After which I will hopefully find a place to live. Soon. That is not too expensive. And has everything that I need, including space for my cat. And is in comfortable biking distance to the places I want to be, such as: work, grocery, downtown, etc.
It's a gorgeous day. I'd rather be frolicking outside. But soon this thesis will be done and there will be time enough in the world for all of that. Aside from moving, that is.
Here's the table of contents for my thesis (so far), by the way:
Queer Dharma: Identity as Initiation & the Aesthetic of Being (working title)
(Introduction)
Queer Dharma: Method
Queering Identity
Integrative and Intimate Approach to Breaking Open
Initiation
Problematization
Problematizing Identity: Human Sexuality
Denial and the Closet
Sex Negativity
Revolutionary Identity
Deconstruction
An emerging conceptualization of the self as a lived experience emerges from the practices of problematizing and deconstructing the self.
Performing Identity: Gender, Sex and Desire
The Performative
Gender is not pregiven; gender is performed.
Identity is both a conceptual framework for lived experience and the lived experience itself.
The Death of God, the Death of Self
Desubjectivization: The Cocoon
Bursting the Shell: Destabilization Practice
Limitless Eroticism
Aesthetics: Ethical Self-fashioning
Integration: Meditation
Fearless Intimacy, Convulsive Joy
Identity is a performance: don’t expect applause.
How can I describe my interior disruption at the sudden shift in my waking moments? On several consecutive days, I've woken next to a lover, near enough so often as to begin feeling comfortable and accustomed to her presence, but still surprised each time to find someone, anyone, not a cat, there. After a night of solitary sleeping, I have such dreams as to signify the shift as yet unnameable but known to the pieces of me still capable of glimpsing the soul sliding subtly behind the eyes of lover, stranger, or friend.
Lastnight/thismorning, I dreamed of bringing bright red clawlike toothlike grasping scraping fireplace grates to a black wood-burning stove which seethed simmered raged. I spoke to the fireplace, saying that these were what felt to be an appropriate gift, but I was scared to give the new accoutrement, lest the fire become more angry so as to burn all down. The fire responded threateningly to my reservation, and so I handed over the gift, gesturing to somehow communicate how the grate/door/covers? might fit horizontally or vertically, as the fire (she) preferred. I ran from the room just as I saw them settle into frightful place, like gnashing bloody teeth on a sideways mouth.
Vagina dentata?
Upon my return, she was no longer the animate red steel and black iron and dancing flame, but instead a human woman who was somehow, in ways explicable only in dreams, still the fire and its container. The shape of her belly, though round and smooth, reminded me of the fireplace full of burning wood. I thought of roasting sacrificial feasts (of the thanksgiving variety) not in her, but for her to consume.
To say that her gaze was smoldering would be an understatement of hyperbolic proportion.
...
My interior disruption is, by no means, a bad thing. 'Tis the result of yet more ethical self-queering, which I still cannot yet adequately describe.
...
My therapist asked me yesterday: do you think you can fall in love again? I replied that I did not know--the last time I fell in love was so long ago, so different, such an old version of myself, that I would not know what falling in love would look like now. Certainly, I seek no Relationship to repeat, nor a relationship to mend past mistakes, nor a balm for burns, nor a salve for my savaged heart (consonance can be corny). I seek none of that, and will keep a careful eye out for that subtle self-serving selfish intent (see, it's corny). And in that, I still do not know what falling in love is.
My therapist seemed satisfied with my answer. I do note, however, that my therapist's role is not to look at all satisfied -- instead, like my recently former lovers, she is ever just beyond my grasping, in no way does my relation to her arrive at a signification of any kind of known status (other than counselor and client), predictability, or comfort. And I watch my tendency to project relational patterns of the most casual sort at her...how to get her to laugh or smile, or to engage her in conversation about ideas instead of about me. It's not about that either. Her role is to evade me just enough to keep me chasing my tail and coming back around to understanding myself better or seeing myself afresh. Or something like that.
She's there to keep my sense of self ever-changing and yet somehow grounded. She's a magician.
I know well, however, what crushes look like, and am gleefully free to pursue them, or not, as it should please me. It is curious to have this open heart where I previously held so much back, reserving love and affection for a Relationship, as if love and affection were so easily quantified and in limited reserve. There certainly is an upper limit to the love and affection I am physically capable of giving (only so much time in the day and stamina in my body), but there is actually no boundary on the love I actively feel. There is no end to feeling. Perhaps even especially after I've felt past the boundary of pain/anger into a space where it is love again. And again. And again. But not "in love", even if I don't really know what that is.
What is it, to be in love, to fall in love? How would I recognize it? How would I distinguish it from interest, from a crush, from a longing, from angst, from adoration, from attraction? What role would anxiety play in it, given that anxiety is a subtle undercurrent of so much of my emotional life? And what of loneliness? And what of grasping? And what of neurosis? And what of health and wholeness? What of attraction? What of warmth, camaraderie, togetherness? What of scintillating conversation, cross-pollenization of ideas, intellectual stimulation? What of inspiration? What of lust? What of admiration? What of intimidation? Do I distinguish only the whole and healthy as love? Or is there an aspect of love that is also grasping and self-aggrandizement? Is love possibly all of these things, all variations, all manifestations?
What is it to be in love? How does it differ from loving? What distinctions do we draw, and why?
Queer Praxis | Dharma Practice
ethical self-fashioning
aesthetic of being
radical subjectivity of the body
the self who is not one
and the endless, entangling dance with the Lover
Today, I am without skin.
I'm having a lowgrade migraine today, which means (possibly) my mindbody is integrating a recent shift/realization with an alacritous speed, I need to spend about an hour intensive sitting, and sleep more.
Why would anyone want to go through this kind of queer praxis/dharma practice? I mean, really. In this method I am developing and practicing and will soon describe in my thesis, the positive unfoldings/changes/transformations are nascent, emerging, yet-to-be-truly-seen, unrealized, merely a possibility, possibly beyond attaining. Why would anyone want to practice the dharma in this particular way that works with destabilizing identity around the all-too-human aspect of desire?
This is not an easy path: there is pain, there are tears, there is little ground, much risk, and no sure reward. But I am queer, I cannot be otherwise. This is my method for making not only the best of my lot in life, but also for testing the very limits of the possibilities of being.
Queer Dharma necessarily deals with the entanglement of relationship as part of the practice, part of the path, part of the realization: there is no one being doing this work. The practitioner is never alone; the practice is never all about oneself. The Queer Dharma practitioner is multiple, diverse, changing. Subjectivity is plural. Self is ultimately unbounded; boundaries are set by the mind only. The subjectivity of the body trumps that of the mind; the body the body the body is infinite. What is cocooned in safety, the Dharma will break open. Relationship, intimacy, vulnerability and the violence of rapture: songs on infinite intersecting iterative and incremental remix.
There are benefits, however. These are not the point of the practice, per se. For example, the point of meditation is not to become a good meditator with stable meditation--if you think that's the point, your meditation will always and forever be stuck. Likewise, the point of queer praxis is not to have sex (which is extraordinarily good because of one's capacity for awareness, attention, perceptivity, and openness of heart). The ethical queer is not the same as the ethical slut; the enjoyment of pleasure is not the purpose nor the goal of queer praxis. Sex is a practice like meditation is a practice: things one practices to be fully present to/for/as. The point is to develop those and other capacities for the sake of being authentically in the world and interacting with others genuinely, receiving them as they are, and acting in the world with full integrity. To be a person whose very being is enlightenment, whose sincerity and earnestness invites that of others, whose vision and view are so open and free that others seem themselves there mirrored with that very clarity, whose presence is as vast and rooted as that of the earth, whose embodiment is a ceaseless dialog with love.
None of this carries a prescription for specifically what it is that one must do--queer ethics is never a formula of if A, then B. Through dharma practice/queer praxis, one develops the aesthetic of being in the world as a self who is not one. But the capacity, ability, and opportunity for extraordinarily good sex is a definite plus of queer praxis.
Who am I? This unanswerable question may be addressed, if inadequately, by describing all that may be perceived in the span of a given moment.
I am the headiness of memory of the intensity breathing into a pause between two paired lips parting and meeting again, as reminded by the twinge of soreness lingering in my muscles.
Issues to address:
- queer dharma is immanently, perhaps even violently personal, and yet i'm presenting it so transpersonally. it's so easy to go to the expansive vision, and ignore the work.
- there's so much space for very personal and intimate love in the more expansively inclusive, bodhisattva-ideal sort of love. and yet, it doesn't seem apparent in my reflection on it. these are non-exclusive.
- subtle solipsism: am I just trying to create an elaborate justification for polymorphous perversity and parallel non-monogamy (aka fucking around) which is an easy way to avoid issues around intimacy, while feeling like/believing that I'm not avoiding such issues by apparently (from the outside) testing those limits?
- Sex is such an easy way to avoid being seen while convincing yourself that you're actually seeing and being seen, when what is happening is that you're dancing naked behind yet another mask: this is me as a sexual person, aren't I sexy and self-assured and powerful, and don't you want me (this mask)?
- anything, anything, anything can be hijacked by the ego for self-gain. may I be be devoured by Mahakhala with ferocious delight if/when this occurs.
