So my sister still thinks being gay is a choice. I really wish she would truly open her heart to God and not the bible, for the mistake many Christians make, and yes this is just my opinion, is that they blindly follow the good book and turn their brains off. Like, why did God give you a brain anyway? There’s TONS of good stuff in the bible, and Jesus is still very much and might forever be applicable to the turning world; but I just wish people of the Christian faith would follow Christianity, not Churchianity. There are so many books and gospels hidden or banned by the Vatican, and one is the Gospel of St. Thomas – stating the kingdom of God is within you and all around you; also referring to the idea that the church isn’t necessary to find and understand God. The church doesn’t like that because they want control, especially back when they ran politics hundreds of years ago. Anyway, I’m rambling. Hate the ignorance, not the ignorant. The same goes for Christians. Many people faded out of Christian practice due to exclusive dogma, and despise God altogether because of how people used His book. It’s sad really. Jesus is great! He basically outlined the fast track to heaven. Do as he did, and you’ll be free. Which brings me to love your neighbor as yourself, and turning the other cheek. We witches hate turning the other cheek. We do not allow others to hit us and lay down to be beaten more. But is that what Jesus was really talking about? One night I was watching a biography on Dean Martin. It mentioned that Dean, even though he didn’t like some family members, he would always keep his home welcome to them. And then I sat for a moment and asked Goddess how I can do this for Thanksgiving with my sister and her erroneous and degrading beliefs. And within a couple of minutes, “Hate the ignorance but not the ignorant.” Perfect! I get to embrace the clap back at “hate the sin but not the sinner” and be present for the holidays! The reason that her beliefs bother me so much is because it eludes to gay being a sin. It says that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. Stealing is a sin, murder is a sin. The saying, “hate the sin not the sinner” applies to them. I cannot stop being gay. I prayed the gay away before I ever heard of such a thing and Jesus didn’t do shit. I did some EMDR today over my childhood with the torture of the silence I chose then, the inner turmoil I endured, and the shame I carried over being gay. I know there is nothing wrong with me and God made me the way I am – a truth I grew into. But my inner child still feels the pain that exists back then; and it’s time for that child to concede to his innermost self what I know as a grown man today. I break down just typing that. It’s like me finally coming home and removing the old programming that kept him down. I see myself, my inner child, fill up my own body this moment as I continue to write. He is strong. He is good. So many bad arrows he’s endured, and they fall away as he now stands up. I did a little EMDR just now, but I’ll further reserve doing that with my therapist for I risk introducing negative programming from any possible inflated ego that may exist. Anyway, back to my sister and turning the other cheek. It’s not that we turn the other cheek to be slapped again. It’s to face them; and not with the pain we’ve endured or resulting resentment and hate that follows. Doing that is overcompensating one’s ego and insecurity and thus allowing it to spread and subconsciously validating the other person’s views that we’re wrong, thus they are right, because look at how we’re behaving and attacking them now. Turning the other cheek, if I may, is fighting back with tolerance and acceptance, and even love if that’s capable within the person. It’s facing them with our personal truth. It’s me facing her with my personal truth. I don’t need to push her away in order for to understand me or to see me (that doesn’t even make sense). I don’t need to hide my truth behind animosity, angst, or resentment. I can be secure in myself, stand with love in myself, for her slap in my face doesn’t erase who or what I am. If her slap doesn’t erase who or what I am, then her slap lacks power. And if her slap lacks power then her slap is a lie in the face of my truth. I am a gay man. I have always been a gay man. It is not a sin to be gay. I tried to be straight, but if I were straight, then me being straight would be true, and thus push through the lie of being gay. And in that, it would be brushed off as a phase. But it didn’t, even when I asked God to because I wore the shame a narrative my family chose to blanket me with – “being gay is a sin, thus I’m a sinner, thus something is wrong with me.” God doesn’t forsake those who earnestly seek Him, and God does nothing with “pray the gay away,” because there isn’t anything wrong to pray away. There was nothing wrong in how He made me. The only sad thing left is my sister’s willful ignorance. She doesn’t see that it does mean something to me for her to see me as I am, completely. But all I can do right now is love the ignorant, but not the ignorance. It isn’t my job to make her see. Persisting in doing so just exacerbates that something is wrong with me as I focus on her side of the street instead of my path in these moments. We can allow ourselves to be seen. But proving myself again and again for her favor just turns my eyes to her and my back on my path – these moments in the now. When struck, figuratively speaking, I can march forward with my good cheek. I admire the courage flamboyant gay boys have in their younger years as they clung to their personal truths in the face of adversity. I wish I had that, and for that I strike myself; but because of that I must march forward with my good cheek. Blessed be.

Staying present is a challenge sometimes. My ego wants everything yesterday. Just recently I think I’ve begun the process of accepting the journey. I’m 39, no where close to being a millionaire or a big shot. I’m single, probably won’t have kids, and for good reason with my emotional maturity needing a lot of growth. I’m recovering from addiction and codependency. I just got my inner child to trust me again. I have a great career which I love and hate. I just now am beginning to trust my intuition, setting boundaries, and cutting cords (with people and with energies not conducive to my well-being). Wow, all this I, which yes is still important; but with a whole world turning with other people’s wills, blessings to be had, and trials and tribulations to endure and grow from, it’s no surprise how not mindful I have been. I hear in recovery if I have one foot in the past and one in the future, I’m pissing all over the day. That is true for someone that obsesses. But I can’t forget the past – it made me who I am today, and I can only move forward from a place of honesty. The future isn’t here yet, but I can hope, aspire, and set goals. Truth is a matter of perception that changes on the regular as I learn and experience new things, but I have to stay in the present to fully embrace those things for what they are now. Now what it was way back when and not for entirely for the future, because what I think my future should be might not even be what I want when the time comes. What does this have to do with mindfulness? Prejudice and judgement. We have them. We all do it. Taking inventory of our world (let me be clear – our world or my world, but not the world) is how we survive and decide what our next move is. But I can really screw that up if I’m applying emotionally charged history to the present, adding story to the present reality which can really distort my perception. My sponsor suggested to me the power of “ok,” as in saying “ok” to any real thing, real as in happening in the now, not to the now in reference to the yesteryear that isn’t now and not the magical illusion of the future that isn’t happening now. Another sponsor want has me meditating in silence for 15 minutes a day, which I can do better at. Part of staying in the now is using positive language that isn’t overly emotionally charged. As an addict/alcoholic/codependent having always found a way to not be present, I only know how to operate in an extreme of fight or flight – triggered reacting. I feel old traumas, bad experiences, misunderstandings as a result of that and drugs and alcohol helped facilitate poor responses to life; which is why so many like me feel and appear maladjusted to life. We’re great survivors, but terrible at living. The power of pause, ok, letting go, grounding, shielding, cutting cords, walking away and coming back level headed, all things I’ve never fully committed to practicing till now. I sucks after being sober for 11.5 years and allowing your own ego’s insanity tear you down and you “go back out.” I had to stop there for a second a cry, which is good because my ego needs deflation to be right-sized and properly fit for the right now. Writing has always been a therapeutic meditation for me. It takes the hamster wheel in my head and flattens it out to a linear track so I can move forward into clarity without my ego looping back to bullshit or getting distracted from the truth. I have to remember to invite my Higher Power in before I do it. I ought to invite my Higher Power in before anything when I think about it. All this has to do with being mindful. Everyone and everything around me is a mirror. I truly don’t know person in front of me, or know the place I’m standing before. My perception of my reality is based on past experiences and mental calculations (judgments) to define what in front of me in the now is. But that’s part of the problem. If my life sucked, then life sucks, reality sucks. But it doesn’t have to. There’s another side to every coin. The now is dark for people that made poor choices up till the present. But I don’t have to keep making poor choices. I can practice positive thinking, even then that is dangerous in that it can invoke expectations. Reality just is. The car that cut me off might not be an asshole; he might be bleeding out on the way to hospital or rushing to a family member in the hospital because he or she might die; or he’s actually a really nice guy unaware of how fast he’s going or is simply in a rush for no reason and has no beef with me. Life is happening, but with everybody experiencing life, then life isn’t happening to me; it’s just happening. My life doesn’t suck; it’s not falling apart, I’m just experiencing effect my actions produced or even then life can move just as unaware of me sometimes like the guy who cut me off, just like the acorn that fell out of the sky and banged on my windshield. I can meditate, in silence or not; the monkey mind in either meditation will produce images in my minds eye that can be distracting me from my purpose if I let it. The universe is never still, so why would my mind be? Ah, I think I can forgive myself more now for not having a still image when I practice creative visualization (I can easily keep an image, but it likes to vibrate, slightly get bigger or smaller outside my control, but it’s still there)….interesting, I just tried to stare at something, and I notice how my eyes feel like their vibrating as my brain, I assume, is processing the everything in sight, including colors and depth perception, but I keep all other thoughts out, not let a single one in – something I achieved the first time I got sober when I prayed the crave feeding, fleeting thoughts of an addict away; if I wasn’t reading or doing something then to distract myself from myself, I would just focus on a single thing in front of me till it passed (usually riding in a car till I got out). Anyway, I digress, but that realization I just had was neat. Back to mindfulness. During meditation I don’t allow emotional attachment to the images that crop up, unless that is the goal like in a trauma mediation; I just acknowledge and bring my attention back to the present – focusing on breath or visualization. What I gained from this is that from not reacting to the random thoughts or images during meditation, I in turn don’t react or at least react less to life as it is happening. The images in my mind weren’t actually doing anything to me, so why should life happening be any different? So, I naturally stop reacting. It takes practice. And often I don’t want to do it. I’m not sure if it’s because my inner child wants attention or that my ego doesn’t want change. I either allowed some things to happen to me in the past and didn’t resolve them in a healthy manner or I coped with abusing myself with drugs and alcohol and thus didn’t grow further and develop for the years that I was using. It’s quite reasonable that my inner child wouldn’t trust me and thus fight any reprogramming because of anti-programming I allowed with drugs and alcohol for so long. Trauma meditations help. Again, I digress. So, what is happening during this non-reacting? I’m no longer flexing my emotionally charged history of bad experiences onto other or life in general. The same should go for good present times too – I’m not degrading them via perceptions based in my dark past, and I’m also not possibly cheapening the reality or others’ present reality with my good history because they aren’t me. Sure, I can inspire and lift people up with my word and guide with my wisdom, but that doesn’t mean that its pertinent to the present now or another person’s journey. I guess it’s possible to be a good person and have good intentions and still fuck some shit up or fuck someone else’s life up. The road to hell was….you get it. Hell, who’s to say my intentions are correct if my perception of the now is distorted or my understanding of my past was delusional? So, for now, pause, ok, release the hang ups and prejudices, stop adding story to the current circumstances. Be open-minded to the deeper meaning of things, but grounded enough to stand in the present now that the fat ass acorn that started a new star on my windshield isn’t punishment, life happening to me, or God telling me to pay attention (that is only true, in my opinion, if an acorn or something is hitting my windshield every single day). I remember my first sponsor told me I was not allowed to think for 6 months. What is that? Being mindful. Kind of ironic when I seems like the wording should be mind-empty. But I do remember the 4th dimension of existence hits pretty I think 30+ days in of not thinking for 6 months, because your mind is no longer clouded with expectations, obsessions, or worry.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

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