recent foci: sex, oppression, community, spirituality
So my life has been so fucking crazy since I broke up with the ex-partner. Was that really only 17 months ago? Wow. Anyway, it's just been speeding up and up and up. Last year I tried a lot of things that were new to me, just sort of stretching and exploring, and I'm definitely still in that process, but I'm starting to get to the point where I can organize all the things I've learned and start integrating them and re-focusing my life. The things that have been most on my mind are sex, oppression, and community (not necessarily in that order) -- and within the past three weeks I've been experiencing a sort of spiritual awakening as well.
Sex has been on my mind because, well, my sex with Kyle is mind-blowing and life-altering (and I'm not exaggerating). If I include details this entry will be twice as long, so I shan't, but I will talk about the effect of it. I've realized that sex is quite important to me, I'm just really picky, and I get bored if the other person is not emotionally naked. I don't have sex to feel the physical sensation -- I have it to feel aetheric selves pressed against each other. Openness in the moment is enough for one-time sex, but I think that tends to fade with familiarity unless it comes from the sort of vulnerability that infuses the person's life. Maybe it's a self-awareness thing too. All of that is what seems to be a coalescing image of what I want in sex. I don't want to draw people out, either. That's something I spent so many years doing and while I might do it again in the future, I'm taking a break. For right now, for me to emotionally invest in someone, ze has to be actively opening zir own self. I'm willing to share connection with people who are not open, but I am not going to invest in them right now.
Oppression has been on my mind in a whole new way -- I've been taking a race and ethnicity class which is educating me on the massive atrocities done to people of color (especially the whitewashed British and USian crimes) and the social construction of whiteness. And there are such clear and abundant parallels between this new information and the stuff that I already know about sexism that it blows my MIND that there is an anti-racist movement, a feminist movement, a queer movement, a disability justice movement, but not a unified movement. It's caused by the SAME thing and uses the same tools! If you understand one you understand the others! AGH. (please do not respond to this paragraph, I'm really burnt out on talking about it atm) I've been talking about this in class and with Kyle (A LOT) and some with Mike (Kyle's roommate), and have been learning how to actually share things. I just wrote a mini-rant on the arguments I've been dealing with but I'm not going to include it because I'm pretty sure people wouldn't be able to resist arguing and I really can't deal with more of that at the moment.
But anyway, the effect of being in that class (with a prof who is ACTUALLY anti-sexist instead of blarglefaugfdsase) has been to make me feel less alone. I know that some of you are quite genuinely equalist across the board but before meeting this professor I'd not met anyone in person who was fully equalist and educated about prejudice and an activist -- omifog the relief! I feel like I can actually let this stuff hit me because it's not going to be denied or ignored or dismissed as SomebodyElse'sProblem by everyone I try to talk to about it (most of them, but I can live with that). The downside is that the class is incredibly draining and every Thursday I feel like I'm going to die. But it's getting better because I have more support now -- Kyle has started becoming more aware and listening, and I've been talking to Hannah weekly (!!!).
Which moves me into community! I've been exploring several different local circles of people -- the burners, the queer activists, the poly community, the artists, and the dunno-what-to-call-ems-who-have-been-in-Kyle's-life-a-long-time. And then meeting outliers and trying to loop them in to one or the other. What I would really like is to eventually function as a bridge between these groups. I feel like each of them could really learn from each other, and there's already so much overlap yet not a lot of blending. And I want to delve into each and and wrap vines into their branches. This means I've been spending a LOT of time socializing (at least 2-3 times a week, plus school and lots of time with Kyle), which is new and definitely an adjustment, but one I like.
And then the spiritual shifting -- Kyle and I experienced something pretty awful a few weeks ago, after which we cleansed each other energetically, and since then we've been actively interacting with each others' energies, which has been amazing and really growthful already. I think interacting with Hannah every week has also been spiritually opening, and this week I called Aurilion and we've started reconnecting also, which has been pretty powerful. I think with Aurilion it's been especially potent because Kyle and I have a strong heart connection so I am now really used to connecting that way, and the way that Aurilion and I connect is through heart. Ze said that my heart feels more open, which I do think is true, but I think the difference is mainly just that I am used to connecting that way now. And this week there have been four separate people who have talked about how they want to start meditating, so I'm taking that as a sign that the universe REALLY wants me to start participating in group meditation (I want to start going to the Quaker meetings in Atlanta). One of them is a housemate, so hopefully we'll start carpooling either this week or next.
Annnnd with the being really busy, I've realized that if I want anything to happen, I have to schedule it (seriously, including phone conversations). So I'm thinking of setting a weekly time for LJing and at least summarizing the week, because I miss having a record of my life. I don't like that my most productive and growthful periods usually result in a dearth of LJing. I process things with Kyle constantly so I don't feel as much of an urge to write, but I want to be able to remember, so I'm going to use that as my writing-catalyst.