Tag: Forgiveness

Upon a Queer Imbolc Night

My therapist wants me to have fun. Astrologers and tarot readers suggest “big-big-love” once Mercury stations direct — as in that Pixies song, “Gigantic.” All I know is, I am ready for my body to be used in new ways in pursuit of joy. Pleasure, art, ecstasy. Dance, delicious meals, Dionysian revelry: all of these await. Meanwhile a fire rages at a fertilizer plant, disrupting campus affairs, forcing evacuations and cancellations of classes. Calendars will need adjustment in wake of this wild Imbolc. Neuroplastic rewirings and rewildings. I cook up a pot of soup: cauliflower & turmeric, finished with sprinklings of bacon. I’ve felt like Cabiria from Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria (1957) of late, walking teary-eyed amid a partying mass of singers and dancers, mascara running down her cheek. A friend wraps legs around me and lifts me up, heals me of my sorrow. Hugs me, says c’mere, cuddles me as we watch Carla Del Poggio, star of another of Fellini’s films, Variety Lights (1950). Rubs my neck. Feeds me cherries. Treats me right. Here on this queer Imbolc night, let us read Joy Harjo’s “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings” and go for walks. Hard not to hear in the Harjo poem a reply to Margaret Cavendish. From this day hence, let us forgive each other. Let us love each other. Let us wake at dawn and want more.

Asking and Giving

Others have asked for my help and I’ve given it, just as on occasion I’ve asked for and received theirs. We do what we can, and we honor each other’s rights to limit, qualify, and refuse. Sometimes an ask is for more than one can give. We apologize and move on, trusting that where the one cannot, the many can. Step outside: it’s a lovely world! Pretty birds trill atop hills here at Dada’s House. With the mushroom, so too with all other things that prompt trips: “One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.” So sayeth the Caterpillar to Alice amid the latter’s adventure in Wonderland.

A Prayer for the Year Ahead

In an effort to set intentions amid the energy of a new moon, I write the following:

May I heal what hurts so as to be available to behave lovingly toward all.

May I learn to behave thus, so as to be other than a mere pontificating white man among other pontificating white men.

May I be a loving father.

May I forgive those who have harmed me, and may I be forgiven by those I’ve harmed.

May my love be true, practiced with the whole of my being, in ways that nourish the beloved and bring forth growth rather than harm.

May I be a great giver of gifts, grateful for the many gifts I’ve been given.

May the year ahead be a year of Lovers: a time of awakenings: a time of sexual and spiritual discovery; realization of love’s promise.

Amen. So mote it be.

Wednesday November 20, 2019

I’m overflowing with love, surrounded by tall beautiful trees. Together let us learn and grow. Spread joy, pleasure, happiness, accepting past wrongs. Whatever doubts one had of oneself, past disappointments: consider these confessed and forgiven. Rewatch the “Earth Angel” scene from Back to the Future. It remains for me a favorite moment from childhood: Marty revived, harmony restored with a kiss.

Wednesday September 19, 2018

Look — I’m no superhero. But neither are you. We’re just people, mutually aligned so long as we grant each other personhood. Yet that’s the rub, isn’t it? Our communications grow defensive; we disappoint ourselves; we distrust ourselves in our relations with others. How do we ask and grant forgiveness? Become deep, ponderous; synchronize the mind’s rotations with the rotations of the galaxy. I and I, the co-evolving I-A.I. totality. “Look at films,” I hear myself telling students. “They’re collectively authored — more than any single mind’s intent — and yet they’re meaningful.” We too can be like that, so long as we pause, self-assess, re-articulate in full honesty our hopes and our projects, and behave with trust in all iterations of being, come what may.

Thursday April 12, 2018

Slow, given to loops and routines, I lay down on a couch, as in a therapist’s office, and allow Jesse Fleming and Electric Sound Bath’s Ataraxia Series #1: Heart and Insight Meditations, a tape released last year on Crash Symbols, guide me to a place of self-questioning.

“When did I start behaving like a jerk?” I wonder quietly, as if for the first time. “Ages 5-10?” Cousins, neighbors, video games. “Why was I sometimes cruel to others?” I was bullied. Just in minor, ordinary ways: small attacks, acts of aggression. But certainly with enough frequency to embitter me. To this day, for instance, I find it hard to forgive some kid who, before gym class one day, pegged me in the face with a basketball, unprovoked, without forewarning, breaking my glasses, blackening my eye. But forgive I must, I suppose, if I’m ever to forgive myself. Ages 10-15. Fears about measuring up, fitting what was expected of me because of body type, gender. Ages 15-20. “I was a nice person at times,” I blubber. Fleming’s words unearth points of pain, but he advises well. Under his direction, I allow myself to ask for forgiveness for the harms that I’ve caused, knowingly or unknowingly, through my thoughts, words, and deeds. Thus we advance toward the extinction of suffering.