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hey sager

Procession to the wake

I was thinking about your thing about how we come from spirit and return to spirit I got some of that at Heather's funeral. First as an aside, I want to say how deeply I enjoyed going to a real Catholic funeral at a real Catholic church with all my people around me, perverts, FTMs, activists, fatties, queers of all sorts. And doing the sign of the cross, blessing myself with holy water, saying a rosary to push Heather's soul through purgatory faster up into heaven, singing Amazing Grace in that flattened off-key way that happens in a Catholic church when it's all the people, singers or not. But therer was something really deeply connecting for me to seep into these age-old traditions that are shared world-wide that touched a chord in me. Seeing the huge pipe organ and the stained glass and the holy water fonts inspire me more than the crucifix at the center of the altar. I focused more on the Hail Mary's than the Our Fathers, and in my mind I re-wrote the Glory Be from "the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit" to the "the Mother, the Maiden and the Sacred Crone." But all in all, I was being as devout as I can muster given who I am today. Anyway, that was one thing and it touched the spirit part of me.

Then when the ceremony was complete, we all gathered out in front of the church and we were met by a bagpiper. He played while we all formed a parade behind him and marched fromt he church to Heather's house (2 blocks away). Again, the pipes were like a calling in of a tradition that's rich with more than each our personal life experiences. And it felt like it honored not only Heather herself, but her family and ancestry and a long string of human existence on this planet. We stopped traffic for a short bit when we crossed the street. It must have been quite a sight for the average NE Portlander to see a man in a kilt and funny socks playing a bagpipe with a bunch of black clad, leather docking, gussied up wierdos marching along behind. I felt really proud to get to be a part of it.

And always at funerals or births, I feel that magic that touches our human existence towards the beginnings and the ends of the cycle. I feel that sense of deep gratitude in the beauty and joy of each precious breath, each passing ray of sunlight, each gift of each moment in this body on this earth. But with Heather in particular, at the wake, to hear the endless recountings of deeds heroic and ways she has touched and influenced everyone around her, more than ever I felt that compelling call to hld back nothing. Like you said about this summer and questioning whether or not you should mitigate what was coming through you, I felt this strong sense that it's only the contrived mitigations, the holding off and holding backs that get in our way of greatness. And greatness can mean so many things for so many different people. But what came as a relief to me is the knowing that I don't have to "do" or "become" or "strive towards" greatness. Greatness, right livelihood, enlightenment, self-actualization, whatever you want to call it is simply to allow it to come through you. I know the times in my life that touch that grace. I know how it feels. I can look back and recognize the places where my being was an expression of something much greater than anything I myself could possibly do or create.

The unstoppable Heather Mac

When I remet Heather at Naomi and Quin's in Oakland, I was glad to have reconnected with her. And in a way, it threw me. She appeared like a piece of my past and popped up at a time in my life that felt very divorced from my greatness. I was almost embarrassed to be seen by her, so straight laced and mainstream and married with two kids and minivan. For all the cards I had to show at my parent's table (job, marriage, family, income, stability, retirement plan, insurance, car), I had nothing to show to Heather (politics, sex activist, queer, out there pagan/spirituality, shaking things up somewhere). The cards that I had to show my parents didn't help with anything either. She saw me at a time in Tucson when I was more shiny of a being. When we remet in Oakland, I was dull. Since then I have polished away some of the dullness, leaving my career to live in community, getting more involved with gender queers at least by participating in Gender Odyssey, becoming part of the Wolf Creek convergence and slowly forming community with those folks, and my role in the HoN community and the ways I shake things up there by being my tranny sex-positive self.

Now I feel inspired again. I don't want to temper the force that comes through me in order to placate some unspoken party line at Lost Valley. Sager, you're not the only one among us with a history of making people uncomfortable. I was always making people around me face uneasy questions or deal with things that other wanted to let lie. Again, it wasn't anything I sought out, I just didn't hold it back, you know. I know that if I just allow it, it will unfold. Great things will happen. I see it from this vantage point of Heather's choice to pass on. For all the worrying I put into whether or not I'm doing right by the kids, I could just as well pay attention to whether or not I'm doing right by me. That will go ten times further towards impressing on the kids all the virtues and joys I wish for them. You too, Sager. Be your mostest and that will hold both you and the kids and the tribe of us who are bonded by love.

I am seeing now so many things that sound aligned with what you've been saying for many months now. But, when you were saying them, I did feel a sense of separation. I think if I explain it to you, it might help you in connecting with those people who felt some piece of the "holier than thou" stuff. I did. For me, when you said we are all going to the light, it sounded like taking the emphasis away from the worldly to the other-worldly. It felt like you were saying that the light is all that there really is, and this earthly existence is really not so important. That's where I felt the separation. I felt you leave the earth plane, almost as if you were floating. I even said something to you about if you want to be a Bodhisattva, you have to come back down to the earth. For me, when I look at the light that glows through the edges of birth and death, I see how our existence on this earth is but a glimpse in a grand stream of being and instead of embracing the grand stream, I cherish the earthly glimpse. Driving home from the funeral, I tried to write a song. I sang about how one day I was born and took my first breath. One day I will take my last. Between those days, I take 40,000 breaths each day. How many of them do I honor? How many of them are gasps of awe and joy? How many of them are strained through gritted teeth? Right now, with my hand on my heart and this air in my lungs - I sing. I sing to life and to truth. I sing from so deep within that it comes from something more than me. But I bring it here to this body, this spot on the earth, with all the smells and sounds and tastes and feelings that make it real. How can I be so ungrateful as to breathe unconscoiusly? Even while I sleep, I want each breath to be a dance, a constant creation, a song.

I feel rooted to the raw earth, Sager. My place of expression is rough hewn of solid matter. When someone speaks to me of an etheral spirituality, it passes me by like a cloud overhead. I need to feel it's rain on me, to taste the waters. I'm rooted in sex, in building walls and a roof to hold love inside of, in joyful food and drink, in games and hugs and laughter. That's my spirituality. I started to feel like life on the ground was less meaningful to you. When you shared that you had little patience for the small stuff that people struggle with in Heart of Now, I felt like you were going somewhere far away. And I trusted you that it would all work out. People came to me with concern for you. You seemed too high to them. They feared your crash back down to earth would be injurous. But I wasn't concerned. I'd seen you fly and crash land before. You seemed to be adroit in your flight this time. You did feel ungrounded to me, but that's what flight is about, right? I wasn't concerned, but I did feel a separation. I'm no flying creature, not at this end of my metamorphosis. In fact, the land animal that I am lives close to the earth, at times digging in. Sometimes I swim. But all that I do best is right around my skin. My activism is nearby and not directly touching other countries or even other cities. I just want to build our home, Sager, and be loving and do good things.

There's a way that I want it to be OK for you fly off and know that flying things are scary for little ground animals like myself. But I know you and love you. I don't fear you even though to flying still makes me uncomfortable. Maybe I can help reassure others on the ground that it's OK and not to fear you. Or fear for you.

Love you Sager
Remember when I said we were going work through all our shit and fly! Well, I've worked through a lot of it and I found out I really don't want to fly. I like it down here.