I get stuck in the in-between not because I don’t belong there (it’s the “stuckness” that doesn’t) but because I am still learning to understand that god exists in the hard & dirty as much as in the easy & clean. god is in the beginning & end, in one extreme & the other. maybe even more so, god is in the in-between. not exactly in the middle as you’d think, as you may have tried to find Them. the location is ever-changing to synchronize with our own changeability. it’s when we try to stay the same that we get lost/lose Them. god is fluid, like the liquid smoke gray areas are made of.
for me, growing up in organized religions (plurality has never been so painful, lol) has meant that regardless of how much intellectual freedom I’ve trained myself to acquire, there are still parts of me that are deeply embarrassed by my own humanity. I’ve rejected my own messiness (you know, the organic, the real, the truth) & that of others because I was taught that god can only be present in the purity. but what is pure if not the pleasure & freedom of my queer, thotful, Boricua ass? as object or subject…? what is more pure than saying hey, this hurts & I don’t know what the fuck to do about it but I’m trying?
I get stuck in the in-between not because that’s not my home but because I still fall into the trap of thinking that healing is exclusively some kind of detoxifying process where all the painful, underdeveloped, dysfunctional, & complicated things about me are supposed to disappear. that healing makes more room for god to arrive, rather than healing being the uncovering of god Themselves already within me. and could it be that god can be found in the complicated, dysfunctional, underdeveloped, & painful places too? could it be that god is in all the beauty, power, magic, & truth I already am?
I’ve been embarrassed at times by anything in me looking like less than perfection because I was taught that perfection is god. even when my ideas of perfect changed, moved from being a goal to a feeling to a fantasy I admitted to having, it was still where I expected I’d find god waiting for me. but fuck me right? because I could never arrive. the road is too nonlinear, the realities too exquisite, the path too unpredictable. I’m considering the possibility that god is never anywhere other than exactly wherever the fuck you are. that doesn’t mean you can stay, but that They come with you, always.
what’s really been happening in my moments of deepest uncertainty & frustration (aside from a lack of trust in myself, the multiverse, myself as the multiverse) is an attempt at using the same tired measures of right/wrong, good/bad, holy/unholy. it creates a dissonance that fucks with your mind.
you’ve changed, your life has changed, everything’s always changing but there’s something still wanting to understand things through a lens/framework/ideology that no longer applies. we think it means the new lens isn’t working & we should be ashamed for ever leaving the familiar in the first place but actually, it’s just that it takes practice & time to thoroughly install a new way of thinking/being.
to get to the motherfucking point here (if I can pretend there’s just one for a moment): you’re not failing healing because it’s messy or you’re still complicated. baby, that isn’t ever going to change. you get smarter, wiser, more loving, the steps get bigger but we stay complex. ‘cause we need to stay humble to really be connected, confident, & clear. if you must push yourself, don’t push yourself into the shit of the past. push yourself towards gentleness & growth, push yourself always towards the future, always towards love.
eclipse season note: I’m available until mid-July for sessions & then I’m on sabbatical! catch me while you can.