        There wasn’t much to do in their little impromptu “cave,” while the deluge soaked the land around them, copious thunder their only company. This was perfect, in a way, for Kohra. She loved little more than spending days in her imagination.         Strangely, given their circumstances, this was sort of fun. How many times…
a) My Personal Fav Posts, b) Psychology, c) Trauma & healing, d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, e) The Meaning of Life and related thoughts
167) Thanks Mom: Intergenerational Wisdom, Part 2 — Friendship and Community
I believe that Wisdom is about sharing as the default, trusting as the default, being open as the default, and putting your heart on your sleeve, as the default. Obviously, sometimes you will get burned for this, and in those instances, you need to pull back, have good boundaries, and be willing to value yourself…
a) My Personal Fav Posts, b) Psychology, c) Trauma & healing, e) The Meaning of Life and related thoughts
166) Thanks Mom: Intergenerational Wisdom, Part 1 — Professor Dolderman
These next two posts are the most difficult pieces of writing I’ve ever made public. Definitely the most personal (which is saying a lot!! lol….). The fact that this was so difficult to write is kind of weird, because these posts are entirely positive. (I mean, there’ll be some negative stuff in here probably,…
165) The Salvation of Eden: Chapter 5 — Dominic
“Kohra…Kohra?!” A sing-song voice. “Sleeping.” She moaned. Her back felt sore. What was wrong with her bed? She unglued her eyes reluctantly, squinting. “Dom?” Eyes flung open. “Dom!! Oh…my –.” Whatever she might have said was choked out as the tears came. And then he was hugging her and…
b) Psychology, c) Trauma & healing, d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity
164) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness, Part 17: “Feeling Seen”
As with our discussions of both Competence and CONTEXT, the fact that social validation is important to us, is pretty obvious. Of course it feels good to be validated, to be accepted, to feel “Seen”! We’ve known that since we were kids and needed, very deeply, for people to pay attention to us. We all…
163) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness, Part 16: The Final Step to Rational Self-analysis; Sub-section 4 — Eating Better
It is worth briefly considering another very common struggle that people have — “eating healthy”. I’m going to let that stand in for whatever general health, weight, body-stuff, nutrition, etc., that involves food in some way. Because your specific goal? That’s up to you. But “eating healthy” is pretty generic. COMPETENCE ANALYSIS: In order…
162) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness, Part 16 – The Final Step to Rational Self-analysis; Sub-section 3 — The Life-Altering Sorcery of Combining CONTEXT with Competence
When thinking about how to effectively use those “Bridges and Barriers” discussed in the last post, one thing that can be especially helpful, is if you can identify KEY ones, really powerful ones. Especially if you can do something about them. Because why burn up all your time and energy on some super-complex behaviour change…
161) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness, Part 16: The Final Step to Rational Self-analysis; Sub-section 2 — The Power of Context
So what does work then? (NOTE: it’s not Personal Responsibility….lol…..) The thing to emphasize for effective goal pursuit is emphatically NOT “taking personal responsibility.” While not COMPLETELY unimportant (obviously), this whole “make your bed” mantra is only a tiny, tiny piece of the puzzle, and if over-focused on, it becomes basically a huge, shaming, blaming, counterproductive,…
160) From Shitty-ness to Well-ness, Part 16: The Final Step to Rational Self-analysis; Sub-section 1: Give Up Your Willpower
This Final Step, is actually the most important. It’s where you learn to actually “make it so”. It’s where you push the Action Button. It’s where you take all your goals and values and all that abstract shit, and you make it Real. It’s where the rubber hits the road.  Without this Final Step,…
159) The Salvation of Eden: Chapter 4 — Wax Cave
She started down the path, paying close attention to her feet; they were cut up enough already. Her ears opened to the small sounds of the night, and her breathing deepened as she settled into a stealthy but reasonably ground-eating pace. Through the lightly wooded forest, the friendly white birch and slender grey…
158) this trans life — a spoken word poem
I’d like to share a bit with you — about my transition To counter the spite for people who are in this position Transphobes accuse this of being an arbitrary decision That we make to ally ourselves with leftist activism… They have zero respect for the emotional precision Of discovering your authenticity, and escaping your…
157) The Salvation of Eden: Chapter 3 — Pee (Part 1)
        Walking as quickly as she dared, head down, staring fixedly at the ground, she prayed that she looked inconspicuous. The South Gate wasn’t far. Her heart pounded. Her knees shook. One foot after the other. One foot after the other. All she knew was that right now, more than anything, she needed to hide.…
156) The Salvation of Eden: Chapter 2 — Filthy Elves and Unlikely Allies
Ironically, it was prejudice that saved her, in a roundabout sort of way. She was picking through pears at a fruit stand, when she noticed the man, a beggar, sitting off to the side on an empty apple crate. He was shabbily dressed, in his 40s if not older (she always had difficulty estimating…
155) The Salvation of Eden: Chapter 1 — The Big Delusion
Kohra ambled through the market, smooth cobblestones cupping her bare feet, the air a song of shoppers and shopkeepers, donkeys, and children’s laughter. The general din was occasionally punctuated by the squawking of a hilariously uncouth parrot, who either delighted or dismayed passersby with his repertoire of off-colour phrases. The parrot had lived…
154) The Salvation of Eden: Prologue
        Holding her head back to avoid the burst of steam, Kohra lifted the pot lid. Smells galloped past like a horde of raucous children. She tried to ignore the actual horde of raucous children jostling around her, all elbows and noise. She wanted to be fully present for “that first smell”, the extra-moist,…
153) “How did you know you were trans?” Part 7 – ‘Gender Dysphoria Isn’t What You Think’
It is amazing to me, looking back, that it took 8 months after all these experiences, before I actually realized that I am trans. And, not to dwell on it, but those 8 months were…kinda…sorta…very dysfunctional. Why, is hard to explain. But, my axle was misaligned, AND I knew it. And I didn’t know what…
152) “How did you know you were trans?” Part 6 – “You don’t have to change yourself; just accept who you are!”
There is a common misunderstanding that comes up when trans people start talking about things like changing or ‘adjusting’ themselves in certain ways. For example, tell people that you are “voice training to sound more feminine”, and you will so often hear, “Why not just talk naturally? You don’t need to force your voice to…
151) “How did you know you were trans?” Part 5 – The Secret (until now…oops), Ancient Mystical Occult Ritual that turns you into a girl (or a guy, if you cast this spell in reverse)
Note: To be perfectly clear, the title is a joke. If you’re not trans, then this won’t actually turn you into a trans person. I’m so sorry about your luck. :’( But in all sincerity, if you are trans, especially if you’re in denial to yourself about it, then this might, legit, bring up some…
150) “How did you know you were trans?” Part 4 – Gorillas & bellydancers
Girl vs. Guy Walks It’s pretty obvious that, on average, guys and girls walk a little differently. Of course, this varies, from person to person and culture to culture. Some women walk very ‘masculine’; some men very ‘feminine.’ Etc. But in general, it’s accurate to say that men & women walk a little differently. (Seriously,…
149) “How did you know you were trans?” Part 3 – The Subtle Importance of Walking
So how might a person start to connect in an embodied way to “the feminine” or “the masculine” energies inside of them?There are obviously no shortage of possibilities. But I decided to choose walking. The neuro-biology of “walking” is so super-cool we would need entirely separate essays to describe it reasonably. But, in brief, walking…