Hormones YAY

So much has happened over the past two weeks. We opened streams previously closed. Social media streams, the possibility of interacting with the world, medical treatment… all of it, in such a short period of time.

How did it start, and where are we now?

We had been writing with a type of unsustainable vigor. Writing daily is sustainable, but we weren’t just writing daily, we were pushing beyond the ability to see or sit up straight, at times held in place my only the will to finish.

To finish what exactly?

“To finish life.” We say, half-jokingly.

That seems morbid, doesn’t it? It’s not. Well, not exactly. Not with our background.

We use to be an embalmer, sitting with death, or rather, the left behind corpses of their work. Our parents worked in the death care industry.

Along with that, we’re a Tantric Buddhist Monk, often recalling our teachers advice, “consult death.” Though if we’re being honest, he borrowed this advice, from Carlos Castaneda. Using the word borrowed is both generous, and probably accurate. That type of quip, if you can even call it that, is meant to be spread, virally, from host to host.

What does it mean to consult death? And should we even continue to host its seed?

There was this exercise our teacher had us do, in an effort to embody this idea.

“Write your obituary.” Sam said.

His book said it too, and it probably contained the exact phrasing, “consult death,” though it’s been so long since I read that book, that I can’t say for sure.

I first met Ajna in San Francisco, at a small spiritual meetup in the Marina District.

Ajna was our Buddhist mentor, but Sam was our teacher.

“I’m not your teacher, I’m just a dude you have to get through.”

This is what Ajna told me. Probably at a time my eyes were all glossy, looking up to him.

I was amazed. He was cool. And I… well, I was, young, naive, and desperate for mentorship.

Or even daddy-ship… is that a thing?

The word daddy may make it sound like we had a homosexual Buddhist love affair… we didn’t.

Ajna sits in front of me, having just setup a camera, just the two of us, on Mount Tam.

“Now we start the gay porn.”

He said that, a perfectly timed joke. I remember it.

And even once described that scene later, years later, to a group of my peers, during what seemed like “guru training.”

We were in Bodhiwoods, this was the actual name of the commune.

Nestled within the Santa Cruz Mountains was a large plot of land, with one single two story house.

On the land were dozens of makeshift yurts and cabins where some students lived.

There was a large, primary yurt halfway between the main house and the entry from the main street.

Sam sat in front of fifty or so students, all of us, facing him, admiring him, in one way or another.

Within the audience were a diverse group of people, of all ages. A geneticist from turkey, named Ahimsa. A native Punjabi woman named Nav, who was quite proud of the fact that she named herself, and came from the warrior caste. A Stanford alumni named Savitree. Ajna too, once a young aspiring game developer that Sam recruited.

“If I had a good father, I’d do everything perfectly, I’d be the perfect protege.”

This is a thought I often had leading up to meeting Ajna, and then Sam.

I was raised my a heroin-addicted, wife beating ex-gang member. He was covered in tattoos, though that’s not an insult, just a fact, and also, bullet holes. I mean this literally.

I don’t remember every detail of the day he was shot, but I can place the moment, the sound of gunfire, the rest is foggy.

We were at a relatives house, an aunt maybe, and I was around six years old.

He was shot, maybe eight times, but honestly, I can’t remember the precise number. He survived.

For a decade after this, he remained as a fixture in our house, a constant in the form of a large shirtless man who loved war movies.

“Back in Nam…” He’d say, all of us knowing his gunshots didn’t come from being in the military or the Vietnam War.

I don’t have animosity towards him, well, not anymore, but I can’t say the same for my other brothers. One of them, the youngest, who spent most of his childhood as a type of mini-me to him, even having a baby recliner next to him, can’t even look at pictures of him.

He didn’t show up to the funeral. Though neither did I.

I had a fondness for him, so the reason I didn’t show up to the funeral wasn’t because of resentment, or pain, or anything like that, honestly, it was logistical. He died in Alameda, and his sister, our aunt, handled the death services. Two of our brothers went there to help.

Actually, I was not even really invited. I was nineteen when I found out he wasn’t my biological father.

Part of me felt dumb that I didn’t figure it out sooner.

My grandma was high on some prescription medicine, downstairs in her room, and she just blurted it out.

“He’s not even your real father.”

I wasn’t angry, maybe too numb for that. I heard her out, nodded, listened.

The next day, my mother admitted it, confirmed it, and vowed to find him, so I could talk with him.

She did, and I did. I talked to him, and I met him, once.

I talked with him over the phone for several months, during a period where I was figuring myself out. I was living with my parents again, after two years on the streets. I was attending community college, after dropping out of high school, then recovering, getting my GED.

I didn’t want to live there, in that city. Under the comfort of my mother’s roof. I felt like I needed something more difficult to push me be something, a situation that required me to rise to the occasion.

So I decided, “I will move to San Francisco. On my own.”

With nothing.

I told my biological father about this, over the phone, and this part is somewhat of a blur. Later my mother told me, he was going to go with me, and I was excited about it, but he decided not to.

I don’t remember, all I remember is that he said I wanted to go there because I was gay. I was not gay, but even if I was, why would that be a problem?

I never talked to him again.

I did move to San Francisco, with nothing more than a military bag from my grandfather. He actually was in the military.

He taught me how to roll up my clothes for maximum efficiency. It was a good technique.

I arrived in San Francisco at five AM, via a greyhound bus. The city was so huge, and I made a call to my mother, a pay phone, when I arrived.

I didn’t have a phone, or a job, or a place to stay.

"I will be okay. If I must, I will sleep on the streets.”

This is what I told my family when I left.

So yeah, I guess I had daddy issues. That must have been why I found myself in a cult with a man named Sam.

“So yea, I guess this is kinda like a cult right?”

Sam’s soft, charismatic voice said this with such confidence, and ease.

Everyone laughed, it was clearly a joke, and yet, it was true.

During those days the word cult was already heavy, but I remember reading the definition as a naive twenty-something boy, and in my estimation, a cult just meant a startup religion.

Nothing wrong with that. Right?

“Osho lived right next to me, and there were rumors, sex cult this, sex cult that, but look at him now. Ever since then, I vowed, to never make that mistake, never let a good teacher go.”

I remember when Nav told me this, it was probably after the seminar where Sam told us we were in a cult.

I nod along.

“I like Osho. I read his book on creativity.”

Before I was recruited into the “personal power” cult of software engineers, black belts, and scuba diving, I wanted to be an artist. I read Osho’s book on creativity, and many other art centric books.

Inside the yurt, Sam had everyone come up to the center, to his seat, and tell two stories.

This was the “guru training.”

The first story I told was when Ajna took me to Mount Tam, with his video camera out, “now we have the gay sex."

Everyone laughed. It felt good.

I told another story, but it didn’t land quite as good, maybe it was forced.

Afterwards, Ajna came to me.

“It didn’t happen like that, but it’s okay, that’s how you remember it.”

It definitely happened like that. Though honestly, I didn’t ask him what he meant.

After maybe six years, or more, I forgot to count, I left the spiritual school, and so did Nav.

Ahimsa stayed, and is probably still there, but I heard stories about her. Defending me when I left. When others gossiped and insulted me, she spoke up, which was really out of character for her.

She never told me this, someone else did.

Savitree stayed too. She was one of the advanced students, I think they called them, S1’s, a reference to Star Trek.

She made this app called Hospice Journey, and spent most of her life being with those transitioning into death.

Recently, she appeared in my emails, LinkedIn, “connect with…”

Obviously random.

I left the school because a friend of mine within the group, committed suicide.

He had a house, across the street from Bodhi-woods. What did we get? No note, just some scribbles in a note book, and commentary from Sam.

“Maybe he was trying to get the last Dorito.”

He was found with a bag over his head.

The diary entries were sparse, one day, “I love my sangha, I am filled with such love.”

The next day, “nitrous oxide, party city.”

I get the Buddhist detachment, but the joke left a sour taste in my mouth.

That was ten years ago now.

Takes a breath.

So yeah, so much has happened in the past couple weeks. Like a blur. I don’t know, once, after forty-minutes a therapist diagnosed me with bi-polar disorder, and attempted to prescribe me lithium.

I’ll admit, after that visit, my first, and my last, I felt a type of euphoria. The euphoria of diagnosis, is that a thing?

After an hour or two, the euphoria faded away, and I was like, what just happened? For one, I am not taking lithium, and for two, how can you know anything about me after forty minutes?

We never saw her again, right?

“Yes, that’s correct. I am not a battery.”

Right… hilarious.

I am not a battery, but I am a trans woman. That’s what we figured out, again, two weeks ago.

And the conclusion, though maybe inconclusive, as to why not to enter Maha-Samadhi just yet, is… to take estrogen.

Not because I need it, but because the blue in me wants to be pink, and we’re still alive.

So we have to do something, right?

The social media… no, reopened, closed again. Interacting with the world, minimally. But medical treatment, tertiary ovaries, well, softness is desired, even if the world is harsh, flowers still need to bloom.

After forty years of analysis, we can conclude, your diagnosis is…

You are you.

I am Kira Ma, a Tantric Trans Buddhist Bodhisattva Mother of Dawns that exist in my plural consciousness.

“Yay!”

Oh, one more thing, just because, ughh… am I receptive? Yes. Is the ocean receptive to wind?