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  • 6. If the soul is nourished by its wound, how might we understand that?
    • I understand it through what a mentor of mine, Malidoma Somé told me, that I needed to focus on the gold within my wounding.  The gold within my wounding came after many years of living in the constant trauma of a heterosexist and homophobic world as a gay person.  The gold I found in that was through dream work and from the understanding that my gifts and purpose are grounded in the very nature of my being as a queer person.  Malidoma explains it well in an interview Gays: Guardians of the Gates where he talks of the inborn nature of gays being the guardians of the gates between this world and the worlds of spirit.  

      Moving from the wounding of being considered flawed, less than fully human; to beginning the exploration of my and other LGBTQ peoples nature and purpose in this world as one deserving honor and respect is radical and indeed nourishing.

      A film that speaks to this as well is  http://twospirits.org

      TWO SPIRITS interweaves the tragic story of a mother’s loss of her son with a revealing look at a time when the world wasn’t simply divided into male and female, and many Native American cultures held places of honor for people of integrated genders.

       

       

      MenWeb - Men's Issues: Gays: Guardians of the Gate Interview with Malidoma Somé
    • As above, the Soul is nourished through returning to the wound, withdrawing the blood as the Pelican does, withdrawing the blood of the horror of the moment, or the fear or trembling or whatever emotion, and feeds that emotion to the present moment, the young Pelican. In this way the nourishing takes place because eventually all the emotional disruption of the wound dissolves, and memory is empty. Memory is just memory, clear, simple and does not cause trouble with the daily life, even though the experience cannot be erased or eradicated. 

  • 5. What is an instance of a sacrifice of non-arrival, constant iteration? (p.43) And why is it felt as sacrifice and humiliation all at once?
    • Having to go back over and over to the memory of being raped and tortured, having to return to that room, those hands, those eyes, means a sacrifice of what I would rather have been the truth, as well as a sacrifice of what I'd rather now be doing. It is humbling to have to return to any difficult memory. The act of having to return requires humility, requires humility. Yet this return, this non-arrival as much of a sacrifice of identity and self preservation as anything relieves the memories of their pernicious hold on the present. In some way, this sacrifice requires humility.  

  • 4. What does JH mean when he says that it is the opus that needs to be fed? (p.43)
    • Not me, but the work, the art, the poem, the journalling, the story the book...what does it need? Technically, yes but more, is this writing required and what does this writing require if it is required?

  • 3. What is the particular kind of circulation of the pelican and how does it differ from an ordinary stoppered vessel?
  • 2. How do we dissolve a mindset (p.42) and what is the difference between that and resolving a problem?
  • 1. In the case of the Bain Marie double boiler vessel (p.41) what would be an example of the method of indirection protecting the substance from elemental warfare, loosening and relaxing stubborn resistance by means of gentle warmth?
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