2012--A New Beginning

I began this blog four years ago when I was first coming out as a transgender guy and living in Portland, OR. The first post is still active. I'm now reclaiming this blog as a weekly exercise and a service to my community, as well as personal expression. I intend to write a weekly blog about any relevant themes and experiences that I feel need to be conveyed in this format. I contemplated earlier if it was best to carefully construct and plan out what to write. What inspires me is for this blog to be a stream of consciousness--to express and convey to an audience what I feel intuitively needs to be shared from my unique perspective. The current question that I'm living with is, how can I be of unique service to the Earth and to humanity as a creative, artistic person carving and paving a unique, non-normative path in this world? What unique tools, skills, and gifts do I have that can be of use during these radically changing and transitional times? At moments, I feel overwhelmed, as if my arms can't even reach around the larger issues of these times that impact us all. Another question arose for me during this same time last year. The question was, how can I build hope in this world? I moved to Berkeley, CA last year in July. Before that I lived in San Francisco for two years. I have always dreamed of living in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was grateful, three years ago when I had a way to move here with a purpose--graduate school to pursue my MFA in Cinema at San Francisco State University. What struck me was that even in Berkeley, CA there is still so much work to be done. In comparison to my hometown of Clovis/Fresno--the SF Bay Area is the land of milk and honey. What image comes to my mind is that of Moses who led the Jews for 40 years in the desert before they arrived to the land of Israel. Moses looked on as the Jews that he led were able to enter the land of milk and honey, while he was unable to journey with them. I imagine that the Jews had many hopes, dreams, and visions of what life would be like in the land of milk and honey. Yet, there was a lot of work to be done then and there still is an immense amount of work to be done in the Middle East. I believe in co-existence, living in peace with a diversity of people, and bringing as much light to the Earth as possible. May all beings live joyous, balanced, grateful, and aware lives. For me, the Bay Area is the land of milk and honey. Milk--as in Harvey Milk, queer/trans empowerment, visibility, and an abundant, diverse queer/trans community. Although, the community does feel small to me now. Honey--for pleasure. I imagine a jar or vat of honey being poured on a hot queer body as another hot queer(s) lick it up. The honey represents the abundance of pleasure and sex positivity in the Bay Area. Those images were in my mind when I first moved here, three years ago. The queer/trans land of milk and honey. There is much work to be done. Yet, one still needs to have fun and enjoy every drop of sweetness.