Pride Month 2019

I am ready to come out finally. I have settled on a description of my sexual orientation which is no small thing. I have been in phases where I have no idea how to identify. I have called myself straight but I felt that was not right, since I have had enough sexual encounters with women to know I am more than just curious. I just never found the right woman to be with, romantically.

For a long time I felt that I could have sex with a man or a woman but I only wanted to be with men in relationships and that I only "fell in love" with men. So, that is straight, right?? Then I realized that it was internalized homophobia that stopped me from being open to having a girlfriend.

It is easier to rationalize a hook up with a girl than to look deeper at the fact that I am actually demi -sexual (my attractions are based on getting deeply emotionally close with people) So this means that it is more important to me that I can form deep emotional and spiritual bonds with someone than that they have this or that gender assignment! I have had relationships with women that go very deep but do not become sexual and I have had sexual encounters with women that did not go deep at all. It has kind of been all over the map!

I am truly interested in and attracted to the ones who will go deep with me and without that, I am going to lose interest very quickly. I experimented a whole lot with guys to know this was true all across the board. Male or female, I want to go deep. Male or female, I am attracted to intelligence, and that adds this piece to the puzzle. I am sapiosexual. That makes 3 labels on this situation. Bisexual, Demisexual, Sapiosexual. Quite the summary, yes? I think I will be able to identify with these 3 words for a very long time, they capture enough about this complex orientation situation.

Now, since I married a man, I get a lot of straight privilege. It is all well and good to come out on the internet but when I move in the world with my husband, we get straight privilege everywhere we go. There is nothing to be done about that except to acknowledge that because I married into a straight and not a lesbian relationship, I am not visible as Queer. I have mixed feelings about that because I want to always be in solidarity with my fellow LGBTQ folks. Since people assume I am straight, they often assume a level of homophobia is going on too. I can feel that. I despise that.

I grew up with a bisexual mother. She divorced my father when I was 10 and had a number of lesbian relationships after that. While I did not always like the people she chose, I always loved her and wanted her to be free to be herself. Since my mom is Queer and even participated in the SF Pride Parade, I knew about the ugliness of homophobia early on. I am not sure whether this made me less or more wary of living my authentic expression of self regarding my own queerness, but I am grateful to her for modeling that critical way of being true to herself. She is strong and amazing and I am so glad I saw that amazing strength lived out in a real way, 

In the meantime, I can live authentically and speak out for protection of my fellow LGBTQ people and support the fight for the rights fellow Queer folks deserve, the right to marry being just one right among many. Happy Pride Month, 2019!!

Silent Fingers

maybe her life was a comedy of errors

what rules dictated anything within the hours of her days?
what tiny stars shined light that bled through
the purple blue black blanket
of the sky
to show her they way? what was the way?
why had she been put into the form of a body
-such a primitive vehicle-
more times than she could count or remember?
what place can she hold
secretly between silent fingers
turning bright silver into gleaming gold?



-Imaya, 2015

Choice

every life is a unique expression of a multitude of energies. while this is true, much is being said about abortion, control and the right to choose. when I was little, my stroller had a sticker on it that said, "every child, a wanted child" and I learned about that early. the violence of forcing a woman to bring a pregnancy to term that she does not want or is not ready for is an unspeakable kind of violence. visiting this upon women and girls is atrocious and criminal. advocating for the unborn over the woman who would give birth makes so little sense it makes my head spin.

Lifting the clouds

for Flora Kiebert--

If I could whisper into your ear

I would hardly know where to start

I'd say I don't know how or why

but I understand your sadness

I'd ask about your existential crisis moments

so we could compare

I'd thank you for your humor

and the compassion

if only it could have soothed the anxiety

or lessened other symptoms you faced

If I could send whispers to your 

heart and mind

which created a salve that 

could erase that unique suffering

I would do so in an instant

I would wipe away your worries

I would soften all that prematurely 

hardened you

so you could live in a softer, more gentle 

and protected existence

all the shame and mystery around

mental illness would lift

like clouds that have somewhere else to be

I would see all the limitations that shackled you

silently

and use my private powers 

to set you fully free

I can be the solution

“You always were the fat one”

(Dedicated to Julia Miller)

And I leaned into my stunned silence
And I tried on new outfits of shame as
A byproduct of her words
When I heard her say it, I was too young
To realize it came from her own pain
It was a direct inheritance of her shame
How many times had she hated being in her own skin, after the meals she served and the comfort she provided had nourished her kin?
What is it, that turns Mothers and grandmothers against themselves, and then in turn, against their kin? Is it the
Misogyny woven into religions and cultural practices and countless messages from within families and from friends?

Who needs overt enemies when the forces that be have helped us build internal worlds hell bent on self abusing tactics?
Or is it a partly accidental and yet vitriolic fervor that runs rampant through our minds? Whatever the causes, I can be the solution. The power and devotional energy within me can transform not only the stinging left by her words but the pain and shame left behind by countless wounds within my female lineage, stretching back farther than we have records for.

I can embrace my own body, the miracle of its living strengths, the beauty from the combination of ancestral dna patterns which also give me the opportunity to experience human life. I can own the discomfort and insanity of being a woman in this world.

I can love the cells and dna in me that are literally a part of her living on inside me. I can love her unconditionally, in a way she probably never loved herself. I can own and heal the parts of me that have been fragmented but come back together in the space of love.

I can allow all those who really love me to also love her as she lives and becomes healed and whole inside of me. I can honor her in ways she would have never honored herself and in so doing, end unnecessary suffering.

whispers and love notes

It was a super moon. A full moon too, and it is Spring now. The wheel is turning. The seasons are changing.

I took the opportunity looming in front of me to have a ceremony, honoring this change. I included my stepdaughter and we let go of one thing and called in another thing.  That was the content of our ritual.

I called in radical self acceptance. I am sharing this because it connects to a bigger theme running through my life right now.

What I want now, regarding body image and health, is not in the physical world. It will and is starting to reside within me, in my everyday consciousness. I want to be a mirror for others to see exactly what they need to see for them to get the picture of deeply rooted self love.

I think what is important about this is that it is the kind of self love that allows me to fully, clearly and honestly love others in a way that they feel what it is they might be missing, so that they can find it!! and give it to themselves!!

The kind of self love and acceptance I am talking about is not shallow. It is not narcissistic. Far from it. It invokes the kind of higher, deeper love that we imagine God or the Goddess or Creator or Great Spirit etc. has for us. So we invoke this all the time. We invoke it when we are trying on clothes. We invoke when someone we see sparks jealousy in us. We invoke it when we are eating or trying not to eat.

And it does not stop all challenging moments from happening. It simply whispers to us, in critical moments, you are loved, you are wanted, you are worthy you are beautiful you are unconditionally celebrated. It whispers to us: You are a being whose value transcends this physical plane. The mirror cannot even reflect the enormity of your worth, beauty and value. This is always true, no matter what you see now or how you feel about yourself.

The whispers can get louder and you can say them aloud to yourself, when you are comfortable doing so. Or you can just hear them in your mind. You can write them down like little love notes for yourself.

Akashic Record Readings

I received some amazing information during a meditation to explore my own Akashic Record! The way I do it, I ask Spirit to show me in 3 manageable pieces what my Akashic identity has been and is. I do not use it to know anything for certain, just to explore so many possibilities that are swimming around. I find that it is better to let that be more of a mystery.
If this intrigues you, contact me at www.imayasmodalities.com and we can potentially set up a chance to do this kind of reading for you!

Generally, in a reading I will receive information in these 3 areas:

Past Lives on Earth

This current life

Potential aspects of Potential future timelines

Every reading is different, so it is good to keep an open mind about this practice.
It is not an exact science but rather and intuitive way of connecting to Source information and energy.