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“Forest of Color“ by | Zach Doehler

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This concept of a “guru” comes from Hindu religion and Indian culture. There are other cultures and belief systems that may have a similar outlook about the need for a teacher. This person may be called a rabbi, mentor, leader, prophet, pastor, guide, spiritual teacher, etc.

Much of what humans would designate as one being “true” or “called” as opposed to others is often associated with socially accepted moral behavior and ethics. Perhaps an accepted level of knowledge, education and/or life experience would need to accompany these standards as well. Should one fall below these standards of socially and morally accepted behavior and ethics, the validity of the individual’s calling and position is then likely called into question.

We would like to bring your attention away from this construct to tap into a wider view of what a potential guru might be in your life that you could be overlooking…

Life often has a different way of guiding us to lessons and truth. Sometimes, it will come “packaged in a bow” through the people that we believe match the ethics and standards we mentioned above, other times, we will learn from a series of individuals and experiences, helping us to arrive at the same end point as the individual who had the teachers and gurus that were ideal according to that person’s cultural, religious and spiritual standards.

So, will we cease to lean into the lesson with the lover who taught us about good boundaries that called us to create them in the series of bad experiences? Perhaps we will overlook the homeless person who told us to be kind because they were dressed in rags and appeared to not have their life together. Maybe a lesson of channeling our anger appropriately will be missed from the reaction and experience we had with our children because they were not learned enough and wise enough to our liking at the time and dressed in the garb of a rabbi, elder or prophet.

The gurus appear when we need them to, but maybe because they do not adhere to our own or society’s acceptable standards of what a true guru or teacher is, we dismiss the lessons they are teaching us. We are not saying you should never seek out a specific teacher to learn from. We are saying, if you self-reflect and open yourself up to see the wisdom of the Universe, perhaps you will realize that a true guru (who has met your standards and sometimes not) has always appeared when you really needed one.

Namaste…

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( <= green bean

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An autumn hike.

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An American robin (Turdus migratorius) in Canada

by Carol Berney

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by Alaskan pup

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Very colorful wolf!🌈🐺

I love drawing wolves🩶

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god loves me mostly

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I just finished this kinda massive coyote painting today!! Going to enter it in the Edmonds Art Festival. This photo I took of it is not great, I’m going to try again later. But for now, here it is!

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Enchanted-Forest Explore..

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It's hard to believe that anymore when the world feels like it's plunging towards fascism.

How do you think they got there? They didn't stand loud and proud and say that they're facists, they went underground and plotted. Just because we didn't see them all these years didn't mean they weren't laying the groundwork for a facist takeover. It's what happens when you chase your enemies out of the light - without adequately challenging the beliefs they have and eradicating their networks, they can build back and come back stronger.

In the meantime, we can lay the groundwork for our own takeover. Trans (and some neurodivergent) people can survive off of the networks that used to exist (back when being LGBT+ was illegal) and have been created since then but for people like us, we need to work on putting down the groundwork for our own.

What we need to do is work towards building better communities, live communities, supportive communities. The plural community is fragmented, and we don't even have live meetups. We can't support each other when there isn't even a foundation for support.

Downplay ourselves a little too. It's easier to take over when your opponents don't see you as a threat, when they think you're a goofy role player instead of a serious plural, when they think you're going through a phase instead of actually trans or gay. Use that to our advantage, help those that need help if they can't get it from those around them. (I'm aware not everyone can or wants to hide or downplay themselves, but if it doesn't bother you to do it you can use it to your advantage, and support those who can't hide as well.)

We also need to support each other, plurals and neurodiverse and trans and otherkin and weird. There's too much infighting and divisiveness in the communities, when really we should be supporting each other. Even if someone has an opinion completely contrary to yours, as long as you're working towards the same goal, you should be allies in this fight.

Lastly, many (Abrahamic) religions look down on plurality because of its association with demons and witchcraft. But why can't we be accommodated for in these texts? If you're plural and Christian, Jewish, Muslim, any religion I haven't mentioned, work on finding ways plurals are accepted by these religion's texts or books. New spiritualities can also be created to accommodate us, and in many cases, there are communities that do support plurality or plural-like beliefs. This can help us get a little more integrated with mainstream culture, at least as a way of existence people should respect.

I don't think it's hopeless. We've just been going about it the wrong way.

Maybe the future isn't plural...

It's hard to believe that anymore when the world feels like it's plunging towards fascism. People will believe whatever billionaires believe. Billionaires control the media. Billionaires can funnel tons of cash into AI bots to make it look like they have the majority of the population on their side. And billionaires can use their algorithms to hide anyone who they don't agree with.

I don't know how we can compete with that. And I know the fascists are not targeting plurals specifically. But any plural rights movement necessitates trans and neurodivergent rights.

And I don't see that happening in a world where more people voted for Trump over Kamala Harris, and even Democrats have been turning against trans people.

A world where so much of our media is controlled by a few who are all more than happy to bend the knee to fascists.

I worry that my whole "the Future is Plural" thing has gone from something that I felt was inevitable to the naive bluster of someone who still hasn't realized they've lost.

Maybe there will never be a day when plurals can exist as plurals publicly. A day when we won't have to hide who we are.

And all that I can think is just... How fucking unfair that would be!

How many plurals throughout history were forced to repress their headmates? How many convinced until the day that they died that their headmates were evil demons or hallucinations or something else?

How many millions of lives of plurals have been destroyed by cultures that treat them as crazy or demonic?

Don't we deserve to be able to live is whoever we want? Free from prejudice? Free from having to live in somebody else's head in order to actually be accepted?

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"Wolf Song" by woodcarver Ron Layport. Sycamore. 2012.

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Beaver supermoon.

(November 15, 2024)