Title: Skeptical Mystic

Gender: Transgender (ftm)

Age: 43

Sun Sign: Libra

Chinese Sign: Fire Horse

Location: Portland, OR

I'm different…just like everybody else.

I spend a lot of time thinking about things that I will probably never comprehend. I'm slowly learning to be OK with the noncomprehension part of it.

I believe that the universe is guided by an intrinsic intelligence. An intelligence that has a sense of humor…sometimes a beautifully freaky and gently sardonic sense of humor. I appreciate the absurdity in life; sometimes the most absurd moments are also the most transcendent and profound, and capture that ineffable so-ness of truth. I'd like to think that realizing enlightenment doesn't mean losing your sense of irony.

I like to take photographs of pretty flowers, interesting trash, and rusty metal, among other things. Beauty is where you look for it.
You can see some of my photos here at Flickr.

I ride a bicycle everywhere. Well, not indoors.

I am a transgendered male, or FTM. I lived the first 35 years of my life as a female, although I was never very good at it. Through surgery and hormones, my body has become more congruent with my mind and spirit. To me, this is not so much an end in itself as it is another step in the process of becoming an integrated and actualized human. I'm still working on that.

I believe that the ultimate answers can be found within. And yet, I keep trying to find them in books. I think I must just enjoy reading books. Actually, I'm not really looking for answers in books (because most of them just say the same thing), just inspiration, comfort, guidance, and occasionally affirmation that I'm on the right track.

I've found a lot of valuable wisdom and solace in many different sources. However, I've never felt like setting up camp anywhere in particular. I need to find my own way. Once someone asked me if I was “spiritually directed”. I said, “I'm spiritually meandering.”

I tend to be a hermit, but I still welcome the company of kindred spirits and fellow travellers who are going in the same general direction. Bonus points for secret saints, compassionate misanthropes, mad scientists, truck-driving Yodas, and anyone else who appreciates a good paradox.

I call myself a Skeptical Mystic. If you're curious about what that means, you can learn more here: http://www.dailyafflictions.com/index.html .
The Church of Skeptical Mysticism, along with Taoism, is one of the few spiritual schools I'm comfortable claiming any affiliation with. I'd call it a disorganized religion. What Skeptical Mysticism means to me is that I know that there's a lot I don't know, but I'm not content to fill in the gaps with received knowledge; I'm holding out for a direct experience of the truth. I'm also holding out for a bridge between scientific empiricism and spirituality.  I am full of doubts and existential angst, but rather than trying to subdue them, I accept them as part of my path. I embrace the void.

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More Links:

The Tao Te Ching, translated by Ron Hogan
Ron Hogan's humorous and contemporary translation.

The Flow and the Power of Good
Another adaptation of the Tao Te Ching, by Sonja Elen Kisa

Church of the Churchless
“Preaching the Gospel of Spiritual Independence”

A Course in Consciousness
Consciousness explained by a physics professor

Boing Boing
Weird, amazing, and geek-tastic diversions and current events


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Silent friend of many distances, feel
how your breath enlarges all of space.
Let your presence ring out like a bell
into the night. What feeds upon your face

Grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered.
Move through transformation, out and in.
What is the deepest loss that you have suffered?
If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine.

In this immeasurable darkness, be the power
that rounds your senses in their magic ring,
the sense of their mysterious encounter.

Member Since: Monday, February 11 2008

Last Visit: 312 days ago.

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