Spirituality and Orientation/Gender

[foxyshaman]

Originally Posted by Bit

I've been thinking about this. Yanno, I don't think people have to actually remember their individual past lives. I think sometimes there's just this sense of "who I am" and "who I should be" that comes through, even without past life memories... a soul sense, maybe.

My Dad knew who he was when he was born this time--that's how I know he's back--but I suspect that sense will fade. If it doesn't, then I suspect the little girl will have some strong tomboy tendencies, yanno? And I'll be interested to know how her life turns out and what parts of his past life have carried forward. He carried music in his soul like you carry Shamanism, and the new mother has named the baby Ella--my Dad adored Ella Fitzgerald, she was his favorite. I don't think this is a coincidence!--so will we see an incredible musician again, or will some other part of life come to the fore now?

What fascinates me is that my Dad was strongly indoctrinated with Christianity in his last life, and Ella lives in a Pagan family. Will Paganism give her a different way to understand gender? Will she have that knowing, that soul sense, that she was supposed to be a boy? Will she find a way to incorporate "man" and "woman" both into her life?

Maybe the soul sense will fade, and she will simply experience life as a feminine (or not) woman.

This is fascinating, yanno? I really hope I get to watch her grow up.

I absolutely agree with you that we do not have to remember our past lives in order to be affected by them. I accept that prior to entry we decide a great many things, right down to eye color and height. As an adopted child I struggled to find similarities in my family. I was very sprititually driven from a very young age. I came with my mystic tendancies fully activated. Soul sense is undeniable, at least in my reality it is.

It will be interesting to watch her grow up, and I too hope that you get to do that. It will be an interesting set of lessons to share with others, and hopefully understandings that you can take to your next life... providing you are coming back here. I love the Ella link.. just positively love it!!!

[Bit]

Originally Posted by foxyshaman

It has been exciting for me to actively seek the experiential aspects of Shamanism. I have pushed the boundaries, in my own ways, of gender and gender roles both in the physical world andin the spiritual world. I have found the the spirits don't really recognize gender assignments, such as strength, fortitude, compassion... rather they seem to expect the ability of the individual journeyor to transcend our preconceived notions of boundaries/gender.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

This is interesting. What I have found--remember, my experience is MUCH more limited than yours!--is that ghosts are generally gendered by their last lifetime as people or animals; for example, Margaret-Guardian-of-That-House remains not just female, but grandmotherly (I changed so much after I hit 50 that I'm almost willing to consider "Grandma" as a gender! lol, well, maybe Crone?). The animals who have come back to me as ghosts have come in a spirit form of their physical body, not always as the same species but always as the same sex, and the one who came back human was definitely gendered "girl/woman"... Maiden.

BUT the spirits that have chosen to work with me in my spiritual growth are different. They are not gendered in any way that fits my understanding of gender. Instead, they acknowledge my limits, my need to categorize, and they choose a gender for me to relate to so that awkwardness is reduced. In this case it is not gender that gets in the way of my spiritual growth, but lack of gender.

Originally Posted by foxyshaman

I absolutely agree with you that we do not have to remember our past lives in order to be affected by them. I accept that prior to entry we decide a great many things, right down to eye color and height. As an adopted child I struggled to find similarities in my family. I was very sprititually driven from a very young age. I came with my mystic tendancies fully activated. Soul sense is undeniable, at least in my reality it is.

It will be interesting to watch her grow up, and I too hope that you get to do that. It will be an interesting set of lessons to share with others, and hopefully understandings that you can take to your next life... providing you are coming back here. I love the Ella link.. just positively love it!!!

Lord love a GOOSE, Foxy, I dunno if I like that thought... does that mean I pre-decided to be fat?!

Oh.... wait a minnit... waaaaiiitttt jusssst a minnit... that one has possibilities.... No more guilt... "Oh, yes, I pre-decided my body size in order to accelerate the growth of humanity..." *snort*

Um. Okay, how come I have a nagging feeling this might actually be TRUE?! Did all us fat females make an agreement to change the world or something?!

Anyway, what I really wanted to answer was about coming back here, because that startled me. I used to be VERRRY firm that I. Was. Done. No more for me, please and thank you! I was DONE. I never ever wanted to be a helpless child AGAIN.

That's changed sometime in the past three years and I find myself taking it for granted that I will come back. I don't even know when it changed!

I do know that I hope to come back not just as a female, but as a Queer Femme, because I cannot imagine being the-me-who-I-am any other way. I think Spirit will have to be pretty convincing to get me to come back under any other circumstances.

Of course, there's 50 years of life to go before that bridge needs crossed... who knows how I'll change in the meantime!

[Venus007]

My spirituality and gender/orientation are related in that I believe that I am not only female but also the manifestation of an aspect of the divine or universal Feminine. I am the face of the Universe or of the great IS or Humanity to all the people I meet, or at least I strive to be. That face, for me is a feminine one. For me the divine is the mystery, the je ne sais quoi, the pi, the thirty three and a third, the shivery line between where the phenomena and the noumena meet, the Sophia. I believe that feminine and masculine are completely independent of biological designation. I do not believe in a god per say. My sexuality is tightly linked to my spirituality as I believe that orgastic ecstasy is a link to the divine, to enlightenment, to altered states of understanding, to the between space. As others have said before me, it is a struggle to articulate. I understand it perfectly but to describe it eludes me

[Bit]

Originally Posted by Venus007

....I believe that feminine and masculine are completely independent of biological designation.

Oh now, THIS is interesting... part of me says "No WAY!!" and another part of me says "yes, of course that's it!"

Ambivalent much, Cath? lol....

[Jett]

Speaking from my perspective, in my personal identity only.

As far as reincarnation, (and all purely in a hypothetical sense) when I was younger the thought crossed my mind that it would be likely if it existed that I was male in my previous life... my lady has made the comment as well. But that said I think it's perfectly natural for many people to be born with and/or develop strong dual energies that seemingly contrasts with bodily sex by societal standards .

These days I would say- again hypothetically- that if I had a past life it's just as likely I was gender non conforming... or fluidly gendered then too as I believe gender fluidity is natural thing and not a state of confusion created by a "spirits" or "souls" being binarily gendered and randomly tossed around (reincarnated) in different sexed bodies.

In other words I think it's society's pushing the (socially constructed) binary from day one that makes a fluid gender seem confusing to a person who is outside of what society deemed the only two norms.

In my life I've had a lot of struggles with "what am I". Speaking in the language available, within I'm distinctly of dual energy, yin and yang with a masculine slant in most areas and outer shell... yet it doesn't really trump the female energy, or outer markers... in most ways they are balanced and they are also one.

How has spirituality affected my views of my gender? I'm not sure it has. Only perhaps from my spiritual perspective and beliefs my "gender" feels simple, whole and natural, it's only from a societal, and human language perspective does it feel awkward.

Not sure I'm hitting on the mark of what you were asking for here Nat, but it's the first thoughts off the top of my head after skimming the thread (I'm pressed for time today).

Interesting thread (thumbs up),

Metro

[AtLast]

Personally, my seeking explanation, comfort, self-knowledge brought me to Jung very early and the Great Mother of Neuman as a spiritual base. Both fit together for me not only in the concepts of unconscious archtypes of the feminine as spirit, but because of gender duality. As I studied Jung & Neuman, I became comfortable with my body as a masculine woman- as Met brings up, not really gender conforming based upon societal norms. Just what worked for me and has held true for many years.

this is in regards to reincarnation. when i was young and furthur into my youth, i was convinced i was a boy. i was born 3 months premature. a friend of mine who has degrees in things metaphysical and who has studied the eastern religions extensively, says that i jumped the gulf too soon. in my past life i might have been male or at least an amazonian dyke. but despite lessons from school on anatomy and getting my period (what a shock!), i remained convinced in one way that i was male. oddly enough, i accepted the role in my family's matriarchal tradition that i was female but somehow that co-existed with the notion that i was also a boy. i remained bi-gendered through college, despite being attracted primarily to butches. never to biologically BORN males. to FtMs, yes. but i never acted as a butch, even though my dress was androgenous or almost male. unless a person paid attention to my voice or my gestures (very femme), they would assume that i was a teenage boy. then came my epiphany! one day in my mid-twenties, i wandered into this boutique that sold FLAX and FLAX-type woman's clothing. despite myself, i tried on a blue natural fabric skirt and shirt. i looked in the mirror. something went, "click." i bought them and several other articles of clothing-dresses, skirts, etc. i went home and kept looking at myself in the mirror. YES! i WAS a girl! finally my gestures, voice and appearance harmonized! iwas NOT a boy-i was a grrl! i called my best friend and told her i was wearing a dress. she came rushing over to see for herself. she had been trying to tell me over the years but never could convince me that i was in fact a femme. now i believed, i believed. THAT was the reason i could not swagger! THAT was the reason the my hand around a tea-cup resembled a mudra! THAT was the reason that despite my boyish appearance, butches looked at me knowingly-and that i loved their knowing look! i never became a high femme or even a classic femme. i was always the bohemian, in natural fabrics but now dresses, now perfume...i still don't know how i turned out femme instead of butch. buti did and i am and oh, so glad! thank Tao, Goddess, Universe that i am femme and butches always knew!
that is my reincarnation story!
pres

[swagger]

Great thread. First I thought "no" then laughed hard at myself. I reject mascuine and feminine as gender labels. I'm a buddhist. And that's pretteh damn pomo and label-shy *grin*

So actually - YES!