Category: transformation

Totems

After an otherworldy dream last night, I was told to “follow my nose”, again. The voice spoke up at various times today – choose a different thought, a different way of responding, a different way of expressing myself; if even the slightest change in nuance, if even with just one word, and see. So I listened and did what it said.

Later in the day I was driving to pick something up, and on my way the voice said, “go that way”, so I took a detour. As I drove up the steep hill I happened upon a sign ‘Unitarian Universalist Church, this way’, so I followed the arrow on a steep right turn further up. “What a nice surprise, I didn’t know this church was out here” I thought. The gate to the driveway was open so I went through and up, just to see the view from the top of the hill. Empty parking lot of course, all doors closed as I figured, only signs of love.

Then I drove back down to the gate, and in the five minutes I’d decided to get out of my car at the church and look around, someone had closed the gate, and padlocked it. My car and I were trapped and the sun was about to start going down. I looked back up the hill towards the church and in the distance saw an elderly man, with a dog. I drove back up to him thinking “oh please let him be an employee,” in hopes he’d be able to let me out. No he was just a neighbor on a walk, he said. He didn’t notice the gate close either. He could walk around it, but no car could get out.

I was about to turn my car around to go back down to think about what I could possibly do or if there was a number to call. But before I turned, “can’t see, is your dog near my car?” as I didn’t want to risk hitting it. He said “dog? oh no, that’s a coyote, see look there he is”. I turned around and saw, very close, standing on the edge of the hill, the first and only coyote I’ve ever seen in Marin. He looked at me and, almost as fast as I got to contemplate him, then he took leave of us over the edge and out of sight. I knew then, ah, that’s why I came up here, and that’s why the gate closed me in, and that’s why that man was here; so I could see that coyote. I was freed from the iron gate ten minutes later. The how doesn’t matter.

Then I came across this poem by David Whyte:

RUNNING TO SEE THE MOON

I will become
the madman running
to see the moon
in the window,

the hawk
I saw tracing the cliff edge
above the river.

I will be the man
I have pursued all along
and finally caught.

I will be
all my intuitions
and all my desires
and then I will walk
slowly down the steps
as if dressed in white
and wade into
the water
for a second baptism.

I will be like
someone who cannot
hide their love
but
my joy will
become ordinary
and everyday
and like a lover
I will find out
exactly what it is like
to be the happiest,
the only one in creation
to really understand
how much,
I’m just
a hair’s breadth
from dying.

Waking Up to Mars

The day we awoke to a dark red, ashened sky a couple of weeks ago, I was asked to write from a one word prompt – Beauty.

Beauty

“Oh my God it’s so beautiful”, you are so beautiful, we are so beautiful. These words ring through me when I’m asked about beauty. Instant gasp, dipped in a reservoir of feeling that surpasses the body.

The dog that is God that I’m taking care of now, my little big gift of love, the greatest task I could think of; to be the guardian of such a sweet, calming spirit. Of course he takes care of me is the trade, an unspoken understanding in each other’s presence. I sit here in the most comfy chair imaginable, in someone else’s house I’m also taking care of.

This unexpected welcome, another light in the storm all around me, made mostly of wood; the essence of family, my family the trees that never let me down. I grieve for my giants who honor me with oxygen and protection, the hundreds of years that some of them have lived. I breathe in and taste their ashes, as I will for my loved ones when they die.

There is a fireplace here, to the right of my comfy chair as Teddy dog sleeps in my lap, and I realize I’ve had this. I’ve imagined a living room just like this, a place I’ve been in my mind that represents all that I’d love to find. I notice what I’ve been given, if even so fleetingly, and say thank you again to life.

As I lay my head back to rest it in the chair, Teddy lightly snoring and vibrating through me, in robe and socks, herbal tea to my side, ready to sip, I look out the window to the morning fog outside. Just white grey and green, only the trees can be seen, the survivors.

How many survivors of uglyness there are, all of us living and bursting through it. The unstoppable grace of forced surrender.

I’ve barely listened to music in the last few months, so strange and unlike me, as quiet soothes me now more than ever. Everything has changed, as we all ask, who am I really? But all I need do if a cry is in order, which it is almost daily it seems, is play ‘Let it Be”. Without fail every time, that same sensation, being smacked and shakened by beauty. A sound, a vision, chest expanse of feeling, and there it is again. A vastness of wisdom that hovers outside my thinking mind, touching something else to bring the tears.

What is it? There is no way of understanding while we remain here in this life, where it comes from that is without words to describe. That instant reaching down into the cellars of truth that pierces the heart and floods awe through.

Today I wonder why so few things pop up when I’m asked about beauty. Maybe it’s because I’m so moved all the time lately. A bluebird just hopped onto the deck outside! You see? The tightness of fear that I feel in the world, in the masked faces and shares and voices everywhere, in the expression of “help I don’t know what to do”. Such acute awareness of Living. There’s no turning back and no clear way forward. So we float in the smoke of limboland, in the tension of suspension above quicksand below.

I saw a man trying to break another world record, this time being the first to go highest of all. Up up in a balloon to the ceiling of Earth, then just past the borderline and into the stars. The breath of the trees was no longer there, as he floated on the precipice of space and no air. There he was, holding on now with just one arm, above the abyss of the planet below. Basecamp through his headphones says “anytime”, and suddenly, he let go. Just a man free falling from the great unknown, into his own arrival, down, down, down. As we all hold our breath, for a parachute that shows the way.

This is my life I think, as I watch him fall. Will he land? Will he survive? I don’t know, but I do. He touches ground, he made it. “We made it through” we will say, on the other side of all this. I don’t want to forget, the beauty of purgatory, as I hang in the clouds with the world and cry.

Stop and Listen

Stop trying to find your purpose. “But how will I find it if I don’t try?” You’re living it right now.

Stop trying to be positive all the time. “Then I’ll go crazy and be surrounded by darkness!” How do you know? When you have a day or two to yourself, just let the awful, exhausted, depressed,  sad feelings come up, and cry it out if you can, for as long as it takes for something new to come in. It’s trying to, but your insistence on denying your dark feelings isn’t letting it.

Stop comparing, with anyone else or with who you think you should be. “But how will I do anything, then I’ll just do nothing!” Really? You’re doing something now, by listening to me.

Stop trying to impress people. Stop needing to be understood. Just express who you are, just to yourself, or to the world. Or don’t.

“Ok, now what?”

You’ll be happy in moments and then you won’t. You’ll suffer in moments and then you won’t. You’ll fall into despair and then something will change. You’ll be renewed with faith, then you’ll start yet again.

Deaf to our own whisper that knows, drowned out and hidden, in webs of contradiction, by everyone else’s voices, and the false critics of our own, incessant talking and asking, criticizing and doubting, stifling the wisdom that’s hidden in plain sight.

The whisper waits, inside the heart, outside the barriers, for a break in the thunder.

And there it speaks, breathing relief, into the form that houses it’s grandeur:

“You don’t know the power of You, but I do,
I am here and I will never leave,
in every thought and every feeling, I know who you really are,
you don’t need to be anything else at all,
it’s ok, be afraid, discomfort won’t kill you,
it’s ok, go insane, you won’t really, I’m with you,
your Light is brighter than a million Suns,
if you die in this instant you have already won,
however you are is perfectly You,
When the moment arrives, you’ll know what to do,
it could be tonight, tomorrow or next year,
but you’ll always be free, I will always be here.”

You let go and accept, “thank you, I feel you near”

The whisper responds “now, here’s an idea…”

Lost and Found

A few weeks ago I had a nightmare. In it, I was that person I’ve been running away from my whole life. You know the one. The person you don’t want to be, the one you dread lives inside you, the one you don’t want anyone else to see. The one, in our worst moments, we’re terrified we might end up becoming. The “failure” who looks back and sees a pile of regrets. That is the person, the nightmare, that I was living in this dream.

I was in some drab, dark house with vague people around me and a long hallway. The feeling was that I was a “loser”. (To me there’s really no such thing, but nightmares take no prisoners.) I had zero self esteem, hated my job, myself and my life. (If ever there was a time to be confronted with our worst fears, a Pandemic fits the bill).

Someone asked me to foster a litter of newborn kittens, just for a few weeks, then they would come back for them. All I had to do was take care of them until then. I said yes and put them in a room at the end of the hall.

In the next moment, it was three weeks later and suddenly I realized “oh my God, the kittens!”. I had completely forgotten about them the entire time, as soon as I’d shut the door. In that moment was the most heartwrenching pain and realization, they had all starved to death, and now I had to go see what I’d done. I ran down the hallway crying and screaming “Nooooo! I’m so sorry!” I opened the door, horrified at what I would find. There were large pillows and sheets and blankets everywhere. I didn’t see any of them and started frantically throwing the pillows off and looking under the blankets.

And one by one, they each crawled out from under, toward me, alive! Tiny little malnourished meowing things, but oh Holy Glorious Day they were alive! I swooped each of them up, smothering them with kisses, “oh god my dear little one I am so sorry, thank you for living for me”. Then I woke up, crying tears of joy and relief. Relief that they survived, that I didn’t cause their deaths, and of course that it was all just a terrible nightmare. I wasn’t that person after all, who was so ashamed and guilty. Thank you thank you thank you. I had another chance.

We’ve been battling our worst case scenarious throughout this Age of Quarantine, in a limbo between worlds. The time has come and we can feel it, something huge is being birthed. It is now upon us. Yet Quarantine is our holding pattern, between the old self and the new.

In real life, there has been a stray kitty showing up on occasion around my block. I hadn’t seen it, but about six months ago my housemate had been woken up every night for a week with scratching at her window. She caught a glimpse of what she thought could be a kitten, as it was small, and it would run away each time she’d open the window. We had to get the landlord to install little animal resistant rubber spikes to the roof tiles near her window. After that, the kitty did not return. When I mentioned it to my neighbor, she said it sounded like the same cat that she occasionally sees on her back porch. It would run whenever she got near it.

I secretly hoped I might come across it myself sometime and try to rescue it too. Well, a few weeks after that nightmare, I was in my living room about to do my exercises. I’d resolved to have this daily practice during the lockdown, my dancer training, my yoga, my rituals, and had brought my computer to the dining room table for the videos I use for inspiration. When I opened the computer, I was facing the front window to the lawn and trees out front. And when I looked out, I saw a cat in a tree! I instantly went out to it, doubting it would come down, could this be that same cat I’d hoped to see?

I walked towards the tree, I called up to it, “hello there sweetie” and it meowed back at me. Then, lo and behold it came running down the tree and right over to my feet. A scrawny, and quite exotic looking little thing. It reminded me of a lynx, it was gray and black, with white chest and paws just like my own cat, and a white streak on it’s forehead. I picked it up and it did not struggle but instead just let me hold it. I thought, “ok, you’re coming in with me”. I had a feeling it was a she.

She jumped up on the kitchen counter and looked around, but when my housemate’s cat suddenly screeched and lunged at her, she ran into the pantry closet and hid in the corner behind some grocery bags. She had turned her back to me, facing the wall, and hissed and growled at me when I got close. “I’m sorry, I know you trusted me, and now you think I’ve betrayed you”. I put my housemate’s cat upstairs in his room, put water and food down next to kitty and closed the door to let her relax. I texted my housemate a picture, “oh yes, that’s the cat!” she said. I then put ads on Nextdoor and Craigslist and asked a bunch of neighbors if they were missing a cat. No, I waited overnight, nothing.

I’d gone back several times to check on her and she later stopped growling and let me pet her. I felt bonded to her already and was starting to feel a sadness that I couldn’t keep her. If my housemate’s cat wasn’t here, my own cat is a gentle soul, I likely would have. The next day I took her to the Humane Society, who’d assured me they’d check for a chip, and if nobody claimed her she’d be put up for adoption. They said they wouldn’t euthanize.

I put her in my cat crate and we got in the car. As we drove, I talked to her and sang to her “it’s all going to be okay”. When I parked, before going in, sitting in the car, I let her out of the crate and took her in my arms. She held on and nuzzled into my neck and shoulder, while straightening up and looking out with bright eyes at the big wide world; comforted yet dying to explore it.

I took her in and put her on the counter. They scanned for a chip, there was none. I filled out the intake form and asked if they could let me know what sex it was. They’d take her inside and the vet would check. “And do you think she’s a kitten?” I asked. “No, she’s fully grown, she’s just small”. I then said goodbye to her, and let her go, into a protected world of tameness. Now she was safe, but I’d taken something sacred away from her. They came back to say, “she’s a girl”.

The next day, I saw they’d posted a picture of her on the website, under ‘lost and found’. There she was, being taken good care of by loving humans. I’ve looked at her photo a lot since then, wanting to absorb her fierce, adventurous, mysterious energy into me.

My lucky number, the number I constantly see in moments of significance, and my birthday number, is 22. When I got back to the car that day and looked at the receipt of her intake form, on the top right corner there it was. She was number 22.

I rescued her from the wild. But did I? Is that what she wanted? I’ll never know, and part of me wants to take her back and set her free. She rescued me, from a fear I no longer need. Thank you sweet, beautiful creature, for showing up just in time. For leading me into the new wild, the new frontier, with grace, innocence and strength. Your spirit lives in me now. I will need it. And I promise, I will use it.

Masks

I sense that all of us are intensely craving, more than ever, the need to be REAL. So many little hints in people’s posts of their pain but we’re too afraid and feel too vulnerable to talk about it. So many stifled tears in the dark.

Spirit can only suppress it’s nature for so long. The Mask is suffocating us. The dam is breaking. I want you to know – if you’re hiding from life, and yourself, I get it. Most of us are, sometimes or mostly, in one way or another. I see you and love you. Who the hell are we and what the hell is going on?

I’m giving less and less of a shit about how I’m perceived. Whether we’re in a dynamic and positive phase, “manifesting”, and sharing it, and yes let’s be real, wanting recognition that we’re ok after all; or if we’re in the darkest pit imaginable, we all just want to be loved.

We don’t actually know where to go, what to do or who to be. But we’re not supposed to. How could we? That’s the play. I have ideas but who knows. All I can do is put one foot, one voice, one feeling in front of the other. And yet, I’m in my own corner. When it comes down to it, as much as we all want community, friends, loved ones, you need yourself more.

Express something you’re afraid to but must, because it hurts not to. Admit something you’ve long ignored. Turn to your own self too, in love and mercy. I’ve had some beautiful days and terrible nights. And so it goes. I suffer and I rejoice in all of it, goddamn it all to heaven.

The Bottom Half

img_20190704_0855530148156238255669602262.jpg

“To sin by silence, when we should protest, makes cowards of us all.”
-Abraham Lincoln

Donate, protest, keep sharing, exposing and doing what you can. Do the right thing, don’t look away.

That is the top half of freedom. The bottom half hides in a dark well, looking up. Another kind of protest, a quiet conviction FOR something, a belief, a knowing that burns truth and passion into your soul. The thing, or things, the parts of yourself that fascinate and excite you, and scare the shit out of you. The heartfires you want to pursue, the love you want to surrender to, the power you want to inhabit. But you’re afraid to admit it and say it out loud, especially to yourself. Because once you do, you will have to do something about it. It commands your attention. And you know that if you ignore it, you won’t be able to live with yourself.

Eckart Tolle said that his life changing moment came when he heard the words “I can’t live with myself any longer”. The awakened question appeared, “who is the ‘I’ that I can’t live with?”

Who is the ‘I’ that’s talking to the little suffering self that I think is me?

To feel that ‘I’, that voice, the entity that’s watching, is to know it surrounds you and IS you at the same time. That voice, that feeling, knows who you are and what you’re here to be. It speaks louder and feels stronger than who you’re not, while the skittering monkeymind self runs around in a junkyard, trying to drown it out. It bangs on cans and spins circles in the garbage with distractions and arguments. But the “I” inside and all around is incessantly still and patient. It only wants your emergence out of illusion. And it won’t shut up, ever.

The trials of life, and resistance to them, of giving up and starting over, and over again, through it all I begin to hear more of what this other “I” tells me. Especially when what it’s saying pisses me off; because dammit I can’t escape it. The truth has a funny way of backing us into a corner. It nags you in the back seat, and floats around in your depths. Pull it up and to the front, let it breathe fresh air. Fight, thrash and cry with it. Your tears unleash it and will calm you down. The feelings felt, the words finally spoken, this other “I” moves in and takes charge.

Drive where it tells you, take the lid off the well. There’s nowhere to go but beyond what you were. Hidden in dark water, asleep in the dirt; you’ll wake up to the sky, in the garden.

Set Yourself Free

img_20190617_1547513485008648911394255671.jpg

“Grief is the price we pay for love.”

Heartbreak. Is it worth it? Yes. The person you’ll become by being a willing participant in life, in diving into the mysteries of your heart, is why you’re here. You can’t know who you are by staying shut down and afraid to be vulnerable. It’s an honor to feel with such intensity, depth, and enormity that you think it might kill you. Some spend their whole lives only knowing the painful numbess of their own repression. You could die tomorrow, in the prison of your own making. That is the real killer. Don’t waste this life regretting that you didn’t honor the gifts you were given. Not just your talents, but your deepest expression of connection. Most especially in the terrifying, exquisite dance of intimacy between two hearts.

When love arrives, in whatever strange form it does, allow it to do to you what it will. Even in surprising friendships, connections with animals, familial bonds, or passionate human desiring, love is your greatest teacher. One of it’s infinite lessons is to remind you that you had it all along. The Wizard behind the curtain is you.

To survive your biggest fears, the simplest answer, and most difficult endeavor, is to love yourself first. Above all else. And to forgive yourself for every fall back. Not just once, not just on paper, but as an ongoing practice. It is not a meme, or a self help quote, or an overused platitide, or a nice concept. When taken in, when surrendered to, it can never be overstated. It is the key to the door you’re afraid to open. It is your mission. With love of your own beautifully imperfect self, you can venture through the treacherous wilderness of the world, and relationships. That sword of Self Love cuts through the bullshit. It burns straight into the core of your life and unearths the treasure that you came here to find.

Love is the calling, fear is the challenge. Accept regardless and step out into the deep. They go hand in hand as the soulmates of your life. Trust is the boat that carries them. Don’t watch it go by. Get on board.

Just Say It

img_20190615_1706456046009080843378458882.jpg

What is going on? Night before last, one of the best of my life, made my day. But last night, I dreamt I was with a friend and we came into her home to find her dog slaughtered on the kitchen floor. Yet not all the way dead, still breathing, and looking at us “why did you let this happen to me?” What the holy hell. One of the worst nightmares I’ve ever had.

Maybe it was because I’d just seen a clip of a pig being slaughtered, as the USDA just made news yesterday by reinstating “high speed pig slaughter”, one of the most brutal and horrifying deaths a sentient being could have. And thus, the thought of this kind of cruelty being done to gentle, intelligent, innocent pigs, cows and chickens too, and baby cows and chicks and piglets, by the billions every day, and accepted, and hidden within mainstream society; the utter insanity of this melted into my subconscious and I had a dream that it was right in front of me. Thus I was personally devastated by it.

As I am in my waking life, we are all impacted, whether consciously or not, by the depraved industry that is animal agriculture. The horror was not new to me. The first time I started seeing any of it, finally let myself sit through the undercover videos, was about eight years ago. It haunted my dreams then too.

I’ve shared “annoying/extreme vegan activist” stuff, simply the truth behind the lies, on facebook more consistently lately when I feel I must say something, but not for awhile. Right now though, instead of going to work-out and get on with my day, I’m compelled again to share these things. That nightmare was telling me something that I’m still trying to put my finger on. Maybe it’s partly, say what the hell you want to say in this life. Not just about politics, animal rights, spirituality, the environment, oppression of all kinds, but your own story especially.

Speak on anything that’s important, to you! Risk being in the minority, getting criticized and ridiculed, being ignored. In the end, what does it matter? Do I want to live my life being safe, and only sharing things that are easy for people to hear because then I’ll be liked and approved of by everyone? Great. That may temporarily satisfy the ego, but it kills the soul. I need to be liked and approved of by my own self first. And that means being honest. I am love and light, and grief and guilt, and self doubting and fearful, sometimes embarrased and regretful and sometimes there is shame.

But the more I listen and ask myself, what feels right to do, to say? Not for the attention, not to be seen, or liked, but because it’s why I’m here, I can at least know I’m being who I came here to be. Then the joy and inspiration and wanting to share that returns too, because I honored the times when the opposite feelings just needed to be felt; and expressed. No matter who doesn’t like it.

After I wrote and shared about this and other animal issues yesterday, I went to a fitness class in the afternoon.  A woman behind me had this piglet tattoo on her calf; and the woman right next to me was wearing a shirt, with a large photo of her dog that covered her entire chest. The dog’s face had the same eyes, looking at me in my nightmare from the night before. And that affirmation was so much better than a like or a comment. The approval of Spirit, telling me to keep saying what I must, is all I need.

Suspended Stars

Reach up and pull yourself down into your body. Let it explore the dull ache, grab hold of it and ask, “what are you”? Feel the stiffness of that clay of pain, mix it up, immerse yourself, swim around, and mold it into something new. Like a lover, it’s only wanting your touch. And it swoons when you ask questions. “What are you covering up and keeping quiet with the fake smile, the extra bite of food, the extra drink, too much Netflix, too many selfies? What are you saying no to? And what are you ignoring?”

Another endless scroll through your life won’t find that scratch to your elusive itch. There will be moments, if you’re one of the lucky ones (you are), but never a whole day. Why is that so unfair? It’s not. It’s exactly right, it’s exactly you. You wrote this script in the sky. Then plopped yourself into your Mama’s belly, to bathe in amnesia. You can’t know the end of the story because there isn’t any. You can only know what you came here to remember; the tragic, hilarious truth.

The doors have been open the whole time. You can get out whenever you want. The prison you think is your limitation, your unworthiness, your inherent flaw, doesn’t exist. You designed this maze called your life, glorious drama and brilliant comedy that it is, because it’s too boring to know the Truth all the time. You had to forget, for the thrill of remembering what’s now projecting onto the screen. You see yourself, shimmering with faith and dimming with doubt. You’re the writer, director, producer, Star. Suspending nirvana so you can dance in flesh. Unraveling you, only to discover, you’re God too. And Shakespeare, and Dr Seuss, laughing at the book signing, “look at all those silly angels in line, waiting for autographs when they can just sign their own books”.

(photo by Adam White)

The Angel Gabriel, and Freddie

Gabe

Some people, living and dead, known in this life or only known of, come into our lives in a flash and leave an indelible mark on who we are.

A couple years ago I went to a movie and beforehand there was a trailer for a new documentary. Within a few seconds, I got a lump in my throat. But something in me didn’t want to go there, so my mind quickly swept it out. “Oh my god, it’s Gabe”. The doc is called ‘Strike a Pose’, about the male back-up dancers who performed with Madonna during her 1990 world tour, and their lives now. They had also been part of a documentary about the tour that came out back then, called ‘Truth or Dare’. They were having a rollicking good time in that one, lots of backstage antics, six of them were gay, one of them straight. I saw it in the theater when it came out, 25 years ago.

Then a few months later I came across a co-worker’s post on Facebook, about a new documentary he’d just seen on Netflix, ‘Strike a Pose’. Within seconds, that lump came back. “Oh Gabe. Someone has finally told your story, thank God”. I decided it was time to watch it. The doc shows the lives of Madonna’s back-up dancers now. She had picked each of them, only seven, out of thousands who auditioned. And the guy I was secretly in love and lust with in my junior year of high school was one of them. His name was Gabriel Trupin. We were both in the dance department at School of the Arts in San Francisco. I had switched high schools three times already (moving, chaos and being a teenager, the perfect storm) and when I arrived it was the spring semester of my Junior year.

I was a ballet dancer for the most part before this, had done some jazz, but this school’s program was much more contemporary. Lyrical modern and jazz were the focus, with a little hip hop thrown in. I was a loner and fairly miserable in my own skin, but this way of expressing myself was much more freeing and a welcome relief. When I stepped foot in that studio for class and then rehearsal, I immediately zeroed in on this beaming light of manly beauty and talent. Gabe was a vision to behold. He was so beautiful to look at, tall, lean but muscular, and dark, could have been a GQ model. That type had never done much for me, mainly because I had yet to encounter (from my teen angst and insecurity perspective) a guy who looked like that who would ever notice me, much less be real and nice. It wasn’t that he was so gorgeous to look at, nor his joy and natural skill when he danced. It was his essence; he was a beautiful human being. I came to see that he was humble, sweet and paid attention to the unpopular, awkward ones. He was the star, the teachers loved him, and he was all MAN. The girls got giddy and nervous in his presence, I was no exception. The other guys in class of course just wanted to be him.

We didn’t talk much in the brief time I knew him, but in all our interactions I felt seen, and dancing alongside him was like dancing with a flame. And he was kind and gentle. And he knew something. He was calm. He didn’t have to try, he was greatness already.

I found out years later that he had died of AIDS. I didn’t even know he was gay. Apparently nobody did, and he had a girlfriend in high school who loved him so much. Madonna refused to edit out the footage of him kissing another man, after he begged her to. He was outed on the big screen, then found out soon after that he had contracted AIDS. Tragedy can be such a horrendously beautiful thorn in the heart.

Last month I had a job working in the AIDS Memorial Grove, an annual fundraiser in Golden Gate Park. Gabe’s name is engraved there. The spiral path illuminates, the trees grow taller. My Mom’s best friend from childhood, a girl, was also named Gabriel. I’d always associated that name with goodness, with helping buds to blossom.

Recently I went to see ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, the new film about Queen and Freddie Mercury. I cried tears of sadness and love and inspiration I hadn’t felt in a long time. When I think of Gabe I feel those same things. Both Gabe and Freddie gave me goosebumps and here I am writing about them. They are still being of service to me, telling me it’s ok to be more of who I really am. When they pop into my awareness, I remember them as doing the same thing, and there is a feeling of camaraderie in that. I’m not alone ever. I think of them and I remember.

Freddie Mercury’s wife loved him regardless. I recently made a new dear male friend. It’s not a romantic couple kind of love, but it’s not devoid of aliveness and excitement either. It’s that different kind of love that you can’t define. You meet someone, there’s an instant connection; more than just a friendship, it’s something else. They recognize you right away, they immediately love you for you, and very soon you realize you love them too.

Gabriel was that, is that. And so is Freddie. I feel them singing and dancing together in Heaven, and inside me. I love them for the gifts they were, but also as a presence I feel now, an inspiration that guides me and tells me secrets. My new special friend is that too. Angels never leave.