Purveyor of Pleasure – Pleasure is my business, my life, my joy, my purpose.

Trans Sex Magic: Pleasure and Power Embodied

Edited by Tai Fenix Kulystin
Published by Mystic Productions Press

Trans magic is powerful and trans people are magic. Too often we are desexualized or hypersexualized, written about rather than written for, and our sexuality only discussed through invasive questions. In discussions of magic, sex magic included, we are ignored or forgotten, the queer multiplicity of our bodies and beings erased by cis narratives. With Trans Sex Magic, we want to explore the sacred ways that we, as trans people, experience sexuality. We celebrate trans magic in all of its forms and seek to present a wide range of embodied perspectives on existing as trans. We recognize and claim the power inherent in trans bodies and the depth and breadth of pleasure we can experience within them. What do you have to share? Our lives, bodies, and relationships are beautiful and our stories deserve to be heard.

Authors are invited to write 2-8 pages (approximately 1500-4000 words) about their own theories, rituals, stories, poems, or personal experiences pertaining to Trans Sex Magic. Artists are invited to submit artwork relevant to the topic as well.

Topics could include themes of:

The Magic of Trans Sexuality
Gender and Sex Magic
Queer/Trans Sacred Sexuality
Trans Embodiment
The Magic & Power of Trans Pleasure
Desire & Magic
Experiences of Race, Ability, Socioeconomic Status, Age, Size, etc. and Trans Sex Magic
QTBIPOC Magic & Sexuality
Two-Spirit Magic & Sexuality
Trans Grey-A/Asexual Magic
Kink Magic
Sex Work & Magic
Trans Sexual Politics & Magic
Colonization, Oppression, and Sex Magic
Claiming Your Gender through Magical Sexual Experiences
Sex Magic, Embodiment, & Dysphoria
Sexy Sacred Trans Story Time/Sacred Erotica/Personal Anecdotes
Working with Trans Godds
Rituals Celebrating Trans Sexuality
…and more

This anthology primarily has an English-language focus, with multi-lingual entries welcome on a case by case basis. Artwork and visual media are welcome. Fiction is not appropriate to this project.

Who Should Contribute:

All those who feel they fit into the multitude of trans identities (e.g. trans woman/feminine, non-binary, trans man/masculine, two-spirit, genderqueer, gender fluid, gender fabulous, gender non-conforming, gender variant, all genders outside a western cisgender paradigm, etc.) and who practice sex magic, sacred sexuality, or have experiences with sexuality and magic (of any/all spiritual paths, or lack thereof), are all welcome to submit.

We especially invite and encourage BIPOC trans writers, trans fem(me)/feminine writers, AMAB non-binary writers, and disabled trans writers to submit. Writers from outside the US are encouraged to submit.

We are not interested in policing your identity or gatekeeping who is trans or not, and so we trust that those who send in submissions will do so in good faith. If you believe you belong in this anthology, you do. If you hope you belong in this anthology, you do (you are trans enough).

How To Contribute:

Send a one-paragraph summary of what you want to write about to TransSexMagic@gmail.com before November 1st, 2019. Also include up to one paragraph about yourself as the author.

Why the summaries first? A book of only one type of entries would not show the diversity of Trans Magic theory, rituals, and experiences taking place in our community and behind closed doors. Rather than asking you to complete a piece first, we ask for the spark of an idea that you would like to bring into being for this anthology. Summaries also are often easier for those who are not regularly published. Please specify if the proposed work has been previously published digitally or in print form (this will not disqualify work, simply provide information).

Once summaries have been accepted, authors will have until February 1st, 2020 to get their rough draft in. New authors will be worked with throughout the process to help share their unique story with the world.

Are you ready to tell your tale of Trans Sex Magic? Do you have any questions? Email TransSexMagic@gmail.com

Compensation:

Authors will receive at least $25* and 1 finished copy of the book upon completion, have their biographies listed in the book, have wholesale access to the project, and retain rights to their work.

*The editor would like to pay contributors more than this and is looking into potential funding options to be explored in greater depth as the project unfolds.

One Week Top Surgery Post-Op

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On October 12, 2018

In Uncategorized

I’m a week into recovery and all I want is to be able to sleep laying on my stomach. Not for another 3 weeks… (okay, that’s not *all* I want, but it’s a start… also stretching my arms above my head, oh do I miss that, too!)

Most of the days since surgery have been pretty easy, with a couple exceptions for cranky moments and hard things. I’m super grateful to everyone who brought or bought me foods, especially in the first few days. Having food show up without me having to think much about it was so great and really really useful. And the folks who came over to care for me have been absolutely the best. Your company made the days go faster. You have helped me feel loved and cared for and knowing I could ask for something if I needed it has been so helpful. I still have a few more meals and a few more folks signed up, and I’m super grateful to you, too, and everyone who has read my posts in here and commented support. Lots of gratitude.

Wednesday, Stian helped me shower (yay! Finally!) and we removed the pad and bandage around my chest for likely the last time. I was told at the post-op appointment that I could remove the bandage once it stopped draining, and the bandage we removed yesterday was basically clean. I had previously only really had two chances to see my new chest, when changing the bandage. The last day and a half or so has been a strange and new version of surgery recovery, and also the most emotional so far.

With the bandage off, the physical reality of surgery has hit me. I’ve read about post-surgery depression, which happens with all types of surgery not just trans ones, and so I expected some of that given that my brain is used to depressed places. Expecting it and experiencing it, of course, are different. I’ve had all the emotions around surgery and I’m sure I’m not done. All the pre-surgery questions have come back, not surprisingly. I’m trying really hard to keep my ever-critical Virgo-rising eye from now obsessing over how my new chest looks because I know how it is now is not how it will be. I’m barely a week into healing and I haven’t even seen the areola shape yet as I still have the steri strips on the incisions. Still, though, my brain is a fun overly critical anxious and depressed place, so I’ve been going all the worst places.

At the urging of one of my main care team folks, I read a few different narratives of post top surgery depression that I could find yesterday, and my care person today is someone who has had top surgery, so I’m planning on chatting with him about it. It has been useful to remind myself this is normal, that it is okay, that I won’t feel this way forever, but it is still challenging. I hoped that all the doubt and uncertainty would go away with surgery and that I would love looking down at my new chest and feel so satisfied and content with it. Even though I also knew that wasn’t going to happen right away and that there would be a period of adjustment and likely depression, part of me still hoped I could bypass that somehow. I hoped everything would click into place the way I felt after my first shot of T. Though, I must have forgotten my slow process with that, as well, and the months long break I took about six months in and the struggle and uncertainty there because of how right it feels now.

I am not binary, and that also makes all medical transition more complicated (I think… which is also not to say it isn’t complicated for binary trans folks as well). My genderqueerness means there is no ideal chest, exactly, except for the one I choose. It does not need to look like a “man’s chest” (though, also, there are billions of right ways for a chest to be a man’s chest and tons of variation there, so wtf does that mean, anyway? But also, you know what I mean) nor a “woman’s chest,” (see previous parenthetical statement) and indeed it is neither of those things. It’s mine. It is a genderqueer chest by nature of being on the genderqueer body of a genderqueer person.

The physical reality is still hitting me, and it will likely keep coming. I must build a new relationship with my new chest. I can’t assume the old ways we were together still hold. We have to find new ways of being together, as in the aftermath of any traumatic experience (which surgery certainly, literally, is). And some of that process will be grieving. And some of that process will be gender euphoria. And some of that process will be pleasurable. And some of the process will be terrible. All of the process will be slow.

Eight Hours

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On October 4, 2018

In Gender Galaxy, Introspection

Sitting and watching the minutes tick away until it is 8 hours to my surgery (or at least, the start time they’ve given me), when I’m no longer allowed to eat. I am wondering how much I’ll be able to sleep tonight, given my level of anxious anticipation of the event.

A brief aside, though, I installed a fancy new bidet toilet seat today, which will be of great help to me while I am unable to use my arms. It will also be of great help to me in life, because bidets are rad and I have wanted one for a long time. This is as good of an excuse as any! Those of you who are coming over to help, visit, or drop off a meal will be welcome to try it, or at least marvel at it, or ignore it, idk, you do what you want!

I’m certainly scared. The level of certainty around this that came after the pre-op appointment has melted a little bit in the last few hours and all those questions I posted about previously are back in my head. I kind of anticipated this, and also was hoping to avoid it.

As the time creeps slowly onward and I get closer and closer to surgery time, my thoughts are thinking of aesthetics. At the Community Queerituality meeting I attended this evening we discussed a lot of things, including queer aesthetics. Some of the things cited by the facilitator as queer aesthetics were brightly colored hair, piercings, and an undercut, all of which I sport on the daily. My response to this had me contemplating aloud the ways those aspects of my appearance had been constants over the last sixteen plus years and came from other countercultures I have been part of, not initially markings (to me) of my queerness, but certainly of some kind of alternative social affiliation. I also shared about my strong desire for many years to be seen as queer while I was trying really hard to be cis. Definitely these aspects of my appearance are markers of difference, but not inherently (to me) of queerness.

In typical post-sharing-in-a-group anxiety, my brain is going over the things I said in that context and the responses I got. Another participant, not long after I spoke, mentioned disliking the idea that queerness had any particular aesthetic, and I’m not sure if it’s my anxiety that is telling me they were addressing what I had said directly, meaning I hadn’t quite explained what I was trying to say adequately, or if they were riffing off of the topic itself. I agree with them, ultimately, but this is part of the basis for what is coming up in me tonight. The hook that the transphobia is able to get in through, maybe.

The questions swimming around my brain are about aesthetics. This is a procedure that is designed to change my aesthetics, designed to change my outward physical appearance. It is different than a purely aesthetic surgery, however, because it is a trans surgery, because it is about gender confirmation, and yet it is still about aesthetics in the sense it is about what we can perceive and about beauty and reality. It is about what other people will see when they look at me, and what I will see and feel when I am with myself. It is about sensation and senses and perception and we may talk about these things as being superficial, but they really aren’t, they’re about how we experience the world and manifest reality.

Writing this out has been useful for those thoughts so freely floating around. I have never disliked having a large chest, exactly, though it hasn’t felt like mine or part of me in a while. Certainly it has been both inconvenient and wonderful at times. When I was younger and striving/trying/pretending to be cis, I placed a lot of emphasis on my chest and the way it looked in clothing. I was proud of my fat hourglass figure. I hung a lot of my own self-worth and self-esteem on being sexually desirable, and my chest was always a part of that. It was rarely for me, but as a symbol or indicator of something. It took me a long time to unpack that for myself, part of those two plus years of talking and thinking and feeling into this surgery as an option for me was really investigating where my desires were coming from. I’ve said for a long time that my ideal form is as a shapeshifter, being able to play with my form however I like. I’m sure most of us would choose that, if given the option, but not all of us would play with the same aspects of our form.

There is a declaration in this action as well. I am claiming ownership of my body and my ability to declare who I am. I have had other body mods that have functioned as me claiming my body as my own, both in the form of piercings and tattoos, and in some ways this is the same, but in other ways it is completely different. I don’t entirely understand gender, honestly. I don’t think anyone does. My experience of it is something innate, something sacred, something that can also be fluid and changeable. I have been worried that my desire for this has more to do with expectations of what being trans looks like in an AFAB body, or because of the trans narrative that says this is what I should want. I am afraid of a lot of things, but that is a big one.

The more I think about it, write about it right now, and really feel into my body, the more I know my body is done with having this large chest. That’s kind of as much as I can know right now. I am supposed to have this experience, for whatever reason, maybe including because it is part of the dominant trans narrative. But this is not for superficial reasons. This is not for fitting in reasons. I think this is the important part, what was bugging me about the exchange earlier. My appearance has never been intended to fit into any particular sub- or counter-culture, even if it does or has. I am always, before anything else, wearing what I want to wear and looking how I want to look. This is, of course, influenced by cultures of various kinds, but it has to do with what aesthetics please me the most. I am forever trying to figure out how I can be comfortable with the person staring back at me in the mirror. That is the most important factor in all of this for me. The change that surgery marks is both big and not big in this sense. It will change everything and nothing all at once.

Four Days to Top Surgery

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On September 30, 2018

In Gender Galaxy, Introspection

I had the pre-op appointment on Thursday. I felt so much better after the appointment, not just because of the information that was given to me, but moreso because the level of care, compassion, professionalism, and humor that everyone I spoke with had. I feel in very good hands. Not sure if I’ve mentioned already in here that I’m having surgery with Dr. Megan Dreveskracht at La Belle Vie in Tukwilla. I’m scheduled for Noon on Thursday, October 4th. Now just four days away (basically three and a half as I’m finally posting this)!

I was pretty paralyzed for a while there… or at least moving very s l o w l y through my days. Basically, I had a whole lot of freeze happen in my nervous system after I scheduled surgery. A microcosm of the macrocosm of surgery freeze I have experienced over the last few years, no doubt. I had a challenging time staying in my own experience for a while, feeling stuck and having to sort out a lot of feelings, preferring to distract myself. I scheduled nearly a month ago, which seemed like plenty of time. I had assumed the year I waited between consult and surgery was enough time for me to have sorted through my myriad of feelings about surgery, but obviously not. Not only have I never had surgery before, making this experience terrifying in and of itself for that reason, but this is a trans surgery, so I also had all that to contend with.

My fear and freeze had to do with the questions that I had no answers to. I wondered what it would be like to have surgery. I questioned how I would be able to let myself be the kind of vulnerable and receive the kind of support I know I’ll need. I felt a whole lot of internalized transphobia come up. It had already taken me many years to come to the decision to have surgery, each movement forward finding a new set of blocks within me. Already wrestling with so many transphobic questions for years, I had paused in my road to top surgery after my initial consultations a year ago because of the way they bounced around my internal landscape. All the questions came back after I scheduled. It was no longer an abstract interest or desire, it was happening. There was a date.

Of course, this transphobia isn’t coming from me, not really, but it is inside me. It’s coming from the culture and has seeped into all of our bodies through conscious and unconscious messages. It is coming from the current power structures and social institutions that we collectively agree to. We can call it heterocisnormative imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy if we want to, but no matter what we call it, it is the water that we swim in and where we get our nourishment (and, coincidentally, why we are all actually starving). The assumptions. The caveats. The questions. The comments reminding me not to rush into anything (my response: I’ve been talking to my therapist about this for over two years. I’m not rushing). The assurance that I’m still loved if I do this (my response: that was never in question! And yet, it is, thanks, transphobia). The commentary on the politics of trans surgery or how it may or may not impact my mental health and my life to have this surgery (my response: too much for a small aside, but I’m doing this for me and the personal is political). Then there are the questions I have grappled with for years, why it took me so long to do this: what if I don’t like it? what if it’s the wrong choice? what if it means people will think I’m a man now? why does it matter so much to myself or anyone? why will it make me a “more valid” trans person (as if I’m not a valid trans person already) in the eyes of so many? why can’t I just be fine without it?

So many questions.

These questions, and more, have been running through my head pretty regularly for years. Those responses are all ones I have received directly. This is all transphobia. It’s exhausting.

It has been a long road to this surgery. I recently looked back over old journal entries to find dates for transness/transition/top-surgery-related milestones: I started binding in 2011, using gender neutral pronouns in 2010 and id’ing as genderqueer in 2007. I’m pretty sure it was also 2011 that I finally began thinking my genderqueerness might be enough to consider myself to be trans. I had previously been told by a number of trans folks that I couldn’t possibly be trans because I’m femme and AFAB, an experience that, no doubt, set me back a bit in terms of my self identity and gender expression. For a few years, at least, I was terrified and anxious any time I tried to express anything other than (cis) femme, certain that someone would realize I was a fake and call me on it. Instead of feeling like I could embrace other trans folks in my process of gender exploration, I was at least as terrified of us as I was of cis folks invalidating my gender.

I first really talked with my therapist and doctor about the possibility of top surgery well over two years ago. It always seemed like something other trans folks got, but not me. Actually, I am sure they both asked me about it prior to when I started testosterone in 2015 (which also took me over a year to actually allow myself to explore, my first appointment with my Doc to discuss T was in late 2013 and I didn’t start T until early 2015), and I have been uncertain about surgery all those years. Questioning if it’s a good idea, if it’s really for me, all those questions above, all the thoughts. I wasn’t regularly binding until a couple of years ago, having previously utilized it as part of my gender expression rather than a central indicator of it. Now, and for a while, I have been binding daily (unless I am at home all day with no visitors). I experience more social dysphoria than physical dysphoria.

Because of my level of privilege, the barriers to top surgery have all been personal and cultural, with a minimal amount of medical and/or class barriers to the experience. Because I have private insurance through my husbear’s tech job, I have a trans-knowledgeable therapist I see every week and a GP who is one of the best trans-related healthcare providers in Seattle, also arguably one of the best places to be trans in the country. My fat body has been a barrier to my choice of surgeons, and I did have to endure some fatphobia in the selection process, but there are still plenty of surgeons in Seattle who would take me as a patient. I met with three doctors to choose the one I am going with. I hit a bit of an insurance snag last year, as we switched insurances in August and again in January, and that was enough to be a factor in my stalling, but not the main cause. I took my time getting to this place because of all the barriers I had built up in myself against surgery, against getting what I want and need, against doing things for myself.

Ultimately, though, I’m doing this for me. Sometimes I wonder if transitioning is the only thing I’ve ever truly done in my life that is just for me. For so many years I tried to be cis. I tried to be happy and content with being read as a woman, even though I’m not. I tried to be content with being assumed to be straight, even though I’m not. I tried to be happy with my body the way it is, especially after so much work to love my fat body, and I will be. Surgery isn’t necessary for all trans folks, but for some of us it is the answer. Even if it eases just a little discomfort, makes our lives just a little bit easier, or makes us a little bit happier, it is worth it. It will not eliminate my experiencing transphobia, either internal or external, that is something we all have to work on every day. It will not mean I will no longer be misgendered, though I’ll be more likely to be misgendered as a man than as a woman, so that will at least be a change. At very least, this surgery will free up a whole lot of brainspace that has been dedicated to the “what if” of surgery. At best, I will feel more comfortable, more at home in my own body and in the world.

20 Days to Surgery

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On September 15, 2018

In Gender Galaxy, Introspection

I posted this initially in my top surgery support group on facebook, but posting it on here for archival purposes.

So… it has been 10/11 days since I scheduled the surgery, and I’m finally coming to the point of being able to look at what sort of support I will really be needing.

Tbqh, loves, I’m terrible at receiving.

It is really challenging for me. I’m so used to taking care of myself, acting like everything is okay when it isn’t, and taking care of others. So, it took me a few days after scheduling to even post about it, and then was completely overwhelmed by the amazing and wonderful outcry of support and celebration on here from all of you and the other folks who commented on the post on my wall (not a bad problem to have, let me tell you, but still overwhelming to this queerdo).

I’m so incredibly grateful and humbled by the support, and also terrified of it. I don’t exactly know how to receive it or take it in, except as I have been: in small doses. This experience is already working to stretch me in useful and important ways. It is a practice in taking up space in an uncomfortable and necessary way.

What I have done since scheduling includes a lot of moving slowly and letting myself feel a whole lot of feelings (about surgery, transphobia, self worth, and receiving support, to name a few). I have also begun acquiring items I might need during recovery, so far including a couple grabber hands and an extending back scratcher (extending or lifting my arms for the first few weeks is verboten).

What I am planning on doing, after some advice from friends and reading some surgery prep things:

set up a meal train thing (sub tasks include writing out my dietary restrictions, gathering together and/or writing recipes of my favorite meals for ease of making, and writing a list of favorite snacks and treats)
writing out a “how to care for the tai” manual of sorts, including many lists of things like comfort movies & shows to watch, activities and things that make me happy or comfort me, best practices for supporting me in vulnerable/emotional states, and whatever else I come up with (suggestions of types of info that would be useful to you as a caregiver are welcome here)
continuing to move slow and give myself permission to prepare in whatever ways I need (and can afford)
continuing to gather supplies I may need (I have many of the things need already, but currently on the list is arnica montana, slippers, emergen-c, and probably other things)
developing a simple surgery blessing & healing ritual of some sort that I will post on here beforehand for myself and any of you who would like to engage in it
a caregiver schedule thing for the first week or so post-surgery

I am already counting on a few folks to be support people day of and day after, at least, but also do not want to tax any of them too much. I would especially love in person support/hangout time the first few days after surgery from other trans folks who would be up for that.

20 days to surgery!

Queer Magic: Power Beyond Boundaries is Out Now!

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On April 3, 2018

In Gender Galaxy, Sexuality

Queer Magic Anthology
Queer Magic is real! It’s here! It exists!

The book, that is. And, well, also queer magic.

I’m SO excited and proud to have co-created this amazing anthology with Lee Harrington and the 40+ other contributors. The anthology officially comes out today, April 2nd, and I couldn’t be happier. The book consists of personal stories, poetry, comics, artwork, academic essays, interviews with community elders, and so much queerness of various kinds! My essay for this anthology is focused on the Queer Erotic Alchemy of embodying the Phoenix.

Last Thursday Lee and I did a book signing and class in Portland, Oregon at Raven’s Wing Magical Co., which is a lovely shop in SE Portland that I absolutely adore. Then, on Sunday, we had a pop-up table and signing at KinkFest. This was my very first time attending KinkFest and it was delicious. I left with my head full of some new information and many delicious conversations, and I left with my hands full of new toys to play with! I’ve been acquiring many new toys lately and am hoping to revive my old review blog, now called GlitterSexual. But, I digress.

Queer Like Escaping Definition This week, Lee and I are in Seattle doing the same class The Queerness of Magic, the Magic of Queerness at Cunning Crow Apothecary on April 4th.

On April 5th we will be doing a Queer Magic Book Signing with a few authors and artists from the anthology at Edge of the Circle Books.

We have a few reviews that have already rolled in. The first couple are here: one on GoodReads, and one on Gods & Radicals. From Anthony Rella’s Gods & Radicals review:

queerness is elusive, evolving, pluralistic. So too is the collection of pieces gathered together by editors Lee Harrington and Tai Fenix Kulystin in Queer Magic: Power Beyond Boundaries. They have accomplished an impressive feat, publishing the voices and images produced by a wildly diverse and fascinating array of individuals along the axes of class, gender, race, ability, spiritual tradition, and more.

Buy on IndieBound | Buy on Amazon | Buy from Your Local Bookstore

I Can’t Sleep Lately

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On January 4, 2018

In Introspection

I can’t sleep lately.

Well, I’m having trouble getting to sleep is more accurate. Once I’m also I can go 7-9 hours in a row without a problem if I have nothing else scheduled for those hours (and usually I don’t).

This has been going on for far too long. Over a year. Longer. I’m not even sure when it started, if I’m being real. I’ve structured a lot of my life around not being able to sleep during the nighttime. Onyx used to work nights as well, preferring to sleep during the day and work at night. Now everything is out of whack, still getting used to the new hours that he keeps. I keep slipping in and out of daylight hours, uncertain when I want to be awake and when I want to be asleep.

This isn’t what I really want to write about right now.

I’m paralyzed. In paralysis. Having a hard time seeing past my own insecurities and trauma. I can tell it’s out of time, but also it’s because of current experiences, so it’s confusing and disorienting. I feel at war between what I want, what I have, and what I can handle. None of these things are at the same place, and I’m confused and overwhelmed. As often. As always.

I Was Published in Numen Naturae: Dismantling the Tower

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On December 12, 2017

In Discourse

Numen Naturae: Dismantling the Tower Anthology

I have officially been published in Numen Naturae: Dismantling the Tower, the second volume in the Numen Naturae anthology series! The volumes in this anthology series each relate to a tarot card and plant, exploring their mythological, archetypal, and practical applications and connections. This volume in particular relates to the Tower card and Devil’s Club.

My essay is about the relationship between the Phoenix and the Tower in the process of transformation. It was featured as an excerpt from the book on the House of Hands blog, so you can read it here if you would like, but I also encourage you to pick up the book itself, as there are many more amazing essays to read within it! It is available now! You can order Numen Naturae: Dismantling the Tower here!

Also, if you missed the first volume, The Magicians Wand, focused on the Magician card and Yarrow you can order that here along with Dismantling the Tower. Submissions for volume three, focused on the Priestess and Black Cohosh, are currently open in case you are interested in writing something.

Destruction in the Name of Healing and Transformation:
the Phoenix and the Tower
by Tai Fenix Kulystin

We are change. It is the only thing constant about this manifest world, and, I believe, change is one of the great joys of being alive. The alternative to the cyclical change and growth of this material universe is the stagnancy of limitless awareness, the experience of omnipotence, omnipresence, and/or omniscience that is often ascribed to the All. This, in my cosmology, is the reason for breaking away from the cosmic soup of all that is and inhabiting these finite forms that advance, steadily with each breath, closer to death from the very moment that life begins. There is benefit to this finite and limited way of experiencing the universe, and that is the ability to experience change, the unknown, and the unexpected.

In order for us to change and grow, there is a necessity of death. In order for there to be space for change to happen within, for a new beginning to occur, we must clear the way and experience an ending. The ending may simply be the ending of the old way of being, the ending of a relationship, or any other kind of ending. This growth–death–rebirth cycle is the particular focus of this piece, specifically working with the archetypal, mythological, and alchemical aspects of the Phoenix and how that associates with one of the foci of this anthology, the Tower card of the Tarot.
Click here to read the rest…

Not Yet Three Years

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On September 25, 2017

In Gender Galaxy, Introspection

I don’t track it anymore, not in months, and often not even in years. It’s part of me now in a way I don’t have to think about. If I’m pressed to think about it, as I am requesting of myself now, it’s been 2 years and 8 1/2 months that I’ve been on T. Not yet three years, but that is getting closer and closer.

I’ve had many changes to my body and self in that time. The new way that clothes hang on me is just as comfortable as it was before, but now feels more aligned with right. I got so good at faking before because that was also right for me, but also wrong.

Tuesday night I took my testosterone at the turning of the new moon, as I do every month (weekly on the new, full, and half moons), and I called to Virgo and my highest self. This month, this year, this life has been so full of doing and avoiding, and in my most recent ceremony I requested clarity from source, and that clarity keeps on coming.

I have been stuck in perfectionism for so long it has often been hard to be. Challenging to exist as I am, because of that endless striving drive for the supposed perfect. It has also kept me from appreciating what actually is. Fear of failure and fear of success have run me into paralysis for too long. Indecision was never fearful.

In addition to clarity, I requested to open more to right relationship (with myself and others) and decisive action. We shall see how that goes.

Leveling Up

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On July 30, 2017

In Introspection

i.
my vacillating heart can’t decide
if it’s joyous or despairing completely.
the not-so-secret secret is:
I’m terrified.
I’m pushing up against my own desires and fears
(often made of the same stuff),
finding the edges and exploring there.
not what I expect.
never what I expect.
everything feels stolen,
uncertain.
I am suddenly aflame with myself
with desire and the abundance of my fervor.
then I remember. then I worry.
am I worthy?
can I do this? I’m taking risks I’m not sure I can afford.

ii.
it’s chafing me, chasing me,
each breath is labored and I’m straining
I’m failing again,
falling again,
finding myself deep in the pit of my despair
again.
I sink and wallow.
I give up.

iii.
just.
keep.
breathing.
keep breathing.
keep being.
one moment at a time is the only way anything happens.

iv.
let yourself feel it, I whisper to myself,
I do.