Monthly Archives: March 2010

Conversion Therapy.pdf

With all the recent media concerning conversion therapy, we are often left with sound bits and opinions.  I thought it would be good so send out a well written (interesting and easy to understand) research article that looks at the facts.  It is a bit long, but I would encourage all to read it.  Accurate information is the best defense against opinionated idiots

The Wild Moods: Rumi’s “Chickpea to Cook”

Chickpea to Cook
~Jalaluddin Rumi
(translated by Coleman Barks)

A chickpea leaps almost over the rim of the pot
where it’s being boiled.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

The cook knocks him down with the ladle.

“Don’t you try to jump out.
You think I’m torturing you.
I’m giving you flavor,
so you can mix with spices and rice
and be the lovely vitality of a human being.

“Remember when you drank rain in the garden.
That was for this.”

Grace first. Sexual pleasure,
then a boiling new life begins,
and the Friend has something good to eat.

Eventually the chickpea
will say to the cook,
“Boil me some more.
Hit me with the skimming spoon.
I can’t do this by myself.

“I’m like an elephant that dreams of gardens
back in Hindustan and doesn’t pay attention
to his driver. You’re my cook, my driver,
my way into existence. I love your cooking.”

The cook says,
“I was once like you,
fresh from the ground. Then I boiled in time,
and boiled in the body, two fierce boilings.

“My animal soul grew powerful.
I controlled it with practices,
and boiled some more, and boiled
once beyond that,
and became your teacher.”

“Here’s Rumi on the development of both the teacher and student, from the understanding of pain and change as persecution, to learning how to align with difficult experience in one’s own, and others’, self-interest.”

Posted via web from rmarcandrews’s posterous

Sweet Darkness — David Whyte

Sweet Darkness

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

~ David Whyte ~

Some thing to think about when life gets overwhelming and you need to see your self through. (Given to me by my dear friend L.T. who helps me to see my horizon)

Posted via web from rmarcandrews’s posterous

Dating for 40 + gay: 7 Steps to Success | Magnetic Strip

Dating can be quite difficult at times, but the situation can be much more challenging for single gay men, which is one of 40 years and the total weight. In a society where youth and beauty are highly valued, many brokers feel appreciated and separated in a pooling arrangement, which makes it difficult to meet, and relations with potential online dating prospects to support. The problem seems even worse in the gay community, with its emphasis on youth and is a bruteimprovement, which many adult gay men feel unwanted and like an outsider in the gay community.

we are all desirable at any age in our life. as gay men, we have changed the way the world looks at sexulatiy, relationships, art, creativity. we to can be the ones to fight the “over the hill mentality”

Posted via web from rmarcandrews’s posterous

How to Learn a Manual Skill and Use Tools | The Art of Manliness

Manual skills have stopped being passed down from father to son. And in our digital age, much of what we do for both work and pleasure is often conducted in an intangible realm with intangible results.

Day 23
I can relate to this. There are some day when i come home and am asked what did i do today, that i can’t really tell. I talked to a lot of people, i had a lot of meetings… but what do i do? what would it feel like to make pizzas and say that today i made 50 pizzas. that remindes me that i have not eaten yet.

Posted via web from rmarcandrews’s posterous