Most people operate from one assumption: if you want something, go after it. Chase the opportunity. Pursue the outcome. Push harder when it does not arrive. And we live in a culture that has turned this relentless pursuit into a virtue.
But there is a different kind of intelligence. One that is older, quieter, and in the long run far more powerful.
The butterfly does not come to the person who chases it. The chasing itself is the problem. The frantic movement, the grasping energy, the desperation disguised as ambition creates exactly the conditions that drive away what you are trying to attract.
The garden is your inner life. Your character. Your craft. Your capacity for presence and depth. When you tend that with patience and care, without demanding an immediate return, something shifts. The right people find you. The right opportunities recognize you. Not because you forced it, but because you became someone worth coming to.
Love is the strongest force in the universe. We must keep walking in the direction of love, no matter what we hear and see around us. No matter our human failures. No matter what happens, or appears to happen. And if we are thankful for that love, the power magnifies. Forgiveness is a process of love. Love is not bound by religion, belief system, or man-made laws. Our human minds cannot comprehend the immensity of it. We are lit by it, or we would not be here. Some smother the light with fear and acts of fear. Others tend their light and they light the world. Breath feeds the light. Breathe deep today, and continue walking toward that which will enlighten, no matter what burdens you are carrying of shame, grief, or fear. No one can buy their way or push their way ahead of everyone else. We are all in this together.
Beloved One, who loves me unconditionally with all the wild love and affection of the universal heart, help me now.
I trust in my own heart wisdom and the truth of your love for me. Help me to trust in the flow of life, to let go of my fixed plans and ideas, and to open up to the genius of love itself.
May I realize that my destiny
will unfold with absolute perfection.
And may I trust in the signs
I am given.
May I be able to release any false guidance based in fear, and may I open up instead to genuine guidance and inner knowing based in love.
Images: Syrian-born dancer Ahmad Joudeh, whose autobiography is entitled Dance or Die. Ahmad dedicates his memoir “to the spirit that guides every single one of us, in the memory of the soul, where the flame is, our spirits glow.”
I release that which is not worthy of my Soul. . . . I do not decide this for myself from a place of distrust or judgment. I surrender my attachments and I trust in the sacred workings of my life to present to me what is needed.
I surrender, I surrender, in sacred trust, I surrender.
May my life be governed by love for the greatest good and in holy service to love now. So be it.
Let someone love you just the way you are – as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as unaccomplished as you think you are. To believe that you must hide all the parts of you that are broken, out of fear that someone else is incapable of loving what is less than perfect, is to believe that sunlight is incapable of entering a broken window and illuminating a dark room.
Something special for "music night" this evening at The Wild Reed. . . .
It’s the beautiful music video for Nigerian-Australian singer-songwriter Keiynan Lonsdale’s recently released “piano version” of his 2018 song, “Kiss the Boy.” (To hear the original version and view its music video, click here.)
I don’t know about you, but I much prefer – musically and visually – this latest version of Lonsdale’s “Kiss the Boy” . . .
. . . I’m scared to show just how I feel
’Cause people talk
Don’t want to worry ’bout whatever
Just got to know your deal
See, half the time I’m wondering if this is real
Why not say somethings on my mind if I feel love
But when the moments right I freeze
That’s how I know my heart is his
If you want to kiss the boy
Then you better kiss the boy right now
You ain’t got to be afraid of the words you want to say right now
’Cause love is a game we deserve to play out loud
So you want to play then you better kiss the boy
Oh, you better kiss the boy right now
. . . I might not say the one thing on my mind cause it’s too tough
But we lose our chance when we don’t try
On second thought yeah, I think I might
. . . Don’t want to hide, don’t want to hide
Most of my life I’ve been terrified
Spending my days always questioning
Am I wrong to love a man
I realise I realise ain’t gotta hide this heart of mine
I’m gonna fight just to let you know to open
Your light and let it glow
So if you want to kiss the boy then you
Better kiss the boy right now (Oh, yeah)
You ain’t gotta be afraid of the words you
Want to say right now (You gotta say it, baby)
’Cause love is a game we deserve to
Play out loud (We deserve our love)
So if you want to play then you better kiss the boy
Oh, you better kiss the boy right now
If you want to kiss the boy
Then you better kiss the boy right now
For a “behind-the-scenes” look at the making
of the above music video, click here.
It’s the birthday today of the late, great British pop/soul vocalist Dusty Springfield (1939-1999). If still with us in this life, she would be 84 today.
My interest in and admiration for Dusty is well documented here at The Wild Reed, most notably in Soul Deep, one of my very first posts.
Other previous posts worth investigating, especially if you’re new to Dusty, are Dusty Springfield: Queer Icon, which features an excerpt from Laurence Cole’s book, Dusty Springfield: In the Middle of Nowhere; Celebrating Dusty (2017), which features an excerpt from Patricia Juliana Smith’s insightful article on Dusty’s “camp masquerades”; Celebrating Dusty (2013), which features excerpts from Annie J. Randall’s book, Dusty!: Queen of the Postmods; Remembering Dusty, my 2009 tribute to Dusty on the tenth anniversary of her death; and Remembering Dusty, 20 Years On, my 2019 tribute on the twentieth anniversary of her death.
And, of course, off-site there’s my website dedicated to Dusty, Woman of Repute (currently only accessible through the Internet archive service, The Way Back Machine).
My website’s name is derived from Dusty’s 1990 album Reputation, and as I explain in Soul Deep, it was this album that introduced me not only to Dusty’s music but also to her life and journey – much of which resonated deeply with me. Indeed, my identification with aspects of Dusty’s journey played an important role in my coming out as a gay man.
Above: Dusty, amidst the flowing streams, standing stones and picturesque Celtic ruins of County Clare and the Galway coast for the making of the music video for “Roll Away,” a track from her last album, 1995’s A Very Fine Love. The liner notes of the 2016 2-disc expanded collector’s edition of A Very Fine Love include my reflections on this beautiful song, reflections which are also shared in the previous Wild Reed post, Time and the River.
In remembering and celebrating Dusty on the 84th anniversary of her birth, I share “Getting It Right,” a 1989 track by Dusty that’s very meaningful to me, in large part because I discern certain spiritual insights in its lyrics. These insights remind us that we are made by and from Love. Theologian Ilia Delio explains this idea in this way: “God is not a lonely deity at the top of a medieval cosmos, spinning the stars and governing the heavens; rather, God is selfless love . . . dynamic love. It is out of this love that we are and continue to be created.”
In reflecting on this spiritual truth, A Course in Miracles says: “If Love created you like Itself, this Self must be in you. And somewhere in your mind, it is there for you to find. . . . Love created you like Itself. Hear the truth about yourself in this.”
And Dusty sings this truth to us very forthrightly in “Getting It Right,” . . . You’re made of love.
From the first time I heard “Getting It Right,” it spoke to my soul of this truth about myself. It still does. And this isn’t just because of the song’s lyrics; it’s also because of the way Dusty sings these lyrics.
In her singing, I hear Dusty powerfully and beautifully inviting me (and by extension all of us) to embody Love by trusting myself enough to take the risk of being vulnerable with another.
Indeed, such trust and openness are “the secret" of “getting it right,” with “it” being the living of an authentically loving life. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t have healthy boundaries or that we can never say “no.” But it does mean that we seek, as best we can, to let trust, generosity and love guide our lives rather than suspicion, doubt and fear. It’s not always easy, I know. But it’s what I try to do each and every day, and Dusty's “Getting It Right” encourages me in this.
The audio of “Getting It Right” (below) is followed by an excerpt from Soul Deep, in which I explore further the significance of this song in my journey to authenticity as a gay man.
Hey, boy, don’t be shy
Waiting all alone
Think about what you can give
Some boys never learn
That’s the way to live
And it’s the secret
To getting it right
Living carefully, always filled with doubt
Scared to make a move too soon
Just once, take a chance
He will take one too
’Cause that’s the secret
To getting it right
It’s not who loves you as how much do you love
And what’s in your heart that shows what you’re made of
You’re made of love
Hey, boy, it’s all right
Someone understands
You don’t have so far to go
Reach out for his hand
Then you’ll really know
The secret to getting it right
You’re made of love
Hey, boy, it’s all right
Someone understands
You don’t have so far to go
Reach out for his hand
Then you’ll really know
The secret to getting it right
Reach out, take his hand
Then you’ll really know
You’ll know that you’re getting it right
Yes, you’ll know that
You’re getting it right
In recognizing and resonating with Dusty’s life and music, I was experiencing what writer Charles Taylor identifies as pop music’s ability to offer “a distilled and transcendent version of experience – [one] that can seem both shared and startlingly personal.”
Indeed, when Dusty sang, Hey, boy, it’s alright / Someone understands / You don’t have so far to go . . ., I had the unnerving yet exhilarating sense that she was singing directly to me – hiding fearfully as I was, behind the heterosexual persona that my career in teaching [at the time] had forced me to create and maintain.
But now, Dusty’s “songs of experience,” as one critic labeled the music of [her 1990 album] Reputation, were pushing me to question this closeted existence of mine – to the extent that I realized that it really wasn’t worth the patience. This discernment played a fundamental role in my coming out process and my decision to relocate to the United States. Perhaps you could say that in singing along with Dusty Springfield’s soulful “songs of experience,” I not only discerned a kindred spirit, but also began finding my own soul-deep voice.
. . . Or, said another way, finding the Love within me in whose image I have been created, as have we all. I will forever be grateful to Dusty and her music for helping guide me to this Love.
Writes Yung Pueblo on what makes a relationship vibrant. . . .
Two people who seek to know, love and heal themselves as individuals will have harmony flow between them as a couple. Control creates tension, but trust gives them space to be their own person and opens the door for vulnerability. Calm communication, clear commitments and the willingness to support each other’s happiness makes the union vibrant and strong.
Queer Love is my Divine Companion.
In Their company, I unfurl with delight.
They teach me to question the assumed and the rigid.
They lure me with eros, creative and extravagant.
They fill me with the spirit of uprising
and lead me in the ways of “no pride for some of us
without liberation for all of us.”*
Even as systems threaten and forces oppress,
I will forever Act Up; For Silence is Death
and in our holy provocation you are always with us.
You embrace us as chosen family – a comfort in our grief.
You celebrate all that nurtures our aliveness
in the presence of doctrines and policies that deaden.
You bless every trans body.
You declare sacred every sexuality.
Life overflows with possibilities for becoming.
Surely, the glory of the peculiar, the outcast,
the righteous freaks and the weirdos
will inspire me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell among the thresholds
where the Sacred Strange subverts every normalized terror
and the queers of all ilks fight for the right to grow old.
Above: At first glance this may seem a strange image to include in a post about queer love as divine companion. And yet I don’t believe one has to be sexually active and/or partnered with another to experience intimacy with the Divine Presence. Whenever we extend love and compassion to ourselves, including through comforting and pleasuring the body, we can experience an awareness of – and oneness with – the Soul’s Beloved, the loving and sustaining power of the universe. It is a wild and erotic power, one that resides deep within each one of us and all creation.
Your animal body is deeply affected
by the season that swirls around you.
Be gentle, for in these darkening times your animal body
needs to rest more, sleep more, and be still.
It needs to dream, to feel.
To listen to what is held beneath.
– Brigit Anna McNeill
The winter solstice of 2021 occurs today, marking the official beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. It's an event that brings good news as, from tomorrow on, days will start getting longer again, taking us out of winter darkness as we slowly move towards spring.
In marking this year’s winter solstice I share words of beauty and wisdom by ecotherapist and writer Brigit Anna McNeill. The two writings of McNeill that I share offer suggestions on how to most deeply respond to the darkness and cold of the winter season.
Things you can do in these colder darker days when away from the busyness, the hubbub and the crowds. Things that may be able to feed your wilder winter need for solace, rest, nourishment and connection.
• Be alone with yourself, finding caring ways in which to learn to love the company you keep in the alone moments. Let yourself taste who you are, let yourself hear the voice within.
• Sit, wrapped in jumpers and blankets, under a tree and watch, listen and discover.
• Draw yourself into your heart, let your heart call you home, let it catch you with threads of kindness and care, reminding you of the safety held within.
• Journal, let your unconscious mind spill across the page in inks of red, black and gold, without judgement or criticism.
• Make herbal teas made up of the green allies from the garden. Rosemary, thyme, mint, dandelion. Let them strengthen, nourish and enliven you, let them tell you stories of wild medicine that is threaded through and across the land.
• Light candles and fires.
• Sing, sing to the night and the moon, sing to the river and the trees. Sing to the seeds taking shape in the dark, sing to the roots strengthening, sing to the insects and fungi that compost down the leaves, creating life from death, sing to your own unbecoming and becoming.
• Rest, sleep early, dream.
• Mull apple juice with cinnamon and nutmeg, make chilly cacao.
• Warm oil with herbs and rub onto your body, showing your skin your love, whispering spells of boundaries, belonging and protection into your nerves, your muscles.
• Leave gifts of gratitude in the woods for deer, bird, squirrel and your other more than human family members. Whisper a prayer of their long life into the moving shifting winter air.
• Feast on foods that feed your bones, your flesh, your organs. Feed on food that reminds you of the care you receive at your own hands and the hands of the earth.
• Wonder and wander through forest, riverside and meadow, let the sound of crow, robin and squirrel call you home.
To become consciously embodied is to awaken the wild soul that sleeps wthin you and to evolve into higher states of consciousness and expanded worldviews. It means exploring non-habitual rhythms and ways of moving and responding. No matter where you dwell in the world, you must discover and liberate the wild, erotic stranger that is your body: the sacred, passionate soul that moves freely, sings loudly, and dances naked in thunderstorms. The one you are afraid to meet . . . but secretly hope to.
I established The Wild Reed in 2006 as a sign of solidarity with all who are dedicated to living lives of integrity – though, in particular, with gay people seeking to be true to both the gift of their sexuality and their Catholic faith. The Wild Reed's original by-line read, “Thoughts and reflections from a progressive, gay, Catholic perspective.” As you can see, it reads differently now. This is because my journey has, in many ways, taken me beyond, or perhaps better still, deeper into the realities that the words “progressive,” “gay,” and “Catholic” seek to describe.
Even though reeds can symbolize frailty, they may also represent the strength found in flexibility. Popular wisdom says that the green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm. Tall green reeds are associated with water, fertility, abundance, wealth, and rebirth. The sound of a reed pipe is often considered the voice of a soul pining for God or a lost love.
On September 24, 2012,Michael BaylyofCatholics for Marriage Equality MNwas interviewed by Suzanne Linton of Our World Today about same-sex relationships and why Catholics can vote 'no' on the proposed Minnesota anti-marriage equality amendment.
"I believe your blog to be of utmost importance for all people regardless of their orientation. . . . Thank you for your blog and the care and dedication that you give in bringing the TRUTH to everyone."– William
"Michael, if there is ever a moment in your day or in your life when you feel low and despondent and wonder whether what you are doing is anything worthwhile, think of this: thanks to your writing on the internet, a young man miles away is now willing to embrace life completely and use his talents and passions unashamedly to celebrate God and his creation. Any success I face in the future and any lives I touch would have been made possible thanks to you and your honesty and wisdom."– AB
"Since I discovered your blog I have felt so much more encouraged and inspired knowing that I'm not the only gay guy in the Catholic Church trying to balance my Faith and my sexuality. Continue being a beacon of hope and a guide to the future within our Church!"– Phillip
"Your posts about Catholic issues are always informative and well researched, and I especially appreciate your photography and the personal posts about your own experience. I'm very glad I found your blog and that I've had the chance to get to know you."– Crystal
"Thank you for taking the time to create this fantastic blog. It is so inspiring!"– George
"I cannot claim to be an expert on Catholic blogs, but from what I've seen, The Wild Reed ranks among the very best."– Kevin
"Reading your blog leaves me with the consolation of knowing that the words Catholic, gay and progressive are not mutually exclusive.."– Patrick
"I grieve for the Roman institution’s betrayal of God’s invitation to change. I fear that somewhere in the midst of this denial is a great sin that rests on the shoulders of those who lead and those who passively follow. But knowing that there are voices, voices of the prophets out there gives me hope. Please keep up the good work."– Peter
"I ran across your blog the other day looking for something else. I stopped to look at it and then bookmarked it because you have written some excellent articles that I want to read. I find your writing to be insightful and interesting and I'm looking forward to reading more of it. Keep up the good work. We really, really need sane people with a voice these days."– Jane Gael
"Michael, your site is like water in the desert."– Jayden
