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| Image from Brice Cooper on UnSplash. |
The “Ostara” ritual came off yesterday as expected with the usual suspects attending.
The weather cooperated with all the other plans, and it was
a beautiful spring day here in southwestern Ohio. The only gender drawback did
not even come because of me because there was a young very androgynous child
there too. I could not tell the gender of the child and of course I did not pry.
All went well until one of the other older women in the circle just could not
leave the matter alone and said something to the child which elicited a loud
response. Suddenly I heard “I’m a girl!”, and I thought the woman just could
not leave it alone and had to go where she should not have been. Other than
that, the woman sat next to Liz and I when we ate lunch and persisted on
lighting up some sort of a cigarette after she ate which did not go over well
with Liz and I who are confirmed non-smokers. The only good thing was after she
smoked if was time for us to leave the ritual.
What I don’t think I realized was until after I received a
comment from “Alex” who is transitioning from female to male was how much the opposite
path of my gender male to female gender transition has meant to me. Now I can
really feel the power of nature is a small example of how much more the Ostara ritual
meant to me than I ever thought it could be when I was a man and too busy
thinking about guy stuff such as work and sports to be overly concerned about
my inner connections with Mother Nature. I credit the power of HRT or gender
affirming hormones with unleashing a new appreciation for the world around me
as I progressed with the hormones. All of a sudden, I was more in touch with
the world around me with senses such as temperature and smell. I was very appreciative
of permission I was given by the doctors I saw to go down the gender path I did,
and I worry that the orange pedo in Washington and his followers will take it
all away from transgender people of all ages today. Already it is happening
here in Ohio, and I fear for my next estradiol prescription which is due to be
renewed early in May.
It comes through the Veteran’s Administration health care system
for me, and hopefully I still will be protected from outside political influence
since I have been taking the hormones for nearly a decade now. Maybe I can fly
under the radar at the VA and tie it all into my mental health (which is true)
and something the VA is ultra-sensitive about. Fortunately, I have an appointment
set up soon for a new psychiatrist who I hope will be sensitive to my entire
situation. With that, maybe I can explain the power of the ritual I just went
through on my overall mental well being and he will be behind me.
I think in many ways, getting back in touch with nature
during “Ostara” takes me back to the innocent days of my rural childhood when
my brother, friends and I had our run of the fields and woods around us.
Growing up that way, with the freedoms we had, set in motion a lifetime of appreciation
of nature that somehow got away from me as I grew into a false sense of
manhood. Where “camping” out during Army basic training in Kentucky was as far
as I got into nature. What a relief it was for me to make all the positive
contact I had missed at least for a hour or so during the intense ritual
experience.
I had no idea that my sense of gender was so intertwined
with the world until I began to reach out to others and live it. And I am sad
that mankind has managed to abuse the only world we have to call home, but that
is another subject altogether. It all came back to me yesterday as I remembered
the love I had for the woods which surrounded our house when I was growing up. I
guess it took a jolt to my system which included a male to female gender
transition, to bring myself back to a full circle experience with the world and
back in touch with nature.
