Sacred Gyre
An ongoing conversation.
The idea for this podcast has a long history. From a very early age I’ve had an inner knowingness that I was brought on this world for a purpose, and that purpose had something to do with love. My life has in part been a journey to understand and live by that knowingness.
I experienced and could see around me so many ways we did not live up to the ideals upon which our country was founded. I felt a lot of pain around this and have worked for positive change most of my life in one way or another. I have been interested in conversations about how to do this since I was a teenager. Coming out as a transgender woman in 2008 made those conversations feel even more important.
I spent 10 years advocating both for my own right to gender confirming surgery, and for the rights of all transgender people. To be successful, and to live up to my own values, I had to make a commitment to treating people as though they meant well, even when I strongly disagreed about their words or actions. This was very difficult at times, but I am mostly happy with how I spoke and acted.
This work led to my being invited to speak at my alma mater, Dickinson College, at the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues in a talk titled Healing and Wholeness in Coming Out. As I prepared my talk, I thought it would be helpful to write up a short handout about it for marketing purposes. I sat down to write, and the next thing I knew it turned into my latest book, Turning Inside Out which was published in January 2022.
Speakers for the Clarke Forum are invited to come to campus, to speak at smaller events, for classes and so forth, and as I went through my time on campus, I knew that I needed to take the next step. The book was an invitation to a conversation, and this podcast is that conversation.
I hope that you will listen and let me know your thoughts, and I hope to find people who have been involved in working for change to be on this podcast in conversation about the challenges of staying connected to their deepest values so we can all learn form each other.