Someone wanted to discuss spiritual experiences. What value do they have?
It feels amazing and life-changing, and it can be. I was walking home from work on city streets I had walked hundreds of times, and suddenly that patch of grass on the street corner-
Only a patch of grass! Maybe three square yards!
had all my attention. It was vibrant. I did not understand, but think I do, now. The right hemisphere of the brain, with perception of all surroundings, had come into consciousness. My left brain perception, directed at a specific task, was not all I was conscious of. This can link to a feeling of oneness with the world, also seen as spiritual.
I noticed around then that reading spiritual texts, when they described learning I had not reached, appeared gobbledegook, but after I found the truth, I would read again with recognition. Now, with this understanding, I hope to be able to teach.
Of course left brain and right brain are working all the time, integrated in their way, but not always in consciousness. Now, for me, it is choice: walking on the beach I can slip into right brain consciousness at will, and have that sense of oneness- and separation, at the same time. What was overwhelming has become quotidian.
These experiences have no value unless they make us better people, more integrated, more fit to serve in loving community. The feeling of awe should lead us on, but without love it is nothing.
You don’t seem to understand that many Quakers abominate your views, like we abominate sexism and homophobia. You don’t have “concerns”- if you did you would do the reading and come to trans acceptance. You have ignorant hate. Some people are trans. That is all you need to know, really. You have no excuse. Having trans friends does not mean you are not transphobic, and if you substitute any other minority that may become clear to you, even though it is hard for people to admit their prejudice.
I would rather discuss spiritual experience than trans with you, but fear it will do no good. Meanwhile, my own spiritual experience continues, not discrete events but a healing process.
I use the word “trauma” with the precise meaning of the psychotherapists and counsellors I associate with. When preparing to transition, I expressed myself female at weekends and had to cram myself into the male mask on Monday morning for work. This was trauma. Then my speech therapist suggested I practice exercises throughout the day- on the stairs in the office, perhaps. So I soared, then crashed to earth, several times a day. It was horrific. I had insufficient emotional understanding, and a vicious inner critic which could not accept I might have difficulty with anything, and called me worthless, of no value but for what I can achieve.
I have listening partners. It is a spiritual practice: I listen, they listen, we hold each other in loving acceptance, we heal. With them I process this: my feminine self still feels vulnerable. I still run to the male mask, though it tortures me. My true self feels like threat to me, two decades after transition. In a group, I expressed this, deliberately seeking the acceptance of others to fortify my own. I asked, and I received. Immediately after, I wrote this affirmation:
I am.
I am here.
I am welcome.
I am safe: I need no more than ordinary vigilance.
I am Abigail.
I am glad.
My male presentation is not necessary, any more.
I can be myself, unashamed.
Then, walking home I chanted,
I am seen, valued, loved, respected
For myself, for myself, simply for myself
I am here, now, all I need to be
Need to be, need to be, All I need to be
Go on, have a spiritual experience: Metanoia, a radical move into love and truth, sometimes translated “repentance”. Is your heart so hard, your ears deaf? Be healed! Let go your fear and mistrust, and love your trans siblings!














