This Body is Non-dual

This body is non-dual.

Non-dual and integrated.

So much of its becoming has been spontaneous, organic.

I was presented with the opportunity for a double mastectomy—

a response to a predisposition to cancer—

I received it as a gift.

A clear, embodied representation of my internal state.

Of both integration and non-duality.

My deepest knowing, even.

My head being shaved—

that was about clearing away distraction.

Both distraction for others and myself.

For others, who overvalued the strands that grew from my skull.

For me, the distraction of tending to them.

No symbol left to hide behind.

No false value to be assigned by others.

Releasing the symbol that is hair,

more space was revealed.

More space.

The terrifying freedom of groundlessness.

This body is always following the currents—

a devastating unraveling

where the body is not a vessel for unrealized fantasies.

This body is where the hustle for worthiness lays down,

like an old dog ready to die in the garden.

This body will become what it must.

Stab it.

Fillet it.

Mark it.

Let the face fall apart.

Let new directions emerge.

Let the teeth break and reassemble Kintsugi-style.

Let it dry up,

grow brittle,

shatter,

and be offered to the fire—

to become ash returned to the wind.

This body is timeless,

spaceless unfurling,

where conditional love collapses.

Where my cells dance as light

and all bodies are accepted into this body.

All forms into this form.

Each person that perceives this body

projects onto it their unresolved self.

None of which I wish to claim.

The more amorphous this body becomes,

the more shadow others try to pass on to it.

Amorphousness becomes groundlessness they can’t tolerate.

It shakes them,

quakes them,

stories bleeding from unhealed wounds.

In this lifetime, I will be misunderstood.

Human beings can only perceive

at the level of consciousness they inhabit,

or one they once touched.

This is the truth of all great beings,

whose lives and teachings were never understood.

We cannot know the color of sky without sight.

We cannot know the softness of lips without touch.

Until it is seeded in the body—

known so deeply it shifts the architecture

of what is carried through lifetimes—

we will carry stories,

and call it wisdom.

Too often,

I am mistaken for someone else’s story.

Their unintegrated self.

Their duality.

Their fear of losing ground,

of becoming nobody,

and everything at once.

Please know,

this body is not a tragic denial of what once was,

but a beautiful letting go of what is no longer needed.

I know I’ve been called

a person of transgender experience.

In this world, under these structures,

that naming is real.

Yes—violence, prejudice,

the threats against my life—

all of it confirms the weight of that label.

And yet—

transgender is not what I am.

It is too small,

too narrow for the vastness of me.

I cannot bear the weight

that clinging to somebodyness brings.

This body is a vehicle.

This body is form.

And form is the place

where awakening cracks open

into the formless.

And that—

that is what I am.

That is my original face.