Beyond Magenta Quotes

Nothing remains.  The destruction is complete: love, lives, families, friends, cities, homes – all gone now.  All our efforts to be good, to do the right thing, to act well, to be just and generous are now for naught.  Because juxtaposed against any hope for fairness is wickedness, pure and simple.  In some abstract formulation these things may exist in equal measure, which is to say that the scales balance when taking all things into consideration. But that is fantasy, the stuff of religion, hope beyond all reason. Because for those caught in the whirlwind, in the chaos of manifest evil, despair is all there is. Civilization falls away: everything is pointless now.  Survival requires reciprocity. What then if there is none?

SK: What causes a person to be transgender? MS: I think the question should be flipped around: What’s the cause for assuming that one’s gender identity has to be the one that you are born with? When I first came into this job, I was much more comfortable about people’s sexuality than I was with people’s gender identity. But when you hear the same stories over and over again, from people from all over the world, you start realizing that transgender is not an anomaly. It’s a part of the spectrum of people’s realities. Then you stop wondering about the cause and you start realizing it’s a part of reality.

... my subjects’ willingness to brave bullying and condemnation in order to reveal their individual selves makes it impossible to be nothing less than awestruck.

But when you hear the same stories over and over again, from people from all over the world, you start realizing that transgender is not an anomaly. It’s a part of the spectrum of people’s realities. Then you stop wondering about the cause and you start realizing it’s a part of reality.

When consciousness is simply experiencing reality as imaged in the mind, that is what we call being in the present moment. At this point in our discussion, there is nowhere else to be. The real world is outside, it is being reflected in your mind, and you are aware of the image right in front of you. In this very simple state, you are experiencing what you were meant to experience: the gift of the moment that’s being given to you. It comes in, and you learn from it simply because you experienced it. There are no distractions; there is just total oneness with the moment in front of you. Everyone has had some rare moments like this. Perhaps it took a beautiful sunset to bring you to such a state of one-pointed consciousness. You were driving around a corner and, all of a sudden, the sun was setting with beautiful purple, orange, and magenta. It was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen, and it completely blew your mind. What does that mean, “It blew your mind”? It means there was nothing left in your mind but that image of the sunset. Not the mortgage, not the problem with the boyfriend, not the worries from the past. The only experience you were having was this beautiful sunset coming in through your eyes, rendering in your mind, and merging with your entire being. Your entire consciousness was centered and focused on the experience you were having, instead of being scattered all over the place. It was truly a spiritual experience. That is what The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali describes as the experiencer and the experience becoming one. You have allowed a merger between subject and object.

When consciousness is simply experiencing reality as imaged in the mind, that is what we call being in the present moment. At this point in our discussion, there is nowhere else to be. The real world is outside, it is being reflected in your mind, and you are aware of the image right in front of you. In this very simple state, you are experiencing what you were meant to experience: the gift of the moment that’s being given to you. It comes in, and you learn from it simply because you experienced it. There are no distractions; there is just total oneness with the moment in front of you. Everyone has had some rare moments like this. Perhaps it took a beautiful sunset to bring you to such a state of one-pointed consciousness. You were driving around a corner and, all of a sudden, the sun was setting with beautiful purple, orange, and magenta. It was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen, and it completely blew your mind. What does that mean, “It blew your mind”? It means there was nothing left in your mind but that image of the sunset. Not the mortgage, not the problem with the boyfriend, not the worries from the past. The only experience you were having was this beautiful sunset coming in through your eyes, rendering in your mind, and merging with your entire being. Your entire consciousness was centered and focused on the experience you were having, instead of being scattered all over the place. It was truly a spiritual experience. That is what The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali describes as the experiencer and the experience becoming one. You have allowed a merger between subject and object. There’s nothing distracting your consciousness from what is happening right in front of you. This is the yogic state of dharana—one-pointed concentration.

once we get to know individuals who may be different from ourselves, it is less likely we will be wary of them. And maybe, just maybe, we will learn a little more about ourselves.

So here we are, a pack of Homo sapiens thinking that we know whether a person is female or male. Now that I’ve spent a few years researching and talking with people who fall under the transgender umbrella, I am confident saying that male/ female is not the only way to describe gender. The people I’ve come to know and love in the course of writing and photographing this book have helped me better understand the fluidity of gender and sex. This lesson for me also reinforces what I’ve been writing about for years: once we get to know individuals who may be different from ourselves, it is less likely we will be wary of them. And maybe, just maybe, we will learn a little more about ourselves.

Everyone was against each other, trying to get their art displayed in the gallery. Some people would write that off as competition. I saw it as bullying. And in the music classes, to tell you the truth, I didn’t get a lot of respect. Most kids started playing early. They took lessons with private teachers. My family