Thank you so much for reading, seeing, and sharing your kindness here, "poetry given form." It means the world. I love your resonance. I look forward to knowing you better.
The part about your daughter wrecked my tender heart.
I often think of you and your daughters and your life’s journey and I know it’s been hard and continues to be demanding. But you dear woman, have turned sorrow into gold.
What beautiful strength you show in your sacred breaking.
Thank you for the shards of light you send out into the collective. I know from my own connection with you that they are impactive. 🌟🌟🌟
Hi Amy, Thank you so much for your kind words. That conversation with my daughter cracked something open in me—in the best possible way. It’s been a gift to witness her truth while reckoning with parts of my own I’d long buried. I’m learning that wholeness isn’t something we arrive at—it’s something we keep choosing, together. I appreciate you.
Prajna, everything about this is fluid. I envision the spiritual world as an underwater kingdom, and when I read your writing it takes me there. Buoyant and safe, dense and supportive. Once I started reading this piece, I couldn't stop. My first crush, obsession really, was a girl in grade school. Lanky and athletic, she had a power I was drawn to, and I saddled up beside her as if we were friends, hoping one day she might talk to me. She didn't, but there was a kinship there, something buried inside of me that I was drawn to, in her. It had nothing to do with gender. I love the conversation about celebration, and I have so much curiosity about how being known is only the first step to being treasured and celebrated. I love this post and feel enriched and empowered when I read your work.
Dear Laury, Wow. Thank you for this generous reflection—it feels like a conversation across time and water. Your story about that early crush gave me chills… how often our longing arrives before language, before permission. I deeply resonate with what you said about kinship that isn’t about gender, but something deeper, ancient, cellular.
And yes—being known is only the first step. Celebration asks us to be witnessed in our radiance, not just our resilience. I’m so moved that this piece brought you to that underwater place. That’s exactly how it felt to write it. Thank you for reading with your whole being. So rich!
Dear Lily, That means a lot—thank you. Her courage (not Abby, the other daughter) allowed me to look deep inside, a cracking open in a good way.. Sovereignty didn’t come easy, but I wouldn’t trade the path. I’m glad the glimpse speaks to you… There’s always more under the surface, isn’t there? Honored to have you here, walking beside. Can't wait until we meet up.
Prajna, I love this! All we can do as parents is love our children the way they are. U.S. society is so screwed up; many people cannot empathize and put themselves in others' shoes.
I know people who are unfortunately anti-gay and they are having children. I've seen firsthand parents rejecting their kids because they came out. So backwards. When a person decides to become a parent, he/she must accept his/her kids the way they are, not expect them to turn out with the same values they were brought up with.
Dear Beth, Thank you so much for this warm, clear open-hearted response. Yes—parenting isn’t about molding our kids to match our comfort zones, it’s about meeting them with curiosity and love as they reveal who they are. What a loss when fear or conditioning gets in the way of that. And I've made my mistakes, parenting is hard! I’m with you in growing our empathy muscles. We need more of it in this world. Grateful you took the time to read and reflect. Sending a big hug!
I too loved this: "Pandora’s Box wasn’t full of demons. It was full of forgotten selves ready to uncoil." WOW I really feel this. How many forgotten selves have I journeyed to meet, reclaim and embody. What journeys we take, each one unique to the person taking it, yet all of them familiar whether it was mine, yours or someone else's!
I came out years ago to my parents, they were not as supportive. I'm sure it was hard for them; my sister came out at the same time! Their only two daughters - Lesbians! For me, over time I realized I was more bisexual. Makes sense being I work so deeply within the liminal. Prajna I love the way you supported your daughter, all your daughters. You are a great MOM! I admire that.
Ah, sister of the liminal—I feel this so deeply. What a wild initiation, for you and your parents… two daughters, both coming out? That’s a full-on ancestral pattern interrupt! And your own unfolding toward bisexuality—of course. The liminal doesn’t do straight lines. We're fluid.
Thank you for seeing me as a mom. I try, imperfectly, wildly, with love. And thank you for walking your path with such honesty and grace. Those forgotten selves you’ve reclaimed? They shine.
Prajna, this story is inspiring me to come out more courageously. No matter the words that a person uses to be unabashedly who they are, this beautiful story gives me more courage to say it like it is. To be more of me every day... to come out. What medicine this is for someone who continues to heal her mother wound- to have a model like you. Grateful. Much love.
Oh, dear sister Silicious. This made me tear up—in that fierce, no-going-back kind of way. Coming out as more (more honest, more embodied, more you) is no small thing, especially when the mother wound is stitched into the seams. If I can be a lighthouse while you rise, shine, and say it like it is—then hell yes, I’m doing something right. Keep coming out. Keep claiming space. We're in this together with salt and sugar. 🔥🌈💜
Hi Wendy, Thank you, truly. Those knots ran deep, but the untangling brought me back to something original. I’m grateful for the companions and wise mirrors along the way—including you. Your presence and work continue to be a steady light and a barrel of fun!
Hi Prajna, “What if, instead of assuming we already know who we are, we stay curious—together—in our collective becoming?” Totally. Why can’t we just be who we want to be? I often chat about this with my senior high school students. Thank you for sharing your journey with your girls, what a team. 😊🙏💜🌈
Dear Simone, Thank you so much for reading with such a wise, open heart. Your senior students are lucky to be in conversation with you. This will take them a long way out of confusion and fears. Big hug
Thanks Prajna, Despite the seeming acceptance of diversity, there remain many constraints within those communities as well as from the mainstream. The apparent need for society to have a label for every expression of being is causing young people a shit load of angst, though I am not telling you anything new. I am grateful that I have a relationship of trust with them. I work with small groups, so the safety in the dynamic lends itself to these discussions. Big hugs back. 🤗
Yes, yes—so well said. The pressure to self-label (and do it just right) is its own kind of constraint. I see how exhausting it is for so many young people, even in supposedly “accepting” spaces. I love that you’re creating pockets of trust where the messiness can breathe, without needing to be tidied up. That’s sacred work. Gratitude for walking alongside me.
Prajna, your essay opened up a self-reflection and also a reckoning. I come to your words from a different terrain, yet there’s a shared undercurrent. My trauma bound me tight, forged a discipline so rigid it could’ve been mistaken for virtue. I stayed within the rules of every law, every norm, every line ever drawn—except the one I simply couldn’t suppress: being born, in that time and place, a lesbian.
That one truth refused to be silenced. It pulsed beneath the iron fist of everything else I’d tried to lock down. I couldn’t un-be it, and wouldn’t try. And so I lived with the tension—of survival by obedience, and life by honesty.
Your story—your daughter’s quiet question, your own awakenings, the heartbreaks, refusals, sacred reclaimings—it reminds me of what it costs to live close to the bone, and what it gives back when we do. The erotic as holy. The mother as witness. The self, returned.
Thank you for sharing this tapestry of memory and power.
Oh dear, Wise One, Wow. Your words land with such weight and beauty. That image—“survival by obedience, and life by honesty”—stopped me cold. I feel the discipline you describe, the high cost of fitting in when the truth of who you are refuses to stay quiet. Thank you for meeting my story with your own reckoning.
Yes to the erotic as holy. Yes to the mother as witness. Yes to the self, returned.
I’m so grateful we get to walk this edge, however different our paths, and still recognize each other. Big hug, sister.
“Mom, no matter what I tell you, will you still love me?”
Wow, Prajna! What a stunning arc you’ve traced here, across generations, through the rupture and repair, deep into the marrow of becoming Real. For every sentence carries the shimmer of the Skin Horse’s wisdom: not just truth-telling, but transformation through love, attention and the refusal to abandon oneself.
Your daughter’s quiet question echoes across time, across my heart too, and your answer felt like you were draping a soft blanket of love and protection around her, around all of us too. And then there’s your own unfolding path, from that shadowy bar to sacred dramas and plant spirits. Each step a reclaimation.
Thank you so much for inviting us to stay curious and brave in the rhythm and tides of our own ever-unfolding identities. As you've so beautifully written, maybe Pandora’s Box was never the end point, but always a beginning in disguise.
Hello Deborah, I saw this just before heading to bed. Your words are a lullaby that has wrapped me in a soft blanket. What a gift to be read with such care and insight—thank you. Yes, maybe Pandora’s Box was never the problem—it was the refusal to open it. And what if, inside, it wasn’t chaos but the uncoiling of possibility all along?
I’m touched that my daughter’s question echoed through your ancient heart. That’s the magic of love when we refuse to abandon ourselves or each other.
Here’s to staying curious, fluid, and beautifully unfinished. 💖🌈
P.S. I didn’t meet Skin Horse at the shady bar… but if I had, he might’ve offered better career advice.
Aww, many thanks for all your beautiful and wise reflections and corrections. I've always loved that quote about Skin-Horse and Rabbit. Sweet dreams, dear Prajna. 💖🌈
Oh, ignore me, Prajna, I read something back to front, then finally the right way round round! Never mind. You stories are simply incredible! Thanks for the gentle nudge as this afternoon in the garden I started writing a new one about my first love. I was 12, maybe 13 and she was around 24 ... an English teacher, of course (classic!). 💖🌈
I have heard you talk about your daughter coming out before and her fears about love and acceptance based on her sexuality- and how fucked up is that??!!
Things have evolved and developed generally in our culture’s attitudes towards sexual diversity since 2010 but there is still a long way to go generally in the welcoming and acceptance of diversity of all kinds.
I hope that this continues to evolve and unfold and more and more we human beings can uncover more of our love acceptance and humanity♥️
Hi Rachael, Yes, exactly—how utterly fucked up that love and identity ever need to come with disclaimers. And still, here we are, slowly evolving. I do see change, especially in younger generations, but we both know how deep the roots of fear and exclusion go. I’m grateful for friends like you who keep showing up with heart, truth, and medicine. Here’s to more unfolding and fierce love. Big hug, my friend. ♥️
This was bravery given form, poetry given life. Thank you for sharing so freely of yourself.
Hello Lady Libertea,
Thank you so much for reading, seeing, and sharing your kindness here, "poetry given form." It means the world. I love your resonance. I look forward to knowing you better.
With love, Prajna
Thank you so much, both for continuing to read and for taking the time to keep building community here in this space.
Thank you for sharing this tender glimpse into you and your family's journey. Brava, my sister! Much love to all of you.
Hey Nancy, thank you so much for reading and for sharing of yourself so freely as well. So much for heteronormative world. Now that’s an illusion. 🌹💜🔥
The part about your daughter wrecked my tender heart.
I often think of you and your daughters and your life’s journey and I know it’s been hard and continues to be demanding. But you dear woman, have turned sorrow into gold.
What beautiful strength you show in your sacred breaking.
Thank you for the shards of light you send out into the collective. I know from my own connection with you that they are impactive. 🌟🌟🌟
Beautiful piece! I loved that conversation you had with your daughter as she came out to
You, and your own history which allows for your compassion and understanding. Thank you for sharing your powerful journey to wholeness.
Hi Amy, Thank you so much for your kind words. That conversation with my daughter cracked something open in me—in the best possible way. It’s been a gift to witness her truth while reckoning with parts of my own I’d long buried. I’m learning that wholeness isn’t something we arrive at—it’s something we keep choosing, together. I appreciate you.
Prajna, everything about this is fluid. I envision the spiritual world as an underwater kingdom, and when I read your writing it takes me there. Buoyant and safe, dense and supportive. Once I started reading this piece, I couldn't stop. My first crush, obsession really, was a girl in grade school. Lanky and athletic, she had a power I was drawn to, and I saddled up beside her as if we were friends, hoping one day she might talk to me. She didn't, but there was a kinship there, something buried inside of me that I was drawn to, in her. It had nothing to do with gender. I love the conversation about celebration, and I have so much curiosity about how being known is only the first step to being treasured and celebrated. I love this post and feel enriched and empowered when I read your work.
Dear Laury, Wow. Thank you for this generous reflection—it feels like a conversation across time and water. Your story about that early crush gave me chills… how often our longing arrives before language, before permission. I deeply resonate with what you said about kinship that isn’t about gender, but something deeper, ancient, cellular.
And yes—being known is only the first step. Celebration asks us to be witnessed in our radiance, not just our resilience. I’m so moved that this piece brought you to that underwater place. That’s exactly how it felt to write it. Thank you for reading with your whole being. So rich!
Queerness' weight, wonder.
Our humanity's fern fronds
ever unfurling.
Hello Marisol,
Queerness—its weight, its wonder.
Our humanity’s fern fronds
ever unfurling,
toward light
we didn’t know we needed
until it warmed our most hidden parts.
Thank you for meeting this piece in the deep—
for sharing your story,
for reminding me how early longing begins,
and how beautifully it returns
when we’re finally safe enough to feel it.
I appreciate you!
Powerful and beautiful writing with great depth.
I love Abby's coming out story.
I love how you claimed sovereignty of your body, soul and your divine timing.
I am only catching a glimpse of the wisdom that you embody. So much more to learn from you. I'm honored to be invited to your rich inner world.
Dear Lily, That means a lot—thank you. Her courage (not Abby, the other daughter) allowed me to look deep inside, a cracking open in a good way.. Sovereignty didn’t come easy, but I wouldn’t trade the path. I’m glad the glimpse speaks to you… There’s always more under the surface, isn’t there? Honored to have you here, walking beside. Can't wait until we meet up.
I know what you mean by not wanting to trade. Same here! BTW I just came out this year as queer.
Yes, look forward to meeting you one day!
Prajna, I love this! All we can do as parents is love our children the way they are. U.S. society is so screwed up; many people cannot empathize and put themselves in others' shoes.
I know people who are unfortunately anti-gay and they are having children. I've seen firsthand parents rejecting their kids because they came out. So backwards. When a person decides to become a parent, he/she must accept his/her kids the way they are, not expect them to turn out with the same values they were brought up with.
Beautifully written prose.
Dear Beth, Thank you so much for this warm, clear open-hearted response. Yes—parenting isn’t about molding our kids to match our comfort zones, it’s about meeting them with curiosity and love as they reveal who they are. What a loss when fear or conditioning gets in the way of that. And I've made my mistakes, parenting is hard! I’m with you in growing our empathy muscles. We need more of it in this world. Grateful you took the time to read and reflect. Sending a big hug!
Totally agree. I've made mistakes too -- all parents do. The key is to try our best. Hugs back
And try again, thank you, dear.
Beautiful writing, thank you for sharing!
Hi Wendy, Thank you so much for your kindness and reading.
I too loved this: "Pandora’s Box wasn’t full of demons. It was full of forgotten selves ready to uncoil." WOW I really feel this. How many forgotten selves have I journeyed to meet, reclaim and embody. What journeys we take, each one unique to the person taking it, yet all of them familiar whether it was mine, yours or someone else's!
I came out years ago to my parents, they were not as supportive. I'm sure it was hard for them; my sister came out at the same time! Their only two daughters - Lesbians! For me, over time I realized I was more bisexual. Makes sense being I work so deeply within the liminal. Prajna I love the way you supported your daughter, all your daughters. You are a great MOM! I admire that.
Ah, sister of the liminal—I feel this so deeply. What a wild initiation, for you and your parents… two daughters, both coming out? That’s a full-on ancestral pattern interrupt! And your own unfolding toward bisexuality—of course. The liminal doesn’t do straight lines. We're fluid.
Thank you for seeing me as a mom. I try, imperfectly, wildly, with love. And thank you for walking your path with such honesty and grace. Those forgotten selves you’ve reclaimed? They shine.
I love you.
Thanks so much Prajna! I am touched by your words. I love you too! 💜
🔥🕊️🦋
Prajna, this story is inspiring me to come out more courageously. No matter the words that a person uses to be unabashedly who they are, this beautiful story gives me more courage to say it like it is. To be more of me every day... to come out. What medicine this is for someone who continues to heal her mother wound- to have a model like you. Grateful. Much love.
Oh, dear sister Silicious. This made me tear up—in that fierce, no-going-back kind of way. Coming out as more (more honest, more embodied, more you) is no small thing, especially when the mother wound is stitched into the seams. If I can be a lighthouse while you rise, shine, and say it like it is—then hell yes, I’m doing something right. Keep coming out. Keep claiming space. We're in this together with salt and sugar. 🔥🌈💜
Hell yes. We're in this together with the sweet and the salty. Wow. 🔥🌈💜
"disentangling intimacy from pain, desire from danger, subject from object, pleasure from faking it." So glad you found the route through, Prajna.
Beautifully told.
(And thank you for the mention.)
Hi Wendy, Thank you, truly. Those knots ran deep, but the untangling brought me back to something original. I’m grateful for the companions and wise mirrors along the way—including you. Your presence and work continue to be a steady light and a barrel of fun!
💜
Hi Prajna, “What if, instead of assuming we already know who we are, we stay curious—together—in our collective becoming?” Totally. Why can’t we just be who we want to be? I often chat about this with my senior high school students. Thank you for sharing your journey with your girls, what a team. 😊🙏💜🌈
Dear Simone, Thank you so much for reading with such a wise, open heart. Your senior students are lucky to be in conversation with you. This will take them a long way out of confusion and fears. Big hug
Thanks Prajna, Despite the seeming acceptance of diversity, there remain many constraints within those communities as well as from the mainstream. The apparent need for society to have a label for every expression of being is causing young people a shit load of angst, though I am not telling you anything new. I am grateful that I have a relationship of trust with them. I work with small groups, so the safety in the dynamic lends itself to these discussions. Big hugs back. 🤗
Yes, yes—so well said. The pressure to self-label (and do it just right) is its own kind of constraint. I see how exhausting it is for so many young people, even in supposedly “accepting” spaces. I love that you’re creating pockets of trust where the messiness can breathe, without needing to be tidied up. That’s sacred work. Gratitude for walking alongside me.
That's why we are crones 🙏 🥰
Prajna, your essay opened up a self-reflection and also a reckoning. I come to your words from a different terrain, yet there’s a shared undercurrent. My trauma bound me tight, forged a discipline so rigid it could’ve been mistaken for virtue. I stayed within the rules of every law, every norm, every line ever drawn—except the one I simply couldn’t suppress: being born, in that time and place, a lesbian.
That one truth refused to be silenced. It pulsed beneath the iron fist of everything else I’d tried to lock down. I couldn’t un-be it, and wouldn’t try. And so I lived with the tension—of survival by obedience, and life by honesty.
Your story—your daughter’s quiet question, your own awakenings, the heartbreaks, refusals, sacred reclaimings—it reminds me of what it costs to live close to the bone, and what it gives back when we do. The erotic as holy. The mother as witness. The self, returned.
Thank you for sharing this tapestry of memory and power.
Oh dear, Wise One, Wow. Your words land with such weight and beauty. That image—“survival by obedience, and life by honesty”—stopped me cold. I feel the discipline you describe, the high cost of fitting in when the truth of who you are refuses to stay quiet. Thank you for meeting my story with your own reckoning.
Yes to the erotic as holy. Yes to the mother as witness. Yes to the self, returned.
I’m so grateful we get to walk this edge, however different our paths, and still recognize each other. Big hug, sister.
“Mom, no matter what I tell you, will you still love me?”
Wow, Prajna! What a stunning arc you’ve traced here, across generations, through the rupture and repair, deep into the marrow of becoming Real. For every sentence carries the shimmer of the Skin Horse’s wisdom: not just truth-telling, but transformation through love, attention and the refusal to abandon oneself.
Your daughter’s quiet question echoes across time, across my heart too, and your answer felt like you were draping a soft blanket of love and protection around her, around all of us too. And then there’s your own unfolding path, from that shadowy bar to sacred dramas and plant spirits. Each step a reclaimation.
Thank you so much for inviting us to stay curious and brave in the rhythm and tides of our own ever-unfolding identities. As you've so beautifully written, maybe Pandora’s Box was never the end point, but always a beginning in disguise.
What a proud and powerful mother you are! 🌈💖🙏
Hello Deborah, I saw this just before heading to bed. Your words are a lullaby that has wrapped me in a soft blanket. What a gift to be read with such care and insight—thank you. Yes, maybe Pandora’s Box was never the problem—it was the refusal to open it. And what if, inside, it wasn’t chaos but the uncoiling of possibility all along?
I’m touched that my daughter’s question echoed through your ancient heart. That’s the magic of love when we refuse to abandon ourselves or each other.
Here’s to staying curious, fluid, and beautifully unfinished. 💖🌈
P.S. I didn’t meet Skin Horse at the shady bar… but if I had, he might’ve offered better career advice.
Hugs, P
Aww, many thanks for all your beautiful and wise reflections and corrections. I've always loved that quote about Skin-Horse and Rabbit. Sweet dreams, dear Prajna. 💖🌈
I cannot wait to read it. Please be sure to tag me.
We’re so food we can go any direction. Lol.
Hi Deborah, I'm unsure what I corrected, if I did, it was not meant. Love you.
Oh, ignore me, Prajna, I read something back to front, then finally the right way round round! Never mind. You stories are simply incredible! Thanks for the gentle nudge as this afternoon in the garden I started writing a new one about my first love. I was 12, maybe 13 and she was around 24 ... an English teacher, of course (classic!). 💖🌈
Dear Prajna
I have heard you talk about your daughter coming out before and her fears about love and acceptance based on her sexuality- and how fucked up is that??!!
Things have evolved and developed generally in our culture’s attitudes towards sexual diversity since 2010 but there is still a long way to go generally in the welcoming and acceptance of diversity of all kinds.
I hope that this continues to evolve and unfold and more and more we human beings can uncover more of our love acceptance and humanity♥️
Thanks for your story my friend. Much love ♥️
Hi Rachael, Yes, exactly—how utterly fucked up that love and identity ever need to come with disclaimers. And still, here we are, slowly evolving. I do see change, especially in younger generations, but we both know how deep the roots of fear and exclusion go. I’m grateful for friends like you who keep showing up with heart, truth, and medicine. Here’s to more unfolding and fierce love. Big hug, my friend. ♥️