Opening to Darkness: Gate 5
Finding Queer Joy while listening to the Earth
This week marks 3 months since I blew up my life, and I’m feeling more like myself. Laughing, resting, and moving slowly. Staying off social media has done wonders for my peace of mind, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever return to it.
There have been a few deaths in my network. While I don’t touch on them directly in the journals below, I’m holding space for the grief I and many others are feeling. When we put guilt down, there’s so much more room for joy and grief to coexist.
So if you’re grieving the loss of someone, just know that you are not alone by any stretch of the imagination.
Below are 2 journal entries, 1 silly scribble, and a reflection of my experience of the fifth gate of Opening to Darkness by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel.
Peace Be Upon You,
Ras Bad
Morning Thoughts- 6/15/25 at 11:18 am
The mental overwhelm is increasing, and I wonder if that has to do with the change in mindset I am currently under. I am thinking about change, creating plans, and now taking active steps towards the change I wish to embody. So, of course, moving from survival mode to living mode will bring up some conflicting thoughts.
I’ve been slowly opening the floodgates to “taboo” topics for myself. Actually thinking about what I want in sex and intimacy and shooing shame out the door. Allowing myself to lean in when I feel the electricity shoot up my body. Sitting in it. Basking in it. Not judging or trying to correct or unpack.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my relationship to control and how I am constantly seeking it. Control means comfort, and predictability means safety. So living in a house with 3 dogs, 3 cats, and now 3 humans is a breeding ground for unpredictability. It’s also an invitation to return to the practice of presence and making friends with a lack of control.
What can I actually control, and what do I only wish I could control — so I distract myself trying? Sometimes focusing on the chaos is actually procrastination or avoidance of the true task at hand. The universe’s natural state is chaos, so trying to control it is a fool’s errand. I know this, and yet I still get caught up in trying to manage it all to feel safe.
When I think the question the chaos is truly bringing up is:
“How can I feel safe within myself when I cannot control my environment?”
Which brings me back to self-trust and releasing lack.
Survival has always been about having enough. Living in an expensive place like NYC can be an exercise in lack embodiment. The rushing to the next thing, the lack of trust in others because of the belief that there can only be one — the list goes on. When a Whopper meal is now $20, it’s easy to feel like the money you make is not enough.
I came to NYC with a lack-driven hustle mindset. One I’ve worked hard to address, but can still be triggered. Now I’m nestled where the cost of living is drastically cheaper, it’s allowing me to see these behaviors and thoughts more clearly. Revealing how moving from lack and survival has dampened or completely moved me away from my true nature.
It’s been raining a lot and it’s been making me happy.
My field recorder arrived yesterday and I’m just one SD card away from HD sound capture.
When I listen to the sounds of the earth and the world around me and allow myself to be present with it truly, doorways of sound open to me. I can hear the music, the orchestration, the vibrations. When I don’t think, but sing, I feel myself becoming one with the moment.
I want to capture that.
Work with that part of me, not the performance part of me.
I know performer me too well.
Let’s get back to the pure essence of who I am.
Unpolished, raw, and still beautiful.
Things I said to myself during functional training class- 6/13/25
Thank God I ate that banana.
To the older lady commenting on how I walk to the gym:
“Girl, good for me? I’m trying to get like YOU!”Oh… we weren’t supposed to row?
I don’t have a strong core.
Lmao, what? Ras! Your core is strong! Hell, you’re a bridge between heaven and earth — it better be strong.Oh, this makes me feel like I’m in ballet class.
What will I ever use this movement for?
Brain: lesbian sex. → Goes harder.Bike park!!
I’m gonna cut corners on this jog.
There is so much trauma in my body.
I’m so honored to have you, body.Look at us moving through discomfort!
OH. I can feel my ass cheeks.
I love you, body.
Brain Dump Evening Edition 6/13/25 1:24 am
“I love being a lesbian.”
Today was the first time I’ve ever said that and meant it. I was alone in my room, putting something away, when a memory popped into my mind. I laughed and said out loud:
“I love being a lesbian.”
A few moments passed, and then it hit me.
“I’m a lesbian?”
The word lesbian has always sat strangely in my body. It stirs up gender jazz.
Also, I know I love trans men. Too many crushes to count. Do I want to be them, or fuck them, or both?
So I sat my non-binary ass down on pansexual.
But I really just think I’m done with cis men.
I’ve said more than once that [redacted] would be the last cis man I’d ever date. But I never thought that meant: Ras is a lesbian.
I’d say I’m more of a queer sun, lesbian rising, demi moon.
Women have always been sparkly to me. The laughter. The wit. Intelligence of all kinds. The danger. The power. The strength. The style. The delusion.
Just — chef’s kiss.
Now, as much as I love broads… we’ve had our beef. And with some ladies? Still do.
Being nonbinary often gets treated like “Woman Lite.”
You still have a vagina so you’re in this shit with me.
Yes. I’m in this shit with you. Regardless of whether or not we share the same pee-pee. Gender, as it has been weaponized against us, fucks us all. I have a lot of thoughts about how we reduce ourselves to our genitalia to justify our actions and validate our achievements. It should piss you off that being the first person with a blank pee-pee to do something matters more than doing the thing. But I digress.
Still, I get it. Those pee-pee-worshipping ladies are talking about something real. The reality is: society sees me as a woman. And though womanhood still feels like foreign territory, girlhood doesn’t. I’m still trying to figure out what that means — about my own femininity and my relationship to cis women.
We share a lot of the same oppression.
But we are not the same.
So yes. I love women. But imma sit my ass on queer.
Just… bring the ladies to the front.
LMAOOOO.
Opening to Darkness: Gate 5
I changed things up a bit for this gate. Instead of writing right after the meditation, I let a few days pass to see what continues to stick with me.
This meditation was all about listening to the Earth and asking her for advice.
This is what I remember:
At the top of the meditation, I am standing on a concrete road with a gorgeous summer lake view — rolling hills to my left and the opening to a hiking trail in front of me.
At the opening of the trail is a series of walking sticks. I pick an oak one with a hand-carved and painted handle.
Before I start the hike, I am instructed to call back my familiar.
Quickly, the Lady-like pup runs to my side. I’m dressed in my bright yellow hiking fit, feeling pumped to get hiking.
I thank the oak that makes up my staff and start into the forest.
Suddenly, everything changes.
I’m no longer on the same hiking path I started. I’m surrounded by sequoia trees. I am but an ant in this place. The weather is so pleasant — almost like the best autumn day. The path that was once quite steep is very flat. I wonder if I started my hike in the middle. There is so much ease to the terrain, I feel like something is wrong? So I wrestle with the terrain. I keep trying to change it, but the image of the giant sequoias and the sun at dusk holds me.
The next instruction is to make this path easy.
Shame bubbles up.
My subconscious already made this easy, and I responded to ease with alarm.
Why did I want to make this hard? It’s almost like I didn’t think ease could be a part of my journey. Yet here it is.
I continue on my path with my walking stick and my canine familiar.
I am cast as a messenger of the Earth, a messenger of darkness.
I’m instructed to listen to what the Earth has to say and to pick up items along the way that she will provide, for they are tools needed later.
Slowly, as I continue, pieces of labradorite appear.
Then some bird feathers. Other stones and bones. A leaf.
I ask each object for permission before putting it in my pockets.
I keep walking, listening to the sound of crickets, enjoying the subtle glow of lightning bugs, and taking in the smells of damp forest ground, pine, and wood.
The question we are to ask is:
“What is it that we are collectively suffering on planet Earth?”
Many things come up — illusions driven by lack and scarcity.
Zenju asks: if any of the answers we received we’ve heard before, discard them and listen deeper. Keep discarding until you hear something you’ve never heard before.
I take a deep breath and ask again. More things come up, but nothing new.
I keep walking the path in silence, waiting to hear what Earth will reveal to me.
Two days pass in the meditation.
I walk the path with my familiar and watch the sky go from dusk to deep night to dawn — twice — until I reach a golden archway.
Then I hear it.
Mother Earth holds no punches:
“We are suffering from collective weaponized incompetence.”
This is a byproduct of our conditioning in this unwell society.
I let it wash over me.
Collective weaponized incompetence.
That’s new.
Mother Earth has had enough of our bullshit.
The new world that is coming will require new ways of being, acting, speaking, and relating — ways we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of.
Big changes are on the way.
We either get with the program or get left behind.
I swallow this and step off the path onto a clearing.
I’m instructed to create a circle on the forest floor using the items I’ve picked up along the way.
Then I tap my walking stick in the center of the circle and tell the Earth:
“I am listening.”
“Tell us your suffering.”
“Tell us your suffering.”
“Tell us your suffering.”
I repeat this over and over.
This is laborious work.
Sending my vibration down into the Earth as an offering.
In the corner of my eye, my familiar is alert, and then gently lies down.
“Help me to be your messenger in dark times.”
I tap the ground three times.
And I listen.
After a few minutes of silence, I begin my walk back, expressing my gratitude to every living thing.
I feel called to abstain from speaking for two days.
To really turn up the listening.
I’m curious what I’ll hear.