Time Travel, My Novel & Gay Marriage
I’ve been gathering threads for my novel as the world struggles with these dystopian times. I won’t stop saying that. It’s why I haven’t written for some time. I float between a silent reverence, a coherence anchor as I wrote about in January and incoherence or imbalance. Reactive or responsive? Sometimes responsive reactivity and reactive responsiveness.
Not wanting to add more noise to this noisy planet but also unable to stay silent. Also at times feeling unmoored or lost at sea. It’s all happening everywhere and all at once. To everyone. Why must it and we?
I tend to write my Substack articles when I can’t stay silent. It’s the same energy I’m infusing into The Asteroid Agenda, the novel I hope to release this year. That I will release this year.
Stay tuned for time travel, time-stamping your soul and the first year of the last daylight savings where I live. Time really is funny.
Today, I had the benefit of time travelling 22 years ago to June 2004 where there was a similar energy. It happened while coming across a newspaper article I saved and my Letter to the Editor I wrote in response. An ‘outraged’ response.
Long before I was married in 2019, a wedding picture I’m sharing below, this might have seemed nearly impossible. Offensive. Back then, I was still fighting with myself about whether this was something I even deserved or could find. I was daring to hope. I send as much love and acceptance back to myself in those struggle years to provide the reassurances that my country was still grappling with. Whether this should even be allowed. Why do we keep underlining this struggle so many times? Why do we think we are experts in how others should live when there is still so many mysteries to life and our incredible bodies?
Alberta, June 2004
I was home from university for the summer in 2004 after a few years of liberal arts education away in Vancouver. I celebrated as Canada embraced same-sex marriages one Province at a time beginning in 2003. When it became federal law in 2005, I was proud to be a Canadian as we joined only three other countries allowing gay and lesbians to legally marry. The dignity of loving a partner as more than common-law was still a dividing idea. I’ll always remember presenting a summary of the legal stepping stones that were actively underway as I presented to my classmates in a tutorial group in a Criminology class as my topic of choice for Human Rights and Civil Liberties. This was the exciting time of human rights on the upward growth. Something that can easily be taken for granted or forgotten today.
Was there ever push back though. Some Albertans thought gay people would harm children or corrupt them into same-sex lifestyles. I had gone through my own struggles with internalized homophobia from a public school system that routinely discussed the sinful nature of abortion, gay marriage, capital punishment and euthanasia in publicly funded religion classes. I remember a classmate receiving an F on a paper because they didn’t provide the ‘approved’ response condemning whatever hypothetically cloaked hate we were meant to pass our teenage judgement on. That was their moment of naming and moving on. Time-stamping their soul. I’m going to share mine.
Back in 2004, like transgender identity, being gay was still being questioned as a choice rather than recognized as an identity. That ‘choice’, was seen as being made from poor moral character, a lack of impulse control, a psychological disorder or as a criminal offence. Gay marriage wasn’t just about the wedding certificate, it was for many the confirmation that being gay was a legally recognized human right and identity when expressed as a couple. The article below describes gay marriage as an “assault on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms” and I remember how much that stung at the time like my desire to marry was so perverse to be offensive. I share my wedding picture to remind myself across time how beautiful my marriage to a man can be. Especially when anyone told him otherwise.
This same reverence for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms back in 2004 has also been denied with the use of the notwithstanding clause, recently even in Alberta.
It’s why the transphobic movement scares me so personally even though I identity as a man. It’s why I needed to name the homophobia not to convince all of Airdrie while I was briefly home between semesters at school. It was a timestamp moment of naming it and moving on. Recognizing it wasn’t my fight. I had the benefit of returning to British Columbia so that moving on was not just symbolic. Do you have time-stamp or moments of naming from your higher self? I did and do. The ‘outraged reader’ back then is something I still struggle with as reactivity in these dystopian times. Getting frustrated at the people I love most. But it’s also where that letting go means so much.
So I wanted to close with my vision for 2026 and beyond. Not because I want to convince you to read my book or check out the non-profits of Humanity’s Team and The Peace Game. It’s because I want to share my grand trine. It recognizes the urgency that so many people feel right now and reminds me that I too have a reason for being here. To share a spiritual adventure. Like The Celestine Prophecy, Rabbits, The Alchemist and several more Spiritual Fiction books I love. I’ve made a time-stamp on my soul. This is the nature of dystopian times and the ebbs and flows of hope and dreams. It’s why I’ve chosen to share my voice in science-fiction or Spiritual Fiction rather than non-fiction.
Next week I celebrate 7 years married with my husband. Ryan in 2004 and in 1994 needs to hear that. It’s not fiction. It’s beautiful and love always wins.
Peace and Love & Love and Peace.
🙌🏳️🌈❤️📚🤩