Coming out spiritual at the LGBTQ national conference

Coming back to it, to you, for I am again overflowing with emotions as my mind churns with thoughts and inspiration.

I'm attending the National Conference on LGBTTQIA2S rights in Montreal right now. Third day of keynotes and panels on subjects ranging from ''the situation of LGBTQ migrants and refugees in Canada'' to ''domestic violence in same-sex couples'' and ''growing old as an LGBT person''. Fifty-nine panels to choose from. Right now, I'm playing hooky. I'm too overwhelmed to take such emotionally-charged information in.

I just attended a panel titled ''The role of Two-Spirit in today's world''. It was, in fact, one of the few options having to do with LGBTQ 2S (for two-Spirits) indigenous realities, all of which I attended.

Why did I attend those in particular? I don't have to justify myself! Am I being defensive? No! Why? What?!

When considering the list of workshops I chose to attend, there seems to be a certain thread.

On one hand, there have been the ones related to LGBTQ+ artists. I guess I'm seeking mirrors, hints, inspiration. Yes, I'm back to it again: I know there is something wanting to come out. I'm wondering: when will I get over denying that my sensitivity and my relationship to the world are those of an artist? When will my practice and my message take form?

I will actually be taking this entire year off, with the intention of engaging this process.  I will be dancing, I will be writing again. I will be healing myself.  I am entering that part of the spiral again, ready to step a little bit more into my identity.

Identity: the concept. As a white middle-class french-canadian woman, I realize my identities haven't really be so threatening to the societies I've lived in. I'm also queer and bisexual, but that hasn't even been so much of an issue for me either (I can be grateful for this). I'm full of privileges.

But there are areas where I feel uneasy about the gap between my inner truth and my identity. There are parts of me I am uncomfortable assuming, feeling that I might get judged and rejected, laughed at and misunderstood.  It came to me yesterday: I'm starting a process of coming-out... as a spiritual being.

And as I'm writing this I don't even know what it means. When I say I am a spiritual being, I mean that I believe to be part of something much greater than... my individual ego. I actually believe that there is something unfolding at a collective level, and that we have souls-bodies that are informing us, if we listen, as to the direction of greater healing and evolution.

Which brings me back to what I was feeling at the beginning of this post: overwhelmed. The workshop I left earlier left me with such a palpable ball of energy in my solar plexus. So much anger and sadness!

I feel the same way I used to feel when I became conscious, from the age of thirteen, of all the injustices that black people had experienced in America. (I am aware this is not a sentence to be written in the ''simple past'', yet I'm referring to the moment of my awakening, 21 years ago.  Today, I am more than ever feeling a rage and urgency: nothing is over). I felt the same way I felt throughout my International Affairs degree, learning about neoliberalism as well as the history of colonialism. Or as I felt when taking my first animal ethics class. The roots of violence and injustice run so fucking deep!

I am taking it in: as a white middle-class woman french-canadian woman living in Québec, I do have a duty to use my privilege to speak up. I don't know how far my words can participate in the healing. Right now, I'm mostly emotions. But there are many thoughts to come, some of them potentially insightful...

Right now, I have to go back in the conference room. I want to take part in the closing ceremony led by Ms. Sylvia Maracle. We are standing on un-ceeded Mohawk territory. We have much community healing and building to do. A-ho.