hey you "guys," i've often wondered about the origins of this term...which i grew up using gender neutrally. tracing ultimately back to italian for "guide" or alternately "forest" (via the name Guido for "guide," or wido for "wood," see also the root weyd- meaning "to see, or know"). ironically common use is said to have entered the language as a reference to Guy Fawkes. now, i do know it is better to weaponize language and to take militant offense to any/all words whenever possible, because there's not enough war in this world and it's better to spread our focus thin rather than address the most important issues... but i do find this etymology interesting.

those of us who call each other "guides" don't necessarily think that way, that is to say...we're not on the same rampage page. but we are on the front lines, and do duck the pitchforks whenever possible. unless we're cheeky as fuck, because we were born as artists and poets who see double edged (s)words as tools too often wielded by power structures to oppress, slander, and polarize ('divide & conquer') utilitizing the controlling impulses of common people to "engender" isolation, disunity, and half-truths. but i digress. in our tradition we do not divide masculine/feminine, it is a spectrum existing in all things - source, nature - equal and opposite polarity, the yin/yang. it's a little bit like binary code: neither a 1 nor a 0 is very telling of meaning on its own, it merely is (ponder the shape of these, for further amusement &/or irritability)... neither your body type, nor name, nor pro-nouns, or the cons therein, will wholly embody this (not even by majority... for example, i could be called "boy" and it would say almost nothing about my feminine potential already realized. likewise somebody might attempt to insult me by calling me a "girl" unaware that they not only compliment me, but that my feminine power is a complement to my masculine power, in fact they complete each other when we as people become "whole." it is simply up to one's (or should i say zero's?) own unique spirit; how they wish to identify and present themselves.

gender has been a case of "mistaken identity" from the very first moment our inner polarities were pitted against each other. consider this... what if patriarchy vs. matriarchy is not the essence of this war, but rather a tool: engendered by certain power structures for the purposes of keeping our people disempowered? what if only half the truth is being told for the very reason of keeping us from the whole truth? which is... interactivation. imagine two dogs raised in captivity. neither are especially happy or free or content, but one dog is given extra "privilege," a few extra scraps, a pat on the head. what do you think would happen to the psychology of these two animals? may i remind you, both are still being kept in unhappy circumstances, a fact which might soon be lost on them as bitterness and competition consumes their memory of desire... greener grass and open skies becomes all about who's sleeping pad is less rock-hard, whose chicken bones had a little bit more meat left on them. hmmm.

...but yes, you can & should choose what you want to be called. i will do my best to honor this, even if you ride with agents who deliberately hide behind lies and disguises. because they can, because the framework offers them safe-haven without question (and they won't have it any other way). framework like iron bars wrought into arcs... they say a bird inside a cage does not lose its ability to fly nor, more importantly, its desire to return to the sky. but if it did, if it were convinced otherwise, you could leave the door to the cage open, the window ajar, and it might never leave its perch. from that high perch, it judges all beneath from a 'birds-eye-view' and comes to understand much about the world.

next subject: plato's cave and the origins of "platonic" love. sneak a peak.