Fifty Shades of Gender podcast graphic with Sophia Wise One

Episode 6

A conversation with Sophia Wise One

GENDER-TRANSCENDENT

47 min. Recorded on 10 June 2020.

Sophia identifies as gender-transcendent and welcomes all pronouns. Find out what that means to Sophia in this episode.

We also talk about the physical experience, spirituality, vibration and energy, the divine feminine, the female body, menstruation, Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD), sex, and embodying the genital energy of both sexes. We talk about gender as a role, archetype or presentation, and also conditioning, oppression of the feminine, reclaiming identity, healing, and a vision for the future.

“…*IF* gender came out of the roots of genitals, there aren’t just two. That’s not even how bodies and humans are made. Intersex is fucking real, so it’s a complete erasure and denial of the human experience.”

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TRANSCRIPT [click to expand]

Esther: Hello, welcome! What’s your name?

Sophia: Sophia

Esther: And how do you identify?

Sophia: I identify, I go by: Sophia Wise One, Daughter of the Wind, Spider Queen, among other things, and I identify as gender transcendent.

Esther: Ooh now that’s a term that I had not heard before, so what does that mean to you?

Sophia: It means to me that I have always understood, kind of intrinsically, like in my body and my being, that gender, and even my body, was a vehicle for a spiritual experience. And so I don’t actually identify, I do my best not to identify with a lot of aspects of this kind of temporary and, to me, very sacred, and very important, journey. So it is like a costume, so in some ways I wear it, we will probably talk about this, there are many ways in which I really embrace woman-ness, that is really nourishing and thriving for me. And so it is like I embrace that, and I put that on, and I live into it for what it has to offer, it is not who I am, it is not what I am. What I am, I am being: like an energetic, vibrational, soul-journeying-being, that has come into manifested form.

Esther: See I like that perspective, I don’t hear much of that, so it is great to explore this further. Let me have a look at my questions. Let me see…would you, if you had to give yourself a label, what would it be? Would non-binary fit, do you think?

Sophia: I don’t really, it is one of those things where it is not particularly inaccurate, but it doesn’t resonate. It is like all of these things, for me, I can see it from all these different perspectives, and I am like… yeah!, actually that is kind of the whole thing, I am like: yeah, totally! I can totally identify as that! Or, I can identify as that, I can identify as that… so sure, yeah, non-binary, gender non-conforming, a little bit more, gender-fluid I think is probably there; but again, those are all references to taking something on and taking something off. So it is like on what level are we talking about? Are we talking about my identity or my understanding of myself and my truth? Or are you talking about my expression; or my experience as a human; or in a social dynamic; or in a social-relating-space; or in a personal-relating space? Because all those to me are, when I start to look at them, if I actually look and I am directing my focus in that way, then I have a lot of different experiences and a lot of different things to kind of say about that.

Esther: Well, we could cover all that, yeah, there are all these layers to a person I suppose, isn’t it? I was thinking, as well, about the physicality of it, I suppose, as well. I mean, if you would like to start with one of those, feel free.

Sophia: Sure. I guess one piece I will say is that the idea of non-binary, I think this is what gets me… this is what gets me in my heart, the fact that we have to say, “I am non-binary”, means that the way that the gender binary, or gender identification, has been presented is inherently de-humanising.
I think every person is inherently a non-binary person, everybody is carrying these aspects that we…if gender is a role, or if gender is an archetype, if gender is a presentation, then I don’t think I have ever met anyone who only strictly 24-7, 365 days a year, has only ever embodied, and expressed, the one singular entirety of that gender role, I have never met anyone ever, you know? And the fact that there is some sort of (it is gross in my body!) that there is some sort of “ideal man” and “ideal woman” feels so gross and feels so inherently denying the truth of what being human is.

I really understand, I have deeply understood this in myself, and been reflected back by other authors and teachers, talking about the link between this “ideal gender” and colonialism and white supremacy. This idea that there is this “right” way of being, is so gross to me, it is so gross. It makes my skin crawl. I am just like: how is that real? How is that based in reality? How is that based in any experience that anyone has ever had? Ever? Have you ever…? It just breaks my brain and so there is this part of me that is just like…

And I am very…this is one of those things where it is like, you have invited me on to talk about my personal experience, and my viewpoint, and so it is like, however anyone else understands, or uses language as a way to clarify or define, or to express, I don’t need to be… words are tools, right? And any tool can be, anything can be a tool or be a weapon. So gender identification, gender expression, gender language, can be a tool to express, or to explore and build connection; or it can be a thing to dominate, to strip, to take away, to proscribe what someone is or what someone is not.

And just that notion, that there is this thing, you could say (I don’t know) that a man is something like a brick or something, that it is like this thing – oh that collapses my brain, even a brick depends on what layer you are looking at a brick, you are looking at the minerals, you are looking at the age of it and how much of it is water, and how much of it is…if you really take a minute it just all kind of crumbles. So one of the things that I often think about with this is that gender doesn’t matter at all, because it is made up and it is a tool that is either useful or harmful; so gender and pronouns don’t matter, except that they matter, and as long as they matter, they really matter, you know?

Esther: Yeah.

Sophia: If we are playing the game where gender and pronoun is like a real thing then it is really important that people, personally, have the ability to use that landscape or framework to express, embrace, accept themselves, and each other. Right? And to me, if it is not being used in that way, then it is just a tool of oppression and control, it is just a way of saying: either you are doing human right, or you are doing human wrong. And that’s so heart-breaking to me, and it is like get your fucking opinions out of my body, and my understanding of myself, and my witnessing of the people I love; get out, get the fuck out, why are you trying to judge this as being a right thing, or a wrong thing?

So it is very…it really touches this place in me where I really see whether it always was, or whether it was then taken on as a weapon. I feel that it was weaponised, or maybe even the creation of it, perhaps as a weapon, I don’t know. I don’t need to necessarily have a sense of that, that origin story piece, but even the fact that if, which is not, if gender came out of the roots of genitals, then like there aren’t just two, that isn’t even how bodies and humans are made, intersex is fucking real, you know? So it is a complete erasure and denial of, again, the human experience, and our community, and the truth of who we are, or our hormonal expressions that shift.

You know some of us have these kind of ways of bodies of expressing at 10, everybody is different at 10, than they are at 20, right? And then 20, and then at 40, and then at 60… there is this way that is like, if we admit that we are alive, and that we are changing, and that we are in a relationship to our environments, and that all of these things will shift the ways that our hormones move and that will shift the way that we understand our self, and that will shift the way that we relate to our environments.

To make a binary at all is, I think that it is harmful. To me, to say that I am non-binary is just to be like: welcome to fucking reality, like welcome to reality! Yeah, I have a vagina, I have a womb, I love that I menstruate, it is like an anchor of my sanity…it was the thing that made me go insane, I was diagnosed with PMDD, which is pre-menstrual-dysphoria-disorder, my menstrual cycle was so extreme, my mental health behaviour was much more similar to bi-polar, manic depressive.

Esther: Oh wow, I had never heard of that term, either. I am learning lots today. {laughing}

Sophia: PMDD. And I had enough of a foundation and my upbringing, a spiritual route, and a body-based route, that when my body was doing this cycle, this biorhythm cycle of emotional up and down, physical pain, all of these things, it was just so intense, I looked at that and said: oh you are trying to communicate something to me, let me pay attention. And I deepened my relationship with my menstrual cycle, and I turned to moon-lodging and sacred bleeding practices. So I turned to my womb as a huge healing-anchor in my life, and I see the way that wombs, especially white wombs, in this fucking white supremacist eugenic orientated, superior, damaged, world-shredding — to everyone, you know? To me, there is no hurting, or oppressing someone, that doesn’t destroy everyone involved. We are inherently connected so like nobody gets out on top, in my opinion

Esther: Oh yeah.

Sophia: Everybody just gets out wounded in different ways, and some of them fucking tragic. So this understanding that this control over the womb, and the female body, and vaginas, and ovaries, and the way that has been controlled and suppressed and made to be insane, you know? I have a huge part of me that loves woman and loves everything that is woman, feminine, female, all the associations that have been demonised and controlled, and weaponised: emotionality, sensitivity, nurturing, caring, collectivism, communal-orientation, right? All of these things that have been so orientated towards the “woman” and then demonised.

And I am like, first of all, all of those things are, again, they are not fucking woman, they are human! That is how you exist as a human! So there is this part of reclaiming that and lifting it up and having it be linked to a physical womb, because that link was also how it was weaponised.

So I have this part of me that a little politicised in this way, that is like: I am a woman, I get to define what woman is and woman is non-fucking binary, that’s my… you know what I mean? That is what it is. And if we are going to talk about the role and the energy of a man, an archetypal energy as a protector, as a holder, as a filler, I love doing that, I love providing service, and care, and protection, and showing the fuck up and getting big on the street and walking with my partner and watching someone look them up and down and have them feel dangerous and having me fucking grow huge, right? My elbows go out and I stand really tall, and I make long eye contact, that is like: you want to fuck with us? Fuck with me.

Esther: Right!

Sophia: I have that, and I love that, and if that this what a man is then call me a fucking man, because I am a fucking man and I am good at it.

Esther: {laughing}

Sophia: I want it, you know? And if I get acknowledged by using he/him, if that is how you are going to acknowledge and see that moment and that is a celebration, or respect, then I want that, give me that, give me that fucking king mantle; I accept that, I want that, I want permission to be honoured and to see and to hold that, you know? If we are in that space.

So that is a piece and then the other piece about it is that as a spiritual being for my body, I also, in my sex, have this deep experience of my vagina, and it’s energetic space, and my womb, and this receiving and this filling. But I also have this energetic body experience that happens, that is like I have a cock, I have a light cock, I also wear cocks sometimes, but I don’t need one to have one, I have one and that is what happens in my body. And I have filled my lovers with that energy, and it is real, it is really, really, real. And so that… I have experienced and pleasured myself with that energy even without another lover.

It is like I have felt that, and I have felt lovers who have penises open up and become these deep receptive spaces that is this, I don’t know, vaginal-divine-feminine, into this womb energy, is also one of the things that I teach, is this womb energy, and this root reclamation, is that everyone has this energy of this erectile, first of all literally everybody has all these tissues, erectile tissues, and these like soft gushy wet seeping tissues, that we all can do that from these different places in our body, our physical body does all of these things in a non-binary, fucking, way, that is the whole point! Humans do this, that’s what we do, we do all of these things. So I don’t know, human, is that how I gender-identify? A human…

Esther: That is good enough for me! {laughing}

Sophia: Yeah, more and more. Then, if we are playing these language games as a way to celebrate and honour each other, I want in. You know? Don’t leave me out! I largely use she when people ask me what pronouns I use, I often kind of, as you can hear, I have all of these thoughts and feelings that go through me, around this, it is very real for me. I either use, my answer is either: all pronouns welcome, or a lot of the time, I often have this sense of: as long as you use it with respect, it is good by me. And I often refer to myself, especially in my healing spaces, because I have been identified, and did identify with, female, and woman, so much of my healing is about un-shaming the associations that were put on me in that way. I was so socialised female, and then I received so much damage around my psyche, around what that meant, about how I needed to, one of my major powers is that when I need things I need to get more fragile, right?

Esther: Yeah.

Sophia: This manipulation tactic for survival is like so toxic for everyone and so there is this way — because I have these associations that have been so deeply engrained in me — going into those connections and then honouring, and rewiring them, that I believe take me to transcend past the gender identification, but those are the entry points that were socialised onto me, so in that way it is really important for me to hold it and let it be she, let it be: I am a girl, I am a woman, you know? Because I had so many associations with that that were subtle and, especially, in my upbringing, were in this kind of very spiritual and progressive, liberal, parents way. I was not made a woman and then denied what I wanted and what I could be. They weren’t contrary, I didn’t have that experience of: you are a girl, you can’t do that, you know what I mean?

Esther: Yes.

Sophia: I didn’t have experience of that, there were plenty of associations where my girl-gendering wasn’t actually a gendering, it was really a reference to my genitals, right? And then, as I got older, and the more socialisation went along with it, in the outside world, the deconstruction or the recognition of that, the waking up. Going to my liberal arts college and being like holy shit(!): classism, racism, sexism…inner-sexism, we are so enculturated into this specific way to succeed, in this (right?) colonised-white-supremacist-culture. And: that is how you do that and if you are not doing that you are a fucking problem. And for me being: I am a gender-transcendent energetic being who came here to lick my own menstrual blood and make offerings to the ancestors and like, you know, help people heal by respecting their body and the earth, I am not following the fucking…I am not the checklist of playing by the rules, you know?

Esther: Yeah, yeah.

Sophia: I am weeping on the street… I am standing up for people and giving voice and… I remember in fourth grade I slapped someone across the face because they used a derogatory term for a gay person, and I palmed them! I just slapped them and said: we do not use that kind of language. In fourth grade!

Esther: Wow!

Sophia: Fierce motherfucker! I was not playing by the rules and it was, you know, like a guy kid and I just slapped him across the face and was like: no…no!  I have that part of me that is just like, I am not here to play by your: this is how people are right or wrong and this is who deserves space or permission or whatever. I have felt like such a fucking freak my whole life in my spiritual understanding of reality, of just being like: literally it is all a game, we know that, right? And people around me are like: this is real! And I am like: no it is not! It is a vibrational construction, matrix field, that we are like expanding our consciousness in, right?

Esther: Wow! And actually what you are saying, it is really interesting, because you have just answered a load of the questions that I had anyway, and you sound like a very aware child. I was going to say: have you always been not aware of gender in this way, but just always, I guess, had this feeling of: what is this? …this doesn’t work, or this isn’t right, or…?

Sophia: Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. I came in, and I think a lot of kids do this, I think one of the differences is that I had a family that really listened to children, which is like…I know! Exactly, it is awesome, and to me that is again, that is like a standard, of course you listen to children, they carry a wisdom and an access point to knowledge that children have. Teens have an access point that teens have. Elders have an access point that elders have. Everybody inherently has an access point to a kind of wisdom in this experience, right? So I came in as soon as I could talk, I was telling stories about before I was born. So sometimes I refer to myself as a little baby mystic, I came in and was like: well, when I was with God, before I came down here. I would tell those stories…

Esther: How awesome, yeah.

Sophia: And I lived in a house where not only would they listen to me, but those stories were told back to me: oh yeah Sophia said this, Sophia told us this… And then my mum, as an actress, she got chronically ill, she was a yoga teacher and, through her…she is just a seeker, a spiritual…like a mystic, brilliant, intellectual, artist. She is a brilliant actress, and director, and creative, you know? So she is in this place and I remember my mum went and saw the Dalai Lama speak, when I was a kid at some point, and she came back and we sat down and we were talking, I was probably eight or nine or something, and we were talking and she said: and then the Dalai Lama said this… and then the Dalai Lama said this… And I was just sitting there and nodding my head, she was just talking about all of these things. And I was like: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah and she just stopped and was like: this all makes sense to you? And I was so confused, I was like: what could possibly not make sense about this fact that we are both the infinite creative universe and like we are nothing. How is that…?

Esther: {joking} Doesn’t everyone know that?

Sophia: That’s so obvious… so in that way I did really come in this way. And one of the most painful parts of my existence was how much, I think this is true for a lot of people, how much, when we inherently know something to be true, in this deep, innocent, whole-hearted, love way, and then we get bombarded either in a moment, or sequentially, by these things that are like: no that’s not true, no that’s not true, no that’s not true. This chipping away at this deep knowing, this deep, heart, joyful, loving, knowing. Of me being like: no but everybody deserves a place to live and being told like: no, no, no, you see it is complicated. And just having this notion of being like: {shouting) HOW is it complicated????

Esther: {laughing} It is not…yeah.

Sophia: Yeah and then feeling like a crazy person, being told like: no. And this basic understanding and, to me, that we are all the same thing, it is like: yeah I have a light cock, and yeah, my lover no matter what genitals they have, they have wombs. None of that is confusing to me, that is just what always has been true. So to then be told that this is how things are and to just be like: okay, one of us is… I am okay with you having a different experience, but you are telling me I am wrong. So either I am wrong, or I am wrong that it is okay to have different experiences, it is so undermining of my sanity. I did, I literally, I went crazy when I was 19, I did, all my trauma exploded and I dropped out of college and I wept for like six years and learned a lot of skills, learned a lot of skills, and went back to this…I had enough of a foundation that I kind of stepped into this adult world and was like: you know, this is a shit show, are you kidding me? Looking at everything and just being like: your gender landscape is insane, it is so wrong, you are telling women that they can and can’t do all of these things. Of course I had this liberal, hippy, upbringing of: woman can do everything, and it is good when men cry. And then walk out into this world and they are like. I was in the world, I was in Philadelphia public school, but as I walked more and more out into the world and people were like: oh these ares the rules, and I was like: we are not fitting, we are not meshing. You my inherent understanding of what is real and what is reality and being told what is, and what isn’t, allowed, made me insane, and I had to go through the process of recognising and reclaiming myself as my own authority.

Esther: Wow.

Sophia: And being like: oh I don’t have to fight with you as the authority, I don’t have to convince the authority that I am right, I need to…the first thing I need to do is to become my own authority and then stand in that, that has been my healing journey.

Esther: Wow, yes. That is incredible, it is an incredible story, and there is a lot to process, so I am just think of what to ask you next… oh my God!

Sophia: Take a minute and breath.

Esther: Yes, wow. Let’s see, do you think you are at a place now where you are not happy with your gender necessarily, but do you see it as…has much evolved in that way? Have you always, kind of, had your own ideas…obviously you have always had your own ideas about gender, and what it is, and what it is not, and what is wrong with it all. Do you see that evolving or changing? What about the world at large, do you have any predictions as it were?

Sophia: Predictions!

Esther: I am not sure if prediction is the right word, but you know, let’s go with it… {laughing}

Sophia: Sure, sure, sure. You know what I can say is, I have a lot of language to talk about it now. I remember I did not think about gender for a huge chunk of my life. I realise now, I was thinking about gender, but I wasn’t thinking about it in a personal landscape, I wasn’t in conflict with  being gender-ised as female, or woman, I didn’t have a conflict with that necessarily. I was just like: okay, if I am a woman, a woman means that I can have a light cock, and understand, and enjoy. I have never experienced being misgendered and have multiple times in my life had a shaved head, and different times when people called me “sir” and “him” and all that stuff, and I have always been: that’s nice, it didn’t feel you know…

It wasn’t until I started interacting with gender politics and I started hearing stories from people that were transgender, non-binary, a-gender, hearing their experiences, that I was like: oh, you are describing something in secular terms that I always understood in a spiritual understanding way. I had a spiritual light being understanding of what they were talking about, as like a cultural space. So I really was able to listen in on that conversation, and join that conversation from a very different place, and learn a lot more language, to be able to talk about. So I don’t know I just want to say that. So it was not like I was a person who at 14, necessarily with language dismantling gender norms, that is not what was happening, you know?

I believe for myself, I was thinking about this, when I was coming onto to do this, because I had this moment of just being like — I was thinking about this with my own podcast too — but it is such a time capsule, it is like: of course I am going to have a totally different experience of all this in whatever… If you were to ask me five years ago, I probably only would have been able to talk about, I don’t know, I don’t know what I would be able to talk about…but I feel it would be different.

Esther: Yes of course.

Sophia: I imagine that I will talk very differently about my understanding of gender and my…the other thing that I can hear when I am talking about it with you is that I have a lot of anger… {Both: laughing} around it, you know? So I know that means that there is a fire for transformation inside me, and outside me, that anger is a sign that something is needing transmutation. So whether that is just that fire in me, that is like burn the fucking binary controlling people telling people what they are, like what insanity! Why are we so obsessed with like, of the thing of when identities are used as a tool for collaboration, connection, and liberation…great, you know? And, if they are used to control, and repress, and suppress, and strip people away from their humanity, from what they need, then they are just weapons they are not useful, that is destructive.

I have one colleague, Amy Jo Goddard, she is a sexual-empowerment-coach and thought-leader and educator and artist, she is a really amazing human, and her prophecy, that really resonates with me, is that we are moving into a time of more and more identity: this is my name, this is my pronoun, this is where I am from, this is my race, this is my class upbringing, right? Identity, identity, identity. Identification or exposure, acceptance, context, right? And so there is this process of creating context that exposes, I think the benefit of that, is that it exposes the humanity, right? The wholeness of…I understand that I am coming from a particularly biased viewpoint here, I am going to share with you what has informed that so far, right? I am white, urban, hippy, who largely has identified as female but really experiences myself as a gender transcendent spiritual being inhabiting a particular body space, cultural experience. Okay, so when I talk, you are going to have an understanding about my viewpoint. And when we step out of that being a right viewpoint, or a wrong viewpoint, and step into a place of: these are the contexts that our viewpoints come from, I think that the identities are, and Amy Jo says this, that we are stepping into a time of really claiming our identities and claiming the power, and the belonging, and the connection, that comes from identity. And then, when that comes through and everybody becomes an individual in their wholeness, right — because we are a culmination of all these different identities — I do believe that there will be an aspect where the identities themselves are not identities.

It is not, “I am this”, or “I am that”, it is: I have come from this, these are the things that have influenced me, I am me, I am here. I am not even human..

Esther: The experience.

Sophia: I am an experience. Maybe this is…obviously right, I come from a very, I am really honoured, spiritually evolutionary journey, that is where I am coming through. So I connect to what Amy Jo says about that, we are stepping into a time of claiming those identities, as long as…it is like we need to claim them, whether they were put on us, or not, we live in a land where they now have meaning and power, which means that if they have power over us, we reclaim those identities, and claim the power that go along with those identities, right?: I am a queer, white, gender transcendent, medicine caller. I claim all these identities, I claim the power of that. and then I live my life free, that is the victory step, right? And to me, that is the goal, that the prayer in everyone’s heart, how about our needs are met, and we get to be our creative selves, and we get to live.

And it is not separate for me. I also think that to think about humanity is to think about the earth, right? And to be in right relationship. None of these things are separate to me, they are so there, and so when I claim the power of that and I have the…and then I claim my power, and I look at someone else who claims all of that and I see someone who is in their wholeness, or growing their wholeness, right? Not needing to make it stationary, or stagnant, or like an arrival: now you are here. But in that place, in that evolving place, and then together we can have a sense of belong and togetherness in our presence, in our existence, instead of in the links to our identities. I think the link of identity is, again, it can be so useful and it is important, I think, you know affinity circles, I have done so much work in women’s spaces, I have done a lot of women’s work and it is powerful, it is powerful to have people who have that experience. It is also really powerful to do “women’s” healing work with other people in the space with other people who don’t identify as female for a number of reasons. That doesn’t have to undermine the reclamation of the healing or the energy that is taking place, it can still be collaborative.

So I have experienced all of those things, I don’t know, that is kind of my…when I think about that, that is where we are going, when we claim those things as tools for ourselves, when we claim the power for ourselves. Going back to that place of: apparently I am white, because that is what… so let me take that. You are not going to tell me that, and then tell me how to, condition me… well, I sure was conditioned how to navigate that in an unconscious way. And now I am going to be like: oh, okay, I am going to claim that and then I am going to consciously decide how that identity moves through the world, because that identity was moving through the world with impact, previous to my consciously claiming that impact, right?

So same thing as like, when I gender express as female, people often look at me and just assume, cis-female, and then there is a part of me that is like: well, you are not wrong, but you are not right. So it is like I claim this part of being: I am cis-female-ish, okay, yeah, I definitely present and navigate and impact the world largely and frequently, not always, but frequently through that cis-female impact. So if I can take that and wear that mantle and then use that with responsibility to myself and my soul and what I am here to create, you know, then, perhaps, from that conscious inhabitance of those identities, I can have a life where those identities are not tools or weapons and the experience which we are having is one in which we get to be who we are, and this idea of gender binary, really, I think I have established my opinion of it being a fucking fallacy, in the fucking first place! It will just literally lose its grip because it is not real, is how I feel about it.

Esther: Yeah, yeah.

Sophia: That is how I feel about it.

Esther: Wow! I was thinking, it sounds like some of the things you said, reminded me, it is kind of paradoxical sounding, isn’t it? There is more individuality, but also more connection, and inter-connection.

Sophia: Yes.

Esther: It seems like you can’t have one and the other all at the same time, but in my head, it does go together.

Sophia: Right!

Esther: It could be tricky to get your head around I think.

Sophia: I have a personal growth invitation that I make for myself, which is that when things appear contrary, I know that is a place for healing, because inherently, everything is unified. So if I am perceiving something as contrary to one another, then it means that I am having a gap in my perception, to see how much they are, in continuity.

I will say this, when I say, [mock shouting]: gender binary is a fallacy! I will say this part, we create our realities, it is not fucking fake right now, it has real world impacts, I want to be clear about that, I am not just saying: it is not real! It is like, no, no, no, it is real, as long as we continue to make it real, it is super-fucking real. It is very, very, real, and there is a part of me that is like: and I would like to step into, I would like to cultivate, I think I hold in myself and aim to cultivate experiences where that is honoured, and there is this deeper, for me, that deeper river that has been there all along. Where it is like: these are words you are putting on a thing, an experience, that I have had all along. And to make space for other people that have had that experience with me, that are saying: oh yeah, I feel understood when you say that, and to recognise that some people will hear this and be like: oh my god she is totally describing something I have felt my whole life and other people will be like: nope.

Esther: {laughing} yeah.

Sophia: All right, all right, Chica, right? Okay gender…whatever. But this is the thing, you right! That is the whole thing, that is the whole point, I don’t need to be… that is not contrary to me, anyone saying, but this is what it needs to be., okay, then that is what it needs to be, if that is how you see it, and that is your solution, then I hope you get your solution. That doesn’t need to be contrary to my understanding and that feels risky, that feels risky to say, and it feels like almost the most risky thing I have said this whole time.

Esther: Well it is a thing though, I don’t know who said it, but holding two opposing views at the same time, I think as you said, there is space there for healing, but I think that is also the place of incredible compassion. Anger and everything like that, and all that destructive stuff can’t live in that space, because it is just everything all at once. Ooh this is getting deep now, isn’t it?

Sophia: That’s the part that really gets me excited. Here is my prophecy, here is my fucking prophecy (you said prediction), here is my fucking prophecy…

Esther: Go for it!

Sophia: Through this process, we will come into another layer of understanding that we have only felt in our bodies, but not cognated previously. So our ability to create language, and communicate, and have identity understandings, will fundamentally shift. That is where we are going. That this idea of the gender binary, or non-binary, how we are having that conversation, that conversation that we are having right now is a healing conversation and through that process we will arrive in somewhere inherently new, the creative, evolved, landscape, a place that maybe some people have dreamed, or felt, but many people who right now today, cannot fathom and our reality will be that unfathomed landscape.

Esther: Yeah, I love that, that is incredible. Wow! I think this has been an amazing conversion and I could talk to you for hours, but I was thinking this would be a really good place probably to wrap it up. Do you have any final thoughts that you want to share?

Sophia: I love you!

Esther: Ah, I love you too!

Sophia: Just connecting to that place of just: what is it? I just had this moment today in my practice of just having this deep wave, I had this grief come up, and this sadness, and I just had this moment when I kind of wrapped myself and I was just like: you can be as sad as you are, I love you and I am with you. And so, I think the thing that I want to leave in that, as we are really decomposing, it is a corpse image that is coming to mind for me, as we are having this conversation, for me, as we are composting these weaponised, these weaponised concepts there is pain to be felt: as we step out of numbness, so often we experience pain.

And may each of us, as we have the courage to step out of our numbness into our consciousness, into our awareness, may we hold ourselves so affectionately and may we have the courage to hold each other. Without needing anyone else’s pain, or grief, or understanding, to move at a different speed. Can we just be where we are and trust that that will take us where we need to go, and we are in that loving space. So that is my…

Esther: I would say amen to that, not that I am religious really but still, that is another conversation right?

Sophia: Right, some other time.

Esther: Absolutely. Thank you so much for talking to me this has been such an inspiring conversation and I could feel your passion in it and wow! I am sort of, my brain is in processing mode now and so I am going to take this away and the cogs will be turning. So one last thing, I was thinking, if you would like to share more about your work and how people can get in touch with you if they want to work with you, please feel free.

Sophia: Thank you I will take that opportunity, yeah. So I took my body of work of healing, really claiming myself as my authority and doing all of that and I turned it into a card game, and an online academy, and I love to share that with people, it is called: I love my life, card game and academy. That is one of the things that I love to share it is literally, a group game, as well as a personal, self-guided, spiritual development thing.

Esther: Ooh lovely.

Sophia: And I have a Patreon, I am a soul-song-sharer, I am a poet, I have a bunch of podcasts and I have a community in which we do the collective healing and storytelling together.

Esther: Beautiful.

Sophia: So I will send you those links.

Esther: And we will share them.

Sophia: SophiaWiseOne.com and all of those things. You can find me in those places and I would be thrilled to connect with any of you and if you have any thing, if you loved anything, or have any questions about it, if you want to take a screen shot, as you are listening to this podcast and tag me on Instagram with a question or a comment, I love to be connected with people too, @SophiaWiseOne is where I am.

Esther: Brilliant, I will make sure to share all that as well. So thank you so much.

Sophia: Thank you so much for having me, I told you that I was nervous, I have been wanting to have this conversation, I am really grateful to have it with you, this is exciting and may it serve.

Esther: That is a great motto: may it serve. Awesome thank you.

Sophia: Thank you so much. Bye everybody.

About Sophia Wise One

Sophia is a speaker, singer, mentor, transformational storyteller, visionary, and prayer of prayers. She is the host of many beloved global podcasts: “Vagina Talks with Sophia Wise One”, “Medicine Caller”, and “Temple Erotica: Stories of Sacred Sexuality”.

Sophia makes temples everywhere she goes where people claim their sacredness, define it for themselves, and remember who they truly are. She trains professional medicine callers to trust and optimize their medicine through self-mastery, soul unification, skill refinement, and ancestral reclamation.

Sophia runs a vital and vibrant patreon community she calls The Temple and is the creator and author of I LOVE MY LIFE: Oracle Deck and Academy. A child mystic who has been a professional Medicine Caller for over twenty years, she is trained in over twenty different modalities. Known for her candor and love, digging deep, laughing the whole way. All pronouns welcome.

You can find out more about Sophia on her website sophiawiseone.com, on Instagram @sophiawiseone and on Patreon.

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