Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation \\\ Words of Wisdom - May 20, 2026 đ
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Via FB \\\ The Little Prince
He wrote The Little Prince, disappeared during a reconnaissance flight in WWII, and had multiple affairs with men. Somehow, that last part frequently gets left out.
Antoine de Saint-ExupĂ©ry gave the world a beloved book about a tiny blond alien who wandered from planet to planet asking lonely adults uncomfortable questions. What usually gets left out is that Saint-ExupĂ©ry’s own life was full of the same contradictions, longing, and emotional chaos that pulse through the book.
He spent years drifting through intense relationships with men and women alike, building a reputation in Paris and New York as charming, emotionally elusive, and impossible to pin down. Friends described him as deeply affectionate with certain men. His letters could turn intimate fast.
Even The Little Prince reads differently once you know that context.
It is a story obsessed with hidden identity. With love that cannot quite be explained. With feeling out of step from the world around you. The prince leaves his tiny planet because staying still hurts too much. He searches for connection everywhere and rarely finds adults capable of honesty. The fox teaches him that love means creating ties that change you forever. Then the prince disappears before anyone can fully understand him.
That is not exactly the emotional blueprint of a tidy heterosexual war hero.
Saint-Exupéry married Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry, and their relationship was famously volatile. They separated repeatedly. Both had other relationships. Friends described their marriage as theatrical, passionate, and exhausting. Meanwhile, rumors and coded references followed him for years, especially in artistic circles where queer identities often survived through implication instead of declaration.
Disappearing during a flight in WWII made him a hero, but his politics were messy. He wasn't a Nazi sympathizer or a Vichy collaborator, but it took him a while to come around to the Free French movement under Charles de Gaulle. His other books were a little too friendly with colonialism as well, but those works are far lesser known than The Little Prince.
Queer history is full of people whose lives got flattened into “eccentric genius” because the full story made later generations uncomfortable. Publishers cleaned things up. Biographers got cautious. Fans preferred symbols over actual humans.
But queer people have always recognized ourselves in stories about outsiders searching for home.
Via True Stories \\ Obergefell
Jim Obergefell sat beside the man he loved while his body was shutting down from ALS and realized something horrifying:
The federal government was preparing to treat their marriage like it never existed.
Not because they were strangers.
Not because they lacked commitment.
Because they were two men.
By the time Jim Obergefell became the name attached to one of the most consequential Supreme Court cases in American history, he was not trying to become activist, symbol, or political lightning rod.
He was trying to keep the man he loved from disappearing legally after death.
Long before the courtrooms and headlines, Obergefell lived a relatively private life in Ohio where he eventually met John Arthur, a quiet, funny, deeply loved partner who became the center of his emotional world. Their relationship lasted decades through a period when same-s3x couples in America often built entire lives together without basic legal protections heteros3xual couples received automatically.
That invisibility carried constant risk.
Hospital access.
Inheritance.
Medical decisions.
Marriage rights.
Everything could collapse legally during crisis.
Then came ALS.
Arthur’s diagnosis changed time itself inside the relationship. The disease slowly destroyed his physical body while leaving his mind painfully aware of what was happening. Watching someone you love disappear physically while remaining emotionally present creates a kind of grief many people cannot fully imagine.
And Obergefell lived inside it daily.
Then the couple made a decision.
In 2013, with Arthur severely ill and unable to travel easily, they flew to Maryland where same-s3x marriage was legal. Arthur, physically fragile and dependent on medical equipment, boarded the plane because they wanted their relationship recognized before death separated them permanently.
The image haunted people afterward:
a dying man traveling to marry the person he loved before time ran out.
They married on the airport tarmac shortly after landing because Arthur’s condition made ordinary ceremony logistics nearly impossible.
Then Ohio refused to recognize the marriage.
That refusal became devastatingly personal.
Because Arthur wanted Obergefell listed as surviving spouse on his death certificate. Ohio law said no. The state intended to erase the marriage legally once Arthur died, reducing decades of shared life into nonexistence under official paperwork.
That cruelty changed Obergefell permanently.
He sued.
And suddenly one grieving husband became central figure in a constitutional battle over same-s3x marriage rights across the United States. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court as Obergefell v. Hodges.
Meanwhile, Arthur’s health kept deteriorating.
He died in 2013 before the Supreme Court ruling arrived.
That loss sat underneath everything afterward.
Because while media networks turned the case into political warfare, Obergefell himself often spoke less like activist and more like widower carrying unfinished grief publicly. Supporters saw civil rights struggle. Opponents saw constitutional controversy.
He saw John.
That difference mattered emotionally.
Then came June 26, 2015.
The Supreme Court ruled same-s3x couples had constitutional right to marry nationwide. The decision transformed American law permanently and ignited enormous celebration, fury, relief, and political backlash across the country.
And suddenly Jim Obergefell became historic figure whether he wanted the role or not.
But perhaps the strangest part of his story is how ordinary its emotional center remained.
Not abstract politics.
Not theory.
Love.
Loss.
Fear of erasure.
The terror that somebody you built an entire life beside could die while institutions pretend the relationship never mattered officially.
Years later, Obergefell often spoke publicly about grief and visibility with unusual emotional clarity because he understood something many political debates erase completely:
Rights become most real during moments of vulnerability.
Hospitals.
Funerals.
Death certificates.
Final goodbyes.
That is where inequality stops feeling theoretical.
And maybe that is why Jim Obergefell’s story still hits people so hard emotionally now.
A man watching his husband die discovered the government planned to erase their marriage afterward...
so he carried his grief into the highest court in America and forced the country to look directly at what legal invisibility actually does to human beings once love collides with death.
The federal government was preparing to treat their marriage like it never existed.
Not because they were strangers.
Not because they lacked commitment.
Because they were two men.
By the time Jim Obergefell became the name attached to one of the most consequential Supreme Court cases in American history, he was not trying to become activist, symbol, or political lightning rod.
He was trying to keep the man he loved from disappearing legally after death.
Long before the courtrooms and headlines, Obergefell lived a relatively private life in Ohio where he eventually met John Arthur, a quiet, funny, deeply loved partner who became the center of his emotional world. Their relationship lasted decades through a period when same-s3x couples in America often built entire lives together without basic legal protections heteros3xual couples received automatically.
That invisibility carried constant risk.
Hospital access.
Inheritance.
Medical decisions.
Marriage rights.
Everything could collapse legally during crisis.
Then came ALS.
Arthur’s diagnosis changed time itself inside the relationship. The disease slowly destroyed his physical body while leaving his mind painfully aware of what was happening. Watching someone you love disappear physically while remaining emotionally present creates a kind of grief many people cannot fully imagine.
And Obergefell lived inside it daily.
Then the couple made a decision.
In 2013, with Arthur severely ill and unable to travel easily, they flew to Maryland where same-s3x marriage was legal. Arthur, physically fragile and dependent on medical equipment, boarded the plane because they wanted their relationship recognized before death separated them permanently.
The image haunted people afterward:
a dying man traveling to marry the person he loved before time ran out.
They married on the airport tarmac shortly after landing because Arthur’s condition made ordinary ceremony logistics nearly impossible.
Then Ohio refused to recognize the marriage.
That refusal became devastatingly personal.
Because Arthur wanted Obergefell listed as surviving spouse on his death certificate. Ohio law said no. The state intended to erase the marriage legally once Arthur died, reducing decades of shared life into nonexistence under official paperwork.
That cruelty changed Obergefell permanently.
He sued.
And suddenly one grieving husband became central figure in a constitutional battle over same-s3x marriage rights across the United States. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court as Obergefell v. Hodges.
Meanwhile, Arthur’s health kept deteriorating.
He died in 2013 before the Supreme Court ruling arrived.
That loss sat underneath everything afterward.
Because while media networks turned the case into political warfare, Obergefell himself often spoke less like activist and more like widower carrying unfinished grief publicly. Supporters saw civil rights struggle. Opponents saw constitutional controversy.
He saw John.
That difference mattered emotionally.
Then came June 26, 2015.
The Supreme Court ruled same-s3x couples had constitutional right to marry nationwide. The decision transformed American law permanently and ignited enormous celebration, fury, relief, and political backlash across the country.
And suddenly Jim Obergefell became historic figure whether he wanted the role or not.
But perhaps the strangest part of his story is how ordinary its emotional center remained.
Not abstract politics.
Not theory.
Love.
Loss.
Fear of erasure.
The terror that somebody you built an entire life beside could die while institutions pretend the relationship never mattered officially.
Years later, Obergefell often spoke publicly about grief and visibility with unusual emotional clarity because he understood something many political debates erase completely:
Rights become most real during moments of vulnerability.
Hospitals.
Funerals.
Death certificates.
Final goodbyes.
That is where inequality stops feeling theoretical.
And maybe that is why Jim Obergefell’s story still hits people so hard emotionally now.
A man watching his husband die discovered the government planned to erase their marriage afterward...
so he carried his grief into the highest court in America and forced the country to look directly at what legal invisibility actually does to human beings once love collides with death.
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Via Daily Dharma: The Bondage of Time
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Monday, May 18, 2026
Via Daily Dharma: A Willingness to Change
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Sunday, May 17, 2026
Via White Crane Institute \\\ PORTUGAL
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| This Day in Gay History | |||
May 17 | |||
2010 -
On this date PORTUGAL'S PRESIDENT ANIBAL CAVACO SILVA resisted a concerted campaign from the Vatican and ratified the nation's Marriage Equality law, which was bound for approval whether he vetoed it or not. Interestingly, Silva's decision came on the International Day Against Homophobia and made Portugal the sixth European country to allow same-sex couples to wed.
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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute
"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson
Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation \\\\ Words of Wisdom - May 17, 2026 đ
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Via GBF \\\ "The Softened Heart: Cultivating Wisdom Through Vulnerability" with Joe Goode I
A new talk has been added to the GBF website, podcast and YouTube channel:
The Softened Heart: Cultivating Wisdom Through Vulnerability – Joe Goode
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How can we prevent our hearts from hardening against a brutal world and instead use our own imperfections as a bridge to connection?
Joe Goode addresses this by arguing that while political or social resistance is necessary, the act of opposition can unintentionally cause us to harden, losing touch with the vulnerability where love and intimacy live. He suggests that instead of trying to “fix” ourselves or bypass suffering, we should practice loving the “broken bits” of our own minds—our regrets, meanness, and anxieties—much like a parent loves a mischievous or hurting child. By shifting away from the idea of a “fixed” or isolated self, Joe explains that we can cultivate a soft heart that nurtures interdependence
To move these concepts from the mind into the body, Joe leads a series of experiential practices that blend breath, sound, and movement to serve as a “balm” for the “imperfect and vulnerable” self. He teaches that the aging or incomplete body is not a problem to be solved but a tool for deepening our connection to reality. His framework for this embodied practice includes:
- Tender Attention: Holding a finger to represent a specific negative thought or recurring doubt, breathing into that “vulnerable body” and offering it special care rather than animosity.
- The Soothing Sway: A side-to-side rocking motion used as a “universal calming action” to quiet the mind and accept the “fearful, broken, or less-than self”.
- Interdependent Sound: Vocalizing specific tones (such as “m,” “ah,” and “ee”) to feel the physical vibration in the bones while simultaneously “pouring” one’s sound into the collective “envelope” of the room.
- Receptive Clearing: Using the heat of the hands to clear “extra thoughts” from the eye sockets before opening the palms to receive “spacious thinking” and “fresh possibilities”.
Ultimately, Joe suggests that by treating the body as a “single sensing organ,” we can discover that being fully present in our physical form and movement is no different than meditation itself.
--Enjoy 900+ free recorded dharma talks at https://gaybuddhist.org/
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