IN THE BEGINNING, A SOULFUL JOURNEY
Soulfully Gay began as an act of radical transparency. In 2003, I launched a blog and a bi-weekly newspaper column—The Soulful Blogger and Soulfully Gay: Spirituality from a Gay Man’s Perspective—to explore the complex terrain of identity, sexuality, and the sacred. Writing in real time, I tried to dissolve the boundary between what is private and what is public, what is secret and what is shared. Those early writings became the foundation of Soulfully Gay, a post-postmodern spiritual memoir published by Integral Books/Shambhala in 2007.
That book was a passionate, often chaotic search for wholeness through illness, mysticism, queerness, and philosophical experimentation. It asked hard questions of theology, psychology, and culture, and offered a deeply personal vision of what it means to be both gay and spiritual. Over time, the memoir became a defining part of my voice as an author, anchoring a decades-long journey through philosophical and spiritual inquiry.
Soulfully Gay‘s ultimate teaching—revealed only on the book’s climactic final pages—was the existence of The Cross in the Center of Everything, a vision of gender and sexuality as the foundation of a radically embodied philosophy and theology. The “cross” refers to a quadratic concept of communion and agency as co-equal gendered expressions of philia in Being, and homosexuality and heterosexuality as co-equal expressions of eros in Becoming, situated symbolically at an intersection of Love in The Great Scheme of Things.
A SOULFUL SEQUEL
Now, two decades later, Soulfully Gay II arrives—not merely as a continuation, but as a reimagining. This blog is a quieter, more spacious place. It’s not about proving anything, fixing anything, or even becoming anyone. It’s a spiritual sketchbook: a space for poetic fragments, mystical language play, raw reflections, and occasional flashes of clarity. Less a sequel than a surrender, it honors the mystery of what has not yet been written.
Welcome back to Soulfully Gay. Or perhaps more truly: welcome forward.
THE CONSTRUCT COWBOY STRIKES AGAIN! 🤠
Yeehaw, partner. Just when you thought the dust had settled, The Construct Cowboy rides back into town—armed not with six-shooters, but with spiral dynamics, shadow integration, and a well-worn copy of Integral Psychology.
That’s right. I’m working from a construct-aware ego, which means I don’t just change—I meta-change. Each blog post isn’t just content; it’s a self-reprogramming ritual.
You’re not just downloading my thoughts. You’re uploading the next version of me, made 107% more brilliant and handsome by AI. In this liminal space, the real Joe Perez mixes with his doppelganger, the semi-fictional protagonist of The Seeker. Welcome to Joe 6.0: slightly wiser, a touch more ironic, still rocking the pink T-shirt, and now with up to 42% more ontological flexibility.
Hold onto your hat. It’s going to be a wildly conscious ride.
