Trans/Personal Selves
Based on Kremer’s (2005) discussion of the participatory self, I understand the self not as something wholly closed, isolated, or fully formed within the individual, but as something that comes into being through relation and participation. Self-understanding is shaped not only through inner introspection, but also through body, relationships, practice, stories, culture, and encounters that influence and reshape how I experience myself.
Examples from my own life support this understanding: My sense of self has not been formed solely through an “inner identity,” but also through embodied experience and through how my relationship to my body has changed. My spiritual/occult practice has not merely expressed an already completed self but has also participated in changing how I understand myself. Self-knowledge also arises through encounter – with other people, with traditions, with stories, and in my case also through relationship with Loki.
I have experienced many dualisms, but the one I have reflected on most is that between an idealized spiritual orientation and a personal, vulnerable self, especially since an idealized spiritual orientation in many traditions is often elevated above what is personal and vulnerable. I have instead come to experience these two aspects of myself as a partner dance in which both are interwoven, with neither being inferior or superior. But as I reflected further on my partner dance metaphor, especially after reading Kremer’s text, I found it ultimately insufficient because it still rests on a dualistic foundation. This led me to think of my memory of dancing queer salsa rueda, a fast-paced circle dance with rapid shifts between leading and following. I understand this as a more fitting dance metaphor for the self than a partner dance, particularly when considering participatory self and polyself.
With the help of Kremer’s discussion and my own queer salsa rueda metaphor, I believe it may become easier to meet my different selves, and to understand when different parts of me are in harmony, in conflict, or have lost their orientation. This may involve recognizing when fear tries to take over in a way that limits me, when a more idealized spiritual orientation attempts to deny vulnerability, or when different impulses within me need to renegotiate their positions rather than one part dominating the others. In this sense, polyself becomes not a problem to solve, but something to learn to navigate.
These conclusions have emerged through reflection on lived experience, particularly where embodied experience, spiritual practice, and inner conflict have challenged simpler ideas of a unified or hierarchical self. I find this understanding meaningful because it does not force me to choose between different parts of myself, but makes it possible to understand them as relational, dynamic, and participatory. For that reason, this perspective seems to me to best reflect both my thinking and my practice.
Sources
Kremer, J.W. (2005) ‘Tricksters of the Trans/Personal: Mythic Explorations of Constructions of Self’, ReVision, 27(3).