Cheryl Ann Costa is and has been many things — an airman, submarine sailor, coast-to-coast talk radio host, television show co-host, playwright, author, filmmaker, coven priest, co-owner of a fabric shop and an engineer at a major Fortune 500 company.
She was also, at one time, a man.
"I am male, female, one, neither," Costa said.
Costa addressed 40 audience members on Wednesday in Hendricks Chapel with an informal two-hour lecture, consisting of a PowerPoint presentation and a Q-and-A session about her thoughts on gender, sex and spirituality.
Costa is a self-described "crazy yogi." A yogi is a practitioner of various spiritual beliefs that often relates to meditation.
"(Yogis) are at the bleeding edge of spiritual exploration - like a research scientist," she said.
Costa began her PowerPoint with three questions: who are you, what are you and what do you want. She pointed to an audience member and asked, "Who are you?" A voice replied with a name. Costa said names are constricting because they are given by parents. She pointed to another audience members and asked, "What are you?" Another voice said "human." Even the term "human" is limiting, Costa said.
"That's like calling yourself a Volkswagen. Or a Toyota - I can't stop," she joked, referring to Toyota's recent recalls.
A central pull of her presentation concerned the difference between sex and gender, two words that are not interchangeable. Concepts like these "lock you down," she said. Costa went on to mention scientific discoveries about animal gender and statistics about lesbian, gay and transsexual.
"I have those that say, 'What the hell is a Buddhist yogi going to tell me about sex and gender?'" Costa said. "I think ...
Continue reading here
Mail to a friendCOMMENTS
- There Are No Comments Yet
