Dear Laurie, The Tibetan Nun

Dear Laurie, The Tibetan Nun: 

I am writing to formally document the record concerning my past support of R. S. It is necessary to clarify the facts of my involvement, as recent characterizations of my actions are inaccurate.

When I met R.S., he was experiencing housing instability, and living in his van. I provided him with an apartment for seven months at no cost to him. Furthermore, I facilitated the arrangement for the apartment he currently occupies, which is significantly below market rate for the Vancouver area.

During the seven-year period in which I assisted him, my professional and personal life were demanding. I was working 16-hour days, six days a week, as a live-in mental health worker for a forensic client. Simultaneously, I was navigating the complexities of securing supported housing for my disabled son after a 12-year period of instability, while also supporting my daughter through a challenging time in her life. Throughout this period, I acted independently as a caregiver for my family. I contracted Covid in 2020, lost my career, and my son was tragically murdered  while in government care in 2023. I continued to support R.S. as best I could.

My support for R.S. was extensive and consistent. Over those seven years, my assistance included, but was not limited to:

• Securing models for his work, including modeling (being intimate) with strangers. 

• Regularly providing takeout, home cooked meals, and other "tributes".

• Weekly visits and general apartment maintenance.

• Automotive repairs and assistance with vehicle upkeep.

• Personal services including grooming, laundry, sewing, and intimate servicing.

• Logistics and physical labor related to moving his personal property from storage.

I provided this support without compensation or complaint, operating under the premise of assisting an individual I believed to be in a vulnerable position.

Angel Strehlen

 

Artists must be selfish to succeed

Art, Ego, and the Cost of Greatness

A photographer was chatting with one of my collectors recently and mentioned their discussion about how terrible I am at self-promotion.

It is true. I am much better at promoting everyone else.

My priorities shifted completely the day I gave birth to my miracle. Looking into my newborn son's eyes, I realized my finest creation was right in front of me. All my drawings, paintings, singing, and dancing paled in comparison to my perfect boy.

For the first few years of his life, we spent almost all our time together, usually alone. I introduced him to nature, yoga, dance, music, and art. We ate natural food, stayed away from toxic environments and behaviors, and kept good company. It was a beautiful, simple time. I earned a living making art, practicing calligraphy, and teaching classes at community centers.

The Myth of the Single-Minded Genius

Over the years, I have known many successful artists who are childless, or who left their children behind and have never lived with or near them.

One artist once told me he left his infant daughter to focus on fashion photography, remarking that "you can't get ahead in the fashion industry unless you're single." He walked away from being a stay-at-home dad to chase fame, fortune, and shallow distractions. Another daughter of his lives thousands of miles away, and he has never shared a home with her.

When my son's father left Canada to open a gallery in New Mexico, I still made sure our son called him every single Father's Day. They had an incredible time together when our boy turned 18 and they finally lived under the same roof for two years. All boys need their fathers.

People Over Pedestals

The truth is, people are far more important than one's ego. In my view, all unnecessary suffering stems from self-cherishing.

Consider Pablo Picasso: he left behind a monumental body of work and fundamentally changed the course of modern art, but he also left a personal legacy of pain, destruction, and madness in his wake.

I don't want to be remembered as a great artist if it means I have to be a monster to achieve it. Give me a quiet life, a handful of good memories, and the knowledge that I prioritized love over a monument.

The Male Feminist Façade: A wolf in Feminist clothing

I used to be a hard core feminist. 

I believe in equity, mutual respect, and the dismantling of oppressive power structures. Because of those values, it is particularly disorienting—and infuriating—when you encounter someone who weaponizes that exact vocabulary while practicing the exact opposite behind closed doors.

Then I met a black man, who was a self-proclaimed feminist, and happened to be a sex photographer, master herbalist, and "herpes guru."

Let’s talk about the paradox of the progressive predator.

There is a very specific type of manipulation practiced by men who wrap themselves in the language of social justice, alternative wellness, and enlightened sexuality. They know the script. They know how to talk about bodily autonomy, supporting women, and holding the right ideological stances. They use it as a beacon to draw in people who genuinely care about these values—particularly self-professed feminists who lower their guard because they think they are in a safe, aligned space.

Then, you look at the reality of the daily dynamic.

Behind the public posturing of the conscious, earth-loving healer, the operational model looks less like liberation and more like Andrew Tate. It is a masterclass in extraction: devaluing labor while treating people as currency, weaponizing isolation, eroding self-worth, and maintaining absolute control while playing the perpetual victim. They use the script as bait to draw in vulnerable, affection-starved women, weaponizing intimacy just to feed their own ego and get laid.

I know, I went through it for seven years.

The Bait-and-Switch of Progressive Posturing

When a man builds a brand or a social circle around being an enlightened, sensitive ally—complete with cameras, tinctures, and alternative credentials—it creates an almost impenetrable shield of deniability.

• The Public Persona: Progressive, alternative, right on every ideological trend, surrounded by people nodding along to the wellness rhetoric.

• The Private Reality: High-control dynamics, emotional extraction, boundary dismantling, and a complete refusal to take accountability.

If you try to speak up about the mistreatment, you hit a wall of cognitive dissonance—both from the enablers and often from yourself. How could someone who talks so much about respect, healing, and bodily autonomy treat me this way? Am I the one missing something?

You aren't missing anything. You are simply witnessing the ultimate hypocrisy: using the language of wellness and safety to construct a very effective trap.

Dropping the Illusion

Realizing that someone’s ideology is just a costume is a bitter pill to swallow. It makes you question your own judgment for giving them the benefit of the doubt. But the truth is, I trusted the values I hold dear, and he exploited that trust. I have always supported vulnerable and alternative folks.

I don't need a public confession from him, and I certainly don't need the validation of his flying monkeys; the people still charmed by the performance. The spell is broken. The hypocrisy is out in the open, and I am done auditing a system that was rigged from the start to protect a fraud.

If you’ve ever walked away from a progressive facade and found a toxic, patriarchal reality hiding underneath, trust your inventory. You aren't crazy for seeing through it. You're just finally seeing the truth.

Life is Good

1 to 2% of the approximately 8.3 billion people on the planet are privileged. 

Some of us are born in the developed world, with the right melanin, afforded a stable two parent family, the chance to attend higher education, and own property, access to healthcare, in a land where they have never experienced pollution, war, famine or persecution.

Here is what A.I. said 

"If we conservatively estimate that:

1. 17% live in highly developed, safe countries.

2. Of that 17%, perhaps one-third to one-half have the combination of a stable two-parent upbringing and access to higher education.

3. Of that group, only a fraction (the top earners) reach a consistent six-figure salary and property ownership.

Most sociological estimates of the "global elite" or the upper-middle class (defined by similar metrics of stability, education, and relative wealth) suggest that this group represents less than 5% of the total global population, and likely closer to 1% to 2% when you strictly enforce the "six-figure salary" and "stable two-parent home" requirements globally."

That's 83 million lucky, privileged, people out of 8.3B.

I personally know a few, and they are no happier, wiser or saner than us plebeians. 

As for the rest of us that weren't dealt a Royal Flush, we do our best without harming others.

My biggest lesson from my Buddhist practice is gratitude. I used to feel hard done by....sorry for myself, until I started counting my blessings.

While I did come from a broken home, and have lived in poverty for my lifetime, I am lucky to be born in this place and time.

Because I understand the measure of my privilege, I dedicated my life to helping others.

I was the poor, fat, stinky, lonely girl who sat at the back of the class, never invited to birthday parties, the boys in school would chase me, just to be beat me up...so I focused on 'rescuing" stray animals, and plants. I was six when my sister was born, and became her caretaker, as my single mother was busy with books, politics, protests, coffee, cigarettes, and alcohol.

I became very proficient at housework, sewing, and did everything for my family except pay the bills. I learned to care for my health when, at age 8, my gall bladder was inflamed. The doctor said to stop eating too much fat, so I found ways to eat healthy in spite of my mother's Ukrainian diet of sour cream, butter, perogies and kolbesssa. My granny showed me which weeds to make a soothing tea and how to grow tomatoes.

In my extended family, I was the black sheep. I would sit by myself in a corner and draw, play with the cat, or find an insect to watch. I stopped being invited to holidays, weddings, and other celebrations because I became a hippy and couldn't relate to the family much. They knew nothing about veganism, mystical arts, theology, herbs, or indigenous and alternative lifestyles. I stopped following pop culture from 1979 to 1989. 

Because of this, I have spent much of my life with my immediate family, or alone making art, learning about plants, or rescuing and supporting the vulnerable, always in gratitude. I am blessed.

Life is as good as you make it.

Adam Sun Hope Sanctuary

Since the death of my precious son, Adam, my priorities have changed. I realize that I have been selfish, foolish, and delusional.

 

I am obviously not cut out to be an artist, and instead, I should have just focused on my children. They are the most precious creations of mine.

 

Had I done so, my beautiful son would be alive today, my beautiful daughter would not have gone astray.

I want to do better, and although it's too late for sweet Chandis Adam on this earth, I hope to pay more attention to others.

So, I've started a charity, Adam Sun Hope Sanctuary 

Adam taught me that men and boys are under appreciated. We all took him for granted, and assumed he was okay, simply because he never complained. 

Adam needed his father, every boy needs a dad. 

Saint Josephine Bakhita

From Captivity to Canonization: The Incredible Journey of St. Josephine Bakhita

The story of Saint Josephine Bakhita is one of the most powerful testimonies of resilience, freedom, and radical forgiveness in modern history. Born around 1869 in Darfur, Sudan, her early childhood was happy and carefree.

That peace was shattered when she was just seven years old.

A Childhood Stolen

Abducted by Arab slave traders, the young girl experienced such profound trauma that she completely forgot her birth name. Her captors mockingly named her Bakhita, which translates to "lucky" or "fortunate" in Arabic.

Over the next twelve years, Bakhita was sold five times. Her experience in captivity was marked by extreme brutality:

• A Month Bedridden: After accidentally offending her owner's son, she was beaten so severely she couldn’t move for over a month.

• The Nightmare of Scarification: A cruel mistress forced her to undergo a agonizing ritual where 114 intricate patterns were sliced into her skin with a razor, then packed with salt to ensure permanent scarring.

The Turning Point

Bakhita’s life shifted in 1883 when she was bought by Callisto Legnani, an Italian Vice Consul who treated her with kindness. When political instability forced him to return to Italy, Bakhita begged to go with him.

In Italy, she became a nanny for a family friend, who eventually left Bakhita in the temporary care of the Canossian Sisters in Venice. It was there that Bakhita encountered Christianity for the first time, discovering a God she realized she "had felt in her heart since childhood without knowing who He was."

Winning Her Freedom

When her owners returned to take her back to Sudan, Bakhita did something extraordinary: she refused to leave.

The dispute went to an Italian court. On November 29, 1889, the court delivered a historic ruling: because British authorities had already outlawed slavery in Sudan before her birth, and because Italian law never recognized slavery, Bakhita had legally never been a slave.

"Sor Moretta" (The Little Brown Sister)

Choosing to remain with the sisters, she was baptized in 1890 as Josephine Margaret Fortunata. In 1896, she took her vows as a Canossian sister.

For the next 42 years, Sister Josephine lived in Schio, Italy, serving her community as a cook, sacristan, and doorkeeper. The locals affectionately called her Sor Moretta ("little brown sister") for her gentle voice, calming presence, and ever-present smile. Even during her painful final years in a wheelchair, her response to suffering remained, "As the Master desires."

Sister Josephine passed away on February 8, 1947.

A Legacy of Radical Grace

On October 1, 2000, Pope John Paul II officially canonized her as Saint Josephine Bakhita, the patron saint of Sudan and survivors of human trafficking.

Perhaps her most profound legacy is her perspective on her painful past. When once asked what she would do if she met her torturers, she responded without hesitation:

"If I were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands. For, if these things had not happened, I would not have been a Christian and a religious today."

Today, her name graces shelters and advocacy centers worldwide, standing as a global beacon of hope and a powerful statement against modern slavery.

love & hate

From a young age, I am rejected. I don't remember ever attending a birthday party, even my own.

My mother was fond of me when I could babysit my sister Jamie, cook dinner, do laundry and rescue my mother from her own bad behavior. Except for the stray animals I adopted, I was on my own. My first doctor's appointment was age 8 for a gall bladder infection. My first dentist appointment was when I was 14, with a mouthful of cavities. My dear mother disowned me after I left home at 15. She hated to lose her free babysitter and housekeeper, guess I can't blame her.

My father was completely absent. I did find him when I was 21, but that's another story.

Fast forward to present day........my sister, Jamie, cut me off years ago for something I said. My late sister Janine cut me off in 2008, the day after we laughed and chatted on the phone. 

 my sweet daughter has cut me off from my two grandchildren for a few years. Fortunately, she is tolerating me now. 

In my old age, I am avoided by everyone but the most tolerant. 

... the question is, who's fault?

There is no one to blame but myself, and the Marxist/feminism that surrounded me. The idea that it takes a village to raise a child is ridiculous. Children need two parents.

 

Luckily, My son Adam always loved me unconditionally. He really was a saint.