Reading · The Radical Mystic

By Michael R. Smith, Ph.D.

It’s the summer of 1984. I’m 12 years old, and my eyeballs are glued to the screen of the video for Lucky Star on MTV - transfixed by the lace gloves, bracelets, crop top, and the unabashed confidence of this strange new creature named Madonna - who it turned out, wasn’t Black like many of us had originally thought.

My grandmother waltzes into the living-room of her tidy bungalow on 8th Street in Duluth, Minnesota, vacuum cleaner in tow, the scent of Lemon Pledge wafting through the air, making her daily crusade against dust. “Oh, that Madonna. She’s such a tramp,” she declared.

Hmmm. If Madonna made adults uncomfortable, she must be doing something worth paying attention to.

A year later, Madonna was on the cover of TIME Magazine. Having been gifted a subscription from my grandparents (yes, I was a literature geek even then) - in that issue there was an advertisement featuring baseball’s Jim Palmer stripped down in his Jockey underwear. I had no idea why I kept returning to that page, but it wasn’t because of the writing. That issue got hidden under my bed.

Around 1986-1987, as her music evolved, she featured two thirteen-year-old boys who for me became visual crazy glue, but I didn’t yet understand why. Chris Finch stole the stage, and my heart, with his infectious smile and impish dance moves on the Who’s That Girl tour. And when Felix Howard’s luminous eyes were fixed on Madonna with inquisitive wonder in the Open Your Heart video, I too couldn’t look away. From him. Je ne sais quoi.

By the time college arrived, circa 1990, I settled on Saint John’s University, an all-male (ahem) Catholic college in the forest of central Minnesota. The first foreshadowing to the fact that I was blatantly gay was being obsessed with Judy Garland’s “Over the Rainbow” from her live at Carnegie Hall record - as a 7-year-old. Madonna’s iconic cone bras from a Blond Ambition tour poster plastered over my Mary Hall dorm walls at eighteen was the second - and perhaps most ridiculously obvious. But, as is a running theme throughout my life, most of the time I am the last to know.

I am not naturally quiet. At age 8, I built a makeshift television studio in my bedroom to prepare for my future broadcasting career. I wanted to be a TV weatherman, which I now find hilarious. But around age 12, sensing the danger around me after being bullied for the first time, I shut that part of me down and withdrew into myself. I mistook silence for safety. I became smaller and less visible.

Madonna exuded an audacity that never asked for permission. She became larger when others tried to shrink her. And because of that, something important inside my adolescent soul stood at attention.

Yes, her sonic alchemy has been the soundtrack to my entire adult life - from late-night moonlit car rides belting Live to Tell to flooding my theater popcorn with tears watching Evita. When I obsessively re-watch her 1990 video of Like a Prayer - live in Paris, I go full gospel. I gyrate and spin myself around the room like Linda Blair in the Exorcist. I’m naturally limber and flexible, but the hypnotic groove and message of that song turns me into a whirling dervish that some people would pay good money to see at a carnival show.

If the music expands my heart (I’m talking about you, “Power of Goodbye”), quiets my mind, and leaves my root chakra screaming like a feral cat - that’s a spiritual experience. So congrats, Miss M. I doubt the pope would agree, but in my view you belong in the same conversation as the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa. Plus, you somewhat hilariously ambushed an unsuspecting Coachella crowd a few months ago with a mini-astrology lecture. Girl, I feel seen.

Beyond the music, Madonna’s gifted me with something even more important. Because she has never given a fuck about what others think - she’s given me permission to live my life the same way.

She was told by critics she couldn’t sing or act. She studied voice, transformed her technique for Evita, and just casually won the Golden Globe for Best Actress. She wanted to become a director and Hollywood laughed - and so naturally she willed that into existence by writing the script for and directing a big budget movie, W.E. Granted, it got shitty reviews, but it’s her moxie that I love.

Every time a critic knocks her, I look at her reaction - and believe in myself even more. As far as I’m concerned, Madonna is an archetype all to herself. I’m not Madonna, but I’ve spent most of my life carrying her inside of me. Iconoclastic. Fierce. Adventurous. Ballsy. Relentless in pursuit of art. And yes, a bit blasphemous. That’s who I am. That’s who I aim to be. In my life, and my career. I’m the Radical Mystic for a reason.

Madonna isn’t a mere planet. She’s the sun. And because of her belief in herself, destiny fell into orbit around her. Supernatural? Probably. She’s certainly giving us all a masterclass in giving Father Time, respectfully, the middle finger.

I laughed out loud at a recent NY Times piece with the headline “Madonna has Become an Avatar for our Fear of Aging.” Cue the eye roll. Let’s Review. Since her last album, 2019’s eccentric Madame X, she nearly died after a severe bout with sepsis, in which she was left in a coma. Years earlier, she fell off a horse, and was severely injured with cracked ribs, broken bones, and ultimately needing a hip replacement. Most people with arthritis simply want a comfortable recliner. Madge is 68 and balancing in high heels on a spinning record player in front of half a million in Times Square. And she just released a dance album, currently #1 in the world, Confessions II, that is garnering the best reviews of her career.

If Madonna can do it, so can I.

When Madonna said recently, “I need to create. I need to do what I was put on this Earth to do,” I turn into a bobblehead and nod like a pigeon on ten cups of Folgers. If I’m not creating, I’m dying inside. Maybe that’s why I’ve written essays faithfully every week since 2010, am now belting out Broadway show tunes on stage, programming kick drums in Ableton Live, pursuing a book deal, and generally no longer settling for the D list. Like Madonna, I will continue to plumb and share the depths of my artistic soul - minus the high heels.

She’s my original muse, and the older I get, the more faithful she becomes.

“Hey cutie, can I buy you a drink?” said the handsome, slightly older man who approached me at Mickey’s in West Hollywood where I was living during the summer of 1998. “No thanks, I’m good,” I replied, very ‘on brand’ for me at the time, which caused my friend Brian to elbow me in the ribs so hard that I nearly spilled my drink. “Do you know who that is?” he asked me. “That’s Bryan Singer, the director of The Usual Suspects”. Future superstar. I couldn’t have cared less, because at that moment the unmistakable opening notes of Madonna’s Ray of Light exploded through the speakers - and lit up my mitochondria before I even knew what they were.

Shedding all inhibitions and taking what then was a big risk for me, I practically teleported myself to the dance floor - by myself. The shirtless boys? Who cares. They, along with the fear of being watched, disappeared into a crescendo that involved only the hypnotic groove and canopy of swirling red, blue, and emerald disco lights. Suddenly there was only the shimmering synths, sweat dripping down my face, and a completely new feeling. For the first time in my life, I wasn't wondering what I looked like dancing. I was actually dancing. Ecstatically. Aware of only myself.

That Ray of Light era was especially memorable because the music was so sonically unlike anything any of us had heard. That was not the first or last time that Madonna defied artistic expectations to reinvent herself. I’m surprised she’s not a Gemini. She has wandered through musical genres (gospel, opera, R&B, folk, big band) and other exploits (children’s book author, humanitarian, record company president) with the curiosity of an Antarctic explorer.

All that fearless creative exploration is why j’adore Madonna. She refused to stay in one lane, and watching her gave me permission to stop staying in mine.

Not to mention she’s a Holy Ho. She gives good heresy. Decimating and obliterating the crusty cobwebs that many of us carry around our groins and loins. Come on. So she got nekkid for the Sex book. And half of the world judged her for that? Not moi. And none of the gays and queers that I know.

We’ve got her back, because she always had ours. She spoke up for us during the 1980’s when no one else would, especially that hapless assclown Ronald Reagan. She defiantly challenged him, the pope, and everyone else who thought they had a clue but didn’t. And so yeah, she launched her new album on Grindr? Girl knows her audience. And even though I don’t use Grindr, that makes me love her even more.

Taking Madonna’s cues, I’ve explored my own sexuality through tantra and conscious pleasure practices these last six years. And you know what? I’m a better person, and a better healing practitioner because of it. I use pleasure to meditate with prayerful intention. For my body, my loved ones, my clients, and my future husband. Taking a line from Madonna, “I’m not sorry, it’s human nature.” The 24 year-old version of me, who shut down potentially beautiful sexual encounters because he felt it was egregious, couldn’t have said that.

Madonna, I am so grateful to be alive at the same time as you. I don’t know you personally, and you don’t know me. But you must know, and I must express, the profound appreciation I have for you for being the status quo shattering, fierce warrior of Light that you are.

Are you perfect? Of course not. Like anyone, you have your flaws. You’ve been accused of being rude and dismissive of others, especially early in your career. Your business pursuits have been called exploitative by some. Even you have admitted that you were a bit of a narcissist early on.

And yet your flaws are why I love you even more - because like me, you are both shadow and Light - and that’s the whole point of being human. You don’t judge yourself for your flaws. In fact, you celebrate it with songs like “My Sins are My Savior” on your new album. Like you, I choose to embrace my humanness and focus on how that can never be separate from my immense Light.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about when the inevitable time comes that you’re no longer with us. When you fly beyond this mortal coil, I doubt the conversation will be about Grammy awards or platinum records. In your life review, I imagine you’ll be asking yourself “did I help people become more of their true selves? Did I help create joy in the world? Did I leave the world freer than I found it?”

I suspect that your awareness over how you’ve profoundly changed the world will expand like the brilliance of the stars from which you came.

There’s a little 12 year old boy inside me who discovered his way of being in the world, thanks to you.

And my inner 17 year old has your Blond Ambition poster still proudly displayed across his heart.

I wasn’t born to become you - but I was born, like you, to become more fully myself.

You showed me how.

P.S. I’m curious: Who has changed your life, inspired you, and given you permission to be more fully yourself? I’d love to hear your story. I’ll be reading and responding to every comment and every reply to this email.

If Madonna Can Do It, So Can I

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