Embodied Writing
Let’s talk Carrier Bag Theory vs Hero’s Journey; the bowl vs the arrow
The body is a story-keeper, writing is a practice of listening & honouring through sharing authentically
Writing is a holistic practice and we tend to reduce it to an intellectual exercise — this robs us of so much beauty & power and also sets most of us up to needlessly struggle and fail
Writing is a tool for re-embodying our consciousness; learning to honour The Body — of the story, the writer & the world — by honouring the somatic, erotic, metabolic mechanisms of story-telling
Weaving the somatic, metabolic & erotic into writing — why and how
Seeding Rest – Rooting Ritual
Rest-based living is really about living in and towards our capacity — softly
Calls on us to reimagine and reprint our relationship with our bodies — and the the bodies of others as well as the planet — by using new symbols, connections & language
Rituals specifically calls on us to reimagine and reprint our relationship to time and the structure of our day & activities by using different ways of marking and keeping time as well as acknowledging accomplishments & successes
The shift in our worth and the currency we circulate begins and moves us into well-crafted spaces, with more spaciousness for well-being and right relationship
Teaches the ability to stay with the trouble and diffuses individualism, compulsive growth-mindset and false binaries
The Polyamourous Queer Who Can’t Date
Isolation of chronic illness & poverty, and its impact on dating/sexual identity
Creative possibilities within polyamory — including ones that aren’t necessarily “dating”
Goals: layering dating experiences into everyday life slowly and my secret dream of a long-distance-never-meet romance)
Fantasy as a perfectly legitimate and meaningful sex life
Ablism in queer (and all) dating — and why so many of us crips are happier-single-by-necessity
Love is not Enough, We Need Grief Too
Our current understanding of spiritual love is the descendent of monotheism and colonization and therefore needs to be interrogated and interrupted
Being human requires a deep, complex and expansive skill set that we are only beginning to wonder about and explore
I consider myself working for grief; as its advocate in a world that has forgotten its beauty & power
Grief is needed to appreciate limits, what shapes us, and honour The Body — of ourselves and all other beings, including the planet
Love can’t teach us the magic and power imbedded in diversity
Beauty, Blessing & (Busted-Up) Bodies
Ask me about disability & chronic illness and monster/outsider fiction — it’s the zombie apocalypse!!
Is it okay to talk about disability & illness as a “gift?” Sure, but it can be way problematic
Learning to be in love with and accept our bodies, just as they are … no matter what
Honour bodies as a spiritual path
The power of the stories we tell around disability & illness and the reasons we need to question the most common ones
There is No Map for Where we Are
We are a society of individuals supposedly endowed with the capacity to follow a unique destiny and as such we are a society lacking in ritual, community roles and a cosmology that weaves us into the story of the planet
The systems that got us here cannot sustain — they are dying. Our responsibility is to hospice their passing in an honourable way
Many of us feel in some way adrift — without a role — as if society has no place for us and the truth is, it doesn’t
This transition requires that we learn to dream in generations, knowing that our greatest contributions may be in crafting space and shaping questions; fulfillment is not likely to be ours