EroSomatic Arts Collective

“Successful understanding of another’s point of view comes not from imaging their point of view, but from asking and listening—from getting the another’s perspective rather than taking it. ” — Nicholas Epley
In December, the Body Trust team will be doing our annual strategy meeting. Rather than just guessing what you might need or want, we really want to know what’s up for you. What is on your mind or in your body right now?
Specifically . . .
1. What are you wrestling with in your embodied life?
2. Of all the things Body Trust has offered*, what has been most useful?
3. What else would you most like us to bring into form?
Just reply to this email with your thoughts or, if you prefer to be anonymous, use this online form.
We’d love to hear from you before we meet on Dec. 9th.
xo,
Amy, Alex, Lizz, Zed
*We’ve been offering: weekend workshops, residential long-form workshops, online morning meditation, half-day year wheel workshops, podcasts, newsletters, Facebook groups, coloring book, Erotix journal, website, individual SI sessions, etc.

“Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
In the fall, I begin to notice the light changing, leaves falling and my garden harvest. It is also a time when I create an ancestor alter, in honor of those in my life who have passed. Aliveness and death are companions. Honoring those who have died pushes me into my aliveness. How will I engage with life today?
Thank you Mary Oliver, who speaks it so beautifully.
— Alex
When Death Comes
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world
– Mary Oliver

As some of you know, I’ve been drawing a lot lately (i.e., the “secret” coloring book project). That means that I’ve had less time for just reading. I mean, after putting drawing pen to paper for hours, the last thing I want to do is to then put reading eyes to page. Yet still, I can’t pass up a good and fascinating book. This is my current TO BE READ pile. I just added another today. M-U-S-T  S-T-O-P  N-O-W!
The good news is I’m beginning to understand why audiobooks have become wildly popular (sales up 38% in 2015 versus a decline in print and ebooks). But truth be told, I still can’t resist the touch of a good book.
What about you? What’s on your pile? What pages are you caressing?
xo,
Amy

Amy + Alex have been hard at work at a secret project, and it’ll be coming to you completed this winter. They’ve been doing some deep reflection on the chakras, the different senses (did you know there are way more than 5?), and various pleasures (ice cream, citrus) … and it’s culminating in a stunning project. I can’t wait to get my colors + pens on the paper.
Here’s a sneak preview, above, of one of the pages during Amy’s process. 

xo,
Body Trust

The Mother Earth is abundant right now. Fruit is falling off the trees. Some of this fruit will go back into the earths soil and some will go on our shelves.
I’ve been so busy on the farm and in my kitchen, drying, fermenting, canning and freezing.
Sometimes there’s things like, carrot tops that I don’t know what to do with!
Until I found this CARROT TOP PESTO:
Ingredients

• ⅓ cup toasted walnuts or pine nuts
• 1 small clove garlic
• 1 cup coarsely chopped carrot tops (preferably organic)
• big handful of basil leaves (about 1 cup)
• juice of ½ small lemon
• sea salt & freshly ground pepper
• ¼ – ⅓ cup olive oil
• optional: pinch of red pepper flakes
• optional: 1 teaspoon capers
• optional: ¼ parmesan cheese

Considering the earth’s harvest time, what happens if we apply the tantric principle As Within So Without — because it is also As Without so Within.
So my question to you is, what can we reap, gather, collect within ourselves right now?
Find the juiciest answer and ponder what you want to do with it.
Lizz

Hey!
In case you don’t know this about me, I also write under the name of Sinclair, and one of my ecourses on submission starts soon.
So lately, I’ve been musing about the stereotypes around submission, particularly that folks who are (or want to be) submissive in bed also do (or must) have submissive, doormat-like personalities.
I find that folks who are new and exploring submission have often told me they fear losing their autonomy, their sense of strength; that they are concerned that they must somehow compromise their integrity or worthiness in order to submit.
But on the contrary, I think the strongest submissives I know, those with many years of experience and who theorize about what it’s like to be in authority exchange or total power exchange relationships, are some of the strongest people I know.
I wrote a thing over on Sugarbutch about this, You can be your strongest self AND be a power bottom.
In it, I talk about my own misconceptions and how I still sometimes fall prey to the way my brain wants to categorize people (totally human nature), and how I believe I’m not sure it’s possible to avoid assumptions, but I can at least keep them to myself.
Do you think more submissives have submissive personalities *and* want to submit in bed, or do they tend to be more dominant personalities? Or are they neither extreme, but more well-balanced personalities?
Maybe it doesn’t matter what the majority is like — but my point is that I want to bust the misconception that submissives all have submissive personalities. You CAN be your strongest self and still be a power bottom. (Click here to read the whole thing over on Sugarbutch.)
xo,
Zed