body trust - EroSomatic Arts Collective

In late 2019, what was Body Trust — a circle of four (Alex, Amy, Lizz, and Zed) in a circle of beloveds — paused to digest and ponder. We had clarity to celebrate the past year and say goodbye to Amy, who felt it was time to move on. With three of us left, we asked: how should we change? Body Trust as an organization was cleared, organized, accounts closed, and taken down to the bones of it. Then we paused again, as COVID hit the world. We let things settle. And as we rested within ourselves, imaginings started emerging.

Eros, circle, collaboration, social justice, decentering our whiteness, anal breath. In order to fully live into our values, which are centered on liberation for all bodies, we wanted and needed to dismantle our all-white leadership and become part of a multi-racial organization.

So we pondered: How many in the circle … 4? 5? 6? 7? And then we gathered. Adding juice, ideas, possibilities. A sexy sextet of queer erotic educators, artists, conjurers, practitioners, sacred intimates, and tricksters — Zed, Tru, M’Kali-Hashiki, Max, Garland, and Alex.

And we began emerging! One (anal) breath at a time, we became the EroSomatic Arts Collective: Liberating Bodies for Radical Pleasure.

We are so excited to offer some new workshops, online and in person, in 2022. Keep an eye on our social media, on our mailing list, and on erosomatics.com, for what is coming next. We are so excited to play with you!

“Samhain heralds in a terrifying season when we are asked to embrace loss.”

I’m really into dharma talks and recordings of meditations lately. I have a commute now; plus, I’m spend so much time at a computer for the 9-5 job, I do less of the computer stuff I used to do for fun — like read a million articles and scroll through Facebook groups. I’m spending more time resting my eyes.
But often, I still want to engage my brain and relax and learn.
So I’ve been listening to more podcasts, and looking up more youtube recordings, too. This one I’m sharing with you is “Through the Veil,” a samhain meditation.
Samhain (pronounced saah-win) is the witch’s new year, a celebration of the end of the harvest and the calling in of the coldest part of the year. It’s a festival of the dead, and a celebration of all those things we don’t necessarily see or look at directly — the unconscious.
I used to have a shirt that said “this body will be a corpse” in really big letters … I wore it a few times, but I got too many stares. I already feel as though I stand out, I didn’t like the attention it drew.
This culture I’m in doesn’t embrace thoughts like that. I wasn’t taught to honor death, to invite loss, to embrace it, to hold it like a lover. But what if I had been?
The buddhist dharma talks I’ve been listening to lately have a similar tone: an ask to embrace the inevitability of loss. It can be a way to be more conscious both of our grasping for something that does not exist (like stability, and guarantees) and of being grateful for the things we do have, that we have not lost.
There are fires near my home in Oakland. A hundred thousand acres, last I heard, with hundreds of homes burned down, dozens of deaths. I woke up on Sunday night at 2am and asked Hunter, “Do you smell smoke?” I thought our house was on fire, or our neighbor’s house — but it was huge forest fires on dry land 60+ miles away. The smell was so strong — strong enough to wake many folks in the Bay Area. I’m shocked by the loss, devastated by the photos. Some moments in the last few days, that’s all I feel — completely full of loss.
So I try to be grateful for what I have, reaching out with compassion (and money) to support. I practice letting go — of this moment, of this feeling, of this argument. Because everything is temporary. Even this body I’m in right now, it’s temporary. It, too, will be a corpse.
Samhain is an invitation to consider the dead, the loss, and non-attachment. A time when the veil between worlds is thin, thinner, thinnest. We can feel the death part of the life and death cycle the closest.
But also consider this: in this loss comes unexpected beauty, gratitude, compassion, and blooming. Something continues beyond that loss — seasonally, it is winter. And she, too, has blessings to offer.