Tag: year wheel

Categories
Newsletter

honoring the process of death

Everything ends. Everything is fleeting, temporary. This feeling, this open wound, this particular phase of the moon — we want it to be the way it is, but it isn’t. It is the way it will be, and will be after that.
Don’t get too comfortable. Don’t get too used to one thing, because it will become another. Don’t worry. You won’t stay as you are, either. This body is not the same one you had a year ago, ten years ago. Have you kept up with who you are now?
What will you continue to teach after you’re gone? Who will have your name in their mouths? What if it is no one? What if you are never internet famous, what if you never run a start-up that is the next cover of Wired, what if you do not leave a patented invention? What will you do with your life if you knew all you had was just your feelings when you create, your connections, your kinetics?
The great divine energy that is all that is loves to experience. The divine loves experiences so much that they have shattered themself into an innumerable amount of beings, each able to feel and see and hear and taste and love in different ways. They are moving through you to explore all there is to explore in your unique form. Do not deny the world your insights.
Do not be so selfish as to keep your gifts to yourself — even if they, too, will be temporary, will end, and may never be what you want them to be.
When something is dying, what happens? A withering, a crash; a crunch, a soft fading. Sometimes, things to do not go between the worlds willingly. Sometimes there is struggle. There is struggle all around, right now, as the old systems are dying.
Rage, rage, into the dying of the light.
Is there struggle in you? What is struggling to die? What should you be letting die with dignity, but aren’t? What wishes to sing itself into the great long slumber?
Me, I am shedding layers built up and I cower feeling the wind on my raw skin. It is hard to believe this is better, that this is where I should be: to look at the hard thing that I know will gut me and do it anyway. And I do it, and I do hate it, and that hate fades, and I have done it. Everything is fleeting, temporary.
Everything ends.
This body, too, will be a corpse.
Merry Samhain; happy Halloween.

Categories
Workshops

Announcing: Entering the Long Night

Hello beloveds —
Alex & I are doing an energy & BDSM focused workshop, Entering the Long Night, in Seattle in December, and you’re invited.
It’s all gender, all orientations, clothing optional. It’s limited to 12 people, and it’s already half full — so if you’re thinking about it, sign up quick & save a space. 
This is related to the Wicked Equinox SM workshops Alex & I have done in the past, but this time we’re doing it at the very beginning of December, as we approach solstice and the subtle time of the year.
Here’s the information. Hope you can join us <3  Zed
The winter solstice is a time to pause and reflect. The days are shorter, the nights are longer, and what few hours we have with the sun are extra crisp and clear — even crystalline — particularly in places with snow and ice. With all the winter weather, hibernating plants and animals, and the sun low in the sky, it might seem like there’s no life activity; but underneath all of that, life is still there, resting, pulsing, waiting for the reemergence.
That’s the kind of resting life we will engage with in this weekend workshop.
Sometimes aliveness at its most full and actualized by being big, bold, and loud, but there is just as much vivid vibrancy in the small, subtle, and soft.
We’ll use various tools to explore the energy body and tap in to the wisdom of the body, through play, sensation from subtle to bold: intense sensation, bondage and holding, stillness and movement. We’ll build energy up, then slow everything down so we can reflect and embark on an internal journey. Using principles and theories of the energy body, of BDSM, of group dynamics and interaction, we’ll craft our own rituals to dialogue with our deep aliveness with curiosity and kindness.
This is an opportunity to meet the challenges, external expectations, and obligations of the (American) holiday season with intentional pause and stillness, strengthening a felt inner sense of home.

TO REGISTER

Go to the bodytrustcircle.com/year-wheel page and fill out the interest form. 

Space is limited to 12 participants
Tuition: Pond $375-450, Lake $450, Ocean $475-595 (you decide)
Registration Dates: Open now until October 27th (six weeks before the workshop)
Open to all genders, all sexual orientations; participants should have previous experience with Body Trust or equivalent.
Accessibility: Private space has 5 cement stairs; we request all participants be scent-aware and do not wear scented products (we will provide additional information about that).
Questions? Email alex@bodytrustcircle.com

Categories
Newsletter Poetry

celebrate with me

“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” — AA Milne

won’t you celebrate with me
By Lucille Clifton
won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

I love this poem … thought I might share it with you as part of our month exploring the theme of resilience.
Don’t we all have that thing that we were born which makes us different? I didn’t have models for queerness, for butchness, for non-binary expressions, for sacred intimacy, for kinky topping and play. I too had no model. And I love this question: “What did I see to be except myself?” Would that I could have that kind of resilience.
I love the idea of celebrating this survival. Celebrating our resilience. Things do come after us, daily — the microagressions, the racism, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism, prejudice — and we don’t have to survive it. Not all of us do. But hey, I’m writing to you here today, and we have. You and I have both survived it. Not only that, but here we are, ourselves.
Celebrations all around!

Categories
Newsletter

Falling into Gratitude

Amy contemplates fall foliage

One thing I miss about living in New England is the fall colors. Luckily, I got my fix on a recent trip back east and this beautiful fall sampler is of my time in Prince Edward County, Ontario.
From a purely scientific standpoint, this display of colors comes from nothing more than the reduction of chlorophyll in the leaves, revealing the underlying pigments that have been there all along. It’s a sign of the end of growing season. But from an imaginal standpoint, these trees are so much more. This year, their flamboyance spoke to me of fortitude in the face of loss, of celebration even at the last hurrah, and their vulnerable boldness said, “Look! Right here, right now, there is still so much joy to be had! Don’t be afraid.” Like big old red-lipsticked drag queens, their flamboyance gives me courage.
What are the fall leaves saying to you?