It’s time for Portals of Pleasure, Body Trust’s annual deep-dive erotic residential retreat in New Mexico. Are you feeling the call this year? Find out more as Alex, Lizz, Zed, and Amy talk about the retreat, what to expect, how they are inspired by the work, and what their favorite Portals might be.
Registration for the retreat is now open. This year’s theme is “steadfastness” or what is steady and true in your body. Are you curious to learn more? Then head on over to https://www.bodytrustcircle.com/portals for more details.
Portals of Pleasure is a 5-day erotic retreat for genderqueer folks and women folks, held July 24-28, 2019 at the Bodhi Manda Zen Center in Jemez Springs, New Mexico.
Tag: zed
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Being Brave, No Matter What Happens
I hope you’ve been following Blair Braverman as much as I have. She writes all the time over on her Twitter channel about her adventures as a musher, training, caring for, and racing sled dogs. Just this week, she finished the epic Iditarod! Can’t wait for the tweets about her stories to start coming in (after she’s rested).
I still think about this article she wrote, How to Teach a Dog to Be Brave. Bravery has been on my mind lately: I’m job hunting, and continuing to make myself vulnerable and get invested in a job I want only to not know whether I’ll get it is an act of bravery. My partner Hunter and I are also going through a process of being recognized as more formal community leaders in the leather/BDSM worlds, and that, too, has been requiring bravery.
And I’m thinking about failure, shame, embarrassment. What does it mean to fail something? There is much talk of “failing forward,” “failing big,” and how much failure is not a bad thing — but what about my personal relationships to that?
Blair writes:
What I’ve learned through years of blizzards and frostbite and broken headlamps, tangles and wolves and splintered sleds, is that whatever happens, I’ll find a way to handle it. I can’t predict or control problems, but I have a darn good track record for protecting my team and coming out the other end. Sometimes I think that’s as close to real courage as I’m going to get.
I’m thinking of Blair’s words as I write another cover letter, contact another mutual connection on LinkedIn. Whatever happens, I’ll find a way to handle it. What a lovely thing to trust, when (if) I can do that.
Happy spring,
Zed
PS: Save the date for Portals of Pleasure 2019! July 24-28 near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Registration will open in April.
Hello from Portals of Pleasure!
We are on retreat right now, at our annual five-day deep dive in New Mexico. I invite you to tune in to our circle, radiating outward and connecting to all of you beloveds who follow and accept our work — you create part of the larger energetic circle.
Just take a deep breath and think of us through Sunday the 22nd, we’ll be gathered and experimenting and rooting into wildness. We’ll be breathing & thinking of you, too.
<3
Wait, there’s one more thing I want to share with you.
I mentioned that I’d seen this short film with a dancer underwater this month on the video Amy + Alex + I made and posted to the Patreon (you can join us here and support our ongoing work — it makes a big difference for us on this end!) I found it stunning, and have watched it many times.
The film is Ama by Julie Gautier.
What an incredible portal of pleasure.
— Zed
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There is no failure.
I did this interesting thing and followed my impulse and booked a flight on Southwest points to LA to see the fourth of a four-show series by Taylor Mac. He’s performing a 24-Decade History of Popular Music, and each decade is an hour. AN HOUR. So the original show was 24 hours long. In a row. Twenty-four hours in a row of singing, dancing, performance art, entertainment, elaborate costumes.
The show I saw was only 6 hours.
And, as everybody warned, it flew by. I never once said to myself, “How much longer is this show?” (Which I frequently do in other contexts.) People I know seem to have either heard about this show and rave about it, or have never heard of it. Doesn’t seem like there’s an in-between.
Aside from the performance and music, the politics were one of the most incredible pieces of it. I did see the most recent 6 decades, from the civil rights era to now, so that was all very relevant, but my understanding is that it was woven throughout. He was so damn smart about so much.
Honestly, I have no idea how to explain it. I’m not going to try. I didn’t know what to expect when I went. I decided to go for it because a friend who had seen it was raving about it, and rather than actually understand the descriptions that were coming out of her mouth, I understood the energetic transformation she was describing, and I was intrigued by the way she lit up and was in awe, just recounting her experience.
It felt like the first time someone tried to explain their experience in a Body Electric workshop. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but I recognized and wanted the feeling of it.
Here’s the little trailer for the show he does. He’s still touring with it, for a little longer, going to visit Tempe and Tallahassee and Philadelphia and London and a few other places. If you happen to have some airline points hanging around and want to have an artist’s date with yourself, I highly recommend it.
— Zed