I’m preparing for a deep dive in October. You’re invited to join me if you like. What that will look like has everything to do with what got us here.
Over the past several months, an organic process of learning has unfolded in all of my personal/philosophical/professional/political projects. When I officially came out as a meta philosophical performance artist at my 40th birthday party in June, I was putting my metaphorical stake in the ground. The intention was to claim my work moving forward and let others know, “This is who I am. It’s what I’m doing. And, if you get it, it’s how I’m doing it, too.”
It was as much a declaration to others as it was for myself. Sometimes it’s helpful to make the path explicit, even as we are walking it.
During the months that followed, a fruitful, organic process emerged that practically wrote itself when I started focusing on a theme each month: July was on healing. August was on time. September was on being honest.
And now, as we move into October, what comes next feels natural and obvious. It’s time to get do the work of engaging with all that is deep within and demands honest engagement. Big thoughts. Deep feelings. And perhaps most importantly, the stories and truths that have been too-patiently waiting to see the light of day for far too long.
Stepping into this next season requires as much desire as it does discipline. I want to do it, and it still requires a steady engagement of will. Some may say this takes courage. More than anything, I recognize what’s ahead requires a lot of love, that is, the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s healing, transformation, and liberation.
Thankfully, we do not need to traverse these terrains alone. Audre Lorde is my guide through all of this, specifically her presentation of the uses of the erotic.
My favorite description Lorde offers of the erotic is as the measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. The erotic is a source of power, of knowledge — it is “what is deepest and strongest and richest within each of us” that we have been conditioned to repress and from which we are taught to turn away.
Despite all of that, the erotic is actually most powerful when we share it with others.
Accessing the erotic is inevitably transformative. By engaging with these physical, emotional, and psychic expressions at such a level and sharing in that pursuit with others, we create the bridge that connects us to one another (with our differences intact and yet, somehow, much less threatening). This is also the bridge that connects what is most powerful within us to the political demands of realities that exist outside of us.
It makes sense, then, for this to be the project of Romancing the Revolution.
The arrival of October initiates a process for the next several weeks that I anticipate will push my own edges of creativity, intimacy, and truth-telling, and will surely grow my own capacities for all of the above. I anticipate a lot of writing, and of course, creating conditions for the possibility of sharing. As with most things I’m up to these days, there energy is equal parts experimental and experiential, and my confidence in this work is grounded in a rich lineage of wisdom.
If you are feeling the call to shift into something similar yourself, you are welcome to join me on Sundays for Romancing the Revolution. We virtually meet for an hour of reflection, dialogue, and learning together, which offers a meaningful anchor to help us move through each week.