money ruined the world
And so did the healing industrial complex
I’m drinking a whiskey cocktail with bitters in a hotel lobby turned pseudo-coworking space after teaching / performing / working in-person for three hours earlier today. The outlets at the table don’t work because they don’t want you to stay too long even though people do. I was here once at 7pm and still it was all the same. Every hour can be a working hour if you have a laptop. And that’s the issue.
Has remote work saved me? It has helped me avoid myself by being incorporated into an algorithm whose function is to commodify everything and make every moment in service of money or the potential for receiving it. Now, if you don’t make enough money, you can feel like it's because your ideas suck or because you didn’t manipulate enough of your friends-turned-followers. The only thing that has saved me is that once upon a time I had a startup job that allowed me to get a credit card and because of that I can dig myself into a deeper hole.
So what now? I’m back in new york thinking about holes, paying off debt, and trying to find purpose disguised as employment (or is it the other way around?). My somatic training and background make me a great candidate for supporting people in their journey of discovering pleasure and joy in their everyday lives. I excel at this! I am confident in my ability to do so and have created whole adaptable curriculums to guide people through a transformative journey.
The same training also makes me a great candidate at preying on people’s sexual insecurities (which are ultimately connected to the fear of both death and living) while unexpectedly contributing to limiting beliefs around sex, the body, and life / living. Despite all my work around this and my promise to be in accountability, I believe this is an inherent function and feature embedded into the foundation of western healing and sexual wellness.
The sneaky thing is - healing can and does still happen even as the tentacles of normativity become strengthened and latch on to new configurations. The complicated thing is I love doing somatic work and ritual work, which is why I took some time off to sit with these complications. I devoted myself to study and reflected on some of my very own teachers and coaches preyed upon my own insecurities when selling their offerings. It sucks. If you’re a practitioner reading this, I’d love to talk with you about this.
Every paragraph could be its own letter but really this is just a teaser to say I that I’m hoping to work out some of these ideas through my practice. It won’t be the only thing I talk about though. I still have a lot to say about technology + love, erotic movies, queer archives, and mysticisms. And I still have a lot to say about my little ole life without framing it into any neat category :-)
Some Updates:
As part of my fellowship with Public Assistants, I curated an evening of eco-sensuality on April 13th from 2pm-8pm. There will be food, herbal beverages, plant pigments, workshops, and more. Come meet the fellows and see this space that is an amazing hub for QTBIPOC creatives. All our welcome to the event!
Then catch me the next day at the Leslie-Lohman Museum with my new friend and collaborator Crystal Peñalosa in collaboration with Voluminous Arts. We will guide you through a soft, fluid, playful encounter to inspire new methods of thinking through our relationships with the objects in the exhibition.
Finally, on Tuesday, April 16th from 7:30pm-9:00pm I’ll be a part of an Open Studies curated by Anna Muselmann at the Center for Performance Research. Come join me, Nicolas Baird, A.L. Steiner, and agustine zegers in Money Ruined the World. See…my opening to this newsletter is not so random after all.
Ok for real, for real the end, if you are interested in doing pleasure-based somatic work in a compassionate setting with someone who will be honest about the gifts and limitations of these practices, please reach out. I am currently running Bloom, a twelve week program that is deeply informed and considerate of all that has been stated here. Seriously, designed with all this in my mind. It functions as a practice of space-holding + deep listening + knowledge shares.
Ok, that is all for now! Talk soon xo