Emerald's Blog, page 31

Unblocking

Of late, I have been experiencing anxiety to a higher degree than in much of the last decade. I trust this is due to something I have mentioned before, namely that anxiety may be an indicator of things being shaken up and reaching the surface of the unconscious. Given the last couple breathwork sessions I have had, I do feel this is likely. Much has been moving, it has seemed, and shifts have occurred, and the ego/superego in me as such may feel alarm and resistance and have shifted into "Oh shit!" mode.

Even as I've felt mostly aware of this, it does not mean I have not still experienced the effects of anxiety, most notably (to be discussed here anyway) in practical ways. The world continues functioning even if I feel genuine anxiety for what seem to me noble reasons of personal growth. I have especially felt challenged being in contact with people, emailing them back when they have emailed me, and the more I have not done that (despite how much I may desperately want to), the more I have felt concern and anxiety about it, which has tended to result in a cycle of avoidance. I have felt it prominently the past few weeks.

I've not been writing as much as I'd like. But I realize and admit that hasn't seemed only recent. I have noticed especially lately that there are so many writers I adore and admire who seem so busy, day jobs, kids, (pregnancy!), numerous commitments besides writing who manage to write anyway (sometimes with an output that seems astonishingly prolific to me!), dedicating their time and attention to it around the numerous other things they do.

I have almost none of that. Yes, there are things that I do, but I don't have kids, I don't have a 9 to 5 job that demands I attend to it during certain set hours—what I have is ample time and opportunity to write. Especially when I see so many of my colleagues who don't have that luxury but write anyway, I have been known to feel a scathing resentment directed toward myself for not taking advantage of the precious gift I have of a largely unmediated time and opportunity to write.

During a recent breathwork appointment, I saw very clearly something around this. I became aware that it is not that I need to discipline myself more, effort further, try harder to get my ass in gear and write. (Really, it's seemed to me the superego in me has had the market close to cornered on those kinds of demands.) It is that I need to relax—what is in me is there, waiting and wanting to come out, and there is something in me blocking that flow (perhaps ironically related to said superego). I don't need to work harder to write what I want to say. What is called for is to let go of the block and allow the writing forth.

I wasn't particularly shocked by this, though I hadn't received the understanding with such clarity before. However, despite this awareness, after leaving that breathwork session I have still felt frustration with myself for not, then, unblocking the block! It seems funny how something (superego) ranting at me to relax just doesn't seem to elicit such….

Last night I was feeling this familiar frustration, and I sat with it. Rather than engaging in the loop in my head of hearing the internal accusation and tensing against it and feeling mad at myself, which intensifies both as they cycle around and around with each other, I allowed myself to simply feel the anxiety resulting from the self-accusation. I didn't tense against it or start engaging it in my head but just let it be and sat with how it felt.

Almost immediately the frustration relaxed. And instead of tenseness and irritation and accusation, I felt something else.

Hurt.

Beyond the tension, after it relaxed, I felt the pain of not writing. While intellectually I guess I am/was not surprised by this, I'm not sure I had ever felt the raw pain beyond the self-accusatory talk of this before. That seems amazing to me, but it's true. I felt, physically in the heart space, the pain of not writing/expressing. The direct and unmediated hurt of what wants to come out not doing so, of not taking (or getting, depending on how one looks at it) the chance to say what is in me ready/wanting to be said.

It is possible that I felt more like a "writer" that moment than I have at many other times.

Then I thought about people who experience repression, blockage, and/or anxiety around sexuality. I faced these things in myself very pointedly years ago—which is certainly not to say I have that area all figured out. Self-awareness is literally unending. There is always more to know, and we are always new. I don't feel for a second that I have discerned and attended to all there is to know about sexuality in me and issues in me around it. What's important to me is that I recognize that though and keep examining, exploring, facing what is there. I know, somehow, there is much to learn.

But the reason this occurred to me, I suspect, is because as I struggle with particular anxiety around blockage in me and writing and wanting to allow out what wants to come out, I've remembered people dealing with sexual repression and wondered how such things are/have affected them. How would it feel if they sat with it; if they didn't engage with the historical tension cycle and faced what was there with kindness and love?

How deeply repression can hurt, and how much more to us there is than the unconscious patterns with which we often automatically engage without realizing that—that there is more. That that's not all we are. That that's not all we can be. That it could take just sitting, just seeing it, just allowing whatever we have tended to tense against (perhaps without even knowing it) to get to a deeper level, something new, something that may indeed be uncomfortable—but that may put us more in touch with ourselves…the real Self, that is not made up of unconscious patterns.

It may hurt. But it may also be that unconsciousness is far more painful in the long run.

This blog post, of course, is a release, a coming out of something in me that wants to be said.

Words feel (ironically) inadequate to express the exquisite gratitude within me.

Love,

Emerald

"I thought maybe I was this, I found out that I am That…I can't promise I won't fall, and I can't say I'm never scared…let go, give in, give up, surrender…"

-Ben Lee "Surrender"

Recommended Reading #50: Activism

      "Sex Workers WANT to Stop Trafficking" on YouTube.com (Recommended Watch, Sex Work, Human Trafficking, Public Policy, Activism) 1/11/11

I would like to say that the message of this video is obvious (and to me of course it seems so), but the very fact that it was made I think speaks to the lamentable circumstance that in mainstream perception, both the distinction between sex work and sex trafficking as well as the idea that sex workers could serve as an important and helpful resource in eradicating sex trafficking have seemed lacking. Big thanks to the creators of and participants in this video for articulating both points!

***

      "Audacia Ray Talks Media Making, Diversification, and Self-Identity" on Freelancedom (Interview, Sex Worker Rights, Activism, Promotion) 8/2/10

I have seen Audacia Ray as a go-to source for the pulse of sex worker rights activism approximately since I've known of her. In this interview she is asked and talks about the many projects and media on/with which she's worked as an activist over the years.

***

      "Being a slut and getting pissed off" by Sonya JF Barnett (Activism, Sex and Culture, Feminism, Sociology, Memoir) 5/3/11

I really enjoyed reading this part-personal account, part-social commentary from one of the co-founders of SlutWalk about the origination and process of what has become the phenomenon of such.

***

Recommended Reading posted every Wednesday

Recommended Reading #49: Sluts, Pt. II

      "The Daily Mail (UK) Misses the Entire Point of Slutwalks" by Dr. Charlie Glickman (Sex and Culture, Sociology, Psychology, Gender, Media) 5/13/11

I find Charlie's response to an article reporting on SlutWalk in London incisive and succinct, pointing out important considerations about societal perceptions and his interpretation of SlutWalks (which I appreciate and with which I agree).

***

      "Gay Bashing vs. Slut Shaming: Aren't they equally deadly?" by debbie (Youth, Sex and Culture, Sociology) 11/17/10

While I certainly understand the media and other attention paid to the horrendous and heartbreaking phenomenon of homophobic bullying by youth late last year, I agree with the author of this piece that slut-shaming is equally unconscionable and threatening yet hasn't seemed to receive very much attention as such. Perhaps because it seems so common, both historically and contemporarily, we have tended to forget or overlook the phenomenon that arises from a pernicious double standard about women's sexuality and lack of societal support for said sexuality in general. I appreciate the reminder this article offers.

***

      "Gail Dines, SlutWalk, Saudi Arabia and The Place of Porn in a 'Just Society'" by Thomas Roche (Pornography, Sex and Culture, Gender, Sociology) 5/22/11

Thomas Roche responds to an article by Gail Dines that ran in the Sydney Morning Herald. In addition to discussing his perception of Ms. Dines's assertions about "sluts," Thomas breaks down a number of the other messages he interprets from her public offerings on the subject of pornography. (Thomas's writing here, incidentally, made me laugh out loud more than once—I considered quoting my favorite line[s] of this article, but there got to be too many!)

***

Recommended Reading posted every Wednesday

Recommended Reading #48: Reproductive Choice

      "The Hypocrisy of 'Informed Consent' Abortion Laws" by Angi Becker Stevens (Reproductive Rights, Politics, Sex and Culture, Health and Body) 4/15/11

I appreciate this article intensely; it contains many considerations that have long occurred to me as an activist for reproductive freedom. I have tended to find laws mandating things such as waiting periods for women seeking abortions infuriating, particularly because of the guise under which they seem to be purported—and this piece does what I find a beautiful job of explaining why.

***

      "Beyond Federal Funding for Contraception: Taking a Firm Stance on the Hyde Amendment" by Angi Becker Stevens (Politics, Reproductive Rights, Sociology, Public Policy) 4/20/11

I don't think I've ever included two pieces by the same author in a "Recommended Reading" post, but on this subject it happens that these two pieces (which I didn't even realize were by the same author until I was compiling this post!) speak, to me, exceptionally comprehensively and articulately on issues I find particularly salient in the reproductive rights realm as well as less acknowledged and discussed. In the case of this piece, I very much appreciate its pointing out some things with which I wholeheartedly agree and that have not tended to seem expressed very much even from a pro-choice perspective. Sometimes laws or "norms" seem to become so commonplace as to not often be questioned anymore, and the non-use of federal tax dollars to contribute to abortion care (like they do other medical care as well as numerous things many taxpayers may not necessarily want their tax money paying for—that is the nature of the form of government the United States utilizes) seems like one of these to me. This piece strikes me as an illuminating exposition on the subject.

***

      "End" by AAG (Memoir, Relationship, Health and Body, Parenting) 4/25/11

This may be one of the most extraordinary things, at least in memoir form, I've read on the subject of reproductive choice. I thank the author for expressing it.

***

Recommended Reading posted every Wednesday

An Uncomfortable Proclamation

This is hard for me to post, but it reflects some current circumstances as I understand them, so there seems little way around it.

I had a conversation today with Rod MacIver, founder of Heron Dance and publisher of The Other Dance (see my previous post), and it seems he discerned over the weekend that he wants to take Heron Dance in a new direction…that doesn't include The Other Dance or exploration of the erotic. It appears that The Other Dance is no longer planned for future publication—and thus, of course, that I will not be serving as its editor. I interpreted Rod as pointing out that artistic endeavors do tend to fluctuate, and especially amidst considerations of one's livelihood (Rod's, as the sole proprietor of Heron Dance), sometimes sacrifices or seemingly dramatic measures may be placed at the forefront.

Indeed…. That withstanding, I will admit I felt shocked by this news. As may have seemed evident from my post announcing the launch of The Other Dance, I had the impression this endeavor was solidly planned and supported by its publisher.

As I said in the opening of this post, this feels a hard announcement for me to make here. While I understand the reasons I interpreted Rod as relating for the shift eliminating The Other Dance from consideration as a part of Heron Dance, I dislike very much that I indicated here that something was planned to be a certain way and now have to say that it is not. I have tended to experience consistency and credibility as deeply important, so the degree to which this instance feels contrary to them feels very uncomfortable to me.

Of course, I meant everything I said personally in that post, and as far as Heron Dance and The Other Dance, I did understand it all to be true at the time. I apologize deeply to all readers of it and especially to authors who had taken the time to submit (incidentally, all who did will hear back from me individually with this information) or begin to consider doing so. Most especially I apologize to Robin, our first (and only, as it turns out) published author with me at the helm as editor of The Other Dance—I thank her for her beautiful piece (which I love), "Strands of Imagination," which I experienced Rod as very enthusiastic about publishing, as was I, and I appreciate her letting us publish her work.

In addition—I thank indescribably everyone who expressed support to me about this endeavor here. I don't know how to express how much I appreciate your commenting and the way I experienced all of you as seeming to feel I would effectively undertake this endeavor and seeming willing to support me in doing so. My appreciation of it seems all the more poignant to me in light of my having to, in effect, retract the entire announcement of the publication of (and my involvement with) The Other Dance. Again, I apologize.

I read a quote a few days ago from one of the players on my favorite baseball team, the Yankees. Nick Swisher (said his father used to say to him, "Sailors never perfected their craft sailing smooth water." Recalling that makes me smile wryly right now, as while it seems not a new sentiment, its current relevance seems well placed. Despite the dismay I feel in publicly acknowledging this situation, I've noticed there are things I experienced from/in/about myself throughout this endeavor that seem significant, even luminous, to me…perhaps even more than I recognize right now.

One of them includes my accepting of the position Rod offered me. I felt nervousness about agreeing to undertake the editorship of The Other Dance. I felt very flattered being approached, but I still felt the historically familiar concern that I wouldn't perform it well (which has tended to mean "perfectly" to a part of me that runs via outdated habits and patterns). The fact is, acquiescence to fear—consciously or unconsciously—has often kept me from doing things. It has resulted in avoidance, refusal, reticence, and the basic passing up or missing of opportunities. In times when I have felt any fear that I won't or won't know how to perform something effectively or perfectly—which has seemed to be almost always—fear has often been the final arbiter of action (or inaction) from me.

It wasn't this time. I felt nervousness about my potential performance, but I agreed to do it anyway. However this opportunity has turned out, I did not let fear keep me from accepting it. I accepted it anyway.

It is undeniable that I feel humiliation in having posted something here that turned out to be not nearly as solid and reliable as I thought it was. I truly apologize for that. I was excited about The Other Dance and my involvement with it, and I feel sadness that the opportunity has been relinquished, not only (or even mostly) because of my own position, but because of the loss of, as Donna so graciously put it in a comment on my post, the "opportunity to bring quality erotic work to a wider audience."

Regardless of how short-lived this venture has turned out to be, all of my actions related to it were sincere, and I do see value in the indications of growth in me that manifested in its midst. The more awake I am, the more I may serve in the way(s) I aim to. Perhaps that is what I will focus on in this.

Thank you to all who read my The Other Dance announcement (and who are reading this), and thank you especially for all the beautiful comments that were offered there. Even (perhaps especially) amidst this humble apology, I profoundly—indescribably, really—appreciate the support you all offered me.

Love,

Emerald

"I may stumble, yeah I might fall…sometimes I'm afraid and I don't feel that tough, but I'll stand back up…"

-Sugarland "Stand Back Up"

Announcing The Other Dance!

In 2006 my mother introduced me to a small literary arts-and-nature-focused journal called Heron Dance. I experienced her as saying she suspected it would resonate with me, and she was correct. I have been a subscriber and follower of Heron Dance, which has traversed numerous transitions of format, focus, and personnel at the helm, ever since.

by Rod MacIver

The (both original and current) founder and painter of Heron Dance is Rod MacIver, whom I have mentioned or quoted a few times here at The Green Light District. A year and a half ago I even posted an announcement that he was beginning a new venture, an erotic newsletter to correspond with the nude and erotic paintings he had been doing. Shortly after that announcement, a number of transitions, including with staff, occurred at Heron Dance (a very small company and press), and my understanding was The Other Dance was put on indefinite hold in the face of more pressing business concerns that unexpectedly inhibited the practical embarkment on a new project at the time.

At this time Heron Dance has recently undergone a few transitions again, most notably in ceasing the print publication of its journal and instating an online membership fee (of $2 a month) for daily receipt of written content by Rod (entitled "Reflections of a Wild Artist"—this may still be received once a week for free by signing up here), discounts on the purchase of paintings, and access to certain areas of the website only accessible by members.

One of which will house The Other Dance, the erotic online newsletter Heron Dance is now ready to create and develop as an integral part of its professional offerings. The Other Dance will publish a new edition each Tuesday, featuring one of Rod's nude or erotic paintings alongisde a piece of erotic fiction.

I am introducing and speaking about this so much because, I am thrilled and honored (and a little stunned!) to say, I have been hired to be the editor of The Other Dance.

Since The Other Dance area is only accessible to members, I will take the liberty to quote here Rod's paragraph introducing the venture from its page on the Heron Dance site:

"A common denominator in all of the diverse perspectives Heron Dance has explored over the sixteen years since it was founded is a probing of the boundaries of the human experience. The edges — the edges between wilderness and civilization, the edges in terms of the human search for meaning and in terms of what it means to live a highly-creative life. Delving into human sensuality and sexuality is a natural evolution of that exploration."

As those familiar with me or my work will know, it has long been an aim of mine to open dialogue around sexuality, ease the collective discomfort our society seems to feel around it, relax the repression of the innate and exquisite phenomenon of the human sexual impulse, and ultimately support the cherishing and respect for this facet of life. Ingredients I see as integral to these aims include self-awareness, contemplation, openness, and love. Since I first heard of it, I have experienced Heron Dance as embodying a respect for and focus on the importance of these qualities as well, and my aim continues as the editor of The Other Dance to be to support the manifestation of these aspects in the context of sexuality.

Before I move into the business side of things, I want to mention that at this time, the publisher is only seeking to publish work by female authors—and I personally and truly apologize to the numerous beautiful male authors I know and whose work I adore that I won't (for the time being) get to seek to work with them in this endeavor.

With that said, The Other Dance technically launched May 3, when Rod published a piece he had received last year to officially solidify the creation of The Other Dance. After he got in touch with me a couple weeks ago regarding this endeavor, he wanted to publish an edited version of "Rain Check," my story from Rachel Kramer Bussel's anthology Tasting Her (as I understand it, Rod's introduction to my work was clicking on the video of my reading said story at In The Flesh in 2008 when he visited my website), and it went live last Tuesday, May 10.

Two days ago, on Tuesday, May 17, the first piece officially published with me as the editor went live: "Strands of Imagination," by Robin "Erobintica" Sampson! It has been an honor and delight to work with Robin as I take my first steps into this venture, and I offer her my thanks and congratulations. Robin wrote "Strands of Imagination" for one of Alison Tyler's flash fiction contests some time ago, and when I presented it to Rod, I experienced him as very in favor of publishing it.

For any female erotica authors reading this, I would likely love to work with you in such a capacity too! :) The Other Dance submissions guidelines may found on the Heron Dance website here, and I plan to submit them to the Erotica Readers and Writers Association call for submissions page as well.

There is a page on the Heron Dance site where reader feedback is posted—and it is not confined to the complimentary. I have had the impression over the years that Rod has received feedback encompassing varying perspectives and levels of appreciation for his offerings throughout the 17-year duration of Heron Dance. As I recall his stating at the time, never did this seem so active as when he first introduced the subject of sexuality to the work he offered to the public and his followers. When I was perusing the feedback page a few days ago, this comment caught my eye:

"Please cancel sending me Heron Dance, after a number of years! I am a published author and enjoyed your readings and paintings, etc., until you got all hepped up about sex. You had a nice, decent, above board periodical, now you have trash just like the next guy."

While I honor this commenter's experience and perspective, I feel sadness that the inclusion of discussion about or the mere mention of sexuality would relegate a literary/artistic endeavor to seeming like "trash." I was a subscriber to Heron Dance when Rod's transition to sharing and speaking about sexuality occurred, and whether or not one desired to see or be exposed to the subject, I never felt like anything I read seemed like "trash" at all. Granted, I have tended to feel quite receptive of open dialogue about sexuality, but I also truly found what Rod expressed on the subject quite in line with the way I had experienced his sharing in general about art and nature—probing, thoughtful, curious, raw, and sincere.

At the time, I certainly never imagined I would be offered the opportunity to become the first editor of the project into which that orientation would develop: a weekly electronic newsletter created to feature Rod's erotic/nude paintings alongside written content of an erotic nature.

It is my honor to accept it.

Love,

Emerald

Recommended Reading #47: Perspective and Judgment

      "I Used to Be a Pro-Life Republican" by Andrea Grimes (Reproductive Rights, Sex and Religion, Sexuality Education, Self-Awareness, Sex and Culture) 3/10/11

This piece addresses so any aspects of interest to me—reproductive rights, projection, lack of self-awareness, sexuality (abstinence-only) education. I appreciate the author's sharing and the delineation of how her experience with religious perception and abstinence-only sex education resulted in projection and judgment (something that does not seem to me an uncommon phenomenon) and the transition she experienced that I interpret as being related to personal sexual opening. This kind of self-awareness is something that invariably seems to serve.

***

      "Who Cares About Your Open Relationship?" by Neamhspleachas (Relationship, Non-monogamy, Sex and Culture) 3/25/11

While I have of course witnessed the kind of judgments mentioned in this article before, I still find it mind-boggling that they seem so unquestioned in so many instances. I found incisive and entertaining the way this article broke some common perceptions about non-monogamy down and responded to them. What the author said makes a lot of sense to me; I feel truly baffled why it seems to so prevalently not to so many others, perhaps even seemingly the majority of collective (Western) society.

***

      "My Family Found out I Blog About Sex " by AV Flox (Sex and Culture, Privacy, Anonymity, Sexuality Education) 5/15/11

I read this and found it stunning. So much so that I don't even know what to say about it, just that I wanted to recommend it to be read far and wide. The mission statement the author composes, how disheartening I found her aunts' and uncle's responses, and the author's mother's email came together in this article for me to produce an incredible composite of strength, beauty, and love.

***

Recommended Reading posted every Wednesday

Recommended Reading #46: Touch

      "Healing The Entire Body. Why Would We Exclude The Genitals?" by Susan Miranda (Health and Body, Sex and Culture) 1/21/11

I deeply appreciate this commentary about touch, specifically about touch of the genitals that is not necessarily sexual. I found especially perceptive and intriguing the offering about the genitals so regularly being left out of non-sexual touch and how that may affect the holistic response of our bodies and of the genitals particularly. Of course, the reading of the line, "What I seem to say more often than anything else in my education work is that it is not what we do or say, but how we do or say something that is most important" exponentially solidified my adoration of the offering of this piece, as it is a quote that to me encompasses one of the most fundamental truths of our existence.

***

      "The Beautiful Gift of Touch" by Krista Haapala (Health and Body, Relationship, Self-Awareness) 4/11/11

The title sums up the tone of this piece, and it is also one I profoundly appreciate. The underestimation or even denigration of (non-sexual) touch I perceive in this culture is something I find disheartening and sometimes even concerning. I so wholeheartedly agree with the author that touch encompasses profound potential for connection, healing, and understanding. I am delighted to see awareness of this and the sharing of that awareness as well as support for all of us in cultivating and expressing conscious touch (which includes, as I experience the author as alluding to, awareness of and respect for touch not being wanted and/or desired personal space at any given moment).

***

      "A Parent's story" at Touching Base (Sex and Disability, Parenting, Sex Work) Undated

I really don't know what to even say about this piece. Every time I have read it, I have felt so moved it has virtually left me speechless. There feels like no way to introduce it that does it justice, so I simply offer it with reverence and gratitude.

***

Recommended Reading posted every Wednesday

Then As Now

This post originally appeared on the Good Vibrations Magazine.

But paradise, we found, is always frail; against man's fear will always fail…"

-From the narrated poem in the opening of Dangerous Beauty

Several months ago I watched my favorite movie for the first time. While I would love to post all manner of clips here and expound on what I find to be the film's myriad virtues, that would encompass spoilers—and since I would rather everybody in the world watch the movie, I will resist the temptation and talk instead about a few universal themes I observed in watching it.

The movie is Dangerous Beauty. The screenplay is adapted from the book The Honest Courtesan, a biography by Margaret Rosenthal of Veronica Franco, sixteenth-century Venetian writer/poet and courtesan. Ms. Franco lived, and thus the events in the movie and the time period in which they are contextualized occurred, 450 years ago—a time so far in the distant past it may seem archaic or hard to conceptualize in light of how different human society is now.

Except it's not. Different, that is. As I finished watching Dangerous Beauty for the first time that day last year, I was struck by how much, on some level, we have not changed.

Now indeed, I will say first that there are things that have on some level shifted or rearranged such that our gender roles, for example, seem less strict, and of course I appreciate that. At this point and in this location on the earth, I have additional options as a woman to survive financially beyond marrying, becoming a nun, or working as a courtesan or prostitute. There are practical ways in which women in many parts of the world have far more opportunities for financial independence now than they did in sixteenth-century Venice. This of course calls for acknowledgement, and I duly extend it. My personal appreciation for such is profound, and to not acknowledge that would be disingenuous and inappropriate.

That withstanding, however, I would argue that throughout our collective civilization, deep-seated and unconscious perceptions and distortions still exist that relegate us in very fundamental ways to the same as we were then. We're dressed up a little bit differently—but we're the same. So much so that it's staggering.

Marriage is still a contract (if in doubt, observe phenomena such as alimony and the state's having anything to do with whom is "allowed" to marry), and though what we tend to associate with romantic love seems more of a reason to marry now than then, people still feel political, financial, or other reasons to get married. Marriage itself is still expected—monogamy is still the default, the standard for people's lives in romantic relationship. Affairs still exist, and we still pretend not to acknowledge their prevalence or potential complexity as any invitation to examine the possibility that monogamy and marriage are perhaps not the ideal configurations for all individuals.

"The Church" still inserts itself into public affairs—sometimes via official governments—claiming an esoteric authority and the position to judge the general populace according to the standards it chooses to set. We are still compelled by war. Poverty, disease, populist unrest remain. There is still rampant evidence of nationalism, classism, sexism, and political manipulation. We are still encouraged to follow the rules, whatever they may be, and not question or flout them lest we interrupt the fragile illusion of whatever arbitrary perspective of "reality" our ego-based selves have created and think they feel comfortable with.

In Dangerous Beauty, when the plague begins to run rampant through Venice, the townspeople/collective society turn on what is considered the decadence and indulgence of the city, of which courtesans are perceived to be squarely in the middle. A following of religiously oriented purveyors develops and overtly blames "those who tempt us" with "fornication and carnal practices" for the "God"-inflicted downfall of the republic.

In response to a protest that the Inquisition has appeared in Venice, the doge (presiding figure of the republic at the time) responds, "Fifty-six thousand people are dead. The living want answers. They may be the wrong answers, but they want them just the same."

To me this line virtually epitomizes that which has not changed in four and a half centuries. Throughout society there are examples of selective intervention in human rights abuses, astounding hypocrisy in application of laws, and scapegoating of cultures, people, entities in order to get "answers" that a part of us finds tolerable internally and/or in regard to the cognitive dissonance in us.

What seems most concerning to me about this overall uncanny similarity to a time centuries ago is not just the clarity with which it seems that we are such a parallel reflection of it but that we do not seem to realize that. We truly think we are different. That things were so primitive then, that they were so inhibited, their roles so strictly defined. We think we are so advanced because we have skyscrapers and spaceships and smartphones. But we still use that technological capacity to create ways to destroy each other and ourselves—which tells me we are not.

It seems obvious to me that despite our apparent advances and some level of progress in social redresses, under the surface the same prejudices, constraints, ignorance, and fear that formed what was seen in sixteenth-century Venice is with us now and still forming the same things. The seemingly obvious things like racism, classism, xenophobia, sexism are outcrops, manifestations, of what has remained the same—which is our ignorance of ourselves. We have not awakened enough to be consistently aware of our true nature. We are not conscious of the unconditional love that is the deepest level of ourselves and the innate oneness of the universe.

Underlying this lack of awareness is the resistance and refusal to examine ourselves, to see that it is what is inside ourselves that may be tormenting us rather than projecting it onto a perceived external. Repression is one of the key ingredients in this phenomenon, and repression of a fundamental instinct—such as, say, the sexual one—is one of this phenomenon's very bedrocks.

As in the movie, many of the above-described circumstances and the societal responses decrying and attacking them have to do with sex. All over the world, a conservative populace still behaves as though perceived "immorality" around sexuality is or will be the downfall of civilization. "The Church" (represented by fundamentalist perspectives of virtually all major religions) still "fornication and carnal practices" and proclaims our collective suffering "punishment" for a culture steeped in "sin." These perspectives seem to see open sexuality rather than denouncement, vilification, and repression as dangerous, sinful, and undesirable.

Why would this be? As depicted so beautifully in Dangerous Beauty, sexuality is one of the preeminent paths to love (not just romantic, but love in the universal sense), self-awareness, Divinity, connection, gratitude, openness, and beauty. Then as now, this aspect is so fundamental to us that it instills the kind of fear that has through the ages attracted measures of denouncement, repression, fear, violence, and desperation in the face of truly experiencing and interacting with it because it is so impossibly close to us, so unavoidably reflective of ourselves—we cannot not see ourselves if we are truly and openly acknowledging and examining the sexual impulse within us. It forces us to face ourselves, and to truly do that is something we have found, probably throughout our human existence, excruciatingly difficult to do. Sexuality, our instinctive drive for what it represents, for pleasure and beauty and openness and love, is so close that we must either surrender to it or do everything in our power to control it. Yes, there are measures in between, but the sexual impulse does not give up—it doesn't have that capacity. No matter how we try to control it, sexuality just is. It's how we be with it that is the opportunity.

Sexual repression appeared rampant at the time of Dangerous Beauty's depiction (and highly encouraged by social structures at that time). It appears rampant to me now (and highly encouraged, perhaps in superficially different ways, by social structures currently). Am I suggesting that a large part of the fear, hatred, and relentless harm we do each other around the world at this time is based, at least in part, on sexual repression?

I am.

At a key point in the film, Veronica Franco's character states,

"I confess I find more ecstasy in passion than in prayer. Such passion is prayer. . . . I confess I hunger still to be filled and enflamed, to melt into the dream of us, beyond this troubled place—to where we are not even ourselves."

Those lines gave me chills the first time I watched the movie, and they did again yesterday when I watched it most recently. I would certainly not say that everyone should agree with them and feel the same way—we are all unique and experience things as such. I do wish, though, truly and deeply, that we would see the offering in them and open to discover whatever truth resonates uniquely and authentically within each of us.

It is in that, it seems to me, that true progress lies.

Love,

Emerald

"It's not too late, think of what could be if you rewrite the role you play…"

-Adam Lambert "Aftermath"

Recommended Reading #45: Memoir, Pt. II

      "When the Politics of Hate Comes Home: A Lesbian Couple Grapples with How Politics Affects Their Critically-Ill Child" by Jaime Jenett (Politics, Law, Sex and Society, Sexual Orientation, Parenting, Relationship) 5/1/11

This was rather one of the more wrenching, poignant, stunning things I had read in a while. At the end of the post, a link is provided to go elsewhere to read the rest of it (which I suspect anyone who reads that far will want to do), and I highly encourage doing so. This is the kind of piece that seems to me to cut straight through political and abstract considerations to the very personal implications public policy and societal standards have on individuals' lives.

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      "Happiness. It's crazy, I tell you." by Kristina Wright (Writing, Philosophy, Memoir) 4/30/11

I simply adore this brazen exposition by one of my favorite individuals that I have never met in person, Kristina Wright. Reading this reminded me of getting on an amusement park ride and being carried along breathlessly until the very end. Beautiful.

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      "Safe Word" on Love, sex, feminism and cats (Relationship, BDSM, Memoir) 4/18/11

This post takes my breath away. I am a big advocate of safe words generally speaking, and this luminous demonstration of both their practical use and, in this case, their potential to encompass even greater implications struck me as profound and beautiful.

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Recommended Reading posted every Wednesday