Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / 17: reclaiming the erotic

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17: reclaiming the erotic · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

0:00
What I want to ask you is when do you feel truly alive?
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What makes you feel alive?
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Who makes you feel alive?
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Who do you feel you speak to them or you are with them
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or you listen to their voice and you feel enlivened?
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Hello, sun shines and welcome back to Paradigm Shift.
0:15
With I understood, I'm so excited to be back with you
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and to be back with my mic.
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And I'm currently in Mexico City saying hello, hello,
0:23
hello, what's up?
0:24
Look at the eyes vibing.
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Oh, anyways, today we are in search of
0:29
we are reclaiming, redefining, reframing the erotic.
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And I am so excited for this because it's something
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that I think about constantly, something that changed
0:40
my perspective on living and made me ask the question
0:44
of like, am I actually alive?
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Am I actually alive?
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Some of the topics we are going to be covering in today's
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journey together is what has Audrey Lord said about the erotic,
0:55
what has Bell Hook said about love with respect to aliveness,
1:00
which is what we're going to be talking about most today.
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What has Esther Perrell said about the erotic?
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And then also, of course, by I care about this so much,
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what my experiences with of through the erotic have been.
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And specifically, the way that we're going to be defining it today.
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So just to quickly lay the foundation,
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we're going to talk about the dictionary definition of the erotic,
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but that's not the definition that we're going to be focusing on today.
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The dictionary definition of the erotic today
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is really grounded in the sexual.
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The erotic is relating to or tending to a rouse sexual desire
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or excitement.
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That's from Oxford.
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Merriam Webster says the meaning of erotic is of devoted to or tending
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to a rouse sexual love or desire.
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And then dictionary.com says, low, well, dictionary.com says
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a rousing or satisfying sexual desire
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of relating to or treating of sexual love.
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So in terms of where the word erotic comes from,
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we know that it comes from the idea of eros.
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And eros was the god of love in ancient Greece,
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god or personification of love, especially carnal love.
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So deeply passionate and physical and hence sexual love.
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So you can go learn about Greek mythology in many places, I'm sure.
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But we're going to talk about kind of reframing this idea of the erotic
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because it has so many more possibilities
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and understandings than simply this.
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So the definition of the erotic that we are going to be working with today
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can be summed up in one word.
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What does it tell us?
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It is a liveness.
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OK, easy to remember.
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One word, a liveness.
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Erotic equals a liveness.
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So we are working with the definition of the erotic that says,
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what is that deep feeling to use the words of Audrey Lord?
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That makes you feel more alive.
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And it's a deeply personal question
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because it is inviting you to see the erotic in realms beyond the merely sexual
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and to notice the realms of the sexual for you that are actually not erotic.
3:02
What do I mean by this?
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Let's imagine a Venn diagram, so two intersecting circles,
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where we have the erotic and we have the sexual, OK?
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So what we have to understand is that we see it represented in the image.
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Part of the erotic is sexual, so there's that overlap.
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But not all erotic experiences, aspects, understandings are sexual
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and similarly not all sexual experiences are erotic.
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Let's break this down for then give examples, OK?
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So erotic experiences that aren't sexual,
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we're talking about things that make you feel alive.
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So the examples that Audrey Lord gives are, for example, building a bookshelf.
3:40
Yes, making love, which would be in the intersection,
3:43
sharing joy with another person, a deep kind of shared experience with someone
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in my understanding of it, where you're giving each other your fullest presence.
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Things that make you feel alive, it could be giggling with your friends,
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it could be like hysterically laughing at something,
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or it could be sharing food with someone.
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You know when you break something with someone and you eat food?
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Like it just feels like an enlivening experience.
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Este Peralman interview has given the example of singing with someone
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that that can be an enlivening erotic experience
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because your senses are heightened, you are enlivened.
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And so as you can see, people who either are asexual
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or people who are not interested in purely accessing the erotic
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through sexual experiences, which I think describes us all,
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can definitely still fully access the erotic
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because it is anything enlivening.
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Now what we have to understand is we're looking at microexperiences.
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We want a society that's rooted in enlivening experiences and people and structures.
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Currently we have a society rooted in deadly structures,
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especially for the marginalized, especially for the black,
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for the brown, for the Asian, for the, you know,
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global South people, for women, for firms, for gay people,
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for queer people, for trans people,
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for disabled people, for fat people.
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So we have a deadening experience.
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And so even though I'm obviously speaking about this,
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you know, I'm communicating about it in an individual way.
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You could say I really believe in a social push for enlivenment, for life.
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That's what we've been fighting for for all of this time
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is we don't want to only just be alive,
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but we want to be enlivened and we want a society that is enlivening.
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Now let's give the example.
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I hope I haven't switched to hands,
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but you know what I tried of sexual experiences that are not erotic.
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And I think this is really, really important.
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So for us, allosexual meaning non-asexual people,
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we know, or like I know, let me say,
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that there are sexual experiences I've had that have not made me feel alive,
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that have actually made me feel dead inside.
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And we could think about this not only in the realm of violence,
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but also in the realm of just deadening sexual experiences that feel
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like they're not full of erotic potential.
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They're either very, what's the word, boring,
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like, or one person's needs is being prioritized,
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or being prioritized, or you're not really connecting.
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You're just going through, oh, the word I was looking for was mechanic.
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So a mechanic sexual experience is not erotic, right?
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And obviously this is me speaking from my own experience,
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but basically like the majority of sex that I've had hasn't been enlivening.
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But I think when you do have enlivening sexual experiences,
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that is really such a fulfilling and life-affirming experience
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of being fully in your body,
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being fully present and connected with someone with your partner,
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with your partners.
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But essentially that experience is enlivening.
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So we have the circles, and we have experiences
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that are sexual, but not erotic and erotic that are not sexual.
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And then we have the intersection.
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I think what is the paradigm shift with this
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is that our society defines eroticism as only the intersection,
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only the things that are both sexual and therefore erotic.
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In fact, it equates them.
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It views it as one circle.
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But I think that this is a limited understanding
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of the potential of the erotic.
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And I understand this through the lens
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of the uses of the erotic essay.
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The uses of the erotic by Audrey Lorde,
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as you know, one of my favorite essays by Audrey Lorde,
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and in general, it really reframed my understanding
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of what the erotic is and how it can be used
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to change our entire standards for living and being.
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Recall that Audrey Lorde was a self-described
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black lesbian mother, warrior, and poet.
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And she dedicated her life and her creative talent
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to confronting and addressing injustices
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of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia.
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She lived from the years of 1934 to 1992.
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So she died at the age of 58.
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She was born in Harlem in New York.
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She was a writer, a womanist, a radical feminist,
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a professor, a philosopher, and a civil rights activist.
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And it's such a privilege to be able to be sharing her work
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with you again and again.
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I truly believe that her essays and her poems
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are sensational, and I would love for you to read them.
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Let's listen to an excerpt from uses of the erotic,
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the erotic as power, and essay written by Audrey Lorde
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in 1978 here.
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The erotic is a measure between the beginnings
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of our sense of self and the chaos and power
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of our deepest feelings.
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It is an internal sense of satisfaction
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to which once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire.
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Once having experienced the fullness of this depth of feeling
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and recognized its power, in honor and self-respect,
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we can require no less of ourselves.
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This is exceptionally powerful.
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What she's saying is that the erotic completely
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changes our understanding of what is possible for us,
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of our possibilities.
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Because once we have experienced that depth of feeling,
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that fullness, that aliveness that speaks to us
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on a spiritual, on an emotional, on a physical,
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on an intellectual level, like we are so in live and we are
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in such a deeply feeling place.
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It changes something in us, and what is it change?
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It changes our understanding of what we have the capacity
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to experience.
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And in so doing, it changes the standards
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we have for our lives.
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So once we've accessed the erotic,
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that's why it's the uses of the erotic, the erotic as power.
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What is empowering, not in the modern sense, which
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means let me sell you a beauty product,
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but in the sense of liberation, is the idea
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that once we've experienced this power of the erotic,
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it becomes a lens she says later on in the essay,
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through which we can start to scrutinize,
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evaluate and understand our lives.
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I love that she says that it's not
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about only experiencing the fullness of this depth of feeling,
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but also recognizing its power.
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So we need a kind of awareness as to what we are experiencing.
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If you just have an erotic experience,
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but you don't recognize like, ooh, that stands out.
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I felt alive.
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I felt a depth of feeling.
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I felt a certain enrichment in my soul, in my being,
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in my body, in my body mind.
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It's that recognition, that awareness,
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that you have to bring into your perspective on your life,
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that is then going to make you the kind of person who
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cannot, as she says, in honor and self-respect,
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require any less of yourself.
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So I think that that kind of awareness, reflection,
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understanding that this experience is an anomaly
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in our deadening society, in our deadening world,
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that you felt so alive, that you felt so much depth of feeling,
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that recognition then changes the standards,
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as well as the experience itself.
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This is really, really powerful, because it says
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that the more we can give each other a liveliness,
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like the implication is that the more I can make you feel alive,
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the more you will then understand that that could be a standard
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through which, for which, with which you lived.
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So it is very important for us to deliver a liveliness
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to each other and to imagine a world in which we could all
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feel and have full access to a liveliness,
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because in a society that means to kill you,
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you can't fully feel alive.
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And if you can, it's a function of the privilege
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you have in that society.
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So I do want to note that.
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What I've realized is the more I've opened myself up to this lens,
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the more I see it everywhere, I see it everywhere.
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Every way is a liveliness.
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You know what I mean?
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Because we live on the only planet that can sustain life.
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You know, if you look at trees and they're just like fruits
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and there's leaves and there's abundance,
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I was in Jamaica recently and there was a waterfall
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and it was just gushing and gushing and I was like,
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wow, you are so erotic, essential.
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It's alive.
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You know what I mean?
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It's giving so much and it refuses to stop giving.
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We're going to be listening to so many clips
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because I just have so many voices
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that I want to bring into this conversation, okay?
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So let's first get another person's perspective
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on the erotic, okay?
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Esther Peral is a psychotherapist and relationship therapist.
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She has a really cool podcast.
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Where should we begin?
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Where she basically has couples therapy sessions with couples.
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Let's hear what she has to say about the erotic.
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I come from a family of two parents
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who were concentration camp survivors.
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My two parents are the sole survivors
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of their entire family and I grew up in a community
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in Antwerp, Belgium that was exclusively holocaust survivors.
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And in this community, I always saw two groups of people,
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those who did not die and those who came back to life.
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And those who did not die lived rather,
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tattered to the ground, the world was a dangerous place,
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you could not trust and certainly you could not enjoy
13:06
or experience pleasure because if you did,
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it meant you went not on guard
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and if you were not on guard, shit could happen.
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And those who came back to life
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are those who understood the erotic.
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Eroticism as a life force, not just in its modern narrow
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definition of sex, but basically how do you reimagine yourself?
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How do you reinvent yourself?
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How do you bring back an energy, a vitality, an aliveness?
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And it was my parents who inspired me to look at it like that.
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So much of what I try to do is actually help people
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connect with their aliveness and aliveness goes with meaning,
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goes with purpose, goes with creativity,
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goes with playfulness and goes with connection.
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Now isn't that powerful?
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I love that so much.
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It's such a moving story, both taking it from her personal
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perspective and experience as the child of Holocaust survivors
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and then also telling us more about why erotic intelligence
14:08
is so important in our world.
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Now all over the world, there is one word that people
14:14
who have affairs always tell me, they feel alive.
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This idea that when people have affairs,
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they say that they felt so alive,
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it's so interesting to me and it's such a beautiful example
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of why I think this is so important.
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People will risk so much to feel alive.
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You know what I mean?
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And the idea that people will betray and people will
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hurt people just to feel alive is so interesting.
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And you may say, oh, that's why we need
14:45
polyamorous relationships.
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She says in this interview or this talk
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that even couples who are in open relationships cheat
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because you have arrangements and agreements
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and if you break those agreements, that is cheating.
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That's a form of an affair.
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You have disrespected the boundaries
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that you have drawn up as a couple.
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So I want you to kind of reflect what do you think about that?
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The idea that when people cheat, they say,
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I've never felt so alive or I felt so alive.
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What does that mean?
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And what does that mean for how we should be showing up
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in our relationships?
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In this episode, she also says,
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if you brought a tenth of the imagination,
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the creativity, the desire that you're bringing to your affair,
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to your relationship, you wouldn't even
15:26
need a couple's therapist, which I think is such a brilliant
15:29
statement that we project all this aliveness
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onto this person who is external to the relationship.
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And therefore, it becomes filled with erotic potential.
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But it's also because eroticism is about imagination.
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It's about the idea that we're creating these fantasies
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and we're feeling very much a strong sense of desire
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and of creativity and of draw and pull.
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But part of that draw and pull, we are creating
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in our own consciousness.
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So anyways, I just wanted to add my little two cents to that
15:58
and let's continue.
16:00
So what I want to ask you is,
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when do you feel truly alive?
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What makes you feel alive?
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Who makes you feel alive?
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Who do you feel you speak to them or you are with them
16:10
or you listen to their voice and you feel enlivened?
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And one thing about me, now that I'm obsessed with aliveness,
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I am very much the opposite of obsessed
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with things that make me feel dead inside.
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So for example, you'll notice, no, you won't notice.
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Like, babe, they don't care what you do.
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No, but they care, but they, you know what I mean?
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I never talk about celebrity culture.
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Why? It makes me feel dead.
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Like seeing all of these celebrities
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and the obsession with what they're doing,
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I'm literally just making a judgment
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on how it makes me feel about my aliveness.
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It doesn't. It makes me feel dead inside.
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Like my energy is drained by it
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or like taken to a lower vibration.
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And I'm trying to seek voices and ideas
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and patterns of being and thinking and feeling
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and seeing that are going to enliven me,
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make me feel more alive.
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And by this, I don't mean ignoring things
16:57
that are terrible that are happening in the world.
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That's not what I'm saying at all.
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All I'm saying is there are aspects
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of our everyday experience that we accept
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or that are imposed upon us by society.
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But also that sometimes we invite
17:08
into our bedrooms, our rooms that actually make us feel dead.
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Like I used to scroll on Instagram for so long.
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I felt dead inside.
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Like when you are scrolling on Instagram,
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tell me you feel alive.
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And I will tell you you are lying, okay?
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Like literally, okay, no, I'm not gonna, you know,
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completely reduce your experience, you know you.
17:28
But I will speak for myself
17:29
when I was addicted to the gram, I felt dead inside.
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And I never want that low vibrational energy.
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Like in my life, obviously it's there, it happens.
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There's people, there's experiences,
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there's moments, sometimes it's me, I'm the drama.
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Is it me, am I the drama?
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I don't think I'm a drama.
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Like it happens, but I'm seeking experiences
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that make me feel alive, you know what I mean?
17:52
Okay.
17:53
So I wanted to say that there are moments
17:56
that I experienced now that I would not have
17:59
described as erotic before.
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So for example, recently I was in a park,
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the Boston Commons Park, girl, people.
18:07
Let me tell you about the Boston Commons Park.
18:09
Let me tell you about nature, okay?
18:12
So it is green, okay?
18:15
The air is pregnant with humidity
18:18
and I love being hot.
18:19
If there's one thing about me, I'm like scorch me, babe.
18:22
The sun is shining, it's glistening, oh my gosh.
18:26
Like literally because of this,
18:28
the lake is twinkling, it's refracting the light of the sun.
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And I'm sitting under this feathery whispery tree
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that has this one branch that's more like a long stick
18:42
but it's flexible, you imagine this.
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And the stick, which is the tree branch,
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is moving on the lake like this
18:50
as if it's what, a vinyl.
18:53
Literally, it was so erotic.
18:55
I was like, this is the sexiest thing I've ever experienced.
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So I was just like, oh my gosh, look at this.
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And I took a moment to breathe with the earth
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and say, wow, okay, you are giving.
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Imagine thinking the only place to find that sense of,
19:10
like, is insects, it's like, excuse me, no.
19:15
Because that is nature, if you look around,
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at nature, like pure nature.
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Part of the eroticism of this moment was the people.
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It was the fact that there were all of these different people
19:27
of different ages playing, laughing,
19:30
delighting, girls on picnics.
19:32
Ooh, sexy, sensual, beautiful.
19:34
And there was just so much aliveness.
19:37
People were happy.
19:39
And it gave me a kind of utopian vision
19:41
of a slice of society in this dream world
19:44
that we get because why a park is free.
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Number two, we're interacting with nature.
19:49
Number three, it brings and attracts people
19:51
who probably, like, would not even cross paths otherwise.
19:55
Number four, there's literally music playing.
19:57
Let's get money to the musicians, okay?
19:59
Like, what the hell?
20:00
They imagine a future where all creatives are taken care of
20:03
and all people are taken care of, okay?
20:06
So it was this utopian vision of society,
20:09
which to me was full of erotic potentials,
20:10
full of aliveness.
20:11
Like, if we got the world we want,
20:12
I think it would look a lot like a free park
20:15
where people are vibing.
20:16
You know what I mean with his music?
20:18
And there's free food.
20:19
There wasn't free food.
20:20
But there's just like vibes.
20:22
You know, maybe there's a vegetable garden
20:23
and you can just go like take an apple.
20:25
Oh my gosh, erotic.
20:27
Alive, you know what I mean?
20:28
And maybe in that society we receive an education
20:31
on emotional and relational intelligence
20:32
such that we don't feel uncomfortable
20:34
introducing ourselves to people
20:35
and making friends with others.
20:37
And maybe there are little circles of interest.
20:39
Like, if you want to sing together,
20:40
you go to the side of the park
20:41
and if you want to dance together, you go,
20:43
because you know, there's always movement in the park.
20:45
You know what I mean?
20:46
People are vibing, you know, they're moving.
20:48
There's always like people working out.
20:50
There's people doing like rant.
20:51
It's just amazing, you know what I mean?
20:53
Let's abruptly move on, okay?
20:56
Adrienne Marie Brown is one of my absolute favorite authors.
21:01
She's the author of Emergent Strategy,
21:03
Pleasure Activism, and also we will not cancel us.
21:07
Maroons, grievers,
21:09
and Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism
21:11
are two of my favorite books.
21:13
Her bio says that she grows healing ideas in public.
21:17
Through her writing, which includes short and long form
21:19
fiction, nonfiction, spells,
21:22
tarot decks, and poetry, her music,
21:25
which includes songwriting, singing,
21:27
and upcoming immersive musical ritual,
21:29
and her podcasts, including How to Survive the End of the World,
21:33
Octavia's Parables, and the Emergent Strategy Podcast.
21:36
Adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism,
21:40
Radical Imagination, and Transformative Justice,
21:43
as ideas, frameworks, networks, and practices for transformation.
21:48
Her work is informed by 25 years
21:50
of social and environmental justice facilitation
21:54
by Marley supporting Black Liberation.
21:57
I'll link to her website, which is a really incredible resource
22:01
where she has some of her articles
22:03
and I couldn't recommend highly enough Pleasure Activism
22:06
and Emergent Strategy for more ideas
22:09
on how to construct a new world
22:11
versus purely deconstruct hours.
22:14
And I really am just obsessed with her
22:16
and I really recommend you follow her.
22:18
She's incredible.
22:20
Adrienne Marie Brown says,
22:22
I specifically love the idea from Audrey Lorde's essay,
22:25
Uses of the Ironic, that once you have tasted the pleasure
22:30
of being so fully alive and self-realized,
22:33
you cannot settle for suffering.
22:36
Let's read that again, okay?
22:38
Once you have tasted the pleasure of being so fully alive
22:44
and self-realized, you cannot settle for suffering.
22:47
And so therefore, the experience of the erotic
22:50
which most of us do come to through sex
22:52
if we are sexual beings, then becomes an invitation
22:56
to consider this feeling of aliveness.
22:59
My breath is in my body, I'm just alive.
23:02
And I know a lot of sex is deadening actually.
23:05
Let's talk about that in another day.
23:07
That could actually be, like if I could experience this
23:09
in sex, why couldn't I experience this in play?
23:11
Why couldn't I experience this with friends?
23:14
Why couldn't I experience this feeling of aliveness?
23:17
You know, okay, let's go to the quotes.
23:19
So Adrienne Marie Brown says,
23:22
Audrey Lorde teaches, and then this quote
23:23
is from Uses of the Ironic's essay,
23:25
which I'll link to in the show notes.
23:27
Once we begin to feel deeply,
23:30
all the aspects of our lives,
23:33
we begin to demand from ourselves
23:36
and from our life pursuits
23:39
that they feel in accordance with that joy,
23:42
which we know ourselves to be capable of.
23:44
Oh, my goodness.
23:46
Let us, let's slow down
23:47
because the erotic is so often about slowing down.
23:50
Because the erotic is so often,
23:51
it's so often, it's so often, it's so often,
23:54
it's so often, it's so often, it's so often, it's so often.
23:57
Once we begin to feel deeply,
24:00
all the aspects of our lives,
24:02
once we begin to feel our emotional life,
24:05
our spiritual life, our romantic life,
24:07
our intellectual life, our creative life,
24:10
you know what I mean?
24:11
All the our familial life,
24:13
all the aspects of our lives,
24:15
we begin to demand from ourselves
24:19
and from our life pursuits
24:22
that they feel in accordance with that joy,
24:25
which we know ourselves to be capable of.
24:28
Okay, are you with me?
24:31
So our standard shift,
24:34
as we begin to deeply feel
24:36
that we are capable of joy,
24:38
of passion, of aliveness
24:41
in some aspects of our lives,
24:42
then suddenly we demand different things,
24:44
not only from what we do,
24:45
I.E.R. life pursuits,
24:47
but from us, I.E. how we exist, how we live,
24:50
are we sleeping?
24:51
Are we letting people into our lives
24:53
who are toxic towards us?
24:54
You know what I mean?
24:55
Okay, I'm gonna continue.
24:57
Our erotic knowledge empowers us,
25:00
becomes a lens through which we scrutinize
25:03
all aspects of our existence,
25:06
forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly
25:10
in terms of their relative meaning within our lives,
25:13
another powerful sentence.
25:14
Our erotic knowledge empowers us, okay?
25:17
Why it gives us power?
25:18
Why?
25:19
Because it's now a lens of filter,
25:21
a way of seeing, a way of understanding,
25:24
all aspects of our existence.
25:27
So if I felt alive, dancing,
25:29
why don't I feel alive when I'm with this person
25:31
that I'm seeing?
25:33
She asked, okay?
25:34
So if I felt alive when I was with this friend,
25:37
why do I feel dead?
25:38
Why do I feel drained when I'm with this other person?
25:42
So it becomes a lens through which we can scrutinize
25:45
all aspects of our lives.
25:46
If I felt alive, reading this novel, excited,
25:50
it's just like, wow, just give me more,
25:51
I wanna read more, that's how I feel
25:52
when I read a mystery book.
25:53
I'm like, page, page, page, oh my gosh,
25:55
I love this so much, this is so amazing,
25:56
I'm so alive, oh my gosh,
25:58
I'm reading tomorrow and tomorrow,
25:59
and it is giving, okay, I do feel alive.
26:02
Then suddenly it's like, okay, well,
26:04
this is how I wanna feel about my spiritual life.
26:07
This is how I wanna feel about my creative life.
26:09
If I can read an amazing book,
26:10
why couldn't I write an amazing book?
26:12
You know what I mean?
26:13
Why couldn't I devote myself to giving
26:15
and creating that energy of aliveness
26:17
that this book has allowed me to experience?
26:19
So it becomes a lens through which we can scrutinize
26:21
all aspects of our existence,
26:23
and then I'm gonna continue.
26:25
And this is a grave responsibility projected
26:29
from within each of us, not to settle for the convenient,
26:34
the shadi, the conventionally expected,
26:36
nor the merely safe.
26:38
Ooh, wow, and remember, Audrey Lorde is a lesbian, black,
26:42
poet, mother, warrior, that's what she called herself.
26:45
And so when we think of compulsory heterosexuality,
26:49
this is a super important lens to bring in.
26:51
You know what I mean?
26:52
To not settle for the convenient, ha ha ha ha.
26:57
The shadi, the conventionally expected,
27:00
nor the merely safe.
27:02
So what if you allowed yourself the fullness of your aliveness?
27:07
You know what I mean?
27:08
In all aspects of your life.
27:09
Wow, sexy, brilliant quote, closed.
27:12
Okay.
27:13
And then would Adrian Marie Brown says,
27:15
ah, I'm obsessed with how love and joy
27:18
are the actual tools we need to move against
27:21
the culture of fear and scarcity.
27:24
We are experts at deconstruction
27:26
and tearing systems and each other apart.
27:29
But if what we pay attention to grows,
27:32
how can we be more mindful about growing our capacity
27:35
for love?
27:37
Ooh, beautiful.
27:39
And why did I read that?
27:40
Because let's talk about love.
27:41
Now love and the erotic are necessarily
27:44
very, very connected, like surely,
27:46
obviously and completely, right?
27:48
Like love is that which will make us feel
27:52
not every single day, but more alive.
27:55
The people who love you should make you feel more alive.
27:58
You know, they shouldn't make you feel,
27:59
and ha, if you've experienced others,
28:02
you've experienced the feeling of someone
28:04
making you feel dead.
28:06
And I like this severity of this language
28:08
because it just sharpens and brings into focus
28:10
a little bit shocking, it's a little bit unsettling.
28:12
But I like the idea that, you know,
28:13
what if you just said that?
28:15
What if you just said that person makes me feel dead inside
28:18
to yourself at least?
28:19
So as we talk about love, obviously,
28:21
you got to bring in bell hooks, okay?
28:23
All about love, let's talk about that.
28:25
Now, bell hooks talking about love says,
28:28
ha, oh my gosh, this is the perfect word.
28:31
Like, am I an artist?
28:32
Yes, she says, love makes us feel more alive.
28:37
Living in a state of lovelessness,
28:39
we feel we might as well be dead.
28:42
Everything within us is silent and still.
28:46
We are unmoved.
28:48
Oh, please move me.
28:49
Do not leave me unmoved.
28:50
My dear friend, Misako,
28:52
made this incredible TikTok where she said,
28:54
life becomes so much more enjoyable
28:56
when you own the fact that you just will never be chill.
28:59
I don't know what nonchalant is.
29:01
I only know how to exist in a space of shalant.
29:04
That's who I am.
29:05
Don't give me a nonchalant person.
29:07
I want all the shalants.
29:08
I want all the shalants.
29:10
And that exactly is the erotic.
29:12
Don't give me nonchalants.
29:13
Give me shalants.
29:14
Give me aliveness.
29:16
It tells me you're alive.
29:17
Move me, okay?
29:19
Let's just read that bell hooks quote again.
29:21
And it continues, but I just think we sometimes
29:23
in our society, we got to slow down.
29:25
She says, and she speaks extremely fast.
29:27
But we have to, I believe in repetition.
29:29
They think it's sink in.
29:30
You know, if I gave you a massage once,
29:32
you'd be like, what are you doing?
29:33
You got a massage in, in, in, okay?
29:37
So love makes us feel more alive.
29:40
Living in a state of lovelessness,
29:42
we feel we might as well be dead.
29:45
Everything within us is silent and still.
29:49
We are unmoved.
29:51
She continues.
29:52
Soul murder is the term psychoanalysts use
29:56
to describe the state of living death.
29:59
It echoes the biblical declaration
30:01
that anyone who does not know love is still in death.
30:06
Cultures of domination, court death.
30:09
Oh my gosh, that is a five sentence,
30:12
a five word power sentence.
30:13
Cultures of domination, court death.
30:17
Literally flirt with, try to attract,
30:20
try to seduce, try to glorify death.
30:24
Hence the ongoing fascination with violence.
30:28
The false insistence that it is natural
30:31
for the strong to pray upon the weak,
30:34
for the more powerful to pray upon the powerless.
30:38
You know what I'm saying?
30:38
So listen to what she's saying.
30:40
She's saying that a culture of domination,
30:42
a hierarchical culture, a culture of the powerful
30:45
on the powerless or the maid to be powerless, court death.
30:47
So they have a deep desire for and attraction
30:51
to amplifying and continuing death.
30:55
Hence the ongoing fascination with violence.
30:56
And we see this actual death imposed by the state
30:59
onto people, especially black, brown, indigenous people,
31:03
true crime, okay, gaming death, okay.
31:06
Fascination with violence.
31:08
Fascination is a different word than perpetuation.
31:10
Fascination means we are drawn to looking at violent things.
31:13
We have a desire to be entertained and to look at violence.
31:18
She continues to say in our culture,
31:20
the worship of death is so intense,
31:22
it stands in the way of love.
31:24
That is beautiful, precious and profound.
31:26
And I think the connection there is that we want to contrast
31:30
love, aliveness, death, violence,
31:34
and our culture's obsession with death.
31:36
Another quote from Bell Hooks, where she says,
31:39
our cultural obsession with death consumes energy
31:42
that could be given to the art of loving.
31:44
And I think that's really the crux of it.
31:47
Our cultural obsession with death consumes energy.
31:49
Again, we have this idea of energy
31:51
that could be given to the art of loving.
31:53
So how can we redirect our energy, our attention
31:56
to that which is in liveening,
31:58
to which that which is loving, okay.
32:00
I think that's really beautiful.
32:02
We are about to wrap up part one of this conversation
32:06
on the erotic, but I want to leave you with
32:08
how the erotic functions in the life of
32:11
and according to Audrey Lorde.
32:13
So when we think of the erotic,
32:14
what are some tangible examples of how it manifested
32:17
in her life?
32:18
Let's listen to what she has to say right here.
32:22
The erotic functions for me in several ways.
32:25
The first is in the power which comes from sharing deeply
32:29
and pursuit with another person.
32:32
The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic,
32:36
or intellectual forms a bridge between the sharers,
32:41
which can be the basis for understanding much
32:43
of what is not shared between us
32:46
and it lessens the threat of difference.
32:49
That difference which is always seems so insurmountable
32:54
as for instance we have just seen.
32:56
Another important way in which the erotic
32:59
connection functions for me is the open
33:02
and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy.
33:07
In the way that my body stretches to music,
33:11
opens into response,
33:13
harkening towards deepest rhythms.
33:16
So every level upon which I sense also opens
33:20
to the erotically satisfying experience,
33:22
whether it is dancing, building a bookcase,
33:26
writing a poem, making love, examining an idea.
33:31
That self-connection shared is a measure of the joy
33:35
which I know myself capable of feeling,
33:38
a reminder of my capacity for that feeling
33:41
and that deep and irreplaceable knowledge
33:44
of my capacity for joy comes to demand from all my life
33:50
that it be lived within the knowledge
33:53
that such satisfaction is possible
33:56
and does not have to be called marriage,
33:59
nor God, nor man, nor an afterlife.
34:05
This is one reason why the erotic is so feared
34:08
in the society that we live in
34:10
and so often relegated to the bedroom alone
34:13
where it is recognized or when it is recognized at all.
34:17
For once we begin to feel deeply
34:20
all the aspects of our lives,
34:23
we begin to demand from ourselves
34:27
and from all our lives pursuits
34:30
that they feel in accordance with that joy
34:33
which we know ourselves to be capable of.
34:37
In other words, our erotic knowledge empowers us,
34:42
becomes a lens through which we scrutinize
34:45
all aspects of our existence,
34:48
forcing ourselves to evaluate those aspects honestly
34:52
in terms of their relative meanings within our lives,
34:56
in terms of their erotic value.
35:00
And this is a grave responsibility.
35:02
It's projected from within each one of us,
35:05
not to settle, not to settle
35:08
for what is convenient or shoddy
35:12
for the conventionally expected,
35:14
nor what is merely safe.
35:19
Wow, it gets me every single time.
35:23
I hope that these words have moved you
35:25
as deeply as they have moved me.
35:28
This is one reason why the erotic is so feared
35:31
in the society in which we live,
35:33
because they know if we were able to fully invite
35:37
this lens, this power into our lives and let it stay,
35:42
we would have completely different expectations,
35:45
demands, standards for our existence.
35:48
We would begin to demand from ourselves
35:51
and from our life pursuits,
35:52
which means every single area of our lives
35:55
which includes work, capitalism systems,
35:58
the systems we exist in,
36:00
that they feel in accordance with that joy,
36:02
with that power, with that deep feeling,
36:05
which we know ourselves to be capable of.
36:07
Our demands for what we would be willing to put up with
36:10
would change.
36:11
And if enough people demand a new kind of life,
36:14
we know that a new world can become
36:17
and can be made possible.
36:18
I love you so much.
36:20
I hope that this has moved you.
36:21
I hope that you'll listen to her full essay,
36:23
which is on YouTube and I will link to it in the show notes.
36:26
I'm so, so grateful to Audrey Lorde
36:28
for sharing her voice with us.
36:30
1978, this was written and so much of it remains
36:33
so powerful and so relevant today.
36:36
I hope that you enjoyed hearing from Audrey Lorde
36:39
from Adrienne Marie Browne, from Esther Perrell
36:42
and I hope that this lingers on your consciousness,
36:45
this idea of aliveness.
36:47
I invite you to ask yourself,
36:49
what not only makes you feel more alive
36:52
but in what areas you currently are struggling
36:55
to access your fullest aliveness
36:57
and what can be done potentially together
37:00
or alone for you to be your most alive self.
37:04
With this question being asked,
37:05
I fully understand and know that our society
37:09
is structured on the opposite of aliveness,
37:11
is structured on an imposed kind of not only physical
37:15
but also social and spiritual and intellectual
37:18
and metaphysical death.
37:20
And this is really, really important to acknowledge,
37:23
especially since I am a black person in this world
37:26
and the idea of Afro-pismism,
37:29
the idea of they don't want us to survive.
37:32
But I want us to still push back against that
37:35
and define for ourselves as Audrey Lorde
37:37
is inviting to us in what ways are we settling
37:40
for what is conventionally expected of us,
37:42
for what is safe for us, for what is shoddy,
37:44
what is convenient rather than what makes us feel
37:47
our deepest feelings, what makes us feel truly alive.
37:51
I would love for you to create a note on your phone
37:54
or a journal page in your journal about aliveness.
37:57
Let's talk about this.
37:58
What are the sounds, the senses, the feelings,
38:01
the sensations that make you feel most alive
38:04
and also in service of others,
38:06
which you know I deeply believe in?
38:07
How can we bring each other, our communities,
38:10
our audiences, more aliveness?
38:12
That's it, Sunshine.
38:14
Thank you so much for listening to this episode
38:16
of Paradise Shift with I Understood.
38:19
I'm sending you so much love, the aliveness in me,
38:22
recognizes and loves and appreciates the aliveness in you.
38:27
I hope this was an enlivening experience.
38:29
As always, please, if you can leave a five-star rating review
38:33
on Spotify and Apple, this helps the podcast find everyone
38:36
it is meaningful and it helps my creative dreams
38:39
for this project come true.
38:41
Number two, if you would like to catch up with me
38:43
and stay in Deepa Touch, please follow my newsletter,
38:46
my substack at I understood dot substack.com.
38:50
Have a sensational enlivening day.
38:52
I'm sending you all the love and I'll see you on part two
38:55
of this conversation and on the episodes to come.
38:58
Love you, bye.