Poly Planet GAIA | ecosexual love | arts of loving | global holistic health | eros | dissidence

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Love You Two, by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli - Book Announcement

Set in today’s multi-cultural, multi-sexual Australia, Love You Two is Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli’s first novel, about a young woman’s coming-of-age when life, love and family aren’t what anyone said they’d be.

When Pina was a little girl, her mum used to sign cards and notes to her and her younger brother Leo with the crazy line, 'Love you t(w)oo.' It was supposed to make them feel like their mum had heaps of love for both of them, that she loved them equally. Well, that's okay when you love all your kids. Actually, that's the way it should be. Then a chance glimpse at an email unravels what Pina thought she knew about life and love. What happens when your Mum loves your dad as much as ever, but is also in love with someone else! And what do you do when you run away to stay with your uncle only to be thrown into another, unexpected, world where there’s a lot more to sexuality than gay or straight!

Pina’s friends think she’s lucky. How many families get along the way hers does – how many parents are as free-spirited and happy as hers? Pina's always loved her mum for fighting the 'old wog ways' of her grandparents, and making sure Pina has an easier time growing up. But can her family and her friendships survive what she has discovered? And what does it all mean for Pina’s own life?
 
                         Two siblings, two boys, two cities, three generations, four friends:
                                                        how many versions of love?
 
Love You Two was inspired by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli’s fifteen years of community work and academic research and publishing in sexual, family and cultural diversity in Australia, with an emphasis on adults and adolescents, and parents and their children. She says, ‘There were lots of people I’d met, events I’d witnessed, that just hung around in my head and heart begging to be taken out, aired and affirmed. I wanted to write a comforting, funny, challenging and realistic book for young people and the adults in their lives who love “differently”, whose families are misunderstood, misrepresented, and hidden, so that they could find themselves and know that what matters is how people love, not who they love.’

Price: $18.95 ISBN: 9781741660715
Publisher: Random House Australia
 
Available from Australian bookshops and their online bookbuying services.
Please support Melbourne’s queer bookshop, Hares & Hyenas, by buying online from:
                    http://www.hares-hyenas.com.au/book.asp?RecID=16230
or Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Love-You-Two-Maria-Pallotta-Chiarolli/dp/1741660718/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1231456944&sr=11-1
 
or Independent Publisher’s Group for US distribution:
http://www.ipgbook.com/showbook.cfm?bookid=1741660718&userid=F31388E8-3048-6445-434BBD3D8F2F897B


Echinacea & the Swine Flu - From The G Tales

“when we see things in [a Gaian] perspective, it becomes very easy to understand the basic principle of holistic health. If an individual is a cell in a superorganism, his or her disease cannot be a foreign agent, for all agents are part of the larger entity of which that individual is an element”
    from Gaia and the New Politics of Love 

The periodo lectivo is approaching and G tells me her classes are starting again.  She was at the school office and found it plastered with notices discouraging people from kissing on the cheek and shaking hands.

“It’s the swine flu” she told me on the phone, “nobody wants to be held responsible for someone getting it, and so they post those disclaimers so that if you do get it, you can’t blame them.”
“But people are getting the swine flu, G,” I replied, “they’re even dying from it, haven’t you heard?”

“Of course I have” she said, “but do you think that those disclaimers really help?”

“Well, what’s wrong with reminding people to wash their hands, keep from getting too close to someone who could be contagious?  I got friends who almost got it, it was scary, loads of tests, anxiety, we all got a bit nervous and wary.  It was hard to keep one’s cool.  But nothing really bad, it turned out everyone was ok.  How about you?  Anybody you know?”

“Oh yeah, my massage therapist got it, she had to quit her job.  She was abject.  She got depressed.  She called me and I spent hours with her, then I went out and got a bottle of Echinacea for her.” 
“Your massage therapist?  The one who calls you mi abuela postiza, my pretend grandma?”

“Yeah, and imagine, a week earlier I had a two hour massage with her.  As soon as I get into the parlor, we hug and she tells in how much pain she is.  I sit her on the table and ask her to show me where it hurts.  Then I work and work and work on her, the neck, the chest, the shoulders, the back.”
“You mean you start massaging her?”

“Yeah, what else?  She was sick, she needed the help.”

“But this was your massage time, no?”

“It was, and there I am, giving a massage to my massage therapist.  Getting her well enough that she can do me, eventually. And telling her not to worry, that it’s just fine--I had offered to exchange with her many times because I knew she was overworking.”

“OMG!  What a situation.  And then she gets the swine flu?”

“Well, I found that out later.  Meanwhile, I didn’t get anything--so no harm done.  And when I hear she has it, I go out and get Echinacea for her.  A little bottle.”

“Oh, yeah, I got that too.  A special dosage, even though this time, with the swine flu being so potent, I didn’t really have a lot of trust in these flimsy remedies.”

“Flimsy?  You know we’ve been taking it for years now.  Once in a while--just so enough of it is in circulation that the immune system can respond before anything happens, before any microbe has its way.”

“Don’t tell me that you have such faith in it.  I take it too, but it’s more as a way to touch wood for good luck--a superstition if you want.”

“Really?  But don’t you know that it’s indigenous knowledge.  Echinacea comes from the center of a daisy, it’s the powder found in there.  It has been used for immune system strength by generation after generation.  This has been known for centuries.  It’s time-tested knowledge.  Better than laboratory, because there’s so much history of it having been effective.”

“Nobody knows why though.”

“If you consider that a problem.”

“Could be a problem.  Perhaps one could run some experiment as to why.”

“Or, those ultra-scientific all-knowing health authorities could simply collect data from people who regularly take Echinacea, and find out how rare the flu is among them compared to those who don’t.”

“Are you sure that’s so?”

“It is well known in the holistic health community.  Everybody knows and takes it.  And take a look at them—I mean people who do holistic health--they don’t call the doctor every day, they’re not afraid to get sick, they often radiate health and resist pathogens much better.”
“Yeah, I must admit their lives are not as medicalized as those of some other people I know.  In any event, it sure would be worth trying to get some data.  I know I don’t get the flu often.  How about you, G?”

“I used to get it.  Before Echinacea.  When I used antibiotics.  Now I don’t.  And I use all kinds of remedies--there’s one for every situation, once you get the knack of it.  And my daughter.  A flu after a flu after a flu. Lots of antibiotics.  Until she was ready to go to college.  And then I said, ‘what’s the point of sending her to college if she’s always in bed?’ So we stopped antibiotics, and did Propolis topically to quench throat infections, and Echinacea when she was well, as a preventative.  It was quite effective.  She graduated on time and with good grades!”

“But then, why do you think people still do antibiotics so often?”

“They’re afraid, they’ve been taught not to trust their immune system.  They’re used to depend on meds.  Sometimes it’s as banal as the taste of these remedies.  People are used to pills.  A potion--with its own taste and flavor--scares them, it appears medieval to them, a witch’s brew.”
Giggling over the phone . . . “A witch’s brew” we giggle together. 

“And witch’s brew it is,” I continue, “when you think about it, the only evidence being experience, tradition, indigenous knowledge, historical evidence--opposite of what modern science understands.”

“And who’s short of understanding?  Indigenous knowledge works.  Just because something’s modern doesn’t mean it’s good.”

“Take it easy, G.  You tend to get carried away.  Allopathic medicine is not worth bumping heads against.  You never know.”

“Of course my dear.  You know my weakness.  An accident, a trauma, a birth defect, a sudden outbreak: allopathic medicine is much faster, has an immediate effect.  Take my cousin’s club foot that she was born with,” G said.  “They open up, they switch the tendon to the right position, and the baby’s gonna grow with a regular foot, like everybody else.  Can you imagine not having access to that?  Having to watch your baby grow up with a twisted, upside-down foot just because you cannot get surgery?”

“Oh my gosh, that would be horrible, G.  Good to hear that surgery went well.  Doesn’t matter how many massages, manipulations . . . ”

“Yeah, and doesn’t mean that applies to all situations.  Sometimes the effects of that kind of aggressive interventions are more than secondary.  Sometimes they override the benefit.  Remedies are much more gradual and benign, with more positive and durable effects.”

“And how about those images in the office.  Were you telling me how you they made you feel?”
“They made me feel terrible.  Here in the Caribbean people touch when they shake hands and kiss each other on the cheek, once.  It’s a bonding ritual that is good for one’s sense of connectedness, immunity and health.  Now, with the excuse of the swine flu, public health officers are trying to take that away.  Those posters made me feel depressed.  And that’s bad for one’s immune system.  I’m sure I’m not alone.  Others probably feel their social manners are being criminalized in some ways.”
“Oh, one kiss you said?  It’s three in France and two in Italy, correct?”

“Yes,” said G.

“I wonder what’s being posted there?” I asked.

“I bet not much” she replied.  “I’m just speculating, yet I can’t imagine the French or Italian government criminalizing affectionate behavior--what has been considered good social manners for centuries.  But you never know.  Have no direct reports at this point.”

“Have you heard any comments? From colleagues at the university, I mean, people you know?”

“Not really, I’ve seen people pull out these little bottles of hand disinfectant and rubbing their hands with it.  They pour it on mine as well, and I comply.  It feels clean, has a strange smell.  I abstain from getting my own.  And you know, as I watch all this, as I hear that people are dying from the swine flu, that it is very serious, that it was almost fatal to somebody as close as my pretend granddaughter, I get really upset.  First of all, the flu could not be so serious if the world was in better heath, I mean if the biota was stronger and more whole, if the web of life where we are embedded was more wholesome and healthier.  And then, for %^&**’s sakes, at this time when the threat is really serious, what would public health authorities lose from making some surprising declarations.”

“Declarations like what?” I ask.

“You know, like, that they really don’t know why, but they hear reports that Echinacea is very effective, that people in the holistic health collective have something to offer, and that they, the authorities--those in charge of public health--are willing to break a lance.  That they are willing to make fools of themselves and endorse a witch’s brew, put their weight behind it, so the public at large--I mean those who commonly believe in authority--can finally benefit.”

“Arrgh, what a scene you’re making, G.  Now suppose the surgeon general recommended Echinacea on CNN tomorrow, what do you think would happen?  Wouldn’t everybody think she’s gone crazy?  Would your average Joe who watches TV all day go and get the remedy?  Or would this rather end up causing a big ruckus in the high spheres--with her being fired, and some pharmaceutical company declaring her insane and locking her up?” 

“Well, I guess you have a point.  And yet, they talk about health care reform.  What kind of reform?  Nothing is going to change if people don’t start to think differently about health.  Look at this example.  Many people have died of the swine flu.  Something as cheap and accessible as Echinacea could have saved some of them.  And yet, of those in authority, nobody said a word.  I did buy Echinacea for my pretend granddaughter.  It’s here on my table.  I invited her to come and get it.  Hopefully she will, when she’s better and before she gets sick again.  But you know, had she heard it in the media, she’d be here already.  I mean, isn’t it unconscionable that they haven’t told her?”
“I can see your point.  The stakes were high this time.  And it’s always on us--we who practice holistic health--to spread the word.  And we have no authority.  As good old Lillian Hellman would have said, ‘I’d rather make the attempt and fail than fail to make the attempt’.”

“Thank you dear.  It’s good to talk to you.  Hopefully, it will happen.  And meanwhile we have SexGenderBody blog where our voice can be heard.”

Note: This is a fictional dialog and its contents do not constitute any kind of advice.  Each person is different and responses to remedies vary accordingly. 

End of G Tale # 2 

Please note: The time references in some of the G Tales are off because they first appeared in SexGenderBody
Reprinted here with thanks to Arvan Reese

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Why Is Mono Poly Too? - From The G Tales


“one must learn to love one before one can love many,” from Intimate Dialogs
“amor ch’a nullo amato amar perdona,” from La Divina Commedia
“love, that releases no beloved from loving” (Allen Mandelbaum tr)

I have this friend, her name is G.  G for gentle.  G for giddy.  G for “gay.”  G . . . for g-spot, or was it g-string?  Anyway, she’s like a little girl, I mean, she’s a bit like a thirteen year old, still has the intensity, the trepidation, the relentless, the hubris, the utopianism of that age.  Bless her heart. 

She tells me everything about herself.  And yet I don’t really know her.  She’s a mystery to herself.  She’s a philosopher, and yet, she’s still a little girl . . .


The latest about G is that she’s alive and well.  She’s actually enjoying the dry tropical season, and thinking about numbers. 

“Is mono part of poly?” she asks on the phone. 

“How can it be,” I say, “if you’re mono you’re not poly.  It’s either poly or mono.  Don’t you know about those famous mono partners and the havoc they can cause--how they always manage to spoil the game?”

“But listen,” she says, “the number one is just the first in a series from one to infinity.  So if you can truly love many you can love one, because one is less than many.  No?  If you understand infinity, the number one is easy to understand.  It’s just a matter of multiplication.”

“Well G,” I say, “this is a bit utopian.  The reality is that we often don’t even have the courage to love one, forget many.”

“I know,” she replies, “but love expands to infinity as well, love that is wishing the best even when nothing comes back, love that is empowerment, fulfillment of the other’s potential, love that is free of desire or possession, love that corresponds to the free vital energy of eros.  Love that traverses us and weds us together in the communion of life shared on the gay planet earth.”

“Sure,” I say, “that’s how one is part of many, one love that multiplies for everyone that there is to love, like, say, a parent who loves all of his/her children, no matter how many.  But when sexuality is involved, things are not so simple.”

“Let me explain it with Dante” she giggles.  She’s so literary.  She’s read too many books.  Her mind’s so convoluted nobody can really follow her.  “Three was his favorite number, did you know?  Perfectly balanced and open.  He’s a bit of a pain in the butt, when you have to study him in school, you know, but he did get something right: numerology.”

“What’s so good about three?” I ask.

“Well, it’s the first of the truly plural numbers, the first that looks upon the infinity of subsequent numbers and is part of them.  There is the singular, ‘one,’ the dual, which is, in some cases, still singular in language, as in ‘a couple,’ then there is the plural proper, what cannot be reduced to the singular, except in poly language, where you find words like ‘triad,’ or ‘quad,’ or ‘pod,’ to indicate relationships that include more participants than a dyad, or couple, can.”

“And what does this have to do with Dante?” I probe, “was he poly?”

Giggles.  Then silence. 

“Oh no, but he loved Beatrice and was married to one Gemma Donati, whom he saw everyday.  He saw Beatrice only once, in his entire life, and he loved her to the point that she accompanied him in his trip to paradise and back.”

(Image courtesy of AllPosters.com)
 
“Perfect number, three,” I reflect.

“You’re getting somewhere now,” she winks.  “Consider this other line he wrote, ‘love, that releases no beloved from loving,’ it’s more beautiful in Italian of course, ‘amor ch’a nullo amato amar perdona.’ It’s been interpreted for the longest time, and nobody really knows what it means for sure.  Does it mean that when A loves B, then B loves A?  Namely, that when someone loves you completely you cannot escape that love, that if that love is true, you will recognize it and reciprocate it?  Or does it mean the opposite, that when you are touched by the vital energy of eros because someone loves you, then you start loving someone, and so on and so forth.  In other words, that loves is contagious but not necessarily reciprocal.  As in, A, touched by the flame of eros, loves B; and B, when touched by the same flame, will love C, who, when touched by eros, will love D, who, touched, will love E, and so on and so forth, until, many, many plural loves later, the movement may come to a full circle.”

“OMG,” I exclaim.  “But that’s very messy, and everybody gets upset, and it’s so unsettled.”

“I know,” G says. “Sounds like poly, uh?” she giggles.

“Sounds like poly to me,” I confirm.

“Well, Dante knew about it back in the fourteenth century.”

“Oh,” I wonder, “what evidence do you have?”

“This sentence, ‘love, that releases no beloved from loving,’ nobody knows what he intended because it really means both.”

“What do you mean both?”

 “It’s ambivalent," she replies, "it means both the reciprocity of love, as in A loves B and viceversa, and the circulatory nature of erotic energies, as in A loves B loves C loves D loves E and so on.  And all translators, readers, critics, theorists, have been baffled by it for centuries.  Yet they all refer to it.”

“Oh, I get it, a literary trope.”

“You may say that.  It’s more that the number three was in Dante’s mind, I think.  He knew that perfect reciprocity is virtually impossible, that there is always some triangulation, even in the most perfect, most reciprocated type of love.”

“But then, that means that one cannot be really mono, because there is really no system of love that includes solely and exclusively two persons.” 

“You’re beginning to get it.  From one triangulation, to the next, to the next, to the next, all adjacent to one another, as in an Aids quilt one might say.”

“Then mono is poly. Granted, to some extent.  But why is poly mono?” I ask her. 

“That’s a little more complicated,” G replies.  “Suppose you manage to be as mono as possible, to really focus on one person until s/he feels so loved that life comes to a standstill, that there is really nothing to desire any more.”

“Suppose . . . then what?” I ask.

“Then, from that experience, from having been present to that celestial, hyper-Uranian type of love, you can generate infinite compersion that allows you to love everyone like you’ve loved that person.”

“Ah, but . . . errrrr . . . wait a minute,' I respond, "I’m a bit confused.  Sounds so philosophical, G, can you explain for us common mortals, my love?”

“Well, you know compersionCompersion, that feeling that replaces jealousy, supposedly, in poly language? Well, it’s nothing really but a sublimation of desire into eros, a way to process the greed, the want for sex, for attention, into an ethereal energy that traverses time and space and expands that mono, that one-to-one reciprocity, to every person.”

“That sounds to me like creative energy.  Art, creative expression, in all its forms, has some of that, no?”

“Yes,” G admits, “that’s the point.  Especially art that’s part of a healing process, art that generates community, peace, joy.  In fact, on might even say that all such art is a form of the arts of loving.”

“Handsome, G, thanks,” I offer.

“You’re welcome.  What's on your mind?”

“Oh, well . . . it’s so extreme, so exaggerated.  I’m not sure.  Sounds like that story about demanding to test anonymously or not at all.”

“Oh, that’s right.  You’ve not forgotten, uh?”

“No.  Is this the lesson for the day?  I’ll mull it over.  Thanks for sharing.  Now let’s get back to work.  Keep me posted on developments.  And when you test again, be a good patient, ok?”

The Three of Us, by Regina Reinhardt

End of G Tale # 1

“The dichotomy between selfless and selfish love is deluded because affectional types of love are necessary for our survival as a species, and are therefore not as selfless as they are believed to be. It is self-defeating because all forms of love have an erotic component, the denial of which causes unhappiness and produces substantial amounts of hatred, often enough to defeat the forces of love.”
      From Gaia and the New Politics of Love: Notes for a Poly Planet


Please note: The time references to some of the G Tales are off because they first appeared in SexGenderBody.
Reprinted here with thanks to Arvan Reese.



Friday, February 12, 2010

A Constellation of Books, Bi and Queer

     “when bisexuality is “real” (in both a symbolic and a material sense), then the nature of love changes too . . . from an exclusive, dyadic system to an inclusive one that expands beyond the dual and into the multiple”
    from Bisexuality and Queer Theory, “Introduction"

There’s news about G.  She has been enjoying the tropical summer and has been reading. 
She called me, “the summer has been beautiful” she said, “my first here, dressing up funny and enjoying a laugh with a bunch of local people.” 

“What kinds of people?” I asked. 

“All kinds, sexual diversity is exploding here, it must be the Spain effect, you know: Spain becoming so progressive in all kinds of queer issues.  All across Latin America you can feel it: people are coming out, they are coming together, there is effervescence, excitement, thriving communities--I can’t believe it!”

“And what have you been doing?”

“Exporting bi and poly ideas, getting a good listening, feeling more situated, modeling three-way hugging and kissing.” 

“And what else?” 

“Well, you know what I do, what really reconnects me to myself: a good book!  The kind of thing that really makes you feel connected with the person who wrote it, with the experience--that gives you that sense of symbiosis and synergy.  I found several of these, bi books.” 

She has been reading them with Jonathan Alexander, her colleague from UC Irvine, she explained, co-editor of the collection Bisexuality and Queer Theory, to be published soon. 

“There was first a cluster of three, he sent me the draft, I read it, wrote into it, thought of two more books, added into the text then sent it back to him.  He moved around some things: it was symbiotic the way our minds connected as we did it.  And at one point it just flowed, it was perfect: something neither he nor I could have done alone.”

“The power of synergy,” I commented.

“You got it!  That’s how we came up with the fiveway review you get here, courtesy of Routledge, the collection’s publisher.  A constellation of books that love each other, and complement each other, and argue with each other, and get along with each other, like partners in a poly pod.” 

G was thinking.  “What’s your mind up to?” I asked. 

“Have you heard of the latest poly feature on Newsweek? It was all over the news.” 

“Oh yeah,” I reply, “So wonderful: filmmaker Terisa Greenan, in Seattle, revealing the configuration of her real life--not just film.  Telling it like it is, modeling the beauty of what she and her partners have been building, offering it as a gift for the future, for a sustainable way of doing partnerships and relationships.  What about it?”

“Well, it’s a bit like our fiveway review: first a cluster of three, then two more join the group.” 
“But G!  These are people, not books!” 

“I know, I know, but books often express who we are most truthfully, they speak for us to the world and the future.” 

“Ok, ok, you’re back on your literary spin.  How incorrigible!  I get it.  And yes, it’s true, a pentagram, a cluster of five, it’s open, it’s abundant, it’s balanced, it’s one and many, like a star: there is magic to it.” 

And so we decided to offer these book reviews to you. 



The Constellation:
      Steven Angelides, A History of Bisexuality.  University of Chicago Press, 2001.  281 pages (with index)
      Clare Hemmings, Bisexual Spaces: A Geography of Sexuality and Gender.  Routledge, 2002.  244 pages (with index)
      Jennifer Baumgardner, Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics.  Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.  244 pages (with index)
      Jenny Block,  Open: Love, Sex and Life in an Open Marriage.  Seattle: Seal Press, 2009. 276  pages (with works consulted list)1
      Beth Firestein, ed,  Becoming Visible: Counseling Bisexuals Across the Lifespan.  Columbia University Press, 2007.  441 pages (with index)
      Reviews of these books will appear as "Reviews" 
       
      Please note: The time references to some of the G Tales are off because they first appeared in SexGenderBody.
      Reprinted here with thanks to Arvan Reese.
       

    Tuesday, February 2, 2010

    What's a Poly Planet? - An Open Space for Out-of-the-Box Thinking about Sexual Freedom, Science, Health, Ecology, and How They Relate

    "So, what's a Poly Planet?" asked Anton Diaz when he interviewed me at Daka/Dakini back in October, 2009.  This blog is about the multiple answers to that question.

    My life's work is about the social and cultural forces that can create the paradigm shift toward a poly future where humanity is at peace with our gracious hostess, planet Gaia.  These forces include the sexual freedom movement; the global peace, health and ecology movement; the poly movement, the bi movement, the holistic health movement, the dissident science movement, the pagan movement, and many other forces that seek to co-create an integrated sense of love and life on the third planet.

    This blog will host all kinds of contributions to that discourse, including news, reflections, debates, reviews, dialogs, interviews, videos, comments, and more.  Why am I doing this?  The task is challenging, to say the least!  The reality is that many years of research across disciplines, cultures, languages, and discourses have persuaded me that, for our species, there is either what I call a 'Gaian future,' or no future at all.  So allowing all those interested access to this knowledge isn't just an option among many--it's a sheer necessity.

    Sex and the environment don't make obvious bedfellows 
    "Sex and the environment don't make obvious bedfellows," claims Tinamarie Bernard, a top-rated writer of sex, conscious love, intimacy, and relationships from the SF Bay Area, as she reviews my latest effort, Gaia and the New Politics of Love, for Modern Love Examiner,
    Yet if there is value in sharing environmental resources, Bernard reckons, there must also be value in sharing 'amorous' resources, because love is as necessary for life as life is for love.

    "Saving the planet" is just a euphemism for saving ourselves, since no other species is capable of destroying the web of life that makes our own existence possible.  If we humans want to make peace with Gaia, therefore, we must become more symbiotic.  And that's the point of this blog: creating a collaborative discursive space where the current paradigm upon which conventional knowledge is based can be interrogated--including the nature of love, life, health, evolution, and symbiosis, on a personal, community, interspecies, and planetary scale.

    Please post your comments! 
    As we post content, all of you are invited to respond.   I tell my students that the word, argument, verbal conflict, are all tools of peace because if we can hear each other when we disagree we won't need to resort to blows, or puños, as they say in Spanish.  At the same words can divide since listeners understand them in different ways.  The blog will be a safe container for diversity of opinions and styles of expression.  What's the purpose of a blog if not presenting complex ideas in a simple way?  To that end, we encourage vernacular genres, beginning with dialogs, which is the style I chose for my G Tales.

    So, thanks for asking the question, Anton!  
    And thanks you all for the symbiosis of body/minds 
    who think and co-create together.  
    Welcome to Poly Planet GAIA!



    Polyamory and the Gaia Hypothesis


                                     A Review of
    Gaia & the New Politics of Love 
    by Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio

    by Deborah Taj Anapol

    Feminist humanities professor Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio has woven together fact and theory from widely disparate fields to present a strong case for the value of polyamory and other non-normative sexualoving expressions to save humanity from extinction. She views polyamory as a school for love which teaches a way of feeling and thinking which is crucial for our survival as we enter the 21st Century. I’m so glad she wrote this book because now I don’t have to! People have been asking me for years to elaborate more on what I meant when I said in my 1992 book, Love Without Limits, that polyamory is good for the planet. Serena has done a masterful job of fully explaining exactly what this statement means.

    One of the central themes of her Gaia and the New Politics of Love, is the utility of the hypothesis originally put forth in scientific terms by James Lovelock and widely adopted by eco-feminist philosophers, neo-pagans and others, that Planet Earth or Gaia is not mere inert matter but has a consciousness like an animated, self-regulating organism. This point of view has been pervasive among indigenous people the world over for millennia and is the basis for all nature based spirituality. Anderlini-D’Onofrio traces the development of modern religious and scientific thought which view Earth as an inert object. This world view happens to correlate with both the rise of monogamous marriage as the only legitimate sexual expression, and as many observers have noted, with the increasingly life threatening destruction of our environment.

    The value of accepting the Gaia hypothesis, she asserts, is that it moves us away from a course of irreversible environmental destruction and human suffering and toward greater justice and eco-social sustainability. In her words, “Hypothesizing Gaia in our era is like hypothesizing heliocentrism in Galileo’s. It helps the world shed needless fears from current dogmas, like the idea that love is a crime or a disease, or that we need to fight preventative wars against terrifying enemies, and it gets us to look reality in the face.”

                Another major theme for Anderlini-D’Onofrio is the concept of symbiotic reason. She defines symbiosis as a way of sharing bodies in which both host and guest benefit. In biology this refers to phenomenon such as beneficial bacteria found in the digestive tract of many species. We might also apply the term to the presence of humans and other species living in the body of Gaia. Symbiosis classically describes the relationship between a pregnant woman and her fetus. In Freudian psychoanalytic thought, the term symbiotic refers to pathologically dependent maternal relationships carried beyond the appropriate developmental stage. Instead, Anderlini-D’Onofrio argues for a new understanding of symbiosis as “the wellspring of a mode of reasoning that appreciates the sharing of bodies as resources for fun and pleasure and does not diagnose it as unhealthy or perverse.” Symbiotic reason is not only crucial to sustainability, she says, it’s closely related to the practice of polyamorous love.

    Patriarchal values have placed independence and logic above symbiosis or interdependence and direct bodily awareness with disastrous results. Rational science has been revealed as lacking the objectivity on which its alleged superiority is based. Symbiotic reason, which leads us to think in terms of the whole, rather than isolated parts, is the cure according to Anderlini-D’Onofrio and countless other contemporary thinkers. As she expresses it: 
    "I believe that the political problem of today is a problem of love because only hatred and fear can cause people to construct enemies that do not exist while they ignore the most serious and impending issues. I propose holism as an ecologically sound approach to biopolitical issues that heals the thought system that causes anxiety, rather than attacking the enemies this system constructs. Love is therefore the problem that is also the solution of modernity’s diseases and the absurd position these diseases put us humans in. In homeopathic terms, love is the disease that is the cure. Indeed, if as humans aware of being mere cells in Gaia’s organism we could love as selflessly as the two unicellular organisms who die to merge into one larger symbiotic being, we could perhaps cure ourselves of modernity’s diseases."

    Anderlini-D’Onofrio takes this line of thought a step further by emphasizing the mutual sharing of oxytocin mediated bonding in symbiotic styles of love, which, by her definition, include polyamory. Oxytocin is a hormone well known for its role in bonding a breastfeeding mother to her newborn infant. More recently, the action of oxytocin in promoting bonding of sexual partners, at least temporarily, has been highlighted. Oxytocin produces feelings of calm, love, and connection. Could it be the antidote to the anxieties of modern life still driven by the adrenaline driven fight or flight syndrome? At the risk of over-simplifying, this is the famous slogan of the 1960’s peace movement, “Make love, not war” in terms of neurotransmitters.

    Polyamorous people, Anderlini-D’Onofrio asserts, have developed practices that allow the establishment of gradual levels of intimacy, including playful touch, cuddling, snuggling, spooning, and inclusive sexual play. “Because of their heavy reliance on touch, connectedness, nonviolence, and a subtle knowledge and practice of intimacy, the styles of love invented by bi and poly people promote the activation of the hormonal cycle of oxytocin.” Of course, these practices are not limited to the polyamorous, but they are often avoided, particularly in group settings, by those who are fearful of temptations to stray from their monogamous vows.

    Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD will be presenting workshops based on Gaia and the New Politics of Love in Puerto Rico and other locations.  Her book will be presented at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, on February 11th, 2010.  Contact her at serena.anderlini@gmail.com  for further information.


    Deborah Taj Anapol, Ph.D. is the author of Polyamory: The New Love without Limits and The Seven Natural Laws of Love. Her new book, Polyamory in the 21st Century, will be published in 2010. Dr. Anapol coaches singles and partners on sex and relationship issues by phone and has led relationship and sacred sexuality seminars all over the world - next one is March 11-14, 2010 in Bermuda. Email her at taj@lovewithoutlimits.com or visit her in cyberspace at www.lovewithoutlimits.com


    A Turning Point


    A Review of 
    GAIA & the NEW POLITICS of LOVE: NOTES for a POLY PLANET
    by Sasha Lessin, PhD

    You must read Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio's GAIA & the NEW POLITICS of LOVE.

    This electrifying work will be seen as a turning point, on the order of The Aquarian Conspiracy, The Greening of America, The Earth in Balance, as a seminal turning point in the paradigm with which we as a species face our existence on Earth.

    Gaia and the New Politics of Love presents a meticulous philosophical and critical review of Western thought that bridges the dichotomies–energy-matter, competition-symbiosis, war-peace, male-female, postmodern-neomodern, abundance-scarcity, allopathic-holistic, WASP-colored, indigenous-techno, human-nonhuman, hope-fear, subject-object, sacred-practical, mind-body and love-hate–that have led us to the brink of extinction. Anderlini's analysis points the way to center ourselves among these dichotomies, to embrace these apparent opposites that, processed discerningly, can enhance one another. In the discerning centering she proposes we find a path that can save our species and the planetary ecosystem from destruction.

    Anderlini identifies LOVE as the overall panacea for humanity’s crises. Love, she shows, can be expanded from application of the methods developed in the polyamorous and bisexual communities. These communities, she demonstrates, have developed ways to engage in safe, consensual, mutually-enhancing, respectful ways of relating and celebrating personal choice as well as common welfare that evolve individuals and groups to ever-more inclusive and loving behaviors. She advocates the generalization to these evolving psychotechnologies and the ethos they imply to all humanity for its survival and contribution to the planet.
     
    I cannot too highly recommend this book. It'll change the way you and all who read it view our world and its possibilities.

    Sasha (Alex) Lessin, PhD (UCLA)
    Co-Chair, World Peace, Tantra and World Polyamory Associations

    Sign up for the World Polaymory Association - June 25-27, 2010 Conference where Serena, the author of Gaia and the New Politics of Love will give a keynote on her vision of how polyamory can help humanity can make peace with our hostess planet.