How the Wisdom of Love Transforms Gaia: On Being the Resources We Share

Friends keep telling me that people don't understand what I mean.  "She uses strange words," they say, or at least, "she uses words in a strange way.  Why does she do that? What does she really mean?"

"That's the point," I think to myself, very shy, very humbled, very timid, "making up new words, new phrases, using words that are unfamiliar, making familiar words sound new."

That's the power of words, the power of literature, if you will.  What I was trained in.  (Arhhhhhg, what a mistake to presume one can relinquish some ignorance!)

"These people," I think, "they really want it easy.  Not only I learned their language so I can speak to them.  But then if I use words of their language that for one reason or another sound queasy, they become suspicious of me.  There's no way to do right by them!"

"What's this fear?"  Fear of words.  One cannot be afraid of words.  Words are NOT things.  They only represent things.  Or do they?  Can words also MAKE things?  Can they CHANGE things?  Can they affect, transform, reinterpret, create REALITY?

Of course they can. All poets are keenly aware of this. Otherwise why would they spend time playing with words? 

So, a case in point is this video clip.  From The Wisdom of Love, a double book launch Deborah Taj Anapol and me held at Open Secret Bookstore on June 22, 2010.  It's a bit late to post.  I know.  Took a long time to figure, with us being a team of wise, wise, wise people.  So ancient is our wisdom that we're not all that familiar with latest tech stuff for social media. But we get it eventually.  And for this clip, we owe courtesy to Steve Hoffman of Oakaland, California, who shot, cut, and reduced for us.

So, what's the fun with words here?  Well, "RESOURCES."  People in ecology, in environmental science talk about 'resources,' right?  "Limited resources."  "Sources of energy that are 'renewable'," as in wind, solar, hydro: ways to create power that generate themselves again every day, that are commonly owned/shared.  That don't involve pollution or extinction of the source when it's most needed.  See what's happening with the oil spill.  Easy oil is almost gone now.  And we're ever more dependent on it.  While it's also turning our amiable hostess Gaia into an oven.  Ouch! I'm cooking! I'm being cooked!

So then, resources is the issue, right?  Why can't we BE the resources we seek?  Sounds Oedipal?  It is!  What happens if we begin to think of ourselves as the resources we need?  What if we begin to practice BEING resources for each other?

A whole lot!  Big shift in thinking.  Now we don't need a lot of resources.  We need to interpret each other AS resources.  And what can we trade that is, as Stan Dale would say, "free"?  We can trade LOVE, or 'amor,' or 'amore,' or 'amour' as those hopelessly Romantic, romance language people would say. 

Then we see that being POLYAMOROUS, being capable, by nurture, by nature (who knows?) of trading these AMOROUS RESOURCES with a whole bunch of people is NOT a dangerous perversion, is NOT a problem, is NOT a liability, is NOT a sign of being promiscuous or a misfit.  IT IS ACTUALLY A VIRTUE!!!

Yes, you heard me.  BEING POLY IS ACTUALLY A VIRTUE!  It should be rewarded as a free recycling system, as a national forest deep-ecology biodiversity sustaining nurturing ecosystem. It should be cause for being nominated for the Nobel Prize for Peace!

"But wait a minute," you must be saying, "is this for real?"  "Sounds like a trick to justify some wicked perversion."

Well, I leave the final judgment to you.  It's on the video.  Somebody in the audience at Open Secret asked "what's the connection between Gaia the living planet and open love, open relating?"

That's how I explained it!

Go ahead and listen . . . .

Then, if you like what you hear, you can get more info from the source of my wisdom, Gaia and the New Politics of Love.  This book was inspired by one who IS the pleasure he seeks.  Watch out for the book's new digital edition, coming soon.  Meanwhile, get your paper version and start practicing love's wisdom.

There will be more posts and clips.  The momentous series of events we held in Norther California in June-early July will be unfolding digitally as we post clips and snippets, with comments.

We look forward to YOUR comments too!

Namaste,

Gaia

a.k.a. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio

What's This New Politics of Love That People Wonder About?

Could it be as simple as an ecosexual politics of love where Eros makes peace with Gaia? 

These wise women have it all figured out.  Find out from what they write and then lobby for their ideas with Obama!

Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, Deborah Taj Anapol, and Dossie Easton at Open Secret Bookstore in San Rafael, Ca, on July 3rd celebrating Interdependence Day as they outline the future of love on Planet Earth.

We will be back with more about this historic event where the future of love on the planet was outlines.  Meanwhile, please send us your thoughts, ideas, comments, poems, rants, plans, critiques, strategies.  What's a new politics of love that would serve Gaia and us?  What does it look, feel, smell, taste like to you?  tell us and we will publish it on Poly Planet GAIA!

do you call yourself 'ecosexual'?  would you date someone who does?  if yes, or no, why?

'Ecosexual,' the new 'sexual orientation people use in personal ads, we learn from Annie Sprinkle, 'sybaritic cougar,' and participant extraordinaire.  Do you call yourself 'ecosexual'? Would you date someone who does? If yes, or no, why?

Annie Sprinkle, Beth Stephens, Cunning Minx: more love, more wisdom! 

We will be back with more about this historic event where the future of love on the planet was outlines.  Meanwhile, please send us your thoughts, ideas, comments, poems, rants, plans, critiques, strategies.  What's a new politics of love that would serve Gaia and us?  What does it look, feel, smell, taste like to you?  Tell us and we will publish it on Poly Planet GAIA!

And, don't forget to look up for 'ecosexual' dates next time you go out!

Namaste,

Wise Woman Extraordinaire, Serena

Postscript, a bi poem by Chrsitine Baynes

Postscript,

To my foster sister. My gemini

Happy parade day

What’s that u write in your letter now…? I mean the four cryptic lines in response to my 500 pages

the topic: our thrilling discussion of sexuality

It’s like communicating with an ancient dragon

If I am completely pure you will not be able to devour me

No idea what you are talking about, though I like the sound of the strange words

Yet I never could possibly accept them, they’re outrageous!

We…them…US? Are you crazy?

(then again when are you ever not crazy)

No idea where you’re going with this

Talk to the hand

            I mouth your words out loud in your voice

            Like a little poltergeist in the pink ribbons my mother has put me in

            Then roll my eyes, smack my lips

            Laugh heartily (but not too loudly) and giggle a little bit and stamp my foot

You (ms bad-mannered low-class bouncer type, sleeps with anything, grungy grungy girl, smells bad too, ew--)

and I--

Principled. Educated. Honest. Okay, a little nerdy, in a space cadet sort of way--

 have Nothing in Common 

(You. the Evil. Brainwasher.). Me the flouncy girly girl with the pageboy hair,

always did have the better neckline,

beautiful like a greek goddess

you were always way too tall your arms strong, wiry 

your coffee eyes how they would probe so deep inside me

hypnotic making me tell all my deepest darkest secrets accidentally

We should look for boys, you said one day all non-chalant, yet excitedly

Pretending to blush but looking right through me

How rather sneaky you are

Flashing eyes like Satan in feline female form

Watching like the Cheshire cat for my response

Like we were about to discover a new country

But why? And, So soon? I replied as if on cue

feeling terribly betrayed looking back at you sadly quizzically suddenly lost

was I too boring

I could read less books!

Try to be more of a n action figure like you for once

And after that I instantly forgot all the magical tomgirl memories

Pushed them down down down

Someplace where no one would ever find them

It was easier somehow just to stuff them, to try to forget

(even if it made me sick)

As one day you just left, taking the better part of me with you

And by the way I’m just FINE, thanks for asking,

 Perfectly normal, right as rain

 It’s still a load of non-sense whatever you were saying

You don’t define me, so there

You’re such a pain, always trying to tell me who I am

It’s just a little postpartum aversion to hetero men

Not that someone as wacko as you would ever understand 

I’m sure it will go away any minute now

(Yet it’s pretty serious this time even I have to admit)

Went to our little local multi-colored parade today

It was nice—considering--

You don’t exactly invite us to Your Shiny translucent Castro Neighborhood

Which you think You Just Own (as usual)…

Hope mom and dad don’t

See me and baby on television in rainbow gear

cuz they are gonna freak, huh?

I wish u were here to take the heat

Not to mention the sunburn                                                           

Standing next to a drunk Native American

In the broad daylight

Who doesn’t know what he is doing there either

Chatting me up

He was kinda cute though

Maybe he was just happy

Maybe he had two spirits

(Like somebody I knew)

           

            …the baby who I refused to gender before birth

(whose shower, yes, you missed)

I just couldn’t

In the ultrasound he looked

So much like you, long ago

anyway never mind about the argument,

what was it about again? can’t quite remember

I do hope it was important though

well, don’t forget how much we miss you

Your little sister & perpetual student

~Lesbian until graduation

 (ps Indian Spirit is still better, any fool like u can ride a Harley)

 Paper. Rock. Scissors.

p.s.p.s. of course I didn’t send it! She’s so damn stoopid (aka that’s how SHE’d spell it) & she never could read fast like I could, she just faked it to impress, the little witch!

Christine Baynes

The Wisdom of Love at Open Secret - Yesterday in San Rafael, Ca.

The Wisdom of Love at Open Secret was the kick off event of the season and it went really well.  We were in a wonderful room, known as The Gallery.  The decor was exotic and artistic, a whole series of statues and other art pieces from India and other countries from the "Far East," where the arts of loving are still known and cultivated by common people (unlike the West, where they've been coopted under the aegis of "science," a modality of knowledge that tends to "normalize" things, endlessly search for some kind of normativity).

   Deborah Taj Anapol, our assistant, and me arrived quite early, and in common agreement decided to enhance the "Oriental" flavor of the event by sitting on the floor, our backs to the center piece: An invitation to attendees to share "the floor" with us, to see us as equals, rather than as "those in the know" who stand up on the podium.  

   We noticed diversity in age groups, background, and other as people milled in.  Greeting people we knew, in those expansive, affectionate ways typical of poly people, was beautiful.  Many new people came in too.  The last touches were put on the sound system, the display table, the videos.  We were blessed with two video makers and their equipment shooting footage throughout the reading.

   We intended a synergy, so each speaker introduced the other speaker's book.  It was good to hear someone whose work I respect so much speak publicly about mine.  Taj definitely did a good job of it.  And I hope I did too.  As the event unfolded, I noticed the presence of my co-speaker, the way she connects with the audience, she relates to them, she is confident they will hear.  Won't necessarily try to please them.  But make them feel alive, yes, she will.  She tucks in a little bit of irony here and there too.  I feel proud to be in this space.  I tuck in a tid bit of irony too, when I make sure people know I'm from Italy but I don't make pizza: Instead, I study history, which leads me into commenting on Anapol's wonderful job of weaving the multiple threads of polyamory's modern history.

   People keep coming in, finding nooks to tuck themselves in, more chairs brought into the room for those unwilling to imitate our yogic positions.  Everybody seems comfy enough in this heart-opening space.  We go across the room asking people to introduce themselves: "What brings you here? why is polyamory interesting to you?"  This is California and I'm always amazed about how much people are willing to share--even in a room full of strangers--about themselves, their personal experiences.  My mind goes back to the early years of my arrival in this region, when I was so impressed by this behavior, this trust, this willingness, this faith that if you put out what resonates as authentic for you, then your eagerness will attract toward you exactly what you wish.  And I took that one on big time of course when I put out my own slightly disguised life story in my first narrative book, Eros, which managed, as it were, to attract into my life exactly what I wished.  With all this eager way of being into the world that I've sucked in, I'm reminded of why I call California my second matria (she/homeland), with the first one being Italy and the third one Puerto Rico.

   Next section is the actual reading.  I go first and read a very short piece.  There is attention, eagerness in the room.  I am careful.  I know what I have to say does not sound pleasant to all people.  That the Earth is not a "mother" who loves us and protects us.  That, according to scientists, Gaia, the live planet, is actually a "tough botch" who will get of us if we continue to abuse her.  There are many attentive minds in the room, I sense the words begin to resonate with people, "unusual words this foreigner speaks, she uses our language, but why does she say such strange, such outrageous things? And why, strangely enough, some of them begin to make sense too?"  We pause for questions, and there are many more than we can answer.  The synergy begins to work there too.  Anapol and I find ourselves answering each other's questions.  In other words, there is a question and I take it, then she pitches in and the answer becomes more complete.    

  Then her turn comes to read.  She announces a couple of things.  She begins to read from the chapter about why people choose polyamory.  Of course her theory is smart and minimalist: "people choose polyamory for a variety of reasons."  In other words, "if you, reader, were expecting some pathological explanation for why one would make such an unusual choice, you're not going to get one here.  I am the expert, and I guarantee you: Reasons are so different that no single, unique cause does exist.  So, get used to it!" 

   Love comes in many shapes, and the more the better.  

   Anapol's reading time is quite short too. 

   Interesting questions start to come in, and the discussion opens up as we take turns and offer different takes on them.  Many more hands are up with a bunch of interesting ideas, desire to put them on the table, debate them.   We realize time has run out.  It's almost time for the store to close.  We are quite happy that we've created such multifarious interests.  We break up the circle.  Invite everyone to join us again on July 3rd too.  

   There is a little more time to wrap things up.  A few people approach me, they want copies of the books. Others approach Anapol.  Unfortunately, her book, the three-cherry-cover book, has not arrived yet.  Que lastima! my friends would say in Puerto Rico.  I write down a few dedications, signatures.  It's good to think that these people will read for themselves, will make the effort to stretch their imagination as far as I intend to take them.  Maybe some of them will let me know what they think, they will inspire me for next project.  

   Goodbyes are another golden opportunity to manifest poly expansiveness, to express our willingness to share love and affection.  More hugs, more eye contact and warm thank yous.  We even manage a quick three-way hug with two of the participants.  Time to thank the host and pack our things.  We realize the filming has been going on very smoothly, unobtrusively.  It's like, there was filming, but this wasn't about being filmed.  it just happened, naturally, with the process of recording integrated in the real thing.  We haven't even had the time to thank the video makers, they've already disappeared.  We get our things out to the car.  

   It feels like the end of a good evening.  

   We're off to Harbin Hot Springs tomorrow for the World Polyamory Association meeting. 

   Posted by Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio

   Oakland, Ca., June 23, 2010

Explore the Future of Love on Interdependence Day! - Anapol, Easton, Anderlini in Bay Area, June 22 to July 3 - Promotions and Full Calendar

Is humanity at war with Mother Earth?  Can the wisdom of love save the day?

Three pioneers of polyamory come together in the Bay Area to share experiences with you in a momentous series of events.

Deborah Taj Anapol, Dossie Easton, and Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio: June 22nd to July 3rd.

As buried fossils from liquefied ancient forests gush to the Earth’s scorched surface, humanity realizes it is at war with Gaia, the gracious hostess that has allowed our blessed species to grow.  In science, a host and a guest are symbiotic, a form of love.  But what happens when the guest inadvertently tries to kill the host?  Can the wisdom of love help to bring this mutually destructive war come to an end?  Intuitively, we know it can.  But do we know enough about love to use it as an effective remedy?

Between June 22nd and July 3rd three wise women in polyamory will be in the Bay Area to explore the future of love on planet Earth. Dossie Easton, Deborah Taj Anapol, and Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, authors of groundbreaking works, can explain how the arts of loving can contribute to the health of planetary life.  The ecosexual movement brings this need for planetary balance to the surface.  What’s the role of Eros, the energy of love, in keeping Gaia, the planet, in balance with herself?  With a total of over 100 years of practicing, studying, and teaching poly love all over the world, Easton, Anapol, and Anderlini put their wisdom on the table and open up their store of experience to lead this epic journey into the future of love.  There isn’t a position they haven’t tried, a sexualoving event they haven’t hosted, a taboo they haven’t broken, an open relationship they haven’t been part of.  Each has been a pioneer in some area of erotic expression related to planetary consciousness.  Whether you’re a visitor or a resident, it’s a momentous time to be in the Bay Area, where they’ve chosen to bring the wisdom of love.  If you’re a conscious lover, a healer, a sex-positive person, you can’t afford not to participate!

Calendar:

June 22nd, Open Secret Bookstore, San Rafael, 7-9 PM

The Wisdom of Love

Double book launch for Deborah Taj Anapol’s and Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio’s latest books: Polyamory in the 21st Century and Gaia and the New Politics of Love, respectively.

A Silver Winner in Cosmology and New Science for the 2010 Nautilus Book Award, Gaia is a political theory that claims education in the arts of loving is humanity’s wisest way out of our unwinnable war against planet Earth.  These arts include sharing pleasure, cultivating amorous resources, and practicing holistic sexual health.  When Anapol read Gaia, she exclaimed: “I’m so glad Serena wrote this book because now I don’t have to! In 1992, I said that polyamory is good for the planet. Serena has done a masterful job of fully explaining exactly what this statement means.”  Anapol’s Polyamory in the 21st Century (to be released imminently), resonates with Anderlini’s intent to expand the horizon of polyamory on the future of love.  The author taps on her wide ranging travels to present polyamory as the force that can transform the practice of love across cultures and continents.  Polyamory is a movement with deep roots in the Bay Area.  The two authors are coming together from Puerto Rico and Hawaii respectively to present its wide ranging effects and transformative, ecosexual, healing ramifications around the globe.

Prepaid door charge is only $ 6 per person if three sign up.  Sign up for both the 6/22 and the 7/3 events, and you get a signed copy of Serena’s memoir Eros at the workshop (a value of $ 35). 

July 3rd, Open Secret Bookstore, San Rafael, 11AM-7PM

Three Wise Women on Polyamory Explore the Future of Love on Planet Earth

Dossie Easton, author of acclaimed classic of poly education, The Ethical Slut, now on its second edition, joins Deborah Anapol and Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio in this one-day experiential journey into love.

Through multiple perspectives of three expert facilitators, the workshop will address related questions, including:  Can we practice love so as to end the war our species is perpetrating on mother Earth?  What’s a Gaian way to be sexual, or ecosexual? Is Gaia an ecological path to the communion, the joy, the pleasure of erotic ecstasy?  How can a healthy politics of love be put into effect on a local and global scale?  How can we practice polyamory in emotionally and ecologically sustainable ways?  These are some of the question the journey will explore in practical and discursive ways.

If you’ve been to the June 22nd reading, the workshop expands your experience on a deeper level.  The paradigm shift toward a Gaian awareness has great possibilities for those with the potential to love more than one person.  The workshop brings this awareness to your body at the cellular level.  If the workshop is your first attendance, it  brings you up to speed and complements the theory with the experiential level.

Whether you are straight, monogamous, gay, polyamorous, bisexual, lesbian, polysexual, ecosexual, asexual, metrosexual, or any other preference; whether you are female, male, intersex, transgender or any other gender; regardless of your relationship status, age, nationality, trade, profession, race, ethnicity, religion, spiritual practice, this workshop exposes you to an awesome combination of perspectives on the arts of loving practiced today.  It helps to access the multiple ways that these practices can serve one’s personal, communal, ecosystemic, and planetary health.

As part of a planet whose body is alive, we humans are already always related.  Planetary consciousness corresponds to the potential of this overall relatedness.  The challenge in creating a sustainable amorous life is actualizing each potential in the most authentic way.  As Easton says, “Each relationship finds its own level, if you let it.”  The combined wisdom of Anapol, Easton, and Anderlini creates the space where your own potential can manifest.  Anapol emphasizes polyamory’s potential to design a future for love on planet Earth.  Easton explores multipartnering as key to embrace hidden yet essential aspects of our nature. Anderlini connects our amorous potential to Gaia’s planetary consciousness.  As you bask in these multiple wisdoms of love, you can surely synergize your own.

When three wise women of polyamory invite you to be part of the unique series of events that brings them together, you better treasure this opportunity coming your way!  The cost of a day that could change your life forever is only $ 63 per person.  It goes down to $ 45 when you sign up by June 25th along with two friends!  Team up with others intent in saving the planet and participate!  Please plan to be on time.  There will be a lunch break.  A healthy meal will be available on site for a reasonable extra charge.  Please spread the word to amorous communities and networks.  You can preorder your books as well.

7/3 - Full Price with 1, 2, 3 Person Discounts - Last day is July 2nd

One Person $63.00 Two Persons $110.00 Three Persons $150.00

Sign up for both the reading and the workshop, and you get a signed copy of Serena’s memoir Eros at the workshop (a value of $ 35). 

June 25-27, World Polyamory Association, Harbin Hot Springs

Deborah Taj Anapol and Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio are also coming together at this wonderful conference that combines poly and tantra.  Their talks are scheduled on the 25th and 26th respectively.  Join them at one of the most holistic naturist retreats in the world.

Registration still open. See details on WPA webpage.  Click here for discounted rates until June 20

About the Authors:

Deborah Taj Anapol, PhD, is a relationship coach who leads seminars on love, sex and intimacy all over the country and around the world.  She is the author of Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits, The Seven Natural Laws of Love, and Polyamory in the 21st Century.  Website: www.lovewithoutlimits.com.  “Let jealousy be your teacher.”

Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD, is a professor of humanities at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez. She is the author of Eros: A Journey of Multiple Loves, and Gaia and the New Politics of Love.  She teaches and lectures about the practice of love and the science of Gaia.  Blog: http://polyplanet.blogspot.com. “A world where it is safe to love is a world where it is safe to live.”

Dossie Easton is a licensed psychotherapist in private practice in San Francisco.  She is co-author with Janet Hardy of The Ethical Slut, now in its second edition, and Radical Ecstasy.  She lectures and leads workshops on polyamory and ecstatic spiritual practices at conferences and universities.  Website: www.dossieeaston.com. "Each relationship will seek its own level like water if you let it." 

Choose the wisdom of love for your interdependence calendar!

A Gut Feeling - Part # 1 - From the G Tales

A Gut Feeling: Anal Pleasure, Holistic Sexual

Health, and Interpretations of AIDS

Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio  -  Part # 1 of 7

G called the other day--very excited.   She said someone found the cause of AIDS.  I replied that many of us believe we already know the cause of AIDS.  “Isn’t it HIV?” I asked. 

   She said, “yes, of course, that would be an infectious agent.”

   “This is a different cause, then?” I asked, excited.

   “Yes, it’s an interpretation that’s not related to an infectious agent, and yet accounts for everything we’ve seen in LGBT communities.”

   “Really?”  

   “Yes.”

   “Sounds great.  An interpretation, you said?” I probed.  I know G always thinks in literary terms.  

   “Yes, an interpretation.  That’s what a scientific hypothesis is:  a plausible interpretation of data that awaits confirmation.”

   “And does this one make sense?”

   “It does.”

   “So now the alarm is over, we don’t have to be afraid: to hell with protection, lubes, condoms, tests  .  .  .  . right?”

   “Wait a minute!  You’re jumping to conclusions.  Did I say anything goes?  I said that a biological, organic, holistic interpretation has been found that accounts for why certain behaviors and environmental conditions are so pathogenic, and how to avoid them.”

   “Ok.  So what’s the condition called?” I asked.

   “Intestinal Dysbiosis.”     "Intestinal Dysbiosis?"     "Intestinal Dysbiosis!"     "And what is it?"

    “It’s a dysfunction of the gut--also called intestine--that’s due to abusive behavior toward its ecosystem--behavior that does not respect its biological function and integrity,” G explained.

    “Sounds  like it’s got something to do with anal pleasure.  Must be homophobic!  Feels like a new religious ploy to condemn anal sex.”

    “No.  Not at all.  First of all, anal sex is a very rich style of sexual pleasure that anyone can enjoy: Women, straight men, transsexuals.  Haven’t you read Tristan Taormino’s guides to anal pleasure for women and men?” G asked.[1]

   “Yes, I have.  They work very well.  They teach how to proceed with caution, prepare for penetration, communicate, generate the right amount of arousal first.  Anal pleasure is an art as she’d say.”

   “Yes, precisely.   This new interpretation is also artistic, it’s based on a different epistemic foundation for science that values the arts of loving.  It’s Gaian, in the sense that it assumes that life flows through ecosystems that are interconnected and need to be respected to function well.”

   “Including our bodies?” I asked, perplexed.

   “Including our bodies,” G replied, “why did you think we’d be the exception?   Respecting our bodies as ecosystems is the art of loving ourselves."

   “Right,” I said, “as your friend Suzann Robins claims, ‘to have healthy relationships we must be healthy.’”[2]

   “You got it!  I’d say this interpretation is based on a holistic paradigm of sexual health.”

   “Ok,” I said.  “And what’s holistic about sexual health?”

   “Well, it’s a way to respect the body as an ecosystem that needs to stay in balance with itself when you practice love and any style of erotic expression,” G explained.

   “And so, is there any kind of pleasure that would threaten this balance?” I asked, uncertain.

   “I don’t think so.  Not if practiced naturally and in moderation.”

   “Ah, ok.  .  .  .  What about anal pleasure?  Wouldn’t a lot of people qualify anal pleasure as ‘unnatural’ per se?”

   “They would if they knew nothing about nature, which is queer and quirky in so many ways.  As Betty Dodson says, ‘we are all quite queer’ as long as we love ourselves.[3]  Diversity is the secret of life, remember?  Gaia is already always gay.  And so the arts of loving are infinite as well.”

   “Of course, G.  That’s your usual point,” I said.  “But I’m not sure I follow the connection between Gaia and anal pleasure.  Can you get into some more detail?”

   “I’d be happy to.  Gotto go right now though.  Let’s talk tomorrow, ok?”

   “Usual time.”

   “Yes.”

---

Notes

[1] Tristan Taormino.  The Anal Sex Position Guide.  New York: Quiver, 2009.  The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women.  New York: Cleis Press, 2006. Amazon.com: tristan taormino: Books

[2] Suzann Robins.  Exploring Intimacy.  New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. Amazon.com: Exploring Intimacy:

[3] Betty Dodson.  “We Are All Quite Queer.”  In Plural Loves.  Serena Anderlini ed.  New York: Routledge, 2005.  Amazon.com: Plural Loves

Disclaimer:  This Tale does not constitute medical advice in any way.  Readers are invited to consult their own healers and health care providers. 

Exploring Intimacy by Suzann Panek Robins - Reviewed by Serena Anderlini

Exploring Intimacy: 

Cultivating Healthy Relationships through Insight and Intuition.

By Suzann Panek Robins.   

New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.

Reviewed by Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio

In this inspiring and synergistic book, Suzann Robins presents a major paradigm shift about the relationship between our physiological and emotional health.  In her view our emotional and physical lives are intricately related, so much so that the health of the one is proportional to the health of the other.  So the paradigm shift she focuses upon can be summarized in her claim that “In order to have healthy relationships, we must be healthy” (106).

Let me contextualize this claim so that we can better understand what it actually means.  The imperative of “being healthy” could be interpreted to imply that only healthy people can aspire to good relationship, while those afflicted with some illness “deserve” the punishment of bad ones.  Or it could suggest the idea that those blessed with the good luck of physical health “deserve” the privilege to pair off with others like them, so that they can be blessed with minimal health-care bills.  In reality, none of these less-than-generous understandings of the book’s key principle does justice to the book’s complexity and achievement.  Indeed, the book provides a complex and innovative definition of health as integrated process of self-knowledge that relies on intuition rather than the effects of any consciousness altering substances, including the legal ones.  This self-knowledge could be described as a form of gnosis--a path to knowledge whose motivation is love--because it is intended to generate the kind of self-love that extends to those who form the ecosystems that surround the self.   

The book itself defines health in a way that integrates Eastern and Western philosophical principles, as it also demonstrates that the former are neither less wise, nor less grounded in empirical experience, nor less “scientific” than the latter might be.  Hence it presents us with a concept of health that is independent of the amount of health-care products or procedures we are able to consume, and is proportional to our ability to connect with ourselves and our inner being.  “Know thyself,” said Socrates, the philosopher of ancient Greece.  And indeed, knowing oneself is the most challenging experience, and, as 20^th century ecofeminist philosopher Luce Irigaray would put it, it is the kind of knowledge that requires “the wisdom of love” even more than it requires the love of wisdom.  More to the point, this healthy self-knowledge requires the effort of intimacy, which Suzann Robins appropriately reconfigures as “into-me-see,” namely the art of seeing into oneself, of being in touch with one’s inner landscape and the emotions, forces, attractions, memories, desires, images that populate it.

“How can this highly modulated synergistic feat be achieved?” A reader might wonder.  The secret is Suzann Robins’s in depth understanding of multilayered systems of knowledge, including Western psychology, medicine, and philosophy all the way back to Antiquity, and Eastern religious, medical, and philosophical traditions.  Suzann Robins is a teacher and practitioner in various healing arts specialties, including hypnotherapy, personal growth, anger managements, and others.  Her awareness of interconnections among different sets of ideas comes from experience.  Healing-arts practitioners who have seen integration of healing modalities work over and over with clients, friends, and themselves, often come to the awareness that success is a result of expert, enchanted frequentation of different knowledge systems.  When theory successfully integrates healing modalities from different knowledge systems, as happens in this book, it yields the concrete knowledge that is based in the practice of history. 

Robins’s view of health is based on an integrative concept of medicine that accommodates holistic and allopathic practices in the same system.  While holistic practices promote healing from within and from surrounding oneself with thriving ecosystems, allpathic practices serve to overcome crises that threaten a system’s homeostasis.  Robin’s knowledge of various intersecting traditions helps to present a view in which these systems complement each other and address a core of experience we share as humans or individuals of the same species. 

For example, she aligns the Western concept of a “life force” (historically linked to the vitalist movement and the beginning of psychoanalysis) with the Indian concept of Prana, the Chinese concept of Chi, and the classical concept of Eros.  In the myth of Eros and Psyche, Eros is the deity who falls in love with the mortal Psyche.  He is the energy that espouses matter (151-156).  According to Fedro, in Plato’s Symposium, the dialog on love, Eros is “the most ancient of all gods.”  He is part of the first generation of Greek deities, who represent the forces of nature, as in Chronos (time), Gea (the Earth), Aeolus (the wind), and Poseidon (the ocean).  So in a way as the god of love, Eros is a form of Prana and Chi: He is the energy that animates matter.  Robins’s contextualization of classical mythology brings out the parallelism between knowledge systems.  She effectively shows that in their respective cultural contexts and traditions these concepts indicate the sense of life as the flow of energy that traverses and animates the material.    

Another area where Robins’s synergistic analysis is quite effective is her design of a parallelism between the human body’s main organs (and the life functions they preside over) and the symbolic system of the Chakras which holistic medicine has absorbed from Hindu traditions.  The alignment Robins shows here is quite convincing, as in the example of the Fifth Charka--also known as the Throat Charka--as the opening that presides over “our ability to express thoughts through the respiratory and bronchial apparatus that encompasses the vocal cords and the alimentary canal” (55).  Key to Robins’s notion of integrative health is the concept of balance, which she also relates to the charka systems.  These imaginary openings correspond to areas of the self where flows of energies are absorbed and recycled within the body’s ecosystem (10-12).  Balance involves an inner landscape where charkas are aligned with one another in a system that presents neither blockages nor excessive leaks, which can resulting “chronic illness and fatal disease” (52).  Robins’s analysis is complemented by a spat of exercises, surprisingly effective and simple, that help readers absorb her theories in a kinesthetic, in-the-body way.  A major source in this section is the work of Anodea Judith. 

A further step in integration of knowledge systems comes with Robins’s discussion of stages of growth in humans, which she also relates to interconnected foci in the charka system.  This section integrates Sigmund Freud’s and Eric Erickson’s views of human development with the holistic perspective.  For example, Robins provides an association of the Root Charka--located in the sacrum and usually representing the connection with the Earth--as symbolic of a baby’s growth during the first two years, when attachment is essential to the baby’s ability to develop survival skills such as receiving and absorbing touch and food (94-95). 

Finally, Robins proposes an integration that takes into account the color symbolism that characterizes the charka system in most representations.  This is also presented experientially, as an exercise.  The Sixth Charka is considered the site of intuition, or “third eye.”  In Hindu cultures it is often represented with a dot painted in the middle of one’s forehead, a little above the eyebrows.  Its color symbolism is “dark indigo or navy blue,” which appropriately represents the vast possibilities open to the imagination from what looks like “a clear night sky” (126).  In Robins’s book, intuition is also described as “the sixth sense,” a sense that synergizes the information the other five senses provide in a type of knowledge that respects the energetic (as well as material) nature of things and therefore enables the path to love.  This love manifests as the kind of intimate knowledge of the self that enables one’s body to function like a healthy ecosystem.  It is from the care for this ecosystem--and its surrounding bodies and energy flows--that the health of one’s relationships emanates in an ebb and flow of dynamic exchanges that result in a healthy homeostasis.  Relationships are not healthy to the extent that they follow structures marked by conventions, including marriage, monogamy, heterosexuality, exclusivity, or longevity.  They are rather healthy because they respect the ecosystemic balance of those involved in them.

So there is a productive way to read Robins’s central thesis: It is what J. L. Austin would call an “illocutionary speech act,” namely a pronouncement that actualizes itself by virtue of its own intention.  “We must be healthy” is not a descriptor of a putative state of health that preexists a given relationship, but rather a dynamic balance that evolves as we become intent in getting to know ourselves and each other intimately, and thus enhance our capabilities to know and respect others the way we do to ourselves.  It is a statement designed to generate the reality it alludes to rather than to simply describe it as what is.  In articulating her complex theoretical position, Robins also relies on the work of Karl Jung and Jean Piaget. 

From this book one does not get easy advice or recipes for “happiness,” as happens in many of today’s manuals and guidebooks about “better relationships.”  Rather, one gets a guided tour of the various ways in which happiness, and balance, and the health of relationships have been constructed in the cultural contexts humanity has inhabited in the modern era, and of how, with that knowledge, we can invent and choose the path and combination of knowledge systems that will work for us.  This is a much valued feat, since a manual’s promise to hold the “right” recipe for a happy personal life is always as short lived as that of the next such book. 

Indeed, the idea of offering recipes that yield the same result regardless of who uses them is too simplistic to honor Robins’s understanding of what knowledge is.  A prevalent myth of Western modernity is that Western knowledge is “scientific” while other traditions are enshrouded in legend and anecdotal thinking.  Of course this is self-deceptive and reflects Western ignorance of its own power over other knowledge systems, rather than any actual scientific superiority.  Further evidence of the deceptiveness of this myth is the failure of Western modernity to design styles of development that model sustainability.  Knowledge steeped in tradition is scientific because the evidence of its validity is in history.  Robins offers the grace of treating complementary traditions as such and represents them as equal.  Her refusal to rank these traditions is a way to enter the fray of the politically charged discussion about what qualifies as science.  For example, in talking about integrative medicine as a synergy of conventional and holistic medicine, Robins discursively establishes an equality that unfortunately is still far from being real. 

Because of ethnocentric prejudice that favors Western modalities of knowledge, conventional medicine is still associated with “science” in the mind of most people.  Robins’s expert interweaving of modalities and sources exposes this prejudice for what it is.  Her book is a refreshing read whose mixture of research, practice, and theory will generate awareness where there still is cultural resistance.    

Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD

Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, May 2010