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

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Couldn't Put This Book Down! Aren't we all 16 year olds at heart?

I have been an admirer of Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli for several years now, with the highest respect for her ideas and the complexities her research brings out. A specialist in psychosocial analysis, Pallotta-Chiarolli has worked extensively on bisexuality as it intersects with second-wave feminism and Deconstruction.

I read Love You Two because I love the memoir as a genre (am also author of one), and was curious about how Maria would handle a work of narrative that, albeit not exactly a memoir, is nonetheless quite close to the experiences of her personal life and those of the communities she is part of and is a researcher about, including Australian Italians who consort with LGBTQ groups and lifestyles. I am the kind of academic who not only respects, but also fervently admires those of us able to write for the general public--able to communicate our ideas and emotions in ways simple enough for anybody to grasp. I've tried my own hand at that with some success . . . .

What Maria has done with this book is astounding: not only she has succeeded in getting off the scholarly pedestal and wear the hat of a genuine narrator who has a story to tell and is passionate about it, she also has managed to shift the narrator's viewpoint one entire generation forward from ours. In fact, I remember asking her "how did you manage to figure out so well how a 16 year old girl today would feel about her polyamorous mom?" This is what made the book for me impossible to put down.

At heart, we all are 16 year olds, especially if we are capable of love and passion. The emotions of adolescence awaken us to the magic of love in adult life. Isn't the ability to be present to the intensity of these emotions the mark of a true storyteller and writer? If it is, then Love You Two definitely bears that one. Other merits are of course the book's ability to capture the predicament of those in Italian communities overseas (be it Australia, America, or other) to stay connected to the cultural legacies of their origins without being enslaved by them: to appreciate the intensity of the drama of life in ways that are especially Italian, and fertilize gay, queer, and bi communities with that authenticity and passion.

A must read for anyone interested in LGBTQ literature as it intersects with the experience of being part of ethnic and other minority cultures whose 'differences' are often either hyper-accentuated or not made visible enough.

Recommendation: Buy Love You Two on September 26th! That's the push-up date for best-sell day of the Kindle edition of Gaia and the New Politics of Love. Get that one too while you're at it, and remember to recommend a soon-to-be-published Kindle edition for Maria's book. Corporations won't get to decide what's a best seller as long as e don't let them. Push up to the best seller list books who reflect the perspectives of our sex-positive, the-erotic-is-sacred, bi-ecosexual communities and these perspective will expand. Participate in the effort to reclaim what a good book looks like!

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

New Paradigms # 8: Gaia and Ecosex, or, Our Planet, Ourselves

What's ecosex? A new buzz word people use to describe their sexual orientation in personals. A new way to look at Eros, the force of love, as part of planetary consciousness? Would you describe yourself as 'ecosexual'? Yes, no, why?

You've watched Segment 8 of 8 from Keynote Address at the 2010 World Polyamory Association Conference, Harbin Hot Springs, California, June 25th, 2010. Leave a comment on the blog and let us know what you think!

For the gracious auspices of Janet and Kira Lessin, conference organizers extraordinaire. Video and clips courtesy of Steve Hoffman, of Healing Greens, Oakland, videomaker extraordinaire.

The Kindle edition of Gaia and the New Politics of Love will be available soon. Ecovillages and intentional communities are adopting this book as a model of holistic living in the realm of personal and amorous relationships. Now you can get your copy without wasting a milligram of wood from a single tree! We welcome your contribution to generating bestsellers for the people and by the people: September 26th is the official date for massive buying of this new, paperless edition (or the paper one).

If we get to be 100th or higher in rank, we can say to have reclaimed bestsellers as creative people's activism rather than a corporate initiative. Please mark your calendar for Sunday, September 26th, and hop to the link to make your purchase. If you choose not to spend money on a Kindle, we completely approve and suggest you download the FREE Kindle for PCs software here.

Oh, and if you're ready to find out how it did happen that my life became the experiment from which came the theory, don't hesitate to get all the juicy details from the memoir Eros.

Namaste,
Gaia
a.k.a. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD
author of Eros, A Journey of Multiple Loves
and many other books

Thursday, September 2, 2010

New Paradigms # 7: Gaia and the Commons, or, Supporting Public Education...

When we invest in prisons, we produce criminals, when we invest in public education we produce people with college degrees. What practice will yield the best pay off? As Schwarzenegger, governor of California. Students at the University of Puerto Rico also seem to know: they have defended the UPR system in a two-month strike that saw all the 11 campuses united in a sustainable effort to protect public education from Fortuno, a governor that wants to auction public assets off. Regenerating the commons is part of the effort to generate abundance out of scarcity by sharing resources. Resources of knowledge, or, in gnosis, resources of love.

You've watched Segment 7 of 8 from Keynote Address at the 2010 World Polyamory Association Conference, Harbin Hot Springs, California, June 25th, 2010. Leave a comment on the blog and let us know what you think!

For the gracious auspices of Janet and Kira Lessin, conference organizers extraordinaire. Video and clips courtesy of Steve Hoffman, of Healing Greens, Oakland, videomaker extraordinaire.

Monday, August 30, 2010

New Paradigm # 6: Gaia and Amorous Resources, or, Poly Planetary Consci...

When we share amorous resources we generate abundance from scarcity in the realm of love. Why isn't there enough to go around in the ways of love? That's because we appropriate lovers, we turn them into our private resources when we enforce monogamy. Spontaneous, organic monogamy is just a version, an instance of polyamory. When we share ourselves more, we make ourselves available as amorous resources, resources of love. That creates abundance of what Gaia, our gracious hostess, needs most.

You've watched Segment 5 of 8 from Keynote Address at the 2010 World Polyamory Association Conference, Harbin Hot Springs, California, June 25th, 2010. Leave a comment on the blog and let us know what you think!

For the gracious auspices of Janet and Kira Lessin, conference organizers extraordinaire. Video and clips courtesy of Steve Hoffman, of Healing Greens, Oakland, videomaker extraordinaire.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

New Paradigms # 5: Gaia and Paganism, or, Making Nature Sacred

With Paganism, the sacred is pluralized again. We create many deities. Why were we ever taught that monotheism is superior? When we become polytheistic again, we relearn to respect all the forces and elements that these deities represent. And if monotheism is not more evolved than polytheism, where is the evidence that monogamy is superior to polyamory?

You've watched Segment 4 of 8 from Keynote Address at the 2010 World Polyamory Association Conference, Harbin Hot Springs, California, June 25th, 2010. Leave a comment on the blog and let us know what you think!

For the gracious auspices of Janet and Kira Lessin, conference organizers extraordinaire. Video and clips courtesy of Steve Hoffman, of Healing Greens, Oakland, videomaker extraordinaire.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Vivien Leigh: A Savvy, Healthy Collaborator who Spent Time Having Fun with her Boss

Of the many comments about the recent book that criminalizes Vivien Leigh's sexual behavior, i found one to be quite interesting: it critiques the book for its sensationalism and criminalization, and emphasizes the idea that Vivien, as an employee who went to the brother with her boss, must have been brave, a person with good self esteem!

the author is one Svutlana, who writes a very interesting English, which seems to have a simplified grammar from another language, and has an uncanny resemblance to the kind of street talk one hears in certain parts of town. the form may be funny, but it reveals an interesting content. Kudos!

you can find Svutana's blog here

you can get the book from Amazon.com, even though yours truly cannot really recommend it, seems too sensational!

yours truly posted a comment to Svutlana's brave blog, and she copies it here:

"Svutlana, i completely agree with you, the whole thing, the way it's presented, tends to criminalize Vivien Leigh, which is really unfair since Lawrence Olivier, George Cukor, and others in that generation of Hollywood stars had similar, somewhat excessive behaviors, partly due to the fact that cinema was new, star status unprecedented (to the extent that cinema could generate world wide) and that their personal lives, their privacy, fell thru the cracks. It's unfair to single out Vivien Leigh as a woman, it presumes that different standards would apply to her than to the men who accompanied her. And your point that she did 'rough trade' with her boss is very important, perhaps a sign of her being a healthy, savvy collaborator (Cukor was a closet gay, and maybe she helped defuse the attention and provide some safety for him). Some of the criminalization also results from the implication that she was something of a 'fake,' as in fake British who was actually born in India. again, nationalist and racial stereotypes behind the criminalization of women's sexual freedom!

Oh, and i just wanted to add, for more in the ways of POSITIVE perspectives on bisexuality, polyamory, and other styles of amorous expression that promote women's freedom and equality, all are invited to visit my blog, http://polyplanet.blogspot.com, and to join my Facebook Fan Page, Gaia and the New Politics of Love."

Monday, August 23, 2010

New Paradigms # 4: Gaia, the Sacred and the Material

When we separate the sacred from the material, we come to delude ourselves that matter is inert, that it won't react against our tyranny, our abuse, that we won't be held accountable for disrespecting it. But is matter really inert? Hasn't science taught us that matter is energy in a different form?

For the gracious auspices of Janet and Kira Lessin, conference organizers extraordinaire. Video and clips courtesy of Steve Hoffman, of Healing Greens, Oakland, videomaker extraordinaire.