Embodiment Hour Tomorrow at 12p EST ~ Freedom through Pleasure

Join us tomorrow to feel into the culture this week.

Dear Friends,

After spending a full day mired in the news of the world and feeling very depressed, I finally turned my attention to a different frequency: pleasure.

Not in a bypassing way, but in an attempt to reclaim my sense of embodiment, agency, and power. The Grammys on Sunday were helpful. Jon Batiste, a living beam of light, was the big winner that night. Batiste won five awards including the highest: Album of the Year. His performance of the song, Freedom, said it all. Here is the video from last year, tomorrow we’ll watch a bit of the live performance from Sunday.

Perhaps related, is the 5-part series on HBO Max by author and teacher, Brené Brown. It’s called Atlas of the Heart and it’s a live audience conversation/lecture series based on her best-selling book. The first episode is entitled: The Language of Emotion and Human Experience.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at a clip from the first episode. I’m not sure yet which clip, as I am still watching and taking it in. But, what I want to introduce with both these clips is some confidence that there is a great deal of competence around emotional intelligence and liberation from suffering entering the popular conversation, entering art and entertainment. Sure, Hollywood is still obsessed with dystopian futures, but there is a countercurrent. There are beacons of hope and we sure need them right now. My intention is that we can take them in together and find some pleasure in our own bodies, some relief from the chronic stress of navigating the turbulent waters of these times; maybe some insight into how we can work with the JOY of the heart to find more clarity and truth in the unfolding of life.

Has anyone read Pleasure Activism by adrienne maree brown? (Let me know your thoughts in the comments.) I haven’t yet, but Emergent Strategy was brilliant. Here is a brief clip of Brown presenting some concepts from the book. I love her (let’s be honest) and how she rightly casts pleasure as an important act of self-assertion, defiance, and power in a system that would seek to control us.

Come join us at noon at The Stoa if you’re needing a little pleasure principle yourself!