Erotecology | Taster #1
Event description
Tending to the green and red fires
Tending to the deep waters
Surrendering to air, breath, wind
Resting your heart on the earth
Moving only from overflow
Connecting to the golden river
Sweet wild honey that never runs out
Tip back your head
And bring your lips to the spout
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We come bearing offerings of playful connected nourishment - for the lonely gardener, tired activist and bedraggled worker in all of us.
You are invited to an evening of mutual flourishing in a held space. Beyond nature connection, this event is a reminder that we are nature.
First, the question that most of you will want answered – this is not an orgy.
It is not a “sexual” event where you will be expected to get naked, or touch or be touched by other people.
It is something much more subtle than that.
The name of these events is a mashup of ecology, the study of living, natural systems, and erotic. Eros simply meaning life force.
Us organisers are alumni of Deep Ecology, and also have been burnt in the fires of activism for our planet and it’s people. We, and no doubt many of you, have felt the sting of burnt-out – of pushing so hard for a better world that we have become estranged from rest, leisure, pleasure, and joy.
We’re also tired of white-knuckling through ‘transformational’ spaces, and of hierarchical events putting the facilitator on a pedestal.
The modality that we’re calling Erotecology is nothing new in human history – it’s a slow, subtle, restorative body of work that creates a safe space for the whole person to arrive.
It is soft, delicious and sensual. It is gentle and playful. It is queer and creative. It is humorous and humble. It is focused on right relationship with Self, Other, and Earth. We are creating these events because we are craving all these things, and most likely you are too.
It is not about having sex with a flower (though we’re not judging anyone who’s into that). It’s about restoring what Deep Ecology refers to as ‘ecological identity’. Regenerating the knowledge that we humans are an inseparable, and when guided well, a vitally helpful part of the living Earth.
While many events are touted as spaces where “anything is welcome”, eroticism often has the door slammed in it’s face. We’re creating a space where the entire person, as a living, breathing part of this earth, is truly welcome, which must make space for their erotic self as well.
This space is welcoming for the many of us who feel stunted, cut-off and numbed from our erotic nature. Whether from trauma or from the relentless pace of consumer life, this is a soft space for you to begin to thaw out, soften, and surrender back into the intrinsic ease of being alive.
These events are more than a nice time (though of course they are very nice). This is our form of activism. When the addictions to speed and greed are so widespread, putting rest and play forward is a radical act that re-centres people as living beings, and as an inextricable part of the living Earth.
We believe strongly in creating trauma-informed safer spaces that are strongly queer-friendly and inclusive for neuro-divergent folk. We all know that diversity is healthy in an ecosystem, and it surely is healthy in a human system too.
We are both highly influenced by and in deep gratitude to the wisdom of Indigenous cultures, both local and global. We respectfully take influence from their understanding of the integration of the human and more-than-human words. Our events are taking place on unceded Wurundjeri country.
Although we will have rock-solid facilitation, boundaries, and guidance for the duration of all these events, they are very much a choose-your-own-adventure, and autonomy and self-responsibility are encouraged, for you to “follow your bliss” as Joseph Campbell says. (E.g If you just want to nap on the floor, or stare at any ant hill for hours, you can).
Much like the “un-schooling” movement, we’re seeking to reawaken the intrinsic sense of curiosity for life that arises when a person feels safe.
In respect to the Deep Ecology practice that brought we facilitators together in the first place, 5% of all event profits will be donated to the Rainforest Information Centre.
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This Taster Event #1 is the first of three Erotecology events this year. The first is an intro to the tone and content. Taster Event #2 is a day-long deepening into the work (Sunday June 30th, venue TBC). And the full immersion is a three day event to begin living the work (Fri Nov 29th - Sun Dec 1st). Please stay tuned for more details.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Below is an outline of Taster #1 at Moss Studios:
Purpose:
- To gently welcome our bodies into the present, bodies that have layers and stories.
- To defrost the bodies capacity to sense its own pleasure, someone else, something else.
- To practice being present in connection.
- What is moving you and how can you follow the feeling?
How:
- Through connecting with various safe and friendly treasures from nature.
- Step by step working with opening all the senses, moving slowly, mindfully, and intuitively.
- Recognising pleasure, navigating the feelings connected to it, playing with it and sharing the process.
We welcome any questions about what this is, and what this isn’t. People all of all gender identities and sexual orientations are very welcome, including if you identify as asexual.
With love and longifolia from,
Kate, Tanya, Vas, Hannah and Liza
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“We remember that all things are connected. Remembering this is the purpose of a ceremony. It is the mending of a broken connection between us and the rest. To have health, it is necessary to keep all these relations in mind. But it is not a finished thing. The real ceremony begins where the formal one ends. When we take up a new way, our minds and hearts filled with a vision of Earth that holds us within it”.
- Linda Hogan, Chickasaw Nation
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Recommended reading/viewing/listening:
We’re not directly connected to or paid to endorse any of the below – we just vibe with them deeply, and the values of the publications/people below resonates with what we want to bring forward through this work.
The Flowering Wand by Sophie Strand
Other publications by Sophie Strand
Pleasure Activism by adrienne maree brown
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Assuming the Ecosexual Position: The Earth as Lover
‘Life is easy. Why do we make it so hard?’ TED Talk by Jon Jandai
Restoring the Kinship Worldview by Four Arrows and Darcia Narvaez
Anything from The Emerald Podcast, esp. Becoming a Ruin: Decomposing and Regrowing the Mythic, Animism is Normative Consciousness, Neckhairs of a Shapeshifter.
Other people whose work we love: Bill Plotkin, Mary Oliver, Joanna Macy, John Seed, David Attenborough, Bob Brown, Zhenevere Sophia Dao, Rumi, Francis Weller, Tyson Yunkaporta, Stephen Harrod Buhner, Bayo Akomolafe, Sharon Blackie, Claire Dunn.
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"So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you
larger than any you have ever seen; if a restlessness, like light and
cloud shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must
think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten
you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke