PS012 - PS013 - November and December Podcast Updates
I have been having health and life adventures, and thus have let the past two podcast announcements slip through the cracks... so here we go!
Episode: https://shows.acast.com/660e243b2f834f0017de9181/episodes/660e2440acbcaf00174d9954
November 20th; Giving Thanks: This month, Lee Harrington spends some time giving thanks- to his tribe and more, and asks in turn what you are giving thanks to in your sexual and spiritual journeys, and beyond. Thanks becomes an awareness of capacity, stories of identity, and how our identity is often wrapped up in what we think we "should" want. Perception becomes thanks once more, and a bit of sacred sensual poetry is thrown in for good measure!Lee, however, wishes to apologize for getting totally ahead of himself. In the podcast he references that when the podcast goes live it will be just after thanksgiving and it will also be on his birthday. He realized a few hours after recording that this is not the case, and that there is an extra week between... so happy Thanks Giving everyone :)
Episode: https://shows.acast.com/660e243b2f834f0017de9181/episodes/660e2440acbcaf00174d9953
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Announcer:
Welcome to Erotic Awakening, an exploration of all things erotic.
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Lee:
Hello, fellow adventurers of sexuality and spirit, and welcome to Erotic Awakening with Lee Harrington.
Here on my monthly show, appearing on the third Monday of every month, I've been exploring everything from sexuality to spirituality, authenticity and bliss to raucous orgasms and identity and everything else in between.
And if people are interested in listening to past podcasts, feel free to go over to my website at passionandsoul.com.
It's been a whirlwind for people who don't follow my blogs and things like that.
It's been a really intense four months, to say the least.
And here we are.
Here we are at the end of November.
And by the time you hear this at home, Thanksgiving is going to have passed.
But I personally record these podcasts a few days ahead of time.
And this past weekend, I actually had a pre-Thanksgiving dinner over at my in-law's place.
Right now in the kitchen, there is the smell of turkey broth boiling up as I smell it fill up the air.
It was a crazy, crazy Sunday.
My boy and I going over to his mother and her family's gathering spot.
The culture of being plied with food and then more food, and hey, how about you have some food just in case.
A culture that I appreciate, but one that I've never really understood in my heart of hearts.
So that idea of like, oh, did you not like that one thing?
You didn't have seconds of it.
No, I didn't have seconds because I'm concerned my stomach is going to distant.
No, I never really understood that culture, but at the end of the day, we're all part of different cultures, right?
Whether we call it Thanksgiving or Christmas, even if we don't happen to celebrate the different holidays.
But I recently was reading a post by a friend of mine, Ruth Adams, whose new book just came out, A Gift Of Maggots, a devotional for Baphomet, who is the goat-headed, round-breasted, hard-fallaced deity.
And I was reading something that she posted on Facebook and talking to her a bit back and forth on there about the fact that Thanksgiving is not about the food, it's not about the turkey or the tryptophan coma that you're going to have afterwards.
It's about giving thanks.
And so I want to take a few minutes, maybe a little bit longer, this time around, this podcast around, to talk about the notion of thanks, to share some thanks, to think about thanks, to consider the notion of not just thanks, but thanksgiving.
So I want to start with the notion of thanksgiving with a really beautiful email that I got from a listener.
It actually said at the very top of it, ask Lee, and then underneath it said, well, actually, it's more of a thank you, but you know, you know.
And which made me laugh out loud.
For folks who don't know, ask Lee is a column that I do in my podcast, as well as on my website where people can write in and ask just about anything.
And she wrote me a note that said, Hi, I listen to the Erotic Awakening group of podcasts, and I want to thank you for talking about chronic illness.
I have a genetic disorder that was only diagnosed about two years ago.
I'm a sub, and my master is my primary caregiver.
So I know our situations are different.
Asking for help has been one of my biggest problems, and I really appreciate your words on that.
My master has fibro, and I try to take care of him when I can, or at least make my needs as minimal as possible so as to not tax him.
There was a lot I thought about saying, but perhaps a thank you is enough.
Thank you and take care of yourself the best you can, and I wish you well.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this note.
It's been a challenge to be vulnerable.
I haven't been sharing a lot of my details of my medical stuff because I don't personally think it's a lot of people's business.
It's my story.
It's my journey.
And it's hard to say that out loud because I'm the person who's been blogging publicly about my entire life since 1998.
I've been putting it all out for the world to see.
And every day that I consider not sharing it anymore, where I go, nope, nope, that was the last public thing.
That's it.
I'm going to go take my toys and go home.
And then I get these little posts and these notes that say, no, really, it's worth it.
It's like the universe giving me a little thank you note on the back of my head saying, no, really, it's worth it.
And I'm still struggling right now with health challenges.
I'm being incredibly grateful.
I'm being incredibly grateful right now for a lot of different things.
But we'll get to that in a second.
And it was really interesting for me reading this email to talk about the notion of how she was talking about the notion of having two people in a house who have health challenges and how that affects relationship, whether it's a master slave relationship, a monogamous relationship, a polyamorous relationship, our health, our physical health, our emotional health, our psychiatric health, our spiritual health, these things all affect us, and not just us, but those around us.
And so for me, when I have a day or a series of days or lifetimes where those things are good, I want to give thanks, because there are times when that's not the case, where my health, your health, someone else's health, affects the rest of the world.
It's a stone being thrown into the pond, and the ripples rippling out.
It's one of the reasons that taking care of our own health first, help makes everything healthier.
We can't change the world if we can't change ourselves.
We can't heal the world if we can't heal ourselves.
And yeah, sometimes it's a heck of a lot easier to go out there and try to heal someone else.
And you know what?
It's a stopgap.
And it might even really help that person.
But I wonder sometimes for those of us who are compulsive givers, who are those who need to please, for those of us who cannot look at ourselves in the mirror.
Now, the classic Michael Jackson trope of I'm talking to the man in the mirror, I'm helping him to change his ways.
I wonder for those of us who haven't been talking to the man in the mirror, what that would do to us as sexual explorers.
Instead of trying to our partner every single time and saying, so how do you like to be touched?
To actually pause sometime and say, how do I like being touched?
Instead of making assumptions over and over again based on how we've been touched in the past by others.
If you were not pleasing anyone else, if it was not for anyone else, how often would you want to have sex?
If it were not for anyone else, how would you want to be touched?
If it weren't for identity, how would you want to feel sensation upon your skin?
I think they're worthwhile questions to consider.
And when I look at this email, I was also really touched by the notion of make my needs as minimal as possible so as not to tax him.
Wow.
I know that one.
And thank you for saying it because it struck a chord inside me.
It struck a really deep chord inside me.
And there are times when we perceive that we are challenging, where it is perceived that we are needy, whether it is in the bedroom or whether it is when we are praying or whether it is when we are unhealthy or whether it is when our bodies are simply not living up to the job.
I was talking to someone I know recently, and she mentioned to me that she was working on saying to God that she wanted to be able to live with her pain.
And I said, wow, that's intense.
Tell me about that.
And I needed to ask me to tell me about that, because in my head, I had the whole Arrested Development song of the word cope and the word change are directly opposite, not the same, like whole kinds of 90s action going on there.
And she told me that she used to say, God, please stop hating me.
And she realized that it wasn't about divinity hating her at all.
It was about her trying to learn how to live with herself and actually receive the bounty, whether it is from deity or God or us, blazing our own trail up the mountain of our own lives and down back into the valley and across cool, clear streams.
Whatever you call it, right?
Whatever we call this thing, there it is.
And to hear her say that, to hear this other person email me and talk about the idea of trying not to tax anyone, it reminds me of a really cool book that if people have a chance to check it out, please, please, please do, called Pro Noia, or just hop on the internet.
I'll include these in the show notes.
A book called Pro Noia, which is the opposite of paranoia.
Paranoia is the idea that the world is conspiring against you, that all of the facets of reality are trying to make your world a harder place to live.
Pro Noia works in the equal but opposite reaction direction, where the idea is that no, no, that the world is conspiring for you, that the world is conniving for the possibility of your greatness and your best interest in mind.
What would happen if we started looking at ourselves from a place of Pro Noia?
What if I were to start looking at my life from a place of Pro Noia?
That no, really, this stuff is happening in my world right now.
The challenges and the hardships and the excitement, because I need an opportunity to not be on the road.
That I need an opportunity to stay home for a few months or a year, whatever it ends up being, where I'm now going to be turning to doing gigs less than once a month, where between end of November and the beginning of February, I'm not going on the road at all.
I'm staying right here in New York City, right here with Nick NYC, who I'm slowly getting to know.
Everything has the capacity of turning lemons into lemonade, of finding meaning amidst all of this stuff.
Captain Gordon Staub, who not only is my tattoo artist, which makes him fantastic, but is also an amazing educator and fire performer and profound ritualist.
He did a ritual recently for Dark Odyssey Summer Camp, which I arranged all the programming for, but due to health reasons, was unable to attend.
But I heard from a couple of people afterwards that the ritual was really intense and beautiful, and the ritual was comparatively simple.
Lift up a lemon.
There, that lemon there in front of you that you have drawn from this bowl, this lemon from the bowl, imbue into it all of the lemons of your life recently, all of your illness and sorrow and suffering and challenges.
Hold it up.
Hold it up and envision it there.
He then had people with completely clean procedure, pierce the lemons, string them onto lines, and then pierce into their chests or their backs and hang the lemon from their body.
Around the fire they danced and whirled and tousled and swirled and felt their body move in time with the rhythm of the drums.
Lemon beating against skin, lemon swaying back and forth, struggles and sorrows moving back and forth across their heart, across their torso, swinging from that piercing and pulling and tugging.
Until finally they took a glass and they poured simple syrup into it and water.
And then they took the lemon and cut it open.
And they squeezed it into their own glass, into their own glass, took their own spoon and mixed it up, and they drank down the lemonade, literally, as well as figuratively.
This is a thing to give thanks to.
In my own life, I've been working on my own Thanksgiving list, and it's...
I am grateful for a lot of things.
I am incredibly grateful.
I saw a quote recently, and yeah, this is being a pretty, quoting other people heavily, podcast, but it's that it is not happiness that causes us to laugh.
It is laughter that brings us happiness.
And I've been sitting with that notion.
I've been sitting with that notion.
It's hanging on a wall in the space that I do yoga at every Tuesday now.
And I've been thinking about that.
So as I think about that notion of gratitude, because the reality is those who are more grateful have been shown to be happier people.
And so as I look at that notion of gratitude, of happiness, of laughter, and joy, I've been working on trying to invoke them into my world, step at a time, day at a time.
Some of these things used to come so easy.
And I have days where I bemoan that fact, where I lift my hands to heaven and shake and say, What happened to that happy person?
What happened to that beautiful being that used to be able to close his eyes and see the gods dancing so easily, instead of now having to curl up in a ball on the ground and prostate myself upon wood floors and light incense and candles and focus every ounce of my will just to hear the whispers a million miles away?
And then I pause, and I give thanks, because there I am, healthy enough to prostate my— prostrate myself—prostate?
Hello?
That's hilarious.
To prostrate myself there, upon the wood floor, that I am in tune enough with my own self, my own holy guardian angel, with my own divine whispering, with my own truth, the way that I tap into all of the world, that I can at least hear those whispers.
And this is a gift that not everyone has.
And I acknowledge and give thanks that I have this, even if there are other days when I had greater capacity.
A couple of weekends ago, a Halloween weekend, I went to the Sacred Sex Roundup in New York, and there was a really profound performance artist there named Zahava.
Her website is lovemakingdances.com.
And I've known Zahava socially for quite a while, over a year at least.
And she's someone who I adore and enjoy spending time with and enjoy talking with for hours at a time.
But this was my first time I'd gotten to see her as a teacher.
It was the Sunday night.
It was the last class of the segment.
And Sacred Sex Roundup does it a little bit differently.
They have long programs, say an hour and a half, two hours, that run all three days, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
But then they have these 30-minute segments as well.
So they've got the long segments, and they time up vaguely with the short segments.
You end up missing three 30-minute segments if you go to an hour and a half block.
And these 30-minute segments are bam, bam, bam, information, interesting things, oh, didn't you know this?
Have you considered this kind of intensity?
I was blown away by the fast, informative information that I got in Reed Mihalakos' Tantric dating, for example, which basically summed up to the notion of please date within your own species, and by the second date, make sure that you're all vaguely on the same page as to who you are as human beings and what you're both looking for, because otherwise you fall in love and do stupid things that won't actually help you have a long-term reality.
And the piece that really struck me was just because they are your love of your life and your soulmate does not mean you will live well together, does not mean that you have the capacity to actually live with one another, does not mean that you have the capacity to do a lot of things together.
Fantastic.
You're madly and passionately in love with each other.
And yet?
So there were classes like that that just, bam, hit it right off the bat, but Zahava's hit me in a different way.
Zahava's class was on the notion of tying into sensory intelligence.
We each have many, many types of intelligence, intellectual intelligence, street smarts, emotional intelligence, and sensory intelligence.
If you close your eyes right now, where in your body do you feel stress?
For me, right now, if I breathe...
And release.
And breathe in.
And breathe in.
And release.
I can feel stress just beneath my clavicle, my collarbones, at the small of my throat area.
I can feel it down the center of my chest, and on a line underneath my pectorals.
I feel it at the top of my solar plexus, but not the bottom.
I feel tension on the inside of my shoulder blades, directly at the center, just underneath my third eye, and across the top of my eyebrows.
I feel stress in my jaws.
I feel it at the back of my ears.
I feel it at the pit of my stomach a little bit, too.
That's where I feel stress.
This is sensory intelligence.
But she argued that not only is sensory intelligence important, but sensory capacity.
And as she described this, my stomach fell.
My tears started to well up.
I pulled a hankie out of my back pocket, because, hey, you got a flag everywhere you go, right?
I think I was flagging SMTOP that day.
So I pulled this black hankie out of my back left pocket, start dabbing my eyes, and I excused myself from the hands-on exercises because I just I didn't have the capacity.
And I owned it.
I had to sit there with my feelings.
Because she had in front of her, and she is this amazingly powerful nymph of a creature, and she's there at the front of the room, full of her glory and her power, and she's got this clear bucket.
Inside the clear bucket is a large vase of water, an empty shot glass, and an empty tumbler glass.
And she took the vase of water and said, this is what life can hand to us sometimes.
This is the opportunities and all of the amazing things and all of the shitty things that happen out there in the world.
And I'm totally paraphrasing Zahava.
I don't think Zahava would ever say shitty in front of a glass.
Maybe she would.
I haven't seen it though.
And she poured it into the shot glass.
She held it up and said, this is a life.
This is what a life can take.
This is what you right now or what a lot of people right now can take in their lives.
They…
Yeah, she empties it out for a second.
She's like, and you know, there's that moment where you just put a little bit in because you had a day at the office.
And they put a little bit more in because you had the drive home from work.
And they put a little bit more in because you had an intense conversation with someone.
And by the time you get home, and she splashes it over the edge of the shot glass, by the time you get home, you don't have any space left for any more sensory information.
You just don't.
So she poured that from there into the larger glass.
And she said, you know what?
There are those of us who have been working on our sensory capacity, and I would argue our capacity in other directions as well, that we work on our capacity, and you know what?
Maybe what was a shot glass for other people is now for us, only the first centimeter at the bottom of the glass.
And we could take 20 of their shots before we reach our capacity, but we'll still reach a capacity eventually.
And that there are other days where our capacity is not that high, where there is ice at the bottom of the glass.
And yeah, it might look like you can take as much, but those rocks are frozen right now, and there is no space for as much as you thought you could take yesterday.
And with that notion, I crumpled up, and I sat there, and I was present with my emotions, and I felt myself in awe.
Because I have been that person with the full glass, that huge, big glass that was able to fill and fill and fill, and empty out and fill again with the occasional time of pouring over, but not today.
Today I am a being that can feel a shot glass or four.
And it's not bad.
It's really not bad.
I had my hysterectomy back in November.
And yes, this does transition.
If you're startled, sorry about that.
But yes, for people who didn't know, I'm a dude, but I've got a cunt.
So there you go.
And remember, if you got it, check it.
So if you got a prostate, I don't care if you're a trans woman.
I don't care if you're a woman of any sort and have a prostate.
Go get it checked.
If you've got boobs of any sort, male or female, go get them checked.
Men can get breast cancer, too.
Anyway, off that side rail, back in November last year, I had my hysterectomy.
So we're coming up on a year now very, very shortly.
And the next week or so, actually.
And when I had my hysterectomy, I had a complete hysterectomy.
They got rid of my cervix and everything up from there.
And part of it was gender related, but a lot of it wasn't.
It was kind of scary.
And as I healed, I had a lot of fear about my sexual capacity.
What was I going to be able to take?
What was I going to be able to do?
Because I had labeled myself for so many years as things like a fisting pig.
And you know what?
My front hole just can't do it really anymore.
I mean, I can with small hands, but it's a painful experience now.
It's not the same experience it was before.
My body has changed.
All of our bodies change.
Every seven years, every cell in our body gets replaced, right?
And if that's the case, and I've been making decisions based on who I was and perceptions of who I think I should be based on what I've been in the past, that's not giving myself credit for the capacity of who I am to be today.
So I was exploring sexually with a lover of mine during my cross-country move, and he slid in one finger, and I went, Wow, I don't know how much more I can take.
And he said, How much more you can take or how much more you want?
And I said, How much more I want?
How much more I want?
And we were able to get to two fingers.
And that's what my body could do.
And not just what my body could do, it's where my body delighted, which surprised me because I had this whole story about, This is what my body can do.
I guess I'll cope with it.
I guess I'll somehow find a way to have it be okay.
But no, the reality is, I delight in being fucked in my front hole with two fingers.
And I hear these stories all the time from people who say, Oh well, I can't really do butt sex because all I can take is one pinky finger up my butt.
Does a pinky finger feel good?
Are you happy?
Are you coming your brains out?
Are you coming to a point of epiphany?
Are you coming to a point where you're present with your lover?
Are you not coming, but you are simply present with yourself or your lover?
If these are the case, then why does it matter if that's quote, all you can take?
Bigger is not better.
Bigger is not better.
Bigger is not better.
Yeah, I can come from a Sibian, and be numb for the next day and a half.
Or I can come from the flickering of a fingertip, rubbing gently back and forth along the top of my cock, moving in a rhythmic pattern while someone kisses me.
Lightly, ever so lightly.
And that, with the right energy flowing back and forth, can feel just as good, if not better.
It can give me more pleasure than this big badass thing that might blow my brains out.
And listen to the violence of that language.
Not saying it's bad.
Yeah, fantastic.
You're a big dick slut who likes to have giant things shoved in all your holes.
Rock and roll.
That's cool.
That's fantastic.
Not saying it's bad at all.
But I am saying, consider what you actually find pleasure in.
Consider what delights you, rather than what you feel you must be able to take.
Shoulds do not please.
Shoulds do not help us be our best self.
Shoulds do not load us up with pleasure that we each deserve.
And I've been sitting with that notion of deserved pleasure, because I am thankful this Thanksgiving.
I am thankful for my partner, Aidan, who you guys have heard on a previous podcast, when we were talking about Mastering Slavery.
I am so profoundly grateful to him, for all the support that I've been getting from him, for this amazing apartment that we've found together and created into a home.
I am profoundly grateful for my boy.
I am so giving thanks to my friends, my family, my tribe, for their understanding, their love, their support, of so many different types.
Whether it's money to be able to help pay a bill, or Mr.
Murphy Blue dealing with my texts at 2 a.m.
Or whether it is Rigor J and Ava Amnesia surprising me with a surprise present for my housewarming present, housewarming party, where two weekends ago, well, heck no, time keeps flying.
A couple of weekends ago, I had a housewarming party here in New York.
Invite people to come over to my house, all of that kind of stuff.
And I put out the call to a lot of friends, and they were just like, oh, we'll come, we'll come, we'll come.
And it was pretty packed at certain points.
At some points, we had like five or six people.
At other points, we had 30.
It was a little intense, because we opened up the house from 3 a.m., 3 p.m.
to 3 a.m.
And I had some really delightful out of town guests.
The judge from Temple of Atonement, aka Rob, was there, who flew in from Austin, Texas, not for the party, but happened to be able to be in town.
I had friends that drove up.
IM.
Willing and Jalen from Virginia and Maryland, respectively, who were involved in the scene down there, drove up a day, actually early, to help us clean up the space, and IM.
Willing's case helped us hang a whole lot of artwork.
Thank you, thank you to both of you.
And we had people who came down from Connecticut, from Massachusetts.
It was quite the crazy party, and lots of people who stayed overnight.
And here I was, late into the evening, probably about, no, not too late, probably about seven, when I hear a knock in the door, and I'm just like, oh, we put a sign saying, just come on up.
I don't know what's up with that.
Aidan runs downstairs, and he comes back up a minute later and says, sir, you've got a package down there you've got a sign for.
And I'm like, what the hell?
Really, you pee us?
Oh, and I got really frustrated, and I walked downstairs, and I saw Rigor J.
And Rigor J is like, hey, so I got you a housewarming present.
Spins me around, and there's Avamnesia, who he had flown out from Chicago, partially to spend the weekend with, but partially, specifically to bring as a housewarming present to me, because he knew that she's one of the people that can just melt my heart, and can bring me so beautifully into the moment.
So I am grateful for friends, family, and tribe.
I'm grateful for my medical support.
I had a period of time where it was a sporadic thing, and they didn't know what they were doing with me.
And I've got an actual full medical support group now, and by support, I mean like the actual doctors in question.
I've actually got doctors, yay!
Instead of emergency rooms, this is good.
And I am so profoundly grateful that I have a medical team.
It's amazing.
I am grateful to my dog.
His name is Stitch.
I am technically...
He's technically my step dog, because he's Aidan's dog, but what Aidan has is mine, so therefore he's my dog too.
Because Stitch has been really excellent at making me smile, whether it is by wearing ridiculously large purple bat wings, because we believe in dog humiliation, or dog humiliation around this house, hardcore dog humiliation play.
Or whether it's by curling up with me and watching TV with me on days that are hard, or simply snoozing with me and, you know, laying in bed with Aidan and I and the dog.
It's good stuff.
I am thankful for having mobility and functionality most of the time.
I've got friends of mine who are in chairs or are dealing with migraines that are so debilitating that they have to lock themselves in closets and put on giant sound-isolating earphones to be able to function at all.
I know people who, you know, I've got a former play partner of mine who's, you know, paraplegic and has other issues going on and lives a full and healthy and beautiful life.
But right now I am actually grateful for my full mobility and functionality most of the time, because that wasn't there for a while.
And I am thankful.
I am thankful for having a beautiful home where the rent has been prepaid for a couple of months.
Kind of take that stress off of us now that Aiden has a job.
I am really grateful for this beautiful home.
For people who didn't make it to the housewarming party, I'll be posting a link to the YouTube video that we shot or I shot of going around the apartment and showing this place that I live at so that people who are curious, where does an international sexuality, spirituality educator and author live?
What's that look like?
You'll be able to find out.
I am thankful for living in New York City.
No matter how much I bitch and whine about it and how expensive it is, I'm really delighted by the sheer adventure of it, the sheer number of opportunities, the fact that I've got like 16 bodegas in walking distance that all have slightly different personalities really makes me smile.
This is the one you go for laundry soap, and this is the one you go to for fresh fruit, fruits and vegetables, and this is the one you go to for electrical equipment.
It's great.
Mind you, don't ever go to the electrical equipment one looking for frozen ice cream or yogurt or whatever.
We bought some and brought it back, and it had been expired for two and a half years.
But New York City is being amazing, and I'm actually getting to know the city, and I am delighted by Nick, by New York City.
I am thankful for books.
I'm not just talking about the alphabetized book collection.
No, I'm talking about the books that I actually read in my hand, the books that my eyes get to devour, and my lips get to read back.
I am delighted, for example, that right now I am reading a piece, I'm reading a book by Storm Fairy Wolf that is called The Stars Within The Earth, that has just been touching my heart rather beautifully.
It's a collection of both poetry and ritual work, predominantly within the fairy tradition, and the piece that I want to just read a stanza from is called Remember The Light In Your Eyes.
Can you see it?
Remember your origin from amongst the stars you were born.
You are the willing vessel of the gods, compassion poured upon the earth like rain that leaves the parched soil gasping with ecstasy.
I think that's beautiful, and thus I am grateful for books.
I am grateful for music.
I am grateful for the Netflix account that my sister Tara gave me.
I am grateful for good food, or food in general, but food that leaves a memory on my tongue.
I am grateful for social media that keeps me feeling connected with everyone even when I'm not traveling, which is most of the time nowadays.
I am grateful for social media because it makes me feel like you're all here with me, in my home, having a conversation with me over a glass of sangrio or lemonade that we've made out of the lemons of our lives.
And so, thus I am thankful.
I am thankful for another turn around the sun, because as the day that this goes live, I'm going to be turning 32.
Because on November 28, 1979, my mother pushed me out into the world around 2-something AM in Lowell, Massachusetts.
And amidst all the chaos, the fears, the tears, the uncertainty and the pain, and the joy, my life blossoms and it's blooming and we're dancing around the sun again.
And it's good.
It's good.
Even if some days I get to fake it till I make it, it's good.
Because as I sit here recording this, with turkey broth boiling in the other room, or I should more accurately say simmering, because you don't boil turkey broth other than the start, it's good.
Even though we're in the shadow of the year, past Samhain and into winter, the holly king holds his own, and somewhere out there his lover, the oak king, will write love letters to his brother and his twin flame.
Then, when their lips might meet again, it'll be spring equinox, and we'll see them in their full glory.
But until then, we give thanks.
We say thank you to our community leaders for their hard work.
We say thank you to our coworkers for the little things and the big ones alike.
We say thank you to our family while we still have them, because when they're gone, it's not quite the same thing as saying thank you to them now.
We say thank you to our tribe, our friends, our allies, for everything they've done.
We say thank you to our lovers for the passions and truths they share with us and the secrets of yours that they're holding safe in their arms.
We say thank you to the beautiful planet that we have beneath our feet.
We say thank you to the sky overhead, and we say thank you to the stars that were dancing underneath, because we need to give thanks.
And remember to give thanks to ourself as well, because sometimes that's the one we forget.
In fact, I would argue we forget it on a regular basis.
Thanksgiving at the end of the day is not about pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock or Plymouth Rock landing on the native folks of this land.
It's not about pumpkin pie or the corporate consumerism of such things bottled up in pumpkin spice chai latte no matter how tasty you think they are.
Thanksgiving is about giving thanks.
And in this moment, I am thankful for you and to you for listening.
My name is Lee Harrington, and if you have any questions around sexuality, spirituality, or really anything else you're moved to talk about, feel free to drop me an email at Lee, L-E-E, at passionandsoul.com with the subject line Ask Lee, and I'll either answer it here on the podcast, or I'll answer it somewhere on my column at passionandsoul.com.
You can find me all kinds of places on the web.
If you type in Lee Harrington or PassionAndSoul as one word, on fetlife.com, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, DeviantArt, all those kinds of places.
And thank you, fellow adventurers of sexuality and spirit, for joining me.
This has been Erotic Awakening with Lee Harrington.
And until next time, stay cool, have fun, be authentically you, and don't do anything that you are not called profoundly and deeply to do.
Have a fantastic journey.
December 10, Circles of Kink: In this episode of Erotic Awakening, Lee Harrington interviews Lady Pandion, Scott (Silent1), Doug (yojimbo), Preston and Becky, after the 6 of them were part of the Sacred Kink intensive “Circles of Kink” in Ft. Myers, Florida. The conversation dances from event debriefing to personal exploration, fiber magic to intention building, community to connection, costumes and candles, and so much more. Join this herd of seekers and kinksters, shamans and healers, switches and witches as they dive into their hearts and share them with you.
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