New Chapter - Less Travel Soon
A few years ago I was talking to Nina Hartley about a book idea that involved traveling and writing about sexuality communities as we went. She shared the specific vision, and I picked up on it as the conversation progressed. It sounded like a blast, and I said that it would rock to do it in a few years.It’s a few years later, and life is changing. I’ve come to realize that no, really, I can’t do my current travel schedule. There is a different between maximum capacity and sustainable capacity. Between living in Oregon and Maryland I spent two years on the road, exploring the world, until my body and being shut down. Medical complications, reality complications, Del and Ninja offering up their shared home after Wintersong had saved my ass and Jim had so kindly let his home base stretch on longer than planned. Maryland became Arizona became New York became the directions I head next. And in New York I said no, really, I can’t do this much travel.I am finally listening to myself. After my current work commitments between here and November, I am cutting down to a travel gig or so every 2 months. It is time to focus on writing, on art, on building the next chapters of my life. The world ahead is the next right step. I am in my current right step. Right now. The next step. And the next.As Galeogirl said in the anthology Spirit of Desire, speaking of yoga as a sexual practice: And right now. And right now.So, what does this mean? It means you’ll be seeing me less at cons and events. Instead of 2 a month, I’ll be doing 6 over the course of the year. I will be offering private classes and intensives stateside when in those regions so that folks can still see me, as I historically tended to do mostly out of country. I’ll be recommending quality presenters whose work I have enjoyed as an attendee to events I can’t connect with in a given year. And sadly, it means less of getting to see friends randomly on the road.Who knows, a year or three from now, I may change my mind. But for right now, this is the next right step. I’m working on building a new nest, as I finish my move out of Brooklyn.Where will I be between here and the end of the year, as I finish up my 2013 commitments?* Dark Odyssey: Summer Camp - N. Maryland (September 11-16, 2013): Teaching Head/Hair Bondage and Sacred Kink, Leading the hike and rituals, and hosting a sex magic and sacred sex workers lunch* The Eulenspeigel Society (TES) - New York, NY (September 24, 2013): Moderating 3rd panel on Spirituality and BDSM* Triangle Munch Group - Raleigh, NC (October 4-6, 2013): Teaching Sir Yes Sir, Switching Strategies, Dark Roleplaying, and Speed Bondage* Purple Passion - New York, NY (October 10, 2013): Teaching Speed Bondage* Tickle Trunk - Edmonton, Alberta (October 17-18, 2013): Teaching (Re)Thinking Gender and Negotiation Skills* Ropegasm - Edmonton, Alberta (October 18-20, 2013): Teaching an Introduction to Shibari intensive* The Geeky Kink Event - Piscataway, NJ (November 1-3, 2013): Teaching Classes* Dark Odyssey: Surrender - San Francisco, CA (November 15-17, 2013): Teaching Classes and Leading RitualsThank you all for your love and support as I journey into this next right step. Thank you to my tribe and friends in New York for the time I have been invested there. I love you all, and hope to see you on our personal paths ahead.*** Here follows a longer segment from Galeogirl’s piece from Spirit of Desire:
My every sensual act now is born out of a place of love, happiness, and thoughtful attention. Delving deeper into my practice has brought me to a place of radical self-acceptance, freeing me from so many of the anxieties and stressors that used to prevent me from living in the moment, connecting wholly to my partners and my desires. Yoga has transformed me from the outside in, and I am no longer the woman I was when I first started this journey. I have a strong, pain-free body; a calm, quiet mind; a hotter, wetter, more intimate sex life; and fuller, richer emotional connections than I have ever experienced before. I have never been happier or more confident than I am right now. And right now. And right now.