Don’t Move in Silence, Move in Power
On the Eroticism of our Audacious Desire
“The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire. For having experienced the fullness of this depth of feeling and recognizing its power, in honor and self-respect we can require no less of ourselves.”
— Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power (1978)
But and or Audre, what about the childhood trauma where desire was met with punishment? No, no, no I have another one, what about the academic trauma that successfully alienated me from the erotic as a site of knowledge and embodied wisdom? Audre looks at me with a warm smile, you know, the one black women give you because you have so much to learn and they’re not the least bit frustrated by it, in fact they find it kind of sweet. I offer one final story, this time more recent. Okay, okay, okay what about the workplace trauma? Right? You know the kind…the trauma of contorting my body into the relentlessness of 10 hour work days, complete suppression of my grief and the thousands of microaggressions that left little slits on the skin becoming gills for breathing whenever opening my mouth felt impossible. Audre, I know you know what you’re asking of me, of us. She repeats herself with the patience of water shaping stone, “in honor and self-respect we can require no less of ourselves”. I drop my armor, the weapons formed against me, and the weapons I’ve formed against myself.
I am writing to you from the otherside of being at war with my desire. Or at least, every week, I am trying to. Most of my 20’s were marked with long periods of depression, sustained by the internal tension of refusing to honor my deep desire. Childhood trauma, academic trauma, workplace trauma, and the trauma induced by capitalism that attempts to sever us from our body and intergenerational connections in life and death, were landmines I didn’t plant, but walked around instead of defusing. Avoiding these wounds in the soil often made the journey longer and more painful than it needed to be. I used to duel with myself, questioning every whisper not rooted in the certainty of colonial order. Suppressing my cravings for longings too wild for language. You don’t need that, what would they think? Don’t take that journey, you might leave them. Don’t seize that opportunity, they might leave you. At some point in the battle I had to acknowledge the ways I was allowing my trauma to serve as “protective” armor “shielding” me from the vulnerability and interdependence my desire would require. Instead of spending my energy strategizing and experimenting with ways to actualize my creative desires in the material realm, I would spend that sacred energy devising stories convincing myself to want less.
Convincing myself I didn’t want the large loft with a sanctuary for a bathroom, multiple rooms for sleeping, studying, making and a large living room for dinner-dance parties with loved ones.
Convincing myself I didn’t want a lair fit for a poet with as many textures as there are moods.
Convincing myself I didn’t want the seasonal writing retreats and long creative sabbaticals in the forest and next to bodies of water.
Convincing myself I didn’t want to invest in custom meal plans, somatic therapy, massages, personal training, coaching, the art and offers of friends and other healing modalities and opportunities for nourishment.
Convincing myself I didn’t want a seasonal photoshoot to artfully and romantically archive the journey inside this physical vessel, this body, this home, carrying me across the landscape of my sacred life.
Convincing myself I didn’t want to publicly incubate a book called the Worldbuilder’s Way. Convincing myself I didn’t want the book to become a New York Times bestseller. Convincing myself I didn’t want the Worldbuilder’s Way to manifest into journals, card decks, workbooks, audiobooks and more.
Convincing myself I didn’t want to launch a black feminist breathwork app called Daily Seed with a team of abolitionist healers, anti-capitalist investors and millions of practitioners. Convincing myself I didn’t want the Daily Seed business and Worldbuilder’s Way franchise to fund Seeda Studio, a cooperatively owned production platform that publishes the Cykofa Trilogy then turns the Cykofa Universe into films, shows and artifacts.
Convincing myself I didn't want Seeda Studio to be a sanctuary located on 40+ acres of forest garden stewarded alongside indigenous and black feminist worldbuilders imagining and actualizing new worlds both on screen and away from keyboard at the scale of cinema, code and community.
Convincing myself I didn’t want the make up, full set of nails, lashes and custom lace front units named after all my Gemini twins.
Convincing myself I didn’t want to be swaddled by friends and community animated by secure attachments that honor generative conflict, the vulnerability it requires, and the opportunity to practice the god that is love1 inside the god that is every day2.
Convincing myself I didn’t want to close all prisons on earth with the irresistible, abolitionist plot of a new story animating our imaginations across multiple languages and time zones.
Convincing myself I didn’t want a loving life partner to share all the above with.
“When we live outside ourselves, and by that I mean on external directives only rather than from our internal knowledge and needs, when we live away from those erotic guides from within ourselves, then our lives are limited by external and alien forms, and we conform to the needs of a structure that is not based on human need, let alone an individual’s. But when we begin to live from within outward, in touch with the power of the erotic within ourselves, and allowing that power to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us, then we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense. For as we begin to recognize our deepest feelings, we begin to give up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alternative in our society. Our acts against oppression become integral with self, motivated and empowered from within.”
— Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power (1978)
I realize what I want may change tomorrow but I give myself permission to practice inside my desires today. I grieve the long periods of depression and self-isolation, fueled by the internal tension of refusing to honor my deep desire and fear of the vulnerability interdependence demands. Now I refuse to move in silence, because publicly moving in power feels better. Now I dream of people riffing on my ideas, please take them and let me join you. If our creative ideas make revolution irresistible3 perhaps we want them to be stolen? Now I know even if I wanted to do this alone, it would be impossible. Worldbuilding is not a solo act, by allowing ourselves to honor the expanse and spaciousness of our desire we can use that reclaimed energy to get to work and invite others to worldbuild alongside us. Now I dream of people telling me my desires are too hard, too big, too selfish, too delusional, too risky, too expensive, too demanding, too idealistic, too…too…too…, because it presents an opportunity to get them sticky with the honey of black femme audacity right alongside me. If I can be this irrational with a pen, imagine what you can do with what you have.
It is from here, standing in the sweet power of what we want that all erotic invitations are born. It is this invitation that has helped me stand in the power of a different type of refusal — one where I am refusing to be at war with myself and opting into a refusal rooted in collective liberation instead. What do I want today? I’m clear I don’t want a cop for president. I’m clear I don’t even want a dyke for president. I want us to fundamentally reimagine and practice how we gather, make decisions and share resources rooted in an ancient future. I want us to want more. I want us to drop the armor severing us from love, drop the weapons we form against ourselves and eachother, and surrender to the erotic militancy of our desire. I want you to remember moving in silence doesn’t serve us because it keeps us unaware of your needs and desires, robbing us of the opportunity to join you in dreaming more expansively. Every week, I want us to move in power because in honor and self-respect we can require no less of ourselves.
Audre smiles with the patience of water shaping stone and asks us once again, what do you want?
Invitation: Enrollment Inside the Treehouse is Open
I used to let the expanse of my desire intimidate me into paralyzing, sometimes depressive loops of inaction. Once the spiritual suppression became unbearable, I began to ask myself what could micro-worldbuilding look like? In 2022, on the other side of a pandemic lock down, a break up and quitting my job, while living in rural Virginia on savings, artists grants and a wifi hotspot, I began publishing Weekly Dispatches from the world of Cykofa. I started where I was, with what I had, and at the time all I had were words, clay and code. So I used it. I used it every week and the dispatches materialized into a school and the school is informing the books and the books will inform the abolitionist worlds that will be collectively built. What I now know is this sacred practice of faith-in-action, with/beyond/inside of chaos had to be for me before it could serve anyone else. In dropping the duel with myself, releasing the battle with my visions, and surrendering to the audacity of my desire I found a zone of belonging whose landscape knows no limits.
What do you have that you could use to micro-worldbuild with right now, where you are, week by week? Join us inside the Treehouse to find out, a monthly membership holding you accountable to weekly returns to your Zone of Desire through live workshops, open studios, guided meditations and black feminist worldbuilding tools. Enrollment closes next Monday, July 29th, 2024.
Want to Discover Your Weekly Dispatch and learn more before enrolling? Register for the last free Worldbuilding Workshop of the season happening this Thursday, July 25th at 12PM EST. Unclear on what you want? Register to receive the replay of the first workshop in the series where we located our Zone of Desire. If you already registered for the first workshop, you’ll automatically receive an invitation to the second!
In this next workshop we will discover the Weekly Dispatch that’s been embedded in your Zone of Desire all along, a landscape with no limits. I hope you’ll join us. The good news is this invitation to return to the erotic power of our desire is always open.
“You do not deserve love regardless of the suffering you have endured. You do not deserve love because somebody did you wrong. You do not deserve love just because you want it. You can only earn — by practice and careful contemplation — the right to express it and you have to learn how to accept it. Which is to say you have to earn God. You have to practice God. You have to think God — carefully. And if you are a good and diligent student you may secure the right to show love. Love is not a gift. It is a diploma. A diploma conferring certain privileges: the privilege of expressing love and the privilege of receiving it.” — Toni Morrison in Paradise (1997), “Divine”, pg. 141
“Experimental artists, unruly creative women and non-binary folks, especially when we are Black and/or queer, don’t necessarily live long, sustainable lives. Sometimes we don’t. Sometimes our don’t has to do with years of lacking access to healthcare. Sometimes our don’t has to do with the environmental racism of where we can afford to live. Sometimes our don’t is psychological. Sometimes our don’t is murder. This is the real reason why my name for God is “every day.” I’m grateful for each one you and I have.” — Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “The God of Every Day” published on December 22nd, 2021 by Topical Cream
“As a culture worker who belongs to an oppressed people my job is to make revolution irresistible.” ― Toni Cade Bambara, Conversations with Toni Cade Bambara