Your Erotic in Uncertain Times

A Collaboration

Times are uncertain.

This morning Eula asked me about the latest world news (it’s never the first thing I do in the morning so her question might have surfaced from her intuition and empathic antennae). I asked why she so desperately needed to know right now.

“Because I’m scared,” she said, stomping away.

On the way to school, I confirmed for her that these are disturbing times, that the adults around her feel unsettled, that she’s tracking correctly—and then I proceeded to give examples of all of the stunning collaborative global work that is happening, the coming together, the supportive circling around those most targeted. I repeated that the adults are responsible and she is not and we’ve got her and others and also, sweets, do you see the snow on the mountains with green spring grass?

All of these realities are true.

So, how could any of us consider our own erotic during this tempestuous time?

The better question: How could we not?

Many moons ago, when I received Catherine Simone Gray’s email asking whether I would read and blurb her book “Proud Flesh,” I paused because it’s an effort to do so and many requests come my way. However, the way she asked struck a chord in me; I knew from her words that the language in her book would be edible. Not saccharine. Not overly saturated. But melt in your mouth.

I snatched pockets of time to read.

In my car. Late at night by flashlight. I couldn’t stop. Here was a woman writing about pain with the voice of pleasure. Different storyline than mine, different flavor, but an orientation I recognized as my own. All body. All sensory. I was receiving as I read: “Whoa, I wouldn’t have put that words with that one, incredible.” It was the kind of artist’s delight when you encounter art from another. Yes, yes, yes.

Her book is now out in the world!

Her local bookstore in Mississippi is offering a sweet deal if you order her book in May.

Catherine Simone Gray and her book

Now we are collaborating. On the erotic. The importance of the erotic. Especially in these times. Especially as mammals. Not an isolated erotic. Not an ostrich-head-in-sand erotic. An erotic that can hold multiple realities.

Your Erotic in Uncertain Times

A Sensory Writing Workshop with Molly Caro May and Catherine Simone Gray

May 28th at 9am MT

$35

(10% of the proceeds go to Invisible Histories, advancing LGBTQ US Southern history)

*It’s a 90-minute workshop and is part of my new FEEL YOUR BEAT series.

As always, consider bringing a friend. You’ve heard me say it before: you can experience longterm unfolding and integration by doing this work/play/exploration alongside others you “do life with.”

Guarantees—

The workshop will be sensory and rich. We have a crush on each other’s writing. Mammals of metaphor we are! Catherine told me that Body Full of Stars gave her permission. So many books (thank you Terry Tempest Williams and Isabelle Allende and Brian Doyle) gave me permission. Then Catherine’s book did the same for me. Full circle. Maybe permission isn’t the word. Maybe it’s more like a head nod, a yes. That is the grace of art. Art begets art. No first, no last.

The times are always uncertain.

They feel especially so right now.

How do we tend to our erotic, to this life force, to the role of pleasure? How do we call it up in times of transition? What is your particular version of erotic? The way through hard times is with one foot in pleasure. Not bypassing, but resourcing in order to be with the hard. Expansion. Contraction. + Pockets of pleasure.

This workshop is for you if:

You are at a threshold or in a transition.

You feel uncertain and unsettled and want to hold on to your mammal self still.

You are curious about your erotic.

You feel tension between pleasure and hardship.

You feel like giving yourself to the erotic is a bad or wrong move in these times.

You are comfortable with pleasure but you want some new angles and insight.

You love to write; or you don’t write at all.

See you then,