I’m the national coordinator for the Body Electric School‘s women and queer programs, and I’ve been working hard on their growth in the recent months. We’ve got some exciting programming in 2013, and I’m excited to invite you to another Celebrating the Body Erotic for women workshop in New York City May 17-19, 2013.
Here’s the Spring 2013 BE Newsletter that just went out:
It’s spring! Can you feel the growth buzzing in the air? My friend Kat told me once that she believes another way to say “god” is to say “the force that makes a seed grow,” and I think of that frequently when I see the new baby-green color popping open on the trees. Amazing, how nature grows and heals and sleeps and blooms again. Sometimes those buds that are just so tight and ready to pop make me feel like I am looking directly at creation itself.
2013 is bringing some new growth in the Body Electric women’s programs. We have new coordinators in Atlanta, Austin, Toronto, and Seattle, we have the fifth anniversary of the annual advanced Pulse retreat in July, and we have decided to make our workshops inclusive of all women.
This is our new blurb about gender:
This workshop is open to all women (be they born women or have come to know themselves as such later in their life) who are interested in exploring erotic energy in their own bodies, in supporting other women on that same exploration, and in doing so within the context of a community of women. By doing this work in community we break down isolation, dissipate shame, mirror for each other, and expand our self-definition of what it is to be a woman.
Thanks to Amy Butcher, the Bay Area coordinator, for the wordsmithing, and the faculty for pioneering new erotic energy territory and changing Body Electric’s gender essentialism.
There is a Celebrating the Body Erotic (CBE) workshop for women coming up May 17-19 in New York City. Perhaps you’ve done a CBE workshop before, but perhaps it is time to do it again. I find that I am so different every couple of years that I seek tapping into that inner wisdom of my body to tell me new things and remind me where I am now, and that a CBE is a wonderful tool to bring me back to myself.
CELEBRATING THE BODY EROTIC FOR WOMEN
Celebrating the Body Erotic for Women on the BE School’s site
CBE for Women on Facebook
May 17-19, New York City, with Lizz Randall
May 31 – June 1, Atlanta, GA with Alex Jade
In a safe, serious and playful space that respects boundaries, embrace pleasure and experience your body as powerful, expressive and sacred. The class expands awareness and sensation through a process of breath, movement and touch. Each woman’s choices and rhythms are honored and celebrated. This workshop is for women of all sexual orientations and ages who are ready to learn about their own power to illuminate and enjoy sexuality and sensuality within a community of women.
During the program of carefully designed embodiment practices women will:
- explore the innate wisdom of the body
- expand awareness, sensation and pleasure through conscious breath, movement, touch, and communication, where each woman’s choices and rhythms are honored
- learn how to more deeply tune in to your body, mind, heart and spirit: to receive more fully from yourself and others, and to give without losing yourself
- learn to give and receive full-body massage and to focus on the healing potential of sensual/spiritual energy
- learn from your own and others’ unfolding, and feel awed witnessing and supporting our uniqueness and commonalities
Celebrating the Body Erotic starts Friday evening 6:30-10 and runs all day Saturday and Sunday (9am-7pm) in a studio in Chelsea. The nearest subways are the 1 to 28th street, the N/R to 28th street.
PREREQUISITE: None
WORKSHOP FEE: $495
SPECIAL OFFERS:
• $50 off if PAID IN FULL 4 WEEKS prior, by April 19th.
• $50 off if REPEATING THE WORKSHOP within a year (use code REPEAT50)
• $100 off for the YOUTH PROGRAM for those under 30 (use code YOUTH100)
OFFERS CANNOT BE COMBINED
If you are in need of special assistance, please discuss your situation with the workshop coordinator. There are limited stipends available to offset the cost.
GENDER: CBE for Women is open to all women—trans, genderqueer, cis—who are interested in exploring erotic energy in their own bodies, in supporting other women on that same exploration, and in doing so within the context of a community of women.
ACCESS: The New York City space is located in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan, close to the subway and bus lines. The space is in an elevator building with no steps. The workshop can be adopted to your particular body needs, be that with chairs, pillows, or other accommodations.
I am in love with this work. Lately I’ve been describing it as “erotic energetic embodied experiential education,” and while that’s a mouthful, I think it’s also the most accurate description I have. I continue doing this work, seeking out attendance of these workshops and putting on these workshops not because it is a good job, but because I want to see this work continue. It’s so important to me that these opportunities are offered. I cannot express the profound healing I’ve experienced within these weekends, and I know it has the potential to offer healing and peace for others, too.
Happy spring, happy new growth, and happy brave baby-green to all of you.
Could I gently suggest an amendment to your blurb about gender? Whilst it’s super-positive that you’re taking steps to make women’s spaces open to trans women, I’m not totally comfortable with your wording. It reads to me as being well-intentioned, but still potentially unwelcoming to trans women. Although I am not a trans woman, I have seen the phrase “born women” used extensively to exclude trans women from women’s spaces, and because of this history, I’m not sure if it can be unproblematically used here. Many trans women ARE born women; some may, as you have said, “come to know themselves as such later in life”. This may be exactly what you meant to say in your blurb, but unfortunately I’m not sure it comes across as such. I’m not sure exactly how to re-word the blurb, but it might be worth thinking about.
Thanks Darcy, I’ll bring that to the School and see what we can do to update it. You’re right, I think. I too am uncomfortable with the “born women” language and I agree it’s been used to justify cis women exclusive spaces. I’ll see what I can do to change it.