Ideas That Shaped My Thinking in 2022
From Audre Lorde to Sage Patanjali, I've had a lot to think about this year...
Another year has passed, and what a year it’s been.
I started 2022 as I start every year: celebrating my birthday surrounded by my closest friends and family, feeling absolutely smothered in love and full of gratitude for the amazing people in my life—one of the many reasons why I love having a January birthday. I was born on January 22nd, and so the number 22 has always been lucky for me. Sitting at the head of the dinner table, I couldn’t contain my tears as I stared out at all my best friends who had ventured into the mountains for a birthday weekend ski trip. “This year is going to be lucky,” I said, “I can just feel it.” And I was right.
The very next weekend, I took a bad fall while skiing with my brother in Park City, Utah. I will spare you all the traumatic details of the accident itself and get right to explaining why I felt so lucky this year—though if anyone ever wants to talk about near-death experiences, talking to God, spinal fusion surgery, or anything along those lines, hit me up :)
As other survivors of traumatic accidents will probably tell you—perhaps along with people who have experienced ego death on a psychedelic trip—recovering from a ski accident gave me the time and space to reflect on who I am and what I’m here to do. (As cheesy as it sounds, it’s true). And yes, writing this newsletter is part of that. So, after almost a year of recovery, I’m finally back to share some of what’s been on my mind this year. If any of these ideas resonate with you, and if you’re interested in talking more about them, I’m always here.
I hope you enjoy.
xx
Val
Ideas That Shaped My Thinking in 2022
In no particular order…
Seemingly separate and opposite concepts (i.e. pain & pleasure; life & death; ourselves & our shadows) are actually just parts of the same whole or “two sides of the same coin.”
We can (sometimes) control our exploration of the threshold between these various seemingly dichotomous but actually interrelated things using boundaries.
These ideas ideas actually appear a lot throughout my work. For example, the orgasm, or the height of pleasure during sex, is also known as the “petit mort” or the little death. BDSM is a practice of boundary setting that allows participants to explore the threshold of various polarities including those listed above (pleasure/pain, ourselves/shadows, and even life/death). Through my accident and recovery, these ideas became even more pertinent and true.
Our souls have lived before and will live on after our bodies.
Our souls travel through time forever along with the souls of our closest people (family, chosen family, partners, friends, and even pets). They are our spiritual kin who help us learn the life lessons we are here to learn.
*Beyond them, there might be a handful of other people who pop in and out of our lives for a short time but who have a profound, lasting impact on us.*
Though I can’t point to a single source for these ideas, I know they have come to me through literature mostly from Eastern spiritual lineages including yogic traditions, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Plato had a “Theory of Recollection” that all learning is really recollection, or remembering what one’s soul already knew from the eternal forms before birth. I also admit these beliefs are mostly just speculations that feel true to me based on my own intuition and insights from meditation, pranayama (breath work), and yoga. I’d love to hear from others who share these beliefs.
Time is not linear; everything happens at the same time. This means we are living our destiny (our future) right now.
Modern physics theorizes that time is a dimension attached to everything in space. It is everywhere, all at once. As things move, vibrate, and change, time allows that to happen. If space is a fish tank and we are the fish, time is the water that holds all.
What does this mean for us? Well, I don’t believe it means that everything is already planned out, so there’s no point in trying to change anything. It’s not “everything happens for a reason” therefore sit back and enjoy the ride. It’s not that we have no power but actually the exact opposite: we have ALL the power. And we have it all right now. Right now, in every moment, we are determining our destiny, our future.
My witchy friend, Rev Rucifer, used a pencil to demonstrate this concept to me in a way that has stuck. If you hold up a pencil and look at it sideways, you’ll see that that is how we experience time (as linear). But if you turn the pencil perpendicular to you so you only see one end, that is actually how time works. Thanks Rev for that powerful visualization <3
Yoga comes from the Sanskrit root “yuj” that means “union, to unite or to connect.” It is the union of your mind, body, and spirit. The mind heals like the body heals: with lots of rest, care, intentional re-engagement, and using the breath.
This summer, I completed my 200hr Ashtanga Yoga Teacher Training in Barcelona. It was through studies the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and practicing the 8 Limbs of Yoga where I learned these insights both in theory and practice.
Side note: I am now teaching Vinyasa yoga at AndYoga Studios in BedStuy, Brooklyn. If you live in the area, I’d love to see you on the mat<3
Spiritual power is closely linked with erotic power. As Audre Lorde articulates in the opening paragraph of her poem, “Uses of the Erotic as Power”,
THERE ARE MANY kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise. The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change. For women, this has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of power and information within our lives.
Integration is the practice of moving our thoughts into our bodies. Our bodies are programmed full of thoughts (both helpful and harmful). We can use somatic practices such as sex magic to intentionally re-program our bodies with thoughts that are helpful to our spiritual growth.
*Verbal affirmations will only get you so far. We need to integrate those affirmations by allowing our bodies to feel the emotions and sensations that arise from those messages, receive them without judgment, and eventually start to believe them. Believing them is what finally changes our self-limiting patterns and allows us to become our fullest expressions of self.*
This idea inspired the making of “Mindful Pleasure,” a film I made with my dear friend Inka Winter of ForPlay films. I hope women and other marginalized people watch this film and see how mindfulness can be used to unite the mind and body, invite in pleasure, and cultivate all kinds of real and dangerous (political) powers. It’s no wonder why our society is programmed to keep our erotic power out of our hands. They wouldn’t constrain this power so much if it wasn’t threatening to the social order—which is what makes the cultivation of erotic power also an act of political empowerment.
I’m also currently reading The Caliban and the Witch (2004) by Silvia Federici which tells the history of the development of capitalism through the lens of the women’s body. She argues that women’s bodies were made into machines of reproduction and cheap labor supporting capitalism and the new economic order. The notorious Witch Hunt was one of the instruments of capitalism as the ruling elites used violence to take away women’s rights to control their own bodies. They sought to persecute women who could hinder the spread of the new values and roles women were meant to fulfill: those of a perfect wife and mother.
Building individual power helps build collective power. Collective power is necessary to make real change.
If there are changes we want to see in the world, we need to work together to achieve them (duh). We need to build strong coalitions, collectives, organizations, and movements. But building inclusive, purpose-driven, and resilient organizations has never been easy. Today, companies throw around the word “community” to describe what is really just a disjointed, loosely-defined base of customers. I’m sick of it. I rant about it a bit more here.
A real community can be extraordinarily powerful. So, what do we need to build one? Good governance. Not a centralized authority which hands down all procedures and practices from a top level but rather decentralized, self-governing organizations that reflect the values and goals of a diverse group of people. Some practices that support good governance include collective ownership and control, aligned goals/values/norms, fair decision-making procedures, proactive conflict resolution, and participatory meta-governance processes that help groups establish and evolve all of their practices. Many of these ideas have come from my work over the past few months with The Metagovernance Project. Of course, as well, my work with Lips. My last newsletter covered some of the governance practices that I believe can help realize feminist aims. Lots more on this to come.
It is important to me to work on and support organizations and businesses that align with my values.
*And do my best to “vote with my feet” or stop supporting organizations that do not align.*
I don’t feel like elaborating much on this one beyond saying that people think this is harder than it really is. You don’t have to be perfect with it—no one is. But I believe we can do a better job of holding power to account by redirecting our attention and our dollars towards projects that are trying to create the world we want to live in.
And that’s all I’ve got!
I hope you enjoyed perusing the ideas that have shaped my year.
I feel lucky for every single piece of writing, person, organization, and experience that brought me to these ideas. I feel lucky to be able to work on the various projects I’m working on and excited to keep developing these ideas in 2023.
Goodbye, 2022. Thank you for being one of my most formative and unforgettable years yet. I am closing out the year feeling more deeply connected with myself and the people I hold closest than ever before.
Thank you to everyone reading this, especially if you made it this far. Let me know if you liked this piece. Sending you lots of love and a Happy New Year.