Play/Life

Image: from my Moving Words: Embodying Text workshop

This weekend, I offered a workshop: Moving Words: Embodying Text, an audition pieces lab where a beautiful group of humans gathered to investigate, play, sweat, fret, and move into expansive practices.

The whole weekend ended up nurturing my soul. Just so buzzy and inspiring! Such talented and curious heartbeats! What a privilege sharing space and offering uplift to their yumminess.

Just really wanted to jump on to share this moment: We began the whole weekend by asking two seemingly simple questions.

We asked the question:

What do we love?

And then

What part of ME do I want to share in an audition room?

And then

We realized

All of it belonged everywhere we went

Carrying our love, our people, our ancestors, our passion and connection

with us

everywhere we go

That’s when the work feels whole

Purposeful

Necessary

When we can step out of our silos and recognize that we bring whole communities with us as we engage in our storytelling. The hearts of our ancestors whisper from within us. We are not alone in our change-making.

Delicious life-art practices

A holding of the fearful. And a caring of collapse. And a showing, revealing, offering … that process is part of the deal. And so is hope. And so is your commitment to whisper your bountiful heart open. And that perseverance requires community. And when we keep what we love nearby, we are able to enter any space with the bravery required to leap into its own Life workshop, learning how to make this world a safer, kinder, braver, more expansive place to live in.

#MovingWords

indeed.

Just wanted to share this

Intimacy Directors/Coordinators vs Intimacy Coaches

Intimacy Directors/Coordinators vs Intimacy Coaches

Just some helpful info: When to use What term:

Intimacy Coach (NOT an Intimacy Director/Coordinator):

Is a trained individual who guides individuals and couples in real life therapy sessions into deeper and more satisfying connection, sex, and sustained relationships. They help transform intimacy challenges and support clients in mindful dating, break-up processes, grieving, trauma, relationship skills (strategies and tools), resolving sexual concerns, and facilitating embodied awareness and better sex.

An Intimacy Director/Coordinator/Choreographer (NOT a coach):

Is a trained individual who specializes in scenes involving nudity, simulated sex, and intimacy in theatre, film, and television. They aim to create a respectful and confident space for performers while supporting the creative vision of the director.

They are movement coaches for scenes of simulated intercourse or other areas of physical intimacy.

They support actor's impulses and creativity while maintaining consent-based practices

They collaborate with the production team in creating unique and exciting images of intimacy.

They facilitate conversations of sensitive nature (consent, boundaries, vascular reactions of the body, menstrual cycles, biomechanics of sex acts, mental health support, etc.)

They assist in creating Riders for performers in layperson’s terms

They are conduits and mediators between the actors and production

Hope this helps. I know there are a lot of folks who mistakenly call us Intimacy Coaches but that's a whole other remarkable vocation that has less to do with art on stages and sets and more to do with the art of real-life living and relationships. Supes valuable just not what ID/ICs do. Coaches work with your boundaries, we work around them.

That's it. Class dismissed

xx

in-love

remembering

Re-membering

when i remember my wholeness

love is not something i search for

or need proof of

i recognize my birthright

my (w)holiness

and so

right now

... breath ...

i feel it

i feel it in the room i'm in

i feel it for the people i'm with

this being "in" love

i find in a moment as i sit in the fullness of silence

i recognize it deep inside of me

my beautiful friends, my remarkable partner, my inspiring work

i absolve you from defining Love within myself

i am Light

i acknowledge it, i cultivate it

from deep within my be'ing

the only thing about being "in" love is be'ing inside of it, a part of it, an expression of it

like the wave, i come home to the ocean

i am whole

i am all my parts

i am love

i am in love

Autumnal Equinox Blessings

Sending you all love and kindness. May our colourful, shifting landscape grace you with the wisdom of knowing what no longer serves you. May you find peace in the crisp gentle breeze and may you find clarity around what grounds and expands you. May you find balance in your desires and needs, in light and dark, spirit and body, mind and soul! 

You are stardust, babies. You are golden.

Sideris

Someone just told me my last name means star in latin. Makes me smile. I've always connected it to the greek meaning of the word sidero (iron) ... an omen name: 'may the child grow up to be as strong as iron'.

I love the idea of weaving both etymologies in celebration of my ancestral lineage ... strength and cosmic light.

I am stardust, baby. I am golden resilience.

on unclogging

Painting by Alex Grey

I must remember.

Especially when I am feeling energetically clogged up.

To simply sit in silence. And just be.

Every time I manage moments of absolute surrender and openness, I am bathed in Grace. It feels so very much like home. Like I am swimming in God.

I recognize there is a dance going on within me ... my histories are asking to be freed. And there has been a revealing of old language, an offer for its release ... but the dance steps have felt so very clumsy at times and at other times, it's seemed as if my dance teacher doesn't believe in me at all.

But then I remember the connection:

Sitting in stillness is letting love in, being the love that is, allowing for all love to expand and radiate. The more I am it, the less roadblocks there seem to be. I feel like I am learning a brand new, deeper language. I've always been a student of love. A being of love. A teacher of love. But it feels like a far more resonant vocabulary is asking to BECOME. And occasionally, I feel like I know nothing, have no vocabulary to allow it all, and a mini-shut down sometimes happens. I'm developing patience with it all. I suspect I'm simply adapting to the new me. My knowns are simply different now and I have to catch up to them.

Last week was very tough. It felt like one roadblock after another. This week, after taking the time to sit in silence and simply be, I feel like some paths have opened up again.

I most certainly am connecting the dots. When I am unplugged on my meditation chair, I am unplugged in my life experiences. And I also realize that, sometimes, I may find myself in certain situations to help facilitate the unclogging of someone else. Sometimes. it's not me clogging up but me bumping into some folks who are. That within an intimate conversation or a heart-based whistle blow, I can help kindness and compassion into other people's energy fields. Heart-centred healing.

Discoveries.

New and interesting and wonderful and challenging and all things alive and love.

on agency

This might be too much information but I’m too happy to care. Also, I refuse to shy away from conversations that are about what women go through on a regular basis. Get to know us folks, is what I say.

Anyway, I just came back from a trans-vaginal ultrasound. I have a cyst in my left ovary and we just need to keep an eye on it from time to time. Usually, the exam is extremely uncomfortable. I have to undergo a regular external ultrasound first and that means drinking 4 glasses of water an hour before my appointment and then suffering through a heavy handed technician. For someone like me who navigates IBS, it’s an issue, I’ll just say that. And then, I get to experience the internal scope ... I usually get extremely inappropriate because I’m nervous about the intensity of the exam. Yes, I’m that patient who bombards the poor technician with terrible commentary that only someone like me can get away with ...

But today was different. Firstly, the technician had a lighter touch. Which made me think, why have others been so rough? But most striking was this technician’s offer that I insert the probe myself. Initially, I looked at her with incredible confusion. What ... what do you mean? Like, I ... I insert this medical equipment into me? Myself? A fear of ... will I know what to do? (Seriously, I had this thought, as ludicrous as it seems, especially if any of you have ever seen the inside of my bedside table drawer).

The most miraculous thing happened once I inserted this scope in me. I felt like I had agency over my body. That I decided to be in direct relationship with this medical procedure. I felt so blown away by this that the rest of the internal investigation (which the technician did) went incredibly smoothly. No tension, no discomfort. At all! At all at all at all. Folks, I once fainted from the discomfort. I have such gratitude for this moment.

I’ve had a lot of medical procedures done these past few years. But I have never felt more respected and honoured than I felt this afternoon.

And I just wanted to share that with you all.

Because anytime a woman feels that much more agency, anytime she is in direct relationship with anything that concerns her body, it should be celebrated and shouted from the rooftops. Prudes, be damned.

on looking up

sun peeking thru snow

On my walk yesterday, I heard an airplane fly by. When I looked up, I saw it was trailing along a massive banner ... “I love you, Marianne”.

This got me thinking.

Did Marianne see this?

How does someone work out the planning of such a romantic gesture?

Does someone leave it to chance that Marianne will look up when that plane flies by?

Does someone need to help Marianne look up?

Does someone need to say to Marianne, hey, listen, at 4pm, make sure to look up at the sky, k?

What if Marianne missed it?

What if she never looked up?

What if she was scrolling FB, got caught up in a conversation or had to go to the bathroom?

What if she saw it and didn’t put two and two together?

What if she’s far-sighted and didn’t have her glasses on at the time?

What if she was picking up a dime?

Then the darker thoughts:

What if Marianne’s lover is all pomp and no substance?

What if they are all splash and all jerk face?

What if the whole affair falls apart within the next few months?

But really I was feeling:

What if I were loved in such an epic way?

And now I ask:

What if I loved myself in such an epic way?

What if I ‘rented a plane’ and had it trail a banner that declared, “I Love You, Alix”? What if I got real bold and real cheeky with it? What epic gesture of self love could I possibly offer myself?

What if I had a solid pee then went for a walk in my hood?

What if I looked up the whole time?

What if I noticed the tree line and the clouds and got to witness

the flight patterns of birds

the details of my neighbours’ rooftops

the nests nestled in autumn branches

the smiling eyes of masked passers by

the beauty of power lines

the curtsy of streetlights

the epic kiss of the wind about my cheeks

the tenderness of breath

Life’s embrace

The gift of getting to live another day and to choose how I live it. To choose love and connection and compassion and kindness and social justice, to advocate for care, to help make this world a safer place for all of us to share. To be the earth’s lover.

To be yours.

I hope Marianne saw that sign. And that she and her lover are swept up in passion’s embrace.

And if that gesture was meant to serve as an embrace as the two of them distance themselves because of this pandemic, I hope it offers them both a heart’s balm.

Today, may I offer you all a massive banner flying from the plane of my heart: “I love you, beautiful humans. Very very much.”

sometimes we need the help of a cool monster branch-eating machine

Sitting outside on my balcony, meditating ... on letting go, on transmutation, and reimaginings, new beginnings, on not letting anything define me but that glorious space of allness inside of me.

Out of the blue, a somewhat deafening sound interrupts my space, asks me to open my eyes and witness ... some dudes cutting down some dead branches from a tree, old branches from the tree next door are being tossed into the back of this truck. I listen as each branch gets chewed up and turned into sawdust, maybe mulch for some garden someday. I stop and watch. And with each branch being guided toward the blades, I decide to ask my heart what it is desiring to release. And I imagine ... as the branches split and splinter ... transformation ... this gift of a symbol easing me into a sort of transmogrification -of past, of history, of imprint ... healthy mulch for my garden.

Stuff I was wanting to let go of today really needing the extra help of that branch-chewing monster of a truck.
Our pasts are our pasts and it is our willingness to witness, understand, and negotiate our healing that sets us free ... but sometimes the help of a cool monster branch-eating machine just offers that extra umph. Thanks!
I could have decided to just be pissed off at the rude interruption. Makes me realize I’m in a much better place than I had figured. Kinda cool that.

#grateful

Meditation: Integrity and Wholeness

Meditation Link