boom

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” – Harry Truman

more erotic. it happens.

We have attempted to separate the spiritual and the erotic, thereby reducing the spiritual to a world of flattened affect, a world of the ascetic who aspires to feel nothing.  But nothing is farther from the truth.  For the ascetic position is one of the highest fear, the greatest immobility.  The severe abstinence of the ascetic becomes the ruling obsession.  And it is not one of self-discipline but of self-abnegation.  - Audre Lorde

november

horror.

The principal horror of any system which defines the good in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, or which defines human need to the exclusion of the psychic and emotional components of that need - the principal horror of such a system is that it robs our work of its erotic value, its erotic power, and life appeal and fulfillment.  Such a system reduces work to a travesty of necessities, a duty by which we earn bread or oblivion for ourselves and those we love.  But this is tantamount to blinding a painter and then telling her to improve her work, and to enjoy the act of painting.  It is not only next to impossible, it is also profoundly cruel.  - Audre Lorde

sexy...

She makes hungry where most she satisfies . . . - Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra

overdone. but still pretty good.

Not all who wander are lost. – Lord of the Rings

destiny

It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves, from our lives, from our work.  To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society is to encourage excellence.  But giving in to the fear of feeling and working to capacity is a luxury only the unintentional can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide their own destinies.  - Audre Lorde

rent party

"Activism is my rent for living on this planet."  Alice Walker

whoa

We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings.  But, once recognized, those which do not enhance our future lose their power and can be altered.  The fear of our desires keep them suspect and indiscriminately powerful, for to suppress any truth is to give it strength beyond endurance.  The fear that we cannot grow beyond whatever distortions we may find within ourselves keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, externally defined, and leads us to accept many facets of our oppression as women.  - Audre Lorde

this is all too familiar

love, life, growth

Sometimes the most valuable thing you can offer is not an answer but your presence, your being there to share the feeling of loneliness, your being there while someone goes on breathing in and out, whether it matters or not. -Sally Casper

audre lorde is my hero

Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives.  And this is a grave responsibility, projected from within each of us, not to settle for the convenient, the shoddy, the conventionally expected, nor the merely safe.  Audre Lorde

growing

Darkness was a presence.  I learned to see in it, I learned to see through it, and I learned to see the darkness of my own.  - Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

hells yeah

Patriarchy and capitalism are not autonomous, not even interconnected systems, but the same system.  

- Pat Armstrong and Hugh Armstrong

take the time

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 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  

summer

"I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see." -John Burroughs 

long since

As for myself, I am splintered by great waves.  I am colored glass from a church window long since shattered.  I find pieces of myself everywhere, and I cut myself handling them. 

- Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

electric alive powerful

Feminism is about change, about a redistribution of power.  It is about challenging the status quo.  It is call for the redefinition of the family, the mosque, the temple, the church, the synagogue, and of love.  Change is threatening to those of us who wield power and those who do not.  And because it is threatening, it is electric and alive and powerful and I want to touch it.  - Samantha Sacks

whoa

What I remember is love – all love – love of this dirt road, this sunrise, a day by the river, the stranger I met in a café. Myself, even, which is the hardest thing of all to love, because love and selfishness are not the same thing. It is easy to be selfish. It is hard to love who I am. No wonder I am surprised if you do.

- Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

the personal is political

Opposing cruelty should not be seen as a specifically liberal or conservative cause. -James Rachels