(Soma)tic MANIFESTO

Every single human being is creative.
If our creativity is an organ we need to start thinking of it as a vital one.
When we commit ourselves to nurturing our artistic capacities we improve our ability to more deeply discern the world around us and make the constructive decisions needed in order to thrive in this world.
When I conduct (Soma)tic workshops, especially in the university setting, there is often at least one student who admits to feeling like they are wasting their time learning poetry or art while the world falls apart.
One of my most important goals is to address this whenever it comes up.
I start by agreeing that our ecosystems are failing under our human comforts and excessive lust for power and money for Things, lots of Things.
Then I make clear just how impactful being creative can be for the future health and happiness of our species and other animals, birds, insects and plants.
When Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” he was asking us to understand how bringing new ideas we create for the world is always more important than stagnating under templates of previous paradigms.
What I have also discovered while teaching (Soma)tic rituals for over a decade is that when people find themselves stuck, no longer able to write, paint, dance, these rituals build a bridge back to that essential, more daring and innovative part of themselves.
It is absolutely necessary, right now, at this very moment, to embrace our creativity.
No matter who you are, having a daily creative practice can expand your ability to better form the important questions we need to be asking ourselves about how to best change the destructive direction we are all headed.
If you used to paint, paint again.
If you used to write poems, start writing again.
The potential magic of this world requires our participation.
I’m not a motivational speaker; I’m a poet. I’m not an optimist; I simply believe in the possibilities of our collective genius.

(This manifesto was printed as a poster for my July, 2017 residency for Poets House in Madison Square Park!! MANY THANKS to Stephen Motika and everyone at Poets House and everyone at the park!! It's an incredible week!!)

TV BIRTH PORTAL: Bewitched (Soma)tic Poetry Ritual

For this ritual I looked for a television show that was on the air before and after I was born. The one I chose was Bewitched. The short description for the show is, “A witch (Samantha Stevens) married to an ordinary man (Darrin Stevens) cannot resist using her magic powers to solve the problems her family faces.” I climbed naked into a large plastic bag filled with salt water to watch the episodes prior to my birth on January 1st, 1966.

Ironically the episode that aired immediately after my birth on January 6th, 1966 finds Samantha pregnant. Her annoying husband Darrin does not want her using her magic powers to clean the house and he doesn’t want her lifting heavy objects until the baby is born so he hires a maid. This is the first episode I get to watch outside the plastic bag of warm salted water, REBORN in Bewitched! I hate this television show, although to be fair I hate most of them.

The ONLY character in Bewitched I like is Endora, Samantha’s mother. Endora has NO INTEREST in being told BY ANY MAN that she should give up her magic powers! She is THE ONLY character worth their salt in this tedious, badly written show! I agree with everything she says. After all, if Darrin had the magic powers instead of Samantha do you think he would choose to not use them? Darrin is nothing more than an insecure man who feels emasculated by Samantha’s powers! FUCK DARRIN, he’s a jerk who doesn’t DESERVE Samantha or her divine abilities. Endora should be a role model for us all to NEVER GIVE UP OUR POWER! Power Keepers!

vegan pesto sex (Soma)tic

this poetry ritual involves me growing the basil myself which is now underway and I'm very happy about it LOVING these plants LOVING them in sunlight TAKING THEM with me to the grocery store and having my potted basil sit in the kid's seat of the shopping cart AND I'm happy to be LIVING with this basil for a couple of weeks and THEN when there are enough leaves I'm going to harvest some of them to make pesto I will eat off my boyfriend for 9 nights 9 different landscapes of his beautiful FLESH for 9 poems POETRY CAN BE WHATEVER WE WANT IT TO BE so don't take any shit when they tell you your poems are wrong MY VENGEANCE IS LOVE