We gather together on Easter Sunday and rather than reciting liturgy from an oppressive power structure that desires to keep us small and separate from ourselves, we will bring forth words that honor our own truth, rooted in our embodied experience.

In this practice, we heal a piece of our religious trauma by writing and sharing erotic poetry.

If that feels like a bold statement, take a moment to consider:

How much power is in the word; in giving voice to your truth and your experience?

What could happen when you take the time to write from your experience, your bones, your dreams?

What is possible if you take those words and weave them into prayers, benedictions, and poems?

And then, what if you felt brave enough, or safe enough, to share your words with a small group of others and hear them say, “And also with you”, “Me too”, “So mote it be.”?

This workshop is for those of us who were told we were sinful, or abominations, for being queer, questioning, sexual. For those of us who knew there was more to our humanity than the narrow possibilities the church offered. For those of us who want to reconcile our sexual expression with our past or present faith tradition.

In this space, all of you is welcome.

Your playful, scared, sexy, angry, anxious parts. Your grieving parts, your powerful parts. The parts of you that are skeptical and sad. The kinky, joyful, fluid parts. The dysphoric parts. The hurt parts. The resilient parts.

ALL of you is welcome.

If you feel confident writing or you have never written a poem, you are welcome here. Your words, your voice, matter.

There is no wrong way to write a poem.

This workshop is for you if you:

1. Have complicated feelings about church and bodies and sex.
2. Want to feel less alone in those feelings.
3. Still sometimes sing hymns, even though you haven’t been to church in years.
4. Want to stop feeling bad for being sexual.
5. Want to be more connected to your body.
6. Have done some work around your religious trauma.
7. Feel curious and maybe even a little nervous about attending.

Important Details:

This 2 hour virtual workshop will include embodiment exercises, an erotic meditation, two periods of writing and invitations to share our writing in a small group setting.

Examples of poetic and liturgical structures will be available: The Lord’s Prayer, Benedictions, Call and Response Litanies, etc. for you to use as a framework. If there is a part of liturgy that is significant to you that you would like to work with, please bring it with you. You are also more than welcome to make up your own poems, prayers and offertories to your erotic body.

The space I hold is gentle with a lot of permission. You can be on or off camera. Share or not share. Stim, fidget, snack. Part of unlearning harmful church doctrine is to slowly build more trust with our bodies… and that starts with seeing if we can allow ourselves to make choices about what we need to be in shared space together.

Who: Open to adults of all genders, orientations, and relationship configurations who have the experience of church doctrine negatively affecting their body image, sexuality, and/or gender expression

Location: Zoom Room with Captions

Date: Sunday, April 20th

Time: 1:00pm - 3:00pm PST

Price: Sliding Scale $20 - $45

Group is limited to 12 participants.