- Blessed are those who are Fierce, Extra, and Slay, for Ye are Gods
Watch this video, it's the point of this entire blog:
Is this fierce betch being extra or divine? WHY NOT BOTH? I believe this is divine, and maybe it's time to *own* being extra. Because that word can be used to dismiss somebody, but being "extra" can also mean going above and beyond. When we're not doing that, when we're only doing what we’re supposed to be doing, often it's because we're not being vulnerable enough to take a risk to add our own unique spin, or to do what we really want.
Often this lack translates to "going through the motions," on "autopilot," or just "doing the bare minimum." When people do only what's expected that they're supposed to do, nothing changes, the element of surprise gets lost. If most of our activities our done like this, stagnation is what's left. But, in the words of Julia Barnes,
Or, in the words of Martha Graham,
Often this lack translates to "going through the motions," on "autopilot," or just "doing the bare minimum." When people do only what's expected that they're supposed to do, nothing changes, the element of surprise gets lost. If most of our activities our done like this, stagnation is what's left. But, in the words of Julia Barnes,
heaven is eager to learn how we will add to the growthof existence. To become divine, we have to be vulnerable and extra.
Or, in the words of Martha Graham,
There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium: and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.
She continues:
No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatsoever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
Audre Lorde talks about this channel for the creative life force we all have in "The Uses of the Erotic." But she would disagree about there being no satisfaction whatsoever. For her, it may or may not matter whether one is satisfied with the finished product, but at least the doing should involve some level of all-in-it pleasure. For her, the "erotic" is the joy infused in doing something for its own sake. It’s not a mere “means to an end.” Erotic leads to excellence because it involves going beyond what's simply required, and it innately involves joy. It may not look like joy to an outsider watching us while we're "in the zone," but I would argue that the absence of thoughts about the past or future while absorbed in the task is itself a form of joy.
Look at her (using "her" as a term of endearment) dancing in the Cha-Cha slide video. I see Jesus in this right here, giving us an erotic revelation to be excellent, to be extra. Because, like those who saw Jesus do his thing and still found a way to demonize him, you can try and dismiss her, but you only convict yourself in doing so.
This being is doing to the Cha Cha Slide what Jesus did to the Torah, remixing and reinterpreting something we already know (or *thought* we did), while setting the bar *high.* (“Be perfect, as God is perfect” Matthew 5:48). Be excellent. And whereas Jesus says in Matthew 5:17, “I have not come to abolish the Torah law, but to fulfill it,” this fierce betch said “Don’t think I’ve come to abolish the Cha Cha Slide. I have come to fulfill it.” This gives us permission to be extra in our own lives, to tap into the part of ourselves where our gifts are.
In John 10:34, essentially, the following story happens. When Jesus was being so audacious and extra as to call himself a god, some of the conservatives threw stones at him. He cocked his head over his shoulder and, quoting from their own Scriptures to defeat them, said “You better look up your own Law, does it not say ‘Ye are gods?’” Here Jesus was slaying the Hebrew Bible, quoting Psalm 82:6 in a remixed way. But in the eyes of the uninitiated, who repressed their own divine erotic power, this was blasphemy. He too, like this erotic Cha-Cha slide god, gives us permission to be extra in our own lives, to tap into the part of ourselves where our gifts are, so when we act out of a fully-resourced place, it comes across as MAGIC in the eyes of the uninitiated.
II. The Magician
watch until 3:20
source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVV3kBJvWDs
Not just "she who slayed the cha-cha slide" or "Jesus" - but *anyone* who gives us permission to be eroticly extra in our own lives, to tap into the part of ourselves where our gifts are, is like Jesus to us, awakening our inner god. When you act out of a fully-resourced place, it comes across as MAGIC in the eyes of the uninitiated.
When the opportunity to use your best talents arises, your performance will seem like magic to those around you. When you have a set of plans and enact them to perfection, quickly accomplishing your goal, people will be shocked. Your accomplishments will seem ordinary to you, as if they should have happened without question, but others will look at what you do like it is a new form of magic. All of these circumstances summon forth The Magician card from the Tarot deck. This is the card of making things happen, being in control, getting what you want because you understand how to earn it … and impressing everyone in the process of doing what comes natural to you.The Magician Tarot Card at Keen.com
But sometimes people, however complicated they are, are just bringing the light.
Notice how George, like the cha-cha slide slayer, starts out as a spectacle but eventually gets people cheering, but also like the c-c-slayer, he invites others to participate.
His audience begins mostly silent, likely due to his novel way of doing things. Then an audience member would shout something funny out to George, and George would then improvise a reaction on the spot, like you see in the video. This showed other people that his goal was engage the audience and make it participatory, not just to be a spectacle where people stare and gawk and feel awkward. There is always an audience member who needs to recognize that this is a divine moment- there always needs to be an apostle Peter to recognize Jesus as a divine figure ("People say I am all sorts of things. Who do you believe I am?" "The Messiah," replies Peter. "No one told you this, you just knew. That is why I am giving you the keys" Matthew 6:13-19).
Here is one more example of a magician harnessing their erotic power, also demonstrating what I'm now calling the Peter principle (and I'm never going to use that silly phrase again). It is someone dancing with every fiber of their being in a freaky way while at a concert. They are alone in being so bold. Their dance is initially is met with the silence of spectacle, but then ends up creating a giant craze of erotic life force, and it all unfolds before your very eyes:
III. The Bride Stripped Bare: Crucifying the Erotic
Jesus was told that he could not have authority to talk about God because he did not learn formally in school. "Who are you trying to be?"
Hearing "Who are you trying to be" often means that you're being vulnerable enough to try something new in a way that scares others who don't give themselves permission to experiment. Experimenting is going outside of control. It scares people and turns them into police officers, enforcers of the so-called "rules" we inherit on how we need to act/perform our sexuality and our spirituality, the two most sacred parts of us.
It's why magicians and mystics were hunted down at one point- they were just trying to bring the light, to increase our imagination, but they were misunderstood, feared, and the haters projected their own issues onto them. LGBT people, flamboyant people, sex-positive people (notice I'm distinguishing between these groups because one does not insinuate the other), magicians and witches (healers and medicine people) are often hunted down, a lot of times for the same reasons. That's why I believe, along with many others and for similar reasons, the X-Men superheroes are queer, and the mutants can represent LGBT people: they are feared and misunderstood. They could represent any community marginalized for being different than the dominant culture, yet lives into their magic. If we live in to our uniqueness, *we each have superpowers* when we empower ourselves to keep our channel to the erotic divine open. To be magic, to be divine, to be in god-mode. As Jesus had said, "Ye are gods."
George is a real life X-Man repressed by the dominant culture for his superpowers. He was once tapped on the shoulder at a school dance, just when he was really getting into it. George turned and looked back; the person who tapped him told to cut it out. George wasn't doing the boring, mundane "leaning and rocking" the rest of the guys felt they only felt they had permission to do. There was a sacred magic in his moves that expressed something unique about him, and it triggered his puberty-hitting peers who were busy trying to conform to what it meant to "be cool." They were afraid to express themselves so freely.
George was a magician, he was Jesus to them, and he could grant permission for others willing to touch the hem of his garment, to become electric too, but people were too afraid to join him. They were envious and gave him a cross to bear. They turned potential salvation into a stumbling block, because they were too immature to deal with their own issues. It was too alien to them to learn how to come to terms with their fears and desires. They stand in stark contrast to the first person who is brave enough to step out onto the dance floor and freak out.
George was a magician, he was Jesus to them, and he could grant permission for others willing to touch the hem of his garment, to become electric too, but people were too afraid to join him. They were envious and gave him a cross to bear. They turned potential salvation into a stumbling block, because they were too immature to deal with their own issues. It was too alien to them to learn how to come to terms with their fears and desires. They stand in stark contrast to the first person who is brave enough to step out onto the dance floor and freak out.
The image beginning this section includes two drawings - one of a woman being stripped bare and beaten, the other of Jesus in her place. There is a very erotic book in the Bible called Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon). In it, a woman sees an-Other who awakens her to see the world and behave in it in a new way. In Song of Songs 5:2-5, our narrator is restless in bed, trying to sleep, when her lover comes by, presumably for a tryst. She goes to open the door-latch, she is perfumed as she does so. However, the climax comes in 5:6 when she finally opens the door and he is gone. She, our narrator, then has the erotic audacity to go out into the city streets searching for he who was seemingly just there. Our narrator is found, and beaten up by, the city guards, and stripped bare: “they took away my cloak!” (5:7).
This follows a common theme of young people in Ancient Near East poems willing to risk danger for love’s sake, but this artwork shows that Christian interpreters sometimes saw the woman in Song of Songs as prefiguring Christ's suffering at the hands of the authorities. I like that interpretation, because it makes Jesus heir to erotic women who had audacity in their bones. She was doing what we all must do - seek the face of the Other, who can remind us how to integrate, who gives us permission to be our own unique selves regardless of the social norms. As with the boys tapping on George’s shoulder at the dance, and Jesus being brought low by the authorities, these are three examples of what happens to us when we give ourselves permission to follow our hearts: people mock or attack us, or both. And we unfortunately learn to internalize these authorities/police and begin to censor ourselves. Our outer cross to bear has an inner corollary. We police ourselves, on the lookout to squelch the erotic.
This follows a common theme of young people in Ancient Near East poems willing to risk danger for love’s sake, but this artwork shows that Christian interpreters sometimes saw the woman in Song of Songs as prefiguring Christ's suffering at the hands of the authorities. I like that interpretation, because it makes Jesus heir to erotic women who had audacity in their bones. She was doing what we all must do - seek the face of the Other, who can remind us how to integrate, who gives us permission to be our own unique selves regardless of the social norms. As with the boys tapping on George’s shoulder at the dance, and Jesus being brought low by the authorities, these are three examples of what happens to us when we give ourselves permission to follow our hearts: people mock or attack us, or both. And we unfortunately learn to internalize these authorities/police and begin to censor ourselves. Our outer cross to bear has an inner corollary. We police ourselves, on the lookout to squelch the erotic.
In his book The Erotic Word, David Carr looks at ayncient Near Eastern love poetry to show that feminine poetry was often subversive to the patriarchy. The men’s descriptions of sex was usually “graphic,” “perfunctory” (focused on getting the job done, not caring if it was well done, the opposite of Lorde's "erotic"), and often, violent. The female poets, on the other hand, often situated sex within an emotional context, and lingered around the sensual experience. In Song of Songs, our narrator centers the foreplay of tender touch and kisses, on the charming with feagrant smells, and honoring consent and nurturing instead of force (the refrain of the poem is “Do not awaken love until it is ready”). She is occupied with being really extra with her descriptions of her beloved; and she's being extra for a reason. Commentators say that her choice of imagery- apricots and wine- stand in intentional contrast to bread and water. These are needed for basic human survival, but recall, women's poetry would go above and beyond what is required. The divine is in doing what needs to be done and being excellent, in being erotic in Lorde's sense.
Our narrator in Song of Songs the agency to pursue her heart’s desires, even when the repercussions seem to inevitably involve some confusion and repression. And that makes her a god. She herself becomes an Other, a model for the women of Jerusalem to emulate and the men of Jerusalem to accept, if they could only lean into their vulnerability and act on their erotic power, regardless of their fear.
Our narrator in Song of Songs the agency to pursue her heart’s desires, even when the repercussions seem to inevitably involve some confusion and repression. And that makes her a god. She herself becomes an Other, a model for the women of Jerusalem to emulate and the men of Jerusalem to accept, if they could only lean into their vulnerability and act on their erotic power, regardless of their fear.
My seminary classmate and friend Shakira Henderson writes “The imagery of the guards stripping the young woman bare and her willingness to face a dangerous situation for her love, speaks to the power of vulnerability. For the young woman and for Jesus, the subversive power of the erotic lies in their willingness to take the pain which is almost guaranteed and transmute it. Whereas the 'perfunctory agenda of the society' is to fear that bareness, those who embrace the vulnerability are able to experience the heights of connection that eroticism can give us."
IV. You Don’t Want to Pick From My Appletree
“They play it safe, are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. … They feel most comfortable in groups, less guilt to swallow. They are us. This is what we have become. Afraid to respect the individual. A single person within a circumstance can move one to change. To love herself. To evolve.”
Erykah Badu, “Window Seat”
“I don’t walk around trying to be what I’m not,
I don’t waste my time trying to get what you got
…
And if you don’t want to be down with me
You don’t wanna pick from my appletree”
Erykah Badu, “Apple Tree”
I don't know who you are, you fierce betch, but you slaying the Cha-Cha Slide like this makes me want to touch the hem of your garment-
that is- as my pastor Kevin E. Taylor says,
to walk in my joy
and my authority.
and my authority.
Which means being audacious enough to do something that scares me.
Something new, as Pastor Taylor says, something not "on my resume"
Being authentic is scary because of vulnerability, vulnerability because of fear of shame.
And so I post a video of me dancing, having fun in the doing
Being authentic is scary because of vulnerability, vulnerability because of fear of shame.
And so I post a video of me dancing, having fun in the doing
When I go out on the dance floor at a club, I've had people come up to me just to learn my moves. Yet if I try dancing in certain spaces, people misunderstand and some even hate. They don't give *themselves* the permission to let go so I become a painful reminder of this fact. They'd rather attack the reminder (me) than deal with their own issues.
I don’t waste my time trying to get what they got because they don’t have anything for me.
Sometimes they might think I'm "trying" to do or be someone I'm not, because they're afraid if *they* did what I do, they'd be afraid of people saying that about them. (But reconnecting with estranged parts of yourself is only awkward at first). I struggle when I'm around these people with giving myself permission, however. I play small, and that is a cross society tries to force me to bear, and one which I have internalized as self-consciousness, as my inner guards who will beat me for being audacious, and steal my cloak to shame me.
We all have a similar cross to bear, or multiple ones.
I have to go back to the well of my inner god, I have to conjure the image within me of the Other who once awakened me so long ago.
We all have a similar Other or Others who can remind us to awaken.
Who are yours? What are your crosses? What is it that you love to do but struggle with permission for? What is the cost of holding back, the cost of believing those who crucify you?
What does self-permission look like for you, what does it sound like, feel like, taste like?
What does self-permission look like for you, what does it sound like, feel like, taste like?
