Power is an inside job
Less domination, more integration
How’s your heart?
I’ve been thinking a lot about dominance culture lately. Hard not to really, given *waves arms around* all this.
It’s front and centre in most of my sessions with clients. It’s front and centre in my own experience. How do we live in this rather than just surviving?
Working somatically, I witness the ways that our bodies have learned to survive in late-capitalist, colonial culture. A culture so steeped in domination - of body, of magic, of land - that you can trace the poison all that way down to the roots.
I witness the armouring of our hearts to protect from pain that also prevents us from feeling honest connection with the world. The anxious hypervigilence that keeps us aware of all the possible dangers, and also overwhelms us into frozen perfectionism. The dissociation that pulls us up and out of the present, forgetting that right here, in this body, right now is where we have agency to make choices.
The thing about living in the churning waters of dominance is that you lose touch with how power really works.
Power becomes a dirty word. An instant word association with violence, supremacy, and cruelty. And so it, understandably, gives us the ick.
But dominance isn’t power. Not real power at least. All you have to do is look at the hyper-performative posturings of Elon Musk or Trump to see that.
“I'M SO POWERFUL”, screams the weak man to whoever will listen.
Power is an inside job.
Power comes from integrity. As in, the integration of your parts into wholeness. Power isn’t standing over someone else and making them small, it’s knowing how to stand in yourself, centred.
Can you feel in your body how different that version of power is?
Can you feel how it allows for humanity and relationship with other beings? How it isn’t dependant on external circumstance? Can you feel that it’s a power rooted in deep aliveness rather than the death-cult of dominance culture?
I want that for us.
I want for all us weirdos and witches to feel our way into that kind of power. That’s where the good shit is. That’s where we can start to dismantle the protective structures we’ve had to build, and can return to living over surviving.
And to that end, I’m inviting you to Supple Fire - a workshop on power and integrity.
Next Wednesday, April 16th, at 7pm BST, with a recording uploaded the day after for anyone who can’t make it live.
It’s available for paid members of the Studio Dreamland Patreon, from Dreamer up. The tiers are sliding scale (£5-£30) so you can find where fits your financial situation right now.
I’m so excited about this workshop! I hope you’ll join me so that we can step into power and integrity together!
Wanna help me build Studio Dreamland?
As I’m building the foundations for a physical Studio Dreamland, I’m also starting to think about the next evolution of the online offering. Wondering what does this look like in the digital realm? And I realised — I need YOUR help!
Studio Dreamland is a radical wellbeing space for weirdos and witches:
Those of us whose needs have been marginalised by systems that were never built for us.
Those of us whose bodies and hearts refuse to fall in line with the death cult of dominance culture.
Those of us who want to create a better world, and know that our own lives and communities are the best place to start building.
If that’s you, I want to talk to you! To hear your thoughts, feelings and hot takes on what makes for an online space that you actually want to spend time in. What helps you feel welcomed, nourished, connected, and inspired, rather than it being just another Zoom call that you never make it to and feel slightly guilty about?
And because my favourite way to connect is one-to-one, I’ve opened up some space in my calendar for face to face (on Zoom) chats.
This is a reciprocal offering: I get to ask you about what you look for, prefer, and dream of in an online witchy wellbeing offering, and in exchange you get to ask me whatever the heck you want — we can do mini somatic sessions, practice some breathwork, you can pick my brain about whatever you like (in about 45 minutes).
Are you up for it? Again, there’s totally no cost to this, we’ll just hang out for a bit, chat, and you get to be part of the mythical origin story of Studio Dreamland.
Click below to schedule a chat! I can't wait to talk with you.
Snippets and bits:
Did I find myself glowing radiant with gratitude, tearing up as I stood in the notebooks section of WH Smith, all because of this songpoem? Yes.
My love, Joeli Caparco, has a limited run of amazing tarot reading zines up on her site right now. I was nosy and had a look at which cards emerged for each reading and - whew! - they are not messing around! So good.
I also have availability for a couple more one-to-one somatic guidance clients. It’s really useful work for folks who need a space to get into deeper their relationship with their body and connect with their magic. Sliding scale pricing. Head here, or drop me an email with questions. I’d love to chat about if this is a good fit.
This is Body Magic, a letter on embodiment, liberation, and magic.
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