From Depth Work to D*ck Jokes
This absurd post is foreplay for a serious, powerful and sacred practice. You’re welcome? I’m sorry?
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This piece did not end up as intended but here we are.
Some witchy eros was streaming through The Creative Cauldron last week.
(If you don’t know, The Creative Cauldron is where I do my making. It’s a place for people who want to feed their creative spirit and prioritize doing The Thing. It’s a small group, so it’s intimate, playful, earnest, magical, productive and all the things I love about gathering with humans. This past week it was also sexy AF.)
I’d come to the Cauldron to pull together this piece and introduce a practice to share with paid subscribers (hop on down if you want to skip my shenanigans and get to the practice, it’s rad). My natural inclination was to bring some depth and seriousness to my sharing because it’s a powerful practice and I care about its impact.
But I’d recently done the very practice I’m offering, a “vocational identity parts work” practice for the Entrepreneur, Practitioner and Artist (or whatever characters animate your life’s work). My Artist was elbowing her way out front of my inner committee, bein’ all - bitches get out of my way, I want to have a good time.
There are many forms of expression my Artist enjoys. But this particular day was a steady stream of silly, steamy, salty filth. Unsure what was happening, every paragraph I’d attempt to write descended upon the tip of an inappropriate joke. 😏
Them: How would you describe your sense of humour?
Me: Adolescent Male
Sometimes I’m proud of my sense of humour, other times I’m just a little embarrassed. I’m a grown-ass woman who will still go out of her way to choose the parking stall with a 69 on it. Both my sons have been fed a steady diet of That’s What She Said (not even by me! The company I keep is just as foul) and the littlest still doesn’t know what it means. This is not mature humour. But I am who I am and I’m just outrageously tickled by jokes that even my teenage son thinks are beneath him.
Obviously, I know how to reel it in and be appropriate because, see above, grown-ass woman. Also, professional. But bridging a career of depth work and client service, into one of wisdotainment has me feeling the edges. It’s fine when the humour coming through is intelligent, but sometimes it’s just gratuitous and masturbatory and I’m never sure how far to shoot those, you know? I keep a lot to myself.
As the Cauldron session wrapped and we came back on camera to check out, I wondered if all my writing was a bust. How could I possibly share a “parts work” practice intended as a depth ritual with paragraphs littered with happy endings and orgy metaphors?
But something cool happened. The details are vague because the Cauldron is a space where confidentiality matters, but let’s just say everyone kept it sexy in their creative practice. IT WAS A VIBE. I was like ooooooohhhhhhh, that’s what was happening, we were all in the pocket of eros.
The experience was a potent reminder that there truly is an unseen field we’re feeding and being fed by.
A lot of disorienting, urgent, terrifying, unsettling and very unsexy things are happening in my country. That last sentence might make you assume I’m in the US, because, OY! But for those who don’t know, I’m in Canada. While I do my best to be informed without completely losing my tether, I’m reflecting a lot on which collective fields I want to be feeding and fed by. For all my parts - mind, heart, body, soul, relations. And puss, obvi.
When I feel like I’m holding too much or am toiling on my own, I try to remind myself that there are so many forms of seen and unseen support to lean into. My art, my contribution, my care, my edges, don’t exist in a vacuum, they’re part of a whole interconnected web.
When I open to this field, there’s magic and co-creation available, whether we’re organizing, resource sharing, art-making or other forms of togethering.
On this particular day, the sexy in the field was full. I judged myself a little, cause the other art was deep and beautiful, and mine was circa 16-year-old boy, but we all have a part to play in the revolution!
It felt more interesting to me to share the process than the results of that other writing because the practice I’m inviting all of us into is one of working with various parts of ourselves. A vocational threesome, if you will.
When we bring these parts into coherence, be it playfully, soulfully or whatever qualities feel most aligned to this season of work, the wider field of impact and co-creation hums with us.
You may find these parts of you, the very ones stewarding your life’s work, have things to express or needs they want met that you weren’t aware of. As you do this practice, you may find some holes that need filling. Hayoooo.
ALIGNING YOUR VOCATIONAL IDENTITIES - A PRACTICE
A few things…
This practice is for paid subscribers. If you’d like to know more about my philosophy and approach to paid versus free content, I made a video here.
If you’d like access to this practice (and you totes do, it’s been so enlivening to engage with and integrate), please upgrade to paid if you haven’t already.
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Lastly, the practice I’m sharing I originally designed for a small, curated group of people with whom I’ve been seeding a Community of Practice, called FEED. I’ll be opening this space to more folks this spring. If you’d like to get on the interest list, head here.
Ready? Let’s dig in…