Come & Cry: Pleasure, Grief & Queer Resistance Ritual for Pride
Come and Cry is a four week virtual workshop series that is one part grief literacy, one part pleasure practice, one part collective erotic ritual, and one part transformative grief circle.
Pride is a time to celebrate the amazing and innumerable ways that queer folks exist and love and fuck and are fully human. So much joy and pleasure exists in this celebration. So much honoring of our history and our ancestors and what we have overcome. And in this historical moment, we are navigating so much loss and the potential of many more losses to come.
Most of us don’t know how to deal with this much grief.
The truth is, we weren’t built to experience or witness the levels of violence, oppression and hatred we are exposed to right now. It is too much. And while this is true, we also have the ability to learn ways to care for our grief and the grief of others. To help one another carry the load.
The thing about being with our grief, it's a skill.
For many of us, it’s a lost art that we are drowning without. We have been taught to push grief aside or fear it. As queer people our grief is often invalidated or not recognized as grief that is allowed to be felt. We often have to go through it alone or do our best to be supported by others who can’t or don’t understand.
The thing about pleasure is that it too, is a skill.
Our bodies are made for pleasure and we all have the things our senses delight in; as well as our patterns in masturbation and self-pleasure. Just like anything else our body is capable of doing, if we spend time practicing, we gain more capacity and savvy.
Come & Cry is a grief circle, yes. But it is also a chance to learn more about our pleasure (sexual or otherwise). We will explore the importance of ritual for moving grief through the body and how pleasure can support us in that process. In our third session, you will be invited to participate in collective ritual for grief, pleasure, and queer liberation.
Pleasure and grief both live in the body. We get to experience them because we are beings that inhabit bodies. More than that - they are experiences that bring us back into our bodies. They remind us (or sometimes loudly) to be present with what is. And because of that, pleasure can support us as we wade through the overwhelm of our grief.
In Come and Cry, we have a chance to be present with what is together.
We do not have to be with this grief alone.
And we don’t have to deny our pleasure just because we are grieving.
Structure:
For those that are new to my workshops and the way that I hold space, this is a space with a lot of permission to show up as you are. I ask that folks are on camera when we do introductions in the first session so everyone gets to see who is in the group, but beyond that, being on camera is optional and you get to choose if/how you want to participate when there are opportunities to share.
When exercises/practices are introduced you can modify them to meet your needs and can choose not to do them if that is what feels best to you that day. We have so many places in the world where we don’t get to exercise our choice, as much as is possible, I try to make my workshops a place where you feel empowered to say yes and no with more ease.
If you need snacks, fidgets, crafts, emotional support animals, other stims - they are so welcome.
Each session is 2 hours long with a 10 minute break somewhere in the middle.
Session 1 - Things to Know about Grief
Session 1 is part lecture, writing and reflection, and body based exercises. We will meet everyone in the group and share a bit about ourselves.
Session 2 - A Bit about Pleasure
Session 2 gives us an opportunity to try some pleasure skills. There will be some lecture, time for writing and reflection, and we will begin to prepare for the ritual.
Session 3 - Group Grief Ritual
Session 3 will be an erotic ritual space where we will set intentions for tending our individual grief and how we want pleasure to be present.. To give everyone the ability to be present to their own experience during the erotic practice, cameras and mics will be off during portions of this session.
Session 4 - Deepening Personal Practice
In our final session together we will reflect on what we learned, spend some time writing and sharing about our grief and/or our pleasure, and close our circle.
What will you gain from this workshop?
Basic grief literacy: how it affects the mind/body/spirit, how to tend it, how to support others in their grief
Practices for nervous system support and maps of your emotional resources
Experiences of having your grief held and holding the grief of others
Deeper understanding of pleasure pathways in your body.
Knowledge of how arousal and orgasm help metabolize grief.
Participation in a collective grief ritual for queer resistance
Support to build your own grief rituals that can include self pleasure & orgasm
Important Details:
Open to any adult who identifies as LGBTQIA2+
Space for 8-10 attendees
Sunday Afternoons 1:00pm - 3:00pm PST
June 1st, 8th, 15th & 22nd (Must be able to attend all 4 sessions.)
Zoom Room with Captions
Pricing Tiers
$250 Standard Price — $175 Community Price — $325 Pay it Forward Price
* 5 Month Payment Plans Available at Each Tier
(2 sliding scale spots available. Email jess@belovedcoaching.net to request one of these spots.
So here is the invitation to Come & Cry.
This is a chance to go deeper with how grief and pleasure move in your body.
This is a chance to allow your sadness and your joy to exist fully this Pride.
This is a chance to bear witness and be witnessed in queer community.
This is a chance for catharsis and release.