Week 8- My First Pan African Film Festival Experience

For this week's First, I decided to go to the Pan African Film Festival. I'm generally not much of a going to the movies person. This is my second time in a movie theater in the last.....4 years? I'm not even sure why, I just usually have things I'd rather do. BUT this event sounded like a lot of fun. Particularly closing night. Closing night consisted of the Los Angeles premiere of "Free Angela and All Political Prisoners," which is a documentary I really wanted to watch, a Q&A with Angela Davis, a red carpet beforehand, and the closing gala party afterward. Sounds like a fun evening, no? IT WAS!!!!

                                                        (Go watch it in theaters in April)

Me on the Red Carpet

 

 

(The producer-Jada Pinkett Smith, Angela Davis, and the director-Shola Lynch, on the Red Carpet)

 

First of all, the documentary was REALLY good. Angela Davis is one of the most courageous and beautiful women in American history. She is a baaaaaaad ass. I'm grateful they fought to make this movie and you should go watch it when it comes out in April if you'd like some inspiration. She constantly stood up for what she believed regardless of the consequences and in the film she talks about how 8 differnt countries offered her asylum, but she chose to not leave and stand trial out here in 1970, when the chances of getting a fair trial were.... Well it was miraculous that she won...... I was glued to the screen.

After the movie we got a little Q&A with Ms. Davis herself (I was in the 3rd row-Woo hoo!):

(Cool Pic)

 

 

(Answering Questions)

 

 

After the Q&A, there was an after-party that had an open bar and food. LOL, and I decided that the best use of my time at said party was to stalk Ms. Davis:

 



 

 

 

Overall, I had a great time and it was a great use of my evening. I think I like film festivals.

 

I'll close out the blog with this clip that I found on the Pan African Film Festival website of Jada speaking on the movie at the red carpet:

 

 

 

 



 

 

Week 7- My First Flash Mob: One Billion Rising

 

This week's first: MY FIRST ONE BILLION RISING EXPERIENCE!!!! It was awesome. Definitely one of my favorite firsts so far. If you aren't familiar with the One Billion Rising movement, on February 14, 2013 women from ALL OVER the world rose and danced as a form of celebratory protest. 1 out of 3 women alive today will be raped or assaulted. That's one billion women in the world, and as the campaign states, that's an atrocity. So the intent was to get women from all over the world to form flash mobs in their communities and it was a huge success. I get chills whenver I think about it and can watch footage from around the world all day if you let me.

 

This is the video with the theme song and the choreographed dance we all danced:

 

 

 

Debbie Allen helped choreograph and teach the dance. There were tons of instructionals all over Youtube. Though it wasn't the first V-Day ever, it was the first One Billion Rising. There was a lot of celebrity involvement and donation of time. Women like Rosario Dawson, Kerry Washington, Anne Hathaway, Thandie Newton were out there recruiting and encouraging women to strike, rise, and dance. And they did.

 

There are so many beautiful pictures from all over the world... But I'd be here all day if I didn't just grab a few. So here's a sample of what took place around the world on February 14, 2013. And then I'll talk a little about my own experience. So:

 

Women in Izmir, Turkey:

 

In Congo:

 

 

In the Philippines:

 

Australia:

 

Grandada, Spain:

 

 

 

New Delhi:

 

 

 

Toronto (in the snow!):

 

 













 Peru:

 

 

 

Italy:

 

 

 

And all over the place, including places you might not expect, like this jail in San Francisco:

 

 



 

I'll also include a couple of videos so you can feel some of the energy behind this global event.

 

Here's one from Milan:

 

And Berlin:

 

 

LOL, I'll stop now before I get carried away, but basically you could feel the energy building and building as women in Australia and Asia started it off and then it kept going like waves throughout the world. It was really beautiful and it meant a lot to me to be able to participate. As a survivor of rape myself and as someone who works with many women who have survived domestic violence and rape, I decided to strike, take the day off work, and spend my day participating in the LA flash mobs.

 

This was my first flash mob experience on top of it being my first One Billion Rising (well it was the first time this event took place period). I was pretty excited. I danced throughout the day, joining the different flash mobs in the Santa Monica/Venice area. We would randomly turn on speakers and all start dancing together. I got over any kind of shyness very fast. FLASH MOBS ARE SOOOOOOO MUCH FUN!!!!!! My day started off with the CodePink flashmob in Santa Monica, where we did the dance many times on the Third Street Promenade:

 

 

 

In the last flash mob I participated in, we flash mobbed the Apple Store in Santa Monica! I was a little nervous then because there were a whole lot of us and everyone in the store stared while we streamed in. There were a lot of breakables in there. Then someone turned on the speakers, we busted out our shakers, and started dancing (not the full dance, but a Shiva Rea modified version) and chanting. By the time we were done the police were there, but they just watched and laughed.

 

Walking with the yoga crew to the last flash mob of my day:

 

 

 

People were very supportive. My receipt from lunch between flash mobs:

 

 

 

My waiter thanked me for dancing, and I'd like to say "Thank you for dancing!" to all the women and men who participated in this beautiful event. I'd also like to thank Eve Ensler for creating this movement and orchestrating it all. I loved the idea of dance because not only is celebratory and a way of vibrating above the violence and re-claiming your joy, but it's a beautiful way of owning your body again after something like rape happening to you. Belly dance has personally given me a beautiful way of re-owning my body with precise isolations and such..... So I loved the idea from the moment I heard it.

 

I also loved the energy behind the lyrics of the song:

 

"I dance cause I love
Dance cause I dream
Dance cause I've had enough
Dance to stop the screams
Dance to break the rules
Dance to stop the pain
Dance to turn it upside down
Its time to break the chain"

This movement was about joy, celebrating, and BEING IN YOUR BODY. Which, if you've been following this blog, you know has been a big theme for me lately. I don't know how many times I've heard the song by now, but by the end of the 14th, one of the hooks also started having extra meaning for me:

"This is my body, my body's holy
No more excuses, no more abuses,"

I loved that part from the beginning and it was one of my fave parts of the dance (body roll, re-claiming your body, and then namaste hands). But by the end of the day I was also aiming it at me. I started thinking about the different ways I may have abused my body in the past and the ways I sometimes make excuses for it. Such as not having enough time to exercise or drinking alcohol, even though I'm not a big fan, just because I'm at a party and everyone else is drinking, etc. And by the end of the 14th I had re-claimed my body to another level and re-committed to no more excuses or abuses from myself as well.

It was all a beautiful and VERY fun experience. I definitely encourage everyone to participate next year. Thank you to everyone who made One Billion Rising happen.







Week 6- My First Tantra Class AND My First Mayan Shaman Initiation

Yea, it was a big week for me. Yea, I wish I could have spread these things out to two different weeks, but that's just not the way life worked, so I had to do both in one day. And what a day it was! I'm so proud of myself for working through so much in one day. LOTS of breaking out of comfort zones. This entry will be a little deeper rather than picture-filled since these weren't really the type of events where you could snap pictures.

I had already signed up for the Mayan Shaman Healing Initiation awhile ago. One of my healing Teachers and personal healers was offering it and it was a pretty big deal. People flew in from all over the place for it so it's not something I could have chosen to do on another day. Here is the link for anyone interested: http://www.creationcenter.org/schedule.html I'm a healer and Brook is one of my favorite Teachers so I was all signed up and ready to go.

The Tantra thing felt necessary at last minute.  It sprang forth from a commitment to myself and to my life. Obviously your body is a huge part of your life and something you should know well and reach your full potential there. I mean your body is a huge gift to you and so is sexuality. It hit me that not making the time to study these things is a form of not honoring myself fully. Ever since I took that workshop where we were asked to focus on being in our bodies for the next 6 months and realizing how much I love being out of my body and realizing the discomfort I initially felt in being in my body, I've really been focused on my body and using my 5 senses much more. But I had some big blocks around going to a live, co-ed Tantra class without my own partner (I've done online Tantra classes before). And I decided that I needed to move through the blocks immediately. So I signed up for the first class available.

Here is what I wrote when I made the decision to sign up, "Ever since I turned about 12 years old, men started feeling like they were preying on me. Not even in a trying to sleep with me type of way, but in a "I'm in love with you and want to marry you NOW" type of way (I've had LAPD send me helicopters over stalkers, men crying in public, men writing me songs, scenes at airport, professors, mentors and even spiritual teachers betraying my trust by hitting on me.... the list of uncomfortable situations with men I barely know goes on....). And it's kind of shaped my interactions with men in that even though I'm super friendly, open and make people feel special/comfortable, *I* have certain blocks up and tend to be defensive and alert inside. It's helped me in that my relationships with women are so beautiful and deep and always have been because I don't have that defense around women and preferred interacting with women. The same is true with men who I 100% know are only interested in my friendship- I develop these amazing brother-sister relationship with men who love me so dearly and who I've never even shared a kiss with.... Because they're safe. And I have a life full of amazing deep loving friendships….

But my interactions with men who aren’t already completely in friend zone have an inner defense. And I tend to prefer interacting with men who don’t show romantic interest in me (in my past if you want to make me run the other way- just be super blunt about how you’re in love with me and want to date me). That’s not too healthy now that everything in my life feels so amazing and in place and I am now interested in exploring a serious romantic soulmate relationship. Because I can’t be scared of men who show interest in me. I mean in the past I was known to buy bottles at every club as a way to keep men from trying to approach me because I would actually be very bothered by men trying to talk to me when I just wanted to have fun with my friends. And I quickly found out that a good portion of men are too intimidated at that point to come talk to you (this is probably how I ended up attracting so many entertainers to begin with- because this doesn’t intimidate them) and I’d always have my little safe corner to be in. So I used to go out of my way to avoid having to deal with men trying to show romantic interest in me…..

So the thought of having to sit in a classroom and sit very openly and do all kinds of exercises with a lot of staring and breathing and sensual stuff with men I don’t know and who will probably be older than me and may very well make me feel uncomfortable was enough to make my stomach get anxious and make me just want to learn from books. I’m not even sure what shifted last night, but I said, “F it. I’m a grown up. I can take a tantra class and just be and I will breathe through any discomfort and I will be just fine.” I’m kind of still in awe of my willingness to put myself out there and out of my comfort zone. And I’m sure it has something to do with learning how to comfortably draw boundaries last month and feeling secure in my ability to do so. Step by step. Enjoying every step of the journey. I'm doing this!"

So it was a big deal to me. I was kind of nervous the day of but knew that I was just going to breathe through it and I would be okay.

LOL, little did I know that in the Mayan Initiation class that morning the first initiation would involve a male partner dipping his finger into Bailey's cream and then into my mouth for about 30 minutes (it was a ritual where every tooth in your mouth is blessed individually). I was cracking up at Spirit setting it up like that and just breathed through my blocks. This initiation actually made me feel like the Tantra class would be a lot easier because I had just moved through this.

I don't think I'm going to get into any more details about the Mayan Initiation class because I don't know how much of it is shareable. But it was a PRETTY intense experience. I let go of a lot of stuff that no longer serves me and I received a lot. I love how in my world nothing is really considered weird anymore and that I'm so open to trying new things.

The class went over a bit late and we had to fast in the morning (yea, the Bailey's thing went down on an empty stomach) so I was starving while running to my Tantra class and thought that I might actually end up missing it, but I reminded myself that I fully committed to it and that not going was NOT an option.

When I arrived this is the first thing that greeted me. Rose petals on the sidewalk leading up to the studio:

Beautiful touch and a super sensual environment. But the class was actually VERY challenging for me. A lot of people may not know how it works, so I'll break it down a little. Basically, if you go to a Tantra class without a partner, you rotate through all the men who don't have partners for the exercises. The women without partners sit at stations in a circle and the men rotate through the stations for each exercise. Everything is in silence so there is no intro conversation and you don't even get to exchange names. When a new guy gets to your station you just bow to each other until your foreheads meet and take deep breaths. This is your introduction to each other. On top of that the exercises are super intense. I was assured before signing up that there would be no nudity or sexual contact in the class, but sexual contact is a pretty relative term in my opinion. For someone who is used to giving death stares to men who even grab my elbow in a nightclub, this was A LOT. By the end of the evening I'd partnered up with 6 men who were complete strangers to me.

OMG, I had to move through stuff. I'd never realized how much energy I've invested and put in my life towards protecting my body from men. The exercises in the class brought up all kinds of trust issues and issues around safety. I mean my body is holy and I treat it as such and I'm a pretty curvy girl who's body men love to appreciate.... So I've been on full guard for years and this class made me realize the type of hardcore walls and defenses I've built around trying to protect my body. As an example, I remember one of my girlfriends got a stripper in Vegas for her b-day party and he was trying to give me a lap dance, which meant he was trying to touch me and I was appalled by a man I didn't know thinking it was okay to put his hands on my body. I really said, "Sir, I don't care if they're paying you for this, do know that if you touch me you might get slapped. And then slapped with a sexual harassment lawsuit. Do NOT touch me." I can get very "Do you know who the f*ck I am?" in such situations (so I'm sure it brings up power issues too). But it's no longer necessary to be so vigilant and guarded because I'm safe.

When I was younger men would sometimes grab/attempt to grab my body parts, but I shifted out of having those experiences a long time ago. Back in my younger days I've had everything from my behind to my breasts grabbed (yup, a man actually fully grabbed my breasts as he walked by me when I was 19 years old living in Paris and in Buenos Aires a man bit my shoulder in the middle of a club to get my attention, drawing blood!). However, my experience nowadays is one of attracting a lot of respect from men, even at places like hip hop festivals, no matter what I'm wearing (or not wearing). I think my last crazy experience was all the way in 2008 during an Inauguration party when I felt it was necessary to knee a Middle Eastern Prince in the balls after he claimed he had been entitled to come up behind me at a bar and grope my a** due to his title. That was over 4 years ago. Likewise when I was younger I would attract men who I would immediately write off for doing something like putting their hand on my leg on a first date. But I no longer attract men like that. I haven't attracted men who are interested in me due to just the physical in YEARS, so these ultra strong defense mechanisms are no longer needed and were no longer serving me... I'm much safer now.

At the tantra class, the teacher creates a very safe place and started off the class by saying that if you don't agree to say no to any exercise that feels uncomfortable for you, then you aren't allowed in the class. So it brought back up the theme of being comfortable with drawing boundaries. I spent some time thinking about my discomfort in the past with establishing boundaries and realized it had to do with being a very sensitive person who feels people's pain easily and I understand how much rejection can hurt someone and I'm a person who practices non-injury as a lifestyle. So this commitment we made in class was a great way to honor myself and a great reminder to think about what rejection really is... Because if I were to have said no to someone in class, it had NOTHING to do with that person but with my own discomfort and past issues with feeling preyed upon by men. It would have been about me, not about them, as is always the case. And thus there is no need to feel pain over rejection and thus no need to feel horrible over "rejecting" someone. I did push myself to not say no and actually participate in (ALMOST) all the exercises, not out of a fear of rejecting someone but out of a desire to get teh full experience and push myself out of my comfort zone. I drew the line at the last exercise which included instructions to wrap your legs around your partner and do pelvic tilts. That falls into the sexual contact category for me and it was waaaaaaay too much for me. Had I brought my own partner, cool, but not with a stranger.

As you can see this class was a very helpful experience to me. I am definitely going to continue studying Tantra, though I'll probably more so focus on practices I can do by myself, now that I've moved through this experience which was very necessary for me. I'm very much looking forward to becoming a Tantra Master in this lifetime. :-D But for the moment, I'm just super proud of myself for my willingness to put myself out of my comfort zone and grow.

Week 5- My First Indoor Mountain Climbing Adventure

This week's entry will be relatively short because I just saw Beyonce perform at the Super Bowl half-time show and am now inspired to spend rest of my evening working out (didn't she look amazing??)

This week for my fun first I decided to try indoor mountain climbing:

The idea came from the workshop that I took a couple of weeks ago where we focused on staying in our bodies. The Teacher commented on how a woman in our class's activity of mountain climbing was a great way of being very present and fully in your body because you have to be very aware of all your body parts. I wasn't really trying to go hang off the side of a mountain, but I thought trying the indoor variety might be a fun work out. I also expected it to be easy because I do pole and am pretty good at climbing... Well........ Pole is easier.

I got there and was given these special shoes:

Then I was told by the super sweet girl (who has been outdoor mountain climbing since infancy) that I should be okay as a first-timer as long as I wasn't scared of heights. I stared at her and said, "Well, I'm actually scared of heights....." She said she'd be by me to help me down if I got scared and froze at the top....... I said it should be fine because it didn't look that high and I would have one of those ropes tied to my body anyhow right? At which point I was told that this was a "bouldering" place, which meant no rope and that instead I'd just have a "thick" mat. And by thick she meant this:

And really it felt a whole lot higher when you were actually climbing:

She kept following me around telling me to look for the "VB" climbing trails because those were for the very beginners.... I kept thinking, "Ummm... I'm going to need something lower tha VB!" LOL, so this week I found out that mountain climbing is NOT one of my talents. But I still had a lot of fun with this new experience.

I also did all this in the middle of trying to watch the Super Bowl. I don't usually watch football, but one of my good friends was actually playing in the Super Bowl! So this was the first time that I've actually been emotionally involved in a football game. And he won!!!!! It was his first ring, so that made me pretty happy today. :-) I'm still not a fan of football, but I'm always a fan of watching my friends achieve their dreams.