Helen and the Iliad: Connecting the Dots, or, When All Pieces in the Puzzle Fit Together

Recently I was lucky enough to get to know the works of the Italian writer Mirella Santamato. I am an avid and attentive reader and these books have captured my attention in a very significant way.

Mirella’s powerful and inspiring voice has entered my heart, it has touched my soul. It got the strings of my inner being to resonate, bringing in new energies, new life. I consider the work of this writer a great gift that the universe brings us when we get close to it.

In fact it is an oeuvre that denotes authenticity, dedication, hope, wisdom, insight, and poetry. I started with Santamato’s autobiographical fiction, Io, Sirena fuor d’acqua, which roughly translates as Me, A Siren Out of Water, and then moved on to other titles, including Quando Troia era solo una città, which roughly translates as When Troy Was Just a City, and which I am reviewing here.

It has been a bit like entering a creative space that in many ways resonates with mine, and which complements and at the same time deepens it.

The book on the Trojan War I am so excited to review, in particular, is a rare gem of knowledge, erudition, reference, intuition, feeling, and wisdom. It is a reading of the Iliad that brings back some remote origins of this poem into the consciousness of a modern reader.

Is the Iliad truly just an epic poem that celebrates war and appreciates the Greeks’ victory over the people of the ancient Asia Minor city called Troy?

Or is it something else too?

Perhaps it is also a poem that mourns the demise of a civilization based on partnership, collaboration, and communion, such as the ones celebrated in Riane Eisler‘s studies of ancient and pre-history.

Santamato’s reading refers to the transition between the partnership cultures that scholars like Riane Eisler and Marija Gimbutas attribute to the Old Europeans, and the cultures of domination, separation, and competition in which we are still steeped.

The question of this transition is very significant to me–as it is to many other scholars invested in looking for causes of the self-destructive paths in which we humans often seem to find ourselves in–and therefore also in finding possible antidotes and cures.

Reading Mirella Santamato’s book about the Iliad and the ancient city of Troy was a great way for me to find the missing link in my perspective. It connects the dots for me, and, in so doing it opens new horizons of the imagination.

Santamato is an attentive reader of this classic of ancient Greek literature, a reader very competent in ancient Greek and in all the cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean at the time of this transition. She also demonstrates competence in the use of a wide range of secondary sources in various intersecting disciplines. Most prominently, Santamato avails herself of the conclusive studies of archeologist Marija Gimbutas, including The Ancient Goddess, and The Language of the Goddess. These studies document the existence of the gylanic cultures of the Old Europeans that populated that continent in the Neolithic.

Those cultures, Gimbutas claims, were matrifocal in that they recognized the centrality of mothers in the human kinship and generation system, and were organized around a Goddess of abundance, welcoming, pleasure, sharing, and fertility.

Santamato aptly combines textual and contextual interpretations, primary and secondary sources, to bring about credible and precious new visions.

Yes, the Iliad could very well be a poem of mourning (“compianto” as Mirella herself describes it) for the city that welcomes handsome Helen and celebrates her choice of freedom, love and beauty. The Iliad could very well be a poem that invokes the power of that ancient Goddess unearthed by the studies of Gimbutas, to preserve the memories of a partnership culture organized around joy and beauty, a culture that was still alive in the city of Troy before the Greeks destroyed it.

We know that, in Sparta, her original city, power and prestige accrued to Helen via marriage to the city’s king. Why would the Iliad be about this woman’s meaningful choice to follow her heart and move to a city where this choice would be appreciated, respected and even revered?

We also know that Hector, brother of Helen’s lover Paris, is the valiant hero who protects the city, its way of life and principles. Why would the poem end with the killing of this hero by Achilles, a killing followed by his savage dragging of Hector’s body across the battlefield?

The mourning aspect of the poem explains these choices much better that the celebratory one.

These are just two examples of why the most commonly accepted interpretation of the Iliad, as an epic poem that celebrates war and marks the Greek victory, is quite reductive indeed. More to the point, this interpretation, as it is perpetuated in schools via conventional teaching, ends up constructing a sense of destiny around domination cultures for humans.

Santamato’s fresh reading connects the dots between Gimbutas’ and Eisler’s studies of partnership cultures and the Iliad, as a cultural testimonio that these cultures at one point really existed.

This is great news!

We absolutely need this knowledge at this time in human evolution.

When all pieces of the puzzle fit together, we can, together, reinterpret the past to invent a new future. A future where all the diverse people that constitute the human family can follow our heart as Helen did.

As she completes the puzzle, Santamato is the one who brings us this gift. It is a brave gift that bodes for a beautiful future.

I highly recommend Mirella Santamato’s work to those who love reading and those who want authentic, courageous, and genuine sources of inspiration.

Thanks for your attention. Mirella Santamato’s books are of great value to me.

I highly recommend them, wishing everyone happy reading!

Scopri di più sulla prima edizione in italiano della strabiliante narrativa autobiografica, Eros: La Saggezza dell’Amore. L’edizione Kindle e quella cartacea sono ora disponibili. Perché non regalare, regalarti anche questa opportunità?

# # # # #

Can we answer any questions? Please do not hesitate to contact us. We look forward to serving you in your journey of #EcosexualLove. Enjoy!

  aka Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD

#alchimiadellamoreecosessuale  #alchemyofecosexuallove  #drserenagaia

Book Release Soon – EROS: The Wisdom of Love – Enjoy!

WHY EROS?

WHAT IS THE POWER OF THIS NARRATIVE?

It inspires you to invent your life as the artwork of your desires.

It invites you to journey through the author’s juicy and adventurous love life, her inspiring progress in becoming who she intends to be, and her salacious critiques of American and European cultures.

It empowers you to become the designer of your own life journey and share it with other people.

It inspires you to seek within yourself what makes your life truly unique and what makes its stories a special gift to others.

It reveals to you what makes a person’s experience a source of knowledge and wisdom.

EROS resonates with essential aspects of the human experience, including desire for ever evolving knowledge, passion for deeply felt experience, the enjoyment of multiple pleasures, the gift of affection, the practice of analytic observation, and the vision of aligning health and happiness, both personal and planetary

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING

Fascinating . . . Anderlini-D’Onofrio’s writing style is exquisite .. a realistic account of the life of a bisexual woman, with its trials and tribulations as well as all its pleasures. It will help all people deal with their own sexual orientation and love styles. Both of us agreed that once we started reading this book we couldn’t put it down.

The late Fritz Klein, MD, former editor of The Journal of Bisexuality, and Regina Reinhardt, PhD, psychotherapist

Captivating, bold, titillating, saucy, yet earnestly nuanced.

Flavia Alaya, PhD, author of Under the Rose: A Confession

Powerful . . . These are journeys that cross and connect cultures, sexualities, genders, religions and geographies. These are also a woman’s journeys that traverse the terrains ad tensions of motherhood and singledom, of monogamy and polyamory, of religious dogma and spirituality, of monosexuality and bisexuality, of family and community. And always the buoyant, joyful and resilient spirit of the author journeying with her.

Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli, PhD, Senior Lecturer, School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University

A brilliant combination of cross-cultural experience, political and theoretical insights, commentary on academia, and a mother’s worries, interspersed with lots of juicy eros. I loved it!

Suzann Robins, CHT, MA, Holistic educator and activist

Few books manage to capture the reader like Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio’s. In an age of prohibitions and empty moralism, the author proposes a journey in search of her own sexuality. The sincerity she brings to the rawness of her experience is both disarming and surprising. It’s a tortuous and sometimes painful path, experienced between two continents. With her clear and penetrating prose that soon gets a reader to participate, Serena writes an autobiography, which is also a mirror to several societies. In fact, as we read her story, we are able to understand a lot about Italy’s “morally dark” years, as they are compared with the libertarian and liberatory effervescence that agitated the Americas, which were not devoid of contradictions.

Federicomaria Muccioli, scholar and professor of history, University of Bologna, author of Storia dell’Ellenismo (A History of Hellenism).

Eros Eros confronts us with ways in which life is art. The book shows us how to take our own life and turn it into a masterpiece. Congratulations, Dr. SerenaGaia for putting us in front of this undeniable fact.

Kaimarelle, author of Rebecca – La trilogia (Rebecca: A Trilogy).

Scopri di più sulla prima edizione in italiano della strabiliante narrative autobiografica, Eros: La Saggezza dell’Amore. L’edizione Kindle, di prossima pubblicazione, è ora disponibile in pre-vendita. Perché non regalare, regalarti anche questa opportunità?

# # # # #

Can we answer any questions? Please do not hesitate to contact us. We look forward to serving you in your journey of #EcosexualLove. Enjoy!

  aka Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD

#alchimiadellamoreecosessuale  #alchemyofecosexuallove  #drserenagaia

BETA READERS WANTED – Publishing Projects in English: EROS, ALCHEMIES – Thank you!

You are a person who likes reading and is intrigued by esoteric and queer books? Books that are a bit sensual and juicy? You are a person interested in unconventional styles of love, in practices where the expression of love becomes an art? You are interested in alchemies that combine healing, intimacy, and sensuality? You love to contribute to projects that inspire you? You are excited to be part of a team that appreciates your enthusiasm? If some of these questions intrigue you, we have something to offer you.

We are now breathing life into two very intriguing editorial projects. The book Eros: The Wisdom of Love, is a biographical narrative of a life very out of the ordinary, which will come out for the first time in Italian. The book Alchemies of Ecosexual Love is a guide to the arts of love that combines ecology, health, sacredness and sexuality in the voice of Gaia, the Earth and partner we all already always share.

Click on a title to go to a teaser of each book you can download and read.

We are now inviting the input of a selected number of beta readers, readers willing to give us  careful and meaningful responses about the texts we are publishing. This opportunity to collaborate can be very beautiful and expansive for you. Do you feel inspired to participate? It’s very simple. Just click on the link and you will find all the information you need to proceed.

BETA READER INFO ACCESS HERE

Our time frame is flexible and fairly contained. We wish to complete this project over the summer. Please let us know about your interest ASAP. You can add a comment here or PM Serena Anderlini in Messenger. We will respond and get you started. Thank you! If you feel that we already know each other fairly well, do not hesitate to contact Dr. SerenaGaia at serena.anderlini@gmail.com, or on WhatsApp at +39 329 4779406. Please clearly indicate that you are a potential Beta Reader. Thanks!

Do you have friends who would appreciate this opportunity? Don’t hesitate to spread the news! Share this post please. Thanks!

For more information and for scheduling, contact Dr. SerenaGaia asfo

serena.anderlini@gmail.com, + 39 3294779406 (whatsapp), Serena Anderlini of Puerto Rico, on Facebook and Messenger. Thank you!

aka Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD
Erstwhile Professor of Humanities and Cinema at UPRM
Convenor of Practices of Ecosexuality: A Symposium
Author of Multiple Books
Contact: serena.anderlini@gmail.com, + 39 329 477 9406.
Academia.edu Profile
LinkedIn Profile
Fellow at the Humanities Institute, University of Connecticut, Storrs (2012-13)
Project: “Amorous Visions: Ecosexual Perspectives on Italian Cinema”

POLYAMORY: Married and Dating – May This Show Bring More Love to the Better Worlds We Desire

While living here in the Portland area, I’ve finally had a chance to watch the two full seasons of Polyamory: Married and Dating, the show that brings the spotlight on three polyamorous families and their beautiful, adventurous, explorative, and sometimes challenging lives.

It’s been a real pleasure to watch the show in the company of my housemates, who are also involved in the local sex-positive culture. We’ve had time to compare notes, discuss, and reflect on how the experiences of these models compare to the experiences of each of our lives. What kind of dynamics are likely to occur when one engages in styles of love that are beyond binaries, that are more expansive in the ways they engage with inclusiveness in our amorous lives?

Personally, I’ve enjoyed many aspects of this series, in both seasons. Including the settings in two areas of Southern California where I’ve lived very significant chapters of my life. Riverside, where I did my graduate studies in the 1980s at UCR, while i held the job of teaching basic Italian that one of the Season #1 protagonists also holds (coincidence?!) And San Diego, where in the 1990s I actively participated in the Bisexual Forum founded by two avatars of bisexuality, Fritz Klein and Regina Reinhardt. In my experience, San Diego is a city of community, cafe life, holistic health, and warm jacuzzis where people become soft, mellow and amorous as to almost seem to melt into one another.

I’m not at all surprised that it’s been home to the four people in the quad whose interlocking lives are at the center of the show’s narrative. I also like the sense of expanded tribe that emanates from this narrative, especially in Season # 2, where one can also observe characters evolve and even switch roles at times. It’s amazing how places, locations, and one’s experiences in them, are powerful in shaping the narratives of our lives. And in creating legacies, traditions, seeds that eventually evolve, have a life of their own, and expand. West Hollywood is the setting for the Season # 2 triad, and it’s also well rendered as an ecosystem that really holds the characters. I do realize that any reality show, when well done, is also, to some extent, fictionalized. And yet, I feel very strongly that there is authenticity in the narratives, settings, and characters. I feel that people have really put themselves on the line to be who they are, at least to the extent that that’s possible when one invites a Hollywood camera into one’s private life.

One aspect I’ve really appreciated in the show’s structure is the quick asides that interrupt the narrative sequence to help viewers pry into the inner life of each character. What is this person feeling at this moment? What desire, anxiety, motivation, concern is motivating their action? How is their mind, their heart responding to the reality they are experiencing at this time. These asides are quick enough that one returns easily to the narrative. And they are also poignant enough that they provide, with the insights into the characters, also a beautiful way to get a sense of the philosophical gist of polyamory, of what reflections, principles, and intellectual awareness characterize this lifestyle and the communities where it is practiced. The decision to use asides this way has a long tradition in literature, especially in the English language, where of course it was widely used by the Bard, another voice whose tones resonate strongly with sexual fluidity and amorous inclusiveness alike.

Another aspect I’ve appreciated is the integration of sensual, erotic, and sexual scenes into the overarching narrative. Yes. That’s the way life is, right? “Life” is not divided in “genres” (as in erotica vs fiction), as some entertainment production systems would have us believe. “Life,” real life I mean, is actually one integrated narrative. There our minds, our hearts, our yonis, our lingams, and all the different symbiotic parts that make up our beings speak their truth, and manifest the reality we co-create with others. So, yes, I do appreciate that in this show we are taken into the bedrooms, the jacuzzis, the retreats, the play parties where people who love each other experience amorous existence. And where, from this experience they evolve and transform as partners in their relational lives.

This was exactly one of my goals when told the story of a very significant period in my life, especially my San Diego years, in the 1990s. I wanted the intellectual, the emotional, and the erotic aspects of my experience at that time to be synergized into one narrative. it was a way to offer a story that made sense and was beautiful and empowering to those wishing to be brave enough to read and be inspired. This memoir, Eros, was a Lambda finalist in 2006, when fist published with the subtitle A Journey of Multiple Loves. A new edition is now in the works, in both English and Italian, with the new subtitle, The Wisdom of Love. There I’ve fast forwarded to 2020 to really celebrate more fully the experiences in my life that make it part of the communities where amorous inclusiveness and sexual fluidity are practiced. Yes, love is good for you when practiced as an art, and the more you practice the more you learn about it and can share with others.

And this can happen over the arch of one’s entire life! One thing I wish to see more of when Polyamory or other reality shows of this kind resume, is a wider diversity in the age of the story’s protagonists. What about sexy grandmothers? Perhaps that’s another taboo to break up?

Here I really want to congratulate the brave director and the whole very brave and generous cast for this gift to the world. A gift that empowers people to practice love more expansively and evolve as their ability to generate this energy and channel it also expands. I do wish for a world where these gifts are appreciated and where they do their job of opening up options for others. I feel happy and proud of my part in co-creating this world with my own small contributions. And I wish everyone in the show a beautiful future of many decades where the magic of love manifests in many forms to bring health, happiness, and abundance to their lives.

Thanks Michael McClure​, KamalaDevi McClure​, Reclaiming Walker O’Rourke​, Roxanne DePalma​, Rachel Rickards​, and many others. May your generosity to the better world we all want and imagine be rewarded. You are wonderful and i love you!

“Immigrant”: Sharing Stories and Images of Special Surveillance and Personal Dilemmas

People are sharing their immigration pictures and stories and so here are mine.
 
Yes, I am an immigrant and one who chose California as a place where I felt I would be more respected as a single mom at the time who wanted to access a professional line of work.
 

I was raising my daughter in Rome, Italy, and rent was more expensive than anything i could earn in one month. UC Riverside offered me a teaching assistantship and admitted me to their graduate program. I got a student visa that way. My daughter Paola Coda joined me the second year and stayed until the end of my doctorate. At that point I had a big dilemma. Would I go back or stay? The answer came when Vanderbilt University in Nashville offered me a job as Assistant Professor, and processed a green-card for me. The job was discontinued a few years later, but the green-card stayed. That’s when I moved back to California to be an activist in the LGBT community and practice holistic health. I came to Puerto Rico about 20 years ago to resume my academic career. All these decisions were very difficult to make at the time, and involved many inner conflicts and painful choices.

 

Some of these are narrated in my memoir, Eros: A Journey of Multiple Loves. Where I explain that because my father was an independent senator elected in the PCI, I was always afraid that the FBI would at some point catch up with me. When I finally got my green-card it was a big relief. That’s when I felt I could really be myself. A few years later an anti-immigrant proposition passed in California. Like many others, I woke up and applied for citizenship so I could vote next time around. And I have ever since.

 
When I hear about the allegations that 3 million undocumented people would have voted, my mind jars. Being a “legal alien” is hard enough. One constantly feels like on a watch list. On special surveillance. One can only imagine what being undocumented can be like. Why would anyone in that situation want to even get near a voting booth? Just to get arrested and deported? It’s like offering one’s wrists for the handcuffs. Who could ever believe these allegations? The fact that they are even made is evidence that so many people are totally unaware of what the immigration system is like. Of how complicated it is to even go from a temporary visa to a permanent one, if you come in as a “legal alien” to begin with. If you cross without papers, it’s even much more difficult to be recognized. And often people who do so are desperate, with no place to return. How could they possibly risk the little niche they found to try and cast a vote that isn’t even likely to have any effect? It’s just baffling that anybody could believe that an en-masse action like that could ever be orchestrated.
 

There is more that I want to say. In Italy people also talk a lot about the influx of “foreigners.” They call those from poor countries “extracomunitari/e” which alludes to them being from outside the EU. They are afraid of them, and avoid them. There is a difference though. In Italy there really isn’t an immigration system, as in, say, ICE or the former INS. They way people become “documented” is by waiting enough years as undocumented, until an amnesty comes, at which point their years as “clandestini/e” count. So one would think that there the act of voting without the right to do so could be interpreted as an act of civic presence, as in, say, I’m here, see, I want to perform my responsibilities as a citizen.

 
In the US any act of brushing against the law, even civil disobedience, as in, say, a march or a demonstration, is a risk when you are not a citizen. It’s a risk even when you are documented on a temporary visa or a green-card. Imagine if all those people who live in constant fear, in this pall of special surveillance, would ever dream of committing voter fraud.
 
I really feel for those people who are in fact deprived of their right to vote, and are now also accused of having had an effect on the election, or at least on public opinion about it, they could not possibly have had. I remember, as the child of an honest political family, that I felt very invisible during the period when I was not in a position to vote. That was hard enough. And I understand how infuriating it can now be to feel accused of a fraud one could not possibly have been part of.
 
And all this just because a woman won the popular vote!  Hard to believe.
 
Here I’m sharing some pictures from the years of the big dilemmas.  Lol.  Speaking as if they were ever resolved.
What really brought peace is the practice of #EcosexualLove.  May the partner we all share protect us.
Love and blessings.

drserenagaia

aka Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD

header-per-serena
Professor of Humanities and Cinema
Convenor of Practices of Ecosexuality: A Symposium
Fellow at the Humanities Institute, University of Connecticut, Storrs (2012-13)
Project: “Amorous Visions: Ecosexual Perspectives on Italian Cinema”

FRIDAY NOON COLLOQUIUM Presents “AMOROUS VISIONS” – Oct 28 – 12 Noon @ OF, UPRM

Dear fellow educators, colleagues, students, film buffs, lovers of cinema:

Friday Noon Colloquium is the new research-in-progress series hosted by Michael Huffmaster, in the German Studies program, Humanities at UPRM.

The series begins at noon on Friday, October 18 in the lobby area (Sala de Conferencias) of the OF-Edificio de Profesores building at UPRM.  It’s wonderful to have this space to share for those of us active in the humanistic and cultural studies research arena.  Check the series flier here.

What’s the topic of this inaugural event, you may ask?

The presentation of Amorous Visions, a book proposal for a study of Italian cinema from an ecosexual and Deleuzian perspective.  Look above or download the descriptive flier here.

Yes.

This is the project that took me to Connecticut some years ago, when I won the external fellowship of the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute and also received support from the College of Arts and Sciences at UPRM to use it.

This is ALSO, and very significantly, a project that has emanated from the course in Italian cinema that I have been teaching at UPRM over the years, beginning in and around the year 2000.  This course has been an inspiration to me and to many groups of students over  the years.   What does it mean to appreciate, participate, enjoy, observe, learn from, and think about the art of the 20th century that studies the relation of “time, space and movement,” as Gilles Deleuze put it?   Students have been my most valuable teachers.  From them I’ve learned to look at cinema anew.  My study of ecosexual perspectives on Italian cinema is a direct emanation from this experience.  It is time to share about it with our local and regional intellectual community.

What is an ecosexual perspective in the study, practice, creation, and appreciation of cinema?  How can this kind of perspective relate to Deleuze’s cinema theories?  Italian cinema is a particularly fertile terrain for this epistemic inquiry.  So many “sheets of the past” emerge from the mise-en-scene of art cinema from Italy.  So many personal, intimate scenes invite a reflection on how our amorous lives are impacted by the ecosystems that we live in.

My project has evolved alongside with my contributions to the vibrant ecosexuality movement.  In estedadele2015 i was privileged in c-editing the first collection of writings on this topic, an arena of emerging knowledges where nature inspires humans to practice the arts of love.  It encourages our amorous expressions to sustain the health and well being of our own and our surrounding ecosystems.  A change in metaphors is due.  When we treat the Earth as a lover, we become aware of how much we need the blessings of this partner we all share.

We have successfully hosted the first symposium on this topic in the Caribbean last year, and plan a new edition in 2017.

In this presentation, I will outline how my book project on Italian cinema evolved alongside my participation in the ecosexual movement while I also evolved as a a professor and scholar of cinema.

Join us in animating the event.  Participate and invite your own students.  Below please find more information about the event.

Thank you!

# # # # # # #

Title:

Amorous Visions: Ecosexual Perspectives on Italian Cinema

Presenting a Book Proposal

This presentation traces the evolution of the book proposal Amorous Visions from the idea of teaching a course in Italian cinema from a philosophical perspective while attending the desire of UPRM students to explore the direct connections between a film’s mise-en-scène and its erotic/amorous scenes.  The proposal is organized around the philosophy of Deleuze and his study of cinema, as well as the cultural discourses of sexual fluidity and amorous inclusiveness.  The proposal benefits from the in-depth study made possible by externally funded research also sponsored by Arts and Sciences at the RUM.

The presentation will be a 20-minute plus 10 minutes for a Q & A session.

It will be done on a laptop with stills and clips.

The format is suitable for a small audience.

About the Author

Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD, is the author, editor and co-editor of Women and Bisexuality (2003), Plural Loves (2005), Eros (2006), Gaia (2009), Bisexuality and Queer Theory (2010), and BiTopia (2011).  Her articles have appeared in DisClosure, New Cinemas, Rhizomes, Nebula, WSIF, and VIA.  She is the author of The ‘Weak’ Subject (1998), and the co-translator of In Spite of Plato, by Adriana Cavarero (1995).  Anderlini-D’Onofrio has spoken about polyamory on Italian public television.

More recently, Anderlini-D’Onofrio has adopted the sacred name of Dr. SerenaGaia.  At the helm of the ecosexual movement, she has keynoted at various symposia, and is co-editor of  Ecosexuality: When Nature Inspires the Arts of Love (2015), the first collection on this topic.  Dr. SerenaGaia is the convenor of Practices of Ecosexuality: A Symposium at UPRM, and is at work Amorous Visions, a study of Italian cinema from an ecosexual perspective.

News and project updates at www.serenagaia.org

Thank you!

drserenagaia

header-per-serena

Gaia and the New Politics of Love: Available Soon from 3WayKiss

Dear friends of Gaia and appreciators of Gaia and the New Politics of Love:

We have a wonderful announcement to make.

The book, Gaia and the New Politics of Love has been released and is in print again, available for purchase to everyone who’s excited about it and anyone who might have missed it.

The new aegis under which the book will be made available is 3WayKiss, a non-profit dedicated to research and education in the arts of love.

The text, cover, and price of the book will be unvaried.

Based on continuing interest on the part of our public for this seminal work and the research therein, we at 3WayKiss have decided to keep this book in print. It is a service to the public and to knowledge itself that entails no financial reward.

The book will be available on Amazon.com, on CreateSpace, on Kindle, and possibly on Ingram.  The approximate date of release is early November 2016.  For those of you who’ve been waiting to get your copy, we have good news.  It’s coming!

Follow updates at the Gaia book’s Facebook page here.

As an added gift to the temple of knowledge, an entirely revised take on Gaia is in the works as well.  This book is tentatively entitled Gaia 2.0. It will position Gaia theory in the context of the Ecosexual Movement, it will be structured as a dialog, and it will contain a practical guide to the creation of one’s amorous and inclusive consensual Bonoboville.gaia2

The process is co-creative.  For those of you interested in participating, the Facebook group can be found here.

Thanks to all for your patience in these transitions.

We look forward to all returning and new excited readers.

May Gaia inspire a world where is it safe to live because it is safe to love, a world where love is the ecology of life.

For more information, go to http://drserenagaia.wpengine.com/blog-2/

In love,

screen-shot-2016-10-09-at-6-00-29-pm

 header3

Ecosexuality: What Does It Evoke in You? – Book Review by Robyn Vogel

“Ecosexuality: a word unfamiliar to many. What does it evoke in you? Curiosity? Perhaps it’s a bit titillating? Regardless, it is an attention grabber! And if you’re ready to embark on a quest of discovering what it actually is, well then this is the book for you! Welcome to the heartfelt compilation by SerenaGaia Anderlini-D’Onofrio and Lindsay Hagamen – the perfect place to start your journey.”

Here’s Robyn Vogel’s Book Review of Ecosexuality: When Nature Inspires the Arts of Love

Ecosex-FrontCover-Revised2“From philosophical discourse to practical applications, from self-awareness to global awareness, from the spiritual to the physical, from the intellectual to the sexual, from the weightiness of the threats to our planet’s survival to the lightheartedness of flirting with trees, this is a wonderful resource for those new to the concept of Ecosexuality; also for those who are familiar and ready for a deeper dive. The good news is that no life vest is needed, for diving in deep is life sustaining.”

“Not easy to define, Ecosexuality is the polyamorous celebration of love including oneself, partners and all beings and things of this place we call earth. Sustaining ourselves and our environment is the cornerstone of Ecosexuality. It’s about loving all will equal vim, vigor and respect.”

“So often sustainability is associated with sacrifice – in order for x to be replenished, y must be relinquished. For years I have been working with my clients to help them to identify those things that replenish them, and those things that deplete. My intention is to bring to light that self-replenishment is the first step in global sustainability. It begins with the individual.”

“From a place of fullness we can then share with a partner. In my practice with couples, I start with each person developing self-sustaining practices, and then partners incorporate that with each other from a place of generosity. Ecosexuality promotes the strength of this energy, consciously integrating that which is a natural phenomenon: the procreative energy of sex and the natural evolution of the world around us. Imagine the possibilities! This brings us back to the core of our existence – the interconnectedness of all life and all energy forms on our planet instead of the separatist view which has flooded our globe, oozing into crevices and nooks.”

“When we acknowledge ourselves as part of rather than apart from our environment, our intentions and actions foster the healthy interdependence that results in sustainability. So how do we get there? How DO we achieve symbiotic relationships within our bodies, with each other, and with our world? Through this book, we learn of the philosophical basis and practical applications of Ecosexuality. We learn that the life force of sexual energy has the potential to go beyond producing children and may very well be the answer to saving our planet. We learn that for all beings to survive we must acknowledge our basic need for partnership not simply for social interactions, but to create the abundance of love needed to thrive.”

“Anderlini-D’Onofrio’s and Hagamen’s “Ecosexuality: When Nature Inspires the Arts of Love” may just be the blueprint the world needs in order to shift the tide from competition for diminishing world resources to the truth that only love is truly real and is therefore, the deep well of infinite resource we are all seeking.”

Review by Robyn Vogel, MA, LMHC, Psychotherapist and Intimacy Coach, Puja Leader Extraordinaire

Connect with Robyn at www.ComeBackToLove.com

Ecosex-FrontCover-Revised508-380-9254

Ecosexuality: When Nature Inspires the Arts of Love

        A collection of writings edited by SerenaGaia Anderlini-D’Onofrio and Lindsay Hagamen.  Puerto Rico: 3WayKiss 2015.

With its beautiful revised cover, the book is available at Amazon.com for only $ 16.50.  If you haven’t ordered your copies, this is a perfect time to do it.

At CreateSpace you can get your copy at a $ 6 discount on the listed price.

Click on Add to Cart, then insert the Discount Code EWMBLB2D.

Saving the Bonobos May Very Well Save the Peaceful Animal Who Lives Within You

BonoboWayA Review of The Bonobo Way by Susan M. Block. Beverly Hills, CA: Gardner and Daughters, 2015.

It is a real pleasure to read Dr. Susan M. Block’s most recent book. It is a pleasure on all counts: the style is fun, humorous, at times satirical with a touch of the surreal. It is very warm, fuzzy, and down to Earth too, with its main points made very clear. The book’s philosophy is meaningful, persuasive, and especially significant at this time in the evolution of our species, when we are in desperate need of new paradigms to shift toward more inclusive, fluid, and sustainable practices of love. Thanks Dr. Suzy!

Susan M. Block’s research is very significant too. The book proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that Bonobos are the missing link in the natural chain that connects bisexuality, polyamory, and ecosexuality.  The bi love that reaches beyond genders and the poly love that reaches beyond numbers are just preludes to the ecosexual love that reaches beyond genders, numbers, orientations, ages, races, origins, species, and biological realms, to embrace all of life as a partner with significant and enduring rights. Which is exactly what Bonobos do, and what we humans could also do if only we were more willing to learn from our amorous cousins.

There is no history of interspecies murder among the members of this species. Isn’t that something? And all styles of recreational sex are practiced with the pleasurable result of effectively keeping the social peace. Bonobos are the cousin ape species that proves the power of a repressed aspect of human nature we would do well to embrace more fully: the one that loves love and is loved back with the gift of peace.

Bonobos, reasons Dr. Suzy, are also the non-human species whose culture proves that “nature” is replete with all forms of sexual and amorous expression well beyond what’s required for the continuation of individual genes. There is nothing more natural to Bonobos than practicing what has for way too long been considered “perverse” in humans, including such feats as erotic expression between males, between females, among multiple players, across generations, and with the added options of anal pleasure and of making out in full public view. How interesting for those who disapprove of these behaviors in humans as “unnatural.” More observation of “nature” reveals the ideological meaning of Darwinian concepts of evolution through competition. When Capitalism is dressed as “science” it can pass as a poor justifications for violence with a touch of Victorian prudishness.

Are we really the pinnacle of evolution and the species “made in god’s image”? Or are we just one of many ape species who would do well to leave that pedestal voluntarily before our hubris destroys the lover we all share: Gaia, or the third planet Earth?

We’ll leave the answer to your wisdom. Meanwhile, aping the apes may provide all the experiential knowledge one needs. And as you get to read this highly recommended book, you’ll be blessed with more lessons from the art of analytical observation as practiced by Dr. Suzy. Her research on Bonobos proves that the kind of amorous behaviors many of us believe to be the exclusive mark of human love are actually natural in a much wider sense. For instance, Bonobos practice their own style of French kissing, they make love face to face with abundant eye-to-eye gazing, they take care of each other when in need, while also enjoying abundant mutual grooming. Romantic, no? Perhaps, in defining our species as distinct from “nature” we have been a bit too hubristic too. How could we be the inventors of “true” love if our apish cousins do it too? And, if romance is just as natural as an orgy to Bonobos, could this wide range of erotic and amorous expression not be natural for us humans too? “No couple is an island,” claims Dr. Suzy. And of course it isn’t, as even old-pal Dante knew when he wrote: “love which will not absolve a beloved from loving (someone) in turn,” and then proceeded to explain that Paolo and Francesca kissed while turned on by the courtly love book they were reading. “Amor ch’a nullo amato amar perdona,” reads the original.  Perhaps love, as this ancient poet knew, is “the force that moves the sky and other stars.” It’s the ecology of life: the ecosexual energy that connects all live beings, as our team of authors claim in Ecosexuality. Bonobos seem to have a real sense of this: they build social networks of mutual support and sustainability via erotic and amorous behavior. They honor wisdom, age, and femininity, which is another way to allow nature to inspire the arts of love.

This brings me to the very significant political point of the book. “The evolution of peace through pleasure” invoked by Dr. Suzy will really happen if we all get to release our inner Bonobo. In a process of Deleuzian reminiscence, Susan M. Block suggests we can resuscitate the “animal” within. As announced by the visionary French theorist, “becoming-animal” is the transformative process that sets the tone of humility, and yin energy, and vulnerability that will make our species more capable of learning from our more “natural” cousins. Let’s ask the ecosexual primates whose life is more connected to Gaia’s metabolism, the lover we all share. What can we do about the problems that besiege our time, including endless wars, climate change, and the relentlessness of extractive industries? Releasing our inner Bonobo may be it. I hear your skepticism. “Evolving peace through pleasure? It’s just a pipe dream,” you may pout as you read this.

Well, here’s the good news. The Bonobo Way offers the scientific context to believe we can do it. It injects the humor that makes one want to act on this idea. And it provides the step-by-step guidance to actually engineer the transformation. How do we become “Bonobos”? The 12-step program designed by Dr. Suzy is very well engineered to evolve peace through pleasure on a personal and planetary scale. It leads Earthlings like us through the stages of observation, introspection, imitation and experimentation, creation of community, biophilia, and planetary awareness.

Saving the Bonobos might very well save the peaceful animal that lives within.  As a person who takes pride in living my life as an experiment in the ecosexual arts of love, I have enjoyed most of the practices described in the program and am eager to experiment with those that are new to me. My world has become a lot safer for that, healthier, happier, and one where I am at peace.  Like Ecosexuality as we do.  We’ve invited Dr. Suzy on our team for this upcoming book, and hope she accepts.

I can’t recommend Susan M. Block’s Bonobo book too much, and I wish a lot of joy to all those who follow Dr. Suzy’s wisdom.

~~~~~~

Dear Earthlings:

For all the above mentioned reasons, I, SerenaGaia have decided to name 2015 the Year of the Bonobo.  Please “like” the Facebook page for our upcoming Ecosexuality book.
Oh, and if you feel you need some personal coaching on how to become a Bonobo, please feel free to browse my Bonobo Coaching practice and connect with me.  I will pass my lessons along.
Thanks for your interest.  Stay tuned for more good news.

Namaste.

SerenaGaia

Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD

Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love
Professor of Humanities, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

Follow us in the social media:

Like Latest Book Ecosexuality
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ecosexuality-Notes-for-an-Orgasmic-Earth/1393535414244382
Become a Fan of the Book Gaia: www.facebook.com/GaiaBlessings

Go to Author’s Page/Lists all Books:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JS1VKA

Read and Download Academic Works:
https://uprm.academia.edu/SerenaAnderlini

Go to Poly Planet GAIA Blog:
http://polyplanet.blogspot.com/

Go to Website: www.serenagaia.com

YouTube Uploaded Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/SerenaAnderlini
Be Appraised of Ecosex Community Project PostaHouse