Bonobo Coaching – Sustainable Paths to Ecosexual Love

Bonobo Coaching – Sustainable Paths to Ecosexual Love

A Coaching Practice by Dr. SerenaGaia

Are you ready to embrace the Earth as your partner, as the partner you share with fellow humans an all other forms of life.

Ecosexual love is the style of love that reaches beyond genders, numbers, orientations, ages, races, origins, species, and even biological realms, to embrace all of life as a partner with equal rights.

This style of love is based on four principles and the alchemy of their related practices.

  • Know and love the ecosystem called thyself.
  • Know and love the temple of the other
  • Know and love the partner we all share: the Earth
  • Know and love those who share this partner with you: Humankind

These practices apply basic principles from Tao, Tantra, amorous inclusiveness (aka polyamory), and sexual fluidity (aka bisexuality).

When you train in these practices, you are ready to become an artivist of love. Artivists of love are beings capable of generating all the love they need and then some. They aspire to align their own health and happiness with each other, and with the health and happiness of all beings that form the ecosystems that impact them.

Artivists of love are beings of light who often manifest alchemies of ecosexual love that create balanced symbiotic connections all around.

If you envision yourself in this horizon, if you wish to practice love expansively, if you aspire to become an artivist of such expansive love, you can benefit from attending a series of weekly meetings that Dr. SerenaGaia offers online. One is known as The Resilience of Love.

Dr. SerenaGaia’s personal coaching sessions can support you in integrating your learning process with your experience and personality and in pursuing your aspirations further.

Her presential courses will resume when possible, and they include the Alchemy of Ecosexual love, and The Symbiosis of Ecosexual love.

If you are longing for transformations in your life that will empower you to navigate a given crisis and envision the symbiotic opportunities it brings to your life, you can start now.

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Here are some questions that you might have already considered:

Are you longing for expansive ways to practice love that also support your natural sense of honesty and integrity? Do you sometimes experience monogamy as a social norm that curbs your natural capacity to express yourself as a being capable of love? Do you experience a natural desire to share yourself widely as a resource of love? Would you like to experience a natural sense of fluidity, inclusiveness, and elation when others share themselves in these capacities as well? Have you thought of what exclusivity means to you, and in what kinds of contexts you would like to experience it?

If some of these questions resonate with you, you are not alone, and you came to the right place.

The desire to practice inclusive styles of love is pervasive today.  In the age of Gaia, humankind is becoming more aware of the symbiotic nature of existence as beings who share a planet and a world. Many people are now aware of planet Earth as a generous partner and hostess. We all share this partner we love, and so when we consider sharing our resources of love in generous and inclusive ways, we know that we also honor her.

Loving fluidly and inclusively is ecosexual! Exclusivity is wonderful as long as it is an agreed upon choice in romantic, amorous, collaborative, and/or sexual aspects of any relatedness. People’s belief in the social norm of monogamy is eroding, in the context of problematic experiences in conventional marriages.  Many of us make the intentional choice to love the person, not the gender, and to espouse feminine and masculine principles within ourselves. As more scientific evidence becomes available, it becomes apparent that monogamous and monosexual behavior in humans result from culture rather than nature. At this time of accelerated change and transformation, hearts and minds connect in the noosphere and cultural notions of evolution are revisited, as people search for more symbiotic ways to relate within and around ourselves. However, not many people know how to navigate the transition from exclusivity to fluidity and inclusiveness in balanced, sustainable, compassionate ways.

Bonobo Coaching opens paths to styles of fluid and inclusive love that are gradual, balanced, and sustainable for all those emotionally involved.  Your coach, Serena, has successfully transitioned to a rich personal life of amorous inclusiveness where relationships sustain each other in balanced and graceful ways.  She has studied inclusive styles of love like polyamory and bisexuality for over two decades.  She has practiced amorous inclusiveness at various levels for about three decades.  She is the founder of the School of Ecosexual Love.  She is a scholar in the arts of healing and loving, and a supporter of the Gaia Hypothesis. She is the author of several books on these interrelated subject, and has offered workshops and coaching sessions worldwide.  She can coach in English, Français, Italiano, and Español.  She is fluent and formally trained in these four languages.

Bonobos are one of the most amorous and peaceful species Gaia, our hostess planet, has ever seen.  They use grooming, cuddling, nurturing, pleasure, sexual fluidity, and amorous inclusiveness to resolve conflicts and to enhance social cohesion.  They are the primate species genetically closest to humans.  Bonobo Coaching is a style of coaching designed to sustain us humans in activating the virtues of our genetic kinship with Bonobos and put them to beneficial use.

When not freely chosen, exclusivity can be asphyxiating.  In the transition from exclusivity to expansive amorous inclusiveness, Serena has made all the mistakes.  However, she never allowed a mistake to kick her back into asphyxiation.  What matters about mistakes is the interpretation.  In offering coaching sessions, Serena promises to sustain you in interpreting each mistake as an opportunity to learn and move one step forward on the path to the expansive amorous inclusiveness and fluidity you heart and mind aspire to.

FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: What is coaching? How does it differ from therapy?

A: Coaching is a way to develop through a confidential dialog with a person whose wisdom and experience one trusts. This dialog intends to help one move beyond an emotional place where one feels stuck due to societal and conventional limitations, when these fall short in appreciating one’s multiple capacities and talents for love. Coaching is for people who are well. It does not intend to cure any condition. However, it does intend to sustain one in developing one’s unique talents for love.

Q: What can coaching do for me if I’m seeking to develop an inclusive style of love?

A: Inclusive love is a way of love that expands beyond the mono paradigms typical of Western cultures in the modern world: monosexuality and monogamy. Its basic premise is that love is an art whose conscious practice helps people develop their basic talents as amorous persons, and become more abundant resources of love for their communities and life as a whole.

Q: How can I get some coaching?

In general, Dr. SerenaGaia prefers to offer coaching sessions to people who have already followed and participated in one or more of her journeys, either in-presence, or online, or both. In fact, in these contexts it is easier to get to know each other in a preliminary way and to establish trust and contact. If you have already met Dr. SerenaGaia in one of these contexts, do not hesitate to contact her for one or several coaching sessions, either in-presence and online. Write to dr.serenagaia@gmail.com, or send a message on WhatsApp to +39 329 4779406. You are super welcome *. Thank you!

If you have not yet had the opportunity to attend an event led by Dr. SerenaGaia, you can request a preliminary interview with her by email or phone. In response to your request, a short preliminary assessment interview may be arranged. If Dr. SerenaGaia feels that her coaching can support you in your desire to move forward on the path of inclusive love, she will make a coaching appointment with you. Enjoy the adventure of transformation and bon courage!

Coaching can often produce results in one to four sessions. Coaching sessions can last from one to two hours each, organic time. The cost is $ 80 per hour per person. You are invited to pay your sessions in advance, by bank transfer or by Pay Pal.

For a payment on Pay Pal, use the address serena.anderlini@gmail.com. You can send what you need as a money to friends, and add a note to specify what it is for. Thanks!

If you prefer to make a bank transfer, you can use this international account:
Serena Anderlini – IBAN: DE97 7001 1110 6052 5144 00 – BIC / SWIFT DEKTDE7GXXX – Adddress: Handelsbank, Elsenheimer Str. 41, Munchen 80687 Germany.
Be that as it may, send a payment only AFTER your first coaching appointment has been scheduled. Thanks!

Appreciation: “Thank you so much for all your support and your brilliant consulting in Malpensa! It has been really helpful…” Ryan from Vienna

Q: What kinds of coaching sessions are available?

A: Coaching sessions are available in presence, when possible, and especially during and after presential courses. See also The Garden of Pleasures. They are also possible long distance, on zoom.

Coaching sessions can be individual or with two or more participants. Typically, participants are involved in some shared love practices. Each participant is evaluated individually before coaching can start. The hourly cost of a multiple session is established according to the needs of the group or dyad. It is usually less than separate individual sessions.

Q: Are seminars also offered?

A: Yes. Dr. SerenaGaia offers a series of seminars on Ecosexual Love, including The Resilience of Love, which is offered online, The Alchemy of Ecosexual Love, which is offered on an annual basis in Suncave Garden, nearby of Rome, Italy, in the summer, and The Symbiosis of Ecosexual Love, which is a new program in the process of being launched. Go to the Calendar tab and / or click on the links for details about events that are now scheduled.

Q: How can I bring a journey with Dr. SerenaGaia to my community?

A: Journeys are available on the basis of the request from already formed groups and communities. A minimum of 15 participants is required, plus a venue with comfortable and adequate activity space, and a local person in charge of the organization. One day, one weekend, or one-week journeys can be considered, according to the experiences and needs of the community in play. The cost of participation varies around $ 60 (€ 55) per day, to which costs must be added for the venue, meals and accommodation. It is always important that the person organizing contact Dr. SerenaGaia or one of the people in her team well in advance and with a well thought out event plan. Let’s wait to hear all the beautiful proposals that will arrive! Thanks!

Q: How can I reach Dr. SerenaGaia to book some of her services?

A: At the end of this blogpost you will find all contact by phone (WhatsApp) and by email. Make sure you clearly indicate Bonobo Coaching as the motivation for your message. Thanks! You can also connect on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Remember that Serena Anderlini’s Facebook profile has maxed out on friends. We invite you to like the Dr. SerenaGaia page. Welcome to our network! Thanks!

Works Consulted
  • Anapol, Deborah. Polyamory in the 21st Century. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.
  • Anderlini-D’Onofrio, Serena. Gaia and the New Politics of Love: Notes for a Poly Planet. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2009.
  • Eros: A Journey of Multiple Loves. New York: Routledge, 2006.
  • Consiglio, Carlo. L’Amore con più partner. Rome: Pioda, 2009.
  • Fisher, Helen. Why We Love? The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love. New York: Holt, 2004.
  • Fromm, Erich. The Art of Loving. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006 (first published in German in 1956).
  • Kingma, Daphne Rose. The Future of Love. New York: Main Street Books, 1999.
  • Coming Apart: Why Relationships End. New York: Conari Press, 2000.
  • Millenson, Jock, ed. Liberating Love: Readings from the German Meiga Communities. Aberystwyth: Cambrian, 2007.
  • Robins, Suzann. Exploring Intimacy: Cultivating Healthy Relationships. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010,
  • Ryan, Christopher and Cacilda Jetha. Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality. New York: Harper, 2010.

Acknowledgment:
The name “Bonobo Coaching” came up in a conversation with multiple friends, and in particular Murray Schechter. His sense of humor always gives me joy. I am grateful.

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

dr.serenagaia@gmail.com, serena.anderlini@gmail.com, + 39 3294779406 (whatsapp), Serena Anderlini of Puerto Rico, on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Messenger, @serenagaia on Twitter. 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!

In Shock and Awe: Bliss to the Passing of Deborah Taj Anapol

 Dear Taj–

I am in shock and awe of the news while here in India, the home of conscious death. I respect anDeborahFace2d feel your energy coming within me. I am not accepting yet, but maybe I will. I will miss you, the world seems empty with a wider vortex without you. I felt a very deep affinity for you. You were someone I could confide in even the most personal secrets. When in a dilemma about an important decision, I could go to you. You were open, present, and intimate at alSerenaTajOpenSecret6-22-10l times, while respectful and sincere. Generous with your things. Thanks for all the beautiful gifts the world is blessed with from you.

Thanks also for your beautiful gift to Ecosexuality: When Nature Inspires The Arts Of Love.  Is the Earth a he, or a she? Your prosody rich with warm emotion and intellectual brilliance resonates within me, as you leave these open questions with us.

Your hosts in England, Marta an Robert, write that you were ecstatic all day. That you showed them a video about “ecstatic death” before going to sleep.  Was it conscious, was it ecstatic, was it orgasmic? What kind of death was it. I’m not sure. While in Auroville, India, about ten years ago, I heard of conscious death in reference to Sri Aurobindo, avatar of a yoga of doing. People said he passed consciously to enable the foundation of the intentional community named after him, the City of Dawn, or Auroville. Perhaps there is a city we are meant to found after your passing, Taj? Please help me, I’m confused. Thank you!

Thanks to those who delivered the news with grace and awe, KamalaDevi MacClure and Annie Sprinkle.

These mDebSerenaPantheonemories are too recent to even think I’ve lost your company, at least in live existence. With Deborah Taj Anapol , at Open Secret Bookstore in San Rafael, California, summer 2010, and at Piazza del Pantheon, Rome, Italy, summer 2014.

Press Release: Senior UPRM Faculty Awarded Humanities Fellowship at U Conn, 2012-13

Press Release: Senior UPRM Faculty Awarded Humanities Fellowship at U Conn, 2012-13
Contact: Serena Anderlini, 787 538 1680

Dear Office of the Press:

It is a pleasure to release the news that the University of Connecticut notified me this week of the offer of a research award of major significance in the humanities, a one-year Fellowship at the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute, UCHI.  The Institute is one of the few of its kind in the US system, with fellowship awards comparable to the National Humanities Center in North Carolina and the Guggenheim Foundation in New York City. 

Here is the project’s basic information: 

Title: Amorous Visions: Fluid Sexual Moments in Italian Cinema
Anna and Giulia in The Conformist, 1970
Summary: This study articulates a new interpretation of pivotal scenes in selected classics of Italian cinema based on the cultural constructs of “amorous inclusiveness” and “sexual fluidity” elaborated in recent cultural analyses of human sexual, erotic, and amorous behavior (Ryan and Jetha 2010, Diamond 2009). These classics include Pasolini’s Teorema (1968), where a mysterious guest awakens the erotic libido of all members in a nuclear family, and Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970), where a charming hostess similarly awakens both members of a newlywed couple. Based on these new interpretive paradigms, these scenes acquire a new meaning that discloses the bisexual and polyamorous content therein. This enables more positive and complete understandings of the films as projects that artistically express love for love, or erotophilia. As an experienced scholar who charted new research fields that study love as the art of crossing beyond sexual divides and exclusivity (BiTopia, 2011), I am uniquely prepared to articulate these interpretations.

I am a senior faculty in the Department of Humanities with many research achievements to my credit, including books that have received prizes and charted new fields of knowledge.  I recognize UPRM as an institution where the originality of my research has been honored and nurtured.  This external funding award is a deserved reward for the many years of internal funding from which my works have benefited. 


I imagine you’d like to publicize the happy news in a online piece.  That would be wonderful!  I’d be happy to send more information and am available to interview.  Please feel free to contact me.  I look forward to hearing from you.  Please let me know if I can answer any questions. 
Namaste,

Namaste,
 

Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD
Gilf Gaia Extraordinaire
Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love
Professor of Humanities

University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

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Non Chiamatele Corna – Don’t Call This Cuckholdry

Mente e Cervello dedica un intero numero all’amore multiplo.  Wooow!  Forse è il momento del poliamore in Italia?  Proviamolo, no?  Ecco l’articolo “Non Chiamatele Corna” di Paola Emilia Cicerone.  Intervistate: Elisabeth Sheff, Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, Dossie Easton e altre.
Mente e Cervello (mind and brain) dedicates an entire issue to multiple loves.  Wooow!  Maybe it’s time for Italian polyamory?  Let’s give it a try!  Here’s the article “Non Chiamatele Corna (don’t call this cuckholdry) by Paola Emilia Cicerone.
Interviewed: Elisabeth Sheff, Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, Dossie Easton and more.

Per la rivista cliccate qui:

Mente e Cervello, Febbraio 2011 – L’Amore Multiplo

Per il permesso ringraziamo Paola Emilia Cicerone e Marco Cattaneo

                                       

E ora anche disponibile il primo corso interamente bilingue che affronta il tema anche dal punto di vista pratico.
Le iscrizioni sono aperte.
I posti sono limitati!
Non manchiamo questa occasione di sviluppare le reti poliamoriste in Italia!
Per iscriversi ora cliccare sul link:

Ecosessualita: Le Arti dell’ Amore Consapevole
Varallo, Vercelli, 15-21 Luglio, 2011

Purtoppo non ci è tecnicamente possibile ripubblicare l’articolo in forma più accessibile.  Del resto è meglio cosi, Mente e Cervello è molto interessante.  
   L’articlo è proprio ben fatto, con una certa analisi, sfondo storico, cenni sul cinema, illustrazioni piacevoli, ed il “lessico familiare” di chi il poliamore lo pratica.  Le interviste riflettono una varietà di prospettive di chi ha esperienza del poliamore e lo ha studiato. 
   Per una visione completa e agevole dell’articolo, raccomandiamo 
la rivista in carne ed ossa (ehmmmm, in carta stampata!)

http://polyplanet.blogspot.com

English Translation – Serena’s Interview on Italian TV – Tatami

Talk Show – Tatami – RaiTre  – Italian Public TV
Script of Interview with Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, 2/15/2009, Minutes: 20-30
Hostess Camilla Raznovich; Guests: Serena Anderlini, Author, Theorist; Michela Marzano, Philosopher; Ricky Tognazzi, Actor
Camilla Raznovich:  Good evening, Serena Anderlini, theorist and practitioner of polyamory, a topic about which she has written many books.  So, I’d like to understand how you figured out that you had a tendency to love more than one partner at the same time.
Serena Anderlini:  I figured it out because I loved the people with whom my partners fell in love.  If they fell in love with them, I fell in love with them too, and so I wanted to transform the negative energies of hatred, envy, jealousy, into a positive energy in which I was able to share this love.  It was a rather long path because one cannot easily transform a negative sentiment into a positive one, one has to go though a whole process of inner transformation, a spiritual process that makes one capable of embracing a type of love that is not possessive.  For me this is comparable to a father, or a mother, who have twelve children.  Will the twelve children be less loved?  No.  At times in these big families people love each other a lot, so why can’t this multiplicity also happen also in the area of partners, why?  Why is love for our children supposed to be altruistic and love for one’s partners egotistic?  Why?
CR: And at this time, how many partners do you have?
SA: I didn’t come here to tell you that. It’s none of your business.  (Applause.)
CR: But you have more than one at the same time?
SA: Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t.
CR: Ok. But actually I’m sure you realize that if you don’t, then there is no reason for you to be on the show.  That is, you either are willing to share from your experience or, to put it quite bluntly, I don’t know what to tell you.
SA: Well, yes, you see, in polyamory one gives time to each partner, which is to say that one emphasizes the relationship, and not “recreational sex.”  I’m not opposed to recreational sex per se, but in polyamory the relationship is emphasized so that each partner becomes a person with whom there is an amorous relationship, an emotional relationship.  And so to every relationship one has to devote a certain time.  Then comes the time when one can be together with all of one’s partners, or the time when they are together among themselves, for example, when I’m not around.  But there always has to be balance.
CR: The new thing then is the simultaneity of these relationships?
SA: Yes. And also, how can I put, it’s a bit like when one is cooking, if one puts too many pots on the fire at the same time, then something gets burned.  So one only manages as many relationships as one can afford to invest in.
CR: I know you are a mother.  How do you tell about this lifestyle to your daughter?
SA: Well, through my books, for example.  In my biological family, my daughter has been the person who has read my books most carefully.  We have talked about them together, I have seen her intelligence, I have seen the way she has approached a world that she does not know very well because we live quite far away from each other.  And I dare say that I believe that for her it must be a source of pride to have a mother who experiments with her own life.  She has also made her own choices in her own life, and no one has disapproved of them.  If she had grown up in a family where there is only one way to do things right, her choices too would have been  . .
CR: And beyond your daughter, is there anyone in your family who has criticized you, who has been opposed to your choices?
SA: I dare say that since my family of origin was atheist, we’ve never suffered from a Catholic monopoly over spirituality.  So since there wasn’t a prescribed style of spirituality, everyone has found his or her own way toward it.  And so we have not been in the way of each other in these matters.  Not the slightest bit.   I dare say that when for the first time I found out about the bisexual aspect of myself, and I talked about it with my father, who was still alive then, that was the time when we became friends again, friends like when I was a little girl.  It was the time when he found his daughter again.
CR: Michela Marzano, we’ve heard that even though sexual promiscuity has happened historically, now one can have also relationships, and so in the case of polyamory, several loves coexist without promiscuity.  These loves are experienced with much courage, in the light of day, and simultaneously.
MM: Yes.  Well, I must admit that I am, I wouldn’t say perplexed, since, naturally, I listen, I’ve listened with much attention.  Let’s say I’m almost in admiration of the energy that manifests, because I know that to manage a relationship with only one person absorbs a whole lot of energy.  One has to give a lot of oneself to get to establish a connection.  At the same time, it appears to me that the vision here is a bit idealized.  It appears as if everything is good, the relationship with the father, with the daughter, with society.  Now, it’s extremely difficult to be able to satisfy all of one’s exigencies, all of one’s needs, and love several persons at the same time without having someone suffer.  This is what strikes me.  What is the effect, what is the impact of this will to go beyond the egotism of possession, what’s the impact on others.  Because jealousy can certainly be pathological, but at the same time jealousy is sometimes the sign of attachment, of the fact that I love the other person, and I don’t want this person to be simply the object of attention of a whole bunch of other persons.
CR: Marzano, hold on till we get Anderlini to respond.
MM: Just one more point.  Because in relation to the interview with Jacques Attali, there is one thing that I found interesting, and that is the fact of making a parallel between affective and economic relationships.  In economic relationships, there actually is an exchange, as when I buy or sell something.  In emotional relationships, to be able to build something, one gives something of oneself, something deeper that cannot simply be sold or exchanged.  In my view, there is a difference in quality between the simple exchange of merchandises, and in the fact of putting oneself at stake in the relationship with another.
CR: Anderlini?
SA: It is the transformation of one’s inner landscape, the transformation of emotions, and this is something that is done via spirituality, via meditation, some do it via prayer, there are many ways to do it.  In any event, it is an effect of the inner landscape, and it is something that happens gradually, also in poly communities.  For example, if a person is new, it is understood that this person will have a process of transformation.  If then at some point the person decides that polyamory is not for him or her, the person can pick another lifestyle.
Ricky Tognazzi: In Italy, people simply say that “two is company, three is war,” guerra,” or “guera” as they pronounce it here in Rome.  You know what I mean.  In particular, I am the child of the sessantottino generation, the generation that powered the revolution of 1968.  Free love, stuff . . . it was a massacre, something scary, we hurt each other a lot.  But I’m not talking about liberated sex, because that was actually quite amusing.  I’m talking about the implications of faithfulness, not only a faithfulness not practiced, but also expressed as such, a declared non-exclusivity.  The great sincerity of couples: “we have to tell each other everything, but on the other hand, if we cannot be together all the time, each should be free to make his or her experiences as long as than . . . “  To make a long story short, something terrifying, we hurt ourselves and each other, so, I mean, how do we get past this point?
SA: It depends on how you do it.  For example in the polyamorist communities that I know there are people our age, but also older, people there are admitted at any age, even eighty, and such senior participants actually exist.
RT: So, I’m still on time there . . .
SA: Yeah, you’re still on time (giggles).
RT: I cannot participate with the people of the Castle Party (only under 40), but I can . . .
SA: Yeah, and it’s not so expensive.  What happened is that at the time you’re talking about, these experiments where done brutally, people did not know the arts of loving.  And what I claim is that, in our culture, love has become a pathology or an instinct.  We have forgotten that in many cultures love has been an art, an art that can be learned.  As I learn how to paint, so I learn how to love.  And I learn how to love also the love of the other.  I learn to respect the feelings of these other persons.
MM: I would like to interject because I feel there is another important point.  I perfectly understand that we need to get out of the myth according to which the “other” person can stand for the totality.  The other is never the totality.  In order to affirm myself in life I need a series of different spheres because there is a difference between the love we bring to our children and to our lovers/companions.  Love for our children has a tender core, a softness.  We project toward our children a whole series of expectations, therefore we operate in a gift mode.  In a couple’s relationship, there is something that is rather related to reciprocity: I give and at the same time I expect.  And to be able to give there is the precondition of being available to give, that energy has to be present.  What really strikes me in what we’ve heard so far is that it is as if we were in a dream of omnipotence.  I can love everyone and I can love them at the same time.
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