I Lied
Enrollment for my 3-month intensive Living Desire is OPEN until May 8th. Through prayer to the Ancestors of Pleasure, a daily practice of saying Yes to what you want and No to what you don't, and ongoing support via text and voice notes, we build the conditions for desire to move freely through your life.
This is not a quick fix. It is a living practice — one that asks you to show up every day and let your body lead. Find more information on how to begin your journey here.
I lied, kind of.
A few months ago I wrote a post that I was not interested in creating offerings.1
Now I’m here to tell you about one. As Octavia Butler would say the only constant is change.
Everything in that post is still true: I’m more interested in creating a Living Practice than churning out content, or courses, or Hot New Takes.
I’m interested in fostering quality connections, spending time with folks in conversation, and sharing my knowledge and experiences that are relevant to give advice or counsel for people who need it.
I’ve taken the time since that post to figure out what it was I really wanted to do. Because I do want to do all of this, contributing to building a more beautiful world. I really truly believe in that part.
What drove me to write that other post was the money trap. It’s so easy to have a Big Beautiful Idea, that stems from a genuine heart, chewed up and spit out by the machine of NEW, NEW, NEW.
My spirits, and my goddesses, and my ancestors, pushed back on me. The same fucking way they always do, to re-align me with my actual desire.
“The desire must be of the category: more than anything else. Though, of course, this does not mean giving up the qualities of characters [one] must have. “More than anything else” means more than being safe, more than working solely for money, more than social respect or cultural acceptance, more than not being afraid, more than not being rude…, more than being lazy, more than not engaging in self-reflection, more than not thinking. More than all those things. And still more.” -Stephen Buhner2
The only thing that’s really gonna keep me out of that machine, is my integrity. And I want to do this work more than I want anything else.
So here I am.
This 3-month intensive honors the intensity of this work. The time that, when dedicated, begins to foster incredibly deep relationships with these spirits and ourselves. It also honors my desire to foster deep and meaningful connections with the people that I work with.
It honors my capacity to show up with depth and devotion, and it honors what it takes to sustain myself on this work.
This is a different shape of the same thing that I’ve been on and on about for the past few years.
We’re praying to the Ancestors of Pleasure.
We’re honoring our true Yes and No.
We’re practicing pleasure every day of our lives.
3-months. 3 sessions. Voice/text support via Telegram M-Th. Daily practice.
3-months, 3 sessions.
You’ll begin with an intake form that tells me more about you. What is your current relationship to your desire and pleasure? What is your relationship with your lineage? This first process allows us to dive right into the first session.
Session 1: Orienting to Your Desire
Session 2: Deepening
Session 3: Sending You Off
Voice/text support via Telegram M-Th.
What makes the next 3 months special is our communication with each other between sessions, and my devoted attention.
This is not 3 monthly sessions with vast oceans of time and space between them. This was typical of the way I used to do things. The whole first half of a session would be spent just catching up on the past month, and we lost precious practice time with each other.
We will be integrating together all along the way through text and voice notes. I am in your pocket with you for you to share all of your celebrations, dump your frustrations, and to offer you invitations towards new directions.
So when we meet in real time we can dive right into whatever practices will best serve you.
Daily Practice
Over twelve weeks, we will develop a pleasure practice that uses the sensations of your body as a guide. Carving out space in your day to set everything else aside save for the sensuous experience of being alive in a body that feels fucking good.
Through a practice of daily recitation of a prayer to the Ancestors of Pleasure, we will work to unbind ancestral shame and honor the ancestors who nourished themselves on beauty, and knew the wonder of being alive.
Living Desire is for you if you identify as a femme. If you’re thinking “Am I included in this?”, you probably are. Please read “Working With Women” for further understanding. Thems, femmes, butches, pillow princesses, stone tops, queens and things to the front.
If you’re noticing curiosity bubble up, or someone you know might be interested, I invite you to check out more here.
Yours in pleasure,
Marissa
I am a being in the realm of somatic sex education, ancestral healing, erotic healing, kink, relationship anarchy, polyamory, geomancy, and a constellation of anything else you’ve seen written here. Have a beautiful day. xxx
For posterity, find it here:
https://marissagamberutti.substack.com/p/im-not-actually-all-that-interested
Ensouling Language: On The Art of Nonfiction and the Writer’s Life
Buhner directs this quote at writers, but this is also a direction for life, which just so happens to be his whole point of the book. All nonfiction writing, no matter the subject, should be about the invisible things of life.
This is a beautiful offering, and that Stephen Buhner quote was exactly what I needed to read this morning.