Storm blogs, ” Seriously, “8 Miles Wide” would still be just a big big idea (and the occasional outburst from friends and family members in the know) if it weren’t for the tireless creative megawatt team at Sockeye Creative. James Westby, Tom Grissom and Katie O’Grady, especially, kicked so much ass on this goofy little ditty born in my twisted brains.

Also important to thank – Wilf’s, Mary’s Club, Portland Parks and Rec., Mark Acito, Rick Emerson, Byron Beck, Kevin Morris, Laura Domela, Mary Urbanski, Brenda Casebeer and her trusty steed Brego, Kavita Jhaveri, James Beaton, Davey Nipples, Scott Weddle, The Jim Brunberg, Adam Lundeen, Steve Sharp and all the brilliant extras and personalities who so generously donated to the cause.

Last, but not least, thank you, Portland, Oregon. Your endless support of all things weird will always make you the coolest city on the planet. Bless your rainy and rosy wild heart.”

Check out the behind the scenes videos:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ArNMGsigq4

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCz8PwSRZoU

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GanA1cnxIPE

Katie Custer is a Minister, internet radio host, massage therapist, Reiki Master, and teacher. As a teenager, she found it odd when others reminisced about childhood. She, herself, had only a couple of vivid memories before age 12. She dismissed it as a result of having a “bad memory” and joked that “something bad must have happened to me and I blocked it all out”.

As an adult in her 20s, she felt stuck in thought and behavior patterns that sustained mild depression, growing debt, and a string of broken relationships. It never occurred to her that her “bad memory” could be directly related to her dysfunctional life.

After pursuing a graduate degree in Education (M.S. Education and Social Policy), still feeling unfulfilled, a friend suggested she pursue massage therapy for a career she could turn to during breaks from teaching. Massage therapy ultimately helped her completely change direction. Shortly after she started her massage practice, she was introduced to the idea that humans are made of energy.

First, she learned how energy worked in the outside world and how everything she encountered (saw, heard, felt, etc) was a reflection of her own energy. Next, she learned more specifically about the energy inside her own body, her Chakra system. For her, that step was the most profound. After a few months focusing on self-healing, flashes of childhood memory suddenly surfaced. She was recovering previously ‘forgotten’ memories from early childhood, specifically incidents of abuse. Before she could even respond to them, however, ideas poured in about why she was suddenly remembering and how her memory or body (or something) was able to store it all for so long. Overwhelmed, she began journaling to try to manage it all.

Though progress was slow, as she made changes the outside world responded. She was learning to see how her world was simply reflecting herown energy field – her attitude, her intentions. Over time, she started making significant progress. When she began working with energy, she could not have predicted how dramatically her life would change.

Katie Custer

In 2008, Katie created an alter-ego called “Chakra Girl,” and works from this platform to inspire people to study their own energy fields so that they can heal and discover the deepest roots of who they are, engaging and celebrating their life’s purpose. She can be found blogging about how everything is energy at www.Chakra-Girl.com. She also hosts Chakra Girl Radio (CGR), a weekly talk show dedicated to studying the human energy body and how energy is reflected back to us in our daily lives.

Chakra Girl on BlogTalkRadio
Bringing the idea of energy down to Earth. Learn how energy works in your daily life, how decisions you make affect the energy in your world, and how you can use this knowledge to change anything that does not serve your highest good. The anatomy of energy: Seven major Chakras, aligned along the spine – from below the tailbone to above the skull – and endless minor Chakras. All of them function as spirals, spinning and distributing energy through your physical body (all the way to the cellular level!). Explore the current state of your energy field and identify emotions, behaviors and issues in your physical health that no longer serve you. Change your energy, change your life!

Chakra Girl Radio is found online at www.BlogTalkRadio.com/chakra-girl, airing live on Wednesdays, 9-10:30 a.m. PST, with archives available anytime. Downloadable podcasts are available at the same location.

As Amara says, “It’s fun and healthy to flirt!” …but what happened to subtle? She turns the tables on Woody in describing her encounter with a younger man in… Reverse Flirting; The Unlikely Tale of an ‘Older’ Woman.

Audacia Ray

I am easily wooed into the gimme gimme now now world of Web 2.0. As such, my usual internet haunts include my blog Waking Vixen (which celebrates its 5th birthday in 2009); Twitter, where naturally I am @audaciaray; and the loathesome Facebook.

I’ve been busy and will give you a run down in just a sec – first though, a few events that if you’re in NYC you’ll be excited about but might be mad about if you don’t live nearby.

First up, a panel I’m part of on Tuesday, April 14 at Brooklyn Law School entitled, Porn, the 1st Amendment and the State of Obscenity Law in an Online Society.

The Internet has changed the face of pornography by allowing for unprecedented participation in the creation of explicit media. In addition, the internet has provided means for Web proprietors to promote sex-oriented services that have enabled people with HIV, minorities, and others to connect and explore their sexuality in a way that was once impossible. Within this framework, speakers will explore the current obscenity law, and its chilling effects on this new discourse.

And the details:

Brooklyn Law School
250 Joralemon Street
Student Lounge
Brooklyn, New York 11201
From 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Speaker(s): Featuring Prof. Derek Bambauer (BLS), Prof. Elizabeth Glazer (Hofstra) and activist and former sex worker Audacia Ray.

This weekend I’m teaching a full day workshop called Speak Up! Media Training for the Empowered Sex Worker to a small group of sex workers here in New York. The workshop is being planned by Sex Work Awareness, the small non-profit that I co-founded last year. Speak up is made possible by a fundraiser we did last fall – the NYC Sex Blogger Calendar: http://sexbloggercalendar.wordpress.com. I’m pretty proud of the work we’ve done to make this media training happen, and we’ll be turning out 10 women thoroughly prepared to do activist battle, media-assault style. To celebrate, we’re having a bit of a cocktail hour after the conclusion of the workshop – and though the workshop is open to participants only, the cocktail hour is open to all. Come gawk at super-smart hookers, strippers, dommes, and porn stars – or just buy us drinks. We’ll be at XES, 157 West 24th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, starting at 5.30 pm on Saturday, April 18.

In other news, I’ll be attending Sex 2.0 for the second year – this time around it will be in DC on Saturday, May 9. I’m leading two sessions, “Revisiting Naked on the Internet” (my book is turning 2!) and the other is “Sex Work 2.0 in the Time of Obama” More info here: http://www.wakingvixen.com/blog/2009/04/09/sex-20-in-dc-may-9th/

Other big changes in my life:
I’m working in the non-profit world as an online strategist at the International Women’s Health Coalition, where among other things I’m running a blog called Akimbo at http://blog.iwhc.org, plus making videos about sexual health and rights: http://youtube.com/intlwomenshealth. I’ll also be doing my third semester as an Adjunct Professor of Human Sexuality at Rutgers University this summer (see, I told you I’d gone legit).

I’ve got lots of other stuff up my sleeves, which hopefully I’ll remember to tell you about. Feel free to look me up around these here Internets in the meantime!

xo
Dacia
Audacia Ray
Waking Vixen, Personal Projects and Blog: http://wakingvixen.com
International Women’s Health Coalition: http://iwhc.org
IWHC Blog, Akimbo: http://blog.iwhc.org
Sex Work 101: http://sexwork101.com
Speak Up! media training: http://speakup.sexworkawareness.org

Susie Bright’s Journal is the title of her blog where you can find a ton of information about her, subscribe to her audio shows and find links to her other videos.

Susie Bright, also known as Susie Sexpert, is an author, editor, activist, performer, lecturer, sex guru, teacher, and mom. She has a weekly program entitled “In Bed with Susie Bright” distributed through audible.com, where she discusses a variety of social, freedom of speech and sex-related topics. Bright co-founded and edited the first women’s sex magazine, On Our Backs, “entertainment for the adventurous lesbian,” from 1984 to 1991. She founded the first women’s erotica book series, “Herotica” and edited the first three volumes. She started “The Best American Erotica” series in 1993-2008. Bright taught the first university class on the subject of the aesthetics and politics of pornography at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California in 1986. She became well-known for her scholarship in sexual representation through her courses on the subject at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She currently resides in Santa Cruz, California.

“With 4.3 million babies born in the U.S. each year it’s time to reexamine what we’ve been told and look to what is possible,” says director Debra Pascali-Bonaro, an internationally renowned childbirth educator and doula who witnessed so many ecstatic births she was inspired to begin filming them. “If you don’t know all your options then you don’t have any. Orgasmic Birth will strip away your fears and reveal how to create a powerful and transformative experience. It is time to reclaim this sacred event.”

Five years in the making, Orgasmic Birth has had an international impact on the film festival circuit and was screened this year at the prestigious Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, Baltimore Women’s Film Festival, Usti Film Festival in the Czech Republic, and Festival Caminhos in Portugal, to name a few. It won the Audience Choice Award at the 2008 MotherBaby International Film Festival in Bermuda.

Steven P. Link and Kat

Sex with you is
the Moonlight Sonata
on endless loop
a twenty dollar bill
discovered in a coat pocket
a thief in the night
who takes the things
you really didn’t want anyway
a first kiss
and the requisite nausea of joy that follows
an exquisite feast among friends
a real, genuine laugh
the high of some overused pharmaceutical
but
this is not really describing sex
this more describes the anticipation of sex
the building up of something great
trudging slowly and beautifully
towards the cataclysmic release
the climax that inevitably occurs
when two people feel
as we do for each other.

Confused about something somewhere? ask2hotgirls@gmail.com

Subscribe to their Youtube channel at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/LKGProductions

Find them on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/ 2-Hot-Girls-in-the-Shower/1148 6109210

and on MySpace…
http://www.myspace.com/2HotGir lsInTheShower

In the half darkness we look at each other
and smile
and touch arms across this little, startlingly muscled body—
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,
this blessing love gives again into our arms.

Photo by Sara Barrett

Galway Kinnell
Born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1927, Galway Kinnell is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Selected Poems, for which he received both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award…
more

Leap! explores ancient and modern philosophies and philosophers who support the illusion theory. To Leap! beyond the illusion is to let go and live from inspiration… To Leap! beyond the constraints of your current perceived reality and what you think you know… The purpose of Leap! is to invite each of us to live beyond the illusion. This movie is not about denying our physical experience. Ultimately it is about Leaping beyond limitations and restrictions which this illusion appears to impose.

Order The Leap! Movie ($25).

Here’s what the film’s creators say:

“After 2 years of following our inspiration, Leap! launches tonight. Chad and I began this guided journey over two years ago and this evening, we’ll see the fruits of our nature. Leap! is not another “woo woo, we’re all one” production.This movie is non duality for the Pepsi Generation. Throughout history, interpretations have needed to be updated as new generations arrived. Leap! is not a movie about a lost secret or hidden tool. It’s a contemporary look at the oldest idea in the human consciousness. Leap! takes you back to the origin of your true nature and creates a gateway for you to begin the longest journey back to a place you never left.

“If you’re “Waking Up From The Dream” and would like to converse with us and others, we’ve set up a
free online forum for people at: http://www.leapmovie.com/forum/ .”