meeting the divine on the dancefloor is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off, but it's better if you do
"For the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing. Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can then observe which of our various life endeavors bring us closest to that fullness." Audre Lorde, "Uses of the Erotic"
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For as long as I can remember, whenever I had a crush on someone I had to spend hours in my room dancing. I danced every single night between the ages of 14 to 17 because of an unrequited (and later I found out very obvious to everyone else) crush on one of my closest friends. He would laugh at one of my jokes and I would levitate home and dance to something like Lady Gaga's "So Happy I Could Die" until my clothes were soaked with sweat. When I think about this surge of energy to move my body, to be present in my aliveness and anticipate the world possibilities I realize that crushing energy has often been a door left ajar to my erotic. I am currently in the process of transmuting my previously voracious appetite for being chosen into an insatiable lust for life.
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The first time I ever danced in public was at church. Every year the church my family attended would host an event called "Taste of the Nations" where church members would bring dishes from their respective homelands or places of ancestry and we would spend a Saturday building plates filled with swedish meatballs, spicy curry and jollof rice in the fellowship hall. On the following Sunday, there would be a "Parade of Nations" where church members would dress in their country's traditional garments. The city I grew up in was a major landing place for immigrants, with almost a quarter of the population being foreign born. Though I didn't understand it at the time, I imagine now that the weekend event was created as a communal cultural exchange to support the growing and diverse church that once held a majority white congregation in the mid-sized New England city.
One year, after the Taste of the Nations event, all the Ghanaians met in the sanctuary to rehearse leading the following day's parade on stage with dancing. I remember being on stage with my mom, cousins and aunties when the sound lead started to play Kirk Franklin's Revolution to do some speaker testing. If you know anything about Kirk Franklin in the late 90's, you would know that it was the closest a Black, Christian and sheltered child could get to BET. I can only remember small details of the evening--like my mother and aunties looking at me both shocked and amused as I pumped my chest and moved my hips. My cousin's and I were battling to another Franklin classic, "Stomp" and ended the evening by running around the sanctuary with white handkerchiefs and singing along to old Ghanaian praise and worship songs from the 80's and early 90's. Attempting to access clear details about the day evade me, but what I experience most palpably in my recollection is that it was one of the first times in my life I felt spirit. All the sermons and lectures about how much Jesus loved me or what horrors of hell awaited me if I didn't ask for forgiveness for my 6 year old sins did not convince me of a god the way dancing for almost two hours in the sanctuary with my family and community did.
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June of 2023 I went on a large group trip to NYC for pride weekend. Party hopping was on the agenda, with the first stop being a queer Caribbean-centered event with both indoor and outdoor sets. After grabbing our very expensive and heavy pours and briefly making eyes around the room, we all made our way to the outdoor party where a glorious scene opened up in front of us. Dark skin glistening, teeth shining, a Moko Jumbie on stilts moving through the crowd like a playful entity, laughter, flirting, humid sticky hot air and uninhibited dancing...
Before the start of the summer, I had let a friend know that I had a very particular fantasy for my June through August: a packed dancefloor. everyone sweating and moving. music with bass that you could feel in your bones. and me... whistle against my lips conducting the energy and invigorating anyone in my vicinity. I had been watching videos online of Amapiano parties where people would bring whistles to the function and one blow would make the crowd ascend. People who were dancing began to dance harder, people who weren't dancing had no choice but to move their body. The whistle demanded that everyone in the space contribute to the energy and alchemize joy, release fear and fuse with the rhythm. The party was approaching a peak and with my whistle in hand, I was ready to make my fantasy a reality.
A few songs in and the small piece of plastic was pulsing against my hand. I finally blew alongside the beat as if I had picked the correct moment to jump into the center of double dutch ropes and could hear all my friends cheering. I could see people turning around and noticed many others dancing and laughing, but before I could get a taste of the moment, what I heard sharpest of all was, "STOP!"
After the pride party in 2023, I didn't pick up a whistle again for another year and a half. I packed it up in a small box and stuffed it away in the back of my closet. The person I was seriously dating at the time had admonished my playful antics and from their perspective, my whistle was inconsiderate to neurodivergent individuals who may have had a hyper sensitivity to loud and sudden sound. In hindsight, I trust that adults who have a sensitivity to loud sounds would be able to take the proper precautions, care and boundaries for themselves if they consented to go to a large outdoor party in New York City, but at the time I felt embarrassed and sad at the call out so snuffed the fantasy out entirely for the foreseeable future.
One of the first things I did earlier this year was purchase 3 different whistles. The whistles were bought, partly in spite, but also as a potential tool for my own evolution. I left my relationship feeling hollowed out and exhausted and wanted to recommit to myself, which meant recommitting to play which really meant... recommitting to my erotic.
I bought a sturdy metal one, a bright red one and a green one that matched the whistle I had blown during the Pride party. Healing this time around had to be more than therapy sessions, journaling, talking to myself and friends and waiting for time to spread it's slow-release balm on the old and new wounds and resentments. I needed this particular grief journey to involve visceral experiences that I created and co-created with aligned co-conspirators both in this realm and others. I was not going repeat my old pattern of getting under someone else in order to get over another. This go-around would involved movement, prayer, screaming, tears, eye-contact, music, praise... my whistle, (okay... and sometimes poppers).
Throughout most of this summer I have gone out dancing with my whistle in hand. It was kicked off in early June when I went to the Odunde festival with my friend Oreoluwa and we ran into an uncle selling Tribal House mixes that I'm convinced could raise the dead. I remember before leaving my house, nervously packing my whistle and even my hands shaking a little when I brought it to my mouth. "Was it the right time and place? Would people look at me strangely? Could I even whistle on beat?" I reminded myself that the first step to personal evolution was releasing the perception of others. I blew the whistle just once and didn't stop blowing it for another 2 hours. I found myself at parties all through the season, with people coming up to me full of grins, "I could hear you but I wasn't sure it was you!" Now the whistle was not just a fun party trick, it became my calling card. It built containers for joy and play with an invitation to move and release.
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My co-parent is the only person alive that can keep up with me on the dance floor. Someone once described our synergy as "What it looks like in real life when two crystal gems are about to fuse." Beatrice is my favorite party girl. I'm convinced that in 3 years she'll be a socialite. She can make friends with anyone on the dance floor with nothing but a smile and a vape in hand (Kelela-approved), she knows the best DJs across genres and most of all the woman has S T A M I N A. I have danced with her on a cricket-y wood paneled roof top bar in Wilmington, North Carolina for almost five hours straight to the same DJ playing same exact set for months as if we were in Berghain. It does not surprise me that were able to create one of the most intense and brilliant people I know, our daughter Stokely. It does not surprise me that after 12 years, we can still keep up and out pace most people in their 20's (if they're even dancing at all tbh).
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If you find yourself in a season where you are not having sex, dancing is an experience of equal, often greater, value. Dancing is erotic energy and dancing with others is both sermon and ceremony.
For Beatrice's 33rd birthday we saw Tyga Paw at a non-stop that was happening at Nowadays and for my 33rd birthday just a few months later we saw Juliana Huxtable at Merge at 6 in the morning. I experienced god (and other unnamed but recognizable entities) on the dancefloor in-between the razor sharp precision of Huxtable's artistry and ministry. I caught the spirit under my own heat to the point where I had to take my shirt off, wring it out until a puddle formed under my shoes and tuck it into my drenched leather skirt. Raving can also be prayer, praise, worship and a tool for manifestation. I have been sober at most of the parties I've attended this year and have also managed to leave completely wet and elated (the best part is... there is no clean-up after, I can just go home).
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I'm not someone who is motivated to have sex so that I can orgasm- that's easy enough to do by myself to the sound of a river (more on that later). I love sex because that is where I go to meet spirit both in myself and in others. Is it obvious to you now that my Pluto in Scorpio is nestled in my 8th house? I go out to dance when words fail me, when lovers are scarce, when the weight of the world feels unbearable and prayers seem unheard. There's the saying that nothing good ever happens after 3AM, but have you considered what wonders are waiting between 5AM and 10AM at a warehouse party that doesn't end until 1PM?
When I think about the incident that happened with my former lover, when I think about the crushes that have spiraled me into midnight NTS sets in my bedroom, or when I consider how the site of my religious trauma was also a site of my spiritual awakening and how going out with Beatrice to dance for hours on end even after 12 years feels like a one-way ticket to heaven, I am led to a new value I would have never considered for myself until now: I refuse to build a life alongside someone I don't feel summoned to dance with-- which is to really say- I cannot build a life alongside someone I cannot meet and nourish my spirit with.
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See you on the dancefloor ｡𖦹°‧Kos