Wondermine

Season 2, Episode 3: Desire & Power

• Larissa Parson & Elizabeth M. Johnson

Share episode
Larissa Parson:

Welcome to Wondermine, Season Two. I'm Larissa Parson. I'm a joy coach, a movement teacher, a writer and podcaster, a mom to twins, a bit of a hippie and I love the caress of the sun on my skin.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

And I'm Elizabeth M Johnson. I'm a parent, partner, rape survivor and writer. And I talk about relationships, trauma and decision making, and I cannot wait for warmer weather.

Larissa Parson:

Same. If you are new here, hello! We are the duo behind this feminist podcast that looks at the wow and the how of living a life rooted in curiosity, community and liberation. If you've ever felt like you were missing something or something was missing, Wondermine is the podcast for you.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

And thank you to our patrons. We're so grateful y'all are here and we're grateful that everyone is here. If you would like to support the show, visit patreon.com/wondermine. And if you don't want to or cannot, that's okay, too. We're just really glad you're here.

Larissa Parson:

This is episode three of our second season. This season, we're focusing on what we don't talk about. And today we're talking about desire and power.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

But before we get started, we always begin with what we're reading. Larissa, do you want to start us off?

Larissa Parson:

Sure. So I just finished the third book in this series. I think it's called Magical Midlife by K.F. Breen. These are short quick reads. There's magic, there's romance, there's paranormal, there's 40-somethings. It's great. They're great. They're light. They're just like an easy read. I've been really tired lately. So it's been a really nice place to kind of go and watch some people win lots of magical battles.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Wow.

Larissa Parson:

That's it.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Okay. Love it. I just finished reading The Myth of Closure by Dr. Pauline Boss. And I'll actually talk about the book in a couple of contexts in our episode today. This book is fantastic! Dr Boss is the therapist, who coined the term "ambiguous loss" to talk about any kind of loss that is less visible. So it could be someone's who's vanished after their boat went missing, or ambiguous loss could be living with a relative who is dealing with Alzheimer's. There's kind of there, not there. There's a lot that I really like about this book. I read a lot of nonfiction, and Boss is one of these rare authors who's incredibly accessible. So if you are someone who likes really accessible, true stuff, this might resonate with you. If you are someone who has dealt with grief recently, in any capacity, this might be for you. Boss' husband actually dies as she's writing this book. So she really is on the pulse of writing about what she's feeling in the moment. And that's very true, and beautiful. And it just feels very real. She has six guidelines for increasing resilience as you're dealing with grief and loss. And I would also add that she's almost 90 and talks very openly about kind of coming to a more intersectional look at trauma, grief and loss later in life. So that's what I just finished reading.

Larissa Parson:

Cool. That sounds like a great read.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

It is.

Larissa Parson:

I won't read it, but I appreciate your insights.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

You don't need to. That's it in a nutshell.

Larissa Parson:

This is why this is why we talk about books, Elizabeth. All right. So we talked about politics and abortion in our last episode. But what we didn't talk about then is how abortion is in some ways about legislating desire, and how there's a lot of power involved in the conversation around abortion. And I think that it's fair to say that starting off there might be a good place for us.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah, let's do that. I think something that feels important start with here is the idea --and I apologize if this sounds like tricky for some folks but stay with me-- the idea that abortion can be a desire, and power is a way that we have to exercise that desire that we have. So it's not like a desire, like we want to go on a trip to Venice, type of desire. But it's a desire that's born from a need to care for ourself. And so some of these type of "selfish" desires are often the ones that are the most out of grasp of women's hands, and/or female identified folks in our society. Because of their very nature, they're centered around meeting our needs. And so then can be really elusive for us.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

And not sanctioned, right?

Larissa Parson:

Right, exactly. If there's one thing that patriarchy and misogyny teaches us, it's that our needs are secondary to everyone else's. And maybe it's not even everyone else's needs. It's also everyone else's desires, everyone else's wants. So Elizabeth, maybe we should start off or move on to talking about how do we define power in this context.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

So I'm going to kind of go pretty basic here. And I think that power is in its essence, the ability to make choices, and then have the resources to actualize those choices. So I can decide to leave my job. But unless I have another job lined up, and I if I need that paycheck, I don't really have the power to act on that choice.

Larissa Parson:

Yes.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

So power is about recognizing that we have choices also. And maybe sometimes, I would argue, more choices than we think. Power can be about exercising a choice that we didn't even know that we had. And at the same time talking about power in any capacity or not talking about it-- because our theme this season is what we don't talk about and why- power can be a different conversation, depending on your intersectional identity.

Larissa Parson:

Yes, straight, white, cis men can talk about power all day. They can talk about actualizing those choices. They can assert their power all day. Who can't talk about power? All the rest of us, pretty much. Anyone with any kind of marginalized identity. Anyone who's placed on the intersectional Venn diagram is not in that little corner. We can talk about power but we are, in many contexts, discouraged from doing so. And, are outright barred from doing so in other contexts. So I think that, that ties into how pleasure also often feels unattainable. Because we feel powerless to change things from being unpleasant to being pleasant. And, I'm saying the same thing twice, here. This is really the same thing. When we break down pleasure into more little steps that are attainable, like joy drops, then it becomes more possible because we can choose those small steps. But when we start talking about power, it's like, what are the small steps for power? It feels so big. So why is that so hard, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

It is so hard. I'm thinking about the people who do speak up to own their power and then are shut down. Like abuse survivors who come forward.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Right. And who actually --you know, everyone says to abuse survivors, you should have said something, you should report it--do report, and then that abuser or perpetrator gets completely off the hook. And they're like, "Why did I even do that?" So I do hear from women who say they don't identify as an abuse survivor, but the trauma of living in the patriarchy makes my work relevant for them.

Larissa Parson:

Uh huh.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

So, abuse--let's remember, as we're talking about power - abuse is always about power and control. It's not like something just happened. No, there were deliberate choices being made. Power being taken, power being held over you, power being withheld from you as a way to control you. So living under a patriarchal system is not dissimilar. We have a lack of bodily autonomy. There is an inability to make equal money for the same work as a white man. There's ignorance on behalf of health care providers who don't receive training on something like "women's health" issues like perimenopause. There's inequality in research funding. There's so many different things on top of basic everyday kind things like gaslighting, or cat-calling, workplace harassment, bullying or whatever. So while we might not think of ourselves as abuse survivors--although I do as a rape survivor --the idea is what is actually traumatic here is living under a patriarchal capitalist white supremacy, where choice and access is held tightly by those in power. And all of these things can obviously make it really hard for people to feel empowered to make different choices.

Larissa Parson:

Yes, yes, yes. Yes. What is traumatic - I'm gonna say that again - is living under patriarchal capitalist white supremacy. That is the traumatic thing, where choice and access to choice of any kind, is held tightly by those in power. So how do we change it?

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I do think this is a yes/and situation. So we've talked about yes/and before in season one. Yes, we live work and play in systems that have power over us. And I believe that we do have more choice than we realize, and that we can take advantage of. So I want to bring us back to something really simple that is not always accepted, because it's seen as feminine, therefore devalued: intuition. So intuition can be a source of immense power for us. I've talked with survivors about this in support group for years. But it's a tool that has been suppressed, often in our family of origin, where we learned that it's not welcome. Especially if we grew up in an unhealthy or abusive home. But even if we could not name what was wrong, we *knew* that things were not okay. But they weren't acknowledged. So we learned to turn off our intuition or distrust it, because grownups said there's nothing to see here, basically. Right? So intuition is both the tool and the method to help us feel more powerful. I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves here. But it is one of these things where we do have to notice it in order to actualize it right? We have to notice it's here. And if we have been that person who has turned it off, for whatever reason--no blame, no shame that happens to many of us--it can be hard to notice it.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah, and so, can I like derail this a little bit and make it a little fun here?

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Of course you can. Go for it!

Larissa Parson:

So I'm a bit of a hippie, and one of my very favorite things right now is reading tarot, not because it gives me the answers to all of my life's questions. That is not what it does. But I've loved reading it since I was a teenager. And I've just been diving in. I have a friend who really loves reading. So we get together once a week and read for each other a lot of the time. But what I love about tarot is that letting the images on the cards, and the ideas behind the images on the cards, speak to me helps me access and just illuminate some of those little dark closet corners that I don't necessarily want to look into, where my intuition is maybe like banging on the door, asking to be lit up a little bit. So if I ask the cards 'how should I show up today?' The cards don't say 'burn down the patriarchy'. The cards say,'Hey, I see there's a theme of community and connection here, which is really different'. And that lets me think, 'Oh, where am I missing that? Or where am I cultivating that? And how can I tune in to what is maybe going on in my intuition a little more?' And then the action that I take based on that intuitive spark might look like calling a friend, or making sure I have time alone.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I really like this. I love the idea of tarot as a way to listen to intuition, especially if intuition feels intimidating, or scary as it does for some of us. And of course, like Tarot can be intimidating if you've never done anything with it before. But I think there's a piece that's also like very beautiful about it and very reflective. And it's one of these things just completely on your own to control. You just draw the cards, you know. We'll drop a few names of the folks we like to learn from like (I like Gina at Incandescent Tarot) in the show notes as well as some of our favorite decks which Larissa is holding up--you all cannot see it --but I can. And so she will put that in the show notes. So tarot, yes. Love!

Larissa Parson:

Yeah. And I just want to get back to what you just said, intuition can be a little bit scary. It can be a little bit hard. And to move away from tarot a little bit, part of what I really value about my right people is that they validate my intuition. And they'll ask questions to help me see whether it's intuition or fear that's driving my decisions, or some other part of the lasagna like, Elizabeth, you're really good at asking those kinds of questions, for example.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Thank you.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah, of course. And this is true of great coaches, good therapists, they can really help you discern what intuition is versus everything else. And, then once you get that straight, then you can go okay, well, what's the action? What's next?

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

So just want to recap a little bit here. Because this is a big topic, as we talked about before even recording here. So one source of our power is listening to our intuition and turning it into action. And it can be really hard to act on that. It's also totally normal if you hear it and totally normal if you don't. Totally normal if you hear it, and don't act on it. This is all completely normal across the board. And acting on it can be a source of power for us.

Larissa Parson:

And I would say that, when we act on our intuition, we are fulfilling, to some degree, what we desire. So let's talk about desire. Let's talk about desire.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

That's great.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I don't want to derail us but I think what's really interesting about intuition is that it's your inner voice speaking specifically for/to you.

Larissa Parson:

Yes.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

And so then, ultimately, it's really only about desire. I mean, desire in one of its purest forms.

Larissa Parson:

Yes. Oh, that's, that's a really good way to put it. Yeah. Yeah.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

So, yeah, so let's talk about desire.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah, okay,

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

What do we want?

Larissa Parson:

What do we want? I mean, that's what we're asking your intuition all the time. So, I want to say we paired desire with power in this for this episode because these could really be two standalone episodes, y'all. There's a lot we have to say about this. But we paired desire with power, because desire is something we're not supposed to talk about. And it's something that white men get to have. And everyone else is the object of.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yes.

Larissa Parson:

And our project here on Wondermine is to help everyone who is not a white guy recognize that power and desire belong to us, too.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yes, because they belong to everyone. Yeah, what do we want? And how do we get what we want? And so first, I want to say if these questions feel overwhelming, I want to circle you gently back to episode two, season one, on pleasure. If you haven't listened to it yet, go there! It's one of the episodes that we get the most feedback on. If you're listening to us for the first time now, thank you and welcome. In that episode we talk about pleasure in different ways. Not specifically around sexual pleasure. Although we don't discount it. We talk about everyday accessible pleasure, how what that can look like and how to get it. So if thisidea of desire feels big--you're like,"oh, whoa," --maybe you can--gentle nudge -- start there to get a bit more grounded.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah, that's a great place to start. And so

disclaimer:

I'm going to try not to make this whole conversation about sexual desire. But I do want to say that one of my favorite recent places to think about and ponder desire has been in Facebook groups of all things, that focus on discussing romance and smutty, sexy books. And the conversations in those groups are overwhelmingly supportive, unfettered, unfiltered and shame free. No one is getting slammed for liking anything they like. It's really broad. And if someone does try to yuck someone else's yum as we say to the children in my house, you get gently called in like, "hey, that seems kind of like shaming someone's kink". And I just love it. I love these conversations. And I'll be really honest, a lot of the time, my response is, "That's not for me. That's not for me. That's not for me. That's not for me". But it's given me a lot of stuff to read that's really interesting, that lets me explore, well, what do I like? What am I interested in here? And I really, really do appreciate that. And I think that those spaces feel relatively safe for the Internet, compared to other spaces. And I really do think that a sense of safety and trust is part of being able to act on desire or even just to be able to name it out loud.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah, so let's pull that out a little bit. I'd say that a sense of safety and trust is essential to being to acting to being able to act on desire. Let me say that

one more time:

a sense of safety, and trust is essential to be able to act on desire. And I think that's one of the reasons that the Facebook group probably works so well. It's a safe space. There's a sense that everyone's on the same page, there's probably some group rules that y'all agreed to when she joined, there's a moderator. And other than the moderator, there's no one who holds more power than anyone else. Right? There's the power because, again, which leads me to think how do we find those safe spaces? And one way is we look at where's power shared, right? And your group is a really good example of that. Shared power would be like relationships or partnerships, where you give as much as you get. Your book group, the survivor support group I ran, that kind of thing. Maybe we could name a few others. Where are safe spaces?

Larissa Parson:

I mean, yeah. I think that outside of circles of support that are established a circles of support, whether they're a 20,000 person Facebook group, or my three person book club, or whatever, your survivor support group... I'm thinking about the ways that some community outreach organizations work on inviting the folks they work with to the table, as opposed to saying, top down, this is the solution to your problem and we're here to implement it without any of your input. So like, that's creating a safer space for people to talk about what they want and need. There's a lot of listening and co creation in those spaces. And then I also was thinking about how mutual aid has really flourished during the pandemic. And how that's also predicated on the idea of shared power and resources. And when we're talking about resources, I think we are, we're talking about meeting each other's needs. We're also talking about meeting each other's desire to be seen as whole, and to be treated as whole humans.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yes.

Larissa Parson:

So in all of those situations, ideally, people are able to say, I want Wonder Bread, or I want a sourdough baguette. And that want is listened to, validated and acted on, as well as possible, given the capacity and constraints of everyone in the room.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah, yeah. I think sometimes we can get into this sort of shame-y place within ourselves. And we can say, "well, it's I didn't want something badly enough," or "I didn't go for it hard enough". But that's really a common capitalist narrative, especially when it comes to work that we do, our job or professional career. But it feels important to note that it may be that we are in spaces where we don't feel safe enough to voice the thing that we want.

Larissa Parson:

Yes, exactly. So I'll bring it back to a really interpersonal example, even though I just was like, no, let's talk about organizational situations. Let's say you're friends with someone who that consistently invalidates your desires, whether that's having another cup of coffee, or something to do with the ambitions you're describing to them. You're not going to feel safe voicing your desires, much less acting on them. You might not feel safe saying, "You know what, I don't actually like hanging out with you because you're constantly yucking on my yums," you know. And that person is not really your friend, though. And that's not a safe space. That's not a right person relationship. And, I see this all the time. I see people say, I have this friend who really just doesn't do it for me and I really have a hard time being their friend, but I somehow can't say that boundary of we're not friends. And I think that one of the reasons we might not talk about desire or hard to set boundaries is stigma. That's that fear of being stigmatized by our desire to, say, have really supportive friends who do offer us another cup of coffee, even though we probably don't need it. That fear of being stigmatized by that desire. It's the thought, 'well, what will people think about me if I say, I want...' whatever it is, you want?

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

To make more money, to live in a different country, whatever.

Larissa Parson:

Yep, exactly. And that's always negative.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. I was actually gonna say, that's the

Larissa Parson:

No, no, You're good.

negative:

that people are going to think less of us.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I want to bring us to a really great book, it;s incredibly long, you do not need to read the whole thing. It's a book called Nobody's Normal. And the author Roy Richard Grinker looks at stigma as a social process, really under the auspices of mental health, or mental illness. Shame as something we experience through others eyes on us because of the way that we are. So he talks about stigma, specifically related to mental illness. But I really think his ideas are more broadly applicable than that, and applicable to many of us, whether we do or don't have a diagnosed mental health condition.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah, exactly. So Grinker argues that stigma doesn't derive from personal ignorance about someone. But rather, how society defines an ideal person. He goes back to capitalism, and where and when capitalism began to separate people who were productive from people who were not productive. And then we had to label those non-productive people in order to have them still count as people. As a result they became stigmatized by their label which was invented. It's really problematic and it's really interesting. But we fear stigma, being associated with a desire to own XYZ or make more money because society tells us that women don't want these things and they don't act this way. The ideal woman is not this way. She's this way. Right. And I think maybe like a little footnote is that, certainly we are, in this context, mostly talking about people who have lived experience of misogyny, women, but this applies to everybody. This particular bit applies to everybody - that we feel shame and stigma associated with saying what we want.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yes. Good side note, yeah.

Larissa Parson:

I think, especially when we start looking at mental health, and the stigma that's associated with having mental health conditions, and particularly how men are supposed to fit into a particular box, where some of this stuff doesn't work. Anyway, so yes. I just want to maybe make this a little bit more concrete too, because I like to do that. So like, some examples are, we're afraid to say something like, I love my fat disabled body, or something. Like, I love the feeling of being in charge at my job. Because we're supposed to want to be able bodied and thin. By we, I'm speaking for, you know, most of us actually, in this case. And then also, you don't want to want power. You shouldn't want to be in charge all the time. That's that's not okay. Unless you're a girl boss, and then it's okay.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

All right,#girlboss.

Larissa Parson:

That's a really problematic other way.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah, that's a whole other thing, isn't it? So, speaking of capitalism, Caroline Knapp wrote this really beautiful book that was published in 2003 called

Appetites:

Why Women Want. And she says this about desire, "I'm And I was thinking, wow, this does take a really, really long stunned at how arduous it all is, how long it can take a woman time. I read this book, probably shortly after it came out but I identify with that thought so much. I hungered for decoys for years, you know, wanting the power, the professional titles, to achieve a balanced around appetites, to learn to feed the money, that prestige that came with all of that, wanting that for years. I was told that I was smart, I knew I was smart. And these (power, titles, money, prestige) were the things I was herself and to understand and honor the body and to hunger for supposed to want and go for. And I had been told that I could do and be anything that I wanted to be also, so there was like a lot of messaging around going for the big stuff. things that are genuinely sustaining, instead of hungry

Larissa Parson:

Uh huh.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Because you are capable and can do it. And why would you do any less, anything less? But at this time that I'm hungering for all the decoys--all of these things that for decoys." are not exactly what I'm hungry for as I realized-- I was alone. I wasn't but I was. I wasn't in a true partnered relationship. Really, for all intents and purposes, alone. I didn't have a lot of close friends or community. I lived in a very cold, in many ways, emotionally and temperature wise, New England town. It took me ending that super long term relationship, moving 600 miles south to warmer people, warmer weather, discovering more meaningful work and then discovering again, a partner who is actually a partner. Learning to feed myself with things that are genuinely sustaining, and not decoys. It's just taken a lot to get there and how long it has taken too.

Larissa Parson:

Yes! I mean, I'm just like, it takes so long. If you're in your 20s, or 30s, and you think you've figured out that balance around appetites, you're really lucky, because I'm

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah, and this is this is the I mean, and in my 40s, and still working on it. You know, it's so hard to find what actually sustains us, when we are told that so many things that don't actually sustain us should sustain us. You should be happy with, pick the mediocre thing. That should sustain you. And it absolutely does not. I am reminded, as you were reading that quote, of this beautiful essay by Lyz Lenz. It's called 'I'm always hungry when I write', and that by itself is just like the whole essay. She has this beautiful, I mean, it's a long discursus on what it means to be a writer,--I'm gonna sort of toot our own horn here-- this is what we've and to be a woman, to be a mother, to try to balance that desire to put these words into the world with the things that she's told should satisfy that desire. She has this beautiful closing line, "I'm so tired of bending my body around a life that was never made to fit me. Instead, I want to remake the world to fit around me". That's it! What a desire. talked about for since we started this podcast, right? This is the idea of liberation. And bringing everyone along is a core value that we have. And it's something that you and I have both echoed in our own work that we've done separately: the world was not made for us.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

So how do we remake it to fit who we are? Where do we start with something like that? What do you think?

Larissa Parson:

Community.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

It's always the answer! It's always part of the answer to whatever the question is.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah, other people. We need other people who also wants to remake the world with us. And then to even start building that community, we have to spend time noticing what we want. What is that world we want to remake? What's it look like? What's the stuff that we really want? And do we notice it when it shows up? We have to slow down a bunch.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah. So in the The Myth of Closure-- just bringing that back because it's such a terrific book-- Boss mentions this idea that other people really do help us form our identity. Right? Other people are a mirror for us. So community makes sense in that regard. So community. And then you said noticing,

Larissa Parson:

So noticing, but then I want to throw back to community that we we need other people to thrive. We need other people to listen to us when we're noticing things. You know, we need other people to reflect with and connect with.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yes. They keep us resourced.

Larissa Parson:

We need community to keep us resourced. We need to have a place to express those desires, to express those insctincts, to voice everything. And then we need to act.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

And I'm wondering, yeah, I want to just go back to that bit that we can only really stop hankering for decoys and in tune into what we really want, when we've noticed what the things are, right? And I think that's where we can kind of get swept up in things. This is about slowing down so we can notice. And I just wonder if another place where we can start are with some of those little p pleasures, those joy drops? What do you think about that?

Larissa Parson:

Yeah, I mean, I think that we start by noticing those little pleasures, like drinking your coffee while it's still hot, or taking a moment to like delight in lotioning up after a shower. And that can turn into realizing that maybe you need to ask for a little support in some of these things. So asking for what we want in a bigger way, like asking for a spicy book recommendation in that smutty Facebook group, or, you know, like, like taking a relatively safe place to explore desire and the pleasure of acting on it. And then we can make our asks bigger, we can make our community bigger. You know, we can make our community fit us the way we want it to fit, too.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

So we've got community, we've got noticing, we've got pleasure. Something else that we've talked about, that can be part of community, but it doesn't have to be is the idea of sharing pleasure, excuse me, sharing power!

Larissa Parson:

Sharing pleasure works, too. (laughter)

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Sharing pleasure! I mean... (laughter) I'm not sure where I'm going with this. It's definitely meant to be sharing power. But I mean, I guess I'm just needing a little bit more joy drops this morning. (laughter)

Larissa Parson:

We can share pleasure later, Elizabeth when we go get dinner together.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yes! So let's focus on sharing power.

Larissa Parson:

Yes. I love language. I just love language so much. It is so fun. So okay, sharing power. Sharing pleasure might look like 'let's get dinner together, let's have a coffee together'. Sharing power. That looks like sharing the platform, if you have one, passing the mic along, if you have a mic to pass, and taking the mic when someone offers it out. Also, that's important. You will always be criticized for doing some of these things. So one of the things we also have to do is kind of find a self soothing mechanism for when we do something that takes a little more bravery, like stepping up or stepping back. In those instances, maybe ask 'how do I sit with my feelings?' I keep thinking about, you know, any time there is a thing that is not necessarily about your particular intersectional space, like a thin white woman who wants to speak up about fat phobia and the racist origins of fat phobia. One really good way to share with that power that is already invested in you as thin and white is to, say, repost something, or share something written by a fat black activist. It's really simple. But it doesn't always occur to people to just like repost something in its fullness, not just take a screenshot. To really share the words and attribute the words to the person who said them. Or to even say, Hey, I've got so and so doing guest posts for five days or something like that, for people who are on Instagram who live in that world, you know. There are so many ways to share power, that you're just saying, hey, this doesn't all need to belong to me. And I think that the idea that power needs to belong to any one person or any one group is a function of white supremacist, capitalist scarcity, culture - that there's not enough power to go around and there really, really is. I guess one other thing I'll say is like I love Ann Friedman's Shine Theory, the idea that there is plenty to go around and by lifting up my friend, or this other person, I am actually creating more power, more abundance that we can all share in more learning and more knowledge that we can all share in. And that is how we thrive despite living in a capitalist society that tells us there's not enough.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah, I think that something that was really interesting happened right after Biden Harris won the election. A beautiful graphic with Kamala Harris with her briefcase and next to it, Ruby Bridges in a sort of shadow overlay walking near her. I saw it a few places with the artists completely unattributed. Then I saw it everywhere. And I went back and started Googling. It did not take very long to figure out where it was from, and put the artist's name with a link back to their feed and say,"here's this, I've seen this in a few places. But here's really who did this. We need to kind of shine some light on their work." A way that I've seen this really done nicely was Senator Cory Booker using his time at Judge Jackson's hearing a few weeks ago-- or was that last month - to talk about her. He talked about her credentials, he talked about how much he believed in her. And some of that I think was about him. And some people thought he was a little showboaty with this. I thought,"you know what, I'm going to give him a big pass on this. Because basically, he is showboating (if he is) on her behalf." And I will take it. And I loved it. I loved where it came in the hearings, and I was really just grateful that he was able to share his power in that way. And that kind of was just a really nice visual for people to see, this is how we do something like this.

Larissa Parson:

Right. This is how we lift each other up instead of trying to tear each other down. Instead of trying to say, well, you know, I can't share this with you. We don't need need that. So I want to say, I think as we wrap up, that if we want a world that is equitable, and just where Cory Booker does not have to make that kind of statement, because we all agree that Judge Jackson is hugely qualified, overqualified, incredibly competent, that is not a question that is on the table. If we want to live in a world that is equitable, and just, we have to have access to power. By we, I mean, all of us, everyone, we have to be able to act - again, there's always like this parenthetical hanging over my head when I say act on our desires, assuming that they are not harming people.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I don't think we've said that. Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt you.

Larissa Parson:

No, no. Every time I say I want to act on my desires, I'm like, assuming that they are not intentionally done to harm people, for the sake of harming people, or to oppress people. Acting on your desire and breaking up with somebody is going to cause harm. But that's not necessarily a reason to not break up with someone, right. But we should, ideally, be able to act on our desires. Being able to have power, being able to act on desires, is how we remake the world to fit around us.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah, that's a great wrap up. And there's nothing I have to add to that whatsoever. I love that. And I think that this is a great thing for all of us to be thinking about. What are the pieces that we need to do and reminding ourselves that the world's not made for us. So we do need to be doing the work even though it is work -- and it is hard-- of remaking it for us to fit into. So eating food I enjoy without placing any kind of restriction on myself is one of the ways that I act on my desires. And I know that is true for you too, Larissa. Can we talk about what we're eating? We end every episode with what we're eating.

Larissa Parson:

It's Thursday. I'm sure something delicious is coming in the CSA. I have no idea what I'm eating today. Today is one of those days where I'm like, wow, I had a bagel this morning. It was delicious. But it was not one of Isaac's bagels. It was a Costco bagel. So I'll just say I'm looking forward to whatever the universe provides me with later today as something delightful and pleasurable and I will be actively seeking that pleasure in what I eat later, because it's been a hard week food wise for me in terms of, like, having the spoons to plan and execute my desires.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I've been playing around with this recipe for a chocolate bread pudding for a few years now. It's comes from the Flour cookbook. And that's Joanna Chang, who has a series of bakeries that she owns in Boston area called Flour. Anyway, we have a lot of challah from Jewish For Good at our house. My kid doesn't really like the ends of it. So we store them in a little bag in the freezer. And every once in a while I whip them out and make the beautiful sort of soupy layer that the challah then sits in to absorb all of this goodness before it before it gets baked off. So I made one this weekend with a couple of little modifications that I made. I bake a lot but usuall I'm like, "that's okay. It's not really it's not my thing, but someone likes it in my house". But this time I was like, "Okay, I'm changing a few things. And I'm gonna see how it turns out." And I loved it. I was shocked. I wasn't expecting it to be fabulous. I played around with the chocolate, semi sweet versus milk versus dark. And that was interesting. So now it's a real chocolatey beautiful bread pudding. And it's chocolatey as opposed to fudgy. And it's just delicious. So I can brought some to teachers and neighbors and it's just yummy. So I'm happy to have that as a success and a recipe that now I feel like I've got down.

Larissa Parson:

That sounds amazing. And it's so satisfying when recipe is like the right thing. Finally Finally, yeah, especially when you have to tweak it a bit. And I'll just say for our local listeners, I know we have a few, that challah from Jewish for Good. That's the best challah. I have tried every challah I can get my hands on around here. That is the best, hands down.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Hands down! Like no one comes close. And I've got challah from Loaf and challah from Ninth Street and I love some of their other stuff. But no one's challah is better than Jewish For Good.

Larissa Parson:

It's so good. So good. love that stuff. All right, well, thank you for listening. If you'd like to support our work here on the podcast, you can head over to patreon.com/wondermine where you'll have access to our bonus episodes and whatever other awesomeness Elizabeth and I come up with on our walks. And if you want to hang out with me in a virtual space, where we talk about stuff like desire every week, just message me on Instagram is probably the quickest and easiest way to get in touch that's at Larissa_parson.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

We are so grateful every time you share Wondermine with friends. Writing us a review will help others find their "wow" and "how" of living a life rooted in curiosity, community and liberation.

Larissa Parson:

And in the interim, between now and our next episode, you can follow us on @wonderminepodcast on Instagram. Thanks again. We are so delighted you've been listening.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Elizabeth M Johnson

Host
Head Shot

Larissa Parson

Host