“To love well is the task in all meaningful relationships, not just romantic bonds.” - bell hooks
Being raised in poverty by a struggling single mother taught me from an early age the importance of finding your chosen family, building community, and practicing mutual aid. It also showed me the flaws of the nuclear family structure. I regularly host intimate gatherings that celebrate platonic love and cultivate these bonds. I think of these events as both social practice art, ritual, and prefigurative politics. Manifestations of Luv is an annual event I have hosted every year since 2017. At these events, we practice vulnerability, loving-kindness, feminist consciousness-raising, and being in sacred circle. Taking place in the same month as Valentine's Day, it serves as a reaction to a world that centers romantic love, transactional relations, and the couple form.
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