For The Worldbuilders

Seeda School
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Join host Ayana Zaire Cotton where they reflect on worldbuilding and interdisciplinary practice with occasional guests. "For The Worldbuilders" is presented by Seeda School which hosts a 9-week retreat helping you seed, deepen or return to an interdisciplinary practice, release a creative offer and develop a cohesive narrative through the framework of worldbuilding.

  1. 084. Create It, Not In The Future, But Now

    29 AGO

    084. Create It, Not In The Future, But Now

    My intention inside this episode is to remind you of that big, juicy, audacious creative vision that is all your own. That desire commensurate with the expanse of your power. That idea, project or offer that only feels intimidating because it is a threat to colonial order and the colonized part of us might be sacred of it. As it should be, but let’s rest in the fact that this is natural and impermanent. Just like fear is an indication of desire, so is the avoidance of our own audacity. Avoidance is different than procrastination. We procrastinate on certain tasks, because the stakes are usually low. We avoid our audacity, because the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been. Sometimes we avoid answering the call of our audacious desire because we know it will demand the sort of transformation that changes everything and perhaps that is entirely the point. Resources Learn More and Enroll Into the Laboratory of Erotic Engineering to Join Us Inside the Upcoming Workshop, "Create It, Not In The Future, But Now": https://www.seedaschool.com/labSubscribe to the Seeda School Substack: ⁠https://seedaschool.substack.com/⁠Follow Ayana on Instagram: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Ayana on Threads: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Seeda School on Instagram: ⁠⁠@seedaschool⁠Citations “In the context of such enormous structural violence, how was it possible to imagine that a beautiful life is possible? Even more unthinkable was the idea that one might create it, not in the future, but now.” — Saidiya Hartman (Source: Regard for One Another: A Conversation Between Rizvana Bradley and Saidiya Hartman published via the Los Angeles Review of Books on October 8, 2019)Cover Art: Stills from Oscar Micheaux, Swing! (1938) (Library of Congress) (Source: “A Book of Necessary, Speculative Narratives for the Anonymous Black Women of History” by Sarah Rose Sharp, published via Hyperallergic on April 15th, 2019)

    29 min
  2. 083. Use Erotic Engineering To Create A Life Rooted In Your Desire

    7 AGO

    083. Use Erotic Engineering To Create A Life Rooted In Your Desire

    Erotic Engineering is a wild field of study and practice that uses the erotic as power to design a life rooted in desire. Inside this practice the desire we center is both personal and collective. Erotic Engineering pulls from the work of black feminist poetry, literature and worldbuilding which provides the material we use to create new belief systems that scaffold lives in deeper alignment with our values. It is a method for actualizing desire and putting language to the longings of our interior worlds in order to transform our material world. Resources Register for the Erotic Engineering Workshop, “Discover The Daily Habits Aligned With Your Zone of Desire” happening Tuesday, August 19th at 12pm EST: https://www.seedaschool.com/erotic-workshopSubscribe to the Seeda School Substack: ⁠https://seedaschool.substack.com/⁠Follow Ayana on Instagram: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Ayana on Threads: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Seeda School on Instagram: ⁠⁠@seedaschool⁠Citations Audre Lorde, "Uses of the Erotic, The Erotic As Power" (1978)Stack OverflowCover Art: Barbara Chase-Riboud, La Musica Red Parkway / Josephine Red (2007), materials: bronze with red patina and silk dimensions: 73 x 49 x 19 inches (185 x 124 x 48 cm). American artist, novelist, and poet Barbara Chase-Riboud (b. 1939) creates abstract, fluid metal forms that, combined with fibers, comprise a unique visual language. (Source: Glenstone)

    34 min
  3. 082. Professionalism Requires Our Lies, Poetry Requires Our Truth

    25 JUL

    082. Professionalism Requires Our Lies, Poetry Requires Our Truth

    My intention behind this episode is to invite you to seed a public creative practice through, what we call in Seeda School, “weekly dispatches” for time accountability or “creative dispatches” for time freedom. Whatever your desired relationship with time — committing to a cadence of newsletters, podcasts or videos, as dispatches becomes a public ritual of staying close to yourself. A sacred ceremony of bi-directional witnessing. Inside this sacred witnessing ceremony we don’t need your “professionalism” we need your poetry. We don’t need your cynicism, we need your care. We don’t need your cool, we need your conviction. At times it can feel easier to write for cover letters, grant applications, school applications or memos on the job because professional development rarely requires our honesty. Some career-conscious spaces even encourage our lies, asking us to leave our politics at the door as if that’s even possible. It can feel harder to write for ourselves and seed a public practice through creative writing, because our poetry demands our truth. Our poetry demands that we acknowledge our pleasure and politics as the only starting points we need to create work worthy of our breath. Inside this episode I share spells for doing exactly that. Resources Register for the free Worldbuilding Workshop to learn more about Seeda School’s 1:1 Coaching: https://www.seedaschool.com/coachingSubscribe to the Seeda School Substack: ⁠https://seedaschool.substack.com/⁠Follow Ayana on Instagram: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Ayana on Threads: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Seeda School on Instagram: ⁠⁠@seedaschool⁠Citations “Suicidal Ideation On The Subway: Taking Me To A World Beyond The Cul-De-Sac” by Ayana Zaire CottonJames Baldwin to Maya Angelou, “If I love you and I duck it, I die” inside “Conversation with a Native Son”“I write best when I stop trying to be brilliant and start trying to be honest.“ — Yrsa Daley-WardAlexis Pauline Gumbs, “We didn’t come here to be right, we came here to love” in Stars and Stars with IsaOcean Vuong in an interview with Sarah Ferguson for 7.30 ABCCover Art: Black and White Photograph of Maya Angelou Writing

    45 min
  4. 081. On Bargaining Over The Price of Actualizing Your Desire

    10 JUL

    081. On Bargaining Over The Price of Actualizing Your Desire

    Creative actualization demands sacrifice. There’s a saying that goes something like this, “you can have whatever you want, and if you don’t have it you either don’t want it or you’re bargaining over the price”. Now justified political critiques aside, I reference this quote to ask: In what ways are we bargaining over the price of actualizing our desire? Inside this episode I reflect alongside you and the 4 seasons of creative initiation: remembrance, surrender, sacrifice and erotic expression. Sometimes these seasons happen in order, sometimes they are non-linear. Which stage are you in? Will you allow yourself to believe it’s exactly where you’re supposed to be in this season? Let’s stop devising creative ways to get out of taking our own medicine. My intention behind recording this episode is to invite us to allow ourselves to be exactly where we are, willing students of all the wisdom embedded in our current season of transformation and initiation. Resources Let’s Work Together 1:1 On Launching Your Public Creative Practice in 8 Weeks (Enrollment Closes July 17th, 2025): https://www.seedaschool.com/coachingSubscribe to the Seeda School Substack: ⁠https://seedaschool.substack.com/⁠Follow Ayana on Instagram: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Ayana on Threads: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Seeda School on Instagram: ⁠⁠@seedaschool⁠Citations Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic, The Erotic As Power” (1978)Cover Art: She Kept Her Conjuring Table Very Neat, 1990, Renee Stout (American, born 1958), mixed media. (Source: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts⁠)

    43 min
  5. 080. No One Wants Your Perfectionism But White Supremacy

    27 JUN

    080. No One Wants Your Perfectionism But White Supremacy

    At first this episode was titled “There Is No Rigor In Perfection, There Is Rigor In Your Play”. In a recent episode of one of my favorite podcasts Hidden Brain, psychologist Paul Bloom describes why play is an essential choreography of aliveness for most human and non-human species. He says it’s essential because it’s a container for “safe practice”. I keep thinking about this phrase, “safe practice”. Oftentimes perfectionism is mistaken for rigor. These two are NOT the same. Perfectionism stops us from starting, rigor invites us to try. The fear rooted in perfectionism is an indication of feeling unsafe inside our practice. My intention inside this episode is to offer spells for cultivating a felt sense of safety inside our practice through rigorous play. Resources Let’s Work Together 1:1 On Launching Your Newsletter in 8 Weeks: https://www.seedaschool.com/coachingSubscribe to the Seeda School Substack: ⁠https://seedaschool.substack.com/⁠Follow Ayana on Instagram: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Ayana on Threads: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Seeda School on Instagram: ⁠⁠@seedaschool⁠Citations “God Owes Me A Favor: Let’s Collectively Call It In” by Ayana Zaire Cotton“Ouch! That Feels Great”, Hidden Brain Podcast Episode with psychologist Paul Bloom and Shankar VedantamAlexis Pauline Gumbs on Finding CeremonyZora Neale Hurston, “The Dream is the Truth” in Their Eyes Were Watching Godnènè myriam konaté's Substack, Instagram and Manifest(o) RetreatOcean Vuong on being "summoned, despite yourself"Cover Art: Lorna Simpson, did time elapse (2024) Materials: Acrylic and screenprint on gessoed fiberglass Dimensions: 259.1 x 365.8 x 3.5 cm / 102 x 144 x 1 3/8 in. "Together, Simpson’s incandescent paintings draw attention to the danger hidden in beauty and, conversely, the beauty hidden in danger. Bringing us face to face with phenomena rarely witnessed by the human eye, they ask us to locate ourselves in the context of the cosmos." (Source: Hauser & Wirth)

    48 min
  6. 079. A Love Song For Conjure Women Cosplaying As Corporate Baddies

    26 MAY

    079. A Love Song For Conjure Women Cosplaying As Corporate Baddies

    You know that meme that’s going around saying “propaganda i'm not falling for”? Well the propaganda we’re not falling for is the discourse that says we need to quit our day jobs in order to be “real artists”, “real diviners”, “real entrepreneurs”. Or whatever, because truth is…we can be working full-time inside our passion and still be in misalignment with the sometimes uncomfortable and terrifying invitations of our creative spirit. My intention behind recording this podcast episode is to invite us to explore how we might bring our full witchy-ness into our work. Less about the "what" of what we do and more about the "how". How do we show up in the fullness of our power, how do we maintain boundaries that support our bodies and how do we refuse to sever ourselves from our spirit for work misaligned with our values? We’ll explore all this and more in today’s episode. Resources Let’s Work Together 1:1 On Your Creative Offer: https://www.seedaschool.com/coachingSubscribe to the Seeda School Substack: ⁠https://seedaschool.substack.com/⁠Follow Ayana on Instagram: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Ayana on Threads: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Seeda School on Instagram: ⁠⁠@seedaschool⁠Citations Cover Art: Julie Dash, Daughters of the Dust (Film Still), 1991

    53 min
  7. 078. Working Harder is Unnecessary, Certainty Is An Illusion, Hold On To This Instead

    1 MAY

    078. Working Harder is Unnecessary, Certainty Is An Illusion, Hold On To This Instead

    My intention behind recording this podcast episode is to ask: are we in a season of seeding or reaping? Are we clinging to the energy of survival mode when spirit is inviting us to breathe and take in the garden we’ve built — enjoying the fruits of our labor and perhaps using them to create the next dish, recipe or project with ease. Perhaps we cling to the energy of survival mode and invent fires to put out because we’re clinging to a feeling of control and certainty. But what if change and transformation don’t have to be disorienting and destabilizing, what if we can relax into the process instead? What if the practice is about using what we have on hand to create an offering and trusting that, that is more than enough, trusting that that is plenty? These are the questions we’re going to explore in today’s episode. Resources Learn More and Enroll into the Seed A World Retreat: https://www.seedaschool.com/programSubscribe to the Seeda School Substack: ⁠https://seedaschool.substack.com/⁠Follow Ayana on Instagram: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Ayana on Threads: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Seeda School on Instagram: ⁠⁠@seedaschool⁠ Citations A Process for Finding Purpose: Do THIS to Build the Life You Want with Jay Shetty on the Mel Robbins PodcastThe Combahee River Collective StatementArthur Jafa: Sequencing the Notes | Art21 "Extended Play"This Japanese Shrine Has Been Torn Down And Rebuilt Every 20 Years for the Past Millennium by Rachel NuwerCover Photo: Elizabeth Catlett, El Abrazo, 1978, Mackey Twins Art Gallery, © Elizabeth Catlett Family Trust / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023, photo: Frank Sperling

    45 min
  8. 077. Dropping the Master's Tools, Dreaming Beyond Institutional Support

    24 ABR

    077. Dropping the Master's Tools, Dreaming Beyond Institutional Support

    My intention behind recording this episode is to humbly invite us to consider what got us to our current reality might not get us to our wildest dreams. Maybe it was ambition, external validation or the perceived safety of playing small inside our own dreams that got us here but these postures of practice are too hollow to strike this moment and inspire long-lasting change. What if we dreamed from inside the sturdy validation of love instead? A regenerative force of motivation we can sustain over a lifetime, expanding into actualized dreams too wild for words. Upon further inspection, through the looking glass of interdependence, we see it is love that got us here and it’s love that will get us there, to worlds as yet unnamable. Resources Enroll in the Seed A World Retreat or Register for the Worldbuilding Workshop to Learn More: https://www.seedaschool.com/programSubscribe to the Seeda School Substack: ⁠https://seedaschool.substack.com/⁠Follow Ayana on Instagram: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Ayana on Threads: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠Follow Seeda School on Instagram: ⁠⁠@seedaschool⁠Citations The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House by Audre LordeKaren M. Rose’s (IG: @empresskarenmrose) Libra Full Moon PostAlexis Pauline Gumbs on The Black Studies PodcastCover Photo: “Anna Julia Cooper: Educator, Writer and Intellectual” (Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture)

    43 min
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Join host Ayana Zaire Cotton where they reflect on worldbuilding and interdisciplinary practice with occasional guests. "For The Worldbuilders" is presented by Seeda School which hosts a 9-week retreat helping you seed, deepen or return to an interdisciplinary practice, release a creative offer and develop a cohesive narrative through the framework of worldbuilding.

Información

  • Creador
    Seeda School
  • Años de actividad
    2023 - 2025
  • Episodios
    79
  • Clasificación
    Explícito
  • Copyright
    © Seeda School
  • Mostrar sitio web
    For The Worldbuilders

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