Moonsisters Write

Pleasure is a multi-faceted, accessible, multi-dimensional, infinitely available experience.

– Samantha Tan

In this interview Samantha Tan and I discuss Moon Sisters Write, a project we installed in her new moon group to harness the creative energy. All of the posts are linked here.

Danielle 

We are talking about one of our favorite projects that we’ve done together, right? 

Samantha   

That is the truth. That is the truth.

Danielle   

It’s a writing group that we launched together, that we called Moon Sisters Write. It began, Samantha, with the work that you were doing convening a New Moon Circle. And particularly, the circle that you convened around Audre Lorde’s Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power. And I wonder if we could start there, if you could just bring us into your thinking and your recollection of what we did in that circle?

Samantha 

Audre Lorde’s Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power – if ever, there was a time to really read and reflect and act on that powerful piece of writing, it’s now. I really wanted to convene women in sisterhood, to explore our connection and the wisdom and remembering that could arise in that connection. We met for two years, every month on the new moon.

And I felt that there was so much creative energy happening in our group, Danielle, so much creative energy being generated, being shared, sparking all over the place, I really wanted to have something that would persist over time, an artifact, a piece of art. And writing came to me. And then we talked, you and I, and brainstormed and came up with this idea of a writing group that would be tied to the New Moon group, but have a life of its own.

Danielle   

We began with an in-person session where everybody was working with the prompt, Dear Moon Sisters, I Love You Because. And then we requested people refine or elaborate on their letters, on their own time. When we saw the incredible writing that was coming out of the Moon Sisters, I think that’s when we were really like, oh, there’s something here.

When you’re talking about taking an in-person group and adding in an online component to it, every group is going to need something different. And so we figured out what would work for our group. Participants were asked to publish by the time the new moon came, at least once. 

It was a chance for me to experiment with a 10-step writing process that I had been pulling together. The game-changer I realized when creating the writing process is that a key factor to bring fuel and energy to our writing is to externalize our earliest stage ideas to a small group of trusted people. They were not there to offer feedback, make it better, or do anything to it. They could respond simply with thank you for writing. Over time we understood the important role of those witnesses.

I have been in a million different creative process classes. I am used to and comfortable with having my work critiqued. And there’s an essential editing phase in the process later, step eight, nine, ten, where you actually need an editor to come in and critique your work. But, there’s so many steps before that. And, in the early stages of the writing process, some people benefit from environments, where they know that their writing will be received, with the echo: thank you for writing. 

Samantha 

Yeah. 

Danielle 

And so that was what we set off into this adventure with, was the idea that you’re writing for yourself, you’re not writing for anyone else, you’re not writing for an audience, it doesn’t matter if this goes on your website, it doesn’t matter what happens to this – this is for you. And that this is a nourishing practice, this isn’t like, something that is to-do, right? This isn’t another thing on your back that you have to do. This is actually a way to feed yourself.

Samantha   

I love that so much. I love the Moon Sisters group principles and values infused in your 10-step writing process. So number one, it’s for you. It’s not to please or meet expectations; it’s to nourish yourself. And I love at the bottom of all your emails to the group, as you stewarded us so beautifully, was: this is for you This is to nourish yourself. We’re not aiming for perfection, we’re just aiming for expression. And it was really, really helpful for me – since I wouldn’t consider writing my main form of artistic expression – to have the safe small group. And because of the Moon Sisters connection, that we’d been meeting for two years, there was that safety, right? And so we could share very, very, very deeply. When we shared, we knew the group would say, thank you for writing. And you helped us with that phrase, thank you for writing. You also encouraged us not to critique the writing in a traditional way. I feel that’s a departure from traditional writing courses, that was very important to me, Danielle.

Danielle   

I mean, it was important to me, too, right? I was participating, and I don’t think that I’ve ever had a formation in my life that has brought out more raw creative writing from me. I’ve had training in creative nonfiction, or in writing this, or writing that. But actually, when you boil it down, the poetics is what I care about the most. It comes to me as stream of consciousness. Having a place to really work with that stream of consciousness, and be able to put out unedited work to a trusted group of people is really special. With our group, one of the things I thought was so amazing was the ways in which we were expressing our feelings about things, our rage about things, our inspiration about things. People were going into their wounds, but it didn’t feel like a therapy group. It felt like, ‘oh my gosh, you’ve just written a gorgeous essay that the world needs to read.’ So even though we weren’t editing, we weren’t critiquing, the work that was produced was absolutely incredible! And every day I would read something, I’d be like, this needs to be published, this needs to be published, this needs to be published.

Samantha   

I felt exactly the same way. There were pieces of writing that were so raw and so true. It was a privilege, because many of the pieces of work, the writing that came out, came from so deep inside someone that you almost felt bashful that you were reading it. You’re like, ‘oh my god, thank you for sharing that with me. I’m so honored.’ And I would read a piece, and often just have to pause. I couldn’t continue with whatever I was doing. I had to pause, and I would have a physical reaction to the writing. It was that potent, and that raw, and that honest. And then the gift of that same kind of writing being pulled up from myself from each of us, because when one woman writes from the depths of her soul, it not only permissions me and others to do the same, but it almost, you almost feel like, ‘you’re standing there naked, I’m going to join you, I’m going to be that bold, I’m going to be that courageous, I’m going to be that raw and honest, I’m going to be that unvarnished.’ And so I think we were in this virtuous cycle of really being brave with ourselves. And you’re right. It wasn’t therapy. It’s therapeutic to ourselves, because inherent in being that unvarnished and that honest, is in, is that feeling of freedom.

Danielle   

Yes. Particularly in that season, in that in that cycle, I think, I started to come in contact with a new layer of how much has really been taken from us by patriarchy. How much of our truth have we been sculpting, to fit within the bounds of what is acceptable in patriarchy? And when you get a bunch of women together, who are really allowed to be unvarnished and true, and allowing their impulse to flow through, it is a really different story.

Samantha 

Very different story. In our writing group, there were truths that I thought were just mine alone, and that I was ashamed of and that I was hiding. And I thought, ‘no one thinks this, it’s just me and my weird self.’ And then to hear another woman who had the courage to speak it. And then another, and then another say, Oh, yeah, me too. Oh, yeah, I feel that way, too. You’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh, we’ve all been hiding from ourselves and each other.’ And so just the knowledge that probably every darkest secret that you – I now have the firm belief that every darkest secret that I think it’s just me, it’s probably not. 99% – it’s not just me.

Danielle   

Yeah.

Samantha 

And then, what does that make possible in my own psyche? In the collective psyche of us?

Danielle  

There was a lot of celebration. Seeing people write about the first flower of spring, or hearing these beautiful tapestries of the song of the universe that’s gonna  bring us to the social change that we need, you know? All of this gorgeous, poetic work. Part of the reason that so much of that was able to flow through is really the way that despite the reality, despite the rawness that you were calling forward in a circle, ultimately, at the end of the day, Samantha, your work is really about pleasure. So, you know, here we are talking about sharing all this raw stuff, and even having bodily reactions, or our deep dark secrets being exposed. How is all of that part of pleasure?

Samantha   

Pleasure is what it is to you, right? So, there were times where I would read someone’s – equally their, their bliss in seeing a sunset or being in a lover’s arms, and equally, their their shame and disgust and self-loathing and tears and despair. And equally, I would feel a kind of pleasure in reading it. I would say, this woman is free. This woman, this sister that I know and that I get to be in relationship with is unchaining herself. She’s dropped, breaking out of her chains, and she’s just expressing who she is to the world to us, and I can hear her voice. And that act of liberation is so deeply pleasurable to me. And then I’m encouraged to do the same. I might say I can’t share this. I can’t think this. Did I think this, do I think this? And I go, yes, I can! I do think this, this is what I feel, this is who I am. And I write something. And I have that hope, heart palpitation, that excitement, that fear, when something big is about to happen, and then I write it and I press send. And then I feel a rush of pleasure. Right? I’ve just unburdened myself, and I’ve just freed myself. And it’s safe because we’ve, we’ve made those agreements, our container’s safe. And then when one sister, another sister, writes back – Oh my gosh, me too. I felt that as well. I also have that experience. The pleasure is then compounded and built upon. I know this isn’t necessarily how people think of pleasure, but my work is about offering an expanded set of portals into pleasure. So that pleasure is not just one thing that we’re sold, or we sculpt ourselves to deserve.

Pleasure is a multi-faceted, accessible, multi-dimensional, infinitely available experience.

Samantha Tan is a consultant and executive coach in leadership, culture and group dynamics. She is passionate about women’s leadership, and enjoys working across generations and cultures. She helps leaders tap into emerging voices to inform and shape their organizations into the future. She uses the integration of body, emotions and language to support effective decision making and sustainable change.