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2021 Recap!
I enjoy looking back + seeing all the progress I’ve made over the year. It helps me realize that I did in fact actually do things + work toward my goals.
Sometimes my brain likes to tell me that I’ve done NOTHING + gotten NOTHING accomplished, that I’ve wasted the whole year.
Does your brain do that to you too?
Maybe looking back through your year to see all that you’ve done will benefit you too!
This post contains affiliate links. This means I may earn a commission should you choose to make a purchase using my link (at no extra cost to you!). I only recommend things I have personally used + love!
- Took lots of walks at parks
- Hiked in the mountains as much as possible
- Helped my sister Gemini move
- Reconnected with AD
- Went to a wedding
- Made new friends
- Cried a lot
- Had some of the most painful menstrual cramps of my life
- Visited/traveled to:
- Durham/Raleigh NC
- NC mountains
- DC
- PA
- Cleveland OH
- Microdosed mushrooms a few times
- Took a voice lesson
- Saw the Van Gogh immersive exhibit
- Learned about my ancestry
- Got tested for STIs
- Learned about my HSV1+ status
- Helped out at the local camera store
- Went to the mountains with my dads side of the family
- Got vaccinated
- Finalized my name change!!! I am SO excited about this!
- Tattoo appointment almost every month (finished outlining + started color… vlog post about all this coming soon!)
- Went camping with a friend
- Journaled every day
- Did energy practices almost every day
Let me know what you’d like to see from me in 2022 by responding to my survey!
- Redid/updated my website
- Created a welcome automation for my newsletter
- Taught Self Portraits for Self Discovery + Connection workshop for The Light Factory
- Created Self Portraiture for Self Discovery + Connection ebook + Inspiration + Planning workbook
- Created + shared Queer Nature slideshow
- Applied for a residency + didn’t get it (practice failing to get closer to accomplishing!)
- Facilitated peer support sessions
- Quit social media!!! Thank you Leonie Dawson for helping me feel like this was even possible!
- Filmed for Nudism.TV (with my family!) for 4 days
- Worked on meditations with Jenna + Lior
- Photoshoots:
- Facilitated virtual nude gatherings: March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October (total of 8 gatherings)
- Facilitated a first look at self portraits members only event
I was only able to accomplish these things because of the support from members of my website, thank you so much!
- Became an LLC
- Got a business bank account
- GBTL events: Jan, Feb x2, March x2, April x2, May x3, June x2, July, August, September (total of 15 events!!!)
- GBTL met up in person to create + facilitate backstage pass
- Many many meetings + video chats + text messages behind the scenes
Click here to learn more about Going Beyond the Lens
- Explore More Summit 2020
- Sales Star with Leonie Dawson
- Marketing Without Social Media with Leonie Dawson
- Black Friday Training with Elizabeth Goddard
- Intersex Period Pandel Discussion with Crystal Hendricks, Mari Wrobi, Nick Manchester, Yezenia León Mezu, + Sean Saifa Wall
- Identity + Representation Panel Discussion with Roarie Yum, Jade Wilson, Paige Wilson, Deitric Robsinon-Miller, Kiah Glenn, + John Robinson-Miller IV
- Breathwork For Aliveness with Jennifer Patterson
- Emotion Mapping with Dawn Serra
- Boundaries Class with Luna Dietrich
- Live Your F*ck Yes Life Summit (non monogamy + polyamory) with Amanda Katherine Loy, Chad Spangler/polyamfam, Leanne Yau/polyphiliablog, Ebony/Marjani Lane, + Jess Levity/remodeledlove
- Women Race + Class by Angela Davis
- The Language of Emotions by Karla McLaren
- We Will Not Cancel Us by adrienne maree brown
- Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
- My Grandmothers Hands by Resmaa Menakem
- I Hope We Choose Love by Kai Cheng Thom
- Evolution’s Rainbow by Joan Roughgarden
- Rebloom by Rachael Maddox
- Seven Thousand Ways to Listen by Mark Nepo
- Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
Check out the organized list of HUNDREDS of books I want to read!
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Vlog about my experience filming for Nudism.TV!
Click here to watch video in another window.
CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:
Good morning! Well, it’s morning for me, I don’t know if it’s morning for you. I was just walking in my backyard and it’s chilly. I don’t have shoes on and I stopped just in time because there’s a big spider right over here and a spider web, but I almost walked straight into and I didn’t. I’m glad that I didn’t. Hi spider!
I wanted to talk to y’all about my trip I just came home from. Let’s see if I can get this to stay where it is. Yeah, I just came home yesterday. We drove all day home from Cleveland or filming for Nudism.TV with my family. Me, my mom, my dad, my sister. We shot for four days. Yeah, it was four straight days of filming, and it was really super fun. I had a great time. We filmed a whole lot of different segments. I did self-portraiture, I did one like gender and sexuality 101, my dad’s a segment on Bourbon. My sister did two segments on floral arrangements. My mom did a segment on cooking and energy healing, and several of them we like, some or all of us are part of each other segments for a lot of them. We did as a whole family, we did our family haircut, we did a segment on that. And I mean, I’ve already like talked to y’all about all the segments, because I did a little blog post on here already, but just wanted to speak it to you and talk about it. It was so fun.
The people there were super nice. Pasha is the person who’s like kind of the head of all of it. He actually, his wife had a baby while we were there, so that was cool. Cool for him. We didn’t get to spend much time with him because obviously he was like spending time with his wife and the new baby. Marisa is one of the people who helps get everything set up and she’s super sweet. She was there the whole time. She also helps like behind the camera with getting all the production stuff completed and she’s really nice. There’s Todd there, Todd was the like main camera person and getting everything like setup for all of the segments of shoots and everything.
They have a whole like a whole team of people working on this and it’s a whole big production and they’re shooting almost 5 days a week. Right now, today’s Halloween when I’m filming this… right now they have people booked through the end of December. So they’re like booked out through the rest of the year. They’re going to have quite a library once they actually release everything to, you know, on the website. Right now, the website is like, come visit us. Come be a part of it.
The official like… what do they call it? I will think of it but all the official stuff will go live sometime in 2022. So they’re building up their library right now. They’re gonna have quite a lot because even just with my family over four days, we filmed a fuck ton of different segments. The interview we did, it was broadcast live on their YouTube channel. I linked to it before but I’ll link it again in case you missed it. I’ll link it in the caption below if you want to watch our interviews from the first day.
(CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE INTERVIEWS ON YOUTUBE)
Yeah, it was super fun, I had a really great time. I did not realize how much shooting and like filming would exhaust me. It was so much fun, but it is very tiring to be in front of a camera like basically from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. four days a week.Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve been in front of a camera naked if it’s not my camera. But it’s a different kind of camera instead of a photo camera it’s a video camera. So I felt super awkward a lot. Like I sometimes struggle with my words in the first place and then being in front of a camera and feeling like I have to get it right, makes me feel even more awkward. So I hope that everything turned out well. I feel like I said “um” a lot, which I probably did and I did like, kinda struggle with figuring out what to say. And how to articulate things. Yeah, I hear myself saying “um” a lot in this too. I think it’s just if I’m going to be on camera and talking “um” is gonna happen. It was really super fun.
It’s kind of early morning. I just woke up maybe an hour ago. I just wanted to be outside even though it’s cold. So here I am outside my kigurumi, me naked underneath it kinda just staying warm. Maybe it’ll help if I got in the sunshine. But yeah, it’s I had a really great week. I am thankful for the opportunity to be a part of that. I’m really excited to see where it goes and how everyone else likes it once everything’s live. I think it was a really great opportunity and I’m really glad that there are people that are doing this because I think it’s really important to bring nudity to the world at a non-sexual way and to like destigmatize it because a lot of people think nudity and then automatically assume sex and that’s not the case. And also like you can have sex with a whole thing of clothes on. So nudity and sex are not like interrelated all the time. They can sometimes, but that’s not the whole thing. Like, nudity is just the state of dress or undress and has nothing to do with whether you’re having sex or not. So, yeah, I think it’s really important what they’re doing and I’m really glad that they’re doing it, and I got to be part of it.
So if you like to be naked and have hobbies and interests that you would like to share with Nudism.TV get in touch with me, send me an email. I can get you in touch with them. They’re super wonderful and I love what they’re doing. And I highly recommend. It was a great opportunity, a great experience for me, and my family, they all said that they had a great week and really enjoyed it and Nudism.TV, takes care of us. They covered our expenses. They got us a really nice airbnb. They paid us for our time. They fed us really well. It was a really great experience. They respect the people that they have working for them. So that’s really good. It’s not like they’re expecting people to do this for free. Yeah, it’s they’re… it’s great. It was a wonderful experience all around and I highly recommend it. So if you want to be a part of it, also, let me know. I can get you in touch with them. It will probably be some time in 2022 if you get to film because they’re already booked through the end of the year, but they do have plans of expanding their space, which is also really exciting because that means, maybe more people can be there at one time. And that means more like group naked things, which is like my favorite obviously because I love doing the nude gatherings. I’m hoping maybe one day I can do a nude gathering there like problem film like on camera filming like video. It would be really fun. I kind of talked to them a little bit about that and I’d like to talk to them more about that. Right now I just need to rest. I’m tired and I have some computer stuff to catch up on. So I didn’t even take my laptop. Yeah.
Thank you for being here. I love you so much. I’m really excited to continue being naked and doing all kinds of fun, creative, nude things. I’m sad that it’s getting cold. So that means I can’t be outside naked as much because it’s obviously not comfortable, it’s too cold. But yeah, I am so thankful that I have the life that I do and I’m doing what I’m doing and that you’re a part of it. So, thank you so much! I love you! MWAH
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I grew up around nudity / How AWESOME my family is
Click here to watch this video in another window.
CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:
Hi friends! I’m making this video immediately after the video I made for last week because I’m going to be out of town a lot this month and I wanted to make sure that I still had lots of things to share with you. So I’m preparing early. In this video I’m going to share the story of like how my family is cool with nudity. So, all the way back to the beginning, when I was I think it was before Elementary School even, me and my sister and my mom and my dad, we used to all have like family showers because everybody has a body and everybody needs to shower sometimes and like, why not do it together? And then once my sister and I got old enough to start going to school my dad stopped doing nude things with us because he was concerned of Child Protective Services being called on them or something, even though nothing like nefarious was going on. If me or my sister mentioned that we’ve seen our dads penis, somebody would have had like red flags and be like, what? So he didn’t want to risk it, which is understandable, but also sad, I guess that’s the world we live in. Rape culture is real. So even though it was totally innocent in our family, my dad just he didn’t want to risk it.
So growing up, my mom would like use the bathroom and not close the door. I knew early what periods were because she had a period And I like, me and my sister learned what that was early on before we even started our periods. Yeah, like nudity has never been that big of a deal in my house, in my family. We have always had really open discussions with my parents. They’ve always been of the mind of like, if you want to know something, then ask us and make sure you actually want to know the answer because we are going to answer. And if we don’t know the answer, we’re going to do our best to find the answer for you. But if it’s something you don’t really want to know the answer to, then don’t ask the question because we will answer it honestly.
I think that was a really big part of why nudity is really not a big deal for me and also why I find communication to be so important in relationships, which, I mean, even if I didn’t have that experience growing up, I still probably would think communication is very important, but I think that laid a foundation… I think I just saw a frog hop off of a leaf and onto another one! So cute! Okay, I’m gonna try not to be too distracted. I think that that foundation of communication and honesty in my family really set the foundation for my ability to communicate openly and honestly with people even about things that are difficult and complicated, I’m kind of the mind, I would rather over-communicate than under-communicate. I’d rather talk about something like five times than not talk about it at all. I want to be on the same page, or at least as at least in the same book, close to the same page.
So I started taking nude self portraits, probably before I was 18. I don’t have… I don’t have I have not shared any self portraits from before I was 18 on here. Don’t worry. You have not seen underage Bunny. The youngest I was in any of the photos that I’ve shared here I think, was either 18 or 20, so not to worry about that. I would not share those… actually I don’t, I would have to search to find the stuff from when I was younger. Yeah. I just started taking nude self portraits really early on when I got a camera. I was like taking photos of my friends nude. I’ve taken photos of my parents nude. I’ve taken photos of my sister nude. What else…
Once my sister and I got older like over 18, there was no more worry of child protective services, so my dad kind of stopped being super cautious about his nudity around us. So a regular occurrence here in this household is we will have haircut day. It’s usually on Sundays where we’ll get naked because who wants like tiny hairs all over their clothes? So we’ll get naked and we’ll, my mom will cut our hair. That’s where I get my nice haircut. My mom does it, I get the same hair cut my dad, he just gets more because he gets like his beard trimmed and stuff. So have haircut days and we’ll just like hang out naked in the kitchen and talk and chat and get out hair cut and then of course, like rinse off after because tiny little hairs, all over are very itchy and tickly.
And, Yeah, it’s no big deal to like…. I’m naked around the house all the time, like most days I either don’t get dressed at all or I will put clothes on like halfway through the day when I’ll have to go outside or something. Yeah, nudity is just not been a big deal. Like nudity for me is not attached necessarily to sexuality. You can be nude and not sexual and you can be sexual and clothed, so nudity and sexuality are not the same thing!!! And that was made clear to me through my upbringing. I’ve had a lot of experiences being naked around other people that were not sexual. And I think that, I think that that a lot of people have only been nude in sexual experiences and that’s why a lot of people associate nudity and sexuality the way that they do, but I don’t. They’re very different things and I hope that more people start to learn and believe that too.
Because, yeah, like I want nudity to not be this taboo, weird thing. It doesn’t need to be. Everybody has a body, like we’re all born naked. We all like, we all exist in these bodies that don’t have clothes on them until you put clothes on. So, yeah, I think nudity is wonderful. For me, It’s such a wonderful way to be in my body. I feel like I’m more connected to myself when I’m nude. I feel like I’m more able to connect to my surroundings and the earth when I nude. I’m more able to realize that I have a body when I’m nude because a lot of times I’m like in my head and don’t even… like I’m just like a floating brain and sometimes I need to be reminded that like, oh, hey, I also have a body and I also can feel things with this body, and I also need to take care of this body and it’s easier for me to realize that I have a body when I’m nude. It’s like moving around…. Oh, I feel my arms on my torso or like, wow. Okay. I feel my thighs rubbing together. I have a body! Remember? So yeah, I feel like I take better care of myself when I’m nude. I feel like I’m able to enjoy my body more when I’m nude.
So, yeah, that’s my nude story. Also, the week that I’m sharing this video, I will be in Cleveland, Ohio with my parents and my sister shooting for Nudism.TV, which I think is going to come out next year. So we’re going to be on TV naked as a family and I’m so excited!!! It’s gonna be so fun! I’m really excited to see how it turns out and have this experience with my family. I feel like there probably aren’t very many people that can say that they are naked with their family in general, and then I feel like of the people that can say that there might be even less that can say that they are going to be on TV naked with their family. So I feel really special and honored that we have this opportunity. I’m so excited! I think it’s gonna be really fun. Okay, I think that’s all I have to say to share right now.
So, I think that was probably also why it was pretty easy for me to get into the nude photography and modeling world, because nudity was already not this, like, scary thing for me, it was just like another part of life. So, I hope that if you have considered being naked around other people, I hope this encourages you to be able to do that. And if that’s too scary, don’t force yourself to do something that you’re not ready for. If you do want to have more nude existence in your life, it’s totally cool to start doing that just by yourself like in your room, sleep naked, dance naked, hang out, and do normal things, like eat breakfast, naked. It doesn’t have to be this big deal. It can just be a part of your life. If you want it to be. Also, if you prefer having clothes on, that’s super awesome too, everybody’s different. Everybody has different wants and needs and I hope that you do what is best for you. Yeah, okay. I love you! Have a great day! Thanks for being here! I’ll see you later. Bye!
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Day 4 filming for Nudism.TV
Last day on set for Nudism.TV! Today Mama, Gemini and I did a cooking segment, then we did a segment where Mama cut my hair and Daddy’s hair. The last segment we did was a charades type game 😊
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Day 3 filming for Nudism.TV
Today my whole family (Mama, Daddy, my sister Gemini + I) did a segment on meditation, then Mama, Gemini + I did a segment on energy healing. Daddy did a solo segment about bourbon, + then all 4 of us did a segment of activities + games 😊
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Day 2 filming for Nudism.TV
Today I did a segment about gender + sexuality with my mom. I’m glad she was there to ask some questions and give her perspective. After that segment, I did a quick how-to on self portraiture including a demonstration. 😊
My sister Gemini filmed a segment on floral design for bouquets and a segment on creating flower crowns, with me + mommy there to ask questions. Afterward Gemini and I did a segment on consent + negotiations for a rope bondage session.
It was a full day and lots of fun! Now I’m ready to relaxxxxx and do nothing.
Watch our livestreamed interviews from yesterday on Nudism.TV‘s YouTube channel by clicking here!
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Day 1 filming for Nudism.TV
My family and I are in Cleveland Ohio to be a part of Nudism.TV‘s programming that’s coming out in 2022. It’s been really great so far! They’ve put us up in a really nice airbnb 5 minutes from the studio and we’ve been doing interviews since 9am. Everyone here is so nice and personable and they fed us delicious vegan food for lunch. We’re here filming through Friday!
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MEMES! Gender, labels, + consent, oh my!
I was sharing memes on instagram that included nude images but deleted them all when ig did their most recent update to the terms of service because I was scared of getting my account deleted AGAIN. My original account with 22.6k followers got deleted in October 2018 and I never got it back, so I really would like that to NOT happen again.
I still love the memes that I made and want to share them, so here are some of the ones that I used to have on my ig before I deleted them!
Original caption:
Photo: Chip Willis
Model + meme: me, Bunny LunaI am angry today so I am channeling that anger into making my first ever meme. Hah, it’s funny that I’m choosing this as my first post since my hibernation. (TW: breach of consent) This meme is dedicated to the TWO middle aged white men who assumed it was okay to touch me without consent yesterday.
They obviously felt entitled to my body because I have a vulva and am younger than them? One rubbed my freshly cut hair on the top of my head, without asking or commenting or anything, just touched me out of nowhere. The other literally pulled me by the arm so I could pose for him in front of some photos of mine, and then proceeded to move my arm to get me to pose in a certain way. He didn’t even ASK if I wanted to take a photo. I told him my rates, and he laughed.
Original caption:
Labels are complicated, and have the potential to be both positive AND negative. As someone who has learned a lot about themself over the last year, and changed quite a bit, labels have been something I’ve honestly struggled with. It’s easy to say that labels are not important, and they don’t have to be if you don’t want them to, but for some people they’re incredibly important, especially when you’re trying to figure out who you are.
Labels are positive in that they help us figure out what space we occupy in the world, they help us describe ourselves to others, and they help us find community and people who are similar to us. Labels can be negative when people assume incorrect things about us, put is in boxes that don’t fit us, or when they refuse to see us for who we really are.
It feels awful to be labeled as something you’re not, and it feels amazing and is so affirming when someone uses the correct label(s) to describe you. No matter what, only YOU can choose what labels are right for you. There is nobody who knows you better than yourself.
Some labels that I personally use because they feel right and true for me: non binary, queer, ecosexual, non monogamous, artist, witch, demisexual, creative, sproutling (my mom came up with this to describe me to others instead of saying that I’m her adult child and I love it!)
What labels do you use that feel authentic to you?
Self portrait taken in Utah during my 69 day cross country road trip in 2019 (before I cut my hair obviously).
Original caption:
Never touch anyone without their explicit consent. Yes, this includes hugs with friends and family, asking or talking about someone’s tattoos/clothes/hair, directing a model for a photoshoot, posing with another model, kissing your crush…
The ONLY exception to this that I can think of is if that person is in immediate danger and there is literally no time to ask for consent.
Keep in mind, consent is not only for physical touch. You should also get consent when flirting with someone, commenting on someone’s body, sharing difficult or potentially triggering information, sharing a story someone told you with someone else, posting photos of people… basically if it involves someone else, you probably need their consent.
Have something to share about consent? I’d love to read your thoughts/stories in the comments!
Words: Douglas Pierce
Photo + meme: me, Bunny Luna (self portrait in Utah)
I didn’t save the caption for this one, but it’s pretty self explanatory. =]
Original caption:
I am not the person I was a year ago, or last week, or yesterday. You probably aren’t either. We are all on perpetual journeys of growth and expansion. Every day we learn something about ourselves, every day we become a newer version of who we know ourselves to be.
Without change there is no innovation, no deeper understanding, no growth. You are a bottomless ocean filled with gifts unknown, until you dive in and explore your depths.
Photo + meme: me, Bunny Luna (self portrait in Colorado)
Original caption:
I recently had a really difficult conversation about my gender with a family member who is unwilling to do the work to understand and accept me for who I am. Their response to my being non binary was that I’ going through an “identity crisis” and it’s something that I’ll “grow out of” once I figure myself out.
It’s especially frustrating to me that they feel that way, because I know myself better now that I ever have. I know that I can’t make them see me for who I truly am, and that’s their work to do, not mine. It still hurts that someone I love doesn’t actually know me and instead chooses to only see me as the person they thought I was when I was younger and didn’t know myself.
I will continue to correct them when they misgender me (which is something I am constantly struggling with and tend to just stay quiet about it), because I want them to know that this is ME, not an “identity crisis” that I’ll “grow out of”
Sending lots of love to all of my trans siblings who have to deal with this every day. It’s really hard, and you deserve to be honored and acknowledged in your gender. I see you. I honor you. You are valid and important and I love you for WHO YOU ARE.
Photo/meme: me, Bunny Luna (self portrait in Colorado)
Original caption:
I moved through the first 28ish years of my life carrying the layers of expectations and assumptions of society that were thrown on top of me as a child before I knew I had any other option. Now that I know more about how the world works, I realize that I’ve been holding on to many things that are not truly mine. Parts of me buckled under that oppressive weight of binary gender, compulsory cis hetero monogamy, religion, racism, and capitalism (among others).
I am choosing to let go of the layers of anything that is not for the benefit of myself and the earth. It is a constant shedding, and it is not easy, but it is worth it. I wake every day with less of what isn’t mine so that I can understand what truly IS for me. I learn who I am by questioning.
Self portrait in Colorado
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Waterfall Introspection
CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:
Hi friends, welcome to another week of… my website. So this week I have a self portrait set that I took in 2018 on that first solo road trip that I went on, I talked about it… 2 weeks ago in the other waterfall self portrait set that I shared. I visited a whole bunch of waterfalls on this trip, it was like a long weekend, so this is a different waterfall and somehow after I took the photos and uploaded them to my smugmug, I forgot about this whole trip of self portraits that I took, somehow? So that’s why I’m sharing them now because I like somehow lost them / forgot about them after I took them and just never shared them. These photos I took I don’t even remember the name of the place that I was hiking. I probably could find it if I saw a map and looked back through some stuff. I hiked, this was in the mountains because that’s like my favorite place to be, I was hiking in the mountains near some waterfalls and I came upon this area that was a whole bunch of bare rock next to the river that had a little waterfall on it further up the river. I just hung out there for a long time and nobody really showed up for a long time so I was like “okay I feel safe being naked here” so I took some self portraits and then I got dressed and I think I was pulling oracle cards and journaling, and then a small family, like 2 or 3 person little group of adult and little children came by, and so I was like “okay so that’s perfect that I wasn’t naked when they showed up” because usually its people with kids that get annoyed or angry when people don’t have clothes on. So yeah that’s the photoset I’m sharing this week.
I have a video that has nothing to do with this photoset that I’m also sharing. This video I took.. I believe it was 2019, I’m not sure if it was before or after my cross country trip (EDIT: it was after). This was me when I lived at my sister’s house, hanging out in the living room in my sister’s house and listening to music and like, dancing and moving around and playing with the kittens… I call them shittens. Playing with shittens back when the cats that my sister has were actually kittens. They were so friggin cute. So this video is me just playing and dancing around and moving my body and playing with little kittens, so me and shittens, and dancing kindof, yoga ish, movement video.
First look people, I’m sharing more photos from Columbus Ohio. These are photos that Jacs Fishburne took of me and Lior Allay when we were traveling there, so these are I believe… all of the photos I am sharing with me and Lior and Jacs, which there are 3 photosets. I shared one of them last week, that was Lior’s photos of me and Jacs, this week it’s Jacs photos of me and Lior, and then next week I’ll be sharing… no I already shared those. The ones of Lior and Jacs that I took were the week before that. Next week I’ll be sharing something different. But yeah, so these are all from the same day and it was very fun. So first look is getting the photos and BTS videos of Jacs photographing me and Lior.
Speaking of Lior… if you didn’t already see it, I am going to be in Durham at the end of the month and I just got tested, I am negative, I got my result yesterday, covid negative, yay! I’m meeting up in person with Lior and Roarie and we are going to be brainstorming and dreaming up the future possibilities for Going Beyond the Lens and we are offering an event while we’re all together. We’re calling it Backstage Pass because you get a backstage pass to our shoot, we’re going to create together, the 3 of us, and the first half of the backstage pass event is gonna be the 3 of us answering all of your questions about shooting and how to communicate with the people you’re creating with, how to make sure everybody feels safe, how to make sure there’s consent, how to bounce ideas off of each other, all of these things, so I’m really excited because I have created with both of them, Lior and Roarie, but they have actually never met each other in person so this is going to be the first time that they’re creating together period, and this is the first time that we’re going to be all 3 creating together. I’m very excited because they’re both amazing people and they know each other now through all of the things we’ve been doing together, I just think that like, when you only know someone through the internet it’s different than when you actually get to meet them in person, so I’m very excited that we’re all going to be in person together and yeah I think I’m just super excited in general to be in person with them because it’s been a long time. We’re all getting tested, all self quarantining, being extra careful so that we make sure we’re not going to accidentally spread covid. Like I said I just got my covid test result back yesterday and I am covid negative, and I’m going to continue to like not leave my house until I go there basically. So yeah I’m excited.
Yeah I think that’s all I have to say today. Come and join us to be a part of the Backstage Pass event. I’ll put a link in the caption below. (CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!) This is a fundraising event for Going Beyond the Lens because we would really like to maybe create a website or some kind of community forum or something. We need to change the way we’re doing things online a little bit, because right now we have stuff in a google drive and it’s almost full already. We need to make some plans in terms of infrastructure, and so we are fundraising through this event. Tickets are $11 and we also have an option if you’d like to donate an additional amount of money that is available also, which is also super really appreciated. We have a lot of really exciting dreams and plans for what we would really love to do with Going Beyond the Lens so we’re hoping that this event will help get us a little bit of the money that we need in order to make some of these exciting plans and updates and changes so that we can better serve the GBTL community. So if you’d like to watch us create together live, please join us, I’ll put the link below (CLICK HERE!!!!) It’s only $11, this is a once in a lifetime thing, I don’t know if we’ll be able to do this again for a while. I don’t want to say once in a lifetime because I assume we’ll be able to do something like this again at some point, but I have no idea when something like this will happen again. Also if you can’t make it, the event is on December 30th, it’s a Wednesday I believe, and it’s from 10am-1pm eastern time. If you cannot make it, every single person who signs up will be getting a recording of the whole event so if you can’t make it there’s no worries because you can watch it whenever. Yeah I’m just really excited, its going to be really fun, and it’ll basically be the first time I’ve created in months.
Okay, I love you, thank you for being here, and I’ll talk to you soon! Mwah!
All members:
click here to view the 54 image self portrait photoset of me at an NC waterfall in 2018
click here to view the 5 minute video of me playing with kittens & moving my body
Click here for access to my archive of 12,500+ photos & 2,000+ videos
Click here for the passwords, they change the 1st of every monthFirst Look/All Access members:
click here to view the 42 image photoset of me & Lior Allay taken by Jacs Fishburne in Columbus OH fall 2019
click here to view 13 minutes of BTS video -
Columbus OH with Chip Willis & Lior Allay
CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:
Hi friends! Welcome to another week of things on my website! I am recording this the same time as last week’s vlog because this week I am out of town and probably won’t have time to do computer things because I’m helping my Granny out again, so that’s why this video is similar to last week’s video.
This week I’m sharing some photos that Chip Willis took of me… Lior Allay is in a couple of them, but it’s mostly photos of me from when Lior and I traveled to Columbus Ohio in fall 2019. We met up with Chip and he got us this motel that was nearby and it was a cool funky spot and we just created a bunch of stuff in the motel room and it was actually really fun. I had never met Chip before but I have a lot of friends who have worked with Chip and I’ve heard a lot of really amazing things about him, and they were all true because he was really awesome. He was a cool dude, so it was fun actually meeting him after seeing his work for years and years and a lot of my friends having already met him, so that was cool. Yeah we just hung out at this motel and took photos and um… Lior took some behind the scenes photos while we were shooting so I have those to share with you also. There is no video this week, well other than this one I’m making right now. The photos and BTS photos from the shoot with Chip… there’s a lot there, so I know you can spend a bunch of time looking through all of that. So I figured it would be ok to not have a video this week.
First look people… I have… so that same trip to Columbus when Lior and Jacs Fishburne and I were creating together, we all shot each other. This week I’m sharing Lior’s photos that they took of me and Jacs from when we were visiting Jacs, also in Columbus. That includes behind the scenes video.
Uhm yeah I don’t think I have very much else to say because that’s all I’m sharing this week and like nothing has changed since I made the last video because I literally am making this one like 2 minutes after I made the last one. But.. I just wanted to say yall are awesome and I appreciate yall being here and you are the reason that I’m able to do any of this at all. I am continuously feeling into what I want to do next, because as I’ve told you before, I haven’t really created much this year. I haven’t felt motivated or inspired to do so. To be honest, I probably very much need therapy and help with… how can I say… processing the traumas that I have experienced. Because I’m very good at avoiding my feelings and distracting myself from all of the things. I think part of why I haven’t really wanted to create this year is because I’ve been feeling a lot of difficult things and that’s been pushing my breaks in terms of wanting to create anything. I think another part of it is white guilt. You know, with all of the systemic oppression and inequalities that have been made painfully obvious through everything that’s happened this year in 2020. I’ve kindof really felt like I need to take a step back and let a lot of other people have the spotlight. As a white person I don’t want to take up too much space because I’ve taken up a lot of space for my whole life, and white people have taken up a lot of space for centuries. I would like to uplift people that are not white and while I do know that my work is important and valuable and worthy of people knowing about it, with the way that I’ve been feeling and with everything else going on in the world, I just haven’t felt like it was important to create for me personally, for a little bit. I mean it is important to create. The things I have created this year, I haven’t shown yall any of it. I haven’t created much, but I have created a couple of things, I haven’t really shared much of it. And that’s okay.
For a long time I have let having a website like this make me feel like I have to constantly be creating and sharing and doing… because if there are people that are paying for access to my stuff, then I need to have stuff to give you access to. I have over 12,000 photos and over 2,000 videos that are already accessible to you here. Even if you’ve been a member for a really long time, you might not have seen everything. There’s a lot to see. I don’t want to push myself too hard to the point of burnout, because I think that’s already where I am. When I went on my cross country road trip I took so many photos and videos and I definitely did burn myself out. I haven’t recovered from my burnout still and it’s been a year. I don’t know what this means for my creative future or the future of this website, but I do know that I want to continue having a place where I can have uncensored content that people can access because I think that’s really important, especially considering how shitty social media is now. But I no longer feel the urgent need to create constantly and be putting out new stuff constantly, because that’s basically just another symptom of white supremacy and patriarchy and capitalism that I don’t want to buy into anymore. It’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to not do work. It’s okay to freakin rest and take a nap and slow down. So I’m trying to really… be gentle with myself and not pressure myself to do anything if I’m not feeling like it. Basically this whole year I’ve not felt like creating so I’m not going to be hard on myself for that. Like I’ve said in the past, I do still have a lot of content that yall haven’t seen that is from my backlog so I’ll continue putting that out. I don’t know how long that is going to last, it’ll probably last at least another couple of months. For now, I’m still feeling into what comes next for me and I don’t know what that means, and that very potentially means lots of changes, like big shifts in the future, I just don’t know what that is. I’ll continue giving you a head’s up about it I guess. I feel like I’ve said that so many times, but I still haven’t figured it out, and that’s okay, so I’m just gonna keep letting you know.
I love you so much, thank you for being here, it means the world that you support me even when I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I mean who really actually knows what they’re doing, to be honest. I love you. Thank you. I’ll talk to you next week. Bye!
All members:
click here to view the 100 image photoset of me (& some with Lior Allay) taken by Chip Willis
click here to view the 34 BTS photos Lior took during the shoot
Click here for access to my archive of 12,500+ photos & 2,000+ videos
Click here for the passwords, they change the 1st of every monthFirst Look/All Access members:
click here to view the 9 image photoset that Lior Allay took of me & Jacs Fishburne in Columbus OH fall 2019
click here to view 11 minutes of BTS video