LLR’s Five Ecosomatic Zones

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. 

–Albert Einstein

As I wrote in my essay “WTF is Ecosex?” Our current and shared reality presents us with an unprecedented number of interrelated problems, whose combined trajectories include the possibility for the unprecedented destruction of species and habitat. The urgency of this situation calls for myriad and complex solutions that are grounded in ways of “thinking” perhaps wholly unlike anything you’re familiar or even comfortable with. Our collective thinking must change so that it emphasizes many differing types of intelligence and combines those with more holistic states of consciousness. In other words, our language and our ways of “knowing” need to evolve if we are to generate new cultures and societies that will sustain our final chapters on this beautiful, still verdant planet.

Trouble catches a bee while wearing the horns that indicate they are on the Guardian team at EcoSex Celebrating Lover Earth 2018

Here is one of my attempts at reframing language and sense of self to help us begin to think and experience ourselves in new ways.

Ecosexuality becomes an extension of queer theory when we refuse to separate ourselves from Nature and begin to insist instead on the existence of what Arne Naes called the Ecological Self. We can begin to see our bodies as permanently entangled with or inseparable from the Gaiaic Bodies. We ecosexuals are then able to “re-member” ourselves as more-than-connected to earth, as lovers with the earth, as self-loving = sym-poiesis*/ “making with” (*this word comes directly from the work of Donna Haraway and her book: Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Duke University Press 2016).

Loving the earth and other than human beings then becomes self love and self preservation. This reframing moves us powerfully away from the white savior altruism of such things as “wilderness conservation” and toward the wild and imaginative possibilities of seeing pleasure activism and body art as both erotic self interest and acts of resistance.
Let’s invent language that allows us to talk about our bodies as interdependent with Earth/Gaiac bodies. Drawing on the works of Nala Walla’s essay “Body As Place: A Somatic Guide” and Charles Eisenstein’s books The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible , I propose Five EcoSomatic Zones as an EcoSexual framework for what/who we are. To achieve this “ReSelfing as Gaiac Bodies” paradigm, we use Eisenstein’s “Technologies of ReUnion”. By merging the formerly separated and specialized fields of knowledge of permaculture, psychology and sociology we can envision humans and the environment as one interconnected holon or hologram. We can heal our sense of isolation from the environment by letting go of the old stories about Nature being a hostile entity that is separate from us. Instead, we can see that each of us individually, and all of us collectively are layered interconnected Gaiac bodies. This type of holistic or constellational thinking prepares us to deepen our understanding and embodiment of both interdependence and autonomy. We can invent new language, and alter our communication styles in order to create visionary holistic futures for ourselves.

Living Love Revolution’s Five EcoSomatic Zones:

Zone Zero refers to the intrapsychic, meaning your own Self; mind/body/spirit. Zone Zero is your own interior felt experience. At LLR events we tend Zone Zero by providing daily opportunities for dance, yoga, embodiment meditation, nature walks and other solitary, inward focused activities. Zone Zero activities help deepen autonomy and make sexual sovereignty possible.

Zone One refers to the interpersonal interactions between Zone Zeros; Ranging from one on one (dyadic) interactions between two people up to groups of 6-7. Zone One experiences occur continually at our events as you meet other people and encounter plants, animals and spirits of place in our chosen venues and begin to network and cross-pollinate.

Zone Two refers to social interactions that move from experiences that focus on individuality to ones which develop group belonging. They can recall family of origin constellations but our intention is to heal and replace wounding with connection and begin to develop a sense of hive mind. To help us work in the realm of Zone Two, we participate in small group or guild experiences such as path work; exploring a sense of togetherness while being guided on a ecosexual initiation by the Path Mentors.

Zone Three refers to larger social systems, including concerns around race, gender, class and ethnicity. We are strongly focused on moving away from oppressive systems of social hierarchy and embedding ourselves in an interconnected web of Gaiac bodies. This is a grand social experiment and may take a long time. At LLR ecosexual events we pay special attention to language, allow self identity and develop new practices such as the Safer/Braver Space Policy. We also explore new states of consciousness and new ways of being by participating in large group rituals. It is here that we name, acknowledge and honor the indigenous cultures who inhabit the space with us now and inhabited the space before we arrived.

Zone Four includes the Bioregions (like Cascadia where I live), non-human ecological systems of the land we are living upon and within. All the animate creatures and elemental beings that call this land home. Zone Four includes rocks and minerals, plants and animals, birds and insects. Our intention is to also include Ancestors, Deity and unseen but palpable beings who are co-evolving with us.


Zone Five are the Gaiac bodies of the Earth herself. larger than Bioregional entities like continents, mountain ranges that span bioregions, oceans, volcanic systems, planet wide weather patterns (earth’s emotions?). Part of the EcoSexual movement is to envision Nature as our Lover rather than our Mother, a metaphor that asks us to be in mutual and reciprocal relation with her. We Are Gaia. ReSelfing as Gaiac Bodies.