Eat the Red Flower: A Storyteller's Workshop on Pleasure, Presence & Power

Eat the Red Flower: A Storyteller's Workshop on Pleasure, Presence & Power

What if the most powerful stories you could tell are the ones your body already knows ... but you haven’t let yourself feel fully?

In this 2.5‑hour live online workshop, we’ll work with erotics in Audre Lorde’s sense — not sex, but full‑bodied presence, aliveness, and deep engagement with our lives and art. Drawing on Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic,” Adrienne Maree Brown’s pleasure activism, and Martin Shaw’s work with the wild twin and folktale, we’ll move through a short arrival practice, a telling of Tatterhood, sensory exercises, and quick story exchanges in small groups to explore how pleasure and presence open the door to real power in our storytelling.

We’ll work with Janine’s retelling of the Norwegian folktale “Tatterhood,” where a queen eats the red flower, a wild sister rides a goat, and the debate is on: is the climax the queen’s transgression, her daughter’s transformation, or the way the story holds both at once?

Whether your stories follow the Licensed “Pursue One Peak” Arc (often abbreviated as the POP Arc in my work) or something wilder and more punk, what we’re after here is presence and pleasure — the erotic in Lorde’s sense — and the kind of power that comes from being fully there, not from any particular form.

You’ll be invited to turn your camera off at the start, feel what’s true in your body, and then let that aliveness into your stories with zero pressure to share anything you don’t want to. We’ll begin with a brief breathwork‑and‑touch arrival, designed to help you feel at home in your body without performance or perfection — just noticing what feels okay, what feels good, and letting that be enough. We’ll be working with the erotic in everyday life: hunger, delight, risk, longing, joy, and the moments you feel most alive — rather than explicit sexual storytelling.

You’ll leave with:

• A new frame for “erotic” that applies to any story you tell
• Simple, repeatable exercises for warming up your body and language
• At least one short story you actually told out loud in the room
• A deeper sense of how pleasure, presence, and power are already present in your work, whether your story arcs look more “pop” or more “punk”

This is a small, intimate workshop. You don’t have to be a “performer” or have polished stories: beginners and experienced storytellers are equally welcome. You just have to be willing to show up, experiment, listen generously, and let your stories feel as alive as you are. Throughout the workshop, you’ll have clear consent options, gentle small-group structures, and the ongoing invitation to opt in, opt out, or change your mind — so your pleasure and power stay connected to your choices.

Meet your host: janineashley.com, theatreforhopeandhealing.org, facebook.com/thejanineashley

Eat the Red Flower is a workshop grounded in Janine’s Safe Place to Play methodology: we focus on your body as a place of safety and on building your capacity to notice what feels right, set boundaries, and choose the spaces that truly support you. The space is designed to be welcoming to neurodivergent folks and marginalized voices, and to the people who support them. This is a storytelling and creative practice space, not therapy, and you’re encouraged to bring any therapeutic processing to your own trusted supports. The focus here is building your capacity for presence, pleasure, and choice in your creative life.