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/coaching
• Subscribe to the Seeda School Substack: ⁠https://seedaschool.substack.com/⁠
• Follow Ayana on Instagram: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠
• Follow Ayana on Threads: ⁠⁠@ayzaco⁠⁠
• Follow Seeda School on Instagram: ⁠⁠@seedaschool⁠

Citations

• 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)