The Laboratory of Erotic Engineering
A monthly incubator for community accountability, designing a creative ecosystem, and building a life that centers and supports your writing practice as non-negotiable.
Discover The Daily Habits Aligned With Your Zone of Desire
Drop your email below to check out the Erotic Engineering Syllabus, Discovery Workshop replay and Element X Quadrant worksheet!
Inside this Erotic Engineering Workshop we used the Element X Quadrant to locate our Zone of Desire and determine the 3-5 daily habits we’re hungry for inside the work of actualizing our desire.
WE REFLECTED ON 3 QUESTIONS:
- What time do you want the audacity and clarity to reclaim?
- What habits would you engage in during that time in order to expand your Zone of Desire?
- What can black feminist poetry, literature and worldbuilding teach us about using the erotic as power to create a life rooted in desire?
Dive into this replay in case you missed us and don't forget to download the Element X Quadrant Worksheet sent to your email if you want to follow along!
The Element X QuadrantÂ
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A worksheet helping you locate your “Zone of Desire”, a sacred site we protect because it hosts the erotic energy and information powering our writing practice. Available to download via email!
Learn More About The Laboratory of Erotic Engineering
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A monthly incubator for community accountability, designing a creative ecosystem, and building a life that centers and supports your writing practice as non-negotiable.Â
What
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Erotic Engineering is a wild field of study and practice that uses the erotic as power to build a life rooted in desire. Inside this practice the desire we center is both personal and collective. Erotic Engineering pulls from the work of black feminist poetry, literature and worldbuilding which provides the material we use to create new belief systems that scaffold lives in deeper alignment with our values. It is a method for actualizing desire through putting language to the longings of our interior worlds in order to transform our material world.
Why
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We are living in a time of collapse. Not only are institutions and systems of oppression collapsing but the ideologies and belief systems that provided their structural support are toppling along with them.
Erotic Engineering gives us permission to use our creative spirit to scaffold belief systems that inform our lives and change the material conditions of the world. A field of study that holds creativity and imagination as sacred and essential building tools in a time of destruction.
When
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We meet inside The Laboratory of Erotic Engineering every 1st and 3rd Thursday to study and write alongside the transformative wisdom of black feminist poetry, literature and worldbuilding.Â
The live workshop on the first Thursday of every month is dedicated to providing inspiration and motivation to write that newsletter, start that chapter or stay close to yourself by writing in your journal.Â
The live open studio on the 3rd Thursday of every month is dedicated to reading your work and reflecting on your writing practice with other Erotic Engineers.Â
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“The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire. For having experienced the fullness of this depth of feeling and recognizing its power, in honor and self-respect we can require no less of ourselves.”Â
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 — Audre Lorde, "Uses of the Erotic, The Erotic As Power" (1978)
The Support You Can Expect
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Go from seasons of in-action, self-doubt and isolation to cultivating a felt sense of trust, safety and belonging inside your writing practice through black feminist worldbuilding.
Monthly Writing Workshops
1ST THURSDAYÂ
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For transmuting fear and writing alongside black feminist literature, poetry and worldbuilding.
Monthly Open Studios
3RD THURSDAYÂ
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For reading your work, allowing yourself to be witnessed by your peers and reflect on all things writing life and writing practice.
Erotic Engineering Manual
NEW CHAPTERS MONTHLYÂ
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A handbook with erotic engineering resources, writing prompts, spells and strategies for your writing practice. A new chapter is released monthly.
1:1 Support
VIA DISCORD
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Through private text and voice memos on Discord. Talk through writer’s block, blank page overwhelm and fear of pressing “publish”.
Group Support
VIA DISCORD
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From a global Discord community of writers, worldbuilders and erotic engineers treating their Zone of Desire as non-negotiable.
Collective Research
VIA ARE.NA
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Read more than you write. Expose your writing practice to a variety citations beyond your own through collectively created Are.na boards.
The Erotic Engineering Syllabus
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Check out the Erotic Engineering Syllabus for an overview of the monthly programming and erotic resources we'll be experimenting with inside The Laboratory.Â
Watch Replay and Download SyllabusErotic Offerings
The Laboratory of Erotic Engineering
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The Laboratory of Erotic Engineering is an incubator for community accountability, designing your creative ecosystem, and building a life that centers and supports your writing practice as non-negotiable.
That's right, we are no longer negotiating the terms of our breath. Which is to say we are no longer negotiating the terms of our desire, our writing. And the best part? You won't be engaging in this unapologetic audacity alone.
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1:1 Erotic Engineering
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Let's work together on actualizing your desire.
In these 1:1 sessions we will:
- Collaborate with the clarity of fear to get erotic information on your desire
- Compost the stories no longer serving you
- Create your Desire Actualization Plan
During our work together I will invite you to a write 3 personal essays alchemizing the stories that no longer serve you, into stories that serve your Desire Actualization Plan. You can launch your newsletter with these essays or use them as an "actualization altar" that you return to again and again, adding new essays along the way — seeding a writing practice in the process.
1:1 Erotic Engineering Payment Plan
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Enroll using this payment option and receive access to all the same support and resources listed above!
The Erotic Engineering Compass
THE EROTIC ENGINEERING FRAMEWORK
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A compass is both a wayfinding device and an architectural tool. We use it to draw a map and also leave the map behind, allowing ourselves to be pulled by the magnetic force of our north star, our desire. The Erotic Engineer’s Compass guides you through the 4 movements of Erotic Engineering through 12 action steps that help you design a life rooted in desire using the erotic as power.
Memory
MOVEMENT 001
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Remember your desire with the guidance of the erotic engineer, Audre Lorde. Dedicate your practice with the guidance of the erotic engineer, Sojourner Truth. Honor your body with the guidance of the erotic engineer, Lucille Clifton.
Surrender
MOVEMENT 002
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Reclaim your time with the guidance of the erotic engineer, Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Queer your education with the guidance of erotic engineer, Ntozake Shange. Clarify your values with the guidance of erotic engineer, June Jordan.
Sacrifice
MOVEMENT 003
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Find your form with the guidance of erotic engineer, Akwaeke Emezi. Learn to receive with the guidance of erotic engineer, Toni Cade Bambara. Name your needs with the guidance of erotic engineer, Saidiya Hartman.
Erotic Expression
MOVEMENT 004
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Re-imagine your labor with the guidance of erotic engineer, Toni Morrison. Find belonging inside the ecosystems we call home with the guidance of erotic engineer, Zora Neale Hurston. Create your own cosmology and belief system with the guidance of erotic engineer Octavia Butler.
Erotic Engineering Is For You If...
You are a writer who wants a place to incubate and rehearse the creative risks you want to take in your writing practice.
You are a writer who wants to build a creative ecosystem and life that supports your writing practice.
You are a writer whose practice, desire and breath are no longer negotiable.
Why Erotic Engineering?
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
Focuses on the design, analysis, and manufacturing of mechanical systems and devices.
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
Deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism.
CIVIL ENGINEERING
Concerned with the design, construction, and maintenance of infrastructure like roads, bridges, and buildings.
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
Combines chemistry, physics, and biology to design processes for manufacturing chemicals, fuels, and pharmaceuticals.
COMPUTER ENGINEERING
Integrates electrical engineering and computer science to develop computer hardware and software.
INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING
Optimizes complex processes and systems to improve efficiency, productivity, and quality in production or operations.
EROTIC ENGINEERING
Uses the erotic as power and black feminist stories as worldbuilding material to create a life rooted in desire.
Just like there is Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, etc. Seeda School brings you Erotic Engineering. Someone looked at the world and said, “this is a mechanical engineering problem”, we are looking at the world and saying, “this is an erotic engineering problem”. For Electrical Engineering the material in question is electricity. For Erotic Engineering the material in question is the creative spirit.
Join Us“The grammar of black feminist futurity is a performance of a future that hasn’t happened yet but must. It is an attachment to a belief in what should be true, which impels us to realize that aspiration. It’s the power to imagine beyond current fact and to envision that which is not, but must be. It’s a politics of prefiguration that involves living the future now.”
 — Tina Campt, “Quiet Soundings: The Grammar of Black Futurity”, Listening to Images (2017), p. 17.
 Pictured: Grada Kilomba in Conversation with Tina Campt
What Erotic Engineers Are Saying About Seeda School
"After grinding for over a decade in the nonprofit sector, I needed support building a viable, self-directed career path to generate income rooted in my values and creativity. The Seed A World Retreat offered both the practical tools and community encouragement I was seeking to heed the creative call I have been feeling. Now I look forward to sharing this work that feels personally terrifying and necessary, and I believe in my ability to do it using the Seeda School tools. During the retreat, Ayana held space with such admirable curiosity and generosity! If you want an experienced, informed, Black feminist, imaginative hype-person to put a loving battery in your back, sign up for the Seed A World Retreat immediately."
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— Jasmyne Gilbert, Winter 2024
“Ayana Zaire Cotton, is, to me, a being whose radically tender ways of loving, teaching, and questioning mirror the revolutionary labours of love of bell hooks, Octavia Butler, Toni Cade Bambara, and the list goes on. Through Seeda School, Ayana plants seeds of responsible hope, of revolutionary reimagining(s), and most importantly, of communal (and personal) pursuit(s) of the erotic into the body, mind, and soul of whoever has the chance to waltz with their teachings, with their being. Being a student of Seeda School is constantly being reminded that one’s desires are needs, and therefore that we — as people — have the power to materialize the conditions we yearn to have in order to thrive, to be free. Receiving teachings and exchanging with Ayana and the lovely beings who tap into their care-full-y crafted [offers] is a blessing that keeps on giving, and I trust that this will remain the case in near and distant futures.”
Gloria-Sherryl François (G L O W Z I), Fall 2023
Chinyere Erondu, Fall 2023
"Words cannot express enough how grateful I am for the blessing that is both Ayana and Seeda School. Enrolling in the retreat was an immediate yes for me — where the weekly meditations and facilitations from Ayana felt like sacred invitations to return — return to community, return to self, return to Spirit, return to our gardens. Like The Artist's Way, but through a decolonial Black feminist lens, I continue to find Seeda School and its Retreat as an evergreen gift and artistic nourishment that, as a result, enriches the tending of my spiritual and literary practice — The Conflicted Womanist.”
“It was such a pleasure being part of Seeda School retreat and be in community with a cohort of talented, caring and loving souls. This offering is a soothing and refreshing balm to each and everyone wanting to delve deeper into their inner being to bring out unknown treasures to the world. Ayana, the creator and facilitator of the retreat is its living proof. They are a bottomless well of inspiring, exciting, creative, experimental and spirit-led knowledge and I’m deeply grateful for their work and their willingness to share with us all that they know with so much grace and care.”
Keren Lasme, Fall 2023
Taylor Rae, Fall 2023
“I find it difficult to express in words just how impactful the Seeda School Retreat was for me as a clayworker, herbalist, teacher, and activist. Seeda School contextualized our work as multidisciplinary artists in the revolution and helped us all to abandon mentalities of scarcity that are upheld by colonialism and white supremacy. Ayana has put so much time, effort, and care into every piece of her retreat and it shows. Even as someone who already had a creative offer established, I gained so much wisdom from the content and discussions that I am confident will only improve the success of my offers, along with one of the most tender, caring, and uplifting communities that anyone could ask for. I am infinitely grateful for the work Ayana does in bolstering us artists and creating containers for the radical dreaming of better worlds.”
“The Seed A World Retreat offered by Seeda School was an invitation to revisit the primordial womb; a safe and warm place for meaningful growth and expansion of our deepest desires. Ayana's passion and deep community care shone through as she guided/facilitated the cohort to transform the seeds of our deepest desires into tangible and beautiful offerings to the world. The carefully curated Retreat Workbook allowed us to seed, tend to, grow (and prune when necessary) our ideas into structured next steps. I'm so happy to have had the opportunity to commune with other like-minded, community-oriented folk who share the same passion for building worlds that provide ample space and opportunity for radical, free existence and communion.”
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— Yen C, Fall 2023
"The Seeda School experience has been such an affirming and generative experience for me. I am often seeking out classes and opportunities to learn new skills, be in process with my peers, and engage in self-development and personal growth. My experience with Seeda School, via Ayana's generous facilitation and framework, felt so deeply aligned with my values, my creative praxis, and my worldview. Guided by the brilliant offerings of Black feminists, Ayana has cultivated such a sacred space with an inspiring cohort of people. Since participating in the cohort, I have revisited the curriculum, and it continues to be a transformative guide as I chart my path forward."
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— Jessica Valoris, Winter 2024
"The Seeda School is unlike anything I have experienced before. It's a mix of personal, intimate, and necessary inner groundwork, visioning for the future, and practical tools for business and financial sustainability, all within a liberatory framework of black feminism and worldbuilding. I found it to be such a necessary container for reflecting, visioning, developing ideas, dreaming up possibilities and then bringing them to life with the many tools that are offered throughout the course. Ayana is a brilliant and generous facilitator, and has thoughtfully curated a safe community of support among like-minded artists and creatives. I am telling everyone I know about Seeda School as I feel like all interdisciplinary artists and creatives need this kind of facilitated retreat experience to bring their ideas to life and offer them to the world."
Steph Rue, Winter 2024
“The violence is endless under empire and white supremacy, but so is our capacity to imagine new worlds and to love on each other” – a thought Ayana offered us early on, amid the grief, heartbreak and rage at the apocalypses taking place close and far, is also the best summation of this heart-and-possibilities-expanding retreat. Under Ayana’s effervescent, loving, wise guidance and expansive vision, these 9 weeks were a space for us to practice loving ourselves – breathing through fear, taking our desires, curiosities and oddities seriously, seeing a divine throughline in our journeys, choosing to start without having all the information – in order to answer the call from our people, past and present, and bring about the futures we need today. I told everyone I care about of the gift that is the Seed A World Retreat, looking forward to revisiting our session recordings and completing the worksheets (that I know my life depends on). I am so grateful I followed my intuition (and desire!) and chose to invest in myself through this course. I am grateful and forever charged/changed by this offering, that Ayana had dreamt up and powerfully-beautifully woven into being.”
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— Aisha Jandosova, Fall 2023
“Ayana has created a retreat that is immensely valuable. Seeda School has been able to anticipate needs that I was uncovering myself with richness and depth in ways I never expected! I wholeheartedly recommend this retreat for creatives ready to immerse themselves in their hearts desires.”
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— Vanessa Murchie, Fall 2023
"Seeda School gathered me and all the threads of my creative practice. I came in with an idea and left with a digital course rooted in ease and pleasure. The workbook is beautifully laid out to include a framework for building out a curriculum, sustainable marketing plan, and sales funnel. Ayana's affirmations each week are a remedy to the uncertainty I experience beginning something new. This retreat has been grounding and deeply supportive."
Brandi Cheyenne Harper, Winter 2024
“This Seed a World Retreat has been been such an eye-opening journey that has shown me that I don't have to fear claiming the things that I am because the current world that I participate in says that I can not be all the things that I am. Ayana, it is clear what you want to put forward - a world where everyone is fully themselves and living in a world of love. I felt that throughout the experience, and felt as if I was being asked to take a chance in believing in and being a part of that type of world - a world built from love. Through a facilitator of love, a community of love, and words/frameworks of love, I felt affirmed and empowered to go on an be the interdisciplinary researcher, director, curator, and writer that I want to be. I feel as though I have so much of the foundational tools and essence from Seed a World and I can wait to launch, and see all the other worlds that are launched from this beautiful retreat.”
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— Bo Dautruche, Fall 2023
“Through the Seed A World Retreat, Ayana offers rich, juicy, tangible frameworks for attendees to tap into our deepest desires so that we may then be led by them in our endeavors to develop and share values-driven creative offers. Each retreat session was equal parts meditation, sermon, and playdate. It was an invaluable experience to imagine within a world where Black feminism was the bedrock, where attendees could start replacing self-rejection and scarcity with self trust and generosity, where showing up fully for our practices would sustain our livelihoods in the ways we dream of and deserve. I’m eternally grateful and excited for how what I learned in the Seed A World Retreat will propel me into a more expansive and abundant future.”
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— Dkéama Alexis, Fall 2023
