My culture is inherently poly. I have a wife and two pets. One of my housemates is in a polycule that crosses multiple state lines and can't be graphed on a two-dimensional surface without overlap. The worst I've ever gotten or given when negotiating sex outside the relationship was "be home by this time" and "I'm not interested but I want you to have fun." We had to INVENT WORDS to describe the relationships forms we were creating just so we could talk about them.

My culture is inherently spiritual. I have a weekly ritual. One of my dearest friends hosts quarterly multitraditional gatherings. I have an annual mythopoeic retelling of the First Terrible Winter accompanied by a festival. We've invented our own religions and found ways to incorporate those elements into our daily lives without harming each other. Mostly. And I feel terrible when I fuck that up, because encouraging people to Tell the Tale of You is one of my deepest vocations.

Not to say that everyone here _is_ spiritual, but that elements of spirituality permeate it. There are atheists, agnostics, Christians, Wiccans, Buddhists, and others beyond all here. But those elements are a living part of our shared community, not things we isolate and keep separate and hide, because we're all here to walk our own paths together.

I don't even know where to begin expressing the frustrations of trying to communicate this outside this space, because it feels like saying it here is a risk, but if I don't say it, it will continue to eat at me. The culture I came from, my organic origin-body culture, was toxic and soul-crushing. We built something better, something healthier, something powerful in its own right on its ashes. And I wish I had better tools to share it. Ω

@literorrery I like stories where that's an element that's just SOLVED BY A 10 MINUTE TALK and then you go out and hack a megacorp together or something. ;)

@literorrery Wait which polycule? Did it get non-planar finally? Last I tried I could only get K3,3 by including 'regular hookup' dotted lines. ;)

@indi I was pretty sure Em's couldn't be flattened any more, but if I'm wrong, I'll cop to that and blame narrative auxesis.

@literorrery Entirely possible; I'm not sure where all it goes past Em.

@indi @literorrery 0:3 *blush*

@indi @literorrery Hm. My toyfriend is in Ohio, ver boyfriend is in Mississi, my other toyfriend lives down the street, and /that/ whole segment of polycule is all sorts of fun too. :-P

@literorrery @indi Mississippi, I mean. That's a mouthful.

@literorrery I think that your writings and stories /are/ the best way of sharing your culture, short of wearing a body-cam and streaming those parts of culture you think are significant. documented words are how we know about cultures that aren't even here any more, and the more documentation that exists, the more accurate picture can be drawn and shared. TLDR: Documentation, or it didn't happen. But that's just my opinion.