By Satchi Thockchom
When you think of mindfulness, what do you picture? Maybe someone meditating and practicing deep breathing, or someone journaling by candlelight before bed. Or, maybe someone in glittering platform heels pole dancing with a hypnotic flow to Hiatus Kaiyote. For Christine Haggin, who also goes by Celadon, pole is “therapeutic and a form of processing… moving through your emotions, not just physically moving your body, but something in your mind moves with you.”
Celadon is a queer, non-binary person of color and an artist by many means and mediums. But none have captured their essence and presence quite like pole dancing. After years of bouncing between creative outlets, they finally found that flow artists gushed about: “It’s meditative, it puts other people in a trance. Even after being a musician for so long, I never felt that way about music… so I never understood that feeling until I started dancing.” There are few spaces as capable of capturing the range of Celadon –– ones that combat white supremacy while marrying queerness, liberation, body inclusivity, power, and emotion –– as pole dancing.
Of course, this is not without reason. Pole dancing, stripping, and other forms of sex work are frequently performed by transwomen of color. QTBIPOC sex workers continue to forge waves of social and legislative change and shape pop-culture in some of the most intersectional ways. So, it is not surprising that this line of work is just as revolutionary as its prevalent queer and trans creators, many of whom shaped and continue to shape today’s LGBTQ+ movement.
However, much like Pride Parades and yoga, pole dancing is growing in popularity and, consequently, is rapidly becoming depoliticized and decontextualized. As quickly as classes are filling up, the sex workers’ rights movement is being crowded out. For instance, very few people are talking about AB5, a California Assembly Bill that is putting sex workers out of a job by denying their ability to be independent contractors. Due to scant media coverage, strippers are taking to Instagram and Twitter to spread awareness and guide the movement.
Original photo by Christine Haggin
Social media has emerged as a powerful source of freedom and agency, much like sex work itself. Blossoming online conversations about the occupation and artform are inspiring many to enter the community with curiosity and passion. For folks like Christine, pole dancing is “a tool for joy, rest, and excitement.” However, not everyone can approach sex work with such levity and autonomy.
BIPOC and, namely, Black and Latinx trans women, who are systemically barred from basic needs like employment, food and secure housing, often rely on sex work to survive. They are handed the grim choice between wagelessness and their own safety. Any shimmer of agency or control –– over their livelihoods, narratives, and bodies –– can be life saving for sex workers.
Unfortunately, life threatening denial of autonomy is not unique to sex workers. In a time when climate catastrophes are met with profit mongering policies; when roughly ten companies produce 80% of the food we eat; when disaster capitalism leaves billions in the hands of billionaires… one is forced to interrogate the system they are involuntarily dependent on. In the grand scheme of things, sex workers demanding safety and justice is a short strut away from Karens demanding to know what’s in their kids’ cereal.
Fortunately, agency is something Celadon, Gill Tract, and the Berkeley Student Farms are cultivating –– figuratively and literally. Through their anti-capitalist ethos and Indigenized farming techniques, Berkeley Student Farms is “creating thriving agroecological systems where individuals can realize their own sovereignty and sustain alternative visions of land-based lifeways.” Seed saving, land returns, food distributions, and teach-ins are just some of the ways BSF and others are democratizing food and land in their communities.
So when asked about other parallels between pole dancing and farming, Christine pondered, then remarked, “I can’t necessarily say pole relates exactly to my farm work.” But, when you really look for them, the connections sprout up everywhere. Like sex work, farming is also sod with queerness. “It’s all intersectional! When I think about how pole has influenced my perception of queerness, farming has done that in ways I can’t even describe.” Land proves time and time again that identities are social constructs.
Original photo by Christine Haggin
Yet, folks like Christine occasionally feel “this insecurity about not presenting as androgynous. [They] don’t have an androgynous body!” In a setting like TikTok, for instance, a concept as radical as androgyny develops an aesthetic informed by white supremacist beauty standards – thin, able bodied, light skinned, to name a few. But, the Gill Tract rows offer them refuge. It’s a place to finally slough off the armor of identities worn for other people’s comprehension because, with plants, none of that matters. “Farming makes me feel so genderless… most of the work I do, I do alone. So when I’m in there, I genuinely feel like my gender just disappears… It has nothing to do with the way I feel or look in that moment. It’s so much to do with a deep feeling of solitude, and this deep feeling of oneness and groundedness.” Homosexuality, gender, and disability, among other marginalized identities, can recede when experienced in solitude with “nature” –– a social construct in and of itself.
There are many miraculous people like Christine Haggin weaving art, sensuality, and social justice so authentically. Their existence is an invitation to expand your worldview, and see the traumas that colonialism and capitalism inflict on everyone. They push you to see sex workers rights as climate justice, because everyone is part of this movement. The most marginalized bodies –– Black, Indigenous, Trans, disabled, queered bodies –– have learned to survive some of the most unforgiving environments. So, naturally, they are the ones to show others how to survive climate change. So, if you ever catch Celadon twirling around, realize it as the radical respite that it is.
To see more of Christine’s work, check out their Instagram and photography website.