Turned On
A Creative’s Guide to Awakening Presence, Pleasure, and Possibility
- Publisher: Broadleaf Books (Augsburg Fortress)
- Published: 2025
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Publisher's Description
The world is imbued with a life force, a thrumming relational energy of creativity. That life force is Eros, and connecting with the erotic opens up a world full of possibility, sensuality, and creativity. For far too long we have relegated the erotic to the bedroom, when in reality it is a fundamental energy that helps us connect more deeply with ourselves, each other, the earth, and the creative potential within us. We also live in a world that equates our productivity with our worth, leaving us feeling overtaxed, exhausted, burned out, and completely disconnected from ourselves and others. In Turned On, artist and musician Brie Stoner redefines the erotic, stating that it is more than just human intimacy; it can be the antidote to feeling anxious, disconnected, and uninspired. By reframing Eros as the energy of life and creativity itself, Stoner invites us to reawaken presence, playfulness, and possibility as the gateways to transformation. Just as physical relationships are contingent upon the right context, good communication, and embodied presence, Stoner offers a similar contextual shift and the tools needed for us to access creativity through the body and in the present moment. Fittingly, she explores how the erotic has been minimized and misunderstood in modern life. She then offers practical applications of how an erotically enlivened life is a creatively fulfilling one, in which our relationships, parenting, work, and creativity flourish. For those of us who yearn for life to be more inspired, adventurous, and sensual, Turned On is our guide to relighting the spark within us.
Endorsements (7)
“Modernity gives an account of a world of already-made parts, a world of complete things, immobile in their frozen ontologies. A world where full descriptions are possible. In this fluid, enrapturing spell of a book, Brie Stoner stirs up a process philosophy of life in which boundaries are never still, bodies live only through other bodies, and the orphaned ‘I’ of colonial lore finds itself already orgasmically entangled in a vast movement that exceeds its isolation. What emerges from this textual lovemaking is a practical, down-to-earth paean to a cosmic intimacy, a prior generosity, that connects our relationships, our failures, and our most vulnerable moments of love and seeking to every rock, bump, and shadow in the world. No one and nothing is spared the reach of Brie’s embrace.”
“Brie Stoner tunes us to the most vastly embracing and most intimately touching energy of the universe, releasing afresh the ancient imagery of the cosmic Eros.”
“There is so much wisdom in this book, alongside humor and an immense tenderness. Reading this, I was reminded that creativity is a form of divinity. It is cultivated through presence. It can be found while sitting in the sun for five minutes and eating an orange, as well as by creating an artwork. Stoner doesn’t offer quick fixes for more creativity. She points readers toward deeper awareness and embodiment, in the service of a richer and more meaningful life. What a generous gift she has offered readers.”
“Some books tell you how to be happy and successful in a pretty little box. Some books tell you how to escape the box and embark on a life-changing adventure. Turned On is one of the latter. It dares you to believe that the universe is about creativity and that you are a maker, an artist, a person capable of adding life to life and joy to joy.”
“In this playful, poetic book, philosopher and musician Brie Stoner distills the intoxicating essence of her own path to reclaiming the sacred feminine. Her words spill like song onto the page, mingling her brilliant mind and generous heart, offering us a luminous path to our birthright of creativity and connection.”
“Faith. Creativity. Desire. These powerful words are too often uttered with anthropocentric abstraction. In Stoner’s fierce blend of memoir and rigorous research, they once again grow bodies, leaking past the sterility of human cognition and back into our divine overlap with the animate, appetitive earth.”
“Brie Stoner offers us a sensual cosmology. Her god is Eros—the foundational desire to create that brings forth life on all levels. For Stoner, Eros is the source of reality—and therefore the truest guideline to live a fully human life, which she invites us into with sparkling storytelling and a sensuality that never feels over the top.”
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