ABOUT ME
Once upon a time, in the soft, verdant hills of an English springtime, I had a conversation over tea with a longtime witchy friend, and the talk turned to plant medicine. (It’s not my thing, I’ll be honest. I like to calibrate how quickly I am taken out of control, and that’s not a bad thing in my books.)
But what my friend said about her medicine experience struck me:
“I’m always a bit bemused about how people keep going back” she said. “It’s like, this one time, I did a plant ceremony and it’s been working me, layer upon layer, for a decade and a half at least. It’s like the medicine's not done with me yet.”
It struck a chord.
Indeed, my own initiation into the realms of sex magic happened in a similar way.
At the invitation of (another) close female friend, I’d been invited to a circle where women experienced pleasure without goal and with the intention only for both partners to FEEL more. “It’s some kind of tantric thing” the friend had said. “It’s the hot new workshop in London.”
Of course, I could have done anything that day.
I could have gone to Selfridges. I could have gone to the office and completed the tax return on time. I could have bought a book and sat by the canal.
But by now I was 45 years old and whilst I had a family, a business, a life and people I truly loved. Still an element was missing for me, like a subtle dull ache that plagued me and had me reach too often for that extra muffin. Like a type of hunger I was not supposed to have.
“Sure I’ll go with you” I said.
What happened next was truly so powerful that it took me quite by surprise.
I remember the feelings - there were so many: of disgust, of fear, of repulsion, of joy, of turn on.
And then there was this moment, surrounded by a circle of women 50 strong, all letting go into the mystery that is the feminine orgasm.
I remember the sounds. I remember the electric heat in the room. I remember the feeling that I was at church, like a really different type of church. I remember the knowing in my bones.
That there was a path.
And that that path was shrouded in mystery.
But that it lived on still..
And like my friend Sanna told me that beautiful Devonshire morning.
That one experience has quite literally been unravelling me ever since...
What I Was Taught About SEX AND POWER
It is confusing to live in this inverted world, perhaps you agree?
It’s like we’ve all lost something.
Some connection to each other, to the land, to our bodies, to our sex and to our intuitive wisdom.
Whatever your race, ethnicity, gender, belief system etc - being born into this realm, and at this time, comes with its' own peculiar brand of mind, body and spirit fuckery.
Being a (white) woman in this inverted realm, comes with a particular set of imprints, blueprints, behavioural instructions.
It comes with a code.
And right at the centre of that code, I was yet to discover, was my sexuality...
There were things that I learned as a growing girl when it came to my erotic nature, and every one of them told me I was either too much, or not enough.
Whether medical, media or moral, whatever the message: I was too attractive, not attractive enough, too frigid, not frigid enough, too slutty and overpowering, not slutty and overpowering enough.
And what this meant to my relationship to my sexual pleasure, my embodied power, was that for decades I was either exhausted or lonely (or both) when it came to sex and relationships.
Wracked with the need to please.
Performing to within an inch of my life.
Bereft upon the altar that is other people.
All of which has an effect.
Because it's true that the natural connection between your sex and your capacity to create a life you love, might seem alien to you right now. It might seem like a concept too far.
And believe me, I have been there too. Somewhere along the trajectory of leaving home and finally waking up, I forgot.
I forgot I had a body. I forgot love was available everywhere. I forgot I was a sovereign being. I forgot that life was immense fun. And that people were beautiful. And that magic was my birthright. I forgot I had a purpose and a reason for being here in a world that fucking needs me right now.
And it's easy to forget. In fact, it's normal to forget. Indeed, I would even go so far as to say it is a universal forgetting:
That the more we turn away from our innate blueprints for sexual pleasure, the more we numb and stop feeling overall, the less creational power we actually have.
In other words, if life is a rocket, then pleasure is the rocket fuel...
the path of the sex magician
I have always been interested in and enjoyed sex.
But as I got to my mid forties I felt an urgency.
I pretty much had everything I had ever wanted and yet still I was left wondering is this it?
I started to question the type of sex I was having. I began to examine my relationship to desire overall.
I just had this nagging sense, that there was something that I had forgotten, that needed to be remembered...
And so you could say that's when I got really interested.
What unfolded then were adventures of the highest order.
Edge seeking. Ecstasy reclaiming. Mystery drinking.
I read books on sexuality, I trained for hundreds of hours in sexual coaching certifications from The Orgasmic Meditation programme through to majoring in Relationship Transformation, Jade Egg and Women's Sexual Power with the Tantric Institute. I went into mentoring with trauma therapists such as Diane Poole Heller and Irene Lyon. I undertook courses with polarity experts such as David Deida and John Wineland. With Kasia Urbaniak. With Carolyn Elliot. With Gillian Pothier. All the greats.
I wanted to truly reclaim what my relationship to my own body and creational, sexual power was capable of.
And what I discovered (and am still discovering) as a part of this process really blew my mind - because what I found was that the more I put attention onto my sex, the less strung out I felt on a daily basis.
And the more I put attention onto my own eros, the more plugged into a kind of generous, warm and grounded electricity supply I felt.
No matter how many tricks of consciousness will try to pull you away from it. No matter how many times it's been hidden. Or shamed. By religion. By culture and social expectations. By an industrialised medical system. By the media.
All of it.
All of it.
Is yours for the taking