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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

The restless river begins its churns
tossing me from current to current
the waves are loud
its questions nattering away at me

i am lost in this endless sea
i cry out to an eternal sky, still and distant from my panic
save me from this sea!

It stays quiet in its watching
and offers no paddle boat to safety
although i sense its softness
i am battling with the waves to reach it

I want to know life intimately. I want to walk the ragged edges of the sensuous dance that gives life. I am no longer interested in the answers, although i catch myself grasping for them from time to time. There is a curiosity in the unknowing that the fear can't touch. It tries..like a deathly hand grappling to take you from the edge of the cliff that one finds themselves on. Yet the cliff is the imprisonment. Freedom is found in one's releasing from it's embrace. There is no safety in the answers, despite the story our minds attempt to feed our security. There also is no security, despite the structures we attempt to erect to save ourselves. The structures are only new form to what was formless. The closer i move to them, the quicker they evaporate. There is meaning in the moments between. The meaning feeds the still moment before coming to it's death at an unknowable time. The meaning too can be an imprisonment, if you allow it to shape you and cling to it when it is attempting to find release. Behind it lies the timelessness, the dark space of the great void. The space from which we came and from which we will arise again. Although the disintegration of the meaning feels like suicide, the suicide belongs to the ego, not the voice of the soul. The soul does not seek safety in structures but instead seeks to liberate itself to it's own expression, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant in the greater realm of things. I imagine it is the point of liberation the suicide longs for, unaware that they can find it in life. It is life breathing into itself within the very shadow of death.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Under the divine light of the moon...

It was at the end of this night, that I had the opportunity to bare witness to his full moon pipe ceremony.
I never actually asked the Sundancer to describe the teachings of the pipe or the how he conceptualized the responsibilities or medicine of a pipe carrier to be. He did however speak about the sacred relationship he maintained with his pipe from time to time. When describing his original interest and impulses in exploring polyamory, he explained that the concept of multiple relationships originated with the relationship he had with his pipe that he eventually had to open up to include Bhurlesquey. He spoke of the sacred marriage that happened between a woman and a man when they were joined by the pipe, and that if in a marriage ceremony, a relationship was blessed by the pipe, it was bound to last forever. In my lineage of celtic shamanism we have a relationship with our mala's as called in the peruvian traditions of shamanism, a mesa. These are our medicine bundles, reflections of our microcosom within the macrocosom and in relationship with the blessed stone people that carry the wisdom of our ancestors in their ancient wisdom. Each stone had unique medicine and worked in relationship with us on specific archtypal themes. Because I was working on creating a strong relationship with my bundle, despite the tension of my colonized mind, I had context for the relationship he was describing. What was foreign to me however was how to add another into this relationship. Since my relationship with myself had emerged I had failed to sustain any long term commitments with romantic others. I had felt deeply and learned many things for and with partners that came through the last seven years, but I always had one foot in and one foot headed out the door. I was waiting for "the meeting". One of the things I would come to cherish most about the Sundancer was the uncompromising humility in devotion that he displayed when he was in prayer. From the womb of the big box case, he removed the peices of his pipe and assembled them in preparation. Smudging and in deep prayer, he began offering his pipe to the 7 directions. Observing him in prayer, evaporated the boundaries of time and of his individual persona in the world. It was if he had enetered a different dimension and I was no longer part of the picture. I was deeply moved by the ease in which he slipped into this state and the commitment felt within the energy of his peaceful devotion to all that is mother. I focused on opening myself completely to this experience and deeply uniting with the energy present. I felt as if I was in a vortex of timelessness, the air was fuzzy and my body tingled. By the time the ceremony was over, I was filled with a gleeful excitment born of the stimulation of new openings within oneself. A melting of a boundary. The sundancer came back slowly. His eyes retreatedly coming back to reality. "Hmm...that was an interesting energy" he said contemplatively while looking down at his pipe carefully dis-assembling the peices and putting them away. "What energy?" I asked. "Your medicine" he said, as if he was slowly re-appearing in this reality. "My medicine is an "interesting" energy?" I asked inquisitively. "Umm hmmm" he said in that way that he reflexively displays a curious sensitivity. "It was a foreign energy, he said, "a deep dark feminine energy. Not a bad energy...just a dark one". He had felt the white owl medicine. White Owl was my spirit name. A name I was given in my post-graduate existential crisis to help me understand my path in the world. A spirit name serves as a road map to understanding who you are, the purpose of your life's initiations, what medicine is born of them and what gifts you bring to the world. In order to understand it you have to watch and know the medicine carried by the animal and see the threads of these behaviors in your own life, generally forming a pattern. The white owl was nocturnal, rotates her head in a full circle and sees clearly in the dark. She has been associated with the dark goddesses of old, a messenger between the worlds of nature and spirit, earth and air and the virtue of wisdom. Not surprisingly she was also the totem of my lineage, which I would only discover a year into my apprenticeship.
Carrying white owl medicine was both a burden and a gift. My inuit Elder used to say "your greatest gifts are your greatest burdens, no one asks for them, but you must use them anyway". This medicine was born of struggle, of hardship, desperation and pain. A pain consistently seeking to be healed. A pain that would take me into many deaths, many periods of mourning and many transformative births. Coming to learn, identify and know the inner workings of shadow in my own life and in the collective society, as it was her dark corners that called out to me, helped me to neutralize the judgements i placed on good or bad, right or wrong. As such, i had a deeper capacity to hold a neutral healing space for others to unveil their "un-desireables" and not face rejection. The underbellies did not scare me the way they do a sleeping sapling. At the same time, the medicine i carried would mean the shadows of the people connected to me would be shaken up. Everytime, I passed through a new initiation so too would those connected to me and most would run for the hills. The shadow of the soul is perhaps one of the most mis-understood concepts of spirituality within the patriarchial dream. Our lost connection with the divine feminine has disregarded her. Banishing her into the unconcious, screaming for attention and if ignored, ravenous in her pursuit of acknowledgment. But this was only one of her faces. The other face when given concious permission of expression is that of deep nurturing, fertility, sustenance and abundance. The soul is fed of the seedlings of the shadow. As a person worked to mine the unconcious, seedlings of self and therefore existential knowledge emerged out of the darkness and integrated into embodied conciousness. But there is no birth without death. If it was summer all year round, we would never see spring, because there was no winter of re-generation of ecological cycles promoting new growth. Yet even in our dissassociation from nature, we are able to understand the simple truth that it is not possible for it to be summer all of the time. A flower only has so much time in bloom before blossoms return to the earth for the re-generation of a new cycle. The shadow was the dark, the unacknowledged, the unconcious, the fertile, the gestation. The white owl medicine illuminated it, so that the soul could be liberated from the tension in between, over and over and over again. Unfortunately, in a patriarchial, repressed and unconcious society, the shadow has completely been disowned and when triggered the unconcious individual experiences a primordial terror. A primordial terror that our ancestors understood to be a natural defence of the ego to the death of it's roles and identities and maintained initiatory rites of passage to teach an individual how to meet such challenges. None the less an accepted aspect of the natural order of nature. Entering into a conjoint place of prayer had opened up the Sundancer's ability to energetically feel me and read the pulse of my medicine. The raw, fertile and re-energative energies of the feminine had also touched him. He attempted to neutralize the impact of these verbally, but I could see in his body language, it made him just a wee bit uncomfortable.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

A visit from the sacred masculine...

I left that weekend with replaying thoughts of a budding seed that had taken root while there. I wasn't sure what it meant, or how I would come to know it, but I felt it land deep in my core. This is the way in which I come to learn that the voice of my truest self is trying to be known. Its the feeling that arises deep within me that something said, something is witnessed or something i've experienced has hit an unknown button that is in the very near future going to come to be known. My teacher had spoken about the divine feminine being within the land. In Celtic history, it was understood that the king that watched over the kingdom of a village was indeed chosen by the land and as such the king would remain her servant, listening for her voice and heeding her guidance when making decisions that concerned the community.
The archetypal motif beneath the currents of this materialization, is that the womb of dreaming in the medicine of the divine feminine holds and gestates the wisdom that the eternal masculine then alchemicalizes and puts into action. The masculine contained the energy of fire. She explained "most of the work we do here is healing the internal masculine within the women that come to the lineage, so that the two can come back into balance". I thought about the social issues I had studied in my social work career affecting women in the patriarchal dream and could recognize the imbalanced masculine that we advocated for in the feminist movements. Our conciousness stuck within the dream, imagining the power we tried so desperately to reclaim lay within the hands of the oppressive actors enacting their worldly drama. I thought about the vision of womens community I so carefully crafted from the threads of my healing journey and how it still held these components. Except this time the imbalanced masculine got to "work on" our inner selves. The warrior rising to meet the villain of our pain and go to a battle of fire and brimstone vigorously hacking out what didnt belong to us. And then I thought about the tenderness in the land that had called me to it. That I had moved onto only in the spring of this year. That her gentle whispers contained the message of beginning to gather the women whom my trials of fire had destined me to meet. I had nurtured the gentle nature of her womb on this land, harnessed her medicines of receptivity, but who was the masculine that would help support this womb and in participation of it's healing bring forth a balance by the time it manifested in the world? I thought about the Sundancer's arrival into my life and the medicines that he carried. While these questions and contemplations remained strong I would need to go and speak to him. Perhaps he and I were on our own archetypal journeys, coming together to reflect some of these very lessons. Like me, the Sundancer lived with a constant state of existential yearning. Although I had known many others that wrestled with the inner angst of existential impulses, I had never met someone with quite the same commitment to answering them. Additionally, although we had our own unique set of intepretations regarding the teachings of the old ones that we had each received in our own unfoldings, he was the first man I have come face to face with in a romantic way that reflected so much of what I beleived to be true, yet from a masculine angle. Studied in Indigenous thought and having worked and been initiated into many Aboriginal communities and rights of passage, he maintained a deep reverent relationship with his pipe and had taken a four year pledge to Sundance. Leaving the retreat I picked up Madison and drove directly to his apartment. Burlesquey had gone to Vegas for the weekend and he was on his own. As usual he opened up the door with glowing eyes and gentle joy in his smile. My heart lept. After putting Madison to bed in the loft, I made my way down the stairs to join him in the living room. When I entered the room, he stood up and walked over to where I was standing, his arms on my shoulders and staring joyfully into my eyes. "What do you want?" he whispered. "I'd like to honor you". My body stiffened, the awkward fidget that comes up when I feel vulnerable and confused began to twitch. Trying to look at the floor, and shuffling my feet in one place, the rest of my body started to stiffen. I had become speechless. He continued to stand in silence, embracing me in his arms. "Tell me what you need Erica" he whispered again. "Do you want a massage?... Do you want to be held? Let me know what you need and I will give it to you". My lips would still not part to utter a word of reply, my thoughts were racing, anxiously trying to track the discomfort I was experiencing in responding to his question. "Needs?" I thought to myself. "what are my needs? and why is it so foreign to say what they may be out loud? Why do I feel such terror ripple through me at the thought of having to admit what they might be?" I didn't have a problem negotiating my pragmatic needs in relationship, asserting myself when i needed to, setting boundaries and letting the other person know what i did and did not find acceptable. But it seemed, asking me to identify and speak to the most tender, vulnerable, intimate needs was a risky option loaded with a bucket of gunfire waiting to dig into each half healed wound within the tissues of my intimacies. "It's alright" he said reassuringly, "i'm patient. I'll just stand here and continue to hold you until you're ready to tell me". A tiny breathe seemed to break through the constricted spaces in my lung capacity and sighed a little sigh of relief that I had time, yet I still wasn't confident I'd have the answer soon. We may be standing there for awhile. Twenty minutes later, he broke the silence. "Alright.. can I give you a massage?" He asked. I nodded shyly and went about preparing to lay down to receive. My body still frozen in holding, as I maneuvered myself onto the ground. We spent that night wrapped in eachother's arms until almost 2 am, speaking gently to eachother about what my weekend had been like and exchanging perspectives on some of the things that were coming up for me as a result. "How can I represent the masculine on this land so that the sacred masculine both as an energy and in it's human form is paying it's reverance to the healing women will receive in this place?" I asked him. After several moments of silence and contemplation, he advised in building the landscaping structure of the cermonial space in the back field, that I build a sacred fire holding the energy of the masculine and that this energy can be balanced with the planting of a tree with the positioning of what might look like a yin and yang symbol if drawn out in outline. It would be a brilliant start. Yet if the fire was truly to represent the energies of the sacred masculine, it would also need to be built by the sacred masculine. Just like the energy of the firekeepers that tend and prepare the fire for the womb of the lodge at womens full moon lodges, this offering would hold that energy of the sacred masculine's holding and reverance for this land and the women that gathered here. I wanted to ask him, but posing the question made me feel extraordinarily vulnerable. I had watched him pull back from me in the month that he ran and re-negotiate his boundaries differently upon return. He was here alright, but he still hadn't arrived. My heart was too attached to him to feel like i had the capacity to house a rejection for even this simplest of tasks, loaded with a meaning so deep and so foriegn it was too hard to articulate. The question would need to wait, but i was on notice, something really beautiful was happening here and most days I could hardly beleive it had arrived.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Sacred Sexuality

Sacred Sexuality

The singer of all songs...

Although my questions on sexuality were active in my summer explorations, so too was the re-emerging performer that Calleach had returned to me through the midwifery of my dreams, the alchemy of my healing. My artist had gone under in the early periods of recovering from my sexual trauma, the voice that had protected me had buried itself in the ground. I would learn in my shamanic studies in the autumn, that not only was it the voice that was buried, but it was some of my soul parts carrying the medicine of the way i expressed myself in the world. Without my tools, there could be no art. Without the art, there could be no expression. Without the expression, there was no medicine. The second shamanic weekend of this year in the apprenticeship, in the time of the east, we were to re-claim wounded parts of the maidens that continued to live in us all. When I journeyed on this, i was shown an array of images of dancing with my father as a child. My feet pressed on the tops of his, while we waltzed around the kitchen floor. My childlike eyes were wide with wonder and awe, at this magnificent embodiment of the masculine that was my dad.
Images of us singing together and him reminding me that I needed to stop singing from the front of my mouth. A crashing and choking of the unhinged beauty that flowed like a river from my essence, one of the first obstructions that would serve to teach me later the lessons I required to continue walking my path as a medicine woman. We were to journey to Brigid requesting a healing prayer, poem or song...it was no surprise that what I was given was indeed a song. "On the shells of broken dreams, lies a secret way of being. Hold your light up to the sky, Oh my child don't let it die. Don't let it die, don't let it die, oh my child keep it alive. Don't let it die, don't let it die, oh my child keeps you alive. Keeps you alive, keeps you alive, oh my child don't let it die". We would gather at the river and amongst the drumming, create prayer boats to send along the river, offering our incantations allowed and in the silent witness of our sisters. That by doing so the healing was complete, the blocks, undone...as the river's medicine teaches us of the flow of life and spirit. If it was your time to speak you would feel it in your body and yell stop to halt the drumming. The silence that befell the admonitions of vulnerability of the deepest kind was deafening. I was attempting to listen to the subtelties of my body expected to alert me to my position in line, but at this point lay laden with ripples of intensifying fear. It was a terror that coursed through my para sympathetic nervous system, my body attempts to shake it out through knee knocking and quaking full body quivers. It seemed of the 24 women, we were down to two and I was one of them. Aftering spitting out the word stop in an act of surrender, i grimly and hastily made my way to the water. In ankle deep currents, i balled over and began to sob. Not quietly, or submissively, but in loud quakes of anguish. Like a tsunami of energy propelling itself from the very core of my being. And out of that quake, a fragile and small, soft, aching voice I could not muster the ability to settle from its quaking, creaked out of me. One ripping word after another, the blockages in the drainpipes had been faced down, the garbage deflected with the mighty currents of drain-o. Although my voice had only made its way out as a whisper, it had begun it's tough climb out. It had reminded me of life and the feeling one experiences when life pumps through one's veins. I felt the depth of release only a soulshaping orgasm is capable of manufacturing. My teacher would later say that her witness of this moment in my journey was a profound chord cutting, the shredding of this ballooned image that had been driving me, completely deflated and my own personal power returned to me. Sexuality had caused me to shut down my voice and bury my self expression, as such the shadows of the dark feminine ravenously devoured layers and layers of the dark sides that lay behind the primordial push of our animalistic drive toward mating. Yet as my sexuality was faced with an opportunity to heal, so too my performer appeared, reminding of the other peices of this complicated image. And as i re-claimed my performer, my sexuality in turn continued to transform, there became less desire for the expression of physical pentration and instead more of an art of seduction. A seduction that needn't actually be fulfilled, for in it's fulfillment it would successfully kill out it's reason for existence, which was the art and the expression of the deep crevices of eros.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Musings..

The next morning, Mehr still greeted me with respect and loving kindness. He was of his own accord but still sensitively checking in, the affections born of our connection the night before still present but not enamoured. I anxiously awaited a visit from the shaming internal voices, waiting for them to begin their reign of terror. Their attempts at wreaking havoc upon my sense of self respect for drunkedly disrespecting myself by jumping into bed with yet again a perfect stranger. Curiously, those voices never came. There was both a closeness and a distance that remained between us. Our closeness born of the extremly intimate bonding that had taken place just hours before, yet a distance in our knowing that what happened for us in those hours did not follow a lengthy getting to know one another, 'nor did it seem either of us felt it neccessary to do so because we had united in that way. I was deeply touched by what happened that night for a number of reasons. I think for many of us, sexuality is not seperate from a moralistic view on what frameworks are appropriate for engagement. In my experiences individually and from what I have observed in others, we attempt to moralistically arrive at viewpoints, informed by our questions and therefore experiences in the world that we then develop values, principles and codes of conduct that determine our methods and limits of sexual engagement. The challenge of course is that if we construct and live out these things with a rigidty, we impose our mythologies that are relevant for a time but ultimately come to a place of obstructing the ways in which we may be challnged to grow, or more importantly be given opportunity to heal. Although I was able to detect that there were two underlying impulses that drove my sexuality, one of self honoring and one of self destruction, I was still attempting to define these behaviors through the lens of these structures. I assumed up until this point that when i "jumped into bed too quickly" was when i was in the mode of objectifying myself and that if i gave rise to the lengthy dance of romantic intimacy prior to engaging someone physically, as i was exploring with sundancer, that i was awakening to the calls of self honoring. What made this experience with mehr so different from the ones with the others, in which my crossing the threshhold of engagement left me with days of enshadowed consequences? Specifically because at the onset of my engagement with Mehr, he as a person did not entice in me a deep feeling of interest. I still do not have the answers to this question, yet a few observations have explained how deeply moved i was by this experience. Mehr and I had connected under some seemingly similar contexts as many other one night explorations had taken shape along my destructive history. Yet from the beginning he demonstrated honor and respect. He had taken interest in my replies to his questions through out the night about who i was and what i was passionate about in the world. I had watched his reactions to me like a hawk throughout the evening. I could sense his desire and observed if his desire was in fact enticed by me and shaped by the environment or whether he was in a state of desiring overall. Although he mingled with many different people throughout the night as the rest of us had, he did not demonstrate a seething desire for others, yet in fact had his eye on simply me for the duration of the evening. Yet there were so many beautiful women present. His passion for me while we were making love was genuine and authentic, ruthless but also gentle. He respected himself and respected me by seeking to protect himself without any dialogue on how his pleasure might be obstructed by wearing a condom, an experience i have had so many times before. When we awoke in the morning, he did not try to overcompensate on behalf of what we had experienced the night before either by pretending to be more involved with me than he really was or by treating me like i was as insignificant to him as i might have been when he met me only the night before. Neither of us had any reason to make this out to be anything other than it was. A beautiful and deeply intimate sharing of two people, in one space in time, if only for the pure reason of our mutual pleasure and enjoyment. A beautiful transparency, lost of any fictional dramas or stories meant to justify what was already justifiable. What made it even more beautiful for me was the lack of a need either of us displayed in securely protecting the experience for ourselves and seeking to replay it. In his coming to kiss me goodbye before leaving the firespinner/wyldewoman household the next day, the simple goodbye represented all that had been. A closeness and a distance. There were no phonenumbers exchanged, an asking of when we might see eachother or how we might continue what we had begun. 'Nor did i secretly hope for one and anxiously grapple with why it was not occuring. It was like a brilliant unfolding of gratitude in the present without seeking to hold, control, make pain out of, tell a story abount but instead just allow it to be, for what it is, for what it was, for what it needed to be. Yet in the tenderness of that kiss, there was also a respect, an honor and an acknowledgement for what there was and what there had been for one single moment in the eternity of time. It seemed finally, my fast was broken, I had come out of the insatiable devorous hunger that the forced abstinence of my sexual expression had seethed and prowled for and in it's surrender had been given that which i was seeking but never coming up against. I didn't know if it would happen again and it didn't matter, because something in me was free and for once i trusted that whatever moments were next to come, whatever gifts they brought with them or lessons to impart, would be the right ones, in their own rightness of time and rightness of place. In the meaantime I would continue my journey stumbling blindly through the dark, presented with new experiences for trial and error and just trying to continue to identify and honor the feelings in my body, trusting them as the only source of truth as my guide.

Towards a collective eros...

Wyldewoman was turning 39. In honor of this transition of age, it was her desire to dance. She wanted to dance to her favorite DJ, a spinner in one of the erotic clubs she attended with her husband. She mostly went there to dance in full freedom of expression, she would tell me as I got to know her. There was something more erotic for her in the dance then there was in the sex itself. And when she was dancing, allowing herself to push every limitation of her physical being in a musical movement of ecstacy, the orgasm rippled through the crowd. Her party was in the barn on their twenty acres. Complete with ribbon, fog machines, lasers and a professional DJ, 'round 40 creative souls gathered in celebration. The invite said "dress as crazy as you can". I mentally flipped through my wardrobes trying to come up with a concotion comprising a costume. Recognizing that my burkah-ed 6 years of covering would not lend me easy options, I contacted Bhurlesquey for some options. We sorted and sifted through her wide array of hair peices, jewellery and erotic costuming but still nothing seemed to grab at me. The Jean Queen, she suggested, she would have to work but if i made my way down there, I would find what i needed she believed. And so, the next morning Madison and I did just that, we ventured into the world of playful and erotic costuming. The jean queen would turn out to be a playful extravaganza, complete with rainbow colored kneesocks, corsets of every brand and flavor, tutus, pin up dresses and gothic allure. I had entered a whole new universe. It would take 3 whole hours of Madison helping the staff behind the cash and me working in, working out, throwing on and throwing out a wide range of themes, images and attempts at representing what it is I was feeling inside of me and that was screaming to get out. A ladybug is what i settled on. I would walk out of the store with $250 dollars of merchandise, spiral black bug eyed sunglasses, a red and black corset, a bright red tuto and red stockings spotted with black dots and a ladybug emblem at the knee. Now how would i make up my face and hair to support this image? Again, it had only been a few months since i had begun painting my face again. In my return to the art of making "up" the female face of desire, I had truly begun to realize how much of an art it was. Something we are taught to pick up in adolescence and spend years of experimentation with, most often painfully, until we are able to reach the art of perfecting it's intrinsic tricks of the trade. I had lost 6 years of practice and what i had perfected up until the point of abandoning this excercise, i had forgotten. That's why it pays to have friends that are hairdressers. Not only hairdressers, but the princessey glamor queens that live for the details but what they make up for in glamor don't lack in substance. Thank god for the Pastor's wife. My friend, the pastor's wife, truly is a pastors wife. I call her that to represent the contradictions in our friendship, that precisely account for all the beauty within our relating. She is pretty much the most fashionable goddess i know, has a diverse array of colorful hippy threads enmasked by the innocence and purity that being a pastors wife demands of you. She is bold and brazen, but proper and polite, i revel in our similarities and somehow feel its a revolutional act for two women to maintain a closeness in a present day reality of which had it happened in history, one would be burned by the other. I don't mean "burning" in the metaphorical sense but the literal one, her religious ancestors were the ones who burned mine. Although we see "God(ddess)" differently, we have respect for the fact that we both live a life in service of him/her, albeit quite a bit differently :).. ...So anyway, back to the story. If bhurlesquey was in charge of wardrobe, the pastor's wife would be entrusted with hair and make up. A new brand of Marilyn Monroe been born. As i whisked down the highway, dodging in and out of sunset traffic, i giggled quietly each time i caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview. Like a 1950's pin up girl, a new part of me was emerging. Yet perhaps it wasn't a new part at all, but rather an old part that had been purified by the fires of transformation and had been re-birthed in a very different form. This new image of erotic play, this "trying on" of what was external on the outside attempting to represent what was happening on the inside..was no longer arising from the vulnerabilities of an empty wounding screaming for attention, but instead had arisen as an archetypal enactment of what had been healed on the inside. To be erotic had now become an energy rather then an act and i was the spinner of it's emergence, playing with the identities of a metaphor in an effort to express myself. It seemed it wasn't only my sexuality that was transforming, but also the performer within me. Calleach had given her life and she was slowly learning how to play once more. Arriving at the wyldwomans, I barreled in on their dinner. A small framed Iranian man in his early 40s was sitting at the table with her, engaged in pre party feasting. She got up excitedly to hug me, commenting on how "done up" this usually "done down" hippy gal had been. She introduced me to her friend. His name was Mehr. Gently engaging and of a light hearted energy. As dinner was done and people scattered in preparation, some completing the preparation of the barn, wyldewoman welcoming new guests, I asked Mehr to help me set up my tent before festivities began. The tent setting up became a group affair with arriving guests helping us put the peices of my encampment together. We collectively decided setting it up in a dry place, within the garage made a warm comfortable alternative to braving whatever elements we may be up against. Many jokes passed through the circle about how many people could possibly be housed within the expansiveness of this tent. "How many people do you plan on sleeping in here" Firespinner asked smart-assedly..."one never knows and i always come prepared" i answered sheepishly with which a collective laughter burst forth. The night grew dark, the strob lights began and the music started to pump. There was alcohol consumed, joints sparked and fire spinning. A collective began gathering round the bonfire in the back, while some of us began making our way to the dance floor in the upper floor of the barn. For awhile it would be mehr and i in our respective individual places, lost within the rythyms of our own dance. Slowly, more people continued to emerge, joining us in our slow unfolding of mutual ecstacy. The hulahoops began, the costumes blazed, the energy within the barn turned to a cocktail of creativity, infecting all who though awake when entering the haze of the fog machines, slowly became consumed by the trance of self expression. What emerged was a collective of individuals all lost within their own dance and that through their losing of self created a collective energy of consumption, that as each individuals fire began to burn, the whole got larger and larger, until although a sea of individuals danced among us, it was hard to see the lines that seperated us from one another. A woman came over and ripped my breasts outside of my corset. A grin of amusement came over my face and I continued to dance as if nothing had happened. She ran her fingers up and down the curves of my body, casually stole a suckle of my nipple while making eyes across the room to her bald machismo-ed on-looking companion. I continued to dance. She broke away moving on to the next object of her desire. I danced ecstatically with a foreign engineer. Coming towards me in dance he attempted to be heard over the music "what are you supposed to be" he shouted.
I playfully pulled up my tutu revealing the ladybug on the top of my stocking. "sexy..., how you showed me that" he said with one raised eyebrow, pulling at the neck of his shirt in jest. I smiled and giggled and continued to dance. Once in awhile Mehr would make his way across the dance floor moving into me...and making his interest in me known. "you look soooooooooooo yummy" he breathlessly whispered into my ear, as a moment in the dance brought us close to one another. I cocked a teasing glance in response and continued to dance. He would continue to play with me in casual glances, expression of his body while he danced and a consistent observation of the ways in which i moved about the dancefloor. While taking a break, Mehr and I ran into eachother downstairs and set out upon a mission to find marijuana. Our mission would take us to the house to roll a joint. As we drunkedly stumbled along the long gravel path to the house, bumping into eachother along the path, he stopped me midway, took me into his arms and wrapped me in a passionate embrace. His lips against my set a fire ablaze in my body and hungrily i devoured his kiss. I had noticed his flirtations and his movements of pursuit the entire night but wasn't sure how or if I wanted to engage him. Physically, he did not resemble my type and I was moving through so much confusion with my transitioning sexuality, I had no idea anymore of what boundaries permitted my full exploration and which ones of enshadowment lured me into it's hooks only to leave me feeling battered when i returned to my ordinary state of conciousness. All i could trust in this moment was my responses. It had seemed, it was that collective energy of creative desire that had seeded me for this moment, i was no longer a person in a body with a transitioning sexuality, but a container so full with the juices of creative outpouring that seductive and playfully erotic energy spilled out of me into every aspect of existence in that moment. And when mehr pulled my body into his and met my container with his container of equal outpour, the galaxies exploded. We would make our way into the house, stumbling through rolling a joint in between sloppy and passionate kisses and back outside to smoke. As we wandered through the parking space, making out and smoking up, wylde woman was on her way into the house. "Who's there?" she sputtered in the drunk darkness.."we are" we giggled drunkedly back. She sauntered over in an effort to see our faces rather then our dark silhouettes. Mehr pulled her into us and also passionately kissed her within centimeteres of my face. I giggled, not at all, taken back by what was happening, just another natural outpour of the energy that was co-created and such co-creatively shared. Wyldewoman pulled out of their kiss and thanked him for his passion, going back to her travels.
We continued to giggle and make out as Mehr dragged me back into the house, through the garage and into the tent. That tent for the next 3 hours would experience a quake of earth shattering passion. We made love full of all the universe's colors and ripe with a lover's familiarity usally only born of the kind of knowing acquired through years of knowing another, their delights, their fantasies, their every asthetic sensitivity. I don't know if it was the alcohol, the energy of what was created by the crowd that night in the barn, or the releasing of something that had been stuck for too long, but the hours were endless, the passion never ending, the colors an explosion of fireworks that lit up an eternal sky. Three hours later and on interruption later, we emerged from that womb and made our way back to the dance floor. There was a moment within all of it, that as we lay deeply engrossed within the cavities of one another's bodies, the garage door opened, and a body came barreling into our tent, "okay you whores..." came the voice of our intruder, a collective of laughs happening in a circumference of a circle of people no less than a meter away from the door of our tent. My legs were in the air, we were both buck naked and full on and despite the intrusion we made no effort to disengage and cover ourselves with blankets. "you fuckers have the key to the house" the voice continued..while i laughed uncontrollably. It was the wyldwoman, trying to gain access to her own house and indeed we forgot that we took the key with us into the tent. Mehr, wrestled with his pants looking for the key while still wrapped up in my body. "So that's what you call camping eh Mehr?" came the voice of Firespinner laughing with others, i continued to laugh at how obscene this scene actually was and how little we cared that we were fully exposed, as one might be under normal party circumstances where surprising interruptions generally send one anxiously searching for clothes and a way to cover up the act they were caught in. "Continue with said activities" Wyldewoman ordered, key in hand and exiting the tent. This scene held so much of my own emergence. Sexuality, so often in it's privacy borders on the themes of being shamed into its secrecy. Although being discovered in so many other environments and times of my past would have driven me to shamefully conceal, there was nothing in the air of this entire collective happening that would pre-empt me to do so. Yet at the same time, there also lacked no air of collective enshadowment, a sexuality born of repressed desires seeping to the surface, where bodies were objectified and in doing so a defilement of the soul. No. Instead, it was a celebration, the celebration so intense, that no surprise came to the faces of the discoverers, but rather a normalcy of what was taking place. They just wanted a key and then to leave us to our continued pleasure. There would be no raised eyebrows later, no questions or enquires, not even surprise. Sexuality here was just a natural outpouring of a collective co-created erotic energy, a natural expression of the body's desires, a beautiful counterpart of our human desire to mate and be mated. And a mating worth celebrating. When we returned to the dance floor it was 4 am. A small few dancers remained, while many others had paired or triaded together and returned to their places of slumber. We were normally welcomed back into the fold, we resumed our independant dances for another hour until the sun began to rise, signalling what would be the end of an immensely beautiful night. As Firespinner and wyldwoman assisted the djs to pack up their belongings, mehr and I made our way back down that gravel drive in which we had came. "It's too beautiful right now to sleep" he commented as we walked towards the house hand in hand. I agreed. We decided to head into the hot tub and while relaxing in the warm water continue to watch the sun greet the day. Our erotic unfoldings continued, this time our passion was right there in the world, for any on-looker to see. It didn't matter who came upon us, or who managed to sneak a peak. We had no need to take cover. In these quiet moments, once again..my body was becoming free...

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The dreaming...

As i was awaking this morning, caught between the thin veil of the dreaming and the waking life, I heard a distant but gentle voice "You are in the great womb of the dark mother". I was curled up in a fetal position, protected by soft swaddled blankets, my heart soft, my body still. In my last weekend of shamanic training, in our learnings about soul retrieval, Angela spoke about the soul peices returning first to the womb of dreaming and healing (feminine) before being taken down to the alchemist (masculine) for integration. That everything in this life must start in the womb, complete it's gestational cycle before being birthed into action through alchemy. As I approach the tangible event of a coloscopy in two days time, where modern day medicine men will assess the physical state of my cervix, this dream comes to me as a gentle whisper of wisdom...I am going through an initiation, a gestating sexual transformation, culminated by a physical manifestation of so many threads of my personal healing. I feel safe, I feel comforted..but most of all, I feel loved <3

Monday, October 15, 2012

Bhurka meets Burlesque...

Burlesquey was the Sundancer's partner. She was an amorphosed bubble of light. A nurse by day and dancer by night, she was the perfect combination of playful innocence and bad ass performer of the erotic arts. She was sparkly and girly and had a knack for fashion like none before her and she thought she was the nerd! It was my twenty ninth birthday and there I stood glim glammed with makeup and a black dress, trying to taken in what i was seeing in the mirror, as burlesquey fastened the corset around my waist. "There" she said hitching the top hook of the corset while looking sheepishly pleased with what she saw in the mirror. My cleavage was spilling over.
I could not beleive that after six years of devotion to fully covering up in the name of saying NO! to objectification that here i stood with a waist cincher glued to my rib bones while the whiteness of my shadowed breasts glistened over the black backdrop. Burlesquey would prove to have come as a teacher in a different way. The virgenesque qualities of her energy gave her blatant erotica a non threatening quality of engagement. She wore sexuality respectfully and with honor but with a full on acceptance of liberation and the right to personal expression of it. I had still not gotten laid and the fire of my own breadth of erotic anticipation was burning firghtfully willing to take anything in it's wake. My sexuality was transforming, I could see that in the threads of my journeys, but i clung to it like the last shield protecting me from a windstorm. My beautiful, firey, passionate sexuality was something i felt to be a great gift. I couldn't bear the thought that mindfulness would invade it's devorous yet shameless self expression. Firespinner had elcipsed me with his physical irressitability, yet I had drawn boundaries around the potentiality of our union on account of my ethics in self honor. If he didn't have the time or relational space to get to know me, i couldnt let him into the interior recesses of my body. Who was this person I was becoming? Better yet, the sundancer appeared as an apparition of all of my truth and ironically wasn't interested in rushing into any prospect of sexual union. What was my world becoming? The hardwon rebel within me did as she always does, she continually tried to push up against what felt like this universe-imposed regulation to aid my growth yet came at me like an unsuspecting enemy. I like a small person placed within a sponge box where all i could do was keep running into and bouncing off the spongey wall in an attempt to figure out what had changed. Who did this force think she/he was interefering with my right to orgasm? In my rebellion, I returned to my internet dating profiles and sought out others looking for intimate encounters. I didn't much care *who* i picked up, it had become less about the person and more about reclaiming my right to have fearless, detached, no strings attached, firey, passionate and ultimately fulfilling, breathtakinginly satisfying sex. First, there was the small framed construction worker, a single dad. I left this encounter feeling empty, dissappointed, disrespected and disgusted. The second was, all jokes aside, a short, stalky, egotistically cute, military dude. This guy had the stealthy meat head kind of swagger my loins did acrobats for. He was a patronizing, patriarchial and most likely a misogynist asshole. I was both humored and sad for the way in which he had made decisions about his life and the experiences that brought him there. But his cocky, patriarchial male way of desiring me, turned me on. The perfect mirror of the complimentary opposite tensions that had come to represent the way in which my sexuality had formed and taken shape. We fucked vigorously and passionately all night long. He fucked me the way i wanted to be fucked and my ravenous hunger was liberated from her imprisoned yearning. The beast had been set free. The morning saw a regret that was unfamiliar. I entered the deep dark recesses of my shadow, on a rollercoaster ride of somatic symptoms of violation, and haunting images of the ways in which i had offered up my deepest treasures in one of the most vile kind of ways. I battled waves of naseau and inpenetrable darkness for almost 48 hours following his departure. This was what laid behind the sponge boundary, i so deliberately threw myself against. The slowrising of my heart continued throughout the endless number of electronic threads passed between i and the sundancer. There seemed an energy between us that encouraged me to unveil in every way. He was a good listener and I a good talker. My innermost confessions were never met with any great deal of surprise, he expressed a shared understanding of some of the things i had grown through. I awoke to the little red number sign above the messagebox of my facebook every morning..."Good morning beautiful.." he'd say. I was becoming enamored. Then, he dissappeared. Without a whisper his morning messages went away. I left him a few messages, un-returned. At one point he popped in , in a detached way. His message read "I'm just sorting some stuff out and need some space, i'll write you when I re-emerge. Some weeks later i wrote and asked him if i could come to the lodge to sweat. I was feeling shattered and could use the womb of healing. "of course" was his reply, he would find time either before or after to talk to me about what was going on for him. When i pulled up to the house where the lodge was held, i noticed him glance over at me before quickly rushing over with an anxious look in his eye. "I'm sorry, i just freaked out and began thinking about how much energy is being split to maintain these two relationships and I'm preparing for sundance...and i realized i have to be protective over my energy right now..and so I can't hold space for this relationship right now"..he sputtered as if to get it out in one long quick unmistakeable breath. That breath was so fierce it knocked the wind right out of me, leaving me hollow and empty in my chest. "Okay" i said quietly, a perplexed look upon my face and too vulnerable to ask anymore questions. He returned to the lodge and went about his regular buisness. I reeled in confusion, trying to grapple onto some truth of what had just transpired. I would grieve this short lived journey for 3 full intense days. Burlesquey would contact me to check in to how i was feeling, sharing her own experiences of what had happened. She was angry that he had failed to uphold his authentic honesty with her about the depth in which he was feeling, irritated that he hadnt been more pre-emptive in his engaging me and pissed off that he was turning away an answered prayer. It was me, she explained, that was the answered prayer. It would be her intervention that would for the very first time reveal to me her fierce and integritous devotion to the sacred journey. "Do you think being with not one, but two awesome women would be easy?" she enquired to her partner. He, looking awkward and protective, awkward at being asked the questions in front of me that would expose the vulnerability he fought so hard to protect. He would tell me later, that he ran because he was in fear, that his relationship with me would crack a layer of vulnerability wide open, that he hadn't felt in ten years. We would eventually commence our endless discussions. Madison would journey home to ontario for the summer and i would have time to continue asking and exploring the answers to, my questions.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

An unexpected visitor...

I found a poly community online. Eagerly posting my excitement at finding this innovative community in the world, I acknowledged my virginhood in the practice. Later that day, i found a message in my inbox from a member of the community, if i had questions about the lifestyle he was pleased to share his experiences. His name for me would come to be the sundancer. The photo on his profile was of an older man, older then one i might take interest with. He had a female partner of whom he lived with, he had dated a bit, she was busy with a spiritual transformation that directed her attention inward. Our days began and ended with endless communications over text, about who we were, how we lived and the places and insights that brought us to this moment in the enternity of the universe. We agreed we would have coffee one day. My mom was visiting from Ontario. We devised a plan to go into the city for a day, to show her the unique acceptance of individuality that is commercial drive. Mom and maddy and I wandered up and down the street and in and out of a variety of eclectic shops looking for new housewares to lay claim to the new home i had just birthed into the world. Although the sundancer and I weren't due to meet for coffee for a couple of more hours, from the corner of my eye I caught and older man with longish darl hair, a black and red Aboriginal rain jacket, glancing down at his cell phone as he meandered up the drive on the other side of the street. Although I couldnt see his face, i suspected it was him, racing unsuspectingly up the other side of the street and dodging strangers along the way, determined to get a grasp of his face and validate the credibility of my claim. Within seconds, he also glaced up looked directly in my eyes from across the street and we were met with a mutual recognition. Are you you? our quizzical faces playfully pointed at eachother. There was something magical about meeting in that way, although he would probably consider it just another coincidental happening. This moment would be the beginning of our journey together, however short it would be in the world of clocked time, it would create ripples within me that would impact every layer of my existence. The sundancer was unlike no other man i had known before. As we continued to blend our work days with intermittent but all consuming conversation about spirituality, healing, our histories, our present, our philosphies on life and untold opinions on sexuality, we had begun to find ourselves in a tailspin of a consuming fire of passion. I was surprisingly perplexed on his ideas of sexuality. He viewed sex as a deep spiritual merging, in which two people consented to share "all of their information" with eachother, not to be entered into lightly. What did he mean share all of their information? I asked him. " Well" he said while taking a deep contemplative breath, "it's as if in that merging of energy, all of who and what you are is shared with another person". He went on to explain the other reasons he was hesitant. He and his partner shared a deep energetic bond he would go on to explain, that would register deeply and profoundly everytime they shared this union with another. As it would affect three people rather then just two, decisions had to be made more carefully. Then of course there was also the notion of boundaries which he explained he had learned along his own sexual journey as hard to define after sex, and so it was never as casual as one would be led to beleive. It of course was the curiosity and questioning of my own sexual explorations that had brought me to this place, so poly sexuality and poly relating were regular discussions in which i questioned with complex curiosity on a constant basis. It had been eight months since i had gotten laid, i was horny and ravenous and the object of my desire was conservative in his engagements. He wanted to honor me he said. I had no idea what to do with that. The sundancer would come to represent in entirety everything i beleived to be true about the world. He was the manifestation of all that i had yearned for in a partner for six long years. Of course there were things i would need to barter with myself in order to stay engaged, that he was twenty years older then me and didnt want anymore children. But the admiration that burned inside of me, coupled by the beauty i continuously saw blaze in him made all of those negotiations fairly easy to rectify. It would seem i had finally met my match. A few weeks into our intensely developing kinship, Madison developed an abscess tooth that would require removal with anesthetics, we would need to go into the city to have the procedure done. I asked the sundancer if he would go with me. As they had just finished putting her to sleep, i was overwhelmed by the metaphoric images that accompanied her lifeless body. I went wandering down the hallway with tears seeping from hy heart. The elevator doors opened and he made his way toward me, a gentle but overwhelming happiness in his grin a gentleness in his being. "i'll be okay in a few minutes, i promise" i muttered embarrssed. "Be however you need to be" he said with a big grin, grabbing my hand into his. We wandered over to the bank machine, exchanging sloppy kisses in between. We were enamoured with an intense passion that both of us felt enveloped by. As he grazed the side of my chin, kissing my lips and bringing my legs close into him, he whispered "you know i'm kinda glad you dont live in the city". "Why" i chuckled. "Because i think this could very quickly become all consuming and it wouldnt be good for either of us". We both laughed.
I was happier in relating to someone than i had been in a very long time. A re-membered sense of excitement that accompanies the magic of falling in love had begun to fill up my heart and overflow into every other aspect of my existence. I had no doubt that this moment in time was born of the starfish medicine that had dropped into my medicine journey and the work i had done to start healing my heart and learning to beleive in love again. Just as I did the universe brought me exactly what i needed, the reflections of all that i beleived and wanted in the world, the missing powders to the elixir of my continued healing and the shadows of the peices of me that were still waiting for birth. I was happy.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

untitled

In the still of the silence the ache returns to me. It has been said that longing is the seed of sacred knowledge.. yet the longing feels like an unwelcomed visitor It is not of the deep dark recesses of the spirit that require churning, delving and discovery It is instead born of the animal hunger to be met by another I havent yet determined if this hollow sadness that beckons me forward is related to the seperation of our souls or if it belongs to me and this journey I have been called to, but for now he remains the present day embodiment. My tender heart has been so protected for so long I have forgotten how painful it is to sit in the mists of a longing heart. Somtimes the cosmos gifts feel like jokes that only the trickster truly understands My heart had arrived vibrant and strong Welcome love she whispered, and so i did those moments in the universe flashed by like a tiny glimpse into an ever unknowing mystery i have learned her rythyms and accepted its fates i reap the knowledge and return grateful for the growing pains but in these quiet moments these knowings bring no consolation the yearning only remains it is not insufferable but merely unpleasant a constriction that seeks not to rest i continue to walk in its fragility embracing the moments of joy that flutter through allowing her messages to just be perhaps at the very least my being will come to accept the longing that remains and chooses instead to build a relationship with it.. for now i grieve for all the little moments that still feel so left undone...

Monday, August 6, 2012

The road to poly-amory.....

It had been 7 years since I left my train wreck of a marriage, battered, buried and bruised I had set out to find myself - my true self - that whisper of a soul behind all of the adptations and disguises that marriage had required of me. This journey conjured a long arduous whirlwhind of healing, de-construction, re-construction, sorting and sifting of layers and trying different things on. Once my soul and I had gotten to know eachother, old layers of being ripped off and discarded for someone else to adorn should they require them in their own journey of uncovering - what was left was an angst about how relationships, love and sex fit into my repetoire. The thing about transformations of the soul - is not a single part of who you are or the life you are living is immune from meeting it's fate in the firey - the alchemical elixir that will turn ashes into gold. If your worldview changes significantly - so too does every other aspect of what you call truth come called to the couch and quite possibly the chopping block. I knew leaving my marriage, that as a serial monogamous relationalist I would need to commit to staying single until I could find center and balance on two feet instead of four. But celibate nunnery was not what I was going for. I was a woman with a firey sexuality - a history of exploration and experimentation and a hunger for the transparency in union that sex had always shown me. Not dissimilar to the parts of me that spurred me into studying therapy otherwise known as the discipline that examines every aspect of human experience - sex had always been a pandora's box filled with mystery, wonder and individuality that often lay laden with shame, secrets and unnamed truths. It didnt matter how well you knew someone in ordinary reality - for me you didnt really know them until you were given access to the world that opened up inside of them when they agreed to meet you on the genital-heart highway. My experience has been that when two people begin engaging acts of sexual stimulation they are transported from operating within the place of their minds - their reasoning and intellectual knowing and land deeply within their bodies. As they become lost within the movements that touching and foreplay call out - so too does their souls and hearts begin to speak, their walls and boundaries, adaptations and disguises retreat in their ecstacy and for the first time you enter a portal where all of their mysteries are on display. Depending on the person in question, thier history, narrative, their wounds and their gifts you can learn a lot simply by being open to entering this experience with them - sometimes what you learn is that their safety has never been there and therefore the walls that generally melt are too embedded to retreat. No matter what you find - I have found you will find the truth..because within that great act of intimate bonding there is no disguising what story the body tells as it enters into it's own performance. In my own unfolding - i had continued my acts of sexual bonding and learned much about the truths of my own intimate nature. My early sexual trauma's prevented me from moving into a pure authentic acceptance of my needs and desires as a sexual being. Instead, i submissively moved into a passive recipient of male penetration. My desire for women emerged in short and shameful outbursts where here i sought out the woundings in other women that i felt strong enough to hold space for but my own sense of internalized homophobia ensured that I was under the influence when participating and running for the hills after the event was done. I also discovered that my wounded sexuality came from a place of stuffing, filling the emptiness inside and distracting myself from my pain in a sea full of pleasure. If my pain was consuming enough..any willing man would do no matter how much they objectified me, how little they cared for the person inside the body in front of them, or how dis-connected they may be from any aspect of intimacy. If i operated from this place I wounded myself unneccessarily and would spiral into a cycle of self loathing and self depreciation. My five year sexual bonding with the dude had taught me the sanctity of the divine feminine in her most open form. The dude was a reverant servant of the divine female, opening each aspect of her with extreme grace, pained by the abomination of her image and extremly selective and reserved in his pairing. He was three years older then me and I was only his third partner. Perhaps the most passionate and skilled lover I had ever known I would tease him about his reservations..."how on earth could you keep this beautiful gift from the women of the world?" I would say. He always gave a strong reaction to this statement speaking about the sacred nature of this union that demanded a sharing between two people of all that lived inside of them. He explained that there was no way to keep the bonding of genitals apart from the merging of every aspect of the human forms involved and laid claim that this level and degree of intimacy required a strong level of discernment of who and why you were allowing someone into this space. For better or worse their beauty or baggage would become united with yours and you would be left to deal with the consequences. It would be another 3 years for my being to really catch up with the wisdom imparted in this relationship. What i did know was that maintaining a sexual relationship with this man - changed for me what sex was. His touch was soo reverent, that i learned the sanctity of my own body from the movements of his fingertips. Never before had i felt like such a beautiful and delicate creature in the hands of a male admirer. During intercourse, my body seemed to always evaporate where i no longer knew the lines between the visible and the invisible instead there was a merging and dancing of two energetic masses meeting in the middle of a utopian oblivion. While i road the seas of ecstatic sexual bliss i had no idea what small and subtle changes were implemented in my psyche, manifested in my body and what the fruits of this alchemical elixir would produce some years later. What i did know was that somehow in those quiet moments of togetherness and in the fireworks of mutual fluid bonding, i was somehow beginning to heal. It was these experiences that paved the way for the emergence of Cosmic. Cosmic confessed to being in love with me at a time in this process where my genitals were open but my heart was closed. I tried hard as I might to deflect her confessions and continued to fantasize about how i might be able to penetrate this pear shaped red haired goddess. I would fuck her - of course- but love? ummm nope, notta, no way...she missed one key critical ingreidient in erica's relationship memo - she had a vagina. I had sex with women, but I loved men. That is at least what i thought until i found myself spinning within the heart of a cosmic hurricane. Cosmic was married to a man, in an open marriage, meaning of course that she could fuck others just not love them. She was working through her own realms of sexual healing - having trouble maximizing her orgasms and opening herself entirely to the process leading her to question her identity as a sexual being within the context of her marriage. She had known she was bi-sexual since the age of 22, although here at 32 had never yet popped her lesbian cherry. Sex for cosmic was deeply intimate, not something to be casually entered into and strongly connected to her emotional spaces. If she found herself emotionally involved with someone she may consider initiating a sexual relationship with them but not before. We had long conversations about the different places we situated ourselves sexually - we were two different faces of the same coin - I the excited but ulimately dismembered casual sexual explorer, her the hesitant emotional and sexual voyeur.It would take 7 months of our open discussions about our internal worlds, the ways in which we felt and the honest admonition of our different positions - oh and some permission from her husband for our sexual exploration to ever enter the arena of reality. The thing was though, by the time this period of time came to pass, I knew a lot about her -the inner tunnels of her pain and shame, the magnificence and beauty of her gifts, traits and personhood and had a heightened awareness of her vulnerability. Although still not allowing myself to admit the emotional truths of that kind of care and concern, what i did know is that with this woman i would need to tread very carefully - to keep things on the honorable scale. Each time i would attempt to advance to her, despite her repetitive permission, her nervousness and subsequent constant quivering would prevent me from bridging the divide...it always felt as if passing through this nervousness would result in what would feel like a violation. It took her making the first move of gently kissing the back of my neck and running her fingertips along my skin for me to finally emerge and cross the threshold. That first night of wild and passionate mind altering love making, left me whirling in a truth that i was not allowing myself to see but in the openness that sexuality unveils came unsuspectingly and quite literally head to head with. I was massively in love with this woman. She ripped and tore through every fibre of my being. There were still two pretty large problems. One, she was a woman, secondly, my heart was still closed. The fact that she was a woman meant that she had no space in the future i had anticipated for myself. I was still chasing the dream of living long and soulfully with a long haired, warrior hippy musician man - having at least another baby and travelling our soulular landscape together in the world. These events of course were just my preparation to his emergence. And my heart being closed - well obviously it wasn't cemented shut because of the strong emotions this woman conjured in my being, but my capacity to hold this emotions or even to enact them safely, naturally and fluidily were still severly crippled and compromised. Every time cosmic coaxed me into deep intimacy - i followed her into it for a few hours only to come out afraid, unsettled, exposed and ultimately distancing until the vulnerability of it faded out for just long enough for me to re-emerge. Cosmic had taught me about intimacy. A woman, perhaps the only one i know with a history of solid and healthy romantic relational patterns mirrored for me what relationship looked like in the spirit of full acceptance, support of indidivual passions and goals, the freedom to be and be with and perhaps most importantly showed me where all my tears, walls and blocks to engaging any of these remained as obstacles to the depths of union. Fast forward to 2012 and the landscape of my sexuality had changed rapidly.The experiences between divorce and now had equipped me with the understanding that my fiery sexuality now came from two places. One place was the unhealed distracted, distanced, filling the emptiness mode which seethed and shadowed and sought out all the kinds of objectifying monsters of self depreciation to fulfill its enshadowed hunger. The other place was the healed, reverent and deeply intimate place of seeking connection for mutual beauty, bonding, intimacy and fulfillment. I began to observe, reflect and discern these two places of platforms for sexual exploration in my history and society and termed the different spaces as the former being termed a place of "enshadowed sexuality" where repressed desires and unconcious pain seeped into any and all forms of sexual exploration and ultimately led to a place of objectification and pain. The sharing of this state stood to infect rather then fulfill and left me feeling nasea in my stomach when i found myself in it's energy. The latter a blessed and beautiful place of sexual union and bonding born of deep respect and reverance for the other, a space i termed "concious sexuality" and the only kind i was now interested in exploring. I would need to rectify how to discern the differences in this energy in my body, as the structure or rules around how these spaces are manifested in ordinary reality are tricky and not neccessarily recognized at the surface especially in a society where most of us are so dissassociated from anything real, raw and truthful our examples of this wihtout being cast into the religious right of serial monogamous celibacy are to say the very least minimal. The other thing that happened was that my heart had officially entered the game. I had healed the shreds and bruising of it's demise enough to be ready to welcome the deep, authentic love and affection of another but I still had so many questions about how these experiences, specifically in a monogamous way would fit into my soul driven life. Living a life born of following the whispers of the soul demands a fluidity in all things and a knowing that the mystery of the universe embodies a wisdom much stronger then we will ever know and the path of least resistance requires a strong trust in it's ability to lead you blindly into the dark. The fires of transformation could take everything in it's path - careers, housing, partners, relationships whatever it needed to clear the way for your next emergence to re-birth. My commitment to this path, meant that i journeyed quickly and intensely - burning through the lessons each partner brought me and setting them free to experience what they or i or both of us needed next. Yet my commitment to truth, honesty and integrity demanded that i attempted to explain to each new potential partner this more then possible occurence on the path of walking with me - often sending them running as quickly as possible in the farthest opposite direction. As cosmic stated in the final stages of our relationships "I couldn't live comfortably and safely knowing that i would never know where you would be the next morning - would you be called elsewhere, would that man you were searching for suddenly arrive?". I had walked as a lone wolf trying to find the voice of my soul, courageoulsy confronting any and all obstacles in my path. But as i met and faced down my dragons, my healing began to take root and i began to crave the simplicity of love, affection, sex and relationship. But how could i explore it with all the limitations that my souls walk and the medicine I carried afforded. How could I find individuals that came from the same foundation, understood the impermanent nature of the universe and dared to dive fully anyway? I had been searching for an understanding, or the language to describe these complexities to a mainstream world that was built completely opposite of everything i had arrived at. Until from somewhere out of the mystery, spurred on by my accidental wandering into an unsuspecting swingers party, in the text of a book handed unsuspectingly by a wife of a man i was dating...there was a pocket of people in the world that although arriving from very different places and spaces in time, coming to terms with there own questions and set ups for maximal growth had come to some similar conclusions about the world of love, sex, growth and relationship and formed a small cauldron of shared possibility. Their way of life and love was called polyamory and somewhere on the road from here to there i had stopped there, population undetermined.

Adventures in Amore Part Duex

It was not long after this journey began, that Cosmic and I had finally come up against the same old wall we met with last year - where despite all our best efforts we could not find a unifying strand to hold our different juxtapositions together. We were in different places in our journeys, yet in many ways also in the same places - just places we found we could no longer travel together. She was looking to explore, I was looking to have my deeper relational needs met..with much struggle and a lot of grief we parted ways and left any depiction of a possible reunion of any sort directed by the gods of fate. I think in many ways though so much of her show up in this journey I am currently on. As if my journey into these very new territories also help answer questions that initially arose in our relationship of where there was no context for at the time and now there is a re-examining occuring at exactly the same time as i travel foreign soil. Perhaps also there is an integration of the things she catalyzed within me that in their emergence i had no way to explore them because the safety wasn't yet there as is common with any new birth breaking through what was un-bithed skin. The next time I wound up with Firespinner and Wyldewoman it was a much smaller crowd and a very different scene. It was the first opportunity I had to get to see them as people rather than animated erotic boundary pushers. Nope here they were ordinary people. When wylde woman and I finally got to steal some alone time in the hot tub. In our naked comfort i began to ask her questions about what an open relationship meant to her. It was about love she said. About a universal love and a growth in engaging diverse sexual explorations from this foundation of universal love. This love though, she explained, was not to be confused with the kind of emotional love that happened between two people in relationship. No, that kind of love needed to stay between two people in relationship, but the sex and the adventures with other people - well that helped them grow, it helped them share and it helped them grow. I was uncomfortable with her limitation of love to the two primary people in relationship and although theoretically pointed out to be shared with others, hear and understand a clear differentiation about what form of love would be extended to the others involved in play. I asked her to speak more about this - so i could clearly identify the context from which she was speaking. "You know, firespinner should only be there for the other women should he really want to be there" and "his primary responsibility is here at our home and within our family". My hesitation about this budding relationship began to grow. I was looking for a relational exploration that was grounded in reverance and deep intimacy and intimacy for me couldn't be isolated and compartmentalized into behaviors that only took place in the bedroom. Upon further conversation, it appeared that wyldewoman was only clearly trying to define the boundaries between her relationship with firespinner and the rest of the world that they brushed shoulders against but at the same time i was beginning to see that although there was something ineffably mysterious about these two, getting lost in the adolescent abyss firespinner seemed to infect me with may not be the wisest of all wise decisions. While our conversations about love and family in the context of open relationships continued Wylde woman handed me the book "The Ethical Slut". The book firespinner referred to as the bible of open relationships which for me was the beginning glimpses into a extraordinary way of relating. It was a breath of fresh air into what felt like finding my way home - a finite explanation of and bringing together of conflicts i had been trying to express but lacked the language for. A road map of a different way - one that had the freedom of open concious exploration of the self in relation to the mulit-dimensional nature of others, the reverance of deep honor, ethics and respect, the comfort and safety of deep intimacy and the spiritual compliments of deep community love, understanding, acceptance and support. It was called "polyamoury".

Adventures in Amore Part One

In mid-winter, internet dating searches brought me to a page of another likeminded soul residing in the fraser valley. His profile was creative, expressive, contemplative and enticing - the first of his kind for me to come across in this region. He was "not single - not looking" - which only made me more curious having just been recently initiated by Cosmic into the world, or under-world, depending on how you look at it, of "open-relationships". It turns out he was married, they did indeed have an open relationship, but all my enquiries into the parameters of this open relationship were met with grey promises of being shown how this works. I was excited by the lead into the mystery and the lack of control I was asked to maintain over the exploration...like a hand leading me blindly into the dark. My curiosity brought me to his homefront for his 33rd birthday where I for the first time came face to face with his wife. My approach was awkward and uncomfortable, this was breaking new ground and i still had so little ground rules to play by. With firespinner as un-communicative as he was the only default i had to fall back on was the great art of experience and observation. "Hello random stranger at my door" the wyldwoman announced when i apprehensively approached the door. She was drop dead gorgoeous, playful and creative in her appearance with the grounding and physique that only a yoga and meditation instructor would have. I wondered what else Firespinner could be looking for with a wife that was like that. She was welcoming and inviting despite how awkward it felt to be introduced to a woman as her husbands date. As sausages were cooked over an open fire, people continued to filter in of all different ages and stations in life. Some were drinking, some were hot tubbing, some were gathered round the fire. Firespinner asked me if I had yet made it out to see the barn, asking if I was interested in taking a walk down there. Adolescent crush girl returned - overjoyed at the prospect. Walking to the barn, i felt like i could breathe again away from the crowd and not needing to worry about attempting to balance the awkwardness. That i was here at this party crushing on this dude that was married and whose wife was right beside me - while i anxiously worried about how often or normal it was for her hot husband to bring women home. The competetive history i had maintained with Cosmic's husband and the residing of ourselves in different corners had come nowhere near the geography of this place. Once in the barn, firespinner bent me over the ladder and the make out session had begun. We played passionately for 45 minutes or so before reaching a climatic close. My legs were jelly, my senses overstimulated and the ecstacy of adventures into foreign territory at an all time high. We wandered back to the party as if nothing had ever happened...returning to a hot tub full of naked others. The wyldwoman was among them. "How was the barn" she asked us upon our return - eyeing us both for evidence of what had gone on. "Great" firespinner responded. She seemed happy for us. My monogamous mind was going off on full swing. The part of me that saw non-monogamy as betrayal was swarming with guilt seeding thoughts of shame and self-loathing while the part of me in touch with the reality of the situation tried to reason with myself in realizing that no ethics were being broken here. Firespinner and I jaunted into the house to undress and ready ourselves for the hut tub. Was i really going to go naked with a hot tub full of strangers? Firespinner told me it was okay if i wore a suit - if it made me feel more comfortable but i couldnt imagine something making me stand out more. I dumped the clothes and got ready for the big plunge. On our way out the door he stopped for a minute - to suck on my nipple in front of the large window looking onto the hot tub. I was feeling liberated by this freedom of expression and open exploration. Where on earth had I landed? Naked and nestled in the hot tub I watched curiously what was going on around me. I sat between two men, one that continued to attempt to put his hand on my knee though his wife sat across from me. Had i wound up at a swingers party? Fire spinner sat between this man and his wife and seemed rather flirtatious with her. Conversations went on about music, sex, politics, spirituality, community and creativity. The wife sitting across from the man beside me left and went into the house - not long after followed by firespinner. Her husband, the man whose hands i kept trying to pry off of me was sitting in the middle of the hot tub now with his left hand outstretched towards the wylde woman. "hey now" she muttered to him "I told you - if your going to rub it you need to pet it gently like a kitten". Alright - my senses were officially on overload. Where was i and where had i landed? I got up, retrieved my towel, and went into the house looking for a bathroom. Someone was in it - I waited. Ten minutes later out came Firespinner and hot tub mans wife. Okay, I had officially landed in a swinger's party despite the idea that I had no idea walking into it. My shell of reverance for sexuality had been penetrated. My unhealed defense mechanisms against the fluid sharing of sex were activated and my nervous system was on overload. With no capacity to process and make meaning from what i surprisingly walked into - I decided to go to bed before planning an escape in the wee dawn hours - but not before mitigating another 4 requests from hot tub dude to join he and his wife upstairs. And it is from this place that the active adventures in amore began to take a place. The bloom of the healing i had done all year with the starfish medicine leading to an opening of the heart. No beginning journey into the outer explorations of this healing could happen without re-visiting relationship structures, new ways of being and an intertwined enquiry of sex, love and relationship.

Adventures in Amoure

This morning I awoke feeling deeply grounded in serene peacefulness. I had finally arrived in a centered state after a month of running from space to space soaking up as many new experiences as I could handle. Madison left on July 1 for a summer in Ontario with her family and loved ones - freeing up space for me to explore what a life led on pure impulse might look like. No schedules, routines, meal times or regular responsibilties to manage - just a pure what does Erica need in this moment? adventure. I was faced with a smorgasboard of possibility that I just may have been a wee bit unprepared to handle. Or perhaps I had all the preparation i needed and am just coming face to face with the deeper truths of who I am now and who I used to be. We can make so many excuses for our resistance by hiding the truths within the prgamatic obstacles until the obstacles are all removed and all that lies ahead is a clear path. My first excursion was to do some travelling on the sunshine coast with the fire breathing mermaid. She was to be my guide on a psychadelic mushroom trip alongside the pacific ocean and a circle of stones. I needed to re-visit this aspect of my youth which at the time was born of a place of escape. How would this medicine affect me at this stage of my shamanic journey - would the universe's wonders reveal themselves to me in an astounding mystery? Would i lose control over every aspect of my existence? I was surprised to find that many things had changed since 18. Although the medicine still pounced through my veins opening me up to a world of experience not usually accessible in the sober mind, there was still a part of my brain that existed as a watcher - watching, peering, keeping watch like a watchguard ensuring everything remained copasetic. The days I had spent with the fire breathing mermaid had reminded me of the days I had spent with cosmic. There was a familiar magical light in the air and a multiplicity of being transitioning different faces and ways of being through her everyday movements - where two aspects of self that may be in direct conflict with the other are existing within moments of eachother. There is a beauty to watching these states move through a person, so unique and unusual in their own right and special and magical all in one. It was this very quality that often made me doubt Cosmic's integrity in her actions and statements of truth. Yet as both of these lovely women were born under the Aries astrological alignments - I couldn't help but wonder if this fluid embodiment of self was indeed a characteristic of this sign. I wondered how much the mermaid would indeed teach me about the hidden truths i was still searching for in understanding and making sense of the whirlwind of a love affair that cosmic and i experienced. I knew walking away from cosmic that i had sorted, sifted and organized as much understanding as I was capable of and that new life experiences would need to be walked through for the lessons to arrive that this relationship was intended to impart. In amongst her multiplicity of being, mermaid woman began chanelling the wisdom of the old ones while astutely stoking the fire and reclaiming her fire keeping medicine. As she spoke, the forest was silent and her prescence shot deeply into my heart. There was a familiarity about her, a knowing that i knew this woman from a deeper place in time - or was it just the ways she reminded me of cosmic? Half of her face lit by the firelight, a serpent of desire began to arise within me, but I knew I could not go acting on it. It is these connections that require a high level of respect in their approach, a surveillance of the wounds and strengths embodied with the other that inform the places in which you can move reverently as opposed to just playing the game. Mermaid woman is a potent elixir of strength and empowerement, that seems to seep magic out to all that know her but underneath that solid rock is a fragile glass blown with hidden wounds. When we arrived at the beach the next morning and made camp for our psychadelic adventures into the underworld - I was grateful that she had agreed to accompany me on this journey. Aside from our recent meeting, that old familiarity guaranteed a safety that seemed to assist me to trust the mystery that was before us. Her friend the green man joined us in our preparations, we set camp, smudged and set the intentions for a strong journey and down the rabbit hole we went. We wandered the beach, melded with the stones and listened to the bliss of the ocean, scorched underneath a hot summer sun. I looked over at her sitting on the rock beside me, and before me an ocean of vulnerability made itself known. The vulnerability spoke to me of a woman that was strong because she always needed to be. A story I knew well. There was no soft spot for her to land - I wanted to offer her that, I wanted to be the safe space for her to fall in those moments. I told her what I saw, she casually let my observation evaporate into mid air and turned the conversation around on me. I was embarrassed about my move into that level of intimacy and instead gave her the power to care for me in those moments - it was what she needed to feel safe. I was drawn to the idea of lying in a pile of wood chips and at once began feeling as if i were the roots of a tree merged deeply with the earth. Mermaid woman stood over me peering into the shade with a wild red sun blazing behind her. She began moving the extremeties of my body conciously and with intention, verbally leading me into a journey of letting go - placing each loose extremity in a specific order. With my eyes closed, a kaliedescope of color began swirling sacred geometry. The faces of old ones began floating in and out - not so dissimilar to the visits of the old ones I first saw in my my very first sweat lodge. The ancestors are speaking to you she said. I had completely given myself over to her...with an ease Cosmic never knew. Cosmic was the catalyst for uncovering my issues with intimacy, as was the dude in showing me the dissassociation i held in my body where the union of sacred sexuality was concerned. I wanted to give to this mermaid woman but there was no opportunity to do so without it rooting from an empty place. It was this time that her walls were too strong...if that bridge were ever crossed it would take a strong solid foundation. My desire for her came from a place of deep love and compassion, wanting to cradle the space this woman needed to let all that was inside of her go. As our psychadelic journey came to a close and ordinary reality began to seep back in - mermaid woman discovered that she needed a cave to retreat to, to slowly collect the peices of herself. I called my shamanic sister in a town nearby to see if her cave was available. "I appreciate what you've done, the parts of me that you have called out, but im super overwhelmed now" mermaid women said to me on our drive over. There was that medicine that I carried appearing again - the reason Cosmic called me Hurricane. I know it as a usual way of being - something that happens in translation of which I don't come in with a concious intention to produce - but what always leaves the other feeling intensely broken open. I often wonder how much this experience stands in the way of keeping people close. Not unlike Cosmic, mermaid woman was on an adventure of self exploration, curiosity, and pushing boundaries of doors that weren't open to her before. Not unlike cosmic, I was intensely drawn into her and felt a deep rooted connection to her soul. Not unlike Cosmic, I knew although desire riveted through my veins, I had no choice but to take my station on the outskirts until her playful discoveries were done.