Love of God & Love of Sex. How do we bring these two together?
This, ultimately, has been - and continues to be - my living enquiry.
For over 17 years now ! (Or perhaps countless lifetimes?)
As a child, both were easy and natural.
And before you leap to disgusted conclusions, no - I don't mean anything tawdry or abusive.
I mean:
As expressed through playing for hours in the forest, thunderstorms or snow.
Fashioning magical stories and props from ferns, twigs and pine cones.
Dancing for hours in the basement.
Composing songs on the piano.
Building houses for my dolls. Dens for my forest escapades.
Curiously exploring my & other's bodies.
Crying, laughing, singing, climbing. Wild and free.
With no thought of good or bad. No concept of "wrongness".
Life living, being. An effortless, innocent union of life-force and presence.
Not organised or structured through any religious or moral philosophy. Pure. Direct. Untainted.
Nothing was missing. Embodied ease, radiant confidence and infinite potential.
Cue puberty. Self-consciousness. Patriarchy. Familial strife. And everything began to go squiffy.
My "I" eroded by the relentless force of repetitive objectification, projection, alienation and sexualisation.
Boundaries over-ridden again, again and again. Lusty gazes, cat-calls, uninvited full frontal displays and touch.
Unwanted imposition of rules, beliefs, judgements, assumptions. That were not mine.
Losing touch with my me. Suddenly there, apparently, to please everybody else, but I.
Taught in no uncertain terms, that my desires, dreams and voice did not count. Voided.
Separated from the unquestioned love I'd always felt inside and out.
My soul was wailing plaintively for God, for the sacred, for meaning. Lost. Alone. Hurting. Longing.
I sought God in the church, where He told me what I could and couldn't do.
He made me feel guilty and ashamed of my desire.
He told me it was sinful to have sex outside of marriage.
He taught me to judge others who did not believe in Him or follow His rules.
I found it hard to judge. It never sat right in my heart, seeing the goodness in all people. (Yet also the hypocrisy & malevolence in the self-proclaimed "good").
And then, finally, after holding out so long, SEX !
WHAT? Was that it??? After all that waiting and imagining !
THAT was it??? That was what all the fuss was about?!!
At first I capitulated. Accepted. Jogged along. Did the done thing. A great job. Marriage.
But then, my desire called to me:
"There is more than this. Way more. You have to find it. It is not acceptable to live the rest of your life with this as the ultimate expression of sexual and marital union. I refuse!
Go and find it !"
And so I did. And oh what a journey that was. Tasting every flavour of deliciousness. Expanding my pleasure. Letting go. Super orgasmic.
But still not happy. Not really. Even when it looked good. Still not re-united with that missing part of me.
I found a taste of it in birthing and mothering. Primal power. Embodied knowing. So much love, it literally gushed from my nipples. The ultimate surrender into seva.
But then birthing in the disconnected, patriarchal way wounded my holy portal, separating me from my pleasure and my partner.
Who was I now without access to my sensuality? That which felt so essential to my being as woman. As me!
I re-discovered it this time, not in my genitals, but in the dance. Stratosphered in ecstasy, drenched with bliss, glowing with presence. Me and me as one. Heavenly rapture!
And yet still my desire nagged at me. For love, for sex, for a man in my life goddamit ! But this time, it – whatever “it” was - had to include my soul. Something had woken up in me. That old yearning for God. Back with a vengeance. Never to leave again.
So began my next round of adventures, only this time both erotic and spiritual, ideally both at the same time.
Tantra, yoga, bodywork, breath. And dance, always the dance, anchoring me to Source, to ecstasy, to one-ness. Merging with the still centre, where the aching, troubled I disappeared and all that remained was energy moving with the face of bliss.
I found divinity in all those places - and others I’d not even dreamt of: making love with God as I breathed, moved, meditated and chanted; receiving God in the touch of presence. The hands of a man. Or simply the space in which energy – Shakti – flowed in and through me as Her vessel.
And I realised that this was sex. Not as I’d been taught. Not as I’d been shown. Nothing like those pictures. Those teenage fumbles.
And this was divinity: the holy of holies. Not in a church, rules or morals. Not in the internalised voice of a stern and controlling father. (How little he knows, bless him! All heady and fear-ridden)
But here – in my body.
And wrongness or shame? How ridiculous ! This was my true, divine nature. So innately pristine. So supremely radiant.
This is what my child self would have grown to know in time, had she remained untampered with.
But of course now she’s back with me. We are reunited. She is the same one, who dives eagerly and open-heartedly into the dance with me. Even as we continue to peel back the layers of the not-me. Tending to the healing parts. Breathing through the growing pains.
For this undressing really is a life’s work. Yet it calls to the awakening heart and soul so strongly.
This is my passion. This is what I stand for. This is what I live to be, to share, to inspire and initiate.
Women, if you are called to explore and/or deepen your connection with your divine and sacred feminine essence, your SHE-force and sensuality in unfettered embodiment, then join me for my Awakening Your Shakti online day retreat: Sunday, October 18th, 10am-5.30pm. Register here &/or email me at: shakti@shaktisundari.com with questions.
Oh and for more of this, you can join my Shakti Yoga on Mondays & Fridays, plus alternate Wednesdays. And/or join my Dancing the Goddess Teacher Training – details coming soon !!! Ping me for details xxx