Tag Archives: sovereign feminine

I Didn’t Know

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I didn’t know how numb I was. I didn’t know that my intuition and body were deadened from decades of abuse and disease.

I didn’t know that I was having one set of feelings in my head and another, completely different set in my body. That I’d been ignoring, devaluing, and medicating away my true feelings for so long, I no longer knew how to recognize, let alone feel them.

I didn’t know that it would require years of focused, intentional excavation to find the core of my self. I didn’t know how wounded I actually was. I didn’t know that once I found my core wounds and felt *everything* they had been saving for me, I would then be alive.

Actually alive. No longer afraid or anxious, but certain and filled with new purpose. Feeling all the parts of my body. Even the ones I didn’t know could be felt, like my toes and the tips of my labia. My urethral sponge.

I am now expressing and feeling my emotions throughout my entire body whenever they occur, simultaneously, in concert. Instead of stifling them or making them more appropriate for polite society. Instead of feeling scared and saying I’m not. Instead of lying.

This is what it means to “do the work.” To “reclaim one’s self.” This work takes a lot of practice. These new parts of mine are like any other muscle; they need to be worked often, felt often, seen and acknowledged, loved and cared for.

This is how it feels to be alive. This is tantra. This is holistic peer counseling. Reclamation, embodiment, felt truth. It’s all possible. Even if you don’t know it’s possible. It is.

Surrendering My Silence

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On this, the longest night of the year, it is helpful to remember that we too are being called into our deepest dark. Down into the places we hide from view; where we store our grief, where we brace and hold, where we are ashamed and unforgiving too.

When we speak of the ‘returning of the light’ it isn’t just a grace that this threshold season provides, but the call to our own revealing. We are being asked to acknowledge our untruths, to surrender our silence, to bare our fragile stories in the open. These are the acts which connect the fabric of our lives to the whole of truthfulness.

Without proof, we trust that a way will be born then in the dark, out of nothing, by this braving forward. And we are rewarded with the dignity of a life which emboldens the poetry trapped in the silence of others, and tenderises us for a more articulated quality of love. — Toko-pa

What does it mean for me to have intentional sex?

To acknowledge and feel into my body’s authentic desire; I feel Her thrum deep beneath my skin, like a vibration coming up from the ground, an echo of things remembered.

To acknowledge that I’m bleeding; the fourth day, after the transition, when cramping discomfort and fluctuating emotions have given way to want, need, and heat. I can feel that Her fire is kindled, can hear its crackle.

To acknowledge it is the darkest day; the day when the veil is thinnest and the spirits are close, desirous of experience; my ancestral and child parts looking for release. It has been a year since he and I began this work of physical sovereignty.

I trust that I am a goddess of the Earth; my grounded trance experiences over the last year confirm it, my double Virgo-ness adds delightful corroboration, and my ever-developing masculine simply nods Hir head, gazing deeply into my third eye.

And so with this awareness, I stand in front of him and begin to breathe, planting my feet and feeling them slowly merge with the imagined soil beneath me as I open a channel. A channel that runs from my sacrum and yoni and womb; the combined energies of red goddess seeking connection with her sister, her lover and consort, her center.

We breathe together, he and I, as we sway from our centers and slowly writhe; hips forming an infinite cradle, noses inhaling one another’s breath, lips brushing one another’s face. Grounding down, opening out, connecting through his cock; bringing him with me to mingle in molten lava before coming back up and into Us.

Building desire building erotic building heat. And then I need his face in Her; now. Need and want his deep devoted attention to awaken Her fully, to call Her forth. His exquisite tongue and lips; they speak to and see Her in ways like no other, honor Her, coax Her, sing to Her.

Then begins my focused breath work. His face buried, my right hand on second chakra, my left hand on third, lovingly pressing; deep breath down and into my pelvic bowl, my awareness following. Breathing slowly breathing deeply breathing intentionally. Over and over and over.

I become aware that my third, second, and first chakras are now connected, aligned, an extension of one another forming the backbone of my psychic cock. I breathe into and hold gently tense the muscles surrounding that sinuous ridge. An inch underneath my skin I can feel Hir arise; the sacred androgyne.

From my gut through my womb down into my clit and out into the cosmos, Hir cock extends and unfurls, a flower, a sword, a tongue. Caressing his face and throat and lips, adoring his touch and devotion, penetrating flesh and seeking his deepest tender, raw place. Feeding and being fed.

I ask him, Does She feel like She’s ready for Him to fuck Her? Yes. Gooood; whenever you’re ready. Slowly slowly slowly he enters me, on top of me, bringing his bloody beard and mouth to press against mine. Yes; this is good; there is power in the blood, to kiss the blood acknowledges I accept its sacred power. That I’m not afraid.

More urgently, faster, harder. Surges of energy now coming up through Hir cock, filling my fourth chakra, bursting through the fifth. My pleasure requires a voice, demands a voice, it will not and cannot be silenced; She will be heard.

The Hitachi gives Her waves to ride; deep vibrations that pull Her up and out, they help me process what She has to say. The vibrations are the closest thing I have to match Her intensity; I intuitively match and mimic them, humming and growling and babbling, keeping pace. These are the scales and arpeggios that will allow me to sing Her song.

I’m scared and thrilled and filled with scalding waves of intense pleasure pain. I’m fighting to hold balance of attention with her song; the release that’s coming is ancestral and dark, unbridled and powerful, filled with rage and grief and elation. It burns and encompasses me.

I scream, Coming She’s Coming, and then I’m wailing sobbing gnashing laughing undulating. I’m channeling bloody anger and generations of grief, mixed with elated embodiment; She’s here I’m here She’s here I’m here! This body right now here in this moment. She’s here. I’m here. Tears of relief and gratitude and joy.

All the way up, all the way down; I am the Hierophant Reversed and all the Goddesses Elemental, and this pleasure is my right. I claim it with my sovereign authority and with my voice. The fifth chakra has awakened and I have surrendered my silence.

Imagine A Woman Who Honors Her Experience and Tells Her Stories

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A friend introduced me to a beautiful poem this morning, one that so perfectly describes what I’m trying to do here by sharing my stories that I couldn’t not pass it on. It was written 20 years ago by Patricia Lynn Reilly, who later went on to found Imagine a Woman International, which:

Inspires women to journey from self-criticism to self-celebration and to refashion our beloved world by giving birth to images of inclusion, poems of truth, rituals of healing, experiences of transformation, relationships of equality, strategies of peace, institutions of justice, and households of compassion.

I want to be the woman she describes; in fact, I want to live in a world where all women get a chance to be the woman she describes. Let’s lean into trust, authenticity, and deep exploration, Sisters.

Imagine A Woman

Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is a woman.
A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories.
Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.

Imagine a woman who trusts and respects herself.
A woman who listens to her needs and desires.
Who meets them with tenderness and grace.

Imagine a woman who acknowledges the past’s influence on the present.
A woman who has walked through her past.
Who has healed into the present.

Imagine a woman who authors her own life.
A woman who exerts, initiates, and moves on her own behalf.
Who refuses to surrender except to her truest self and wisest voice.

Imagine a woman who names her own gods.
A woman who imagines the divine in her image and likeness.
Who designs a personal spirituality to inform her daily life.

Imagine a woman in love with her own body.
A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is.
Who celebrates its rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.

Imagine a woman who honors the body of the Goddess in her changing body.
A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom.
Who refuses to use her life-energy disguising the changes in her body and life.

Imagine a woman who values the women in her life.
A woman who sits in circles of women.
Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.

Imagine yourself as this woman.

“Imagine a Woman” © Patricia Lynn Reilly, 1995
http://www.imagineAwoman.com

On Death, Gender, and the Orgasm as a Performance of Femininity

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I am now 44 years old. I am a mother and a head of household. I am past the age where people used to be generally considered “over the hill.” From a transition standpoint, this is significant for me personally because there’s only one generation remaining between me and mortality: the generation of my mother and her siblings. My next big generational shift will be to matriarch/crone. My mother’s will be to death.

My mother’s death isn’t imminent, but it is inevitable, and even though only in her early 60’s she has had a fair share of medical scares. Cancer. Stroke. Falls with broken bones. A choking incident that brought her dangerously close to asphyxiating if it hadn’t been for my stepfather finding and resuscitating her. All these events remind me of her mortality by keeping it in the peripheral vision of my mind’s eye. Watching. Waiting for each of us to advance another rung on the generational ladder.

On Day of the Dead, I set up an altar to the matriarchs in my family; I put my attention on my maternal great-grandmother, my maternal grandmother, and my mother. I’ve spent a lot of time in therapy the last four years talking about these women and the not-insignificant effects they had not only on me but each another. As an ancestral line, I can clearly see the traits handed down to me courtesy of them, some of which include strength, anxiety, determination, a high need for control, frugality, tenacity, and a deep sense of familial duty/sacrifice/obligation.

The altar is still intact and I continue to feel their presence, hear their voices. Even more strongly now than before—I think, because I’m calling out for their support and wisdom. Because I can feel myself beginning to prepare energetically and psychically for the death of my mother. Even if it’s only theoretical at this stage, as a planner who is finely attuned to transitions, doorways, and liminal spaces it’s a transformation that’s especially potent for me during this season of darkening.

What I’m feeling into right now is how the process of her dying will change the dynamic of our relatedness; how she will take on more child-like qualities and I will assume the more parental role. I see the possibility for me to support her more in the coming years; to take the skills I’ve learned through parenting Avery and re-parenting myself, and leveraging those to hold a more compassionate, patient space for her. After all, she has a high need for control just like I do and as she loses control over more of her self, I anticipate the need for a lot of patience on my end.

As if sitting with the impending death of my mother weren’t intense enough, it’s also bringing up older, deeper body memories for me. Because this isn’t the first time she and I have danced with power dynamics and leaned on one another for support.

Embodying the Masculine as a Girl Child

When I was 5 years old, my mother and I (and my 3-year-old sister) were in a pretty shitty situation. My sexually, physically, and emotionally abusive biological father had just left us for the last time because my mother stood up to him, and told him to get out and never come back. An act of strength and courage I have since thanked her for many times. An act that while freeing us from him, also left us in a position of needing to depend on one another more directly, more concretely.

Like many women who had been trapped by domestic abuse, she was literally at rock bottom; overwhelmed, exhausted, deeply wounded, and also needing to care for two small children. Even with the local support of her parents and brothers, it was still really hard at home. She needed me to be her “big girl,” to be strong and help her with baby Theresa when she got overwhelmed. She needed me to carry a lot more emotional and psychic weight than was appropriate given my age and equally vulnerable position.

I was naturally precocious in the ways of care-taking and helping; I was a sensitive, empathetic, deeply-feeling child from a long line of caretakers and emotional baggage handlers. And so, when my mother needed someone to be strong for her, someone she could count on to always be there and love her, I became a source of support, reliability, and certainty for her in a world that seemed bent on hurting her. She could talk to me, share her feelings, and cry about how much it hurt. She could count on me to be relatively independent, capable, and self reliant.

I believe that I embodied the masculine to protect her from falling deeper into dysfunction, to protect my primary source of security, safety, and love. And yet none of it could be acknowledged as such; it was an unconscious resonance between us. She wasn’t consciously awake enough to recognize what was happening and I was a little girl desperate to ensure Mommy wouldn’t abandon or stop loving me.

And so, in a sense, we became psychically married, she and I. Co-dependent. Enmeshed. Tied together because of the wounds the patriarchy and my father inflicted, and we jointly had to recover from. As a result, I have always felt responsible for her well-being; responsible to be a sturdy framework against which she could drape her tired, bruised limbs and cry.

Being Told to Put on the Girl Suit

At the same time, despite how masculine and grown-up I felt in the relationship with my mother, I was obviously in the body of a young girl. I knew I was a girl and I’ve never felt any confusion or disgust about that fact; it’s just that I’ve never been comfortable or confident in my ability to perform femininity. The world was telling me to put on the pink suit and its myriad complicated accouterments, but at home I was clearly wearing something that approximated the blue suit, at least in function. Thus began my internal dissonance around gender and society’s expectations in regard to it.

As a cis-female born in 1971 America and raised by a traditionally-valued family, I’ve been handed a lot of narrowly-defined programming about how I’m supposed to look, what I’m allowed to do, and how I should conduct myself. As an androgynous, 6-foot-tall, anxious, suspicious woman with an advanced case of “Resting Bitch Face,” I’ve had a damn hard time manifesting those programs in ways that convince people.

Aside from the fact I live in a rape culture as a second-class citizen—which means I’ve been raped, get paid less than my male co-workers, and still have a hard time getting people to take me seriously—living in a female body has been pretty cool. I actually like being a woman, especially now that I’m in my 40’s. What I find so distasteful is trying to embody and perform femininity. Lace. Mini skirts. High heels. Makeup. Push-up bras. Smooth legs. An hourglass hip-to-waist ratio. An inviting smile. A willingness to be told what to think.

I worked hard to adopt the mannerisms and affectations of Society’s Desirable Feminine, or at least someone whose appearance shouted I’M READY TO GET FUCKED, which is essentially the same thing. These attributes and the dogged pursuit of them are what I hate about the mainstream definition of culturally-acceptable femininity. Because every single one of them is about oppression. Getting smaller. More contained. More malleable. Hobbled. Agreeable. Compliant. Tortured. Objectified.

What about the Christina suit? It’s contains an entire spectrum of colors and would allow me fluid movement. Does anyone want to see me wearing it? No?

Finding my Authentic Orgasmic Rhythm

One of the things they don’t tell you straight-away about performing femininity is the fact it’s arbitrary, often conflicting, and designed to keep you off balance. Embarrassed. Competitive. Ashamed. Inadequate. Because horizontal violence and oppression. For example, let’s look at the female orgasm.

Over the last few months I’ve discovered that my body doesn’t want to climax every time Brendan and I have sex. She actually prefers to do so every 2-3 times; a rhythm that allows Her to be literally fed by both our combined sexual energy and His semen. She wants to hold that energy inside her and use it to fuel all manner of erotic undertakings like blogging, cooking, and remembering how amazing it is to live inside this beautiful body. To fuel the remembering that Her pleasure is worth building and worth waiting for.

I’m standing in the shower one morning, seeing the truth of this newly-discovered rhythm, and wondering why it feels so revolutionary. I asked my body, “Body, why do you feel so amazed, relieved, and empowered to have discovered this?” The answer came, “Because I’ve been expected to have an orgasm every time we have sex.” Oh. Why? Because that’s a crucial part of performing femininity. According to popular media/porn, we all “know” when a woman has an orgasm because she’s loud and makes a big deal out of it, yelling and flailing around because the pleasure is just so epic.

The pleasure that the man is generating with his amazing, big, fat cock. OBVIOUSLY. So, once she has been thoroughly pleasured, that’s his signal—the sign that he’s “done a good job,” that he’s “earned” his release. That he can now cum, secure in the fact his penis is desirable, he’s an amazing lover, and he is worthy of further love and attention. His ego is intact. For the time being.

As the woman, what if I can’t or don’t want to have an orgasm? Well, now I’m coming dangerously close to bruising, crushing, or invalidating his ego and suffering the consequences. Because there will certainly be consequences and I’m the one who gets to clean up the emotional/psychological fallout. In this construct, preserving/protecting the male ego is MY responsibility and ensuring that ego feels secure all hinges on my ability to perform a convincing orgasm. Every time. Or else.

That’s a lot of pressure and my body has decades of it tamped down inside. Like I said, I’ve never been confident in my ability to perform femininity convincingly enough to ensure my safety.

Fortunately for me, I now have a partner whose aware of all that programming; both sides of it. He knows exactly what it’s like to have a fragile masculine ego that depends on near-constant feminine reassurance for its survival. And because he’s also committed to deep, bilateral healing in our relationship, he has given me a lot of space, time, and reassurance to find my rhythm. He doesn’t ask me to perform feminine sexuality for him unless I choose to do so. He wants to see pure, unadulterated, androgynous Christina and to discover what kind of sex SHE wants. What a fucking relief!

Loving Her as Loving Myself

So, my mother is going to die and with her will go the physical connection that my masculine has to her. How do I want to experience her in the time we have left? Over the years I have shared with her some of my childhood experience; how I’ve felt wounded by her inadequacies, how I’ve felt oppressed by and responsible for her pain, how it felt to be her daughter. Those were anxious, gut-churning encounters for me because holding up a mirror so my mother can see how she inadvertently wounded me took a lot of courage for me to do and for her to look.

It also hurt her. Because she knows she wasn’t the mother we both needed her to be. She couldn’t be. This world ensured she was broken by the time I came into her life. And I no longer feel the need to punish her for that, to try and get her to take responsibility for all the ways she let me down. For the ways she leaned on, squished, and controlled me. If she had the skill to be more respectful, validating, and supportive she would have been. I believe that with all that I am.

I’m a mother; I know how hard it is. And because we both know, it feels like I can now begin the final stages of individuating from her and claim my full identity. Every time I share space with her, feel her love for me, and feel my love for her, I can also step away from her with compassion, with respect. I can complete the process that allows me to transition past, through and with her.

Listening to My Body’s Songs

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The truth about our childhood is stored up in our body and although we can repress it, we can never alter it. Our intellect can be deceived, our feelings manipulated, our conceptions confused, and our body tricked with medication. But someday our body will present its bill, for it is as incorruptible as a child who—still whole in spirit—will accept no compromises or excuses. And it will not stop tormenting us until we stop evading the truth. –Alice Miller

A few nights ago, Brendan and I were discussing how I feel whenever I’m given the chance to discuss my childhood wounding with my mother. As you might imagine, my feelings are complex and it hasn’t always been easy for me to distinguish which of those feelings are for ME and which are for HER. Which ones are about how I’m currently feeling and which are about how she will feel in the future as a reaction to what I might say or do. Because, as a co-dependent child, it was often important to my safety and well-being that I consider her feelings before mine. In the hierarchy of emotions, hers were more important because she controlled the resources.

Let me be clear: I say this not to blame her personally. If I’m leveling any blame at all, it’s at the violent patriarchal structure that created her and all the women who came before her. The oppressed and ultimately sadistic women who contributed to who she was as a woman and a parent.

Historically, one of the most prominent feelings I’ve had when thinking about my childhood and my mother’s role in it, is anxiety. Because I’m not sure if what I remember experiencing was true. I’m not confident in my ability to justify my position or powerfully back up what I’m saying. And if I can’t prove it, then I shouldn’t even say it in the first place, according to my patterns and programming.

Because I was thoroughly indoctrinated to not believe Me. My body was appropriated for the release and satisfaction of adult males. My mind was appropriated by the public schools that told me I should only learn what I’m instructed to, not what I’m driven to discover on my own. My spirit was appropriated by the church that told me, as a human—and especially as a female—I was born evil and could only find redemption by surrendering to male authority.

So how, exactly, was I going to prove my experience when I had difficulty believing it myself? How was I going to offer The Truth of my life when presented with the chance to plead my case to my mother? How could I stand up for my self and its experience when she couldn’t do that for her self? When she crumbled in front of me because my accusatory words hurt her? When she was herself a victim of the very same structures as I?

You can hear all the judgmental language in this, right? Proof. Truth. Blame. These are all concepts of oppression and minimization, meant to annihilate the inconvenience of personal experience and expression.

And then, on a Tuesday evening in February, my body finally Got It, to use that famous Landmark phrase. This isn’t about me telling The Truth. It’s about me telling My Truth.

I don’t have to *prove* anything. I’m not standing before God, offering up my life as evidence of my worthiness or rightness or blamelessness. This isn’t about me earning my way into Heaven or Harvard by getting all the right answers. This isn’t about me having to convince my mother that my feelings do, in fact, count just as much as hers.

It’s about me sharing my experience as I remember it. I’m telling my stories. I’m not telling The Truth because I can’t. I don’t have that omniscient perspective and never will.

This may seem straightforward and obvious to you, but it has never been obvious to me. Not ever. So, to suddenly find myself free of the expectation that everything I say must be the provable, incontrovertible truth was awesome in the literal sense of the word.

Excited and a little dizzy, I shared my new-found insight with Brendan, and he offered me a wonderful perspective about what a person’s stories are. He said “Those stories are your body’s songs, Baby; they are the sound of Life as it’s filtered through you. Your songs are beautiful and are worth hearing. As are everyone’s.”

As a person whose body has been locked down, tight, and armored for as long as I can remember, what he said struck me as rather revolutionary. Because I’ve spent my life ignoring my body, its signals, and its needs—either because someone else found them inconvenient or because I did. Until I gave birth to Avery and his head stretched me wide open, destroying everything I thought I knew about embodiment, I hadn’t been IN my body at all. Everything below-the-neck was something my brain found inconvenient or ugly, something that occasionally hijacked my experience because it needed immediate care or consideration.

I had internalized the message that my body was for other people, not for me; so why would I listen to what it was telling me if I couldn’t, wouldn’t, or didn’t want to listen anyway?

The more time I spent really listening to my body, decoding her strange yet beautiful language and signals, the more clearly I could hear her stories. After a while, I couldn’t hold those stories in any longer. Because as my bodily intuition developed, my voice also became more capable, stronger, more clear. My voice wanted to speak, to sing. I began to believe that my story was worth telling, that I had something worth sharing with other people who maybe had experienced some of the things I had.

These stories are my experience; my unique experience of the world as it’s played through me. They are my songs, my perspectives, my feelings. Which is why I started the blog: because my voice was ready to tell the stories that my body was sharing with me.

This started for me as a way to heal my wounds; to free myself from the oppressive ideology I was handed; to become a sovereign woman in a world that hates women, and seeks to keep them hobbled and in service. It has since evolved into an exercise in community healing. A community built of women who want to know both themselves and one another, intimately. Deeply. All the way down to the core. All the way back to the 4-year-olds. Because for many women living in this world, that’s when we were first wounded. Maybe even earlier.

The world we live in forces us to wound one another to survive. I want us to heal those wounds by loving one another and listening to the stories. By singing our songs.

I’m not trying to tell The Truth because that would be impossible. I’m telling My Truth because that’s the only perspective I have. I believe that by doing this I’m setting an example for other women. I believe that by sharing my experience I’m essentially giving you permission to know your body, to tell your stories, to sing your songs. You have a wonderfully beautiful body that’s dying to be heard. It’s time to let her sing.

Dedicated to Louise, Theresa, Gladys, Phyllis, Stella, Helen, Vicki, Lynnette, and Michelle.

Healing My Father Wound

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“If you ever meet someone brave and powerful enough to walk with you directly through your most uncomfortable wounds and shadow caves—someone with the stupefying courage to see through the chinks of your armor and then help you take it off—love them. Because they have done something for you which is impossible to do alone. They will show you the treasure you’ve been seeking all your life, and they can do this because they aren’t afraid of your fear.” -Jacob Nordby

Like many females raised under patriarchy, I received my first lesson in bodily sovereignty from my father, who told me with his actions that my body wasn’t for me; it was for him. I continued to learn that lesson in myriad other ways from family members, peers, and lovers; but never so powerfully as that first wounding. When he took advantage of my innocence and a grossly unbalanced power dynamic to seek relief from his own pain and suffering by making me partially responsible for and complicit in it.

I’ve worked my entire life to recover from that seminal experience, never really believing I would arrive at healing. There are so many ways this culture insidiously and blatantly tells women that their bodies are for public consumption, for male appreciation and appropriation that it’s almost impossible to see any kind of light through such a dark tunnel. And even when I would see flashes of light, when I would think I had made progress—something would inevitably happen to re-trigger my shame and embarrassment.

My anxiety over knowing I would have to do something I didn’t want to would threaten to engulf me, and I would once again be reminded that I was never going to be anything more than a commodity. A balm for another man’s bruised ego, threatened vulnerability, or misplaced anger. Because once the stage is set; once the scenery is primed by lack of consent, misogyny, broken trust, shame, and coercion there’s no such thing as free will. Once a society’s propaganda about gender roles, sexual expectations, and dominance are ingested you can’t really see any other choices. Not really.

And, I didn’t see any other choice. Oh sure, I was sexually “liberated” in that I was actively bisexual and a practicing polyamorist, was fluent in kink and BDSM, and would try just about anything that didn’t involve shit or fire. I was Good, Giving and Game. But almost every time, I felt like a prostitute, and not in the liberated, empowered way. I could feel something inside me twist in fear; my gut would feel sick, nauseous; my anxiety would spike and sometimes I would want more than anything to disappear or run away. Like a scared rabbit.

Or a violated child. Someone with zero agency or power.

I didn’t even know how wounded I was until Brendan and I began to actively use Holistic Peer Counseling (HPC) in our sexual relationship—I’ve written about how our using HPC techniques helped me begin reclaiming my sexual identity. Which was back in April of this year. We have since then remained committed to transparency, talking through, and embracing The Awkward during sex, and it has continued to deepen our connection to both one another and to our separate grounds. By which I mean we have learned to trust ourselves and one another to create an authentic connection in the moment, as opposed to believing we have to show up already turned on. We have found it increasingly easy to be grounded around and loving toward one another, even when the world and its inhabitants are sending us the chaotic and hateful.

I trust Brendan like I have trusted no other human on this planet. Ever. And there were still parts of me that couldn’t meet him. Didn’t trust him. Couldn’t surrender to the experience of our bodies communicating. Because those parts KNEW they would ultimately have to do something they didn’t want to: they would have to sacrifice their version of desire for his and then fulfill his desire by surrendering our body.

And then something happened. I had an experience so powerful and consciousness changing that I will literally never be the same again.

In addition to HPC, Brendan and I use ecstasy about once a quarter as a therapeutic relationship aid, which is actually what it was designed for in the first place. The ravers just knew a good thing when they found it. Each time we take it, the overall intensity of the effect and what we “get” out of the experience has increased; primarily, I believe, due to how we are changing and growing together, how we are healing ourselves. Because the ecstasy we get is tested regularly and pretty homogenous, so dosage variations significant enough to muddy the water are relatively unlikely.

This last time we took it was different from the start. We elected to ingest it orally as opposed to snorting it (which makes the onset much faster and harder to balance); we wanted to be embodied and to feel the effects occur more slowly so that we could find balance of attention with the sensations. We consciously set an environmental and emotional container for healing, connectedness, and loving compassion. What we didn’t realize until the next day was the level of alchemy we were conjuring into being.

Now, ecstasy is a great drug for having deep connected sex fueled by serotonin and oxytocin; it’s positively orgasmic in that your entire body feels alive and engorged, full of light and love. Ecstasy is not, however, a great drug for having a climax; in fact, unless you have access to a powerful vibrator and can get off from using one, chances are you’re just going to have to wait until the drug leaves your system sufficiently before you can finally experience that particular release. This means I can have a climax while high on ecstasy, but it takes a LOT of focused attention and the aid of a Hitachi Magic Wand. A fact that will come into play very shortly.

So, Brendan and I were having sex on ecstasy and it was amazing. I mean, like seriously connected, attuned, hot, wet, in almost-total surrender and animal-like abandon. We reached the point where it seemed like he was going to be able to climax, or at least wanted to try, and in that moment what I wanted more than anything was to feed his energy; to stoke it and follow it and add all the hot energy I was building to his fire; I wanted to follow him up and through his climax while still remaining totally aroused, totally present, in total devotion to his pleasure.

I remained in that space for a long time because, as noted, ecstasy makes it super hard for anyone to climax who doesn’t have a vibrator. So Brendan and I chased his climax for 15, 20, 30 (?) solid minutes—I don’t really know because time stands still when you’re high and on the knife-edge of pleasure like that. All I know is that I surrendered completely and I held back my climax for longer than I had ever imagined possible. It was excruciating and awesome and more agonizingly pleasurable than anything I’d ever felt. I was terrified by the power I could feel building inside me; afraid it might engulf me or maybe kill me. I wasn’t sure I could hold out.

And then, when it seemed impossible to wait any longer, he said he wasn’t going to be able to climax, and that I should. That he wanted me to push through and take that pleasure for myself. I will never be able to adequately describe what happened to me over the next minute or two, but it felt like my entire body became a clitoris; I had my first whole-body climax. For one solid minute, I inhabited every single cell of my body. And I sobbed. With my whole body and soul and core I sobbed; without censure or shame I wailed as waves of golden light passed through me.

Brendan knew Something Important was happening; he could feel the hugeness of the moment and so all the while I was thrashing and sobbing I could hear him intoning “Your Body, Your Body, Your Body, Your Body” while cradling my lower body in his arms rather like a wounded child. Which, in that moment, I absolutely was. Because in that moment I was finally able to grieve what I lost when my father touched my clitoris for selfish reasons. In that moment I felt again what it was like to be in my entire alive body all at once. I felt All of Me for the first time since early childhood; I was sovereign once again.

Brendan has been helping me uncover and identify my shadows for six years, even when it’s been excruciating for his own wounds, even when he was terrified he might die or I might abandon him. He has walked with, loved, guided, and re-parented me, and he didn’t flinch when it came time to meet my maker. He walked with me to that darkest of places and then stood by me while I opened that smallest of doors, that 4-year-old–size door where Little Chrissy hid all her pain, fear, and shame. Where she buried that ugliest of wounds so no one could ever see it and shame her for having been so gullible, so trusting.

He walked with me to that door and once it was open, he invited me to step inside, alone; to take for myself all the power and pleasure everyone else in my life had taken for themselves. He has been a fierce advocate for my wholeness and sovereignty because, by his own words, “I could never have given you what you built yourself.”

That was eight days ago. And every day since then, I’ve noticed two awesome and previously nearly-inconceivable things: I feel grounded without consciously thinking about grounding, and the voices in my head have mostly gone away. Except for one: the voice of Intuition. There are actually times when Intuition is the only voice I can hear. Sometimes for a few hours at a time. I don’t know about you, but for me this is literally the best thing that’s ever happened.

For the first time in my memorable life I trust what Intuition says because I can feel Her in alignment with my body and chakras. When I had that minute-long whole-body climax, all my chakras opened simultaneously and I believe I channeled pure healing energy directly from the earth and cosmos. I can’t explain it or rationalize it, and I don’t feel the need to one little bit. I touched the divine in myself as it is mirrored in the universe, and because of that I am now a manifestation of Sovereign Feminine.

I have integrated most of the pain and resistance I’ve always felt around surrendering to those I love, which means I can now be authentically intimate and loving with them—because I know with certainty where I begin and end. I can feel my boundaries vividly, can hear my Intuition clearly—and that means I’m no longer afraid of being coerced into doing something I don’t want to do. It means I trust Brendan to comfort me. It means I can ask for what I need. It means I can take care of myself. It means I can give myself wholly and creatively to playing with Avery in the moment. It means I know what I want, and when I actually identify those wants, I’m pretty certain there’s no part of me needing to please you in them.

It also means I can fully embody my calling and devotion to the healing that continues to arise through intimately parenting my son, re-parenting Brendan, and the continued parenting of Little Chrissy. The experience of having healed my mother wound, and now healing my father wound means I can be strong, vulnerable, and fierce for all of them without reservation, without fear or anxiety.

I didn’t consciously know it at the time, but starting this blog helped me reclaim my Voice. Trusting myself and Brendan to have the deepest, most intimate and awake, loving sex that we could at any given moment helped me reclaim my Intuition. This is the treasure I’ve been searching for my whole life and right now I feel rich beyond measure.

“When we mother the child within ourselves, we are cultivating an inner environment of safety and unconditional love that we did not experience in our childhoods. This heals the frozen energy of early trauma and brings our inner child into the present moment where her purity, innocence, vitality and creativity can be brought into our daily lives. […]

To step into our mastery, we must be increasingly sovereign over ourselves and our own energy. This means fiercely protecting your inner child and thus, allowing your inner life to be your priority. Your sovereignty is what allows you to fully flower and emerge into your full potential.” —Mothering Yourself Into Mastery: The Sovereign Feminine and Your Inner Wealth