Journal 5: Breathing Love, Red Session

In the second part of my training for the Second Gateway, Breathing Love, I was to receive a self-pleasuring ritual. “How hard can that be?” you ask. Well, it turned out to be pretty darn difficult. But wait, isn’t that just masturbation? That depends. When you masturbate do you set aside 2 hours, light candles and call in spirit to make sweet love to you? Or do you drag out your Penthouse Variations copies (some dating as far back as 1994), plug in the Hitachi Magic Wand and go at it? The former is a more conscious, healing approach. The latter, well, that’s what I’ve been doing for years. Believe me when I say there is a very big difference.  

Ohhhhh…

Everyone, I am guessing, remembers his or her first time touching the tingly parts. Mine was a progression and pornography was always part of it. When I was 5 or 6 years old I found my very first copy of a dirty magazine in my dad’s closet. It was Hustler, which is also known for its vulgarity not necessarily related to sex. I couldn’t read, so I looked at the pictures and cartoons, which seemed very odd and out of context to me. A cartoon man on a toilet straining. A cartoon thing that looked like a pickle (it was, of course, a penis). A cartoon of a man and woman being close in a way that I couldn’t figure out. And while I couldn’t fathom any of this stuff, I knew that it was of the adult realm and got the sense I was doing something wrong—very wrong—by peeking. And I also felt something very acute and unusually pleasurable down there. Almost like I had to pee, but different.

Many times as I was growing up, my sister and I would peruse my father’s impressive stash of adult magazines. We were latch key kids and spent a lot of time alone. So we had plenty of time to be quizzical. My dad had a subscription, apparently, to Playboy and Penthouse. But he didn’t hide them very well. I liked Penthouse the best. It had more pictures and more things to wonder about. Still, the lack of adult supervision coupled with budding and strange sensations in my body felt wrong to me. As I approached puberty at age 10 and 11 things became even more complicated. I found a magazine not so covertly stashed behind the couch and I opened it up. As I flipped the pages, the “urge to pee” feeling became stronger and stronger. My entire body felt alive, like a livewire was loose inside my skin. I finally came across a picture of a woman, fully naked, legs open wide. She was touching herself between her legs. So I touched myself in the same place.  

EUREKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Welcome to life…I had my first orgasm—the single most pleasurable feeling in my young world. And it was mine, all mine, and I was reborn. I masturbated every single chance I got. I took advantage of the time I had alone to refine my technique. When I couldn’t find one of dad’s magazines, I read my mom’s books. I read and masturbated to Super Marriage, Super Sex and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) cover to cover and then back again. I had a voracious appetite; I even masturbated in an empty Sunday school room at church and on the school bus (with a pillow on my lap). But mainly I had to have something to read or look at, and I was a witness, not a participant.

So my personal experience with masturbation involves a lot of fantasy and no real connection to myself. It’s basically a mad rush to orgasm. You can imagine how this might play out in my actual sex life. I’ll let you wonder about that.

The Ritual

I was particularly nervous about doing this self-pleasure masturbation ritual. I just got the feeling that something pivotal was going to happen and that always incites my ego to be on full alert. Luckily I feel very safe with Steven and Kypris, and I know they know what to do with me if and when I freak out. So I abandon all cares and head in. After our meditation and check-in, Steven explains to me what this ritual will entail. He also makes it very clear that I don’t have to go past my edge…he and Kypris can simply channel divine energy and I can practice feeling safe. I am going to, in essence, bring down the divine masculine into my body and let “him” make love to me. My hands are his hands. I am touching my body because it feels good to my hand to touch my skin. He will hold space and mirror/witness much of what I do. Breathing, as usual, is paramount.

Before we started I looked out the window and was strongly connected and attracted to a beautiful tree in the back yard. It made me feel safe. Later when I did the actual meditation and called on the divine masculine to make love to, he came down as Green Man, a deity often associated with trees, plants and the fairy realm. In essence I made love to a tree.

After doing the sacred tree meditation and calling down the sexy sky spirit, I undressed (with my super-charged spirit hands) and began caressing myself, breathing love from sky and earth as I went along. Steven Jay guided me and reminded me not only to breathe, but also let him know when I went “yellow,” a term that means I am almost past my edge. It was a bizarre experience to channel energy through my hands for myself and not a healing client. I mean, I have given myself Reiki and other types of healing, but this was very different. It was exceptionally hard to stay present. My mind kept wandering and random thoughts kept popping in my head. I must be the queen of disassociation. I am tired of it. I use the breath to anchor me to skin, to my bones, to the bed, to the room.  

It is when I try to connect my yoni with my heart–open that beautiful channel–that I lose it.  

A very determined female voice yells “NO!” and all sensation ceases. I am numb from the waist down and I am afraid. I feel like I am falling into a dark, damp well and that I will drown. With all the power I can muster in this terrified state I turn my head to Steven Jay and meekly whisper “yellow.”

Falling Down the Well

Steven calls Kypris in. She’s been meditating and holding space for us in a separate room. As she walks in the door I am struggling with my position in time and space. I feel like I am losing my mind. She lays down on my right side and Steven lies down on my left and they hold me—the perfect picture of divine polarity. I feel both very safe and very, very sad and the tears erupt from my body in a torrent. I levitate between the energies and find a foothold on my fear. Images flood my brain. I am 11 years old and my step grandfather Otis stands behind me while I am watching television. He grabs me and puts his hand down my shirt, fondling my breasts. He kisses me and makes me lie down in bed with him, where he passes out (as I remember it). I have worked on this and worked on this for years. I have forgiven, I have reclaimed, I have let go. And yet here it lives in my body. I now understand why. I also get the connection. 

I loved Otis very, very much. I was starving for positive adult male attention and until his drinking got out of control, he provided this for me. But he severely violated the trust I had in him when he molested me. While I didn’t understand or know exactly what had happened, I knew that it wasn’t “right.” But I thought I had done something wrong. This event created a huge divot in my budding sexuality and also led me down the path of control. Shortly thereafter I developed Anorexia because my weight was the only thing I thought I could control in my life. I still try to control my life. And I have a very hard time sincerely trusting and opening up—being truly intimate and vulnerable with a man. I wrote this poem several years ago to chronicle this white cross event in my life: 

Otis

Nanny went off 
and married Otis — 
guess I got a Papa now. 
 
So tall he is so tall 
his hands are Papa hands 
shaping the steps, my steps. 
 
Love, there is no love like 
new love 
for a southern man with hero 
in his heart. 
 
Papa Otis, he will         
take me catfishin’ (bait my hook) 
ride me on his shoulders (‘though I’m fat) 
Papa Otis, he will 
take me to the woods 
behind the house 
through trails that turn magic 
through trails that leave 
blackberry stains on my 
lime green shorts. 
 
Through trails he shares with my sister – 
leaving me behind 
to pretend I’m Cinderella. 
 
Papa Otis, he holds me 
one time like a lady 
and kisses me from where I speak 
my eye sockets pull my soul away 
away   away   away 
from that room 
where he touches my chest 
with Papa hands 
and makes me lie down 
on Nanny’s side of the bed. 
 
Papa Otis, he whispers 
in my sister’s ear 
 
You speak a word 
I leave your sister 
in the woods to die. 

Climbing up the Well

Steven and Kypris help me through this eruption by listening and channeling healing energy. They witness my pain and together we recreate a new connection based on unconditional love and directly linked to spirit. We calm and welcome the young “me” and make her feel safe. I am not 11 years old anymore, and it is time to truly move forward.

While I could have stopped here, I felt ready to continue and this is what we did. The rest of the session was a sweet sensory festival of self-love. The channel between my yoni and my heart revealed itself. It was still a challenge to stay present, but I kept returning with the breath. My body once again felt like a livewire was loose inside it and I felt my energy expand beyond the boundaries of my skin. I used a beautiful glass lingam to penetrate my yoni. And I stayed present. Steven Jay helped channel the more active, sexual energy. I still stayed present. The voice was gone. I could feel the glass lingam inside of me. I could feel it. I was channeling sexual energy authentically. I wasn’t playing a role; I was being me—fully in my sexual power. I felt like a fire goddess illuminating the room. It was…ecstatic.

While a lot of healing happened, a lot of residual pain had also been unearthed. I spent the next few days dealing with a lot of old stuff…body dysmorphia, eating disorder, major control challenges. But I also had a lot of support and I welcomed the opportunity to dance with these issues and get a chance to heal them. This work, I am discovering, is not just about sexual healing. It is about unweaving the webs that keep us from mastering the small moments in our lives. This work has the power to reintroduce yourself to your body in a way that brings unlimited rewards.