Journal 7: Soul Gazing, Red Session

I feel broken. I know orgasm is not the goal per se in tantra, but I still feel like something is wrong with me in that I can’t seem to be able to release and surrender to the euphoric nerve rush an orgasm offers you as a gateway. I have orgasms in my sleep and I can have an orgasm when I masturbate, so it’s not physiological. With partners in the past it’s been a disconnected dance to see who will have an orgasm first, interrupted by brief periods of passive kissing and an occasional soul glimpse. Okay, I am exaggerating, it’s not that bad. But it ain’t tantra, folks.

Lately I’ve been having phantom orgasms. Or that’s what I call them. I’ll be there with all the signs and symptoms, explosives ready to go off and it culminates into a poof of evaporated energy. I have never experienced anything like it. I wonder if my body is recalibrating itself. Regardless, I am just trying to stay aware and accept myself as is. The phantom orgasms still feels good, but they are certainly not blinding me with my own juicy shakti-ness.

Take Two
In this red part of the soul gazing gateway, I experienced my second yoni massage. My first yoni massage was pretty profound and opened up a lot of energy inside me. That was about 4 months ago, and I’ve done a lot of work on myself since then. I was curious to see what would happen this time around. Would we unearth more sticks and stones hiding behind my g spot? Or would I feel sensations that would make my body glad to be alive?

At the end of the sacred tree meditation, Steven Jay beckoned me to a pool of water inside my mind’s eye…sort of a lucid journey. “Look into the mirrored pool, it is sacred and holds many secrets,” he said. “Who looks back at you and what does she have to say?”

I saw myself as a ghost image, beautiful in spirit form. Steven encouraged me to set an intention for the yoni massage ritual. I knew what I wanted; the image of me in the pool of water didn’t have to tell me anything.

“I want to stop giving my power away to others,” I said.

This is something a lot of us do—give our power away. Every time you withhold your true feelings, fail to speak up or make numerous “compromises” that simply don’t jibe with who you are intrinsically, you give your power away. “He doesn’t mean anything by it when he talks down to me…It’s okay that she never asks permission, I can deal with it…Why bother saying anything to him? I’ll just go along with it because it’s easier.” These are all basic examples of situations where an individual gives his or her power away.

I’ve been giving my power away for years. I’ve played it small because I didn’t think being big was an option. I learned to give my power away at a very early age when it became apparent that there was a power struggle between me and my father. Naturally, a 5-year-old girl is going to shut up and swallow her pain rather than get hit repeatedly with a leather belt. You want the power daddy? It’s all yours.

But I’m not 5 anymore and, not only that, I have healed the relationship with my father. Then why on earth do I continue to give my power away? This is the million dollar question and it’s not going to be answered today. But I will make progress, damn it.


Letting Go
My second intention was to let go and release. This is a tall order for a control freak, people. I have yet to get the hang of the whole surrender thing. I have success in fits and starts, but I kick and scream the entire way. Several times spirit gently leads me to a place where I have no choice but to surrender. I always come out the other side in one piece, but I resist and resist until I can’t resist anymore and then the only choice I have is to surrender. I laugh at myself on the other side of this grueling wrestling match. And still I go back to holding on to my mental trappings for dear life.

The yoni massage, I have to say, was pure ecstasy this time around. If you didn’t read my first blog entry, read it for more details about the ritual itself or read the technical how-to. Frankly, I was so blissed out during most of the ritual, I am not quite sure what happened. I do know I experienced no resistance whatsoever. My body was electric, just like the Walt Whitman poem of the same name (hey, I will throw in allusions to literature whenever I can). My yoni—as I sit here and blush over the keyboard—she L-O-V-E-D it. She quivered and shook and contracted and surrendered to the waves of energy pouring down from spirit through Steven. I felt like my skin was air. I became lost inside a mini vortex of ecstatic light.

Did I have an orgasm? No, I did not (and it is not the goal). But you know what? It didn’t matter at all. The sensations I felt inside my body far surpassed my perceptions of orgasm. The opening, the tingling all over my body, the expansiveness…it felt like my body was turned inside out and dipped in a pool of healing bliss. I would not trade an orgasm for this feeling. And the bonus: I felt so empowered, just like I did following the last yoni massage. My heart was wide open and my little breasts felt like gigantic orbs of love. I felt extremely present with people and content. I also felt very powerful and able to speak my truth.

And so, for the test: life.