I mention this because entering the 4th gateway, Waking the Dragon, has been more like Waking the Bitch Inside You. I am going to be transparent: this is a prime example of why healing sucks. The first three gateways are supposed to be the ones that unearth your phantoms and banshees. The fourth gateway is supposed to be where you begin to dance with ecstasy and play with nymphs and sing lullabies to hunks with harps. Frankly, I feel like giving up. Right here, right now. Fuck it all. This hurts. I am not trying to scare you, but I do want to be honest. This fucking HURTS.

So my shadow is stalking me. Scratch that. My shadow is raping me. That is what it feels like. I feel like I’ve been grabbed from behind and smacked down on the ground face first, dirt filling my mouth as I gasp for air. And I asked for it. I dared challenge my shadow and it called my bluff. And it is a genius. It’s been hiding in the tunnel, cloaked as insightful awareness, just under the radar (denial). That feeling of vague uneasiness—it was my shadow tripping the alarm just enough to give me a warning that I pretty much ignored.

Not Always Happy Days
The fourth gateway, “Waking the Dragon,” “opens a deeper layer of being present, moving into an opening of the physical body and the energy body overlaid on it.” I knew from doing previous exercises with Kypris and Steven Jay that this was going to be a challenge for me. Everything in my body resisted doing it. The breathing exercises hurt me, I don’t know how else to put it. From my own practice in yoga and meditation and life itself I know how important breath is for oxygenating your cells and keeping your lymphatic system moving. I held my breath for years, which led to an atrophied diaphragm. After quite a bit of body work and healing, I learned how to take a truly deep breath, which allowed me to access some long-forgotten memories. I guess I had a lot of layers to breathe through until I made it to this particular one.

I went into this white session, which is supposed to be gentle, knowing I was in trouble. I could just feel it. My ego was in full battle mode. But I also knew I had to do it. This is more shadow work. This is where most people say “Hell no, I like my dysfunctions just fine, get out of my fucking face.” But I’ve come too far to turn back now. Damn it.

It’s even hard for me to write about it now. That’s how hard it was. I am still just so much in a reactive state. This is a sign that things are indeed moving and I have a prime chance to face it and heal it. Or not. I have a choice. I will likely choose to move through it and heal it, but it’s not an easy choice to make. The easier, white-bread choice would be to run back behind the rock that I’ve apparently been hiding behind. This is safe, or at least it’s what I’ve known and become familiar with. But do I really want to spend the rest of my days half-living?

Breathe, Breathe in the Air
The main solo practice in this gateway involves breathing through the chakras, or energy centers of the body (which I will presume you know something about. If not, there’s plenty of information on the web about it, and also in Kypris’s book Journey to Sexual Wholeness: The Six Gateways to Sacred Sexuality. After doing the sacred tree meditation, we did a chakra meditation where we “checked in” with each chakra with breath to bring awareness. By the way I was zoning out during this practice, I could tell I was trying to avoid facing something.

The next breathing practice, dragon breath, was what confronted me the most. During this exercise you combine chakra visualization with breath, using powerful circular breathing to open up the chakras and allow energy to move freely through them (for more details on this, buy the book! It’s on page 148). This mediation was a journey to old, deep pain for me.

As we moved up the chakras, I felt a thunderbolt wave of resistance build up in me. It was as if my body was a log and this resistance was a person in the middle of flood holding on to me to dear life. Nothing was going to tear this being off me without a fight. As I attempted to move the breath through my third chakra, I started feeling a sickening cry build up inside me. I felt like part of my body was being ripped off. I entered a cave of incredible sorrow and released what felt like an avalanche of tears. I wanted to bellow and howl at the pain, but I felt too self-conscious. I tried to keep breathing, but it was all I could do to not collapse in a limp heap on the floor. An intense pain arose in my left side. I wanted to scream, I wanted to leave. I did not want to be there. So much anguish and anger–a well of unearthed tears.

In retrospect I had gone red, which means I was past my edge. I should have said “yellow,” but I couldn’t form the words in my mouth.

Kypris and Steven supported me, one on each side of my shivering body, and channeled healing energy. Kypris called in jaguar energy and helped to unblock my third chakra, which was armored to the hilt. I know it sounds crazy, but as she raked her fingernails lightly across my belly (and I do mean lightly), it felt like razor-sharp claws tearing my flesh into shreds. I was almost surprised to see that I was still intact and my guts weren’t spilled out onto the floor.  

I felt so exposed and vulnerable. I was so ashamed and weakened by it all. I hate feeling that way. I had entered what many people refer to as a healing crisis.

What it Means to Me
As you might be able to tell, I actually wrote this blog over a 2-week period. The beginning was written the day after the session. I was so pissed that I was having to deal with another layer of pain. I was indignant about facing my shadow. I was raw and it was very hard for me to look Steven and Kypris in the eyes the next day because I felt weak and powerless, and like they had an advantage over me that they could use to somehow “destroy” me. I know, what would they do? But for some people, this is a real fear and it was real for me.

Since this session I’ve mellowed out a little. I processed what I needed to (although I am sure there is more lurking) and now I am focused on learning from the experience so I can integrate it into my life. For me the session brought up a lot of shadow stuff I quite frankly thought I had already dealt with. That is what hurts the most. The fact that I’ve been in denial about some things, most notably my eating disorder.

It’s not that I’ve been actively engaged in disordered eating patterns (at least, as far as I know), but I’m shocked at how quickly my body dysmorphia rears its beastly head. I went from being content about my weight to obsessing about it, sure that if I could just lose 5 more pounds, my life would be absolutely perfect. Order would be restored in the universe. Balance and harmony would reign supreme.

In reality, my issue, like substance abuse or any other addictive behavior, is not about the issue itself. My beef is not with my body. Even if I was 200 pounds overweight, I would still need to deal with the underlying issue, which is …. which is what? As far as I can tell from my tantric digging, there is a ding-ding-ding strong connection between the molestation and my subsequent dive into Anorexia, exercise bulimia, etc. I need to rewire my body to feel safe now, and to realize that everything that happened in the past is in the past. The other piece is that this happened at a crucial time in my life, as I entered puberty and missed the sacred ritual of flowering into my female glory. Instead, the curves I acquired were dirty, slithering things. Add to that the neglect, abuse, etc. from other areas of my life and of course you have a perfect little victim. Well, not anymore.

The point is not to dwell, but to find the courage to coax my body into claiming its powerful birthright as a goddess vessel. This is a time for me to connect even stronger to spirit, and gather the tools I need to nurture myself and this wounded piece that has been keeping me from fully expressing my sexuality.

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.

It happened a few months after the molestation. Those days were blurry hours of emotional wreckage. I could feel the stark, cold line that had been drawn in my timeline between childhood and its starlit innocence and the frightening beginnings of adolescence pitted with abuse. I was visiting my grandmother and Otis, my step-grandfather and the one who molested me, was acting odd (he was drunk, I later came to realize). I couldn’t reconcile what had happened to me months before with the now-lost connection with this man. Based on the messages I received from my abusive father “you’re stupid, you can’t do anything right, you’re retarded….” I naturally presumed I had done something wrong. A range of emotions percolated in my young, overweight body. I did not know how to express them. I just knew I felt like I was going to die. And I just felt out of place on this planet. Being a child, I didn’t know how to handle these feelings and I did not have an adult I could confide in.

I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My little fat face gazed back at me, my eyes ablaze with raw rage. I was breathing heavy, my heart was spinning and sweat beaded on my brow. All the pent up emotion gathered at the center of my body and in one gale force breath I yelled at the image in the mirror “I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!!!!!!!!”

That was the day I split off from myself and entered a world of unspeakable pain, disconnected from my authentic self.

Soul Gazing
The third gateway, Soul Gazing, is about “gaining awareness of our inner world.” It’s about becoming present to your shadow self, and learning to accept and love that part of you deemed unlovable. Kypris puts it well: “Awareness of buried emotion lets you move toward release, and leads to a relaxation of the Spirit. Enormous amounts of energy are freed by emptying our emotional caves. Using the tools of Soul Gazing to release old feelings makes space for you to welcome in joy, happiness, and ecstasy. Amazingly, as you do this the genitals and the heart become more sensitive and alive. When you let go of what you’ve been holding, you become more awake, full of energy, and you begin to experience the true meaning of bliss, and of tears that come from joy instead of pain.”

In this lesson I meditated on that shadow side of myself and began with holding my wounded self, the little girl who took a wrong turn when she reached for support and there was a void. I simply entered a cave and eventually forgot where the entrance was. I went deeper and deeper into that lost darkness and it became home. There is nothing wrong with shadow—it is light’s conjoined twin. However, dwelling in its depths without coming up for air isn’t healthy. Nor is refusing to acknowledge those depths. Soul gazing is one way to literally be face to face with your shadow side.

Mirror, Mirror
After our check-ins, meditations, and creativity exercise, Kypris broke out the mirrors for a solo soul gazing exercise. Steven Jay instructed us to look at ourselves in the mirror and just be aware of what happens. What comes up? Watch it, listen to it, accept it. “Look at yourself as though you were looking at a flower,” he said. “You’ve never seen this kind of flower before and you notice every minute detail.” I then “unnamed” my facial features, giving them space to be something different and new. I sent love to my image and I asked for guidance.

This exercise was easier than I thought it would be for me because I have been working on it for years. After I realized the damage I had done by yelling “I hate you!” to my image at age 11, I began retracing and reprogramming. I started the practice of telling myself “I love you” about 4 years ago. While it was extremely difficult at first, it became easier as time went on and I am now at a place where my heart opens fully when I look at my face in the mirror. Sure, I see the wrinkles, the imperfections and all that. And yes it bothers me. But I always have that voice waiting in the wings…. “I love you.”

As the practice went on, at one point I had the distinct feeling that there were two of me. Not a split personality, but a divine other. I came face to face with my divine self, and it was almost too much to handle. I got very sleepy and it became a struggle to sit with the idea and the feeling that I embodied the goddess. While the soul-gazing exercise was a pleasant experience for me (and intense), I had the feeling that full-body gazing in the mirror would be quite different since I still struggle with body image challenges. This, I decided, would be my personal edge and something I would explore in the future.

One thing this gateway has taught me is that I thrive on exploring my shadow side and I think it’s one of my strengths in the healing work I do with others. I am better able to escort them closer to their shadows because I’ve done it myself. I know that is a bold statement. But I do remember what it was like to stand before my shadow, which seemed 20 stories high and insurmountable. I remember looking behind me at all the pain, anger, fear and resentment. I saw that my life was riddled with diseased thoughts, ideas and actions. I decided I had nothing to lose and took my shadow on. It was much harder than I thought it would be. And it was all worth it.

Now my shadow is more life-size. It still scares the hell out of me, but now I have a frame of reference that allows me to seize the shadow’s tail and let it take me to the other side where there is even more light than I could possibly imagine. As I integrate my shadow side more, I align closer to my center and am better able to communicate the truth of who I am. I draw beauty, abundance, light and love to me. I attract my own authenticity.

I have reclaimed the image in the mirror and she is good.

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.  

As my tantric healing practitioner, Steven Jay accessed a part of me few people see. It scared the hell out of me. If he—or anyone—sees me, the REAL me, what will he find? An awful, fat, disgusting creature? A hideous bridge troll? How can anyone love, honor and respect the “me” I keep locked away? How indeed….

So that was my epiphany in between sessions and I shared it with Steven. It was a perfect segue for our next lesson on the second gateway: breathing love.

BREATHE!

Breathing love is a gateway that bridges your connection to spirit with connection to self. Breath itself is uber important, and I think most of us take it for granted and don’t use it as the beautiful resource and sacred tool it is. It is the only means to supply our bodies and its various organs with the oxygen that is vital for our survival. Breathing is also a means to get rid of waste products and toxins from the body. Oxygen is the most vital nutrient for our bodies. It is essential for the integrity of the brain, nerves, glands and internal organs. We can do without food for weeks and without water for days, but without oxygen, we will die within a few minutes. If the brain does not get a proper supply of this essential nutrient, it will result in the degradation of all vital organs in the body. I learned the balming and powerful properties of this instant healing drip the way I usually learn about things…the hard way.

Like a lot of people, I used to breathe shallow and in my chest. My body was locked in several places due to armoring from emotional blocks I had erected to keep me “safe.” The muscles around my diaphragm were so tangled I could not take a deep belly breath without pain. The truth is, I probably hadn’t taken a true deep breath since I was a toddler, when most of us haven’t yet learned the wrong way to breathe. I suffered from dizziness, mental fog, depression, anxiety and many other symptoms of disordered breathing.

My key to learning about breath came with body work, which was crucial for me. I had to get to my emotions through my body. My head had gone on strike and my heart was locked behind layers of false security. I tried trigger point therapy and Rolfing. Both modalities unlocked my body, freed my diaphragm, and enabled me to breathe fully. This new gift helped me use my breath to move all the junk I had inside me, release it to spirit so it could be cleansed and transmuted. Today, I am one of those annoying people who reminds you to breathe when you’re upset about something . I have “Breathe!” stickers strategically placed on my dashboard, mirror, computer screen and telephone. When I am blocking something, which I feel in my body, I know that breathing is the wave of energy that will take me to the place of expression where I need to be. Like an ocean wave, breath beckons you to the brink of the emotion where your fear is almost overwhelming. As you expand your belly, then your lungs and exhale the emotional debris comes crashing onto the shore of the present moment. It is in the present, which is the only time that exists, that you get a chance to be real, heal and connect authentically with everything.

Heart Space

During today’s session we got to talk about the heart, one of my favorite subjects (besides sex and breathing). I’ve done a lot of work opening my heart and the more I do, the more open I want to be. I’ve learned that contracting and closing down always makes things harder. When I am faced with a difficult situation I try to expand my heart energy as much as possible. When I am able to do this, magic happens. My pain transmutes and I shift. Other people shift. It’s beautiful. We opened the lesson with the sacred tree meditation and I made sure I was as grounded in earth as I could be. I believe the more grounded we are, the easier it is to open our heart chakras.

Kypris led us in a beautiful meditation and we drew representations of our hearts. My piece of paper wasn’t large enough. I feel so open and so much love is moving inside me. There is still room for more love, especially directed toward myself. Indeed, I put my name inside my heart art. My heart serves best when it is overflowing with love for self. The more I have, the more I have to give. After a beautiful journey down a rose-quartz encrusted cave, we did another meditation and then Steven Jay and I practiced doing a heart circuit. My heart was so full, I felt as if my breasts were 10 times bigger than they actually are. In fact, I walked around the room holding them. They felt so heavy with love that I had to support them. I felt as though I could shoot love through my nipples at any target I chose.

Another exercise, which Steven Jay and I did after the heart circuit, was to gaze into each other’s eyes and say “I love you.” Sounds simple, huh? Try it. Sit there while someone who is juiced up on spirit looks through your soul, reaches into his/her personal heart space and verbalizes unconditional love to you. All you do is sit and receive this gift. It can be uncomfortable to hear and receive and feel all this love pouring on top of you. I did an okay job, but it was a bit uncomfortable. I felt I needed to reciprocate or validate myself in some way. At one point I surrendered and let this love flow all over me, into me, wherever it wanted to go. And then it was my turn to shower Steven with I love you’s. I took a breath with each sentence and let ‘er rip. After getting used to the feeling that I should be using different inflections, I simply let the words form their own sounds and focused on sending them through my heart.

While the concept of breathing love and being love comes across as a piece of cake in this journal entry, I realize I am having issues with it. I know this because after the lesson, and all weekend, I wrestled (and continue to wrestle) with old eating disorder and body dysmorphia demons. All this love I am letting in is healing me. And it’s uncomfortable as hell. A part of me wants to hide, push everyone away and revert back to what I know…control and isolation. I feel fat, unlovable and out of control. These messages are signals that some core piece of my healing is alive. As uncomfortable as it is to feel so out of alignment with things, I know that I am actually becoming more aligned with my true self. Now is the passage of tearing down to be rebuilt. And I need to open myself up as much as possible to love, breathe it in, and rely on my support system to keep me grounded in truth.

This session is the continuation practice for the first gateway, Connecting to Spirit. It is red, which focuses on the experience of our sexuality as a part of our spiritual selves. It’s fiery, powerful and creatively intense. And me…I’m feeling small and vulnerable, on the edge of my fear and I can sense something inside me is trying to free itself. An energetic leech is attached to my second chakra, for starters, and it’s the week before my period is due to start. All systems and senses are heightened. What better time to do a ritual? 

Intention

When I arrive at Caer Nwyrve, the front door is slightly ajar and Steven Jay is meditating on a nest of pillows at the huge southeast-facing window. He greets me and we sit facing each other on the couch to check in. I realized as I arrived and extracted myself from my truck, that I was nervous. I wasn’t quite sure why, but nevertheless I shared that in my check-in. I also shared some fears and thoughts about what might be keeping me from expressing myself wholly and completely. All in all, I was feeling unsettled.

Steven talked a little about the session itself, awakening the breasts, a ritual I have experienced before. This session would look and feel different, as every session does. He asked if I was ready to move into the bedroom, and I said yes. When we actually walked into the sacred room my nerves instantly calmed. I felt much safer there than I did in the living room. I shared this with Steven. “That,” he said, “is a good sign that you have chosen the right healing path.”

The intention today is to clear blocks that keep me from feeling my yoni, feeling my passion and my sexuality. I still have some layers of shame and guilt associated with sex from years of a Southern Baptist upbringing laced with several sexual abuse instances. This odd mix has manifested in my life as promiscuity in my teens and years of giving my power away to men in one way or the other—whether they wanted it or not! I have always felt a disconnection to my sexuality, but I have also always felt a longing to express it fully. I know I am a sexual woman. I feel most powerful when I allow positive expression of my sexuality. Those expressions, however, have been few and far between.  

Plugging in

We start the session as always, by connecting to self first and honoring the polarities of divine feminine and masculine. I feel the grounded contact between my yoni and the earth. I open my crown to great sky father and ask him to help contain me. After we clear and check the chakras, we connect energetically to one another, intertwining our roots and branches. We then come into contact physically, in yabyum position, and practice doing a heart circuit. All I have to do is feel love, that’s my only job.

The breathing and the circuit feel like passion in its purest form. I am already feeling tranced out as my body begins to release its armor and open up to divine energy. Steven Jay checks in with me to see how I am feeling, which makes me feel so safe and so honored, and then he holds me from behind and calls in the God to protect me. “I love you,” he says. “Spirit loves you. I’ve gotcha.” I feel as if I have imbibed some sort of fairy tale liquid in a bottle that transports you to a parallel universe inside your own bedroom. I actually start to have a bit of a flashback.

I am 11 or 12 years old, one year into puberty. I have just discovered masturbation and sexually I am waking up. Secretly, I masturbate as often as I can and I am addicted to it. I am fascinated by the magical orgasm I have discovered, but I also live in constant fear and shame about it. I started puberty a good 1-3 years before any of the other girls in junior high school and we don’t talk about the changes that are going on in my family. I am scared and I do not know what to do with all this energy. It is also during this time that my step grandfather molested me, short-circuiting my tender sexual pathways.

The flashback itself contains memories of me fantasizing at night with my pillow. I used to practice kissing the pillow. I spent countless hours thinking about what it would feel like to be touched by a boy in a “special way.” I longed for the kind of touch that made me feel so loved and so wanted that I never had to feel fat and awkward. Before the molestation, I felt as though I could connect to that idealized male love. Afterwards, it morphed into something far different.

As Steven Jay channels divine masculine energy, I feel and remember the male sexual purity I used to dream about as an adolescent, before things went so wrong. I am reconnected to that aliveness, strength and safety. His hands caress each body part and there is a struggle between my mind and my body. My body wants to let in all the love that is pouring from his hands as he says “I love your face, I love your breasts, I love this heart.” But my head is putting up a fight. “I’m fat. Please don’t look at my body.”

We are in the process of making a new connection.

“A” for Receiving

Steven Jay keeps reminding me my only job is to stay connected to spirit, breathe and receive (I am happy to report that, according to my friend and daka, I got an “A” in receiving). This is not as easy as it sounds, but I did it. Part of my healing lies in allowing myself to open up and receive not just in my heart, but in my yoni. So I focused on breathing love in through my root and crown and diffued it into my entire body. The trance and sedative effect on my muscles intensify and I feel like an electric eel. Random and automatic thoughts pop into my head as I disassociate from the experience. Things are getting hot and heavy. I ask the divine masculine for help and he appears as a golden man and holds my head. Any time a thought tries to keep me from being in my body, he simply handles it for me.

The energy builds and builds. The fire is burning brighter and brighter. The breath moves inside my skin, muscles, organs—my entire system–and I am waking up. I am passion. I am love. I am present … and then…fear. I feel trapped and lost inside my own body. I don’t who I am. I don’t know where I am. I can “see” that I am a perforated outline of myself. I am almost hyperventilating. Steven Jay holds space for me while I find my way back. I know it sounds esoteric, but the experience was otherworldly. The edges of my body became atmospheric. My ego did not like that. Steven encourages me to love myself in this lost place and I do.

After a few moments the energy builds again as we breathe in love and move it up and down and through our bodies. This feels raw and very sexual and I struggle to stay in the moment. I shut down completely. My second chakra had had enough for the day. I feel disappointed in myself, frustrated and sad. Steven Jay reminds me that this wall is there for a reason. It served me years ago when I was molested and raped. I must love it for its service and let it deconstruct as it feels safe to do so.

Something in my belly wants to be released. Who knows what is there? A new world of creativity, passion, balance?

Right before the wall went up, I remember a voice inside my head. “Please don’t give up on me, please don’t give up.” I have heard this voice before while making love with partners, usually as my senses are heightened and I approach orgasm. I thought it was me asking the man to keep going…and that may be true. But today as I got a glimpse of the lost self, I realized it was ME asking ME not to give up. There is something—someone—inside me who wants to live. And with help from spirit I intend to find her, love her and release her. 

At 15, right after my sweet grandmother died, I went from being a perfect picture of a southern Baptist girl to the church’s worst nightmare. What happened? I discovered humanism and transcendentalism. I started to read about other religions. I began to think for myself. I expanded my viewpoint of God only to get smacked on my ass by the Southern USA’s tiny mindset. So instead of exploring my newfound religious freedom, I turned off all my spirituality for a few years. That worked until I was 21, living out of my car in Los Angeles and fresh out of the grips of a Buddhist computer cult. It was then that I realized—out of a desperate need for survival—that I either connected to spirit in whatever form worked for me or I was going to have a difficult time on this earth.

And so began the beautiful dance with Great Spirit. Or as we say in the south: my personal relationship with [fill in the blank].

As I write this journal entry, “Closer to Fine” by the Indigo Girls is playing on the radio. My skin is crawling with goosebumps. “There’s more than one answer to these questions/ pointing me in a crooked line/the less I seek my source for some definitive/the closer I am to fine.” It really is that simple. All we have to do is surrender.

Checking in

And so I surrendered to today’s process. We were running a little late today, but Steven Jay and Kypris still manage to pull it all together with grace and gumption. This ability to flow and re-route is one of their many strengths, in my opinion, and I love witnessing and learning from it. After saging and checking in, Kypris led an exercise in which we artistically rendered what our concept of God is. This is after I have gloated about my personal spiritual practice. If it is possible to be a spiritual geek, I am one. I’m not sure how holy it is, however, to be this proud of one’s spirituality. I think it must be my competitive nature. Regardless, I intend to stay open to spirit and let go of any attachment I may have to excelling in spirituality. It’s not a sport, after all.

I drew a picture of a rainbow with an infinity sign intersecting it. To me, God is everything and everyone and everywhere. Limitless, undeniable and unconditionally loving. We also got to use some stickers from Kypris’s son’s stash. I used a rocket to express my intentions and a dragon to represent magic, initiation and power. There were exactly 3 dragon stickers and each one of us placed a dragon on our drawings. We all had different reasons for using them, but to me it was significant. We are forming a tantric triad and what better sacred mascot to share than dragon?

Speaking of the triad, we also went on a shamanic journey together. I don’t think it was her original intention to have us all go on a journey in this way, but I got the feeling it was led that way by spirit. This makes sense to me and I personally believe it helps me build community, which is something that’s been very difficult for me. As Kypris led the expedition to lower world, we each met our spirit guides for the training program. I’ve journeyed many times before, but I enjoy being guided by another and it was a profound experience for me.

Sacred Tree, Sacred Me, Sacred Ye

After a much needed food break, we settled into reviewing the sacred tree meditation, which is a cornerstone for the shamanic tantra we practice. I’ve been doing this meditation on my own, but I always have a fuller experience when Kypris or Steven Jay leads it. It’s so important to feel into your own “roots and branches.” I’ve come back to it time and time again when I need to relish my personal relationship with the divine feminine and masculine. The divine masculine in particular has been extremely pivotal and healing for me lately. He feels like boundless starlight energy flowing over my body. It contains me in a way I’ve always longed for and looked for in other people, particularly men. Who knew “it” was there all along, just waiting for me to access it? I never really needed that much bally-hooed “better half” (although I’m not saying a partner is a bad thing). What I really needed was to find my own wholeness. And mama earth…my roots seep into her effortlessly. She feeds and nourishes me and keeps me grounded so that I can open my heart fully.

A note here about connecting to the polarities. I have noticed that, in my own life, this sacred tree meditation has helped me make incredible strides in healing my relationship with my mother and father. The more I feel connected to earth and sky, the easier it is for me to see, feel, hear and experience the honest, pure love my parents have for me. The trick is I must allow them to love me in their manner, not mine. In other words, I have learned that when I am connected to my own spiritual truth and essence, striving for balance, it is easier to see past the ego to the underlying joy and beauty in their hearts. I am so honored to have discovered this at a relatively youngish age.

After connecting with ourselves, Kypris and I moved into a joint sacred tree mediation. We faced each other, breathed into our own roots and branches, and then intertwined ourselves energetically. I then was led to notice the subtleties of this connection and feel into how I was reacting to it and if I wanted to move in closer. It felt very sweet, ancient and expansive to me. Gazing into her eyes took me on a labyrinth tour to a very deep and sacred vista. I experienced a sisterhood beyond sisterhood—a place where all the elements unite and explode into a calm star. I don’t know how else to describe it, other than it was beautiful and powerful.

We practiced reconnecting to self and also released the cords we had to each other. This practice is crucial in helping you retain your boundaries and honor others. It’s not always a matter of consciously pulling back. Sometimes a chakra or energy body has a tough time letting go, so practice is good. It’s fun to feel back into your own connection to spirit and realize in your heart that you are indeed whole.

Blood Sugar Sex Magick

The last exercise of the day made me understand why my very favorite Red Hot Chili Peppers’ song has always been Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Kypris led a manifestation magick exercise. Steven Jay and I connected energetically and we each chose an intention. We shared our personal intentions with each other, mirrored them back and voiced whether or not we felt we could support the other in his/her intention. I will stop here to say that Kypris—who is a master at many things—is a brilliant magic facilitator, for lack of a better word. She morphs into modern day priestess effortlessly and holds space in a way that allows others to drop in without fear. It was in this fearless, empowered space that I learned a smidgen about just how powerful sex magick can be.

Using breath and connection to spirit, Steven Jay and I moved energy up and down and around our spines, bodies and energetic bodies. I lost sense of my physical body and I became breath itself as I filled out the edges of my skin and then the temple/room. I held my own intention and Steven’s intention in my core and watched as it expanded into the universe where another force captured it and infused it with even more light and love. The experience is hard to write about. Suffice to say the intentions are flourishing on another plane where limitations simply don’t exist.

I am still on the cusp of this work and yet I feel profound shifts and changes. Most of what I feel right now is anticipation and a very real and deep knowledge that I have found my calling. I also feel that I will be transforming a lot over the next few weeks and months, and mustn’t be too attached to my ego. Famous last words, right? Aho!

Almost one year ago, right after I returned to San Diego from a short sabbatical in the Santa Ynez valley, I attended my very first puja. I remember how hard it was to attend, how last minute it was and how terrified I felt. I didn’t know why I was going; I just knew it felt like something I had to do. At the time I was simply looking to expand my very tiny social circle of one (me) and I was also thinking I might, just might, find a like-minded, conscious mate to pair up with. I was fresh out of a 16-month monogamous relationship and I felt naked without a man wrapped around my wounds–a human band-aid.

So I mustered up all the grit I had inside my cells and walked into the room as if I had done it a million times. This is what I normally do when I try something new and feel like a fish out of water, and it usually works. I just watch other people for my cues, and I play it all by ear. One year ago I was still very much wrestling with my sexual wounds, had a very faint voice, and my boundaries were a tiny picket fence, the same kind you might find decorating the yard of a dollhouse. As I sat there faking calm, I was struck by how free and beautiful and alive both Kypris and Steven Jay seemed, as well as some of the people in the room. They all had tang, for lack of better word, an unspoken grace that felt so elemental to me. They seemed so sexy. But in a different kind of way. Their sexiness felt rooted in something so deep and so ancient. I sat there and envied this connection. I thought to myself “if only I could be this open. If only I could feel so freely sexual. If only I could get to a place in my life where I could teach shamanic tantra. If only.”

Fast forward 6 months. It is early January and I am sitting across from these two amazing individuals. We are talking about my personal healing path. I express to them how I feel like I might be a sacred sexual healer—a conclusion that came to me after several very odd and powerful experiences with men. We talked about spirit, we talked about healing. Most of all, they listened to me. Spirit filled the room and by the end of our first initial consultation, we had all decided I would be their apprentice. Aho!

Well, six months after that meeting, here I am once again. Even more healing has taken place in my life since January and I’ve been so busy working and letting spirit guide me to and through my lessons, I have hardly had time to really think about how important this first lesson really is. This kicks off a new rivulet in my life. I am committing myself even further to my own healing and to also helping others, further clearing out the channel I see in the mirror everyday. Sacred wow.

Welcome to Wonder

It hits me that this is the beginning of something very big as I settle into the sacred space Kypris and Steven Jay have created. In a flash my insecurities, fears and doubts molest me. “What if I’m not ready to do this?” “What if I let them down?” “What if people at work find out?” In my heart of hearts and in my soul, however, I know beyond the shadow of any doubt that this is my path. This path is etched scrimshaw on my bones.

My initial meeting was review. We explored all six gateways and what I’d be learning and eventually teaching. We each set our intentions for the program and held space for the energy we were creating, which weaved us together in a harmonious tantric quilt. After four hours of review I had one main realization that I had to sit with: I still carry quite a bit of shame and guilt regarding my sexuality. In fact, I had a sense that I am only accessing about 20% of my own personal sexual power and energy. I’m not quite sure what to do with this knowing.

I suppose I will start from square one, which is the only thing I can do. Square one for me is to love myself unconditionally. It’s the same lesson I come back to time and time again. It’s the same mantra I teach my own clients. The number one rule is love yourself. Love yourself through all your humanness. Change your thoughts, change your actions, and be your number one advocate. If I fill myself up with love from spirit and gently roam the road ahead, nurturing my boo-boos along the way, I know it will all fall into place.

For now I connect my roots to earth and breathe in her limitless support. I send an optic cord of light to the sky and breathe in infinite acceptance and safety. Sky father, cosmic mother, stone father, earth mother…the very essence of my journey right now is finding balance in all that is. I am intermingling my sacred feminine with my divine masculine, infusing my cells with pure love. In giving myself over to a higher harmony, I am reborn.

The first time I looked at my own vagina in the mirror I was 17 years old. I had my first yeast infection and I thought I was going to die. The pain certainly drew a lot of attention to this area of my body and, being the artist type, I decided to not only take a look-see, but also draw a picture of it. I popped a Suzanne Vega cassette tape in the stereo (the first one, the one with the song "Small Blue Thing"), grabbed a hand mirror, my colored pencils and sketch book and made myself comfortable on the bed.

There she was–my vagina, my "coosie-mae" (a southern nickname). I spent a good few minutes staring and exploring. I noticed the outer lips, the left labia majora was hemmed at the edges with a dark brown-purple. Was this normal, I wondered? It all looked so complex and unnerving to me at the time, like I had found some sort of secret cave through the tumbleweed forest of my pubic hair. I drew the best representation I could (I am more of an abstract artist) and decided at the end to draw a snake coming out of the opening of my vagina. At the time I remember thinking it symbolized the pain of the yeast infection. Later, that symbolism changed.

So what about the word "vagina"? Yes, it’s clinical and induces giggling. But what does the word actually mean? It is a latin word that means "sheath or scabbard." That’s right, the kind of sheath or scabbard you would insert a sword–or a penis (aka “lingam”). In other words, its very definition is via its function for men (no hard feelings, guys). That definition gets its very identity solely from how it is of service to males, not to mention the war and weaponry imagery. The divine masculine energy is certainly important, but it doesn’t beg that divine feminine energy exist to define it. Are there any alternatives to the word “vagina”? Thankfully, yes.

The word "yoni" is a sanskrit word for "divine passage," "place of birth" and "sacred temple." Other words that yoni encompasses are "abode," "place of rest," "nest" and "source." I first heard this alternative years ago and it has taken me several more years to embrace it. When I started taking my tantra practice more seriously, "yoni" became more natural to me than "vagina."

So how is my yoni? Good question. Frankly, the only time I give her attention is when something is amiss "down there," just like I did years ago with the yeast infection. I am disconnected from her and she from me. She is a separate entity, a warm conundrum between my thighs. My breasts are very sensitive and responsive, which indicates I am more heart-centered than root-centered. But I wanted to connect my yoni with my heart and my heart with my yoni. Not only that, I wanted to clear years of sexual abuse, trauma, pain, shame and guilt. In addition, if the yoni is a divine passage, it is certainly possible that “visitors” have left things behind over the years. In other words, energetically I am convinced some of the men I’ve had sex with might have left some of their own shame, guilt and pain behind. If so, I didn’t want it anymore.

Entering the Temple

With a few pujas and one red session under my belt, I felt safe and empowered enough to get a yoni massage. A yoni massage is a tantric ritual that involves honoring and healing the divine passage. During this ritual, the giver touches the yoni not from a place of arousal and orgasm, but from a place of joy and wonder. The ritual helps connect a woman’s heart to her yoni, and also increases awareness and sensation. Healing and honoring are the goals, not orgasm (although that can certainly be a byproduct). The giver holds space while the receiver (in this case, me!), relaxes, breathes, processes and simply enjoys. It is very possible, also, to “unearth” old traumas and pains. This is a prime healing opportunity if you’re able to “go there.”

After years of feeling blocked and short-circuited in my sexuality, I was ready to “go there.”

Steven Jay, tantra teacher, daka, somatic/spirit entrepreneur, closet genius and sensual guru guided me through this, my second red session and journey on the tantra path. As usual he greeted me with a whole-body, deep breathing embrace that works like magnetic lava in keeping me grounded and helping me feel safe. He led me to a warm red room bejeweled with candlelight and infused with healing intentions. Steven is one of the most intuitive men I’ve ever met, and he has a keen knack for sensing where your gateways and boundaries are. Because of my prior experiences with him, I was not the least bit nervous.

After doing the sacred tree meditation with an emphasis on feeling in to my yoni, Steven helped position me comfortably on the bed with strategically placed pillows. He explained what he was going to be doing and how important it was for me to breathe and communicate throughout the session. The session commenced with a wonderful and gentle body massage. With loving, nurturing strokes on my legs, breasts, stomach and arms Steven prepared my body to relax and receive. During this stage I felt calm and focused on my breath. The hardest thing about it was staying present in my body and not being carried away by thought.

At this point I want to mention why it is so hard for me to stay in my body during a sensual experience. This is one of the most frustrating challenges I’ve been dealing with, but I know I need to love myself and my body through it. When I was 11 years old, my step grandfather molested me. The main thing I remember is focusing very intently on a wagon wheel that was on the television screen. I willed myself to escape my body for obvious reasons. Four years later, at age 15, three men broke into the room where I was staying and raped me. Again, my major recollection of that experience was concentrating on the corner of the room, where cobwebs and shadow gave me momentary refuge. I tried every trick I knew to leave my body behind.

These survival tactics were perfectly legitimate at the time, but I discovered as I went through the rest of my life that I disassociated during sex all the time, even when I wanted to be there. It was as if I had been programmed to leave my body as soon as a man touched me. I have done a lot of healing, forgiving and growing. However, my body still remembers and has yet to let go. Learning how to get in touch with those numbed out sensations may be the key to finally moving through to the other side.

The Vestibule of the Temple

After receiving a few glorious minutes of massage, Steven checked in with me to see how I was doing. He asked me how my body felt and if I had any sensations or emotions I wanted to discuss. I mentioned how hard it was for me to stay present, even with the breath, so we agreed that we would maintain eye contact as much as possible to help facilitate as strong and present a connection as possible.

Steven Jay squeezed some oil into the palm of his hand, warming it with his own body heat. He then began massage the outer lips of my yoni. The soft strokes segued into a very light “pulling” upward of my outer lips. I stayed with my breath throughout this process and focused on reception and awareness. He circled up and around my clitoris—the crown jewel—and continued with the rhythmic strokes. During this time my entire body began to awaken. My arms and hands were tingling, my head felt heavy and my legs danced with pleasure.

This was heaven. No, this was heaven magnified with rainbow light, dusted in your favorite memories and then kissed by hunky angels.

Just when I thought I was going to lose my mind (in a good way), or fall off the bed, Steven paused, met me eye to eye for a check-in and announced that we were about to move on to the next stage. You mean there’s more? Hallelujah. It seems we were still only getting started. Now it was time for body mapping.

The Temple Clock

I am not unusual as a survivor of mental, physical, emotional and sexual abuse in that I had to learn—not relearn, as I never knew it— body awareness. What this means is that for years I had no clue what my body, my skin, my organs my muscles, tendons, ligaments felt like. Sure, I felt pain. But it had to be an intense pain, and I had a very high tolerance.

When something traumatic happens to us, and it doesn’t have to be dramatic or defined at all, our physical body communicates in an instant with our thoughts and emotions, as well as our emotional, spiritual and etheric bodies. It can happen in a split second—your father yells at you for crying at age 2 and your little brain decides to try and never do that again because it’s “wrong.” Or he hits you for dropping your plate and your body protects you by trying to numb the sensation of his large, rough hand on your tiny body.

Conversely, it can be something as simple and seemingly benign as your caregiver not being there for your second grade play, making you feel abandoned. The point is this: the survival tactics and means of dealing with stress—if not processed and confronted head on—accumulate in our bodies. We forget to learn new ways of being in the world as we grow up. We have to figure out, retrace and heal our pain and indignities. If we don’t, in my opinion, we will continue to live half-lives as shadows of ourselves.

Thanks to a lot of hard work over the years, I can feel my beautiful body now. I learned that chest pain and tightness was anxiety and moved it through. I learned that my vice-like jaw clenching was anger and I roared loudly. You get the picture. I danced, I moved, I sang, I cried, I got all types of body work done. It seems my yoni, et. al., is the last frontier.

Back to body mapping. Now that I was all juiced up, alive and ready to explore (and be explored), Steven gently inserted a finger (come-hither style) into my yoni, pressing my g-spot. I couldn’t feel it at first, but after a little inspired finger wiggling (thank you Steven Jay) I felt a faint sensation in my pelvis, toward the center and above my pubic bone. The only other way I can describe it: for me it felt like muted pleasure, as if your lover were whispering sweet nothings into your ear, but your ear is filled with water from your sexy romp in the ocean. I think the point is to transmute that muted feeling into multisensory pleasure. Steven spent a few moments massaging my g spot and then he began the process of moving around the wall of my yoni clockwise (from his perspective as giver).

Your g spot is 12 o’clock. Ladies, I am sure it is different for everyone, but 1 o’clock is quite nice. It has its own nook or groove that is, dare I say it, groooovy. For every position on the yoni clock, Steven massaged as we synchronized our breath and he helped me remain in the moment. When he got to 5 o’clock I felt a sharp pain. He said he felt a pulse point there, which is an indication that there may be some hidden or armored pain or emotion. Indeed, I did well up with tears. I felt an ancient aching that I couldn’t even grab hold of. He asked me to take a deep breath and hold it, what he called an “air breath?” and then forcefully breathe all the pain out. He helped move the pain away with his breath and energetically with his hands, and grounded it into the earth. The only other pain I experienced was something that felt like broken glass inside my skin at 7 o’clock. We did the same air breath practice and, when I was ready, we moved on.

I felt like the pain I released was pain my mind and heart had already healed. But now it was my body’s turn to heal and let go of all the aching and sadness and guilt.

Integrating Shakti

As the yoni massage drew to a close, Steven Jay supported me and held space (which essentially means honoring my emotions and “being there”) while I came back to reality from my journey into the folds of my intricate emotions. Immediately following the massage, I felt euphoric, dizzy, giddy and cleansed. I was so wired that I had a hard time falling asleep that night, which is something I rarely have a problem with. Not only had he help me release a lot of negativity I no longer needed, he helped awaken my shakti.

Shakti is a personification of the divine feminine. It represents the active, dynamic principles of feminine power. Awakening it and awakening to it helps a woman live from her center, her truth and her passion. She learns how to embrace and live her true beauty. Being escorted, loved and supported to this place is a high honor. My shakti, at this tender moment in time, feels much the same way I felt as a small child before I fragmented my soul and left pieces of myself along the white cross strewn road of my life. I am feeling alive. I am feeling more creative and passionate. I am feeling sensations in my yoni where once there was a sad stillness. I am letting my emotions flow through me to completion.

But perhaps the most surprising outcome so far of my yoni massage is the way men are reacting to me. Many men generally find me attractive and I’ve taken for granted the attention I get. I think due to my sexual abuse, I have lived most of my life guarding myself from men and feeling very unsafe and exposed. Ironically, I also tend to send out erotic feelers, which I am guessing has been my shakti trying to come out in spite of me. Nevertheless, my usual modus operandi when faced with an overwhelming energy or attention from a man has been defensive. I either shut down, close off or, in extreme cases where I am the object of an unwanted advance, I have even started fist fights! The flip side of this coin is that I have also acquiesced when I did not want to, my lack of boundaries painfully obvious.

The first day after the yoni massage, I noticed that men seemed to be looking at me differently. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it seemed as though the same men at the office who I perceived as ogling me, were now simply appreciating me. I didn’t sense any disrespect and I felt no fear. I felt open and clear and safe in my own body. I think it is this safety–in my own sexual power and my connection to source—that made it possible for me to open up and let in good intentions. A few days later I was confronted on the street with an obvious boundary violation from a very obnoxious man. I simply took a few deep breaths and handled the situation calmly and with a feminine grace I didn’t know I had. I felt safe.

I have been waiting my entire life to feel this safe.

The Kundalini Express

Remember the drawing I made of my yoni when I was 17? That snake I innocently drew coming out of the opening, which symbolized pain for me at the time, is now a stark symbol of the kundalini energy (which some consider the same as shakti) that is very much alive and awake in me now. Kundalini is a corporeal energy that sits coiled around your root chakra like a snake until you activate it through spiritual practice. Once awake, it rises through your body and chakras, clearing you and empowering you to live in your light.

The snake is also symbolic of transmutation, rebirth, feminine magic and healing. In the branch of shamanism I study snake is the east animal in my totem. This represents my biggest challenge in life: combining spirituality with sexuality. Thanks to the masterfully grounding and healing yoni massage, I can say that I am feeling very snake-like and shakti-fied these days.

Ten years later, 40 pounds lighter, a health crisis transmuted, an ex-husband and numerous ex lovers later, I began exploring the tantric path. Tantra is something I have always considered a guilty pleasure to consider in my life. I’ve flirted with it for years. I’ve bought books, talked to people about it and basically danced around its edges. I had reached a point in my life, however, where flirting with Tantra would no longer suffice. I needed to either explore a commitment or move on. I felt this truth in my bones. So after another frustrating personal relationship and a date-rape experience, I gave in.

You see, an interesting thing had been happening to me. My taste in men was getting worse as I got older, not better. But not only that, the men I was attracting into my life exhibited strong animalistic urges toward me and acted as though they could not “help themselves” from taking advantage of me. Further, with each man I kept getting the distinct impression that some sort of sexual healing was going on in spite of myself. Now, I am an energy healing practitioner, but this was not a “hands on” healing session. Inevitably I would find myself, yet again, giving in to a sexual experience I did not want. Only this time I kept hearing a faint voice saying “I am healing you, I am healing you.” This truly puzzled me as nothing conscious was taking place. To add an ounce of wonder to the equation, the men were each having what I would characterize as healing crises. I am a firm believer in “healer, heal thyself,” and I decided that if part of my journey here on earth was to help heal other’s sexuality I absolutely had to start with myself.

The Red Road

I found myself in the Yabyummy treatment room, at the cusp of a healing red session with Steven Jay. I’ve received quite a few healing sessions over the past 3-5 years, and I’ve come to learn (finally) that fear is one emotion worth exploring. So here I am. Steven Jay is grounded. He emits a strong, peaceful presence that acts as a sort of tranquilizer. If I squint my eyes just so, I might even be able to see the strands of light connecting him to source. In short, I trust him implicitly and, while I am nervous and my throat is constricted, I am not scared. He could not be more gentle or more strong.

After discussing intention, Steven Jay guides me in a meditation that weaves my roots into the earth’s core. I intermingle with juicy goddess energy and breathe in unconditional love. I exhale anything I no longer need. On each breath I bring the energy up and clear each chakra. At this point I am feeling more grounded, more safe. I already feel very connected to the earth mother, so this feels extra calming and nurturing. However, the next stage of the meditation brought with it a surprise.

As we brought in the divine masculine through the crown of my head and Steven clearly defined the godly dimensions of this energy, I felt overwhelmed with a new knowledge. I was not truly familiar with this energy. Certainly I called on father sky in my own meditation and healing circles. But I had never considered the details of this energy. I realized that I had never truly allowed the divine masculine into my body. With this awakened understanding came a flood of truth for me. If my father, who had abused and neglected me as a child, was my first introduction to the divine masculine, I had disconnected from it long ago. In a matter of seconds spirit showed me all the ways I had cut myself off from the sacred male aspect and also how I had manifested numerous lessons in my life divinely orchestrated to steer me back into the loving arms of the father.

As I envisioned my mother and father’s higher selves as divine masculine and feminine holding me at the end of the meditation, tears were streaming down my cheeks. “Do you feel safe enough for me to leave and get you some tissue?” Steven asked me. I shook my head yes, timidly. “Can you take a breath and ask yourself if you really feel safe?” Steven had a hunch that I was on the brink of some sort of release. I took a half breath and then I cried the tears of a neglected baby, a molested child, a raped teenage girl. He asked permission to hold me as he moved behind me. As he channeled calm, loving, strong male energy I finally realized that all these years I had been trying to reconnect with sacred father through unhealthy sexual experiences. I did not have a relationship with the divine masculine, and it was no wonder I never felt safe and had no boundaries.

As I wept, I released what felt like ancient pain. I relinquished the victim inside me who cowers behind fault. I bade farewell to bloated, painful memories of allowing myself to be overpowered. I cried the anger and guilt and shame out of my bones that kept me tied to being some sort of sexual slave. I cried until, at the end of the tunnel, I saw all the light and godly energy inside every man who had ever been in my life. I focused on that aspect of these men, and opened my heart to new possibilities.

This is How it Feels to Be Open?

At the end of the release, we moved on the heart of the session. Steven Jay and I worked on saying “no” to various sensual requests. Ironically, it was hard to say no for different reasons (I actually wanted him to touch my thigh or caress my cheek), but the practice was good for me. I have historically had a very difficult time in saying no to unwanted advances. Speaking my truth has been a challenge. This exercise was empowering. When he got to my throat, we focused on clearing the many years of silence. We vocalized the fear of saying “no” when you don’t know what the consequences will be. We replaced it with a clear connection to spirit and a new ability to voice personal truth. As Steven massaged my throat, I felt energy running in my second chakra.

Next, we decided to work on awakening my breasts, since I felt a lot of anxiety in them. My step grandfather molested me when I was 11 years old, and I could still feel his hands on my budding breasts. Steven agreed that this was a good place to start. Synchronized breath was an integral part of the entire session. As he slowly and carefully massaged my chest, I felt my heart begin to open. Steven asked permission every step of the way, and I have never felt so loved and supported. As he cupped my left breast, I was overcome with a feeling of gratitude. It was as if my breast was yelling “thank you, thank you, thank you.” My right breast had a different story. As he outlined the circumference of my right breast, I felt rage and fear. “How can I support you?” Steven asked me, as I replied “please hold the space.” Eventually the fear transmuted and, through some pretty tough tears, I breathed light into my right breast (I have lumps in this breast that doctors once thought were cancerous. I am convinced it is the fear I had been holding on to).

My bodily aches and pains all manifest on my right side, my male side. I have chronic shoulder, hip and knee pain. This all makes sense to me now, as I realize I have been cutting off divine male energy to my own body. As Steven continued down my body, we discovered another stark contrast in my inner thighs. My right inner thigh housed remarkable shame, guilt and fear. My left inner thigh felt clear and grateful. I feel this truly symbolizes my inability to connect with God, up until now. With connected breath and high intentions, Steven cleared the old stagnant energy out of my body and replaced it with pure channeled love. He helped create a very safe place where I was able to be fully present.

As the old energy cleared and I allowed the divine masculine to enter my energy field, my body began to awaken. I felt channels of excitement I had never tapped into before. My sexuality, it seemed, was not centered in my yoni or even in my breasts, but maybe in my entire body! From my hair to my toenails, I felt alive and connected to both aspects of divinity. As Steven lovingly honored my body, I heard the same thought in my head, over and over: “So this is what it feels like to be open? Hallelujah!” I felt ecstatic, alive, enlightened. This feeling surpassed any “normal” sexual experience I had ever had.

The Sacred Stag Returns

Before my red session with Steven Jay, I had done a few white events. I had noticed that, with a few of the men I had practiced with, I saw a large stag in their energy field. I had thought this was their animal spirit guide. But then I realized it was mine. The deer stag was symbolic of the divine masculine, and he had finally come for me. I was ready and it was time to speak the truth—my truth. This was the stag White Hawk had drawn 10 years ago, his stately antlers wrapping around my throat.

The sacred stag approaches me. His antlers reach to the heavens, divine antennae to spirit. He breathes light into my crown, opening my channel. He presses his forehead to mine, awakening my sight. He licks my throat, clearing out old messages and disintegrating chains that would bind me and keep me from speaking my truth. He presses his breast to mine and warms my heart with light. His presence seeps into my center and empowers me. His pure masculinity pierces my sacral chakra and his unconditional love anchors me to this earth. I finally feel safe. He lifts me onto his back and carries me down a new path—where two roads converge, masculine and feminine, and I stand strong and true as a whole woman.