Controversy

Shameless: the book review

I devoured Shameless in one sleepless night. I’ve recommended it to a dozen women, a few men, and it is now required reading for my women clients.

41oTWoRSw+L._SL160_With Shameless, Pamela has revealed to women and men everywhere that they have some new options for self-knowledge, deep personal healing, and sexual awareness and feeling. We own ourselves. Sexuality is our power and our freedom. Sexual pleasure is our birthright. And yes, pleasure heals. And it’s OK to reach out to a professional who can teach us to receive what is already our own.

She writes: “Using touch to bring body and mind and emotions together made intuitive sense. What could be bad about find yourself while experiencing pleasure? I hadn’t know that was even an option.”

Shameless needs to be read on campuses, in women’s circles, in Men’s groups, by health professionals, clergy. It needs to infiltrate the culture, and we need it NOW. Working with an initiated and trained professional should be an option for any man or woman who seeks to do as Pamela Madsen did. “I  spent a lifetime of tamping down my sexual energy and power. Now I was tapping into it.”

And this quote says it all, and speaks directly to the powerful contribution of Shameless, “The real problem you are going to have is convincing women it’s fine to have dark chocolate desires and to feed themselves.”

Shameless: How I Ditched the Diet, Got Naked, Found True Pleasure...and Somehow Got Home in Time To Cook Dinner

I recommend Shameless to all my clients.

It's March: the month of the Festival of Pleasure. It's a good time to read Shameless.


Too Hot for Breakfast?

My last two Love Letters published a speech I had written with Rotarians in mind. I thought it was tame, though my Rotary Champion decided it was too hot for Rotary. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

Last week I visited a Women's Entrepreneur Networking group. It was a breakfast meeting. The feedback I received was that some women were offended by the language I used when I spoke about my business. Upon pressing the caller delivering this news, she admitted that the offensive language was the word "Orgasm". I am fairly certain the only time I used that word was in giving my business name, Orgasmic Alchemy.

My short business introduction for women's groups goes something like this: I work with professional women in midlife who are stressed, worried, overwhelmed, frustrated, or heart-broken about relationships and sexuality. When they work with me, they feel relaxed, confident, empowered and in touch with their bodies. As a result they have better relationships, live their life purpose joyfully, make more money, and have better sex.

I have compassion for people who are triggered by the language I use: words like sex, orgasm, even pleasure. I used to be triggered too. Especially the word orgasmic. I once had a friend, now passed on, who used "orgasmic" as a superlative for every happy experience. I hated that quirk. Why? Because the word orgasmic reminded me of the pain and inadequacy I felt in the experience of my own sexuality.

I know too well the pain of feeling like there is something missing at the core of your Soul, and the belief that it's missing because something is wrong with you. You feel like you're missing something that every one else has, or maybe you have too much of something and it's wrong and unacceptable, and you expend a lot of energy controlling your thoughts and feelings. I've felt both kinds of pain. I think I developed feelings of inadequacy and experienced that because the Oh So MUCH I felt as a child was completely unacceptable to the people around me. My long path of healing from this half-life is the reason I do this work of Orgasmic Alchemy today.

So I feel great compassion for the women--and men--who are offended or embarrassed by my work and my speaking out. Hell, I make myself blush sometime. I don't do it for effect. I speak out and say the name of Orgasm because Silence is Deadly. Because I am a healer, and the healing journey is not a comfortable journey. I will go back to that group and speak with them tenderly and truthfully the downside of feeling comfortable.

You see, my work is not about making you feel comfortable. My work is about going with you to the places inside you that you are afraid to look at by yourself.  My role is to hold your hand, or even wrap my arms around you, so you can go to those scary places and make direct contact with your own magnificence. Because that's what lives there: your divine beautiful Self. I help you go there, and stay with you till you come back with the treasure.
There are moments in the transformational journey that are scary like that. The rest is pure pleasure and a lot of fun.

And yes, the people who choose to do healing work with me are courageous, because this is a path into your wild self that must be trekked on foot. You can't look up the directions on Google Maps or use your Garmin. Jet Blue doesn't fly there (but it will fly you to me if you live far away). And you say YES to this expedition ready or not because your subconscious mind will never be ready. Only your courageous heart of desire will be able to guide you onto the path.

NOW is always the right time to choose freedom. It's not always comfortable, but the food is good, and the view is magnificent.


God Desires Us

Today, I'll share with you a little about my story, and I hope you will share yours with me. I'd love to hear from you! Maybe our stories have something in common.

I am a farm girl from Tennessee, a very good Southern Baptist farm girl. You know what, I still am! I still love Jesus. (He’s a Hunk!)

My roots are still deep in Divine Love I first met in church, and in Nature. There’s one thing that still infuriates me is the secrecy around sex when I was growing up. Where I came from we didn’t even say the word pregnant out loud, much less acknowledge where babies come from and how they got there.  The only education I had was mis-education. There was a lot of stuff I wasn’t supposed to do, touch, or even think about, but there was so little information that I didn’t know what that was!

I did know that if I made a mistake, I’d burn in hell!

One place I felt safe was in nature – water, sky, sunrise, sunset, starry nights, the Moon. Squirrels. I liked squirrels, was terrified of  spiders. I knew god loved me in a way they didn’t talk about in Church. I knew it felt so good to be alive. I knew my relationship with Nature was –though I’d never heard the word—Orgasmic.

However, I was an innocent. And my very smart and well-educated mind took over and I was essentially cut off from my body. (except for two times when I was pregnant). Everything came from the mind. It was as if my body was luggage for my mind, and my Soul grew tired of my body hauling this mind around like some demanding VIP that knows it all.

And my Soul fell into exhaustion and depression. I was living someone else’s body, someone else’s marriage, job, Life. Something had to give.

What gave is best expressed in something I heard years later. My son who moved to Idaho and became a Presbyterian—married a beautiful, brilliant woman from Virginia. Their pastor, Dr. Leithart came from Idaho to perform their wedding at a tiny little church in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I was stunned and delighted to hear Pastor Leithart say in his sermon: God’s love for us is erotic. God DESIRES us. (My mother was so cute. She leaned over and whispered to me, “He should be telling them this stuff in private!)

72 Galaxy Lover
God’s love for us is erotic. God DESIRES us. God DESIRES ME!
God’s desire for me came and got me and brought me home to Mother Earth, on land in Hope, Maine. God’s Desire for me guided me to initiation into the Sacred Sexual Mysteries of Ancient Egypt. And God’s Desire for me brought me home to my Body and helped me remember to Feel.

God’s Desire for me keeps me close, even when I am scared of the Love and want to run away. God’s Desire for me holds me so tenderly, and when I protest that I am unworthy of such attention, too ugly to receive so much Love…God’s Desire for me gazes into my Soul so passionately that I cannot help but see my own beauty and worth reflected in Divine Eyes.

What can it mean to YOU to be Desired by God?
Who are you when you are that Woman, that Man?
Will you allow God to Desire you in an erotic, sensual way?
What kind of Lover is God to you? What kind of Lover does He~She invite you to be?


Naked Coffee Friday: Sacred Matters

I've been thinking about the stillness surrounding the sacred versus the silence surrounding shame.

Yesterday I heard an NPR story that moved me deeply. From the HIdden World of Girls series, a man, Chris Abani, told his mother's story. She was an English woman married to a Nigerian man, living in Nigeria. You can read or listen to the story "A Woman's Mission: To Teach Birth Control in Nigeria"

Chris's Mother was a Catholic. She wanted to help women learn about birth control but as a Catholic could not teach condom use. So she wanted to teach women about natural methods. She enlisted her 8 year old son, Chris, as translator, traveling the countryside visiting with women. Chris Abani tells how he greeted the women, apologizing because he had to talk to them about the most sacred things, which were taboo to speak aloud. If they didn't want to talk to him, he would understand. He would ask them if they were on their "Holy Period."

This is not about Shame, but about Sacredness. Oh my goddess, if only I had been taught as a girl that my blood was holy. This culture shames us about our bodies and sexuality, our most sacred union with divine and thus with nature and all other creatures. It is a double affront that our sacred life force desire is used to manipulate us to buy things and do things that hurt us and the earth.

   Wrapped Woman

Because of the need for healing individually and as a society, I speak out loud about sex, in art, word, and deed. I believe it is necessary to bring about healing and a restoration of naturalness. Yet sometimes I wonder.

My question for myself, and I am also asking you, am I breaking taboo? Are those of us who speak out loud and teach about sexuality openly, publicly, corrupting the sacred? 

I think I know the answer for me. Mysteries are revered and cloaked in stillness, and they are also celebrated in a display of sacred bawdiness. I am tilted toward the bawdy to aid in transforming the silence of shame into the stillness of the sacred.

In another generation, I hope the initiations will be restored and people can be natural with their sacred sexuality once more.


Why I am a sexual energy healer

My Maine HomeThis weekend I attended a symposium called Awakening the Dreamer, an initiative of the Pachamama Alliance. It’s purpose is to help people on Earth recognize that we are living in a cultural trance that is damaging the earth, and has consequences for our fellow creatures, and future generations. It also helps us begin the process of changing our collective dream into one that promotes  an “enviromentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on the planet.” One exercise had us imagine a conversation with our great, great grandchildren, in which we answered their question: “When the Earth was in crisis, what did you do to change things?”


Here is my answer:

I helped men and women learn about their bodies, and remember how to feel the power of their sexual energy again. I showed them how to listen to their bodies and trust the wisdom of Penis and Vulva, that contrary to what they’d been taught, their sex organs, arousal, desire were telling them the truth. Through their awakened sexual natures, they were receiving divine guidance and wisdom they could trust.

I helped men remember that they are KINGS, protectors and lovers of the earth and the feminine. They put down their guns and their balance sheets, and stopped believing that power meant domination. They remembered how to feel their power coursing within their bodies, minds, spirits, and hearts. They ceased to fear the Feminine, and Nature and one another. They ceased to fear Change.

I help women remember that they are DIVAS, powerful keepers of knowledge and wisdom. I showed them not to fear their rage, or turn it against themselves, or men. I showed them how to transmute rage into orgasmic power in the circle of women, and use it to heal themselves, men, the earth. They ceased to fear the Masculine, and Nature and one another. They ceased to fear Change.

The men and women I taught began to work together in ways not seen in remembered history.  They learned the healing power of singing, dancing, and orgasm. They remembered how to work intimately with the healing powers of the earth. They embraced their freedom and taught your parents and grandparents to be free. They had the courage necessary to face the crisis, to survive and thrive through the hard times. They let the earth teach them. They let you, the young ones, teach them, even before you were born.

Yes, children, I did important work when the earth and humanity was in crisis. I was misunderstood and sometime I was afraid. But I knew that helping people heal their sexuality was the only way to change the dream. Only orgasmic energy could generate enough power and bliss and liberation to awaken us from the trance that we are separate, that life is limited, that suffering is necessary, and our fellow humans are our enemy and threaten our survival. Only orgasmic energy could overcome our fear of death. Only orgasmic energy could imagine YOU, and keep a promise to you that you shall have an earth home and a life here too.

(if this post inspires or serves you, please consider retweeting it or linking to it on Facebook. I appreciate your sharing.)


Naked Coffee Friday: Betrayal

Tonight Nut Tmu-Ankh is offering the final Bliss Now: Orgasmic Relationships teleclass. Yes, I am plugging the class tonight, and the recorded series. It's incredible work, whether you are single or partnered.

The matter tonight is Secrets, Privacy, and Lies: Healing Betrayal. At the Orgasmic Living community, Nut has posted provocative questions and I haven't been able to answer them! This topic stymies me. 

So I bring it here for you to help me. Jealousy, betrayal, lying, secrets, privacy, possessiveness. It's as bad as it gets. Maybe you'd rather have your coffee somewhere else than talk about this subject today. But I hope you hang around.

When I was young I loved someone, the first time I felt the power and possibility of love--and sex.
I was ill prepared for any of it, blown completely off center by what I was experiencing. I lost myself in love, and in this other person. When he left me for someone else, it was beyond horrible. I did get over it, but it took 30 years! I tried never to inflict that kind of pain on someone, or be on the receiving end of it. But it happened anyway.

Nut Tmu-Ankh says this: BlissTip: property values have no place in our bonds of Love ☥

and "A love grudge can rob you blind, broke & Bliss-starved. You deserve so much more."

What is it about betrayal-- the rage and the pain-- that brings out more feeling of love? Is this love or ownership?  Why would we rather suffer than forgive? What make it so hard to move on if that 's the answer?

Are we wired for betrayal, on either side of the fence? Is monogamy a futile idea, or the result of a market ing campaign?  How does love among more than two people work? Which is our natural species tendency?

Come on, you must have opinions, beliefs, and experience around this topic.

What do you have to say for yourself?



Naked Coffee Friday: Say Vagina

Through the miracle of Twitter, I found this blog post by Dr. Lissa Rankin, at her OWNING PINK blog:

WHAT? We can't say Vagina?

I knew right then I was inviting her to Naked Coffee Friday! The comments at Dr. Lissa's blog and the comments when I shared her post on facebook reveal lots of feelings people have about the word Vagina. One of the most poignant came from somewhere (can't find it now) on Dr. Lissa's blog or from her book, What's Up Down There? A woman maintains that "that word" is only for her husband to use.

Divas, we own our bodies, our sex, our virginity, our desire, our orgasm, and all the words to name and describe them. Let us free our voices and tongues and along with Dr. Lissa and all the wombn of the world, say it out loud!

VAGINA!

The Naked Coffee Friday chant is I have a Vagina and I'm proud! Oooh! that feels GOOD!

Sing it out in the comments. (Kings, your voices are welcome to harmonize.)

You can celebrate your Vagina and her Vulva court with words, art, and ceremony, with a Vulva Portrait Ritual Bowl.

VPBgreenware


Sex does not=relationship - A Man's Advice to Women

Naked Coffee Friday! My world is scoured clean by fierce wind and rain. You may be buried under snow. I hope you have a snow day and can hang out with me for a while.

Sex does not=relationship - A Man's Advice to Women

Last week I came across this blog post and I wonder how it lands on you. I don't know the author's name (fill me in if you do). I read it as a lively, vehement reminder that women and men must be awake, self-responsible, and not living in fantasy-land when it comes to relationships and sex. Some of my favorites:

"Listen to what he says, NOT what you want to hear. Stop INTERPRETING the meaning of what he says to fit your purposes. If he says, "I'm not lookin' for nothing right now" --DON'T tell yourself, "Aw, he just scared of getting hurt. I can change his mind.." NO YOU CAN'T. He said exactly what the hell he meant. Men don't have to lie when so many women are already DEAF."

AND

"Show our ASS to the door if we pressure you for sex too soon."

What do you think? Do women bear some responsibility for men's bad behavior? And does it work opposite? Does that question also work if the genders are reversed?

I haven't had my coffee yet! I'll be back after a visit with my grinder and Aeropress.


Naked Coffee Friday: Language of intimacy?

It's already Friday! Time for us to gather round the woodstove for Naked Coffee. Tonight my teacher, priestess and friend, Nut Tmu-Ankh Butterfly, is teaching a teleseminar on Learning to Speak "Man". Last week I was on the call for Decoding your Diva. These two classes reveal the keys to Orgasmic Relationship, because as much as men and women love and desire each other, we just don't understand each other.

Yes, I am making a plug for the class: you can still sign up for this class tonight live, and order the whole series, including audios of past classes. I highly recommend the series if you are in a relationship, or are wanting to be in one, or want to understand yourself and the opposite sex better.

1 Merqueen and dolphin 300 I'll bet you've heard of the Mars and Venus theory of interplanetary Love (John Gray's book), and the mutual misunderstanding of the sexes is an archetypical theme of literature, film, and comedy. (It has been called a War!) We all have our own stories of high comedy and disaster that happen just because we don't understand each other's language, or even our energetic print marks.

Do you believe that understanding one another's gender language is essential to intimacy?

Share your aha! moments and your questions. How does this language difference play out in sex? If you are a healer working with men or women, what have you learned from your clients and what do you teach them about understanding their partners?

As always, anything goes, and everybody comes! What do you take in your naked coffee?


Naked Coffee by the Woodstove

72 lotusnude A Friday Feature of Orgasmic Alchemy blog is Conversation over Naked Coffee. In Summer we love to have our coffee naked in the garden, or on the screen porch. But it's Winter in Maine, and there is a howling snowstorm blowing outside. Let's huddle up the woodstove with a steaming cuppa and chat a while. Yes, you can have a blanket, this is a drafty old farm house. Throw another log on the fire. That's good. Thanks!

So what do you want to talk about? Yes, you get to choose the topic, ask some questions. OK, I'll start. Let's get warmed up, back right up the woodstove till our bums turn pink. My friend Pat shared this talk by Eve Ensler on TED, called Embrace your Inner Girl.  Let's watch together then talk about it in the comments below.



Wow! That's what Naked Coffee is all about! Getting naked with the truth, our feelings! What was the most powerful part of this video for you? Did you read through some of the comments? What are those folks resisting? Did this talk scare them? How are you feeling right now? Please sign in with typepad, facebook or twitter accounts, and leave your comments below. Can I heat up your cup there? More cream?