Hello good people,
I had the opportunity to attend a neo-tantra retreat in September and I can't believe it’s already December! Since the retreat, I have felt so rejuvenated and exhilarated, that I jumped right into collaborations and being my erotically extroverted self!
Then I hit a wall this week, where my body told me to come down off my energetic high and listen to my higher self. But how amazing and luxurious that high was! This enabled me to make some important changes in my life, write about my experience and share it with all of you.
So let's get into it. In September, I was invited by Barbara Carrellas, Author of Urban Tantra, to participate in her Urban Tantra professional retreat, and offer my moaning practice to the group.
If you joined my email list after the Pleasure-Filled vs Pain-Filled Moans newsletter, and the Moaning Through the Chakras newsletter see my blog entry here.
I had such an ecstatic, heart-centered and connected experience with my own body and curious play with others. After almost 10 years of being away from the erotically embodied community, due to co-parenting and caregiving, I had all but thought that the ecstatic part of me was gone. Because my work is my life and vice versa, I have still been teaching erotic embodiment, spirituality and Tantra to my clients and slowly building my Black Girl Tantra community, mostly online and some in-person.
Before Barbara contacted me, I believed that my Tantric Shaman program needed to be put on hold indefinitely; that I didn’t have it in me to do another one; that maybe it just wasn’t "who I am" anymore. However, attending this retreat for my own healing and pleasure while also getting to share my Black Girl Tantra moaning practice with the group, inspired me; and helped me remember who I am.
I got to re-experience what it was like to be touched lovingly, without an agenda. How it felt to breathe more fully and connect with subtle touch and orgasmic intuition, using the breath and presence. I was reunited with the importance of intimacy and the sacredness of play! And I got to do it with other black women in the room. Meaning I wasn't the only one this time! In the past, I was often the only fat, the only black, the only queer...etc. etc. But this time there were other queers, other people of size, other black bodies, and other people in my age group in the room and I got to experience beautiful platonic-intimacy with them. This is what I do this work for! Bridge building. Connection. Community!
I also noticed how my relationship to pleasure has changed as I’ve gotten older. I discovered how being my present slower, calmer self at 52, is just as important as my past, wild and care-free self in my 20's and 30's. I am older, a bit wiser, more rooted in my body, and with a new erotic complexity that is prismatically, multi-dimensional. I know myself more deeply. My erotic embodiment practices, my spirituality, my wife, friends and family help me through these tough times that I believe most, if not all of us, are experiencing.
I witnessed adults of various ages enjoy erotic practices, some for the very first time, and how beautiful and divine that awakening was! The erotic is expansive, vast, with infinite options that is hard to imagine until we practice it, feel it!
Nothing compares to the exhilaration and joy of being in my own body awareness and experiencing my own pleasure. The feeling of being asked what I want and given the spaciousness to feel into my answer fully, and doing the same for others. It is an intimacy and a mutual respect that is so sacred, so divine, and so necessary for my soul.
It reminded me of how important it is to connect on emotional and energetic levels, not just the physical. We miss so much when our only focus is on the physical. There is so much more to be experienced in the unseen world of our senses. There’s so much information for us to notice and play with.
This retreat rescued me from a stuck place. It helped me tap into my courage and self-confidence once again. It reminded me of why I do this sacred intimacy work, and how being a Tantric Shaman and Sexual Freedom Coach is my calling. It helped me to realize why it’s so important to have community and skilled facilitators who can hold space for it all. My goal is not only to help adults see their own erotic power, but to train BIPOC facilitators in these skills and practices. I believe that we can change the world, and the ways that we see and treat one another, through the universal expression of love.
So, my challenge to you, my dear friends, is to open up to more conscious explorations with touch, outside of the romantic realm, and invite in fuller breaths, stillness, play, joy, erotic movement and sensual creativity. This will help you focus on your inner energetic world as much as your physical world. This retreat reminded me of the power of my calling as a Sexual Freedom Coach and the sacredness of play, touch, and intimacy.
And…
It is never too late to find yourself in the fullness of your sensual-self and your magic again. 🪄✨💫