I ask this way, because sex is often made mundane or profane in our world, not the holy act it once was believed to be. When we use our sexuality in a casual way to manipulate each other, to secure gratification, love, devotion, money, power, intimacy or fringe benefits from another person, or to abuse one another, we are devaluing it's potential.
The greater picture of sexuality is that it can be a spiritual practice if we reorient ourselves to it and to each other. Sex is good medicine, if we let it be. It's a gift, and can be used as a weapon or it can be used as a portal of transformation. We each get to decide.
1. Respect and Reverence
We don't have to worship our partners to honour the erotic connection. We can, however, be in awe of the bond that is created and reinforced through intentional, consensual, mutual exploration and lovemaking.
2. Putting yourself first isn't Narcissism or Selfishness.
We don't even need a partner, we can love ourselves and learn how to better share love with others through self-acceptance and self-awareness.
3. There are many paths of discovery.
We don't have to be doing Tantra or some kind of esoteric sex magic to be doing sacred sexuality "correctly". We can discover the ritual of connecting however it manifests for us. It could be massage. It could be hand holding. It could be many ways we express our love and attraction.
4. Touch as a Non-Verbal Conversation.
Sharing pleasure that is an expressive communication of something, like adoration, commitment, or interest and active engagement can be spiritual.
5. Enjoying Being a Pleasure-Seeking Human is Not Hedonistic.
Loving our bodies involves embodying the divine physical as part of our self-expression as individuals part of a greater macrocosmic whole. This can be the love we have of our shape and form, the love we have of our scents and features, the love we have of our pleasure centers and their sensations, or just a general love with being a spiritual person in a material and often sensual world.
6. Positive interactions can be empowering.
We can choose to heal from abuse and past heartbreaks, disappointments, failures and traumas through finding ourselves, or with the help of our partner's patience and soul-nourishing actions and words.
7. Self-control and Sublimation.
We can be abstinent to focus our senses on our creative center (sacral hara chakra) or on other spiritual and magical pursuits.
8. Procreation is Pretty Special
We can make miracles with our reproductive systems! How is making a new life not godly? Is carrying a new life into the world not as sacred as ushering someone out at their passing?
9. Tools for Overcoming Habitual Attitudes
We can refuse to let sex become a mundane way of checking out, escaping, or being abusive toward others and ourselves, by centering, grounding, relaxing, using body awareness, intuition, and mindfulness in anything we do that is intimate.
10. Dignity
We can decide to have sovereignty over our bodies and our sexuality by making choices about our reproductive lives and romantic lives, which honours us as humans with rights.
11. Leading The Way
We can teach others how to make us feel good, which is an important aspect of nurture and non-verbal communication is a huge step in any caring relationship.
12. Channeling the Energy
We can choose our partners with intention, what world do we want to live in together, and can that be the child of promise or Great Work we create?
13. Modeling Positive Intimacy
We can choose not to fear or disdain public displays of (appropriate) affection. Thus letting us live in a world where love doesn't have to be a secret or taboo.
14. Experimenting with Courage
It's a way of exploring and conquering fear and insecurity, developing trust and "taking up space", meaning, finding confidence, validation and value in being unapologetically oneself without shame.
15. Spiritual Techniques Combined with Sex
We can practice energy work and breath work through exploring attraction and tension.
16. Mythic and Poetic
We can use the metaphor of spirit entering matter, or earth meeting sky, or primordial water enveloping the creator to describe our spiritually mindful intercourse. It can be the sacred marriage of hunter and nourisher.
17. Psychopomps
We can become widwives or doulas and help with birthing, an essential way to keep mothers and babies safe during the process of labour and aftercare, ensuring good reproductive health for mothers where possible and the chance that the children will grow up to be adults who can procreate and become elders, ancestors and wisdom keepers for others in their turn.
18. Invoking Higher Powers and Making Magic
We can become avatars of our higher powers or some of the gods and goddesses through the sacred act of exchanging life energy. We co-create something greater than just ourselves when we join each other in a vital and intimate way. We raise energy, we open possibilities, and allow ourselves to be vulnerable to feelings, sensations, thoughts and behaviours that we normally abstain from with our inhibitions. It's magical, and the release of neuro-chemicals and biological reactions sends out a creative burst, literally and figuratively in many cases, potentially making something transcendent out of something so primal and instinctual.
♥ Jacki