Energy Accounting: How Giving Up the Credit Card for Lent Improved my Orgasm

Jack in the Pulpit No. IV, Georgia O'Keefe

Originally posted April 9, 2012

See this article featured on elephantjournal.com 

I’ve never been into the ‘Lent’ thing. Raised a semi-faking-it Episcopalian in a sea of Southern Baptists, I was never really forced to adhere to a lot of religious dogma and ritual (thank God). Plus, that black, ashy cross on the forehead was more a Catholic thing, anyway. 

One year I told the youth minister at my church that I was giving up ‘boys’ for Lent. I was about fourteen years old and had only ever had one boyfriend (which lasted about a month) when I was thirteen. Plus I was too interested in making straight A’s and playing soccer to even care about the boys in my school (none of whom I was particularly drawn to anyway). It was a non-issue for me. 

Over the years, I saw how letting go of something for a period of time might work for other people, but I never saw myself as having any tangible addictions. Yeah I could give up alcohol—but really, the few glasses of wine I have a week? Will that really teach me a lesson? I rarely smoked, so that was off the table. And food? Well, I tried to give that up for seven years straight, but that’s another story.

Honestly, I saw trying to find something to give up for Lent about as useful as abstaining from dressing up Chihuahuas in fuzzy sweaters (the former I do not own and the latter I vehemently abhor).

But this year, something felt different. I’ve been digging deep lately into the way that I manage my energy. Exploring which circumstances leave me feeling energized and which ones leave me feeling drained. Where do I put my focus and where I ‘check out’ on life. How I busy myself with a bunch of little crap instead of concentrating on what will move me forward in my career. How I make up a bunch of excuses as to why I am not ‘successful’ yet, as opposed to feeling my desire and moving from her wisdom. How I will say ‘Yes’ to things I don’t really want to do because I am afraid ‘No’ will make me look selfish or will help me accrue credit with another person that I can cash in on a later date.

Enter my financial situation. It’s my belief that the way we do one thing is the way we do everything, and money is simply one expression of the way I cultivate and utilize the energy within and around me. And for the past three years, I have been living on borrowed energy. Oh sure, I started off with a hefty little supply of cash. But over time, I have been spending, spending, spending (with the best of intentions) and have done very little to deposit, deposit, deposit. Granted, it hasn’t been all whores and crack (joke, Mom), but when I finally came face to face with a 5-figure AmEx bill, something inside me went, “Um, Candice…this might be a problem.”

I do have some savings in an emergency fund. A little bit of cash in investments. And a Roth IRA. But over six weeks ago, I estimated that I had only about three more months of savings until I dug myself into serious hole. And this hole was fucking up a lot of my best-laid plans. “I gotta buy that MacBook Pro and that iPhone and that Red Prius and get my ass to LA so I can be in the movies and bring Orgasmic Meditation to Hollywood.”

But the truth is, if I want to even have a chance at accomplishing any of that, I have got to get my energy accounting in order. Financial, personal, relationship, career…you name it. I like to spend, but am not so good receiving.

This is where the power of Orgasmic Meditation comes in to play. I know, many of you are thinking, “What the hell does making money have to do with my orgasms?” But stay with me for a moment. I am going to expand the definition of orgasm and I invite you to do the same (but only if you want to…you can always pick up the old definition on the way out the door. No obligations. No questions asked.)

Most of us equate ‘orgasm’ with ‘climax’: you work yourself up to a boiling point, discharge a large amount of energy and crash over a sharp edge. That’s cool and all…AND that is only one landmark on an entire map of orgasm. The way I define orgasm is that it is the creative life force that births each moment. Yogis refer to it as ‘prana.’ Acupuncturists call it ‘chi’. Whatever floats your boat.

Sometimes this orgasm is low and soft and sweet. Other times it is sharp and scratchy and acrid. There are infinite expressions of orgasm in the world—from the sunshine dancing off the warm, green buds of spring, to the muddy, sticky floor-beds of a swamp. Everything has its own orgasmic, erotic, creative expression.

And through the practice of Orgasmic Meditation, we learn (stroke by stroke) how to tap into the orgasm, feel each nuance inside and relax and expand our ability to hold more of that energy, while still maintaining consciousness in that expansion. Because the way we often operate is once we reach a certain level of energy in the body, we will go unconscious, move into habitual autopilot and do everything in our power to get rid of it. We drink it away. We fuck it away. We Facebook it away. We eat it away. We starve it away. Or we push it down until it sits in our bodies and festers into bitterness and resentment (this is how misers operate—alone in their mansions with no friends or meaningful expressions of their life).

And this was the trouble with my finances. Occasionally I would do the clamp-and-horde dance, but 99% of the time, I would reach a certain level of ‘havingness’ and then I would spend my money…money I often didn’t have. I didn’t know how to hold it. My excuses were valid: Holding that much is greedy; I’m not responsible enough to hold that much; If I hold that much, then how can I play the poor little starving artist girl to get the attention that I want? You get the idea. And the way I rationalized spending the money was just to put those big purchases on the credit card. The phone bill. The plane tickets. The retreats. Let it just sit there.

But the thing with credit is that you build interest, and the same applies with your energy. If you spend $10 worth of energy that you don’t have, you not only have to pay off the $10, but you have to pay off a little bit more to just turn direction from spending to depositing. It’s a game of diminishing returns, which, if you play every once in a while, can be alright…but if you make it a habit, it becomes unsustainable.

And so, I found myself looking at my credit card statement about a week after Lent began and noticed that the last purchase was on Fat Tuesday. “Bingo!” cried Desire. This is exactly what you are meant to confront: 40 days of only spending energy if I had the immediate funds to sustain such a purchase. OK, I admit, there were a few times I had to use the card within the 40 days. There was an iTunes purchase that automatically charged my card. There was a day I was out with a friend and, due to a miscalculation in my checking account (my mistake), I had to use the card to cover lunch. And yes, there was that one (just one!) time I had to buy a $3 cappuccino. But I was cold. And it was Sightglass Coffee. And I reeeeeeeaaaaaaaallllyyyy wanted it.

However, over the 40 days, I managed to put only $61.42 on the card (not including the $68.71 in interest). It felt like some sort of breakthrough for me! But the point of the experience was less about could I manage to get through Lent without using the card and more about bringing a certain level of consciousness to how I spend. Like I discovered that travel means more to me than new clothes. I learned that I often play innocent when it comes to big purchases and just hope that ‘someday’ I’ll be able to pay it off (I call this the ‘Rose-Colored Glasses Syndrome’—like that energy-draining, co-dependent relationship with the drug addict who can’t admit his/her problem, and if you wait around long enough, maybe someday he/she will come around and get the help they need). And that I spend about a quarter of my food budget on Kombucha alone (Yeah. I know. Leave me alone).

And with this new level consciousness, I am now free to make an informed choice about how and when I spend my money. I learned more about what I value in my life and can now make purchases that are in alignment with my personal integrity, rather than out of trying to run away from feeling the hungers within me. And with this level of clarity, I am now sitting in position of empowerment, rather than ignorance. I know what I want in my life and I am willing to do what it takes to have it. And if that means dropping into the murky, dark shadows of my orgasm to drop off what no longer serves me, then so be it (even if that includes Sightglass coffee and a few Hippie Festivals).

PS: Of course, I couldn’t write an article with the word ‘Orgasm’ in the title and not mention sex; so for those of you wondering if this kind of accounting helps your sex life, the short answer is yes. However, it helps not by teaching you some technique or fancy way of stroking, but by bringing your attention to the present moment, cultivating sensitivity in your body and learning to trust the deeper desires that arise. Great sex/orgasm/climax is simply the by-product of this level of attention and capacity to hold energy. It’s like those people who step into a yoga class for ‘a great body.’ Yes, you will get ripped doing yoga, but that is the by-product of learning to slow down, feel and honor the subtle wisdom your body has to offer. The same is true in Orgasmic Mediation. We take the ‘goal’ of climax off the table and create a space where you simply get to know the landscape of your orgasm. It takes a bit more time and requires a lot of patience, but in the end, it is the most sustainable way for you to bring that level of aliveness and turn-on into the bedroom and into your everyday life.

You’re Right, Lee Aronsohn: There are Just WAY Too Many Women in Television

Lee Aronsohn, Creator of Two and a Half Men

Originally posted April 3, 2012

Dear Mr. Aronsohn,

I for one would like to personally applaud you for your cogent argument in last Sunday’s Hollywood Reporter that the time for women in television has peaked. When you said, “Enough ladies, I get it. You have periods…we’re approaching peak vagina on television, to the point of labia saturation,” I felt like pulling out my tampons and waving them in celebration! You’re so right! I am sick of seeing women and their ‘issues’ invading my male-dominated entertainment.

It’s not as if women’s issues are even relevant these days anyway. I mean, who’s really talking about abortion? Or contraception and reproductive rights? And the fact that women only make $0.77 for every man’s dollar in the US (which is so 2009)?  Personally, I’d take a fart joke any day.

Plus, women have their own television network, for chrissakes! When I’m in the occasional mood for vagina in crisis, there’s nothing that boosts my self-esteem more than a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and an evening of Lifetime: Television for Women.

Speaking of having their own channel, I’ve noticed a lot of black people hanging around the major networks these days. What’s say you and me start a rally to corral them back to BET? And the Hispanics! Shouldn’t they be all at Telemundo? Gay people have Bravo. Maybe the Asians could start something called the Oriental Express? And what’s up with that short dude on Game of Thrones?

I mean, it just feels like there’s some sort of invasion against the hetero-normative, white-male-centric sort of television that your show, Two and a Half Men, produces. But as you have stated, those times have peaked. I’m sure we’ll see those bitchy woman and their angry pussies heading back to the kitchen anytime now. Thank God women television writers are a vast minority! It shouldn’t take long to squeeze them out.

And as for bitchy women, I, for one, would like to formally apologize on behalf of all women for feeling angry and having a voice. My heart just ached for you when you said, “We are centering the show on two very damaged men. What makes them damaged? Sorry, it’s women. I never got my heart broken by a man.” I can understand. I mean, it’s not as if men (and people in general) are responsible for the wreckage in their lives. It couldn’t be that your characters are deeply insecure and use women as a way to assuage their pain (only to find out later that the mother/whore they created in their mind doesn’t match the three-dimensional human before them). And I’m sure these men don’t have an ounce of attachment in their relationships, which could be the root cause of their suffering.

No. You’re right. Project all that pain on those f*cking women.

And so, Mr. Aronsohn—sage, visionary, mouthpiece for our times—I raise my sugar-free, virgin daiquiri in your honor and salute you.

Now, if we’re done here, I’m gonna head back to the latest episode of 30 Rock (oh…wait a minute…)

The Wisdom Behind Yoga Sex Scandals: Evolution, Cults and the Death of Guruism

Originally posted March 16, 2012

Also published on elephantjournal.com under the name "The Cult of Personality: Sex, Evolution & The Death of Guruism"

Yes, yes, yes…another article deconstructing the John Friend/Anusara yoga sex scandal. But not really. My focus is less on Mr. Friend specifically and more on the bigger picture and forces at play. Like any painful episode in our lives (and any pleasurable one for that matter), I try to look beyond the circumstances, avoid playing the ‘blame game’ and peer into the heart of what’s happening on a deeper level and, hopefully, discover the lesson to take away from the experience.

The title of this article is not meant to make light of recent events. During my time as a yoga teacher, I knew many good people who taught in the Anusara style and they positively influenced me. I am sorry for those who are suffering the loss of their spiritual foundation and wish healing both for them and for Mr. Friend. Elena Brower, one of the former senior level teachers of Anusara, put it eloquently in her recent article in the Huffington Post when she said, “Now I stand for forgiveness, and the possibility that John can deliver, one by one, the necessary well-wrought apologies. That he can true up his past and truly heal -- in honor of his family, his school, his teachers, and his students.”

When the story first hit mainstream media, William J. Broad of the NY Times proposed that it was Hatha yoga’s ability to heighten sexual experience by making the “pelvic regions…more sensitive and orgasms more intense”, as well as its original intention to “speed the Tantric agenda”, that lead to a myriad of sexual indiscretions in the yogic world. He goes on to rail against ancient Tantric practices, noting that “the rites of Tantric cults, while often steeped in symbolism, could also include group and individual sex. One text advised devotees to revere the female sex organ and enjoy vigorous intercourse. Candidates for worship included actresses and prostitutes, as well as the sisters of practitioners.” To suggest it was some sort of spiritually-induced Viagra that lead to Mr. Friend’s unmaking is (how to put this tactfully) dumb as hell. (Side rant: Seriously dude. Thanks for contributing another layer of shame to our already closeted sexual expression, especially that related to feminine desire).

Maia Szalavitz from Time challenges his argument, stating that many men in positions of power, from John Kennedy to Newt Gingrich (neither of them yoga gurus), have used their status as a means to commit sexual impropriety. She concludes by noting that the issue at hand revolves less around uncontrollable arousal and more around “men, women and power.”

I lean heavily in favor of Ms. Szalavitz’s perspective on the issue with one minor adjustment: I think this goes beyond sex and money and men and women and is simply a matter of power—specifically of people choosing to give their minds over to someone or something outside of themselves so that they don’t have to think or wrestle with difficult decisions. Some people also choose to hand over their power in an effort to gain approval and to feel like they belong somewhere.

Why do we do this? For all the noise we make about our ‘freedoms’ and ‘rights’ and how we want to be ‘masters of our own destinies’, we tend to choose bondage more often than not. The bottom line answer is FEAR. We fear the unknown, and so we make up excuses as to why we don’t need to venture out into it. We fear our own power and the level of responsibility that comes with that, and so we make up stories about how we are victims and how ‘other people’ have left us powerless. We fear that which we can not explain, and so we make up gods or adhere to oversimplified dogma to make sense of it all. We fear being alone or cast out of society, and so we morph ourselves into people so far removed from who we really are in order to feel loved and accepted.

I say all of this not out of scorn or condemnation, but in utter compassion. I can understand why we do these things, for I have done them many times myself. It keeps us feeling safe and sane. It’s a way to get our immediate needs met. It’s a survival mechanism.

And it is evolutionarily outdated. There was a time when most human beings’ daily focus was to survive—like for real. As in, we were going to freeze to death or be a hungry lion’s dinner if we didn’t build a tight shelter or make some serious weapons. The daily grind didn’t consist of a bagel and a subway ride to the cubicle, but of hard labor in the hot sun and a 3-mile-long walk to the closest water source. So when weird, mysterious shit happened, like eclipses and droughts, and someone told us the way to protect ourselves was by following some code or set of rules, we did it because our lives were on the line. Not many people had the time to focus on figuring out scientific phenomena, since the majority of the day was dedicated to serving the basic needs of food, water, procreation and excretion. And if we questioned the status quo, we faced the possibility of banishment, which wasn’t just about hurting our feelings, but could be a death sentence. The family unit was our tribe—our protection against outside threats. Homeostasis kept us alive.

Fast forward a few hundred years and up a few levels on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Now we don’t need to hunt and gather for our next meal—we can just pick up the phone and call the local Chinese delivery guy. Clean water flows from indoor taps just a few feet from where I’m sitting. Heating and air conditioning keep us from dealing with harsh climates. We can hop on a plane and arrive (relatively) comfortably anywhere in the world within twenty-four hours. The world is connected in ways we have never experienced through the internet and knowledge is shared in the click of a mouse. We find Toyota, Apple and Coca-Cola even in the poorest of countries.

Yes, I am aware that a startling number of the world’s population continues to live in abject poverty. However, this is not for lack of resources or technology, but is a result of the very fear of which I speak. This fear that tells us food and love and money and sex and safety are scare. This is the fear that drives our greed, our hoarding, our need for approval, our instinct to kill the competition, to cling to homeostasis and color within the lines. The fear created by what Seth Godin calls the ‘lizard brain.’

And the way we often appease the lizard brain is by finding a home for its fear within structure and sticking to that. Giving over responsibility for our thoughts and our psychic growth to something outside of ourselves. It’s a lot easier (and less messy) than actually thinking for ourselves and making big, public belly flops while trying to discover our authentic voice. But soon we begin to identify with this external structure and even idolize it, looking past any warning signs that may suggest that the façade hides a lack of integrity. And, to me, it is this identification, idolization and dependence on validation given to something outside of ourselves that makes something a ‘cult.’

When most people think of a cult, the images that usually pop up are of secret sex clubs, human sacrifices, spaceships and Kool-Aid induced mass suicides. And in Mr. Broad’s NY Times article, he was quick to dismiss the validity of Hatha yoga based on his judgment that it was a spin-off of a ‘Tantric cult.’ However, my belief is that we are surrounded by thought-replacement machines—many have simply passed the tipping point of social acceptability, and so we give them names like religion (the Bible tells me so), media (CNN tells me so) and celebrity (Paris Hilton tells me so). You have people addicted to diet cults (Atkins says I can’t eat this), beauty cults (I have to have this kind of mascara/haircut/designer outfit) and political cults (I will only vote for this candidate because he/she is Republican/Democrat/Libertarian/Green).

You get the idea.

And there exists a certain breed of people just as insecure and afraid of their shadows as we are. But their way of managing the lizard brain is through surrounding themselves with worshippers to make up for their lack of self-confidence. Whether the number of ‘devotees’ be one or one million, it doesn’t really matter. In Brooks Hall’s recent elephantjournal.com article, she quotes The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power by saying that a guru is “a metaphor for anyone who manipulates under the guise of ‘knowing what’s best’ for them, whether leaders, mothers, or lovers.” She goes on to say that since many of us grew up in authoritarian homes, we had to depend on some ‘other’ to make decisions for us and consequently are “crippled by self-mistrust.”

And this is why it is so common for us to turn a blind eye to our own personal ‘cults’ when we know in our deepest core we are living a life out of integrity from what we really want. Our desires are clouded with this self-mistrust, lizard-brain fear and samsaric grooves so deep that we don’t even think to question the status quo.

Please note that I am not saying there is anything wrong with any of the aforementioned groups. We also don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Jesus had some pretty cool things to say. Media keeps us relatively well-informed of current events. Wanting to wear the latest designer dress doesn’t make you a mindless, Barbie-automaton. And I do hope that the wisdom within Anusara yoga finds its place. But it is when we abdicate our power and personal authority to these ‘cults’ and to the ‘gurus’ that run them that things get dicey. The band Living Colour put it perfectly in their song ‘Cult of Personality,’ when they sang “You gave me fortune/You gave me fame/ You gave power in your God’s name.”

And now, in a totally transparent moment of irony, I am going to quote the Buddha. He says, “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” This is a teaching that resonates deeply with me on many levels. First it acknowledges the Buddha’s own humanity. He doesn’t claim to be one ‘who knows best’ and levels the playing field by standing next to his students, rather than reigning supreme over them. Second, it creates the space for multiple perspectives and for the possibility that all of them are equally valid (which, for me, is a huge indicator of spiritual evolution). And finally, it offers us the freedom to experiment with life. Rather than taking what we see and hear at face value, we now have permission to go out, test it, make stupid-ass mistakes, learn and create—for it is oftentimes in our ‘mistakes’ that we make fantastic discoveries beyond our imagination, which contributes to the evolution of humanity.

And so, this is our challenge as a species. To grow. To evolve. To think for ourselves and ask the tough questions like “Who am I?” and “What do I want?” And it will be through this rigorous inquiry (and very many dark nights of the soul, no doubt) that we can begin to walk more confidently through life, ok with who we are and without the need to try to force others to be something they are not. Then, hopefully, the prevalence of ‘cults’ and ‘gurus’ will fall away. We will simply see each other as people and things like yoga and religion and culture won’t be ideologies we fight over, but edges we are curious to explore. Teachers won’t be omniscient gods we worship, but ordinary human like us who maybe a have a different perspective and a few extra years of experience. We will participate in a free exchange of ideas. If a teaching resonates with you, great! Add it to your toolbox. If not, drop it. It may not serve you, but it might prove invaluable to someone else on their journey.

Ultimately it’s up to us whether or not we choose a life of freedom or of bondage. Freedom is certainly not an easy pursuit (I am certainly far from achieving it), but it seems the only satisfying way for me to live now. Each day I meet my fear and each day it is a practice to listen to ‘the one who knows’ who lives in my heart. But if each of us begins to play for our own personal freedom, then maybe the gurus of old will no longer need to act like they have all the answers, but can offer true guidance inspired by Living Colour’s words, “You won’t have to follow me/Only you can set you free.”

Addicted to Daddy: Hunger and the Search for the Integrated Masculine

Sistine Chapel, Michaelangelo

Originally posted March 7, 2012

I hit a pretty hard low yesterday. I played it off as “I’ve just been working too hard” and “I’ve got PMS” and “It’s almost a full moon,” but something in me knew I was lying. I woke up around 3am the night before. I had had a dream, but couldn’t quite remember it. I was shivering. I had three comforters on me, a pair of pants, thick socks and a sweatshirt—and I could not warm up to save my life. I wasn’t really sweating. It didn’t feel like a fever. But something in me was stagnated. Cold. And my blood just didn’t have the strength to flow. My legs were shaky and I could barely stand. I got up, put on a thermal shirt and went back to sleep.

Later, I woke up around 7:30am exhausted, but focused. I got some work done, but by 12:30pm, I had to lie down. After two hours, I woke up, heavy and extremely depressed. “Oh God,” I thought to myself, “What is going on? I do not have the will to even get out of this bed.”

I finally did drag myself out of my pit of depression and decided a salt bath would be a good idea. I figured immersing in the warm feminine would be a healthier way to draw out this painful energy, rather than stuffing it down with Girl Scout cookies or glasses of scotch. So there I was, heavy and silent in the bathtub, with my most depressing song mix playing on my iPod, when it all flooded back to me—the dream that woke me up at 3am.

I was with my ex-husband. We were at my mother’s house in Georgia. I don’t remember what we were talking about exactly, but the feeling was like meeting a dear friend again. Laughing, sweet. A glowing warmth surrounded us. He turned his back to me and the next words I heard were not his voice, but my father’s. I was then interacting with my father in that same warm glow. We spoke for some time. Then I saw that it was nearly 6:30. The wife would be home from work soon and it was time for me to go. There was no room for the both of us. At that point, I think my father has blended into my ex-husband again, so I am unsure if the woman coming home was my stepmother or my ex’s current partner. It really doesn’t matter who the woman was. What matters is the feeling of loneliness, the hollowness in my chest and the tight ball in my throat. Again, I had the sense of “bucking up” and “being a big girl” in order to make room for those around me.

Back in the bathtub, hot tears prickled my eyes and dripped down my cheeks. My heart cracked and a thick warmth dripped down my chest. The pressure in my throat grew to a painful, sharp ache. I tried to relax my body and breath, but there was a nausea coming over me and I had a feeling like I could not hold anything else inside of me. I heard my roommate just outside the door and quickly choked up to muffle my sobs. I was vibrating with a mix of sadness, anger and embarrassment. I was shaky and could barely breathe.

I realized that while I have been working to reconnect to my tamped down feminine, I have neglected to acknowledge my hunger for an integrated masculine. I am consciously choosing the word ‘integrated’ and steering clear of the words ‘divine’ and ‘spiritual’ because those tend to refer a way of masculinity that tries to ‘rise above’ and ‘transcend’ the body, the mud, the blood, the anger and all other ‘unpure’ and ‘unsavory’ expressions of energy. But the feminine thrives in that fleshy, earthy world and if we try living only from the waist up, we disconnect ourselves from our raw power.

An ‘integrated’ masculine, however, knows how to go down deep, stand firm in the fire and can come back up to the surface with vision and clarity while still staying connected to the feminine. The integrated masculine does not live in shame of its feminine counterpart, but is strong enough to be the container for it, so that whatever wildness arises, it can hold it all and weather the storm. And when the storm has passed, the integrated masculine knows just the right moment to dissolve and move on to wherever desire leads it next.

OK, so what does all this mean in the ‘real world.’ My personal brand of masculine hunger (and one to which I believe many people can relate) is an Addiction to Daddy. This means seeking out men who will take care of me and provide stability in some way, either financially (the men with the nice cars and the money who will whisk you away to fancy dinners and trips to exotic locales) or emotionally (the men who are connected to their feelings and will love you and bend to your will every time). This addiction comes coupled with a level of insecurity and shame that has me dying to feel loved and approved of. So a shadow arises in which I need these men to believe that I am the most gorgeous, smart, amazing, perfect, fill-in-the-positive-adjective woman they have ever met. Yet, when my desire meets the reality of the situation (I really don’t want to be in a relationship with these men), I end up leaving. After a while though, the hunger starts to gnaw at me again and the cycle begins once more.

The thing is addicts tend to attract addicts. So while I am seeking this hit of masculine approval, the men are looking to connect to their wounded feminine through me. They get to play out being the stable provider and the one who fixes all the problems—everything a ‘real’ man should be. Unfortunately then, we are all walking around relating to each other as drugs, rather than as humans, and we use the hooks of romance, relationship and porn for our hit.

It is also my belief that society feeds this addiction through selling the ever-pressing need to ‘find a mate.’ Millions of hungry women are all over dating web sites. Hungry women go to the movies and feed on the idea that ‘if only I find my soulmate, then I will live happily ever after.’ Women’s magazines (purchased by hungry women) are plastered with headlines like “How to Hook Him and Keep Him Forever” and “3 Easy Steps from Single to Saying ‘I Do’”.

And make no mistake—I am not speaking only about heterosexual relationships. This isn’t about men and women, but masculine and feminine. What we are dealing with is an overall dearth of an integrated masculine energy. So whether you are homosexual, trans, bi, whatever—we are all looking to fill in those energetic places in ourselves where we feel we are lacking. So a feminine-energy man may go seeking a masculine-energy man. Or a feminine-energy woman may go seeking a masculine-energy woman. Whatever. The point is that this is a universal way of managing our hunger.

I have seen Daddy Addiction manifest in many ways. With people who had the ‘ideal’ father, they may be serial monogamists, constantly seeking out that one man good enough (and he never is) to fill daddy’s shoes. In people with absent fathers, they may glut on masculine energy through constant dating and one-night stands. Still others may surround themselves with vibrators and romance novels and fantasies (to get the feel of interacting with the masculine) but are too afraid to connect with another person.

I also believe in the past years, there has been a stigma attached to anything that is too ‘masculine’, particularly in the spiritual/transformational world. I know many people who say things like ‘Oh, that’s the masculine way. You are not going with the flow. You are not feeling into me. What’s with all the boundaries?” Blah blah blah. Listen. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with structure or the masculine, just like there is nothing ‘wrong’ with chaos and the feminine. One is not ‘better than’ the other. In fact, with integration, they both support each other in ways infinitely greater than if each tries to work on their own.

Yes, as women, we have had to work hard in order to rise above the centuries of cultural shame that has come with carrying feminine energy. And there is still work to do. In the US, women continue to make only $0.77 to every man’s dollar (1). The crackdown on homosexuality, especially in males, is another example it. And of course there is the pervasive oppression, circumcision and torture of women in other part of the world.

However, blindly reacting in rejection and anger to the masculine is not the way towards healing. This will only lead to shadowy attempts at sneaking a fix of masculine energy (Daddy Addiction, in my case). What I am finding to be true for myself is that the more I peel the layers of shame on the feminine within me, the more I can trust my masculine to support her and stay connected to her desires as we all move on the journey. So my dream had less to do with my ex-husband or my father, and more to do with the relationship with my own internal masculine, first by acknowledging and feeling my anger/grief and then learning to love and forgive that energy within me. With that forgiveness, comes relaxation and space for my authentic feminine to arise, integration to happen and internal healing to begin.

Once we have learned to cultivate an integrated masculine and authentic feminine, we no longer grip onto others as crutches or fillers for our own insecurity. We are ok with being alone with ourselves. And our deepest hungers get nourished. From here, relationship becomes a choice, rather than a compulsion, and true unconditional love can arise—because we don’t need the person to be anything other than who they are. And however the relationship expresses itself, we can flow with that and see the conflicts that arise (because they inevitably will) not as places to project all our latent anger, but as opportunities for knowing ourselves better.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. It all sounds nice on paper, but in practice, it is tough as hell. I see all the places where I grip to a hollow masculine. I force myself to ‘be productive’ even when my body knows it needs a rest. I cling to people for their attention and approval in order to feel ok about myself. I hold myself back emotionally because I have shame around admitting my hunger. All these add weight to my bouts of depression and leak energy, contributing to my frigidity and exhaustion.

But I also have clarity and insight that would not have come had I not fully walked into the knot of my pain. And through developing this skill and sensitivity, I know who I am a little better, can express it more easily and feel more compassionate towards myself. These are the gifts of the shadow, harvested in the depths of my feminine and can now be shared with the world through language, structure and a more integrated masculine. 

Hunger: A Short Story

Fort Cemetery at Watson Mill Bridge State Park in GA. Copyright Jamie Holdorf, www.serendipisea.com

I’m standing on the side of the road under a flickering streetlamp (the only streetlamp on this drag) after an excruciating night at the bar. 4am. My feet hurt. My lower back clenches. And the cut on my neck hums dully throughout my body. The faint smell of blood and beer still hangs on me.  I think back on the past few hours…

Gary usually stops by every Saturday for his fix. Loud. Crude. Angry. Your typical drunkard. He prefers cheap beer straight from the bottle. I knew he had reached his limit three drinks before the incident, but my greed overrode my better judgment. Plus he’d never gotten violent before. Maybe a belligerent rant or two, but nothing like tonight. Apparently his wife is cheating on him…or so he believes. I can’t remember all he was saying—I was only half listening. He never really talked much about her, except to complain every once in a while about how she rarely put out and when she did it was like fucking a cold fish. Honestly, I thought to myself, I couldn’t really blame her. I imagined having sex with him would be like having a reckless jackhammer slamming into me. I would have to shut down every bit of feeling just to survive the experience.

But when he started accusing everyone at the bar of sleeping with his wife, I had to step in.

“Gary,” I tell him, “It’s time for you to get a cab.”

“I don’t take orders from you, bitch,” he slurs.

I’ve been working here for so long (what's it...ten years now, right after high school?) that I’ve learned not to take it personally.

“Gary, c’mon man. You’re drunk. I’m going to call you cab and you’re going to go home and sleep it off.”

“Home?!” he cries. “Home…there is no home. There is no bed. There is no sleeping next to that…that…” His voice strangles a bit as he collapses onto the bar. Jim, another regular who spends his money slowly nursing Rusty Nails, catches Gary and tries to help him stand back up. Gary’s wounded pride must have hit its limit in that moment, because he suddenly roars back to life, grabs Jim’s glass and hurls it across the room, screaming, “I don’t need your help, motherfucker!”

“Gary!” I cry. Without thinking, I reach out to restrain his monstrous limbs. His angry fingers wrap around the empty longneck he just finished. A scream like nothing I’d heard before emanates from within him as he swings the bottle at my head. I duck just in time, but in his drunkenness, he doesn’t have a very solid grip on the bottle, so it slips from his hand and smashes into the glowing display of alcohol behind me. Glass shatters everywhere. Liquid rushes down the damp, dusty wood. I cover my head and squeeze my eyes shut, but not before a slice of broken bottle ricochets off the back wall and hits me in the neck.

“FUCK!” The stabbing pain buckles my knees and I have to lumber down to the end of the bar to avoid collapsing into a pile of shredded glass. My hand instinctively finds its way to the side of my neck. Blood, more than one typically wants to see coming from one’s own body, streams between the webbing of my fingers. At least I don’t feel any glass. Must’ve bounced off me.

In the chaos, five or six men manage to hold Gary down long enough for him to surrender the fight. He now lies on the ground, weeping, with his demons exposed. Were it not for the throbbing pain in my neck and the blood matting up my hair, I might feel sorry for him.

“Out! Everyone out now,” the manager, barks. He simply goes by JB. No last name. He’s on the shorter side, but built like a brick. Thick and wide. Late 60’s. Worked here for as long as I can remember. He doesn’t say much, but when he does speak, you listen.

It’s close to 2am. Most of the people have already paid their bills and those that don’t throw some wadded-up cash onto the bar as they rush out into the cool night. No doubt a relief compared to the thick, acrid stench inside. Gary half mumbles apologies as Jim carries him towards the door.

“I’ll take him home with me,” Jim says. Once the place is clear, I start to regain some awareness of my body. I’m a little frozen. Shocked. Except for the gash on my throat, I have lost sensation in other parts of my body. As I stand in the heavy silence, I exhale and feel my limbs melt a little. Warmth comes back to my feet and hips, as an exhaustion like I have never known sweeps over my eyes. I swoon a bit.

“You ok?” JB inquires. He’s less concerned with my health and more interested in making sure that he doesn’t have to take care of me. He’s always been uncomfortable when dealing with delicate matters. He’s a practical man. Intimacy is not something he does well.

“I’ll be ok,” I say.

“Well, take a few moments and then we’ll clean up.” He hands me a glass of water and I soothe my scorched throat. As I slide onto a stool, he heads to the back. I stare absently at the wreckage littering the spot where I stood just 10 minutes ago. JB returns with a broom, a dustpan and a metal garbage can. He starts sweeping up and throwing away mounds of glass in crashing chunks.

“I’ll be right back,” I say and head off to the bathroom to survey the damage. Despite the circles under my eyes and the glassy stare, everything looks alright. The cut is already starting to clot. It felt a lot worse in the moment than it actually was. The wound itself is relatively superficial. Just glad it didn’t hit any major blood vessels. I run some water over a wad of disposable brown paper towels and gently dab my neck. It feels cool and sharp. After a few rounds of this, I head back out to help JB.

Two hours later and we are finally locking up.

“We’ll take care of inventory tomorrow—er, um, later today,” JB tells me. “Just get some sleep and be back here at 4:30. If you need the day off, I understand, but I could really use your help here if you can make it.”

“I’ll be here,” I say. I don’t even pause to think about whether or not I want to. I just say yes. Like always.

“Good. Well then…see you later.” He makes his way to his truck. “Hey…uh…you want a ride?” he asks, as he turns to look at me.

“No thanks,” I answer back, a little shocked at this gesture of goodwill. “I’m fine.” Without a word, he heads towards his red Chevrolet, gets in and drives off.  I’m surprised I declined his offer. I mean, after all the drama of the evening, a ride home would be nice. But something in me needs the clean air, the solitude, the quiet. Besides, I feel too buzzed to go home now, especially after drinking all that coffee while cleaning the bar. A walk will do me good, I think to myself. I jog across the road, but instead of heading straight home, I lean against the pole with the flickering light.

My mind drifts to Gary. How long has he been married? 15? 20 years? How could his wife have stood it for so long? I mean, I don’t know the whole story, but if his behavior is any indication of their home life, my guess is that she’s probably not a very happy woman. He’s clearly a sad, wretched man. My heart drops a little at this discovery.

At least I’ve got James, I think. He’s a decent guy. Nice enough. Hardworking. Wants the best for everyone. True, our sex life has dwindled over the 6 years we’ve been living together, but that happens to all couples, right? I mean, he works during the day and I work nights, so finding the time and energy to get all hyped-up and hot and horny isn’t high on either of our priority lists.

I feel a sort of heaviness wash over me. A thick ball presses into my throat as I think back to the first sweet months of our relationship. How we couldn’t get enough of each other. How our sex was like this fantastic erotic playground. The light tickle on the back of my fingers while barely touching the hairs on his cheek. His front teeth slowly biting down on my nipple until a sharp, painful rush of heat rolled over my breasts. The electric current pulsing through the tips of our tongues when we lingered in a kiss.

The heaviness gives way to a sort of hollowness. A black void opens in my chest that travels down to my belly—and then shifts to my genitals. When was the last time I had my pussy touched? Or even looked at, for that matter…

The thick ball in my throat rises. My face flushes. My forehead feels tight. An internal pressure builds to where I can no longer control the tears swelling in my eyes.

“It’s just been a long night,” I lie to myself. The tears back down for a moment, though my fingers start to tremble. For in that black void sits a burning, unavoidable truth.

I’ve had enough. And not just tonight. With everything. My life feels somehow…empty. My days consist of cleaning the house and catching up on sleep. My nights consist of emotionally managing men with a painfully unquenchable thirst.

And me? What about my thirst? What about my…what? What is this…hunger? I feel like one of those people who hasn’t eaten in so long that she has forgotten what hunger feels like.

I glance up and catch a masculine-looking shadow not twenty feet away from me. My defenses instantly snap into place, like a puffer fish flaring her blades. Who is he? How long has he been there? Has he been watching me this whole time?

I check my watch. 4:30. I’ve been here for half an hour already. Was he waiting for me to exit the bar? It’s not like someone to be hanging around alone this time of the night. There’s nothing else in this area but a bridal shop and a cemetery down the road.

I start walking. Quickly. My body is buzzing and I am holding my breath as I rush down the street. My feet scrape carelessly along the sidewalk, leaving a jagged, scratching sound in their wake. Behind me beats the brisk, steady rhythm of heel to cement. I fly past the bridal shop to my right (how many times had I gazed longingly at its offerings of layered, white organza) and head towards the cemetery. Normally I hate walking through here, but the groundskeeper lives on the other side and if I can make it to his place in time, hopefully it will deter my shadow.

I race to the iron gate, affixed between two, six-foot high, rectangular columns of cement. I curse under my breath to find it closed. I locate the latch and use all my strength (what little is left) to lift it up. It’s not locked, thank God. But I have lost precious seconds and I nearly freeze in horror to see my pursuer only three long strides away from me. I slip inside the gate, but as I try to close the door, he catches it in time and swings it open, sending me nearly flat on my back. I regain my footing and turn to run, but I don’t make it more than four steps before one arm grips around my waist and another wraps around my shoulder to cover my mouth. We stand there suspended in the moment for what could have been between thirty seconds and three hours. I feel my pelvis press firmly into the hard angles of his hips. His belly is methodically breathing into my spine, while I struggle to manage the chaotic symphony of my rasping chest. My mouth is slightly agape. I can taste the salty, acidic wetness of his palm. The hot moisture of his breath tickles my left ear and makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Eventually, my rigidity gives way. I melt into the warmth of his body in surrender. I know I am outmatched. He feels this shift in me.

“Good girl,” he whispers.

He guides us towards a mausoleum about forty feet ahead of us. We turn into the tomb and he presses me face-first into the corner made by the entrance and the left wall. The heady scent of wet limestone and stale mushrooms nearly asphyxiates me. He spins me around and we are, for the first time, face to face. Though it’s dark outside, the glow from the streetlamp creates enough light for me to make out his features.

I instantly recognize him. He started coming around the bar a few months ago. Early 40’s. Dark hair. Fairly good-looking, if it weren’t for the fact that the right side of his mouth was totally paralyzed—though that never really bothered me. He always sat at the left edge of the bar, where the wood started to curve away from the main stretch. He never talked to anyone. Never drew attention to himself. I didn’t ask for his name and never thought much about him, except for the curious fact that the only thing he drank was soda water with lime—an odd choice for a hardcore dive bar.

“I know you know me,” he says, as if he can read my thoughts through the changing expressions of my face. “And I know how miserable you are. I know you want more, so much more.”

I stand there, fascinated, vacillating between repulsion and unspeakable attraction. Who is this guy to chase me down in a fucking graveyard just to tell me about my life? What had I ever done to him? What did he want from me? And why was I all of a sudden hungering for him to pull me deeper inside him? A magnetic current swirls up from my feet, my legs, between my thighs, to my chest and washes over my face. Despite the darkness, I was positive he could see the reddening in my cheeks. Something in me hated him for that, for feeling me so deeply without asking my permission. And yet…another part of me, some part that had been dry and hidden for so long, wanted him to feel me even more.

He looks at my face for quite some time. I’m not sure if he’s contemplating what to do with me or if he is just curious. His gaze is intense, but I stay with him. I’m still a little on high alert, but I also don’t want to miss a drop of his exquisite attention. He traces his finger over the arch of my brow, down my cheek and along the edge of my jaw. I gasp a little when he strokes the gash on my throat, but it’s more in anticipation than in pain. He furrows his brow a little and peers into my eyes, as if asking for permission. I nod my head once and he brings his mouth down to my neck. He draws the tip of his tongue along the wound. A prickly, stinging sensation stretches over me, but I surrender to his touch.

“Mmm,” he murmurs, as if he has just eaten something delicious. “I want to taste all of you.” He bends his misshapen mouth to mine and the cool, freshness of his kiss is irresistible. Like cold lemon-water in the middle of a desert. I reach my tongue deeper into his mouth. I want all of me inside of him. I want him to consume me…and at the same time, I want to consume him. To suck him deep into me. To envelope his flesh with mine.

He pulls away a bit and the hand near my face glides down my chest, over my abdomen and to the top of my pants. He unbuttons my black jeans and slips his hand down the front. His first two fingers curl in and slowly slide into me. Once he’s inside, I become keenly aware of the thick, heavy wetness dripping from between my legs. My walls ache and pulse around his fingers. He pushes them in a little deeper. A low groan escapes my throat. He holds me here, suspended in the chasm between my wanting and my satisfaction. In this space I would normally rush to have him fuck me hard, but this time, there is something so different, so expansive happening within me that I don’t dare move a muscle.

Unhurried, he pulls out of me and I can feel almost every ridge and crease of his dry, cracked fingers. He brings his forefinger towards his face. He brushes it against his mouth and then in one single move, he places it on his tongue, wraps his lips around it and pulls it out, sucking up all the juice. He then takes his middle finger and brings it near my mouth. I lick my lips and open them wider. He slides his finger in my mouth and a rush of sweet, salty warmth cascades over my tongue. He draws his finger out and I linger in the moment with my eyes shut.

I open my eyes to find his devilish, lopsided smile reflecting back at me.

“So?” he asks.

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

I blink in confusion. No? He’s telling me no? No what? Why is he here if not to fuck me? I want him. He clearly wants me. What’s wrong? Did I do something wrong?

Again, reading the emotional storm through my silent expressions, he softly laughs and says, “This is how I always want to remember you. Hungry. Open. Vulnerable. Consumed by desire. I want every moment of your life to be this electric. This…alive.”

And as quickly as he came upon me, he makes his escape into the breaking dawn. I remain glued to the mausoleum wall. The coldness of the stone is no match for the heat coursing through my body. My brain can’t make sense of what just happened. I begin shaking. What…was…that? Should I go after him? Should I go home? How can I go back home? Is it possible to go back? Do I want to go back?

My thoughts collide until I can think no more. I stand stunned. Frozen. Then, in my mental blankness, I suddenly recall a line from years ago (tenth grade English?) that brings everything into perfect focus:

What’s done cannot be undone.

The truth of who I am is so undeniable that I have no choice but to follow the path that has opened before me. No, I will not be meeting JB at the bar at 4:30. No, I will not be returning home to James. No, I will not be confined by the walls of this town. And no, I will not be running away from my hunger anymore.

My body starts to float back down to the earth. A few more minutes pass. My cells settle into my skin. My feet feel firm and connected to the ground beneath me. I peel myself away from the wall, head out of the tomb and walk towards the cemetery gates. I exit the iron door, still standing agape from the struggle earlier (a moment that seems like a lifetime ago), and I stand silently on the street. I inhale deeply, as if I can finally breathe for the first time in my life. I feel awake. The virgin morning is crisp and clear. And even though I don’t know exactly what the future looks like, I do know that everything feels exactly right.

As I turn towards the open road, I catch a final glimpse of my little bar on the edge of town—the only town I have ever known. And the last thing I recall is the single streetlamp, now no longer flickering, but burning brightly against the white hot glow of the rising sun.

Happy OM-iversary: The Terrible Twos

La Vague Violette, Georges Lacombe

Originally published February 11, 2012

I feel like I am going out of my mind right now. Truly bonkers. Climbing out of my skin, bloodying my nails, ready to scream and looking for anything, anything, to deaden the intensity of this sensation: food, cock, wine, Facebook, TV, picking a fight, obsessive cyber-stalking, inert-your-checkout-vice-here.

On the verge of tears. Can’t make a decision. My feelings get hurt at every turn (even though I try to play it off like I am so caring and understanding). And here comes the entitlement. The anger. The bitchiness. And a splashy cameo by the Princess (or is she really front and center?).

Two years to the day. Two goddammed years doing this crazy stroking practice and I feel like it's only just now that I have begun to lean against the membrane that surrounds my hunger…and everything catches my attention and whets my appetite like the smell of freshly baking bread (or is that sizzling raw meat?).

What. The Fuck. Is Going On?

I ask for what I want. I get it. I get angry. I deserved more, asshole—didn’t you know?

I ask for what I want. I don’t get it. I get angry. Fuck you.

I feel your resentment (or is it mine?). I get angry. Go away from me.

I want. A lot. And I want that to be ok. Why is it not ok? Don’t warn me against greed or consumption or that I am setting myself up for samsaric suffering (please, spare me the self-righteous bullshit, thank you very much. Your greed to collect income in the spiritual bank is just as comparable to my carnal hunger).

Who is this person I am fighting with? Of course, the obvious answer is myself. Yes, yes, yes…like a good little coach I “inquire” and “take responsibility.” I see all the faults and fears and scarcity in others and project all my shit all over that. Where am I saying YES when I mean NO? Where I am giving in to unspoken requests, when deep in my heart they are not in alignment with my integrity? Where I am acquiescing as opposed to surrendering?

But as a real live human woman, I just want. So very much. And the most pressing question in my mind is “What do I want?”

I was originally thinking of calling this post “The Sex I Want,” because I was feeling confused and hurt and angry about my sexual hunger. Was I craving sex to fill a void, which will ultimately leave me undernourished and depleted? Or was there really a desire to intimately connect and express. I think it’s a little of both. And there was this overwhelming shame that came with wanting more. More than 2 OMs a day. More than sex twice a week. And once that faucet started to turn on, a whole flood of other desires started to flow. Beyond the sex (which was just the catalyst). Into the shoes I want. The clothes I want. The acting roles I want. The money I want. The job I want. The car I want. The travel I want. The writing I want. The awards I want. The glamour I want. The beauty I want. The people I want. The freedom I want. The life I want.

So…this is the process of “turning on.” I get flooded with energy (orgasm). My system comes alive. And what no longer serves me comes to the surface like salt in a wound. All the ways I played small so as not to acknowledge that very dangerous appetite. And then comes all the anger I feel for playing that game. Oh God…I don’t want to see that. And then, my poor little body (which isn’t used to this much activation) tries to do anything to expel this energy.

Growing pains. It hurts to expand out. To break through the old armor and feel the raw, exposed nerves and tender flesh of something so well-hidden that I feel too humiliated to share it. Not knowing anything anymore. Not knowing what’s right. Having really no clue what the future holds for me. Just sitting here with an unbearable ache and no way to find relief.

Just sit. Just sit. Just. Sit.

I could search around for the some lame piece of self-help advice. Some momentary aphorism that may inspire me for the moment. Post it on Facebook. Secretly hope all my friends like it and think what a cool person I am.

Or I can just be here and listen to the quiet little voice in me that has one simple message: Live your life.

Huh? That’s not very comforting. But on some level, it’s the only true thing that exists right now. There is nothing to figure out or fix. No map or plan or prediction that is going to make it easier. It’s only through simply living my life and cultivating a relationship with all that arises—the fear, the confusion, the pain, the joy, the love, the heartbreak, the rejection, the surprise, the anger, the hunger, the magic—that I will come any closer to knowing what I want. If that even matters anymore. What if trying to “know” anything is in and of itself an attempt at triggering the pressure release valve?

Just live my life. It feels so simple. A moment-by-moment fumbling in the hot, blind, wet cave of my wanting. And in that one stroke, I suddenly feel just how very sexy this place is. This void. This empty hole. This cavern wanting very, very skilled penetration—to cut through the briars of my NO into the aching warmth of my YES.

My heart is racing. My genitals pulse. My belly is swollen. My breath is slow and deep. I feel the cool wood of the floor against my tingling feet. I feel…alive.

OK, Orgasm. You win. Gratitude washes over me and I suddenly know that I am capable—more than capable—of holding this and so much more.

This is the process. The alchemy. Orgasm in. The fire burns. The pain. The fighting. The acceptance. The surrender. The insight. The gratitude. The expansion. The love. The pouring out. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Two years—a lesson in unbearable patience. I’ve been hungry for so long that the moment I see something that remotely resembles nourishment, I clamp down on it and I want it all for me right now. A vicious cycle of feast or famine. Now the work for me is to simply sit. Sit in the hunger, trust that she is loved and will be fed and that with the passing storms, the next right thing will appear in time.

And breathe. Always remember to breathe.  

Starving for Approval: Anorexia and the Mother Shadow

Mother and Child, Mary Cassatt, 1897

Originally posted February 7, 2012

View this article at elephantjournal.com

To-day's your natal day;

    Sweet flowers I bring:

Mother, accept, I pray

    My offering.

And may you happy live,

    And long us bless;

Receiving as you give

    Great happiness.

--To My Mother, 

Christina Rossetti

Ask any anorexic who has a shred of consciousness around his/her behavior and 99% of them will say “It’s not about the food.” And as much as it’s “not about the food,” it’s also not about the models in the magazines, the actresses on the TV or the media. Sorry to blow your cover, finger-pointers, but I am done using the media as my scapegoat.

Yes, I agree that a lot of the images shown are heavily photoshopped and are idealized versions of beauty that no one could possibly attain. I also agree that many of the images (especially of women) are dismissive at best (like when she plays the one-dimensional “love object” to a male protagonist) or deeply damaging at worst (like when she is a glorified corpse for abuse and rape).

But as difficult as it is to admit, they are giving us exactly that for which we are asking.

Honestly, how many times have you and I looked at the TV and said (or at least thought):

“How old is she?!”

“Check out that plastic surgery!”

“He has gained some weight!”

“Ugh! What a slut!”

We, inside our own personal psyches, have an internal war of judgment and hatred that is then reflected in the cultural ideals with which we are surrounded. And then that judgment is projected when we see something as “ugly” (that fat whore really needs to just give it up) OR when we see someone “beautiful” (she only got that role because she was fucking the director. Give that skinny bitch a hamburger!).

How can anyone possibly win when everything around us is a mirror of our own self-doubt and fear?

We as a society are all walking around starving for approval and are too full of pride to admit just how much we want it. This approval somehow validates our right to exist in the world, but it is a temporary salve—a fast-food, quick fix so that we don’t have to face the deeper hunger within.

For me, anorexia is the quick fix. For example:

1. It keeps my body small and childlike, so I get to have the concerned attention of those around me, rather than overtly admitting my desire and risking rejection.

2. It keeps my ovaries and pelvis frozen, so as not to run the risk of pregnancy (because that would require a level of responsibility that I could never handle).

3. It dulls out the hunger within. This way, I don’t have to face how greedy I am and thus won’t feel the shame that comes with admitting that I haven’t done the work to know what I want. Or oftentimes I know exactly what I want, but expressing that comes with a high price, usually in the form of people’s judgments (which is humiliating and hits my vanity in a deep way): “Are you sure that’s what you want?” “That sounds way out there.” “You just like the attention.” “LA is just not your kind of town.” “Is that really for the greater good?” “Be reasonable.” “Save some for the rest of us.” “You’re not ready for that yet.”

4. It keeps my world organized and sane—all I have to do is be the good girl and get the good grades and be president of all the clubs and eat the good foods and avoid the bad ones and then I will be liked and will have earned some sort of credit in your world and you will allow me to stay with you for another day (yeah, that one’s really warped, ain’t it?).

In my case, this hunger for approval shows up strongly in what I call my “Mother Shadow.” Caroline Myss talks about different variations of the Mother archetype, but the overarching one that every woman has inside of her is the nurturing, loving caretaker. Yes, every woman has this archetype in her. We are biologically wired to house and nourish life: breasts, hips, vagina, uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, estrogen—the whole lot. Now of course, not every woman expresses this energy through giving birth to physical children. Some women are doctors, some found charities, some are community leaders, some save orphaned kittens. It doesn’t matter how this energy is expressed, but that it is acknowledged, integrated and given an outlet.  

What makes this energy a “shadow” for me is that somewhere down the line I have chosen to reject it. For quite some time I have had an intense phobia of getting pregnant—like, my life was going to end if that ever happened to me. I have also focused very heavily on being a “career” woman—someone so driven by her oh-so-important life purpose, that I didn’t have time for that weak stuff. And I will also admit that there is a residual shame leftover from the feminist movement that if I showed any signs of domesticity, I was not in favor of women’s rights.

Now, I may get in a lot of trouble for saying this, but well…it’s my blog, so fuck it. While I am extremely grateful for the women’s movement and for what it did to bring to light the gender inequalities within society, I think it did a disservice to the deeper feminine energies within us. It taught us how to act like men—or rather, provide us with the false sense of masculinity that parades this planet as being “in one’s power.” Goal-driven, unwavering, never showing emotion, working non-stop, constantly producing, going up, up, up.

This particular flavor of nurturing Mother energy needs the soft, quiet receptivity of moment to moment connection and intimacy. This is at the heart of what we are missing within our culture and the very thing for which we are starving.

I was all good at being seen as Kali. Or the Bitch, the Whore, the Sex Queen or any other kind of wild and destructive feminine archetypes. But since I had rejected the Mother within me, I had to find secret ways to “sneak” her into my life (for that is how a shadow works—if you deny it in the conscious mind or body, the unconscious will find ways to get a hit through the back door, whether you like it or not). So, like a drug addict or an anorexic who has her once-a-week-secret-cookie fix, I would seek out the constant approval of women I considered to be authorities to me. Teachers, leaders, mentors, family members, even my own mother. I was morphing myself, moment by moment, into this person that would be likeable and loveable enough to receive the momentary nourishment of a Mother’s love.

Of course the problem with that is, somewhere down the line, I forgot who I was. My validation became a search of some feminine external, rather than the integrated feminine within myself. And so when I would slip up and my cover was blown, I revealed myself to be someone altogether different that who I pretended to be. It almost felt like an act of betrayal to those I loved, and most importantly, to myself.

I thank the Universe for my anorexia. Some may say “Oh my God! If only we had known then we could have prevented this from happening to her.” But what you are missing that anorexia is not the cause of my pain, but a warning signal that some other thing in my life is out of alignment—that I am not living authentically in my skin. To use the analogy of putting your hand on a hot stove, the anorexia is not the hot stove itself, causing the burn. The anorexia is the bundle of pain receptors sending messages to my brain saying, “Take your hand off this stove before you kill yourself!”

And so, here I am. In San Fran-Fucking-Cisco (of all the most random of places), facing the fertile Mother within me and learning to love her deeply. To expose my hunger and embrace the possibility of getting full and fat and pregnant with energy and giving birth to something. Receiving love, in all its forms, and knowing that I don’t have to produce anything in return or have all the answers. Redefining what success is for me and cultivating an unbearable amount of gentle patience with myself as I learn to take responsibility for my life. And to answer the most dangerous question of all—the one that may have me spinning in circles for lifetimes to unveil.

It’s a question we all have, really. We spend millions of dollars every year on gym memberships, guru books, self-help workshops, therapy sessions and calls to the psychic friends network in the hopes that someone will give us the quick answer. OR we spend billions on porn, alcohol, television, cigarettes, shopping, sugar and empty-calorie sex so that we can numb or distract ourselves to point where we don’t hear this question lurking in our basement anymore.

It’s time to turn on the lights. My shadows are quickly exposing themselves. And when the anorexia comes around again, I will get down on my knees and give thanks—for then I will know another rejected piece of me is waiting just behind that veil of fear. And in meeting her, I will have come one layer closer towards answering that ultimate question: Who am I?

One of Those Girls (Written 8/1/2009)

Photo credit Michal Marcol, Freedigitalphotos.net

Originally posted January 27, 2012

One of Those Girls

(written 8/1/2009)

I am afraid

Afraid of losing you

To the Pretty Young Things

With straight blond hair

Slender white thighs

Girls eating ice cream

And playing volleyball

Paragons of petite perfection

In their pink sunglasses

Fierce acrylics

And cherry red lipstick

(Canine teeth flashing)

I am not One of Those Girls

No, I have loved too much

My heart, a menagerie

Of shattered glass

My unicorn horn

Super-glued back on

One too many times

And yet…somehow…

Your perfect hands

Continue to collect

My 1001 colors

Like shells in the sand

That doesn’t mean

I am not afraid

Afraid of losing you

To the Pretty Young Things

With straight blonde hair

And slender white thighs

Teasing lollipops

With their tongues

Playing volleyball

In the sun

Blissfully ignorant

To their ephemeral beauty

Orgasmic Living: Sharing Frames

The ocean next to Sutro Baths, SF

Originally posted January 24, 2012

"There was a period lasting about a minute where I knew if I "clamped down" I could climax...yet I just relaxed more and rode the razor edge of the sparkly, shimmery, cool, thick high...I wasn't moving a muscle...I didn't dare want anything "extra" on top of that sensation."--Frame from my OM on January 24, 2012

In OMing, a frame is a snapshot of moment of sensation (temperature, texture, location, vibration) when you felt something in your body. We do this at the end of the OM for many reasons:

1. It puts language to an otherwise inexpressible experience, which helps integrate the feeling and thinking brains.

2. It creates a personalized Orgasmic Map, so that once you discover a secret chamber within you, you have a route back to that place.

3. It transmits the sensation of the experience and heightens the intimacy between you and your partner. If you simply say, "that was good," your partner doesn't really know what your "good" feels like compared to his/hers. But if you say, "there was a moment I felt heat in my chest," your partner can viscerally relate to that.

4. It helps the stroker and strokee ground their energy and move back into everyday life after sitting in an intense field of sensation. This way, they can easily move back into their "normal" lives without feeling spacey and high.

5. It's an opportunity to practice the Slow Sex tenet of "simplicity"--feeling and expressing the simple truth of the experience, without creating a back story or attaching a meaning.

6. It keeps your attention out, rather than in your racing brain. Knowing that sharing a frame is a key step in the OM, you must stay present and consistently conscious. Otherwise you will have completely missed the ride and have nothing to say at the end!

Unexpressed Desire

Originally posted January 21, 2012

Unexpressed Desire (aka The Morning After)

Cool raindrops on my window.

A liquid warmth insulates

The soft Sunday morning

(The grey skies

A cozy backdrop

For our scene)

My bare right thigh

Rests on your pajama-ed leg.

My right hand slipped

Under your left

As my palm inhales

The heat from your ribs.

You hover on the edge

Of a waking snooze.

A soft snore rises

From your throat.

A moment frozen

With desire.

This could go in any direction.

On the one hand,

I hate to disturb your sweet surrender,

Like a nostalgic portrait

Studied by professors

And glanced over by disinterested tourists

As they rush through the gallery.

On the other hand,

I want nothing more than to feel

Your lips brush the side of my neck.

Your entire fist slowly twisting inside me.

Your coarse fingers mash my left breast,

Squeeze out my nipple and tug with your teeth.

Another soft snore.

A resigned sigh.

I pull my hand out from your shirt

In one, cottony stroke.

Unraveling from you,

I tiptoe to the door

Turning in time

To see your lazy smile

And half-opened eyes.

“I’ll let you get some rest,”

I whisper, as the door firmly latches

Behind my back.