Let’s talk about sex.
Even more to the point, let’s talk about reclaiming sacred power with sex.
It’s about time, don’t you think, love? Plenty of holistic health and wellness coaches bring up the topic of sex in their blogs and guest posts, but usually as an “add-on.” Sex is usually tacked onto other sensual pleasures like enjoying food and relishing what your body can do. It’s discussed as an indulgence the same way rich wine and a day at the spa are, but truly, it belongs in a totally different category.
Sex is so much more. Sex is a path to reclaiming sacred power.
It’s a necessity. It’s a gateway to deepening your spiritual understanding. It’s the crux of reclaiming your sacred power. And, it doesn’t require a partner, at all.
Now more than ever, it’s essential to consider sex (solo or with a partner) an act of authentic healing, not just something we pine for to feel good. And, yes, sex does feel good and it should feel good, but that’s even more of a reason to consider it an essential part of our human makeup.
As a collective, we don’t really feel great right now. We’re freaked out over the state of the world, and it feels like there are so many other pressing issues that need our attention other than our own orgasm. People are searching for everything from 2020 election predictions to clues in their astrology chart for what they can do about how unbalanced they, and the people they love, feel at this moment.
The truth is that we aren’t going to change the world by feeling terrible about the way it looks right now, at this moment.
In fact, this moment was created by the misguided belief that pain and suffering are required to grow. Work hard, invest in your 401K, put off that vacation until retirement, and if you happen to have a good romp once every couple of months, good for you, but don’t share that you want or need sex to thrive. You don’t ever do that. I was taught to live that way. How about you?
A quick search of the internet tells you all you need to know about how our society views sex. If you type in the word “sex” into Google, the first two keywords that pop up are “sex offender” and “sex trafficking.” Hundreds of thousands of people are searching for fear-based associations with sex on a daily basis. We’re not even considering how important our own pleasure is to our enjoyment, purpose, and creative fulfillment.
Of course, there are plenty of reasons why this is, many of which belong in a whole other blog post. But it comes down to this: sex and pleasure encompass very divine feminine energy, and that mode of living has been snuffed out by so many forces throughout our history—patriarchy, media, big business, propaganda. When we live and breathe in an overly masculine society without balancing with the feminine, we learn to create through doing, striving, and grinding with little regard for spirituality, sex, pleasure, and rest. (I am not referring to gender with fem vs. masculine but rather suppressed sacred energy vs. tropes of the dominant culture.)
But here’s the thing: we can create and attract the things we want through pleasure, and rest. In fact, feeling good is a very important prerequisite to creation that we’ve left out of the equation for way too long. But not anymore.
Even more so, our sexuality is, and always will be, the epicenter of our adult spiritual journeys. We can reclaim sacred power with sex.
For the past few years, we’ve witnessed womxn who’ve absolutely had it with this denigration of their innate power. We’ve collectively risen up with the #MeToo movement to reclaim our place (and some respect!) in society. We’re running for office, speaking up, and fighting back. We’ve burned through some of our anger, and now I think we’re ready to sink into our true divinity in 2020.
Instead of pushing society to accept us, we’re ready to feel good and thrive despite being in a society that wasn’t built for us.
As we settle into this idea that we actually need to create an entirely new space for us instead of forcing an already broken system to change, we’re ready to look to the OG feminine archetypes that have embodied this wisdom from the very beginning.
Enter Mary Magdalene
I’ve always felt a special affinity toward Mary Magdalene. I studied feminism, Christian mysticism, and sat in REDLADIES circle with Meggan Watterson for more than a couple of years.
Mary Magdalene has served and continues to serve, an incredibly important role in my life. So you can imagine my heart was recently blown wide open by her unapologetic way of being in the world when I listened to FKA Twigs’ new album, MAGDALENE. (Um, if you haven’t listened to this yet, you just gotta.)
I wasn’t ready for it.
Within a few seconds of the 38-minute album, I knew it hit the vein of one aspect of what I’ve studied for years: how the holy female body is medicinal, a vehicle for reparation—not damnation! Men’s bodies, all bodies: the same. (It’s the embodiment of reclaiming sacred power with sex.)
Because here’s the deal: In true patriarchal fashion, Mary Magdalene’s story was rewritten by men in power. And her sacred sexuality was shamed, not revered!
Mary Magdalene is known as the whore who was redeemed by Jesus and then became one of his most devoted followers. She was the one who discovered that he had risen from his tomb on the third day after his death. She was by his side through all of his sufferings, tending to his wounds—both the external and internal ones.As a society, we will only accept the idea that Jesus was a perfect demigod that didn’t have any internal wounds, fears, or complexities that required another human (because he was human) to walk through life. But in truth, Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ equal counterpart. She was wise, eternally loving, and willing to walk a treacherous path to spread light in the world. Only her power looked different that Jesus’. She healed through sex and attracting light to her, and to Jesus, through the power of pleasure. She literally loved him into being. Jesus was able to profoundly impact the external world because of the sacred gift of connection and healing his relationship with Mary Magdalene gifted them both.
We’re about to move into a new decade, love, one that will come with a new set of challenges and possibilities. Our collective feminine rage was a necessary step toward our healing and the healing of the world, and while we’re not done, we are invited to sink deeper into where the wound really lies: in our sexuality.
For too long we’ve lived in the dichotomy of Virgin vs. Whore. But virginity, as my dear friend Eliza Reynolds so brilliantly explains, is a social construct.
Yet, I know in my own life, I was taught to guard it as my life depended on it because once I gave it way, I’d belong to someone else! And, I’d need to honor that partner by not being soiled. I mean?
This is what I learned about sex; that indulging in it would mean my value as a human would decrease. My pleasure would become not just my shame, but the shame of my family and my future partner. And if I disobeyed this unspoken but agreed-upon understanding of sex, I’d take on the persona of the whore. Aka, the shadow cast upon Mary Magdalene. Who in truth was a mystic unto herself, and as stated above, Jesus’ female counterpart, not a hooker.
And, virgin, by the way, means unto self not untouched. So there’s that.
Our Journey Back To Pleasure + Power
As women, it’s part of our very being to attract, to harness, to literally facilitate growth through our womb. For so many centuries, our power has been exploited and left us damaged and empty. Our stories have been erased and our experiences tamped down by a system that was never created for us so that men could claim control. And when men have realized our sexual power, they’ve claimed our bodies for themselves and took our agency away from us, whether we gave them consent or not.
To truly create a new system that I know in my heart is possible, we have to reclaim sex for what it is: a gorgeous union (with self or others) that heals.
What Does Astrology Have To Do With It?
With Mercury retrograde in Scorpio for the next week, now is the perfect time to reevaluate your own beliefs about sex. Have you been taught to stay quiet about your sex life? Has your sexuality been ridiculed, your sexual experiences less than joyful because you were afraid to speak up? Consider how you’ve limited your own power in this way and what you can do to reclaim it in 2020.
The Taurus full moon too, on November 12th, occurs at 8:34 AM Eastern at 19 degrees. Taurus, ruled by Venus, asks you to explore your embodiment, sensuality and yes, your sexuality too. (Do you see a theme emerging?!)
With the Taurus moon in opposition to the Scorpio sun, we are asked to ignite our embodied healing.
I have much more to say, and look forward to continuing this discussion in the future. Right now I am on a tight deadline to get my manuscript to my publisher so I am going to leave it here. To learn more, check out my post on Well + Good. Though on this sacred full moon night I encourage you to enchant your erotic being. She’s a sacred part of your power, and leaving her out of the equation is to disassociate not just from your sensuality, but the most DIVINE aspect of your being.
All of my love,
Jenn