The Awakening Woman does not use sex or her femininity to manipulate or get what she wants. She ceases to engage in love-making without heart, but rather chooses love-making that is connected, organic, fully mutual, and from the healthy ego. She will not allow sex to be used as a substitute for true intimacy, or a distraction from unresolved wounds. She is not afraid to be called a prude or a slut for making her own conscious decisions around sex. She does not let patriarchy, religion, politics, the media, or the unhealthy male ego define sex, beauty, or relationship for her. Her relationship to sex is her own and comes from within, not from what has been dictated to her all her life by a culture that doesn’t value healthy sexuality. She does not placate or sell herself out to gain male approval, nor does she compete with or sell her sisters out for male attention.”

~ Jessica Bahr

Photo: Rokhaya by sl-photographie

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The spiritual path is not all love and light as most of us know from experience and others are about to find out — especially in the earlier stages of our awakening process. The joy of having found truth and meaning that resounds within our hearts is often accomplished with layers upon layers of disillusionment as the untruths of our lives become glaringly obvious and unavoidable.

One aspect we do not talk much about is how our individual spiritual practice and awakening affects our intimate relationships.

In my life, traveling to Bali and being brought back to life by its magical energy and the power of meditation and yoga has had a profound transformational effect on my intimate relationships by my choice and commitment.

Contemplating about my life made it very clear to me that I was unfulfilled and unhappy in my life and relationships, no matter how much I loved my then partners. And I had a clear intuition that I needed to be single to be able to focus on my inner work and healing and not use my partners as an excuse and distraction from it.

After spending a third of my life with my longterm partner it was quite a surprising and rewarding adventure to reacquaint myself with myself in a non-coupled and non-other-pleasing-state. 

That is when a deepening of my journey into introspection, spiritual practice, self knowledge and self love took off.

I met amazing men on this journey whom I am honored to call brothers and friends, who have allowed me to see through their eyes, partake in their perceptions of life and relating in novel and insightful ways. Which is saying a lot because I had pretty amazing poly partners and friends with whom I had been having deep ongoing exchanges on the male experience, relationships, sexuality, communication and more. Later I would see that my poly friends were very versed in relationship, communication sciences, reflective, knowledgable about their emotions and psyche  though not as connected with their hearts, spirit and energetic aspects as my spiritual friends were who in turn were often lacking in the strengths of my poly brethren.

7 years of single life with fluctuating, changing and shifting attitudes towards intimate relationships, sexuality and men as conditionings and programming on gender, relationships, sexuality and romanticism were dismantled. Years of magical encounters turning into friendships, playful moments of connection which had a defined ending date by virtue of travel schedules, beautiful connections that felt like they could be my next longterm relationship but turned sour, etc., all of which came to me as teachers and catalysts on my healing path.

I realized it would be hard to meet someone and build a relationship worthy of my energy and time while I was traveling without and within. When you are constantly falling apart and pulling yourself together in a new form, oscillating through your days and weeks it is hard to keep up a connection unless it is of the lightest and non-attached kinds. 

What is more I was working my way through healing many of the relational traumas of this life, my ancestral line and karmic accumulated burdens in intimate relating. I know, I chose to incarnate into this life to clear all of this and other darkness surrounding my entry into this body.

While going through my healing and integration work I recognized quite a few narratives that are distortions of the collective conditioning we share and which sadly reverberate in the New (C)age community.

“We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.” ~ T.S. Eliot

Why does the New Age still hold people hostage to ideas of heteronormativity conveniently treating the energetic gender principle as if it was the conditioned matrix gender? I dislike using the terms like “divine/inner feminine” or “divine/inner masculine” because so many cannot read it without the toxic matrix conditioning of gender. Often I will choose to say yin or yang because with those terms people get that this is describing types of energy signatures and not human traits. But this is a rant for another time.

Why do so few spiritual teachers talk about the fluidity of our paths and the changes we go through in this life? Why uphold the monogamous ideal of having just one partner or staying with them for a lifetime as the ultimate ideal? I cannot help but see in it unreflected Judeo-Christian religious programming in need of elevation by the law of one and spiritual teachings like the hermetic principles for a higher and less distorted perception of reality. 

Humans do change and evolve, rigid relational systems that do not allow for the change and expansion of the people in it or at least offer tools to help them relate and overcome times of dissonance are not aligned with our reality. To uphold narrow definitions and ideals of monogamy and glorification of duration of a relationship is to create a matrix of suffering for others.

Don’t get me wrong I have no attachment to any relationship style or configuration as being better or higher, my vision is to see every human to be free to choose, live and thrive in consensual, loving and expansive relationships or not.

And what is especially painful, yet a reality many have faced is when our growth paces are no longer aligned and we do not find ways to bridge the ever growing gap between us. There is no “one dogma fits all” in this. Everyone has to assess if staying with their partner or moving on is the right thing for their soul and the souls of their children. Discerning if the gap and dissonance of vibrating on different levels is just an interim phenomenon or the sign of a more permanent misalignment is impossible for the mind. These deep levels of discernment necessitate us to connect with the wisdom of our bodies and the guidance of our higher selves. These conversations and contemplations take time and cannot be rushed nor should we feel bad about the time we stayed although we knew it wasn’t serving us.

Sometimes staying serves us complete a cycle of healing or integration we might not be aware of but we will know when the time to move on has come, the clear alignment of all our parts in telling us to go. And man, it is scary to leave the security of the familiar to step into the unknown! 

But there is no alternative to stepping repeatedly into the void, the unknown, if growth and service to Life/Source/the divine is our goal.

“I want to love you without clutching, appreciate you without judging, join you without invading, invite you without demanding, leave you without guilt, criticize you without blaming, and help you without insulting. If I can have the same from you, then we can truly meet and enrich each other.” ~Virginia Satir

My wish for us to create ways of connecting and relating intimately with each other without a need to own, limit or encase ourselves in constructs of the mind arises from my fundamental values of love, sovereignty, honesty and freedom.

My dream would be to live in a world or community of beings who have let go of the tyranny of religious and cultural constructs to explore, live and learn from their individual embodied soul expression with utmost love, curiosity and care for each other. 

Living in a consciousness and value system which honors loving relationships, regardless of their duration, constellations and type. 

Capable of Un-coupling when our paths are diverting, honoring the beloved teacher and divine in the other as we accept the completion and fulfillment of our union in this now.

Meeting each other in our sovereignty and loving one other without reserve, not just as long as our relationships last, but for eternity.

Letting it be love for Self in us and the other which works on bridging gaps between us or moving apart, whatever is intuitively right in the now.

Letting us drop the negativity and fear based programming around sexuality and learning to approach and enjoy our sexuality with playful, creative, passionate and sacred awe.

Learning to merge our energies on many different levels of our being and taste the diverse flavors of uniting Self with Self with love and in ever new and joyful ways.

A collective of sovereign, loving and powerful creators immersed in a joyful and passionate dance of love exploring itself.

My insights and reflections won’t necessary align with yours as we may have different incarnational trajectories, missions and soul paths chosen for this life… only you know your path and what is right for you. This is simply a sharing and invitation for reflection and exchange.

Art: Dreams of Scorpion Heart by Cameron Grey

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If we are aligned with truth and knowing we will have no need to denigrate those who lack it or make light of them. If we side with truth in the deeper and eternal sense, truth itself will root us in love and compassion for all that is.

Dig deeper, research more, do not be easily satisfied with your first findings, do not disregard the things your mind tells you cannot be… practice open-mindedness. This reality is highly complex to the mind and makes “inception” look like a toddlers concept. Hold contrasting thoughts and ideas in your mind, consult your intuition, learn to use your heart as the processor of knowledge, live from a beginners mind and learn to bear not-knowing. Sit with not-knowing and seeming contradictions, allow time, new insights and deeper reflections to bring insights, new perspectives, integration and resolution to the contrasts in your mind.  

We live in a global matrix of mind control and distortions of history, language, cultures, morals, politics and religions that goes back centuries and millennia.

Awakening in this multi-layered system of lies, deceptions and half-truths can be deeply disorienting and confusing, yet do not give in to your minds need for simple and comfortable answers as you will not find true solace in avoidance or illusions. This reality is unbearably beautiful and painfully dysfunctional at once, you need to face the darkness and let go of the convoluted nonsense you have been force fed to find truth and beauty in this world. The truth shall make you free.. after it pisses you off and makes you want to run the other way.. but you will quickly understand that you cannot afford to and that is where your journey begins.

In time your mind will expand with higher knowledge and knowing to see the connection and oneness of things which seem like contradictions and you will learn to discern the difference between absolute truths and relative truths. And you will look back with compassion and kindness on your moments of confusion and blindness. 

There will be those you meet along your journey, seekers and lovers of truth who will become a lifeline in a world of sleepers. Embracing and living your authentic self will attract them to you, they will become your family, friends and cheerleaders while you will lose some of those you thought of as such before your ventured on this journey… and yet you will see, feel and know deep in your bones that what you gain is more precious than anything you lose.

Do not give up, keep asking yourself uncomfortable questions, keep expanding your knowledge, practicing mindfulness, sitting in silence, embracing your shadow, loving yourself, practicing love, kindness and compassion… and surrendering to the truth within. And you will find that you have all you need within you.

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