Published in the 2002 Summer issue of Spirituality &Sexuality Magazine (edited version).

Our Sex-Spirit Retreats

On the eve of the vernal equinox in Litchfield, CT, our group's sacred and erotic energies came together in a spirit of fun and goodwill. These Sex, Spirit and Intimacy Retreats grow from our own ten-year relationship and our intention to heal the schisms between sexuality and spirituality.

Evolution

Over time, our workshops have evolved from focusing on emotional catharsis and release to paying attention to the energy in our bodies. We use a variety of processes and exercises to disolve barriers to love, desire, and pleasure. Then our relationship with god, spirit, and the universe opens up, sometimes with miraculous ease. In addition, an important evolutionary shift in our work is the acceptance of invisible realities as senior to the physical realities in terms of sexual transformation and personal fulfillment. The experience of these realities, primarily love and sensual connectedness, are more tangible and accessible to people than the words spirituality or god.

The retreat processes were influenced by Somatic Experiencing (Peter L. Levine), Wavework (Sandra Scherer, Dayashakti), Healing Imagery (Colette Aboulker-Muscat), Tantra and The Healing Tao as articulated by Georg Feurstein and Mantak Chia respectively.

Diversity

While we've conducted similar events for gay men, it was a thrill to share our most recent discoveries with a diverse group of 11 women and 38 men (a self-identified mix of heterosexual, gay, bi & lesbian) ranging in age from 28-60. To our delight the 49 participants included a growing people-of-color mix. All diversities were quickly transcended as we demonstrated that by dropping into the body's felt sensations, sexual transformations can come to and through us.

By applying our most basic principle, respect for self and other, we created a place of exquisite safety.

The Process

We began with a sacred circle to welcome each person in nonverbal, verbal, and tactile ways. This energetically grounds everyone and invites powerful subconscious energies to integrate for what is about to unfold.

We asked participants to image a personal experience of heartfelt love. One participant visualized his deceased loving grandmother. We then asked participants to tune into his or her body's sensations in response to this visualization. This allowed each person to individually identify how the energy of love manifests itself physically. This activity provided a context for the inner wisdom exercises that followed. This retreat also contained rituals we learned last fall a the First International Conference on Sex & Spirit at Findhorn in Forres, Scotland, which brought freshness and a European flavor to our workshop.

S.O.U.L and S.E.X

In The Living Energy Universe, Schwartz and Russek define SOUL as the Systemic Organization of Universal Love. To this, we added the distinction that S.E.X., is "Soul Energy eXchange" and can take us from simple carnal instincts into a new paradigm of the sublime and sacred. Soulful S.E.X. involves exchanging four energies: Love, Pleasure, Lingam (giving or active), and Yoni (receiving or passive) with no judgments or agenda. We used healing imagery to fuse "our most loving" and "our most shadowy private erotic" energies, creating surprising transformative experiences.

Rituals and Exercises

We used an unfolding ritual to explore the subtle power of vulnerability as a key to finding inner fulfillment. Another exercise invited people to allow their soul's burning desires to surface. We didn't share these but wrote them on pieces of paper and ceremoniously put them out into the universe by burning the paper.

Our working premise is that like plants and trees, we are phototropic and - once exposed to the light - we will naturally grow toward it. In Tantra, it is ultimately our choice to transform the poison of negative conditioning into nectar. We "tasted" this by releasing bound and charged energies in all of the weekend rituals.

Relationships

We rediscovered how intimacy is really the possibility of comprehending the self and other. The challenges of long-term relationships were explored with particular attention paid to the necessity of negotiating the "polarity stage." The polarity stage manifests as power struggles and "withholds" after bonding in a relationship occurs. Coming out of this dynamic brings us to a place of deep truth telling, potent intimacy, and alchemy. Successful negotiation of this process is fundamental to keeping healthy, energetic sex alive and growing.

Two Sacred Intimates (male and female) trained by Body Electric described the richness and power of their practice, which provided illumination and possibility. One simple example was the awareness by participants that there could even exist the opportunity to explore personal and mysterious erotic desires with someone trained to hold them in safety and sacredness.

Energy

On Saturday evening, we more fully opened the energy field with robust "contact breathing," movement and sound, opening the way for a beautiful Tantra ritual. Drum music was used to rouse the spirit before moving into opening the chakra channels. We did this to experience and move erotic energy through participants in order to grace themselves, each other and the world.

We closed by forming a human mandala with participants linking to each other with hands and feet on the floor. On a cold night in late winter, copious tears, sobbing, and soulful energy moved through the room. A tender heartfelt sense of peace, presence, and tranquility followed. Beautiful music and gentle movements were woven through this and all of the weekend rituals.

The image of the human mandala on Saturday evening, accompanied by a pristine energy presence, interconnection and wholeness will live with us forever. Jean Houston calls this aliveness "dancing on the fulcrum of evolution."

Freedom

By Sunday morning, our souls were freed to inform us with personalized and specific closing words for our ongoing journey. One female participant realized that a "slow vibrator" had the possibility of a richer experience than the furtive and hurried escapades with the "fast one." She felt her soul revealed itself to her. We "got" how shame-free erotic "juice" can direct us to the soul's vibrant center - containing therein the seasoned wisdom that completes us and our quest for nurturance.

Michael & Elias can be reached through The Institute for Authentic Process Healing at www.theinstitute.org.

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