Lessons from the Erotic Void

Black Square, Kazimir Malevich, 1915

These past few months have been some of the most emotionally intense of my life. I am sitting square in the center of every fear that I didn't dare admit:

-I'm fat (As a recovering anorexic, this is the equivalent of death).
-I'm a mediocre actress.
-I'm an inexperienced writer who isn't good enough for a book deal.
-I have no viable skills and can't even get an entry-level job.
-I'm a terrible lover.

All these voices (which I recognize aren't really me) arise and feel all-consuming in the face of how little external validation I've been receiving.

But the truth is, I've been in a very internal process. Since Burning Man, I have purposely reduced the number of social media posts in order to release myself from the pseudo-erotic hit of human connection I receive whenever someone pushes "Like."

I've intentionally carved out the 6-month quiet space I need, free from professional and personal commitments, to finish the draft of my book (which I did December 1) and to complete my personal edits of it before passing it on to a pro editor (which I intend to do by March 1).

In going over my manuscript, I realize that there is something so genuine, pure and undeniably erotic growing in this moment--a profound intimacy with my own voice. I am not writing this book--it is writing me and it's medicine comes more for my own healing than anything else.

And perhaps, it's time to stop complaining and start listening to its wisdom.

EXCERPT FROM PART ONE: INVOCATION, CHAPTER 6: EROTIC DEPRIVATION AND THE COMMODIFICATION OF SEX

"Most of us are stuck in craving mode because we are socially barred from experiencing the erotic in our everyday life. Our society values the logical comforts of stability over the mythical possibilities that rest in the unknown. We’ve linked our value as humans to this “logical stability” and to other quantifiable means of success—so it’s no wonder that we rush in fear and craving towards anything that will temporarily fill and silence that painful void.

Our modern commercial industry and business culture know our insecurities and continuously reinforce these addictive habits—it’s what keeps them profitable, after all. They pose a problem in your life, show you the emotional struggle and then offer the one and only solution (often adorned with scantily clad women, once again fusing and confusing the world of eros and sex) that will take care of everything for a low, low price. But the truth is eros demands we pay the highest price—letting go of all the pride and vanity that stand in the way of unconditional love. And the kicker is that no one else can give it to us no matter how much currency we offer. It is only found by sitting in the discomfort of our own erotic void.

Eros thrives in those moments of "wanting" and it is through the dynamic tension created between “wanting” and “having” that orgasmic energy can build and power us. Yet we spend our lives lamenting how we aren't "having" and miss this key opportunity to tap into the erotic fulfillment that flourishes within the gaps of our lives."

When the sex just isn't enough...

L'origine du monde, 1866
Gustave Courbet

2am.

Shaking, I dialed the phone for a second time, as he didn't pick up the first. The volatile emotion in my gut overrode the sanity of my mind.

I'd been sick for the past week--the ubiquitous winter "bug" finally took up residence in my sinuses, throat and chest. So I sent him off to the party alone while I recuperated at home.

At midnight, I tried to sleep. The minutes became an hour. Then two. Tossing and turning within the rattled nightmare of my own freight-train mind, I felt the ache in my chest relentlessly knock me more and more awake. Each passing second was an agonizing call from the depths of my most profound longing.

He answered the phone. And before the "nice girl" could filter my words with her soothing, toothless bite, I blurted, "I'm not sexually fulfilled."

A hard blow to give via electronic communication, I know. But even as I said it, I knew that he already knew. Even as I said it, I knew he wanted more, too. And even as I said it, I knew what I wanted had nothing to do with him and everything to do with me.

We have good sex. In fact, we have great sex. Often. I have no problem experiencing one, if not several, climaxes that stretch out beyond the physiological contractions. He ejaculates if he wants, but if he doesn't that's fine too. I feel his heart. I feel his cock. I take pleasure in my own pleasure. We sometimes use toys and aren't afraid to get dirty.

But that one thing..that ineffable breath of life that overpowers our strongest defenses and connects us to the Source of all of Creation...yeah, I wanted that. All the time.

The sex just wasn't enough. I wanted more. I wanted Orgasm--the divine, erotic life force that births every moment.

The static between us had nothing to do with skill level or lack of love, but was directly connected to how honest I was about my desires, both inside, but more importantly, outside the bedroom.

I needed to look past blaming him and face the lack of fulfillment in my entire life, which was the true root of my discontent.

This has been a massive year of letting go: letting go of my coaching practice; letting go of raising the money to self-publish my book and instead opting, or rather praying, for a traditional publisher; letting go of the dream of acting; letting go of being the "sex expert" I thought I was.

La jeune fille et la mort, 1900
Marianne Stokes

And in the wake of all of that release, I realized: I wasn't mad at him. I was mad at God. Not any religious God, but my own personal connection with spirituality.

I felt betrayed.

Hadn't I already sacrificed enough? Hadn't I already whittled down my life to the barest of actions that were "in my integrity"? Hadn't I already "cleared the clutter" and dedicated time to only that which flowed from my deepest desires? Hadn't I stretched and beaten and shattered my heart enough so that it could "grow bigger" and "include all of humanity"? Hadn't I starved myself for seven years, left a marriage and sold 95% of my possessions to move across the country on a whim of faith? Wasn't I too old for this shit?

Apparently not. Or maybe none of that spiritual bargaining mattered. Or maybe I was just a spoiled adolescent brat on the verge of archetypal adulthood.

That mirror was painful. Sitting in the hungry void, feeling like I had given my all, yet not knowing who I was or what I wanted.

My lack of fulfillment stemmed from the ambivalence in my own life. The sex was simply a megaphone for those core erotic dissatisfactions, with Orgasm as the great communicator. And while Orgasm often speaks to us through sex, she will neither be contained nor compartmentalized to that one arena. The insatiable aches of my erotic appetite no longer found nourishment in the ephemeral frictions of sexuality, but in the perennial surrender with divine grace.

The Warrior
From 6 to 9 and Beyond:
Widening the Lens of Feminine Eroticism

Even as I write this, it feels as if I am asking for an answer to the unanswerable. It's like demanding that the Mystery reveal itself, but once it does, it will no longer be a Mystery.

I wish I could share a nugget of wisdom gleaned from Kali's blade. But I can't. Or if I could, the only thing I would say is this: I don't know a goddamned thing about anything.

And maybe that's a blessing. It strips me of those moronic "Top 5 Techniques" that I think will please him and use to temporarily assuage my inner crise de l'esprit. It forces me to release these binary notions trapped within the words "masculine" and "feminine." It shows me how little an understanding our culture has of the power of Orgasm and demonstrates the painful folly of lumping "sex" and "Orgasm" into one transient act (intercourse). And it places the responsibility for my erotic fulfillment squarely in the hands of the only one who can do anything about it: me.

Ask me what my biggest turn-on is and the answer will always be the same: Truth. The humble, quivering, vulnerable truth of each moment will invariably win out over any big-budget show. That is the ultimate fulfillment I seek and until I surrender to the truth of what is, I will always be fighting what isn't.

So that's our practice now: absolute, radical truth, both within the Orgasmic Eros of our sex and the Orgasmic Eros of our lives. And as the fire burns through the written landscape of my life, this truth may be the only thing left standing in the end.




Alexander - Truth from Alexander on Vimeo.

6 (Non-Linear) Steps to an Orgasmic Life. (Part One)

View this article on Elephant Journal

I hear it all the time from my clients:

“My relationship is boring”
“My life is so blah”
“I’m stuck in a job that I hate”
“I eat/shop/fuck/diet to numb myself from my emotions”
“My sex life is non-existent”
“I’m afraid I’ll lose control”
“Everything feels so stagnant”
“I don’t know what I want”

Fortunately, I know what they want: orgasm.

Not necessarily sexual climax (though that can be quite a lot of fun), but a high-octane shot of The Orgasmic Life.

So what does all that mean?

Orgasm, as I define it, is that living, breathing life force that births every moment. It’s that energy wakes us up and reminds us how alive we are.

If you’ve ever practiced yoga, you may have heard the word prana. If you are into acupuncture, you may have heard the term chi. Both of these are good analogies for the kind of orgasm of which I speak.

When we think of orgasm in these terms, we realize that this force is accessible in any moment, not just in the bedroom. And when we learn to identify and work with this energy (and its partner, desire), we open the door to an Orgasmic Life.

An Orgasmic Life is a dynamic life.

Each moment is a fresh one. It’s a life full of wonder, passion, electricity, surrender, pleasure and aliveness.

While that may all sound amazing and exactly like what you want, an Orgasmic Life also requires risk, a willingness to change in any moment and trust in the unknown.

Our little reptilian, survival brains are wired at an early age to keep us safe. Don’t color on the walls, lest we make mommy mad (and lose her love). Don’t take center stage, lest we end up the object of public ridicule (and be ostracized). Don’t touch ourselves pleasurably, lest we be shamed (and labeled as “perverts”).

Or it could have been more sinister. To rebel against our conditioning may have resulted in some sort of physical, sexual or emotional abuse.

Thus we’ve grown up in a world that values security and linear thought: If I make straight A’s and go to college and get a stable job and make a lot of money, I will attract a member of the opposite sex and get married and have kids and be happy.

While this may be exactly the right way of life for someone, for many of us, it just doesn’t work that way. We have the intuition that there is more. More of life to see, experience and love. We get the sense that we’ve been settling for OK, rather than reaching for our potential. We’ve chosen a life of numbing the chronic pain that is trying to tell us something, rather than feel it all, learn from it and expand our pleasure threshold.

To be clear, an orgasmic life takes an infinite number of forms. It’s less about changing the external circumstances and more about your perception of those conditions. A vendor selling coconuts on the beach in India for 50 years may experience more orgasmic pleasure than a jet-setting, billionaire CEO.

It’s the how, rather than the what, that helps us tap into the orgasm already present and flowing in our lives.

In Part 2 of this article, I’ll list and explore the 6 (non-linear) steps to an orgasmic life.

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

Photo Credit: Michal Marcol

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

If You Build It, They Will Come (But What If I Don't Know What I Am Building?)

My friend Lance and I as Vestal Virgins at Burning Man

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I/I took the one less-traveled by/And that has made all the difference. --Robert Frost

When I decided to move to the west coast, my intention was always to land in Los Angeles—and it still is. The film industry beckons me, as does the prospect of bringing Orgasmic Mediation to the myriad of package-pretty (but sensation-lacking) actors and actresses living in Tinseltown.

I had a plan: save up some money, buy a car and drive directly to LA at the beginning of 2012.

Only now, a pesky little gnat has taken up residence in my heart: Desire.

I recently spent four weeks out west, both in San Francisco and in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada as part of set-up and tear-down crew for the annual Burning Man festival (if you don’t know what that is, I really can’t explain it here, but trust me, it is a life-changing crucible of transformation). During these weeks, I experienced what it was like to feel validated as a sexually hungry woman. I felt creative in ways I never imagined (I painted a bunch of tables for Center Camp and gave a talk on creativity, purpose and orgasm—two things I have never done before!). I lived an existence where magic and synchronicity were the status quo. I celebrated my 31^st birthday on the playa. And I found my people. As I write this now I am starting to weep. Family. People who see all of you and love every little crazy, creepy, freaky, dirty, shiny, golden scrap of your wounded being. People, who when I say “I am sad” or “I am angry”, say “Great! Tell me about it!”—not the usual “Get over it” or “Awww, everything’s gonna be ok.” Most of all, I learned how to better express my own love. To not hold back out of fear of what the “Other” is thinking, but to just fucking stand up, look someone in the eye (with love and without entitlement) and say “This is what I feel. This is what I want.”

So now, all I can think about is how the hell I can get to San Francisco as soon as possible. Not in a passing “I’ll spend a week there on my way to LA” kind of way. But in a serious, 3-4 month energetic fortification before making my way to jungles of Los Angeles. As in buying a one-way ticket two weeks from today, donating most of my possessions and shipping the rest. Tying a hasty little bow on this 13-year love affair with New York City.

The thing is…I’m scared. Really. Do I have a job in SF? No. Do I have a place to live? Well, maybe a crash pad for a few weeks, but certainly nothing really affordable for me right now. Do I have a car (so I really need one)? A plan? Any real good reason to do this?

I mean, this doesn’t make sense! I just signed a 3-month teaching contract at the City University of New York. I have clients at the studio I teach out of in Soho. I need to be saving money now and moving costs a lot of money!

And yet…it all just feels like an excuse to me.

Because the bottom line is that my desire is calling me in a BIG FUCKING WAY to SF—right now in this very moment (oh man, here come the tears again).

I know what you are thinking: “Oh Lord, another one of these people who is making crazy life changes after going to Burning Man.” I hear you. But, this isn’t my first time at the burn, ya know. It’s my third, so it’s not as if I just experienced all this opening for the first time and I have decided to sell my life and become a monk in the Himalayas. I mean, I already started selling everything I own last April. I already had a plan to go west for the past year. And I am keeping in step with the purpose I was put here for: to perform and to bring OMing to everyone. It simply feels like I am now listening even more closely to my body, which yearns to accelerate at a pace I had not anticipated.

At Burning Man, my intention was to let go of the Good Girl/Princess and to step into the role of a Queen. Though there is still always work to be done here, I feel as if I shed a huge part of the last 10 years of my life on the playa. And in this lightness, I have found an immediacy, a weightlessness and a freedom in life. I can’t return now to the old ways of living: holding myself back, waiting for the right moment, scrimping by on “just enough”, living in the land of “if only” or “what if.” The moment is now. Always. The moment is right now. It’s simply up to me to choose which direction to go…

Photo Copyright Candice Holdorf