FIRST PUBLISHED IN ODYSSEY MAGAZINE SPRING EDITION 2023
There’s such joy and creative energy in festivals, in community, in gathering.
I’m still processing so much that I gained from attending and talking at the KwazuluSpirit Festival this year: The learning, listening and experiencing.
Beautiful reminders to create community, to live life with our own unique full expression and to hold space for others to do the same.
Sitting listening to the near-death experience panel at the KwazuluSpirit Festival started spring-cleaning for me in so many ways, opening up a new season in my life, as surgical menopause certainly felt like a long winter!
Seeds were planted months ago, when the rest and healing happened and new shoots opened in my heart as I listened to the speakers on the near-death experience panel.
I wasn’t expecting to feel so emotional, but as each individual started sharing their stories, I started to shake and weep, as the sharing reaffirmed that we are more than this singular existence, we are here to experience being fully human and love in human form.
It felt like a message that it was time to replace my reptilian brain and fear with love, to move back to the magic, the awakening.
There are so many parts of my spiritual awakening that I cannot explain, although my mind searches for certainty within the mystical experience…
An inner voice that guided me, channelled ‘downloads’ and connected me to my own deeper intuition and path.
Much of this path has happened through intense sexual life force energy and bliss for me.
Some term this the kundalini awakening, and often humans bicker over the ‘rightness’ or the ‘wrongness’ of how our awareness rises. I’ve stopped taking part in many of those discussions, as discernment and judgment are two different processes for me.
For me, judgment involves fear, guilt and shame, a hierarchy of different authorities in our lives fighting for power and dominance.
Discernment feels different. Discernment involves personal choice for path, with whom I choose to journey in this short existence, more of a circular connection of tribe and association, instead of polarity and dominance.
As I listened to so many people sharing their consciousness, their path, their personal belief systems, I realised I’ve still been judging my own awakening. I’ve had this feeling that this sexual energy awakening is somehow ‘less than’ or inferior.
Too dangerous – Too personal – Too taboo
I had wanted a more ‘spiritually appealing’ path!
My spiritual calling, happened on stage during a performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats as I hit a top C. The frequency of that note rang through my body and an inner voice spoke clearly to me, and told me a huge spiritual journey was coming. I thought this meant I’d wear white, and feel ‘holy’ and perhaps learn and teach Yoga!
Little did I know that sacred sexual energy and neo tantra would change the way I viewed my life and the world.
Little did I know that intense life force pleasure energy would course through me and redirect my life’s path. This was NOT how I imagined a ‘spiritual awakening’ or ‘calling’ to look or feel.
I wanted rainbows and butterflies, instead I was gifted dragons and fire!
And I was told I had a choice, I didn’t have to do this work.
Yet, it kept calling me till I eventually just gave up and decided to align my principles and values with sharing this magic in the most conscious and laughter-filled way I knew!
The near-death panel sharing their intensely personal stories about physically dying and then returning to their bodies after experiencing this journey, helped me to release the fear around death and sex/pleasure that had crept back in over the years.
Especially the trauma of the Covid years and losing so many people.
That these three people on the panel had had the mutual experience of returning to their bodies and humanity with humour, a deeper sense of peace and of finding their spiritual home right here on earth, really helped ground me back into peace at being right here, right now on this path!
The message of “It’s all love”, “Have more fun” and my favourite: “I came back for whisky and sex”, helped me realise that all human experiences are valid and joy and gratitude can be found everywhere!
I’ve always taken my second calling very seriously – sacred sexuality seriously – and have realised through the kundalini rising experiences of those I coach and work with, that, yes, boundaries and nervous system regulation are still important, but over the past three years I’d lost much of my magic and wonder in fear.
After preaching safety and logical explanation so much, I’d lost the magic.
I’m re-awakening to the magic of the sacred neo tantra journey, the fun, the connection and sharing that with others who also choose this lightning path.
Festivals do that. They bring community together, grounded and alive, back to our roots.
It’s nourishing and nurturing to find the path of awakening that’s best for you!
As Ram Dass said: “We’re all just walking each other home.” And I’ve found my way home again.