Sacred Sexual Healing – Page 2 – Goddess On the Loose

Sex, Immortality, and the Future of Women An interview with Barbara Marx Hubbard by Jessica Roemischer

Is sex evolving? Barbara Marx Hubbard, the grand dame of the “conscious evolution” movement, emphatically states, “Yes!” As an author, a futurist, and the president of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, Hubbard has been at the forefront of an emerging worldview positing that humans are at the threshold of a new phase in the evolutionary process. And this, as she reveals here, has great implications for our favorite pastime.

A wonderfully spry and energetic seventy-five-year-old, Hubbard freely admits to “not being that sexually oriented” and says that sex had never been primary in her relationship with her eighty-one-year-old partner, Sidney. While that would, under most circumstances, consign the sexual dimension of a marriage to the back burner, in Barbara’s case, she has characteristically used it as an opportunity to discover a deeper evolutionary significance and possibility. “Wanting to be responsive to Sidney,” she says, “I began to ask myself, ‘What is my heart’s true desire? If recreational sex is not what motivates me, what would motivate me at the deepest part of my being?'” That question led Hubbard and her partner into a dynamic exploration of the evolutionary significance of sex. And as she explains in the following interview, when two people come together with the conscious intention to evolve, sex becomes a “regenerative” experience that can ignite passion – the passion to become a new expression of man and woman, co-creative partners with the evolutionary process itself.

What Is Enlightenment: Barbara, you have recently been speaking about a new form of sexuality called “co-creational” or “regenerative” sex. Could you begin by describing how co-creational sex is different from procreational and recreational sex?

Barbara Marx Hubbard: In procreative sex, there’s a higher purpose, which is to create life. The fact that the woman’s body is capable of receiving a fertilized egg and creating another being is mysterious, miraculous, and sacred. That is its most profound purpose, the extraordinary miracle of the biological imperative. So there is a sacred meaning to sexuality, which is to reproduce the entities that are engaging in sex, no matter what those two entities think they’re doing! Recreational sex, on the other hand, is for intimacy and pleasure. It’s enhancing in many ways, but it doesn’t have the higher sacred purpose of procreational sex.

In evolutionary sexuality, or what I call “co-creational sex,” rather than reproducing the couple or engaging in intimacy and sexual pleasure for recreation, the sacredness of the intimacy is compelled by a vision of the couple evolving through their union. In that sense, evolutionary sexuality is comparable in its sacredness to procreational sex. While nature’s purpose is to reproduce the species through procreation, in co-creational sex, we are using the sexual impulse to evolve the species for the highest purpose.

WIE: How did you begin to discern a higher evolutionary purpose for sex beyond that of reproduction?

Marx Hubbard: I began to observe a fundamental inequality between men and women in their later years and sought its significance. As we live longer and longer lives, more and more women are entering menopause. They are no longer producing eggs, and yet men continue to produce sperm until they die. So I began to ask myself, “Is there a higher purpose for the sperm, since the man continues to produce so many of them? And if he loves a postmenopausal woman and she has no eggs, is it possible, through intentionality, to unlock a higher purpose within the coding of the sperm? What if the woman desires, above all else, not a new baby, but a new body and a new being sensitive to spirit, capable of self-healing, self-generating, and self-evolving?”

Currently, males inseminate women to conceive babies, and as men get older, they have recreational sex. But what if the woman’s desire brings forth from the male sperm its true fulfillment and noble purpose? What if the male inseminates the woman with the evolving potential inherent in the sperm, triggered by the woman’s desire to give birth to her self? What if he is consciously inseminating and co-creating with the woman the new being who is required for the evolution of life on earth? The woman has the biological capacity for self-reproduction through sexuality, and she may also have the capacity for self-evolution through sexuality. Now this exploration is occurring only in the realm of intention and imagination” in the imaginal realm. But men find it very empowering when the woman says, “I feel that the sperm has a higher purpose.” It’s very arousing to the man, that’s for sure! It really would be shocking if I became the Dr. Ruth of “evolutionary sexuality.”

WIE: If there was demonstrable proof of this, something unprecedented would happen in the elder generation in this country, and in the world. It would definitely start a revolution!
Marx Hubbard: It would! Sexuality is not just a small aspect of life; it is an expression of the life force of evolution. And that life force in the postmenopausal couple has a higher purpose that hasn’t been fully experienced yet. The intention, the love, and the intimacy this idea generates in my partner and me is itself vitalizing” even if it hasn’t actually changed my DNA. I’ve projected this forward into the future, imagining that if we really are going to be able to extend our life span to a radical degree, then sexuality would have to assume a higher purpose beyond recreation in order for it to take on the sacred dimension of procreational sex and express the dynamism inherent in the life pulse. We are a self-evolving species now, and consciousness evolution is not only about our psyches and our social action but also about our own bodies. To raise sexuality to the possibility of regeneration and self-evolution is a wonderful exploration.

WIE: You have coined the term “regenopause” to represent this new perspective on the postmenopausal years.

Marx Hubbard: Yes. When I was fifty, I was diagnosed with a form of chronic cancer, and I began to search for the deeper plan of my being. I heard an inner voice that asked, “Would you like to regenerate or would you like to die?” I had no idea I had such a choice! And this inner voice said, “Cancer is the body’s panicked effort to grow without a plan; regeneration occurs when you say yes to the deeper plan of your being.” I realized that this deeper plan involved tuning in to the evolutionary process and becoming an embodiment of that. When a woman in her menopausal years is overcome by a profound impulse to co-create and to self-evolve, this signals a next phase in the life cycle of the feminine. I asked for a word that would describe what I was going through in my postmenopausal years” the internal liberation, as well as the desire for co-creation” and the word just flashed: regenopause.

Regenopause happens when the woman gets so turned on to her creativity and her life purpose that it starts to activate her at the cellular level. When an increased spiritual desire to participate in evolution crosses over into the aging process, it sends a signal that says, “We’re not finished, folks. We’re not ready to go yet. It would be a waste of evolutionary time to die now because look what it took to get us here!”

Our species is being asked to self-evolve, or we will devolve and die. And I think that the regenopausal woman who is activated by this life purpose is, perhaps, the missing link in the story. So many women are entering menopause, so many women are turned on, and our culture is finally open enough to call us forth without trying to destroy us. It’s the first time in modern history that we can even begin to see the potential of the “feminine co-creator.” We haven’t seen this full-scale woman until now because, in our culture, women haven’t been allowed to pursue this except in a very narrow way. So regenopause transforms menopause into a new and open-ended life cycle, which doesn’t have an existing lid, or an existing label, or a social image of itself.

WIE: You seem to be observing that women in their later years are awakening to an evolutionary or developmental context for their lives” that they are thinking about what it would mean to evolve and to be free in ways they hadn’t even begun to consider when they were younger.

Marx Hubbard: That is exactly right, and I was one of those women. I got married in 1951 at the age of twenty-one, and I was of the generation that Betty Friedan wrote about in The Feminine Mystique. Through interviewing hundreds and hundreds of women, she discovered that we had no self-image after the age of twenty-one, and that that was accompanied by a kind of malaise and sadness. Then in the sixties, we burst out with the women’s movement. But I think that there is a third phase to the women’s movement in the third millennium, because over the last fifty years, the evolutionary perspective has taken hold. This new phase is about the drive to self-evolve and self-express, which is different from wanting equal rights in the masculine world. It’s deeper, and it’s motivated by a passionate love of our potential.

WIE: This next step is the most exciting aspect of what you’re talking about because it would mean transcending many of the premodern, modern, and postmodern notions of what it means to be a man and a woman. It seems that you’re pointing to a natural, unpremeditated, and spontaneous expression of a liberated masculinity and a liberated femininity.

Marx Hubbard: This is the new Adam and the new Eve” whole being with whole being at the Tree of Life. In the story of Genesis, Eve was not only going for the Tree of Knowledge, she was heading for the Tree of Life, which is the tree of the gods. And it seems to me that the human species is heading for the Tree of Life. We have the power to destroy worlds and build worlds, to change our own bodies, and perhaps, eventually, to have ever-evolving life. Now, when the woman has become whole, so that her own masculine and feminine are joined, and the man too has become whole, they can come together beyond domination and submission in such a way that will bring forth the greater potential of each. So we see the couple as a very powerful arena of self-evolution. And when you add sexuality” from procreation to recreation to regeneration” you begin to see the New Man and the New Woman gaining the wisdom to guide the new powers of humanity forward.

What We Never Learned About Sex by Anyaa McAndrew and Babadez Nichols

We are sexual healers. That’s a provocative statement that triggers people in this culture. We work as healers (Anyaa as a psychotherapist and priestess facilitator and Dez as a transformational teacher). Both of us have been drawn into the arena of sexuality, because there is so much power locked up in confusion, competition, obsession and repression about sexuality. We created a weekend to assist people to step deeper into their power. It has become clear to us in our work that sexual issues create power drains, and these undermine our ability to create the health, abundance, relationships and inspiration that is our birthright. Continue reading “What We Never Learned About Sex by Anyaa McAndrew and Babadez Nichols”

Women’s Sexual Healing: From Feminism to the Divine Feminist by Anyaa McAndrew and Candy Hadsall

We are priestesses. We are also feminists. In the 1970s and ’80s spirituality and feminism took separate paths. Subsequent changes have influenced us to want more than just power in the world. We want sexual power, freedom and pleasure. It is our birthright and the domain of the Sacred Feminine, the Goddess, the Universal Energy that is re-emerging.

We both come from political perspectives that know women are now standing on the shoulders of a worn-out patriarchal system that has repressed, denied and demonized women’s sexuality. Male dominated cultures down through the ages have defiled the Divine nature of the archetypes of the sacred sexual priestess and healer and made them into servants of pornography and prostitution. As priestesses we see the need for women to stand in their own spiritual authority, re-claim from the religious elite the right to stand between heaven and earth, and do ritual and ceremony with powerful intention for healing ourselves, our planet and all beings. We know this cannot work if we carry shame, abuse and blockage in our sexual centers because our sexuality is the source of our spiritual power.

Continue reading “Women’s Sexual Healing: From Feminism to the Divine Feminist by Anyaa McAndrew and Candy Hadsall”

Another Tantric Viewpoint

By Liz Estrata and Gary Wilson

Much time and effort in the last few decades has been well spent in absolving us of guilt for various behaviors mankind once self-righteously condemned. Yet humanity’s benediction is small comfort if you’re suffering from an addiction or slave to an unwanted fetish.

Rick, for example, was an alcoholic for years. He kept his drinking in the closet. His self-imposed isolation made him a social recluse, fed a tendency toward depression (which led to further chemical dependence in the form of Prozac™), and resulted in deep self-loathing.

Suzanne lived with a sexual fetish: she never had orgasm unless she ran a torture movie in her mind. For years she wondered what was wrong with her. Eventually she learned that her pediatrician had done some minor snipping of her genitals when she was an infant. Yet, even after she understood the reason for her pain/arousal association, she couldn’t break the iron link between her “turn on” mechanism and the reward of orgasm.

Both Rick and Suzanne are free of these obsessions without time spent on a psychiatrist’s couch. How did they do it? By learning to make love differently. Not only did this change free them of their compulsions, but there is also a growing body of scientific evidence to explain how it could.

In July-August, 2002, Clinical Neuropharmacology published an article about a man who was given high doses of dopamine to treat Parkinson’s disease. Dopamine can alleviate the shaking associated with Parkinson’s. After 70 years as a run of the mill heterosexual, he suddenly found himself cross-dressing. When doctors decreased his dosage, the urge to put on his wife’s clothing evaporated. The authors hypothesized that excess, or sensitivity to, dopamine may be behind both paraphilias (fetishes) and hypersexuality (sex addictions).

The Role of Dopamine in Sex and Addictions

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that occurs naturally in the brain. Its primary job is to “light up” a section of the primitive brain with intense pleasure when we take any action that once furthered mankind’s survival. The dopamine reward is so powerful that in an experiment where rats could push a lever to stimulate this portion of their brains, they “blissed” themselves to death, without even pausing to eat.

Evolutionary biology has found its uses for this mechanism. For example, we receive a dopamine reward for:

– eating high calorie foods, because the best way our nomadic ancestors could store food was as fat,
– taking risks, because bold, aggressive lovers were more likely to pass on their genes, and
– having sex, even when a harsh existence didn’t leave our ancestors with much opportunity for hanky-panky, or energy/resources for raising offspring. (Orgasm is basically a big blast of dopamine in our primitive brain)

As Burnham and Phelan, the authors of MEAN GENES, From Sex to Money to Food, Taming our Primal Instincts, point out, such activities now create more havoc than benefit. For example,

– High calorie foods are too plentiful for many of us, yet we continue to receive our biological reward for ordering extra fries. This reward for impulsive consuming, rather than saving, also causes many of us to run up nasty credit card debts.
– The reward for taking risks proves equally treacherous for some. We develop gambling addictions or obsessions for extreme sports because they offer such a buzz.
– Sexual stimulation is readily available these days, and compulsion to orgasm frequently leads to irresponsible and aggressive sexual behavior. This particular reward has achieved its biological objective so well that many cultures have already overpopulated themselves to the point of starvation.

The “dopamine for engaging in sex” reward is also the mechanism behind sexual fetishes and compulsive masturbation/sex addictions. It’s hard to kick any habit that’s readily accessible, and for which we receive such an intense reward.

This point brings us to alcohol and drug addictions. Over the course of history, mankind has cleverly (?) learned to hijack this pleasure/reward mechanism with numerous substances that do not further our survival as a species: alcohol, cocaine, nicotine, chocolate, and heroin, to name a few. Some of thes ”like too much orgasm” trigger the release of so much dopamine (or block so much of its re-absorption) that they overwhelm the dopamine breakdown process. Our bodies can’t restore equilibrium.

Unfortunately, too much dopamine floating around in our synapses can lead to nerve damage. This may explain why our bodies eventually cope with these “pleasure excesses” by reducing the number of sites on our nerve cells to which dopamine can bind. (Unless dopamine binds, it cannot stimulate the pleasure nerve.) Sadly, this protective “down regulation” of dopamine receptors feels to us like an intense “low.” All the joy has literally gone out of our lives at a neurochemical level until our receptors wake up again.

To cope with these periods of intense anxiety (and our sense that something vital is missing), we usually reach for higher and higher doses of dopamine (whether through orgasm, drugs or alcohol). So our addictions are often mutually reinforcing, and we are less and less likely to achieve any lasting sense of lasting well-being. Instead we forget what it feels like to operate with a natural sense of healthy equilibrium and end up dependent upon lithium, Prozac™, and so on.

Often we do our relationships irreparable damage while under the influence of this high/low cycle. Sure, our partner looks delicious as the dopamine pounds between our ears. But we tend to “fall out of love” just as fast when we’re feeling “off.” In short, our emotions (and attraction to our partner) tend to be governed by these powerful, fluctuating feelings and we mistake them for our will. Many times we change partners frequently because of this syndrome believing we’re victims of incompatibility. Actually, we’re victims of brain chemical delusions.
Regaining Control of Our Circuitry

As we said earlier, Rick and Suzanne regained control of their primitive brains by learning to make love differently. Instead of following biology’s “dopamine incentive plan” in bed, they employed an approach to sex that’s been around for thousands of years. It calls for avoiding conventional orgasm in favor of another quality of sexual ecstasy. Clues about it are found in Taoist, pre-Roman Christian (“Gnostic”), and selected Tantric texts. These sources speak of a deeply satisfying, very balanced way of making love that stills cravings and is remarkable for its calmness. It is also a path to heightened awareness.

They took a very slow route to intercourse, first sleeping together every night for several weeks. They spent that time cuddling and exchanging energy through massage, dancing, laughing, talking about past relationship trauma and comforting each other, without having sex. To their amazement they felt deeply satisfied by their “love making.” In fact, Rick noted that after three days, the burning desire to have conventional orgasm decreased substantially, even though his libido did not.

When they did add intercourse to their intimacy they stuck to a schedule instead of being spontaneous. Biology rewards spontaneous sex with lots of exciting neurochemicals because it is more likely to result in careless pregnancy. But Rick and Suzanne were consciously tiptoeing past all the familiar dopamine reward triggers commonly known as “skilled foreplay for great, hot sex.”

They discovered that there are other kinds of orgasms. Rick, for example, described his experiences as “heart orgasms” periods of ecstatic closeness that go on and on without the “heat up and explode” experience biology had been rewarding him for.

As the months passed, they also noticed that their relationship had a stability and sense of emotional equilibrium that had been absent from past relationships. They laughed more and processed less. Instead of taking each other for granted, they became increasingly attentive and generous. They spent much of their time harmoniously together. The familiar need for “space” they’d experienced in past relationships disappeared. They were both unusually productive in their careers. Rick was able to stop drinking entirely within a few months, and, months later, also withdrew from Prozac™ (something he’d never thought would be possible, due to a personal and genetic history of depression).

Suzanne, who was also very orgasmic and sexually active, had begun experimenting with non-orgasmic sex years earlier. She’d already found that without the reward of orgasm, her fetish had faded away. What a relief! She also noticed that her chronic problems with yeast infection and urinary tract infection had disappeared. Moreover, one of her lovers, who had herpes, discovered that he never had an outbreak while he avoided conventional orgasm.
How Could this Be?

Rick has a human sciences background, so he wondered if science could explain how making love without conventional orgasm might have such powerful, beneficial effects. He unearthed some fascinating clues. Not only did he deepen his understanding of how dopamine can drive addictions and fetishes, he also found evidence that biology rewards sex with multiple partners. An experiment involving rats demonstrated that if a rat was sexually exhausted with one mate, and then moved to a cage with another mate, the exhausted rat would perk right up. No wonder polyamory and polygamy are appealing biology wants it that way.

Rick learned that the “heart orgasms” he and Suzanne had experienced were probably a function of another, non-addictive neurochemical, oxytocin. Ocytocin promotes deeper bonding and selfless behavior. It, too, feels great, though it is not an explosive reward like dopamine. It also does not trigger a defensive “low” (or sense of lack) and it has a host of other benefits. It makes females more sexually receptive and promotes sexual arousal in males. It also increases the attraction between established partners, but not between unfamiliar potential mates.

And it’s a powerful tonic. It reduces pain signals to the brain, so we feel better. It mitigates the effects of cortisol, a stress hormone that otherwise lowers our immunity to disease, causes us to gain weight, damages our brain cells, and lessens our ability to cope. Rick also found research from Heartmath Institute revealing that open-hearted emotions, associated with oxytocin, correlate with faster regeneration, reversal of high blood pressure, better cognitive ability, higher levels of DHEA (anti-aging hormone), and improved immune response.

Nor was his recovery from addiction any longer a mystery. Oxytocin diminishes the effects of addiction. For example, rats addicted to heroin, which they could self-administer, used significantly less heroin when also injected with oxytocin. Oxytocin has also been shown to ease withdrawal from cannabis. In short, Rick’s personal experience of healing an alcohol addiction that had haunted him for 15 years was entirely aligned with the latest scientific findings. With more oxytocin flowing, impossible challenges had become quite manageable.

To tap the benefits of oxytocin we must stay “in our hearts.” If we’re feeling gratitude, reverence, love or a sense of selfless nurturing, even a conventional orgasm is going to have powerful benefits. However, conventional orgasms especially over time carry the risk of setting off the “down regulation” low that we mentioned earlier. A sense of lack can trigger a selfish pursuit of more and more dopamine. Often this leads to feelings of defensiveness or greed both of which close the heart. Without the ecstasy oxytocin contributes, sex deteriorates into “just sex.” That often fuels a search for thrills from switching partners, or increasingly intense foreplay and orgasm techniques.

So if those solutions don”t call you, or if you are struggling to release an addiction or fetish, take comfort in knowing that a powerful antidote lies in lovemaking that promotes equilibrium, rather than highs and lows. This equilibrium brings well-being to aspects of our lives that have no direct relationship to sex. And, according to the Taoists, this inner calm may be the precursor for a permanent, transcendental shift. As Lao Tsu wrote long ago:

Where ordinary intercourse is effortful, angelic cultivation is calm, relaxed, quiet, and natural. Where ordinary intercourse unites sex organs with sex organs, angelic cultivation unites spirit with spirit, mind with mind, and every cell of one body with every cell of the other body. The cords of passion and desire weave a binding net around you….The trap of duality is tenacious. Bound, rigid, and trapped, you cannot experience liberation. Through dual cultivation it is possible to unravel the net, soften the rigidity, dismantle the trap. you become filled with inexhaustible vitality and are liberated forever from the cycle of death and rebirth.

We hope you’ll help us look until we find what Lao Tsu found and settle for nothing less.

Liz Estrata is the author of PEACE BETWEEN THE SHEETS: Sexual Relationships that Heal, which contains a simple, step-by-step program for couples who wish to outwit biology. It is available through Amazon.

The Tantric Path Means An Empowered Heart

By Kutira and Raphael

There is a lot of interest currently in Tantra. People are looking for what is missing in their relationships, in their life, and have a feeling that all is not what it could be. The orientation of our culture is to look for how to get more and better. A better body, better sex, more money, more power. Tantra is not about more or better. It is about deeper. Going deeper into yourself and increasing your capacity to go deeper into others.

For 5000 years, Taoist masters have created simple and powerful techniques for prolonging a healthy and fulfilling life. When these techniques are empowered in the heart they become miraculous, enabling the channeling of sexual energy upward through the body, revitalizing the body and reconnecting us with the sacred. When these techniques are practiced and used to open and empower the heart we discover passion and power, ecstasy and creativity, and the key to eternal love.

In Tantra what we are talking about is sexual love towards God. Understand that sexual energy and life energy are one and the same. The same energy that a karate expert uses to break through bricks is the same energy that you experience in a sexual orgasm.

For most of us, this energy goes down and out. Women have babies, and menstrual cycles, men ejaculate. That is energy going out. And we get tired and old. Now what happens, when we bring this energy up the spine, it rejuvenates the body, it brings sexual energy into the heart where it is experienced as prayer, and sexual energy into the mind where it is experienced as visions and revelations, and brings the energy even higher, to that place where you and I are the same being. Have you ever noticed that an orgasm is more than physical, it’s spiritual? Everything leading to the orgasm is very physical but the orgasm itself…..I mean forget logic and reason and time-space reality, that all goes down the drain and have you ever noticed that when you have an orgasm you feel very light and yet very strong at the same time? It’s a very real and powerful energy. Now what happens when a woman has a thirty minute orgasm or a man becomes multi orgasmic?

The Tantric path is more than techniques. It is a way of opening yourself to the creative energy of the universe, un-concealing the Tantric self within each of us. It is a joyful surrender to unconditional love. So unconditional that you embrace all parts of your self, you openly accept the truth of your being and express it. Letting go of judgments about yourself and others. Letting go of fears and having the courage to communicate freely your truth at any moment. Unconditional love. Empowering yourself. Empowering others. Freedom of oneself.
Then things happen. Especially in regard to rejuvenating the spirit and the body. So welcome to the world of Tantra.

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