Originally published on 13 Moons Magazine
When my heart shrinks for the ways of men, and I feel my sensual aliveness go transparent, I find opening again in places where man has touched the least, the wild earth. In making small offerings of orgasms to the ferns and the wolf spiders, I believe I counteract some of the harm done to the earth and the collective feminine.
Growing up I never knew the oppression of Big R religion.
I never knew the systematized shaming of women’s bodies and sexuality, at least not directly.
Unfortunately I learned it all the same, in indirect ways, in a culture permeated with puritanical ideology and mysogeny. It’s nearly impossible to escape it.
But I’m grateful – I never knew the horrible sermonizing of eternal hell as payment for touching myself with pleasure.
I consider this a luxury. Considering how widespread most sexual shaming is, in most organized religions, in most of the world…
My grandparents have the same birthday. They were coupled three times longer than they lived apart. As a matter of fact, their love was so strong that they united despite their differing religions, and left their churches to be together, which was considered quite blasphemous back then.
I am lucky that they chose love over religion. Because their house always had plenty of love, hugs, backscratches, and affection. Offered freely with no greasy religious conditionality. I never had fear or shame about who I was in their home.
Many women I know were not as lucky. They tell me stories of the things they were told about sex and self-pleasure, things of nightmares. Their bodies were imprinted with a desperate lie, and their innocent sensual expression was thwarted. Their innate feminine nature, vilified, before it even had a chance to blossom.
It’s taken many of my clients decades to undo the harm this caused them. To unwind the trauma from their tissues, to allow their body to menstruate naturally, for fertility to return, and for their innocent sexual expression to be re-embodied.
I grew up on a dirt road in the Northwoods near Lake Michigan. I found my religion in nature. In the earth I buried my heart, not in the sky at the feet of some in-fathomable idol.
I found my place by watching the ferns unfurl with green mathematical precision, by familiarizing myself with the habits of vultures, and by wandering the spring woodline in search of delicacies.
I didn’t grow up in a highrise, in a war-torn nation, under a fear of God, or without a loving family. Luxury.
I will say, I’ve had plenty of sexual trauma. But nature and the love of the earth have saved me. Regardless of where or how you grew up, and what they told you, you belong in nature. Remembering we are of this earth is absolutely vital tor healing the feminine, especially in the face of augmented reality and technological/medical ‘advancements’ that serve to conquer and separate us.
As I have reconnected with my own physicality and sensuality, I am increasingly aware of the deep connection between my body and nature, offering a soothing balm for the wounds of the world, and for my own spirit.
I grant this body permission to drink in the pleasure of standing at the lake’s edge as the storm approaches, while the energy is electric and erotic… that’s my birthright. It’s yours too.
I peel back the masks I was forced to create for myself to survive, and stand naked at the altar of nature’s church, welcomed. This heals everything.
I have a sit spot in the woods on my land. I visit it many times a week, and I give my presence and attention like gifts to the land. Just sitting. Offering breath.
Sometimes I self-pleasure lying on the earth at the base of a tree, looking up at the canopy, letting her romance me with the soft whisperings of leaves in the breeze, the smell of soil being made around me, the gentle twinkling of light as it filters down across my legs.
I offer my pleasure like a prayer.
And I get so much in return from the quiet minutes afterward.
A belonging that cannot be found anywhere else.
Affirming messages about the questions heavy upon my heart.
Deep abiding companionship.
Love and reverence for my body.
This is where I learned about eternal mother love. And I strive every day to channel this love into the bodies and hearts that I have the honor to touch.
When my heart shrinks for the ways of men, and I feel my sensual aliveness go transparent, I find opening again in places where man has touched the least, the wild earth.
In fact, I need to go, because it’s how I stay sane in this insane world.
The days are lengthening here in the Northwoods. The earth is waking from a slumber, and the sensuality returns to our bodies at once, because apprenticing to the earth all these years has woven our bodies and beings together in cycles.
I imagine it’s as our ancestors used to live.
We might consider pleasure like this a luxury, but only if we consider unstructured time with nature a luxury.
In reality, pleasure is our inheritance.
For the future grandparents, I offer my pleasure back to the earth in hopes that it will save her.
Because when I unite my energy with the energy of the earth, especially erotically, I can feel my nerves like mycelium, intertwining with the planet. And that makes me sensitive to the way I walk upon the earth. It brings forth a felt-sense of responsibility, and stewardship becomes an everyday choice.
Exploring and researching pleasure with an animate earth is activism. Through a language of love the bodies of women and earth awaken.
In making small offerings of orgasms to the ferns and the wolf spiders, I believe I counteract some of the harm done to the earth and the collective feminine. It’s my own personal belief and I learned it by listening, but I am certain the earth has always known women to pray this way.
We are emerging out of the dark ages of Big R religion’s control of the feminine. Despite the political trends of abortion and reproductive rights rollbacks, we are rising, babes. Stand firm. Stay Soft.