Sacred Sexuality the Alchemical Marriage and Tantra as a Sustainable Energy Practice

I have a book in my spiritual library called Tantric Jesus. It’s one of the few books I’ve never read. Some healers I know have been curious when it’s caught their eye on the shelves, one even borrowed only to return it months later – she didn’t read it either.

I feel like it’s a good one to keep around. Like we’re absorbing something just by osmosis. And I’m curious about whether any one of us will ever actually read it. maybe the provacative title is the whole point. Triggering some deep knowing within us that isn’t easily explained by today’s shallow wisdom on the one thing that pervades everything.

Deeply we know there is a magic that is connected to sex. And also that it’s deeply spiritual. Sacred. We know intuitively that it’s not appreciated in the right way in society. And also that it’s connected to many distortions and a lot of shame. Criminal acts even.

It’s great and it’s not great sometimes at the same time. And sometimes even with the same partner. It can become not great. A means to an end. An obligation. A power struggle. Or even exhausting. But why? Because it’s misunderstood. And it’s not worked with in the divine and magical way it should. Somewhere in history we stopped telling our children the secrets of Isis. We stopped telling our daughter’s that their womb is sacred. And when the religion became dogmatic and not spiritual, the pious who would try to control our wombs made it shameful. Then we took it back with a pendulum swing into a sexual revolution. That set it free but also didn’t make us whole.

By now I feel most people know what chakras are. And they know the sacral chakra and to some degree to root chakra are connected to sexual energy. What most people don’t know is that sexual energy is life force energy. Creative life force energy. That can be drawn up through all the chakras. Valuable life force energy. It can literally create a human in 3D reality. But not every orgasm creates a baby. Not every sexual encounter creates a baby – so what happens to the energy when it’s not creating babies? Does it dissipate? Does it create something else? Yes and yes. If we are not wise we can waste it. Lose it. Let it be taken from us. Oh but if we are wise – we can manifest so much. And some are and do.

An author I came across this week said sex is inextricably linked with religion. This might seem wrong but actually if you’ve come into the conscious awareness that god is not outside us – god is within all living beings. And the life force energy – divine creative energy is sexual energy. And religion is reverence wisdom and understanding of the divine. Then what are we talking about really?

I had a past life hundreds of years ago where I was the prioress of a nunnery (is that a word) and when this past life came into my remembered conscious awareness – I remembered that the reason nuns were housed and expected to remain pure and celibate was to maintain them as a source of energy for the rulers of the land who would stop by, take shelter and visit as they traversed their kingdom. Like an energy re-fueling station. I was named Helen in that lifetime – a name I would choose to use again in a lifetime in 1800s America when I was a prostitute for the American Congressman and Wall Street business men in a brothel house owned by the brother of the Vice President of America. Different lives same pattern. It’s all energy. And it can manifest power to the one who knows how to weild it. Enter Tantra.

Harnessing the magic of sex is difficult in our modern patriarchal society. Most people have seen pornography by age 12. The secret societies and wisdom keepers have hidden the truth about sex. Some who think they know are actually just perverts who are controlled by passion and addicted to orgasm. They don’t know how to generate, harness and retain it. Like a milkmaid milking a cow without a pail. Wasted.

It’s a tricky subject because there are so many wounds around the topic. And so much distortion. If we could each learn to be more free, have fewer expectations, experience it without a rush to expend it. Hold it in the vessel of our body like all energy healers know how to do. Conduct it like reiki. And transmute it through our chakras into creative endeavors – so much goodness. So much bliss. And energy. And aliveness. And oxytocin. And regenerative power. We place far too much emphasis on what we eat in our society and not nearly enough emphasis on the health benefits of partaking in sexual activity with the right partner at the right time for the right reasons. And in the best way. Not as an over indulgence in a fleeting experience for a rush of endorphins that is unsustainable because the life force expelled in orgasm is lost. Like a match spent, tossed aside. Unusable. We strike matches in the wind constantly reaching for the next one to try to light. If only we could learn to protect it. To hold on to it. Protecting Like a candle in a chalice- keeping a fire lit in the chakras – enjoying it slowly, regularly and over time. Holding light. Not in a rush to burn out. But in a sustainable and satisfying tantric ecstasy that directs energy toward dreams and wishes. That recognizes sexual intercourse as alchemical marriage. That values purity of energy and love making with a partner. Sex makes love. Love doesn’t make sex. And sexual energy doesn’t require intercourse to be exchanged – although it’s the easiest way of course. And also the most dangerous because we learn how to start but we never learned how to slow down and hold steady and withdraw the match once the candle is lit.

I’ll never forget the first person I exchanged sexual energy with. It wasn’t with intercourse. But it was everything. And although we’ve been unfaithful to each other ever since, even marrying others and sharing our magic in wrong places – it’s still powerful. We never needed intercourse. We were like two electrical towers surging power between us -staying just far enough apart not to explode each other. In tantra that is the alchemical marriage. Sexual intercourse is power generating and it’s best not to spread our selves too thin – it dims our light.