The Path of the Sexual Healer

by NightOwl
 

Healing is opening to and receiving the information and energy needed for a system to come into a dynamic balance.  All healing comes from allowing the energy (the information) of the universe to flow through and balance the system.  Energy/information is what the universe is made up of.  Another description of the energy/information that heals is love and compassion, patterns that can and do repeat forever.

Learning to be a healer

Becoming a healer is learning the art of using one's own knowledge, skills and abilities to bring to an individual who is ill (out of balance, lacking needed information) the ability to open to the information needed to heal themselves, and assisting them in letting energy flow through to facilitate healing.

This is my opinion; I speak for no one else, and what I say comes from my own experience and is freely offered to those who are interested.  I invite you to consider my ideas and suggestions with an open mind and see for yourself what flowers within you. Many gods and goddesses are celebrated as healers, and their energy and focus can guide you if you travel the healer's path.

The energy/information needed by an individual to balance and heal occurs in a multitude of forms and practices.  Breath work, herbs, water, yoga, prayer, touch and massage, vitamins, food, meditation, dancing, Western medicine, heat, cold, fasting, singing, communicating and many other forms and practices assist individuals, groups, communities and ecosystems to regain the dynamic balance that we label as health. 

Learning the systems of information, and learning how to transmit them, is what it takes to become a healer.  Most healers focus on developing expertise in one or a few systems.  Becoming expert in a system of healing is quite a lot like becoming skilled in other arts such as dancing, music, sports, surfing — anything that requires a surrender to and learning how to move with the energy of that information.

Do you suspect that you may have the calling to travel the healer path?  Discovering one's life path sometimes takes years, and such discovery is confusing for most of us, as guidance on how to find a path is only marginally available in our culture.  Many people who feel they might be healers begin by realizing that others are comforted by their touch and begin to recover from illness in their presence.  Others want to be with these natural healers, particularly when the healers are feeling balanced.  On the other hand, novice healers often notice that after contact with sick people they have many of the symptoms of the illness in question, or that they feel drained and exhausted and more prone to other illness after being in the presence of someone who is ill. 

Another reason to suspect you may be being called to become a healer is if you suffer from a disability, or a chronic or life-threatening illness.  Chronic illness or disability is described in some older cultures as a "wound that never heals" and is considered part of the process of becoming a healer, or a method by which healers are recognized.  It is one of the ways the Goddess calls one to become a healer.  Such a "wound" enables the healer to connect more easily with others who are temporarily ill or hurt.  One becomes a healer while changing from a person who suffers from a chronic illness or disability to a person who has a chronic illness or disability. 

If you are such a person, you must hone your courage and face your terror.  Dancing with the energy, welcoming the gifts that the illness or disability teach, opening to the love and compassion of the universe all greatly reduce the experience of suffering. As the healer learns this dance for himself or herself, the healer can teach it to others.

Most people, when they begin to realize they may be being called to be a healer, try to find some way to decline.  The same abilities and sensitivities that enable them to focus healing energy also usually make them sick, tired, vulnerable and burned out, because they cannot turn these talents on and off and do not know how to balance and cleanse themselves.  Learning to focus, ground, purify and channel energy are parts of the training of a healer.

However, even the schools for the official healers in our present culture, the colleges and universities that train doctors, nurses, social workers and members of the other helping professions, have little to no information about what healers need to do to protect themselves from the exhaustion of trying to stay open in the presence of imbalance, disease and despair — or in the presence of the exhilaration that occurs during a strong connection with energy. The latter can be extremely intoxicating, and such exhilaration often leads to a really obnoxious self-aggrandizement and loss of the inner balance needed to be open to the energy of healing.

Remember: All healing comes from the universe; the healer is just the channel.  Training consists of learning how to be a more open and skilled channel and how to avoid loss of balance from the intensity of the flow, or to regain balance more quickly.

If you find yourself on the healer's path, both self-education and finding good teachers are essential.  You're unlikely to be able to become proficient and responsible by yourself.  So many with a huge natural gift for healing allow their conceit regarding their ability to delude themselves into thinking their talents are complete and need no training or discipline.  Even musical prodigies need lessons and practice to develop their abilities, and so do natural healers.

Marianne Williamson, an extraordinary teacher of the "Course on Miracles" who spoke at the "Body and Soul" conference in Seattle in April, made the point about how important it is to seriously educate oneself, and not succumb to the intellectual laziness common among "feel-good New Agers" (and unfortunately all other segments of society, including pagans).  I share her opinion, particularly in regard to healers.  While I hope that we as pagans never have credentialing committees, I also hope we develop the sophistication as a community to distinguish between supporting skilled healers and supporting everyone who makes any unlikely assertion about their knowledge and abilities.

There are more and more places every year to go to study healing outside the official channels, and a discussion about how to keep in balance while aiding others is beginning to take place widely in Western culture.  Alternative and natural health care is even gaining acceptance within the establishment.  This new awareness about wellness and healing in its many forms — individual, group, cultural and planetary — was the major topic at the "Body and Soul" conference, and some very good material was presented there.  (For more information or to purchase some of this material, see "Resources," at the end of this article.)

Are you ready to learn to heal?  Most spiritual disciplines report some version of the saying "knock and the door shall be opened, seek and ye shall find," or "when the student is ready, the teacher appears." When you make a commitment to becoming a healer, teachers will pop up.  Try to recognize them and learn what they are willing to teach you.

However, know that if you are ill, or if you believe you are on a healing path, you alone are responsible for finding your own balance.  Others may be able to help you, but only you can dance your dance.

What about sex?

I spoke of "sexual healing" in the title of this article, so after this long lead-in, you're probably wondering: What about sex? 

What are the differences between sexual healing and other types of healing?  What exactly do I mean by "sexual healing"? Do "sexual healers" have sex with the people they are trying to help, or not?  If they do, how do they protect themselves and others from disease, and from becoming emotionally connected in ways that lead to heartbreak or mayhem?  If you suspect you are on the sexual healer path, what evidence is there for that, where are the teachers, and what can you expect?

Sexual healing, in my definition, aims to achieve a relaxed and balanced eroticism that nurtures one's life and well-being.  It is being able to choose — to be "at choice" — in the presence of erotic energy.  It is neither being obsessed with or repelled by sexual expression or activity.  It is feeling free to say yes or no to erotic opportunities and invitations.  It is feeling free to allow erotic energy to course through the body without feeling anxious, ashamed, angry or frightened.  It not feeling driven to do any particular activity or behavior that would either increase erotic arousal to the point of orgasm, or suppress the erotic energy, but rather to be open to the energy as it wells up the spine and fills the body with wonder.  The incredible loneliness we experience in the predominant Western culture, which comes from the distrust and hated of the body and of nature, is lessened when we connect through touch, love and sexual play, just as when we connect with the universe through our practice of the Craft.

To my disappointment, I heard no discussion of sexual healing at "Body and Soul," and I did hear several sex-negative comments.  That is one of the differences for sexual healers.  If you feel called to be a sexual healer, you will have less social support and fewer resources available.  However, there are a few extraordinary teachers and courses around, and our society is in desperate need of sexual healing to respond to the current moral panic and to provide help for all of us to open our hearts and souls to each other and to the universe.

Aside from the politics and social stigma, there really is very little difference between sexual healing and other types of healing. The energy that heals is love, the desire to connect, compassion of the heart, the energy which is the universe.  To be present with your heart open, allowing the energy of the universe to flow through you to another and not flinching, closing down or turning away in the face of another's suffering, pain or whatever else, or your own — that is what it takes to facilitate sexual healing. All the other skills of grounding, centering, building and transmitting energy apply as in other types of healing.

As a sexual healer, will you have sex during healings?  Yes, if it is appropriate, facilitates the healing and is one of the forms of healing you use (or which uses you).  No, I hope, if it just serves your own desires, leads others to be dependent on you emotionally or otherwise or in some other way disables rather than empowers you and those you seek to serve. 

Some sexual healers touch; some send energy, speak, sing or write. You will have to find your own path and determine what you will do to travel it.  It will probably take quite a long time for you to learn and perfect the method or methods you will use.  In a culture as sex-negative as ours, you will need to always question everyone's motives, intentions, actions, integrity and honor, including your own.

What to expect from others — and yourself

If you travel the path of sexual healer, you will be both adored and despised.  It is not for the faint-hearted, and unless you cannot find peace anywhere else, choose another path.  However, if becoming a sexual healer is the only path that soothes your soul, find good friends who will support your exploration and learning, and skilled teachers to guide you.  On this path, you will find great joy and deep pain, wrenching sadness and exquisite bliss, an endless gratitude for the opportunity to serve life and consciousness.  Do your best not to take either the adoration or the attacks personally.  Sexual healers touch all the hopes, desires and fears of others, and many will react toward you out of their own unconscious inner conflicts about sexuality. 

If you take the path of being a sexual healer, most of society will treat you with contempt and scorn, denying that you are attempting or accomplishing anything worthwhile.  Most people will consider you some sort of strange, mentally ill slut with delusions of grandeur, even those perfectly willing to experience your skill. People apply those labels to that which they fear the most within themselves, and you will need to open your heart to them too.

While it is very possible to advocate health and choice in sexual expression without supporting any sort of nonconsensual behavior, you will find it very difficult to talk about sexual health and healing without being confronted by people who insist on focusing the discussion on predation and ugliness.  Open yourself to their pain too, and see what happens.  If you are serious about sexual healing, you will have to learn to gracefully tolerate these attacks without losing your focus and balance, and you will have to face and love all your own inner demons, too.  Whatever part of yourself you love the least will stand between you and your ability to serve others with an open heart.

As a sexual healer, all your own fears, loneliness, anger, desire, grief, pain and attachment will come to the forefront over and over so you may relearn the lessons they bring you.  You will find yourself experiencing every emotion at every intensity again and again.  The love and appreciation from those you help has the greatest chance of damaging your ability to be useful, as it is so intoxicating and feeds the ego so dangerously.  Love and appreciation is an energy much more difficult to balance than anger or fear. 

Learn and practice open and honest communication with everyone, and you will create less pain and mayhem as a sexual healer.  You may fall in love with a person you work with, and that person may not fall in love with you.  This experience is very difficult and painful for anyone.  As a sexual healer it might happen to you often, and you will have to choose over and over to follow this path if you wish to be effective and go on.  Very few people will be willing to be your life-partner, as most find it too threatening to be in a relationship with a sexual healer. 

You will undoubtedly also meet tricksters who see you as an easy mark, or easy lay, who will try to steal energy from you.  As you grow, your skill in seeing the intentions of others will increase, and you will see such efforts as humorous while being free to choose how to respond.

As to how to protect yourself and others from sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), learn and rigorously practice safer sex.  Be part of a group that supports you learning to always practice safer sex, even when you are completely open or otherwise nonrational. Focus on building the energy flow and spreading it throughout the body rather than on specific genital pleasure — although sometimes what the other person will need most is a simple orgasm, and being congruent with the needs of the moment is what healing is about.

Is sexual healing your path?

How will you know if you are called to sexual healing?  Others will tell you how nurturing it is to be with you sexually.  Sexuality will interest you deeply and in its many flowerings.  You will see the beautiful sexual energy bloom everywhere in the universe, and it will call you to its dance.  The god or goddess you follow will be known for their sexual focus.  No matter how many times others tell you that sexual expression is bad, or dangerous or a waste of time, you will still return to the fountain for yet another taste from that delicious and healing source.

Terrance McKenna, in a lecture on shamanism, while not addressing sexual healing specifically, called upon us all to be midwives to the future that we hear roaring just ahead.  To do so, we must leave behind what we know.  Contribute to the birth of the future by managing pain, by ameliorating anxiety and by breathing.  We must push ourselves in the throes of giving birth to the future by producing art, healing, humor, ideas and everything creative to bring forth the memes (roughly, cultural themes within the collective unconscious) among which the universe can select as the future is born. 

The longer you travel the healer path, the more deeply you will understand yourself and others, and the more you will be able to serve life.  The very best perks of being a sexual healer are the other people you will meet on your path, the opportunities you will have to serve life and the experiences you will share. A more unusual and wonderful group of people would be difficult to find, and you will be part of it.

If this speaks to you, I recommend you educate yourself about sexuality and erotic energy — intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and physically. 

Resources

A few of the many good teachers on sexual healing are:

• Artists, writers and sex activists Betty Dodson, David Steinberg, Dr. Kenneth Ray Stubbs, Annie Sprinkle, Carol Queen, Susie Bright and Pat Califia.
• Tantric teachers Margo Anand, Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger, Charles and Caroline Muir, David and Ellen Ramsdale, Lori Grace, the late Robert Frey, and Dr. Joan Nelson (whose books and tapes are available at 1-800-9TANTRA).
• The people and classes at Body Electric (510) 653-1594. .
• The Society for Human Sexuality at the University of Washington, at http://www.sexuality.org
• Pandora in Seattle.
• The Internet newsgroup, alt.sex.wizards. 

Plus many others whose names I have inadvertently omitted. Other pagans will help you find teachers, and don't forget your own body and spirit, which will provide you with your deepest teachings as you open to yourself and all that lives and loves.

For information on healing in general:

• Many sources of information that would greatly assist the novice or experienced healer are available through Sounds True — you can also call 1-800-333-9185 for a copy for a printed catalog. 
• Body and Soul magazine is another source of information, together with the New Age Journal, a magazine that is over 20 years old and that publishes an annual "Holistic Health Directory and Resource Guide," as do other local sources as well. 

Blessed be....

(originally published in 1997 in Widdershins volume 3, issue 1).