The road to poly-amory.....

It had been 7 years since I left my train wreck of a marriage, battered, buried and bruised I had set out to find myself - my true self - that whisper of a soul behind all of the adptations and disguises that marriage had required of me. This journey conjured a long arduous whirlwhind of healing, de-construction, re-construction, sorting and sifting of layers and trying different things on. Once my soul and I had gotten to know eachother, old layers of being ripped off and discarded for someone else to adorn should they require them in their own journey of uncovering - what was left was an angst about how relationships, love and sex fit into my repetoire. The thing about transformations of the soul - is not a single part of who you are or the life you are living is immune from meeting it's fate in the firey - the alchemical elixir that will turn ashes into gold. If your worldview changes significantly - so too does every other aspect of what you call truth come called to the couch and quite possibly the chopping block. I knew leaving my marriage, that as a serial monogamous relationalist I would need to commit to staying single until I could find center and balance on two feet instead of four. But celibate nunnery was not what I was going for. I was a woman with a firey sexuality - a history of exploration and experimentation and a hunger for the transparency in union that sex had always shown me. Not dissimilar to the parts of me that spurred me into studying therapy otherwise known as the discipline that examines every aspect of human experience - sex had always been a pandora's box filled with mystery, wonder and individuality that often lay laden with shame, secrets and unnamed truths. It didnt matter how well you knew someone in ordinary reality - for me you didnt really know them until you were given access to the world that opened up inside of them when they agreed to meet you on the genital-heart highway. My experience has been that when two people begin engaging acts of sexual stimulation they are transported from operating within the place of their minds - their reasoning and intellectual knowing and land deeply within their bodies. As they become lost within the movements that touching and foreplay call out - so too does their souls and hearts begin to speak, their walls and boundaries, adaptations and disguises retreat in their ecstacy and for the first time you enter a portal where all of their mysteries are on display. Depending on the person in question, thier history, narrative, their wounds and their gifts you can learn a lot simply by being open to entering this experience with them - sometimes what you learn is that their safety has never been there and therefore the walls that generally melt are too embedded to retreat. No matter what you find - I have found you will find the truth..because within that great act of intimate bonding there is no disguising what story the body tells as it enters into it's own performance. In my own unfolding - i had continued my acts of sexual bonding and learned much about the truths of my own intimate nature. My early sexual trauma's prevented me from moving into a pure authentic acceptance of my needs and desires as a sexual being. Instead, i submissively moved into a passive recipient of male penetration. My desire for women emerged in short and shameful outbursts where here i sought out the woundings in other women that i felt strong enough to hold space for but my own sense of internalized homophobia ensured that I was under the influence when participating and running for the hills after the event was done. I also discovered that my wounded sexuality came from a place of stuffing, filling the emptiness inside and distracting myself from my pain in a sea full of pleasure. If my pain was consuming enough..any willing man would do no matter how much they objectified me, how little they cared for the person inside the body in front of them, or how dis-connected they may be from any aspect of intimacy. If i operated from this place I wounded myself unneccessarily and would spiral into a cycle of self loathing and self depreciation. My five year sexual bonding with the dude had taught me the sanctity of the divine feminine in her most open form. The dude was a reverant servant of the divine female, opening each aspect of her with extreme grace, pained by the abomination of her image and extremly selective and reserved in his pairing. He was three years older then me and I was only his third partner. Perhaps the most passionate and skilled lover I had ever known I would tease him about his reservations..."how on earth could you keep this beautiful gift from the women of the world?" I would say. He always gave a strong reaction to this statement speaking about the sacred nature of this union that demanded a sharing between two people of all that lived inside of them. He explained that there was no way to keep the bonding of genitals apart from the merging of every aspect of the human forms involved and laid claim that this level and degree of intimacy required a strong level of discernment of who and why you were allowing someone into this space. For better or worse their beauty or baggage would become united with yours and you would be left to deal with the consequences. It would be another 3 years for my being to really catch up with the wisdom imparted in this relationship. What i did know was that maintaining a sexual relationship with this man - changed for me what sex was. His touch was soo reverent, that i learned the sanctity of my own body from the movements of his fingertips. Never before had i felt like such a beautiful and delicate creature in the hands of a male admirer. During intercourse, my body seemed to always evaporate where i no longer knew the lines between the visible and the invisible instead there was a merging and dancing of two energetic masses meeting in the middle of a utopian oblivion. While i road the seas of ecstatic sexual bliss i had no idea what small and subtle changes were implemented in my psyche, manifested in my body and what the fruits of this alchemical elixir would produce some years later. What i did know was that somehow in those quiet moments of togetherness and in the fireworks of mutual fluid bonding, i was somehow beginning to heal. It was these experiences that paved the way for the emergence of Cosmic. Cosmic confessed to being in love with me at a time in this process where my genitals were open but my heart was closed. I tried hard as I might to deflect her confessions and continued to fantasize about how i might be able to penetrate this pear shaped red haired goddess. I would fuck her - of course- but love? ummm nope, notta, no way...she missed one key critical ingreidient in erica's relationship memo - she had a vagina. I had sex with women, but I loved men. That is at least what i thought until i found myself spinning within the heart of a cosmic hurricane. Cosmic was married to a man, in an open marriage, meaning of course that she could fuck others just not love them. She was working through her own realms of sexual healing - having trouble maximizing her orgasms and opening herself entirely to the process leading her to question her identity as a sexual being within the context of her marriage. She had known she was bi-sexual since the age of 22, although here at 32 had never yet popped her lesbian cherry. Sex for cosmic was deeply intimate, not something to be casually entered into and strongly connected to her emotional spaces. If she found herself emotionally involved with someone she may consider initiating a sexual relationship with them but not before. We had long conversations about the different places we situated ourselves sexually - we were two different faces of the same coin - I the excited but ulimately dismembered casual sexual explorer, her the hesitant emotional and sexual voyeur.It would take 7 months of our open discussions about our internal worlds, the ways in which we felt and the honest admonition of our different positions - oh and some permission from her husband for our sexual exploration to ever enter the arena of reality. The thing was though, by the time this period of time came to pass, I knew a lot about her -the inner tunnels of her pain and shame, the magnificence and beauty of her gifts, traits and personhood and had a heightened awareness of her vulnerability. Although still not allowing myself to admit the emotional truths of that kind of care and concern, what i did know is that with this woman i would need to tread very carefully - to keep things on the honorable scale. Each time i would attempt to advance to her, despite her repetitive permission, her nervousness and subsequent constant quivering would prevent me from bridging the divide...it always felt as if passing through this nervousness would result in what would feel like a violation. It took her making the first move of gently kissing the back of my neck and running her fingertips along my skin for me to finally emerge and cross the threshold. That first night of wild and passionate mind altering love making, left me whirling in a truth that i was not allowing myself to see but in the openness that sexuality unveils came unsuspectingly and quite literally head to head with. I was massively in love with this woman. She ripped and tore through every fibre of my being. There were still two pretty large problems. One, she was a woman, secondly, my heart was still closed. The fact that she was a woman meant that she had no space in the future i had anticipated for myself. I was still chasing the dream of living long and soulfully with a long haired, warrior hippy musician man - having at least another baby and travelling our soulular landscape together in the world. These events of course were just my preparation to his emergence. And my heart being closed - well obviously it wasn't cemented shut because of the strong emotions this woman conjured in my being, but my capacity to hold this emotions or even to enact them safely, naturally and fluidily were still severly crippled and compromised. Every time cosmic coaxed me into deep intimacy - i followed her into it for a few hours only to come out afraid, unsettled, exposed and ultimately distancing until the vulnerability of it faded out for just long enough for me to re-emerge. Cosmic had taught me about intimacy. A woman, perhaps the only one i know with a history of solid and healthy romantic relational patterns mirrored for me what relationship looked like in the spirit of full acceptance, support of indidivual passions and goals, the freedom to be and be with and perhaps most importantly showed me where all my tears, walls and blocks to engaging any of these remained as obstacles to the depths of union. Fast forward to 2012 and the landscape of my sexuality had changed rapidly.The experiences between divorce and now had equipped me with the understanding that my fiery sexuality now came from two places. One place was the unhealed distracted, distanced, filling the emptiness mode which seethed and shadowed and sought out all the kinds of objectifying monsters of self depreciation to fulfill its enshadowed hunger. The other place was the healed, reverent and deeply intimate place of seeking connection for mutual beauty, bonding, intimacy and fulfillment. I began to observe, reflect and discern these two places of platforms for sexual exploration in my history and society and termed the different spaces as the former being termed a place of "enshadowed sexuality" where repressed desires and unconcious pain seeped into any and all forms of sexual exploration and ultimately led to a place of objectification and pain. The sharing of this state stood to infect rather then fulfill and left me feeling nasea in my stomach when i found myself in it's energy. The latter a blessed and beautiful place of sexual union and bonding born of deep respect and reverance for the other, a space i termed "concious sexuality" and the only kind i was now interested in exploring. I would need to rectify how to discern the differences in this energy in my body, as the structure or rules around how these spaces are manifested in ordinary reality are tricky and not neccessarily recognized at the surface especially in a society where most of us are so dissassociated from anything real, raw and truthful our examples of this wihtout being cast into the religious right of serial monogamous celibacy are to say the very least minimal. The other thing that happened was that my heart had officially entered the game. I had healed the shreds and bruising of it's demise enough to be ready to welcome the deep, authentic love and affection of another but I still had so many questions about how these experiences, specifically in a monogamous way would fit into my soul driven life. Living a life born of following the whispers of the soul demands a fluidity in all things and a knowing that the mystery of the universe embodies a wisdom much stronger then we will ever know and the path of least resistance requires a strong trust in it's ability to lead you blindly into the dark. The fires of transformation could take everything in it's path - careers, housing, partners, relationships whatever it needed to clear the way for your next emergence to re-birth. My commitment to this path, meant that i journeyed quickly and intensely - burning through the lessons each partner brought me and setting them free to experience what they or i or both of us needed next. Yet my commitment to truth, honesty and integrity demanded that i attempted to explain to each new potential partner this more then possible occurence on the path of walking with me - often sending them running as quickly as possible in the farthest opposite direction. As cosmic stated in the final stages of our relationships "I couldn't live comfortably and safely knowing that i would never know where you would be the next morning - would you be called elsewhere, would that man you were searching for suddenly arrive?". I had walked as a lone wolf trying to find the voice of my soul, courageoulsy confronting any and all obstacles in my path. But as i met and faced down my dragons, my healing began to take root and i began to crave the simplicity of love, affection, sex and relationship. But how could i explore it with all the limitations that my souls walk and the medicine I carried afforded. How could I find individuals that came from the same foundation, understood the impermanent nature of the universe and dared to dive fully anyway? I had been searching for an understanding, or the language to describe these complexities to a mainstream world that was built completely opposite of everything i had arrived at. Until from somewhere out of the mystery, spurred on by my accidental wandering into an unsuspecting swingers party, in the text of a book handed unsuspectingly by a wife of a man i was dating...there was a pocket of people in the world that although arriving from very different places and spaces in time, coming to terms with there own questions and set ups for maximal growth had come to some similar conclusions about the world of love, sex, growth and relationship and formed a small cauldron of shared possibility. Their way of life and love was called polyamory and somewhere on the road from here to there i had stopped there, population undetermined.

Adventures in Amore Part Duex

It was not long after this journey began, that Cosmic and I had finally come up against the same old wall we met with last year - where despite all our best efforts we could not find a unifying strand to hold our different juxtapositions together. We were in different places in our journeys, yet in many ways also in the same places - just places we found we could no longer travel together. She was looking to explore, I was looking to have my deeper relational needs met..with much struggle and a lot of grief we parted ways and left any depiction of a possible reunion of any sort directed by the gods of fate. I think in many ways though so much of her show up in this journey I am currently on. As if my journey into these very new territories also help answer questions that initially arose in our relationship of where there was no context for at the time and now there is a re-examining occuring at exactly the same time as i travel foreign soil. Perhaps also there is an integration of the things she catalyzed within me that in their emergence i had no way to explore them because the safety wasn't yet there as is common with any new birth breaking through what was un-bithed skin. The next time I wound up with Firespinner and Wyldewoman it was a much smaller crowd and a very different scene. It was the first opportunity I had to get to see them as people rather than animated erotic boundary pushers. Nope here they were ordinary people. When wylde woman and I finally got to steal some alone time in the hot tub. In our naked comfort i began to ask her questions about what an open relationship meant to her. It was about love she said. About a universal love and a growth in engaging diverse sexual explorations from this foundation of universal love. This love though, she explained, was not to be confused with the kind of emotional love that happened between two people in relationship. No, that kind of love needed to stay between two people in relationship, but the sex and the adventures with other people - well that helped them grow, it helped them share and it helped them grow. I was uncomfortable with her limitation of love to the two primary people in relationship and although theoretically pointed out to be shared with others, hear and understand a clear differentiation about what form of love would be extended to the others involved in play. I asked her to speak more about this - so i could clearly identify the context from which she was speaking. "You know, firespinner should only be there for the other women should he really want to be there" and "his primary responsibility is here at our home and within our family". My hesitation about this budding relationship began to grow. I was looking for a relational exploration that was grounded in reverance and deep intimacy and intimacy for me couldn't be isolated and compartmentalized into behaviors that only took place in the bedroom. Upon further conversation, it appeared that wyldewoman was only clearly trying to define the boundaries between her relationship with firespinner and the rest of the world that they brushed shoulders against but at the same time i was beginning to see that although there was something ineffably mysterious about these two, getting lost in the adolescent abyss firespinner seemed to infect me with may not be the wisest of all wise decisions. While our conversations about love and family in the context of open relationships continued Wylde woman handed me the book "The Ethical Slut". The book firespinner referred to as the bible of open relationships which for me was the beginning glimpses into a extraordinary way of relating. It was a breath of fresh air into what felt like finding my way home - a finite explanation of and bringing together of conflicts i had been trying to express but lacked the language for. A road map of a different way - one that had the freedom of open concious exploration of the self in relation to the mulit-dimensional nature of others, the reverance of deep honor, ethics and respect, the comfort and safety of deep intimacy and the spiritual compliments of deep community love, understanding, acceptance and support. It was called "polyamoury".

Adventures in Amore Part One

In mid-winter, internet dating searches brought me to a page of another likeminded soul residing in the fraser valley. His profile was creative, expressive, contemplative and enticing - the first of his kind for me to come across in this region. He was "not single - not looking" - which only made me more curious having just been recently initiated by Cosmic into the world, or under-world, depending on how you look at it, of "open-relationships". It turns out he was married, they did indeed have an open relationship, but all my enquiries into the parameters of this open relationship were met with grey promises of being shown how this works. I was excited by the lead into the mystery and the lack of control I was asked to maintain over the exploration...like a hand leading me blindly into the dark. My curiosity brought me to his homefront for his 33rd birthday where I for the first time came face to face with his wife. My approach was awkward and uncomfortable, this was breaking new ground and i still had so little ground rules to play by. With firespinner as un-communicative as he was the only default i had to fall back on was the great art of experience and observation. "Hello random stranger at my door" the wyldwoman announced when i apprehensively approached the door. She was drop dead gorgoeous, playful and creative in her appearance with the grounding and physique that only a yoga and meditation instructor would have. I wondered what else Firespinner could be looking for with a wife that was like that. She was welcoming and inviting despite how awkward it felt to be introduced to a woman as her husbands date. As sausages were cooked over an open fire, people continued to filter in of all different ages and stations in life. Some were drinking, some were hot tubbing, some were gathered round the fire. Firespinner asked me if I had yet made it out to see the barn, asking if I was interested in taking a walk down there. Adolescent crush girl returned - overjoyed at the prospect. Walking to the barn, i felt like i could breathe again away from the crowd and not needing to worry about attempting to balance the awkwardness. That i was here at this party crushing on this dude that was married and whose wife was right beside me - while i anxiously worried about how often or normal it was for her hot husband to bring women home. The competetive history i had maintained with Cosmic's husband and the residing of ourselves in different corners had come nowhere near the geography of this place. Once in the barn, firespinner bent me over the ladder and the make out session had begun. We played passionately for 45 minutes or so before reaching a climatic close. My legs were jelly, my senses overstimulated and the ecstacy of adventures into foreign territory at an all time high. We wandered back to the party as if nothing had ever happened...returning to a hot tub full of naked others. The wyldwoman was among them. "How was the barn" she asked us upon our return - eyeing us both for evidence of what had gone on. "Great" firespinner responded. She seemed happy for us. My monogamous mind was going off on full swing. The part of me that saw non-monogamy as betrayal was swarming with guilt seeding thoughts of shame and self-loathing while the part of me in touch with the reality of the situation tried to reason with myself in realizing that no ethics were being broken here. Firespinner and I jaunted into the house to undress and ready ourselves for the hut tub. Was i really going to go naked with a hot tub full of strangers? Firespinner told me it was okay if i wore a suit - if it made me feel more comfortable but i couldnt imagine something making me stand out more. I dumped the clothes and got ready for the big plunge. On our way out the door he stopped for a minute - to suck on my nipple in front of the large window looking onto the hot tub. I was feeling liberated by this freedom of expression and open exploration. Where on earth had I landed? Naked and nestled in the hot tub I watched curiously what was going on around me. I sat between two men, one that continued to attempt to put his hand on my knee though his wife sat across from me. Had i wound up at a swingers party? Fire spinner sat between this man and his wife and seemed rather flirtatious with her. Conversations went on about music, sex, politics, spirituality, community and creativity. The wife sitting across from the man beside me left and went into the house - not long after followed by firespinner. Her husband, the man whose hands i kept trying to pry off of me was sitting in the middle of the hot tub now with his left hand outstretched towards the wylde woman. "hey now" she muttered to him "I told you - if your going to rub it you need to pet it gently like a kitten". Alright - my senses were officially on overload. Where was i and where had i landed? I got up, retrieved my towel, and went into the house looking for a bathroom. Someone was in it - I waited. Ten minutes later out came Firespinner and hot tub mans wife. Okay, I had officially landed in a swinger's party despite the idea that I had no idea walking into it. My shell of reverance for sexuality had been penetrated. My unhealed defense mechanisms against the fluid sharing of sex were activated and my nervous system was on overload. With no capacity to process and make meaning from what i surprisingly walked into - I decided to go to bed before planning an escape in the wee dawn hours - but not before mitigating another 4 requests from hot tub dude to join he and his wife upstairs. And it is from this place that the active adventures in amore began to take a place. The bloom of the healing i had done all year with the starfish medicine leading to an opening of the heart. No beginning journey into the outer explorations of this healing could happen without re-visiting relationship structures, new ways of being and an intertwined enquiry of sex, love and relationship.

Adventures in Amoure

This morning I awoke feeling deeply grounded in serene peacefulness. I had finally arrived in a centered state after a month of running from space to space soaking up as many new experiences as I could handle. Madison left on July 1 for a summer in Ontario with her family and loved ones - freeing up space for me to explore what a life led on pure impulse might look like. No schedules, routines, meal times or regular responsibilties to manage - just a pure what does Erica need in this moment? adventure. I was faced with a smorgasboard of possibility that I just may have been a wee bit unprepared to handle. Or perhaps I had all the preparation i needed and am just coming face to face with the deeper truths of who I am now and who I used to be. We can make so many excuses for our resistance by hiding the truths within the prgamatic obstacles until the obstacles are all removed and all that lies ahead is a clear path. My first excursion was to do some travelling on the sunshine coast with the fire breathing mermaid. She was to be my guide on a psychadelic mushroom trip alongside the pacific ocean and a circle of stones. I needed to re-visit this aspect of my youth which at the time was born of a place of escape. How would this medicine affect me at this stage of my shamanic journey - would the universe's wonders reveal themselves to me in an astounding mystery? Would i lose control over every aspect of my existence? I was surprised to find that many things had changed since 18. Although the medicine still pounced through my veins opening me up to a world of experience not usually accessible in the sober mind, there was still a part of my brain that existed as a watcher - watching, peering, keeping watch like a watchguard ensuring everything remained copasetic. The days I had spent with the fire breathing mermaid had reminded me of the days I had spent with cosmic. There was a familiar magical light in the air and a multiplicity of being transitioning different faces and ways of being through her everyday movements - where two aspects of self that may be in direct conflict with the other are existing within moments of eachother. There is a beauty to watching these states move through a person, so unique and unusual in their own right and special and magical all in one. It was this very quality that often made me doubt Cosmic's integrity in her actions and statements of truth. Yet as both of these lovely women were born under the Aries astrological alignments - I couldn't help but wonder if this fluid embodiment of self was indeed a characteristic of this sign. I wondered how much the mermaid would indeed teach me about the hidden truths i was still searching for in understanding and making sense of the whirlwind of a love affair that cosmic and i experienced. I knew walking away from cosmic that i had sorted, sifted and organized as much understanding as I was capable of and that new life experiences would need to be walked through for the lessons to arrive that this relationship was intended to impart. In amongst her multiplicity of being, mermaid woman began chanelling the wisdom of the old ones while astutely stoking the fire and reclaiming her fire keeping medicine. As she spoke, the forest was silent and her prescence shot deeply into my heart. There was a familiarity about her, a knowing that i knew this woman from a deeper place in time - or was it just the ways she reminded me of cosmic? Half of her face lit by the firelight, a serpent of desire began to arise within me, but I knew I could not go acting on it. It is these connections that require a high level of respect in their approach, a surveillance of the wounds and strengths embodied with the other that inform the places in which you can move reverently as opposed to just playing the game. Mermaid woman is a potent elixir of strength and empowerement, that seems to seep magic out to all that know her but underneath that solid rock is a fragile glass blown with hidden wounds. When we arrived at the beach the next morning and made camp for our psychadelic adventures into the underworld - I was grateful that she had agreed to accompany me on this journey. Aside from our recent meeting, that old familiarity guaranteed a safety that seemed to assist me to trust the mystery that was before us. Her friend the green man joined us in our preparations, we set camp, smudged and set the intentions for a strong journey and down the rabbit hole we went. We wandered the beach, melded with the stones and listened to the bliss of the ocean, scorched underneath a hot summer sun. I looked over at her sitting on the rock beside me, and before me an ocean of vulnerability made itself known. The vulnerability spoke to me of a woman that was strong because she always needed to be. A story I knew well. There was no soft spot for her to land - I wanted to offer her that, I wanted to be the safe space for her to fall in those moments. I told her what I saw, she casually let my observation evaporate into mid air and turned the conversation around on me. I was embarrassed about my move into that level of intimacy and instead gave her the power to care for me in those moments - it was what she needed to feel safe. I was drawn to the idea of lying in a pile of wood chips and at once began feeling as if i were the roots of a tree merged deeply with the earth. Mermaid woman stood over me peering into the shade with a wild red sun blazing behind her. She began moving the extremeties of my body conciously and with intention, verbally leading me into a journey of letting go - placing each loose extremity in a specific order. With my eyes closed, a kaliedescope of color began swirling sacred geometry. The faces of old ones began floating in and out - not so dissimilar to the visits of the old ones I first saw in my my very first sweat lodge. The ancestors are speaking to you she said. I had completely given myself over to her...with an ease Cosmic never knew. Cosmic was the catalyst for uncovering my issues with intimacy, as was the dude in showing me the dissassociation i held in my body where the union of sacred sexuality was concerned. I wanted to give to this mermaid woman but there was no opportunity to do so without it rooting from an empty place. It was this time that her walls were too strong...if that bridge were ever crossed it would take a strong solid foundation. My desire for her came from a place of deep love and compassion, wanting to cradle the space this woman needed to let all that was inside of her go. As our psychadelic journey came to a close and ordinary reality began to seep back in - mermaid woman discovered that she needed a cave to retreat to, to slowly collect the peices of herself. I called my shamanic sister in a town nearby to see if her cave was available. "I appreciate what you've done, the parts of me that you have called out, but im super overwhelmed now" mermaid women said to me on our drive over. There was that medicine that I carried appearing again - the reason Cosmic called me Hurricane. I know it as a usual way of being - something that happens in translation of which I don't come in with a concious intention to produce - but what always leaves the other feeling intensely broken open. I often wonder how much this experience stands in the way of keeping people close. Not unlike Cosmic, mermaid woman was on an adventure of self exploration, curiosity, and pushing boundaries of doors that weren't open to her before. Not unlike cosmic, I was intensely drawn into her and felt a deep rooted connection to her soul. Not unlike Cosmic, I knew although desire riveted through my veins, I had no choice but to take my station on the outskirts until her playful discoveries were done.