Everyday Ecstasy
Join Sam for conversations about everyday ecstasy - how to orient to pleasure and purpose and live a life worth savouring. This podcast explores the existential, the esoteric and the erotic, getting phenomenological about the phenomenal, offering practices and pro tips for swimming in this cosmic soup.
Season one is a series about altered states in somatic sex education - what are they, how do they come about and how can we work with them ethically and usefully?
Everyday Ecstasy
Altered States, with Barbara Carrellas
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Sam Beer and Barbara Carellas discuss the transformative power of somatic sex education. Barbara, author of "Urban Tantra" and "The Book of Ecstasy," shares her journey from healing circles during the AIDS crisis to developing ecstatic states through practices like the breath and energy orgasm and erotic massage. They explore the concept of ecstatic states, the importance of integration, and the role of curiosity and radical acceptance in teaching and practice. Barbara emphasizes the need for a supportive community and the potential of ecstatic experiences to enhance life, even in the context of serious illnesses like cancer.
For more of Barbara's work head to https://barbaracarrellas.com/
Find out more about Sam and their work at www.integratingintimacy.com
The Interactive Erotic Educator Training is now taking enrolments for 2026. Find out more at www.intereros.com
Have an experience of somatic sex education in the comfort of your own home by signing up for queer erotic embodiment classes at www.queereroticembodiment.com
Alrighty, here we are. I am so excited to have you here after a few false starts and scheduling time zone. Whereas I I have to say, you're actually a really pivotal person in my journey to becoming a somatic sex educator. My first immersive experience of somatic sex education was your urban tantra training in 2019 in Melbourne. And that space was totally transformational for me. I met I met all these sexological bodyworkers. I was like, who are these amazing people? I become one of them. So I actually just wanted to start by saying thank you. Thank you for that.
SPEAKER_05Thank you for sharing that. That's lovely. I'm so happy.
SPEAKER_01Oh, like some of my best friends now are the people I met in that in that room. Um and what I also remember is that a lot of the practices there were around this idea of altered states. There was like a pain masturbation and your present energy orgasm. Um, so in this conversation that we're going to have about altered states and somatic sex education, as I when I started planning this research project, you were like top of my list for people to speak to about this. So I've already done like my little gush gushing at the start, and you haven't really said anything yet. Would you like to introduce yourself as you would like to be known today?
SPEAKER_05Today. I'm Barbara Carrellis. I am an American author, I suppose, and teacher. I wrote the book Urban Tantra, Sacred Sex for the 21st Century. Um, and uh uh I've got another uh another book coming out in August, The Book of Ecstasy, which I consider a companion piece to Urban Tantra. I've been uh cultivating, chasing, and teaching ecstatic states pretty much for my whole career in somatic sex education. I like to think that because of that, we actually go beyond sex that sex is pretty much the entry point, let's call it. It it it it wakes us up to, hey, there's something more out there in in a very embodied way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And introduces us to I guess the path of something more, I call it. Where you go, whoa, if that's possible, what else is possible? And you find something else that's possible, and you go, Oh, if that could happen, I wonder what else. And you find yourself on a journey of what else is out there that I haven't discovered before, that no one has told me about, that other people seem to be afraid of in some cases. And could I have more, please? And first and foremost, for me, it's a place of um transformation. I went into this work, um uh which I've written about extensively in urban tundra, um, uh during the AIDS crisis in New York in the 1980s. Uh Joseph Kramer, Annie Sprinkle, and I met at a healing circle for gay men with AIDS. And our question was all right, no one's having sex because it's lethal. And no one's got a spiritual practice because the religions most of these men grew up in have disowned them. What are we gonna do about sex and spirit? Um, while, for instance, the amazing people of Act Up were working on getting the physical drugs to save their lives. So we we kind of took on the um the other side of the healing equation. And that's when Annie and I started studying Tantra. Joseph Kramer was uh studying Taoism and putting that into his work, and that's where it all came from. That's where that's where it all started. It we would Annie and I, or Joseph, we would go out and learn something, practice something, go, hey, that was kind of cool. Let's see if it helps the guys in the group. Yeah, if it did, great. Let's keep it, let's expand on it, let's sell it. Not really sell it, you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05And if it didn't, we went, okay, next, and we'd go out and find something else.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So we tripped over a lot of ecstatic states in the course of our excavating the world for its sex and spirit connected practices.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And that's what we were doing. We were looking anywhere we could to find something that was very clearly not available in the United States, in Western culture, um which is how we wound up turning toward the east. I remember one night, for example, speaking of something that had nothing to do with what we thought we were looking for. Yeah. Annie Sprinkle and I had decided to have a date night. And when we got to our date night, we were really very tired. And Annie loves chanting, as do I, but she she she really loved it. She said, Let's get in a bathtub and just make sex sounds and see what happens. See what happens. We started traveling through dimensions. Yeah. We started hearing first sounds that felt like they came from inside the walls, and then sounds that were down on the street, which was 15 floors below. Not normally would we hear those sounds? And then we heard this like amazing hum. I'm speeding up the story. There were many layers. Um and we just kind of went, we could stay here forever. This is so lovely. And as you do, eventually you come down and you're just kind of like, What happened? We were telling the story to somebody sometime later, somebody who knows much more than we did, and they said, Are you kidding? You stumbled into the universal hum. We went, the what? And they said, Yogi yogis practice and chant and do what they do for years to find that state, that universal hum. And you guys just stumbled in a back door somewhere. We went, we want to go back. And that's when we learned a really important lesson. The universe will dangle an ecstatic carrot in front of our noses.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And we'll go, well, or in human cases, that would be for horses and donkeys, but for humans, it would be, let's say, a chocolate moose. Yes. And we get a taste of that chocolate moose, and then it moves further away. The universe moves it out a little. So we have to kind of keep chasing the chocolate moose. And that's how we discover what else is out there because we've had a taste of something so magical and mystical and transformative and seemingly impossible. Yeah. That we absolutely have to have more, know more, want more.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That appetite, something that wets the appetite in your life. Precisely.
SPEAKER_00Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I'm um this is something that's recurred through the conversations I've been having in these moments of the chocolate mousse, and that is a wonderful uh choice of desert for me. Chocolate mousse is absolutely what would be difficult. I've been chasing for the rest of my life. Um yeah, these experiences, and sometimes they're sort of like these peak experiences, I suppose, if can also be language that people might use about things like this. Yeah. Um, I'm I'm curious, you've talked about this universal palm that you and Joseph and Annie were quite intentionally looking for practices that would bring you into ecstatic states.
SPEAKER_05We were looking for practices that would give our friends, some of whom many of whom were not going to be on the planet much longer, a sense of can of reclaiming of their sexuality or the pleasures of being in a body when their bodies were breaking down, and a sense of a spirituality that wanted them. That's what we were looking for.
SPEAKER_01A sense of a spirituality that wanted them.
SPEAKER_05That said, come, come, yeah, come.
SPEAKER_01That reconnection with all that is something like that. Yeah, it's um I'm I'm curious about what your carrot was, what your chocolate mousse was. Like what was your portal into this?
SPEAKER_05Uh the portal into teaching, into going from an amateur to a professional. And I'm not using any of those terms pejoratively or let one is better than another. It's just a it's a matter of dedication and focus.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05Um, I transitioned from talented amateur to professional on a massage table at an event that was that Annie and Joseph were lead facilitators on. And it was called Cosmic Orgasm Awareness Week, which is one of the most Annie Sprinkle titles ever. And it was in Northern California. That's where I met Chester Maynard. He and I taught for many years together, uh, a good solid five kind of non-stop in Australia. And um it was a it was an erotic massage, the Joseph Kramer style erotic massage. This was about 1992, maybe three or two. And um I after what Joseph calls the big draw and I call the clench and hold in the erotic awakening massage, um which is just that you charge up the body with a lot of energy, with erotic touch, with breath, and then you shut it all down. You hold your breath, you tense, you uh condense it all, hold it, and then let go. And when I let go, uh the a set of theater curtains parted, uh, my original prof uh prof my uh profession for many, many years, and uh my root art form is theater. And uh there was this sky full of twinkling stars. And after a bit of getting used to it, uh your eyes used to the stars, I realized that they were all my dead friends sparkling out in the universe, and I always cry when I tell this story and we could talk. We just talked about everything and nothing, and I was just like, I just want to come where you guys are, I miss you, and I just want to come back with you. And they're like, No, you have it's the old story, no, you have so much more you need to do, and you're just beginning to find it. So we're around if you need us, but you need to stay on that plane for a little longer. We'll see you later. And I cried and the theater curtains closed, and just then my practitioner put the sarong blanket, whatever, over my face, and suddenly I was in a grave. And uh it was it it I'm very claustrophobic, but this wasn't scary. It was just a chance to kind of I guess die to the stuff I knew, or perhaps the vision of myself I had uh prior to this experience. And uh when I came out of it, it was obviously like a rebirth. And uh that's within a month, Chess uh uh within a week, one of the participants of that workshop asked if uh I'd like to come to teach this stuff in Australia with Chester. Literally, that's how fast it changed. And and that was the beginning of everything that became urban tantra. Thank you, Australia. That's that's that's where I really grew the work uh was in Australia. It it was lovely to get out of the Puritan ethic of the United States and into a uh a country that just has a wilder root. I I know many Australians think it's quite conservative, but if you come from America you and deal with what we do, yeah, you go, this isn't America. This is this is a lot more fun. Yeah, I mean that's the origin story of the of the work.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Yeah, that's pretty amazing, and how quickly it turns to okay, and I'm teaching a week later. Okay, I got my gig.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. I I had uh I had been like doing healing circles and teaching some stuff with Annie, but it just crossed over so fast. Yeah, and and Chester was one of the best teachers I have ever seen, and working with him was such an honor, and we complimented each other so well that it was it was a delight as well as uh I would often just sit in the room with him and just with my mouth open going, you're wow, that's good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, that's such a beautiful and it feels like relationships.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, okay, yeah. So a lot of the breath work in some of this comes from Joe Kramer and then down to Chester.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and I it would be remiss not to mention anal breathing, which is you know, the like the the foundational, the foundational breath, which which brings me a little bit into something a little more maybe like nitty-gritty or geeky. Um, the the states that we've talked about so far for talking about these experiences that you've laid out as a bit of a like ecstatic map um or altered map, there's this beautiful humming experience where you are already like tired on date night with any sprinkle. And if I were to put that in nervous system terms or check in with you about that, it sounds like quite a damn regulated. I mean like imagining you in the bar.
SPEAKER_05You know that feeling when you're exhausted, but you want to be horny? Yeah. Like two things are sort of going on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's like the the body is dropped into like this lower kind of frequency, but then there's also this like there's this little buzzy spirit thing going on.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh. And then the um at the cosmic orgasmic what was kind of could you repeat the name?
SPEAKER_05Cosmic Orgasm Awareness Week.
SPEAKER_01Cosmic Orgasm Awareness Week. That's a where is cosmic orgasm awareness day? Where is when is international orgasm?
SPEAKER_05Annie is really good at at founding uh odd holidays that get picked up and go for years. I'll I'll ask her if she'd like to sponsor this one. Yeah. The Cosmic Orgasm Awareness Week.
SPEAKER_01Making sure that it's international. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yes, it must pass.
SPEAKER_01Maybe on the space station as well. That would be appropriate.
SPEAKER_05I just got a visual of that. That was really good, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um these these massages would take you to lots of charging up, lots of charging up, upregulation, movement that is touch and sounding and breathing of a kind of more upregulated experience. Um do you, in your teaching and in your work with people around ecstatic states, I imagine there's a whole range of ways in. Are there any gaps to fill in in that?
SPEAKER_05You know, over time I've learned to present the work in such a way that people can find their own gaps that need to be filled in. That's a good phrase. Because Joseph and I had this conversation. We used to because he came from the school of rebirthing way back in the 80s, um, which was a very vigorous breath meant to produce a big reaction. And then Chester and I adjusted the breathing. Well, he Joseph already had to some extent, but we further adjusted the breath so that it was more balanced, like in the anal/slash bottom breathing in urban tantra, I call it bottom breathing. Um that is a mixture of uh an energizing piece of the breath and a relaxing piece of the breath. So like the uh inhale has a bit of intention and as much force as you want or don't want, and the exhale is a complete relax. So we used to really focus on uh the charging a bit like this. You can hear that I'm really really emphasizing that inhale, and the of the exhale is to tell me that I'm not forcing the air out. Otherwise it would sound more like which is what we don't want. That just takes us into um the icky uh uh what is it, hyperventilation breath.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it becomes like panting, like crap.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01If you saw an animal breathing like that, you'd be like, what's going on with you?
SPEAKER_05We we'd be well right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So now I'm much more inclined to let people with that piece of information uh find their own breath. And instead of saying breathe harder, breathe faster, I might say let's up the intention. And that could lead to very quiet, blissful inner states, or deep, deep feeling that you know, it might lead to the description I gave you of my cathartic moment on the table with lots of crying and laughing and emboding because the breath will bring up a lot of emotions. But it also might just take you very, very, very, very deep. And and Chester used to tell a story of someone who, you know, came to him at the end of a week-long workshop or weekend or whatever it was, saying, you know, oh, I'm going this last breathe, this last erotic massage, I'm really going for it. The old I'm gonna go meet the goddess kind of intention.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05And he's like, Okay. And at the end, she comes up to him and says, Nothing happened. I did all the right things and nothing happened. And he said, Well, what did happen? Well, it was very, very quiet and and still and empty and quite peaceful, actually, and went on like that. And he went, Good god, girl, what you found that you know, inner peace. What the hell were you looking for? You and uh he told the story better than I just did, but you get the idea.
SPEAKER_01And that's uh I can imagine that in Chester's accent, actually, is he so.
SPEAKER_05Um so we're tr now I'm trying to not define what an ecstatic experience is for the people for the participants in my room. I never thought I did, but in retrospect, I certainly guided them in a upregulated direction. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm trying not to push any state other than the one that their body finds. And of course, despite all I just said, I have no control over where they go, no matter what I do. But I want to give them more permission to have whatever experience their body wants to give them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And I find myself saying more and more and more, you're doing it perfectly. Whatever is happening for you is perfect. Just keep going. Whether you're feeling one way or another way, it's absolutely perfect for you right now. And people say that that really helps. And I just do it now because I really want people in their own unique experience. Not in not on some ecstasy merry-go-round that I think is fun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. There's something really beautiful about um opening up the field of expectation. Like there's there's the possibility of something totally new that no one has ever experienced before because no one has ever experienced this before in your body on this day in this moment. It's um yeah, it's so interesting to hear that. I remember um it's a journey begun, isn't it? I remember being in your open country training, and it was the I think maybe the first day, the breath and energy orgasm practice. And the first full day, yeah. Yeah, the first full day, the breath and energy orgasm practice, and having what I think is an experience that a lot of people can have when they're first in those environments surrounded by people who are having what sounds like quite excited, excited experiences and having this comparison come up of like, am I doing it wrong?
SPEAKER_05Oh my goodness, I'm feeling it's a god, I'm not as happy as that person over there. I'm failing again. Yeah, wipe that out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I but I think it's important also to have those experiences to know, like, oh, okay, that's like so human.
SPEAKER_05I want to tell people we're doing this in a group, know that you are motivating somebody else, or that you are being motivated by somebody else, and that's okay. Think of it as a pot of endless energy soup.
SPEAKER_01I mean, whatever's happening, you're meeting some part of yourself intimately. That experience. I met a part of myself intimately, and even if I wasn't uh framing it as ecstatic, there is some kind of I give that's orgasmicity and everything. And I wonder about a very, very important point.
SPEAKER_05Ecstasy is not pleasure, it's not just fun, it's not just wow. An ecstatic state is all-encompassing. Ecstatic state inevitably takes you on a roller coaster ride of we'll call it emotional experience. Um it's often both cathartic and wowie zowie. It might be a little scary, and it's not just fun, wow, whoopee, pleasure. If you're riding the edge, that's the thing. The trick is Jack Morin writes about this in the book The Erotic Mind quite brilliantly. An ecstatic experience or a peak experience needs a mixture of um of riding the edge of fear and being firmly rooted in safety. Safety, fear, safety, fear, safety, fear, safety, fear. When those two things are vibrating together, yeah, that tends to be what produces an ecstatic experience. If it's totally safe, not enough energy there. Yeah, if it's too scary, paralytical. No, you're just you're just paralyzed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm I'm having your I'm having the resilient edge concept come up.
SPEAKER_05Yes, exactly. It is the resilient edge of resistance, of physicality and emotion. It has to be right at that place of, as Chester would say, um feeling supported. Yeah, feeling sufficiently supported to take a risk, as he would say.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Sufficiently supported to take a risk.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm as as we're talking about this, the sort of there's the the fear and safety in a person's experience. And I'm I'm thinking about this and going, okay, well, that's like in the peak experience, and then probably also, you know, before and after. Like the integration of it really depends on that safety being there as well. And I wonder if we could talk about integration and how you've approached that, or how maybe there's been a journey around that in your work and how you do that with people.
SPEAKER_05I think that we are in in today, recently and today, looking at the importance of integration much more intelligently and completely. And we're we're placing a lot more importance on it than we used to. Integration was something that just magically happened, you know, it was like the aftercare in a BDSM kink scene. Um and yeah, integration was aftercare, let's call it like that. Whereas it's more than that. It's giving giving people tools so that when they walk out the door they know that they could get hit with a wave of event drop, experience drop. Um so that they don't think they're going crazy when they start shivering and crying when they're just driving home. Uh which happened to a friend of mine. That's why I thought of it. And a system to set up whatever that is, maybe it's a Zoom call every week for a month. Depend it depends. You know, what's the event, where is it, can people get together physically, if not, blah, blah, blah, blah. But where people can talk about what happened with people who were there as part of it, facilitating or experiencing, yeah, so that they don't feel like like they've lost the plot.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Some you know, it could be physical integration, it could be emotional, it could even be intellectual when you have had your mind blown because something exists that you said that you've been taught was impossible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, there's something in coming out of your ordinary experience that there needs to be some kind of social context or social process where that's invited, invited in and made sense of and made sense of, yes, yeah, and you're and you're almost like welcomed back into the human fold after being thrust.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so you start by being you've been flying around, you get welcomed back into the immediate fold, and then are eased back into the rest of the human fold. That's actually quite good, yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I I it's this kind of community piece. This community piece is really interesting. Um, it like I if I I'd love to ask you about your own sense of what supported you to integrate the experiences you were having as you were flying off.
SPEAKER_05Oh I've just I was just writing I in the chapter uh in Book of Ecstasy where I talk about uh all energy overload, spiritual emergency, kundalini awakening, whatever you want to call it. I said, you know, it took me a while to realize I'd had one because I was so consistently supported in various communities that I never thought I was losing my mind. I was allowed at each step to go, whoa, magical. And my mentor and best friend was Louise Hay, who only talked about the totality of possibilities and the more and better that was there for us if we just opened our heart, mind, and soul to it. So every time something magical happened, it would I would hear Louise's voice going, I deserve all wonderful magical things. Yeah, that helped enormously too. Um, and I and to go further, I could tell Louise about these experiences and and other people too, but I'll just give her some credit here because I I don't think people maybe uh maybe they do. If if you know Louise Hayes' work, you would expect that she could be unconditionally accepting. Um I personally had never met somebody that unconditionally accepting. I could tell her anything, this happened to me, this didn't, and she'd be like, wow, and then she'd tell somebody else, and there's that social framework again.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Oh my god, it's not so weird that she's holding it in, she's telling our friends, yeah, who now want to talk to me about it. Wow. And of course, Annie Sprinkle is the most radical acceptance practicing person I have ever met. Yeah. And we were working together pretty much the whole decade of the 90s, and that that being around both of those two, among others, it was just I was absolutely blessed with a community where you just couldn't, you know. I'm not saying you could get away with anything, but you couldn't put a foot wrong in terms of trying something. Yeah, there was somebody there to catch you, there were six people there to catch you at any given time. Yeah, and nobody said you are so fucking weird because we were all fucking weird.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like your cheerleaders for team weird. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. Exactly. That's great. And I'm I'm feeling into like if you're a practitioner or a teacher and you're supporting people with exploring ecstatic states or helping them to integrate, doing a workshop where people are exploring it, that attitude of radical acceptance of whatever's happening. That's such an important quality to bring to the job.
SPEAKER_05That is my job in all my work. I give people permission and possibilities. That's all I do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's all permission possibilities beyond what you can even imagine, and hope that they can apply some of that within their own experience. Like, okay, can you like can you hear can can your voice, Barbara, be the voice in the ear going, yes, everything wonderful and magical is possible and for you.
SPEAKER_05And call you know, and and with my professional community, it's like if you really, if you hit a roadblock, call me. It's it's like, really call me, we'll talk.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I have a question about so a lot of this conversation, like the radical acceptance, I'm so on board for. And then it strikes me also that there are times where it might be supportive to like put on the brakes or take a time out from going for it. Um, or things you might see in a client or in a workshop where you're helping to kind of titrate back down. What would you say about that? Those moments maybe it might support someone to maybe do less rather than do more.
SPEAKER_05That question is such an enormous umbrella for a variety of choices one may might make that could get one to that place of quite frankly just being in trouble.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um I know that um there are teachers who have are basically cult leaders. I'm just gonna say this in English, uh, who promise the big wow, whatever the big wow is, um and will take students, participants to their edges basically in a manipulated fashion as opposed to a consent-based fashion. And consent is something else that we have learned to do much better, thank you, Betty Martin, in the last 10 years. Um getting someone, helping someone to uh, as you said, downregulate, to slow down to stop in some cases kind of depends on I suppose the aftershocks I'm seeing in their life. Um tell me a little bit about what's going on at the breakfast table. Really as as as plain, simple, everyday shit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um if that's going weird, then something is wrong. And we need to stop for a moment and get to the bottom of it. If what's if what's happening for a person is merely a bit scary because the energy is running so fast, we can work with that. We can channel that into other yoga practices, swimming, whatever, to to get rid of that extra energy. Uh you can't make someone stop following the chocolate mousse. All you can try to do is stop them from going at 80 miles an hour toward a cliff after it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And and it to me, it's measured by how is daily life functioning? You may feel it's weird, but give me give me how things are actually going.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Are you showing up for work? Um, are you keeping promises you made? Whatever, whatever. Are you taking unnecessary physical risks? That's a big one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like what's happening with the aspects of your life that are grounding and that support integration.
SPEAKER_05Are you maintaining what are you doing when you feel so supercharged? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't have somebody approaching it with curiosity, it sounds like too, right?
SPEAKER_05Oh, definitely, definitely, definitely. Um, yeah. Um none of us want to be someone's parent.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05There aren't that many situations in my experience that involve having to throw yourself in front of somebody and saying you're not leaving this room. It could happen, but that is um that's a whole different set. That's more likely to happen in addictive states. You know what I mean? It's it's it's not um it's it's it's rare. Yeah, it's rare.
SPEAKER_01In the somatic Yeah, in the somatic world. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05It's not rare in the addiction world, of course, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, which sort of brings brings us to this really interesting moment that we're in culturally, where plant medicine and I suppose like exogenous altered states are being recognized for their usefulness therapeutically.
SPEAKER_05Um, imagine that. That's never happened before the 1960s when they outlawed it all. Imagine that. Look what people have discovered. Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_01Almost sort of ubiquitous now, you know, like it's become this really like normal thing.
SPEAKER_05It's and and and it is plant medicine and and derivatives, sci uh chemical derivatives thereof are are being um are being utilized and studied for their therapeutic event uh uh effects. And it it's what if you live long enough, everything's funny. You know, you're going, mm-hmm. Stanislav Grof is still alive. Stanislav Grof used to use uh, I believe it was LSD, but don't quote me, I thought uh two in altered states in therapy. And um that of course was outlawed, and that's uh how and why he developed holotropic breath work, which produces very similar states therapeutically and also honestly uh holotropic breath work is still better than any drug I have ever tried. But then again, I am a breath-based junkie. So but uh but I think um I think there are off the people that I have talked to and met with, uh, which is a small sampling, admittedly, are really doing the work very, very consciously, slowly, well, uh with with real care and honor. I know that there are, hey, come to Peru with uh on this uh plant journey. No, no, really, it's safe. It's with and and it's just tourism. I know that exists. But uh the people that I know that are using it for expanding consciousness in a healing, uh spiritually growth kind of way, are doing it really um very responsibly. However, it's really it's really people are going to make mistakes with whatever they do that is new to them and or new again to the culture, which is to say there are people who are megalan megalomoniacal, ego-driven, yeah, money grubbing people in all in all spheres, right?
SPEAKER_01That happens in sexuality and as much as it can happen in yeah, any other, any other place where people are going searching. When people who are searching for something, there are people who can take advantage of that desire and like promise promise the universe.
SPEAKER_05That's it. But by and the the really conscious, responsible people, we have to remember that they are going to make mistakes. It's not like you can go to um a training school right now for all aspects of uh healing with plant medicine. You know. It's growing. But it it's not a field yet, the way we think of a field. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, part of the way I'm doing this project is that it distracts me. I mean, I've I've always looked at I think somatic sex education as like sex is the door, but really it's about nervous system regulation and kind of bodily sovereignty, knowing how to manage your own body, use your own body with red sound, movements, touch. Like it's a it's an integrated self-exploration and self-mastery program, really, if you run with it, which I it's it strikes me that that's actually a really beautiful underpinning for entering these kinds of states, whatever the method of induction, um, more consciously.
SPEAKER_05And I think for practitioners, another piece of this that I think matters is cancel culture got very powerful there for a minute. If somebody put a foot wrong, there was a a a sense of oh well throw them out of the club, the associations, or whatever. And I think we're all playing in uh edgy field. I think everybody's gonna make a mistake.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And some mistakes are big and need a year's worth of uh community reconciliation. That happens, yeah. And some simply need a sincere apology and hey, I gotta learn how to do this better. Can anyone teach me? Yeah, and I'm I just want to encourage everybody to be aware but gentle with each other. Um as we work in a field, uh a bunch of fields in the case of what you're doing, you know, but somatic fields, where we where we are, it's not a question of being regulated, it's a question of being, we're outlawed, yeah, pretty much in the United States, you know, we're outlawed or looked down upon or thought of as inherently dishonest or uneducated, pick your words, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, other and othered, thank you. Yeah, and it's hard for communities of other to, you know, we don't have um, I was asked to speak at a Astro conference, which made me think of the Jetsons cartoon back in the 60s, but it wasn't that at all. It was an American Society of Red Radiation Oncologists.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_05And I was asked to speak about um sexuality and uh cancer medicine and how there was a disconnect between what doctors talked about with cancer patients that cancer patients needed to know. But anyway, that uh conference took up the entire San Diego convention center. I had no idea how big that place was. And I had played there with Louise Hay and Hay House, but it was enormous. You had to walk like 15 minutes to get to the other wing. It was like an airplane, it was like an airport, yeah, and it was filled with radiation oncologists all going to different meetings, some of which seemed very boring, and others seemed magically complex. Wow. And I went, where is that place for us?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, where's our conference?
SPEAKER_05Where's that conference?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05That that is taken that seriously, where people can fly in from all over the world, where all sorts of different modalities can be discussed. Uh where is it? No, it doesn't exist. Uh maybe it will. I'd like to think it will, but in the meantime, we do have the internet, but we're somatic people, so you know, screens, yeah, bit of a different disconnect there. So and so, anyhow, I I want the community to get stronger, I want it to be infinitely supportive, responsible, but supportive. Yeah, everybody's growth.
SPEAKER_01There's something really interesting in there when we speak about the sexuality practitioners or people who are maybe also self-identified edge walkers or have taken on othering as a point of pride. Like, yeah, I'm not like that getting us all together and technology actually there's a lot of us. There's a lot of us. And that's there's there's something um there's something about that that that might be an eager, an eager moment.
SPEAKER_05You see, Joseph had always a fun little historical fact, Joseph Kramer had always said he did all his work with gay men. Yeah he founded Body Electric for Gay Men. Yeah, and um Annie and I worked with most pretty much with women, not exclusively, but largely. And Joseph said, you know, I would love you and Barbara and some of the other amazing women in this work to come and be in the men's workshop. We would have such fun, but the guys aren't ready yet. Heard that for years. Finally, Joseph uh the when when he was selling body electric said, Fuck it, we're gonna do it. Yeah, and he he handpicked and invited yeah male sacred intimates and women sacred intimates, whether or not um they were called sacred intimates. Yeah, and we got together as this little mini conference. There was maybe 24 of us, that's all. But it was so amazing. It was like a whole half of the world had opened up because we could actually sit and talk to each other. Yeah, and then I look at the Radiation Oncologist conference and go, yeah, what might happen if we all could gather in a space like this?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I like I know from my own my own experience, like getting together in a room, you know, open tantal professional training and being in a room with all these people who were working with sexuality was like, oh I I hadn't I hadn't experienced that before. I was a little baby sex worker at that time, and I haven't been in the back room, but I haven't been with people who were looking at this as a way of helping people with transformation.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_01Um, and it was transformative for me to be a part of that, which is really exciting. Teach uh training with Ruma from the Institute and uh Jules, who was also with someone I met in Open Tantra, and Anthony, who I also met at Open Tantra, and someone called the Rain Penta. I don't know if you know Lorraine, but we do interactive erotic education training for effectively sacred intimates. And the best thing about there's lots of wonderful things. The best thing is having this growing group of graduates who can all share with each other.
SPEAKER_05Have you maybe you're you're doing this? I know my program, I'm led the professional training program that you're referring to. I we let in like if you're a filmmaker who's going to be working on a film about whatever the hell, and it's going to have a sexual component, and you're curious, come on in. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We have uh we've had medical doctors from the NHS in England. We've had we've had the most out incredible mix. Oh, yeah. Year one in Australia, uh uh someone who became part of the team later. We're going around, and she was a woman who worked with Aboriginal communities, yeah. And um she we were saying, What's your intention? Why are you here? That question, right? And she's like, I have absolutely no fucking clue why I'm here. I'm like, that's fine, right? We can hold that, you'll discover it. Yeah, and and I think I'm I'm I love the fact that when we let in people who are professionals, let's say in this it because we're talking about training professionals at this moment. Um when we let in professionals who are maybe transitioning into something with sexuality, but their background is corporate, or they used to work for Google or whatever, all these skills compiling into the professional community.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And it's fabulous. It's being all like, we're somatic sex professionals, and if you're not, you can't play with us, is insane.
SPEAKER_01It's well, I've I'm it's like this, it's a it's a it's like a community ecstasy. If ecstasy is like getting out of the status quo, bringing in all of these inputs is like great, we're just blasting the live of this. We can exactly have a whole process around it. I don't know. There's one thing that I has kind of been in my mind as a thread through this conversation that I think that I haven't really picked up on but feels really important. And that is your work early on with people with AIDS, and now the work that um that you're doing around, I mean, I think that's around cancer um and dying and the place of ecstatic states in people's dying processes. Part of this project has been what's the usefulness? Why are we like why would someone want to come to a practitioner and be exploring this?
SPEAKER_05And it strikes me that this is really Oh, here's a story. We were in Chester and I, we were doing an erotic awakening weekend. I can see it. Whether it whether it was New South Wales or Victoria, it was out in the country, might have been New South Wales, and one of the people who came was someone who had been had done a lot of our work. We knew this person very well. And they had been diagnosed with a brain tumor, unclassified at that point as to what kind. And they came because they wanted through the erotic awakening process to decide whether or not they wanted to stay on the planet. We're like, oh okay. And they go into an erotic awakening massage. I think there were probably at that time like two givers and one receiver. And we're looking out on these beautiful trees, and she's breathing and breathing, and she goes into the clenching hole slash big draw, uh, depending on who you studied with. And when we said let go, she did, but she didn't take a breath. And she didn't take a breath. And she's still not breathing. Now Chester and I are looking at each other. We know that if you charge the body up long enough, you can do deep dives and things, you don't have to breathe right away. The body's oxygenated enough. But we're going, given her intention, I wonder what's happening here. And we're looking at each other, going, what do we do? And obviously it seems to go on forever, but I think it occurred to both of us at the same time that we should honor the intention. And besides, who were we gonna call? We were in the middle of fuck nowhere, New South Wales. Who was gonna come and when? Yeah, so we just trusted, did our little spiritual magic around the table, and eventually there was a breath. Usually, when someone comes out of one of those not breathing places, this was much longer, but there'll be a kind of like whoa, they came alive. This was just a very and she was back. I was like, and I I don't we did not like run up to her and say, Where were you? What happened? Uh it was her process, yeah. But I went, boy, if I've ever seen a rehearsal for death, that was it. Yeah. Yeah. So if you know how to do this stuff, so to speak, you do, I think, potentially have some choices around the death experience. Catherine Kath Carter, one of our dear friends and longtime tier team members and urban tantra co-founders, um, she was a Scorpio, and she and I used to work with every process we did for some years. We added a death element to like, what if we went under the table? What if we did this? What if we did that? We experimented with these altered states and breathing processes and erotic breath processes. What's the death angle? It was just where we were curious about. Yeah. Um so I don't have any big answers. I just know that Kath Carter also died of a glioblastoma. By the way, the person on the table who didn't breathe, uh the tumor was not fatal. And to my knowledge, he's still on the planet and living in Italy. Um, I have no idea how that story played out, but that's what I heard the end was. And so uh when Kath Carter was diagnosed with a glioblastoma, uh uh she the thing with things like a glioblastoma, they do surgery, they rem they take out some of it, but they can't take out all of it, but the your your something about your brain will change. You are not the person you were when before surgery. So you have to negotiate that. And I still believe, and with the time from the time I spent with her, all that stuff that we had practiced and explored seemed to be serving her, especially the closer she got to the end. I would the word I would use is a certain part of the journey kind of acceptance, that flavor. We're all gonna die. That that's oversimplification, but you know what I mean. It was that direction of so so yeah.
SPEAKER_01The yeah, that's like that radical. That's the radical acceptance again comes up for me. Like I agree, yeah.
SPEAKER_05I think the radical acceptance is something you learn on this journey, don't you think?
SPEAKER_01I think so. I think when you're exploring states and state change and going through to the really like up in charge to the super down and death-like in that range, yeah, yeah, there are plenty of moments that are ecstatic and uncomfortable, and ecstatic in their uncomfortableness, and you accept them all as part of it, and also have awareness of how they change and move through.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and how different people are experiencing this in different ways. Um, for instance, for people who discover the kink path on their journey through somatic altered states experiencing, you know, you might look at somebody and go, mmm, that person looks like they're having an amazing time. And I don't think I'm the hooks in the chest hang from the tree type. I just don't. But you're looking at them, and in your previous life, so to speak, you would be going, What the fuck is that maniac doing? Yeah, and now you're going, Wow, look at the bliss they're in. Same scene, yeah. Yeah, same scene, yeah. So, so yeah, I think I think radical acceptance is definitely um yeah, um, and uh, what will happen will happen.
SPEAKER_01I've got you know, you've gone into lots of experiences, maybe expecting one thing and having something totally different eventuate. So there's this.
SPEAKER_05I spend a lot of time going, are you okay with this? You know, and you know, some people look like they're not having a good time, and they're like, Yes, we have some. Yes, I am, I have okay, good, good, good. Just had to check. Yeah, yeah, and the yeah, the cancer in the AIDS, I suppose they are bookends. Um all we did again with the people with AIDS is practice some rat radical acceptance, look for the love, um, point ourselves and everyone else toward the love, and look for experiences that would enhance, improve, and call that healing. Enhancing and improving is healing. Yeah, um, in some cases, it did cause uh allow people to be on the planet a lot longer than was predicted. In some cases, no, but they died a lot more at peace than they would have. Yeah, and with cancer, it's um often I'm dealing more with what the treatments for cancer that we currently have that do save lives, but they also maim bodies.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um, so helping people to work around uh that ecstatic and even pleasure and sex is bigger than whatever you used to do before cancer did whatever it did to your physical body. Yeah, you've got a lot bigger menu to choose from. Can are you willing to work with me to find them?
SPEAKER_00Can you tell me a little bit more about what that would look like in practice?
SPEAKER_05Like what we Yeah, there's an example in um in Book of Ecstasy, and this actually was a colleague's experience that she told me about, and I loved it, and it wound up in the book. Um someone who for whom ra radiation had destroyed had caused vaginal stenosis, and the person's favorite activity, sexual activity, was vaginal penetration. So it was uh my sex life is over, the pleasure is over. And um I can't remember exactly how it happened, but um she was uh basically invited to or was willing to just kind of go see something, a a play party that was kinky, you know, a BDSM play party. And at first wasn't interested, tried some sensation kind of stuff, not interested. And then worked with played with this person who just like said, you know, sit stay. I mean basic dominant submissive stuff, really basic. And she just found herself like immobilized and entranced, and she had found her new home. So it was a quest to It was just a a case of getting curious. And suddenly DS became her the new hot turn-on. And it what it's not a question of taking the place of something. It's it expanding into something new that's wonderful and magical that you never experienced before.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Increasing the range of options available.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And also you learn to see orgasm is something a lot bigger than what happens in your genitals. But that happens like on day two on this path. It doesn't take long for us to realize that an orgasmic experience is a lot bigger than genitals.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's one of the biggest gifts, I think, is to find the orgasmicity and everything.
SPEAKER_05Yes. Yes, the orgas. What's the word orgas?
SPEAKER_01Orgasmicity. That's yeah, that's a that's a dege, a deech word.
SPEAKER_04Or guess.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Yeah, I like that. I like that one. I am it's nice in the mouth too. It is.
SPEAKER_05My mouth has to get used to it. Orgasmicity.
SPEAKER_01Now I've got it. Orgasmicity. Maybe it like paws on the mm. Yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_05I'm writing it down.
SPEAKER_00Barbara, this has been so delicious.
SPEAKER_05It's been so nice to hang with you again.
SPEAKER_01It's been like chocolate mousse in conversation form. Um, I I wonder, is there anything that we haven't spoken about that feels important to touch on?
SPEAKER_05Maybe I could look at all your questions and seeing it.
SPEAKER_01I mean, there's lots in there's lots in there that's I know we can't cover them all.
SPEAKER_05We've hit on quite a few.
SPEAKER_01Maybe there's I mean, there's stuff in there about future directions. I know that's what I'm looking at. There's questions about, you know, I'm and maybe this is it, maybe there's a like a piece of wisdom for emerging practitioners or people working with.
SPEAKER_05Oh yeah. Okay, that you're right. That's a good one. Um I think we've spoken about it already. I think curiosity is the key. And let let I mean let me take it a little bigger. I I have found that in the my professional training programs, I've learned to delight in the moments that are terrifying. Like when a group of people or a group within the group goes, that totally didn't work for me because and suddenly if you just get curious and lean in as opposed to sitting back and going, I'm fucked, I'm gonna die. Um this didn't work, they hate me. No, lean in and go, okay. What is the one thing that's make what is the biggest thing that's making you so upset? Yeah, really, can you tell me more about that? Yeah, wow, I hadn't thought of it that way. Is it okay if we ask anybody else if they have? Really, does anybody else relate to this or not relate? And then suddenly you're in what can be a boiling pot of water for an hour or more of feelings and yeah, feelings, sadness, anger come vomiting out, but everywhere there, there is a seed of the future. There is a huge answer to a big question. If you can just keep leaning in, keep breathing, stay curious. Yeah, even if you tune out because it's getting hard to listen to, look for the question you can ask. Yeah. Because as opposed to, well, I didn't mean that. Sort of like, yeah, okay, which part of the process do you think was the biggest trigger for you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So this is it feels like that, yeah, like you're riding the resilient edge on like a surfboard of curiosity.
SPEAKER_05Yep. And that is the thing that I have learned so that even though I really nobody wants to sit in something like that because especially of a process one created, but but I've learned how to do it in a way, and and that's how get curious. Get curious, lean in, keep breathing, lean in.
SPEAKER_01You know, I've seen you, I've seen you do that. I've seen you do that. In 2019, there was a big down. Um I I was I was like, oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_05That was amazing in a space where where that where the conflict was a lot of important shit got said in that.
SPEAKER_01It was it was amazing. I mean, I I come from a you know, um raising like conflict averse. I'm growing up being like a very I've got lots of smoothing skills. Um I'm really good at that. And then to see models, this there's something to unpack here, there's something to excavate, there's all this emotion in the room, there's like factions popping up, you can feel the tension, and you're in the thick of it.
SPEAKER_05Like I like what you just said about conflict diverse. I just realized it's the curiosity lean-in skill is one that I really have worked to develop. This did not come from my background because I grew up with a mother who was an undiagnosed borderline personality disorder, is what they called it back in the day. They have reframed that phrase. Yeah, yeah. But she would go off on mad tears, and I learned how to placate that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Now, when I worked in the theater and worked with stars, emotional stars who could be very difficult because they were carrying the weight of an entire show on their shoulders, let's be real, but they could be difficult. And I was old, even when I was at 20, managers would send me in to talk to them. And uh because now what I learned from that was later when I got into this work, was Barbara, be careful. Your placation skills are great when they are helping someone down regulate. They are very harmful if you are just trying to shut up the bully and not taking care of the victim. And I watched myself do that once. I rem and I went, when I came out of that, people were like, Oh wow, you handled her great. And I went, wait a minute. I calmed her down, but the bully got no the bully, I calmed down, the victim of her anger got no attention. This is wrong. Need to change. So it's a it's a mixed bag, but the skill of leaning in, breathing, and asking questions is the absolute antithesis of what was safe in my house growing up. Do that and die, right? It wouldn't work. So it it it took me some years to to realize that I was curious about why they were upset and why didn't I just lean into it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that I didn't have to defend. Yeah. Yeah, to recognize that actually under whatever is happening to that person, there's a desire to be heard.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and you know, if as a child I had been born with that skill is anyone, you know, I probably could have done my mother some good, but all all you can do at that age is try to try to shut it down.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's the reasonable thing to do as a child.
SPEAKER_05So if we can model leaning in, breathing, and being curious, we you know, hopefully other people can learn to do it too. Hell, if I can do it, anybody can do it. Um it's just a skill. Did you learn that from someone? Louise Hay. Yeah. Beautiful. And it's and it's I learned it very up close and personal because I got very upset with her once during a workshop, as you do with the facilitator at workshop sometimes, just like what you saw in that room. And I just let her have it, and she just sat there like Buddha. And when when I slowed down and took a breath, she just said, Who do I remind you of? And I screamed out, and she went, Okay, we're gonna now we're gonna get somewhere. And so, but that's that's the person I learned because I hit her with all barrel, all all guns firing. Yeah, I mean, not disrespectfully, but emotionally, yeah, yeah. And and she just held it so beautifully. Uh and I went, I want to be able to do that someday.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's powerful. Power of questions, power of curiosity, power of breathing through it. Yeah, yeah, breathing through it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's that other thing that I tell people, like if they don't know whether they want to do something or not. For instance, are are you are you are if somebody's saying something and it seems a bit scary or iffy, are you like backing up like this? Or are you like oddly fascinated with whatever it is? And I so I sometimes tell people to just listen to their bodies or or watch what their bodies are doing. Feel what your body are you leaning in? Are you pulling back? Yeah, that will probably tell you what you want to do or not do at this moment.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Follow the body, keep breathing.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful, Barbara. Thank you so much.