Embracing Pleasure through the Body M’Kali-Hashiki
We’re glad you’re here!
Expectations about pleasure, and the messages you get about what it means to be a sexual being, are often profound. But I want you to know that it is possible to embrace pleasure —and that it is possible to find joy in your body and in the world around you.
In today’s episode of The Better Sex Podcast, we are joined by M'kali-Hashiki. M’Kali is a Somatic Sacred Storyteller & Erotic Ritualist. She holds certifications in Sexological Bodywork; Sound, Voice, & Music Healing; and Tantric Sacred Intimacy. As a Somatic Sacred Storyteller, she helps you uncover the stories your body is holding onto, jettisoning the ones poisoning you and helping you to reframe & retell the ones left. As an Erotic Ritualist, she designs journeys for you to commune with The Divine using your physical pleasure as the communication conduit. Her Divine Purpose is helping folx heal their erotic wounds so they can have the joyous & juicy life that is their Divine Birthright and move further along in their path to individual & collective liberation.
In her nomadic travels across North & Central America, she teaches at colleges & universities, conferences, and the occasional adult toy store or educational center. She offers sexuality training & employee wellness/team-building skills to organizations & companies. She is also a skilled Sensitivity Reader hired to read manuscripts to make sure they avoid explicit & implicit systemic bias. Her lived experiences as a fat, black, queer, femme, and trauma survivor inform every aspect of her work.
Highlights:
(03:57) How did M’Kali get here?
(12:52) How M’Kali discovered the Body Electric
(17:59) Breathwork as a modality of healing
(24:18) The Michigan Women’s Festival
(29:31) What needs to be in place to have a safe, consensual experience?
(35:58) Erotic breathwork and breath play
(40:53) How to use breath as a vehicle to connect with the spiritual and physical
(46:00) What makes your breath work different?
Links:
Website: M'kali-Hashiki
She/Her/Hers
"Where Presence, Pleasure, & Prayer Meet"
Twitter: M'kali-Hashiki (@MkHashiki) / Twitter
Deborah’s Links:
Send your sex and relationship questions to DeborahTantraKat@Gmail.com
For a free Truth and Clarity Session Appointments 3 — Deborah Kat Coaching
Website: https://www.deborahkat.com/
Email: deborahtantrakat@gmail.com
Facebook: Events Near Me | Facebook
Twitter: Deborah Kat (@TantraKat) / Twitter
In our commitment accessibility, help make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who like to read rather than listen to podcasts. The transcription is far from perfect, and in some cases quite amusing. As we grow edited transcripts are on the list in the meantime please enjoy.
Unknown Speaker 0:08
Welcome, everybody. Welcome to the better sex podcast. My name is Deborah Kat and I am your shameless post. This is the better sex podcast where we have unfiltered conversations about sex and relationships. This show is about the many different ways that we do and have sex and create relationships. This, is for people who want to have better sex on their terms. I truly believe that a sexy world creates a happier, healthier and safer world. And if you want to do your part in creating a healthy, happy, safer world, please hit subscribe, comment and like today. My guest is m. Kelly has Shiki she is a somatic sacred storyteller, an erotic ritualist. She holds certifications in sexual arts sex, illogical bodywork, sound voice and music healing and tantric secret intimacy. As a somatic sacred storyteller. She helps you uncover the stories your body is holding on to and jettison the ones that are poisoning you. She helps you to reframe and retell the ones that are left as an erotic ritualist. She designed journeys for you to communicate with the divine using your physical pleasure as a conduit of communication. Her divine purpose is helping folks heal their erotic root wounds, so they can have a joyous juicy life that is their divine birthright, and move further along their individual path for collective liberation in her nomadic travels across North and Central America. She teaches at colleges, universities, conferences, and the occasional adult toy store or educational center. She offers sexuality training and employment of employee wellness team building skills to organizations and companies. She's also a skilled sensitivity reader hired to read manuscripts to make sure they avoid explicit or implicit systemic biased. Her lived experiences as a fat black queer femme trauma, trauma survivor informed every aspect of her work. Check out her site, fierce passions as a somatic cyber temple, offering community generally journeys, rituals, individual coaching, and instructional videos. She also offers private sessions for couples triads, and guided visualization, this civilizations to help us survive and thrive during these chaotic times. I am super excited to have you here. I have known you as a person from the Bay Area for many, many years. And I've gotten to watch your progress through many different incarnations. And I'm so thrilled that you're here today. And I just want to say, from my heart. Thank you for joining me, and I am so curious, I want to hear all about your story. And how did you get here?
Unknown Speaker 3:57
Oh, wow. Okay. So you're probably going to have to rein me in at some point. And I will try to give the most succinct version of how I got here. So and, you know, I've I've repeated this many times, because it really is sort of key to how I got here. So I'm a Scorpio and except for the mean part, which is all October Scorpios will just, I'm in November Scorpio. I'm kind of stereotypical when it comes to sex and what some folks might call intensity. And so I was very precocious. I created my own vibrator at like age 12 I had sex for the first time with another person, consensual sex pretty early on in my life. And it's some point in my teen years. It's in my teen years. At some point in my teen years. I saw I was having a pivotal penis in vagina male orgasm sex. So I was having sort of headsets and enjoying very much the experience of being fucked but not actually orgasm, which as we know is very common. And there was a, it's still exist, there's a magazine for the black woman community or the community of black women called Essence. And my mother used to have an SR had a subscription essence and the editor at Atrix as I might call it Now Susan, Susan Taylor, oh, that must have her name. Anyway, in the, in the, in the front of the magazine, you know, every magazine has like the editors page or the letter from the editor. And at the time, she still does, she's still around, Susan L. Taylor resume, she had cornrows for that part of her hair, like I guess from her hairline, till about the middle of her head, and then just long braids. And at the end of the braids, she has beads. And this was, you know, way before Bo Derek was dead. Anyway, um, on her letters to the editors page. And I keep moving on. And I like asked my Facebook friends, old copy of FM, so I can get this drawing and nobody responds. So she had this drawn to the letter to the editors, which was a two page sort of thing. And the beginning of the drawing was on the left hand side, and it was just her it was a her profile. And it was just black and white, there was no colors. And so it was it started like with her nose, and then like her face, and then her cornrows, and then her braids, were streaming behind, like streaming out behind her. And as you move from the left to the right, it started out being her braid. And by the time you got to the right, it was the universe, the cosmos. And at some point, you know, I don't remember how this came up, maybe I was visiting and like going through all as I don't remember. But I will say, that is what happens to me, when I'm having the kind of sex that I want to be having, like the back of my head is the universe, the universe is flowing through me. And I realized early on that one of the ways to have that experience, you know, lungs, they had like a partner that was respectful and cared about my pleasure. But one of the ways to have that experience was to open an email, I didn't have this languaging them but would open up conduit, a channel between my client and my mouth and so that whatever I was experiencing the pleasure that I was experiencing, and my comment was or come out of my mouth. And if that was happening, then that is what would facilitate the sort of opening of the back of my head being into the cosmos. And so in my early 20s, I realized that I didn't really know what I was going to do. I didn't know that that was going to have any bearing whatsoever on my life. And then I came out as queer, or account as a lesbian in 1980.
Unknown Speaker 8:24
And I moved to DC and I ended up becoming friends with, you know, people who were quite big influences in the queer community. So I became friends with people like Lorraine Hutchins, and Lani comando, and other bisexual activists. And many years later, after I left DC, the rain was really one of the people that sort of restarted this whole sacred horror movement based on some grad school work that she was doing. And so because we still got in touch, I would sort of I got to read her thesis, dissertation, homage call it actually read it as like, oh, secret, a hoard Oh, like that, and use that as a way to communicate. Oh, and then there were people who like had this responsibility for oh, okay, I'm understanding this, this feels like really resonant. Still not really knowing what to do with that. And then around that time, I was living in DC. And my wife at the time and I had started a lesbian, bi women's SM group. And I forgot where it's going with this. I forgot where it's going with this. Oh. And my wife at the time had a lot more a lot of experience with our seminar and when we Man, I had like, No, I had no official thing sane and consensual, you know, negotiated like, I didn't have that type of SM experience. But I had done like, kinky boyfriend prior. So anyway, so we're so we started this group and then Logan bundles of opera. And anyway, at some point, it became clear that we were, and again at the time, I wasn't necessarily using this light this languaging. But it became clear that as a couple and me individually that there is a way that I was helping people use sexual pleasure to see God for lack of a better term. And that people not know, not only was it a thing I was doing, but it was also a thing that people were attracted to me and my partner for, like, there was a woman. Um, maybe you're, maybe you're listening to this, and I hope you get in touch with me because I was. Anyway, she was a druid. And she, we had another contracts of and she approached us about becoming a contract servant, she said, You know, I'm a druid, and I've lost my voice. And I feel like you will help me regain my voice, you know, by being in submission to you guys. Oh, that would have been a good story I'm in I'm taking Spanish classes. And I ended up going down this whole row with my Spanish teacher last week. And so my homework for today was supposed to be to tell my favorite story of my like, leather dyke era, which a lot of like, the phrase I settled on, that was this close to leather jackets, I could get it like the lesbian, like the wearer, which I do not think. And then we lesbians have the leather, which is not quite the same. I was supposed to tell this jury, and now I'm realizing this, the story would have been distorted. So anyway, so we went to Michigan, with this person, she was not fully in contract to us. During Michigan, I think we eat the contract of permission. So it should be like, you know, go and do whatever she wanted. And I just remember we had, we had like a little conversation between two of us, me and my wife at the time. And we ended up like tying her to this tree and doing all these things and say she was able to communicate with, you know, with her gods. And still I'm like, okay, so this is the thing I do. This is the thing that I feel like I'm put on this earth to do help people communicate with God using sexuality or their physical pleasure as a conduit, what the hell do I do with that? I don't know what to do with that. And then I ended up moving to San Francisco.
Unknown Speaker 12:56
And I had discovered the body electric. Know how I discovered the body electric somehow I wound up at the Body Electric and I started going to some of their events. And then I actually worked for them for a little while in the office. And then another time I was the coordinator of the women's events for Oakland. And then Joseph Kramer, who had started the Body Electric, Joseph Kramer and Chester maner, who did the massage training. Joseph had gone to have started studying at I am instance, to Institute for Advanced Study King sexuality and had met I can't remember his name, the guy who wrote the book. No pleasure. He's no he's a shrink. He's a psychiatrist or psychologist. Anyway, Joseph was sitting at Ay ay ay ay ay Ebisu for the vast set of human sexuality, and had met this guy, and I think they were reading his book as part of the curriculum. And so he really was sort of like, you know, the guy who written the book, because this is the San Francisco right like, you know, Sam Cisco, you got your alternative healers, you got your body workers, you got your massage therapist, whatever. The guy who wrote the book whose name is completely escaping me right now. I'm defect therapy. And so he you know, he because of the limitations of sex therapy, traditional sex therapy, which is all talk, and he was really like, okay, so I can talk to people and when we get to this point, and then there has to be some experiential stuff. And so he had basically ended up like, recruiting some of his best How do you work with friends and like with really strict guideline, I've sort of roped them and to seeing some of his sex therapy clients, and then just have heard about that. And I'm probably messing up the story completely, but basically, then just did the work to go to the California Department of Secondary Education with a curriculum, and he created the field of psychological bodywork. So I was like, Wow, sounds good. And I had met Chester, prior to that and had like, fallen. I don't know what the word in love. I mean, you know, there's different types of love, but like, the love, like when you meet a fucking prophet, and you're like this person is, is dialed into the universe, and is speaking deep, universal truth. And then you're just like, Whoa, I like I am blessed to have met this person. And then you like, fall in love with them. I've gotten my like, first Chester maner. It was it was massage one on one massage one on one. And I was just like, oh, you know, and so. So then I was just that summer, I just took like, every fucking class that he taught. And then that fall, maybe that fall time is has no meaning. At some point in there, they launched or they had already started the first round of sex logical body workers, and I was off doing something else on it. So then when it's time for the second round of psychological bodywork was I was like, oh, I want in on that. And so I started doing such psychological bodywork training. And it really it really, it gave me a structure again, first of all, give me languaging to describe sort of my experiences before Joseph Kramer uses this term, erotic, ecstatic people who are able to reach states of XD ecstatic states. And by ecstatic states, I mean, like the way we think of like, when we talk about, like, for lack of a better word, like, like spiritual ecstasy, like now I'm not specifically only talking about physical, like, states of intense physical pleasure, I'm talking about like, spiritual states of ecstasy, so people who can reach the state of ecstasy through physical pleasure to sexual activity, but Right, I was like, oh, erotic, ecstatic, that's me. And so it gave me a languaging to sort of,
Unknown Speaker 17:49
not hang my DNA on, but to understand my experiences and my skills and my interpretation of the universe. And then it gave me skills. And so I think the thing that I, you know, studying with Chester, even when we went to do the massage, the CMP training, which was 100 hours, that two weeks, the 100 hours, and the first two days, we didn't do any touching, we just did breathwork for two days. And then we got into like, learning different techniques. And then he said, Anyone who had done the first one, if you want to come to his next training, and just for the breathwork days, you could do that. So I went back to breathwork. And the breath work was the most profound, simple, yet incredibly intense, like chant, like the, the biggest bang for your buck in terms of, of transformation and healing was breathwork. And, and I was just blown away by its simplicity, its power, the different states of consciousness that could be achieved by it. And so when I became a certified psychological body worker, the breath was still the foundational modality. And that brings us to night 2007 I think that we need to do 1007. And then I also am profoundly I personally am profoundly affected by music. And I stumbled on to the, again, I think it was the second or was it the first honor one of the initial training for a cis California it's To do integral study their sound voice and music healing program. And so I did that. And then I was like, Oh, I can understand how those things can be integrated into a healing session. Although I don't use music very much now. But when I was doing in person bodywork, I did have the client use their voice for toning as part of the healing session. But I use a lot of outside. Sounds
Unknown Speaker 20:30
interesting that like voice and sound has been such a big part of your journey. Um, and, you know, I'm just struck by like, literally, I think one of the very first things you said was like, you know, having the, you know, having sound and voice come from your, from your account from your pussy from your genitals,
Unknown Speaker 20:54
I need to make that connection. Thank you. Yes, that's it's very, it's very old and primal. And there's, I was just talking to somebody recently, where we were talking about the difference between nonverbal and pre verbal as it applies to sex. And, like many conversations that I get into around sex, I don't know how they start. But we're talking about something and I said, you know, my, my sex partners, because another, you know, if I'm having the kind of sex that I want to be having, I because I used to use the phrase, and my partners would use the phrase non verbal. And then I ended at some point, it's like, no, that's not it. It's pre verbal, it's pre it's, it's pre words. So it's like vocalization, that are a mode of communication prior to the creat the humans creating words. And there's something really those of you who are listening can make a lot of gestures with my hand. on his desk with my hand, there's something very, like primal very, like,
Unknown Speaker 22:09
grounding.
Unknown Speaker 22:11
Yeah, keep making it like under the something deep under the surface, something like deep healing, deep connection, that happens through sound, because sound minus word like words, is when you bring the mind into the brain into it that has all these interpretations of what things mean and can really can change what things mean based on the messages that it's getting from outside media. But prior to words, sound, communicate, like sound communicate so much, that don't have to be like it, when we try to translate them into words. Sometimes, things get lost, because what would in some ways, what we're doing is, is shrinking those emotions, those feelings, those experiences, like in order to translate them into human speech, we shrink them. Whereas if we're just like live, just making tones with the body, then the entirety of that experience, the entirety of that emotion, the entirety of that sensation, really can be communicated in its fullness. And there's just sometimes I feel like, you know, and as much as you know, I'm very comfortable with words, but I also feel like they, there's a way in which they prescribe is that the word I mean prescription because there's a way in which when you put a word to something, you make it small. And so using music using plans of the body, allow for a larger, more full, more full, larger, grander, bigger, universal experience. I love that.
Unknown Speaker 24:19
So I just want to pull together a couple of different things that we've been all over the place. So first of all, um, you know, you mentioned Michigan, and I'm thinking you're talking about Michigan Women's festival.
Unknown Speaker 24:32
Yes, the Michigan Women's festival. I went for many years. I started going in 1991. And I think my last year was 2003. And I think I only missed one year happening. You're gonna have to find me in prison. I will just get on a mat and won't be able to hold myself up. Now
Unknown Speaker 25:00
Maybe moms are happening. Okay, got it. And as the other so so the reason I kind of just wanted to talk about that for a moment is because that is such a big part of women's culture. You know, for me, I guess the I mean, I know, for me during like the late 80s through the 90s. That was that was like,
Unknown Speaker 25:23
I think it's the 70s is when seven is maybe late, I don't know exactly when MySpace started, but like, women's music, as a force to rally a community around, um, you know, came out of the 70s and late 70s, early 80s, I don't know exactly what fish will afford it. Um, and, again, I'm sorry, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 25:48
I was just gonna say one of the places where I know it was really important was like, at least for me, and some of you know, my crew were like, starting to learn about our bodies starting to learn about our pleasure, like, in ways that we never saw reflected back in popular culture. So it was just like, there is a place where so that's, that's one of my big associations is, you know,
Unknown Speaker 26:12
for you. Did you used to go to the Twilight Zone?
Unknown Speaker 26:15
Ah, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 26:19
So, so, you know, I'll just say that, that me and my gang shot off here. 90s, Mitch Beth, for example, until the US started going to Michigan was the year after, they basically kicked the SM dikes out of their main camp and where they used to have parties, in the big tents sort of in what do we call it downtown, like, where all the stuff was happening. So So prior to the year I started coming, and the leather diets would, at night, when the big workshop tents weren't being used, would like commandeer or one of them to have like great big play parties. And then they would put folks put women along the perimeter and on the path to somebody chasing him. Some other folks were like, wandering at night, somebody was out of the pack. And they're just so you know, if you continue along the path, you may hear and see things and maybe it's getting to you a lot. And here's another path, you can go this way. And, you know, I end up trying to describe the lesbian sex wars in Spanish. Whoa, that was the whole thing. But um, so a lot of the folks who were a lot of the women who were involved in creating, not just creating Mr best but really creating a misspent community. A lot of them are anti ASM. And by Chan, turfs, you know, the whole. So, so they had, I had, I think I had heard about, I had heard about the Michigan Women's pass, and I was like, just come out. But I spent the summer of 1990 Driving in Mexico, so So I went 1999 was 8991, I went to miss Bess. And they and I was there as they were like, kicking the new leather decks ended up being untied so and so for many years, you know, I was part of the, old guard holding it down and the twilight zone as people, there's other women's sort of like snuck away from downtown in the middle of the night, because you didn't want your other lesbian friends to know you had an interest in FM, because that could be used to exercise you in your community back home, right. So people would like sneak down to the twilight zone in the middle of the night. And there was always something happening in the twilight zone. And, you know, some of us really took it upon ourselves to make sure that folks were actually learning stuff. And not just because a lot of us were, you know, more advanced doing more and more, what are we calling that more rack stuff, risk aware, consensual ping things that you wouldn't want like your newbie, to sort of out with saying there are definitely many of us who sort of took it upon ourselves to also make sure that we were educated the folks who were sneaking down in the middle of the night, they were also learning something and learning about safety and learning about consent and not just watching us doing the things we were doing.
Unknown Speaker 29:31
I can only imagine and I've got a very good imagination. I do want to take a moment though to just highlight you know, where we are with different kinds of education and how you know how things like when you talk about the old guard, you know, for those that aren't that are listening that aren't really know what we're talking about back in the day before. Back in the day. Did you know, when you were interested in BDSM, kink the love there community, I'm actually holding all of those terms in one, you know, kind of pot, but like, there wasn't real, that you couldn't just go on YouTube and learn you. You had to work, you had to find you had to connect, and there was community around these kinds, you know, around alternative sexuality. But at least in my experience, you know, it was very much like, you know, you came in, you learned from the bottom meaning that you came in learning how to surrender. And, and hopefully you connected with a mentor who taught who took you through safe, sane and consensual meaning that like, you know, what things can we do safely to the body? And the mind? What things can we do sanely? Like, you know, there are definitely practices that are not for everybody.
Unknown Speaker 31:15
Right? And not necessarily where you want to, you don't want to dive into the deep end of the pool.
Unknown Speaker 31:21
Right, exactly. And then, you know, really, for me, that was the beginning of consent. I mean, it's come a long way, it's become a much bigger, much broader, much more nuanced conversation, but like, you know, the idea of negotiating with someone about the way you're going to play together. You know, and it's sort of like that sort of the bin much of the foundation around like, how do we talk about sex? And how do we negotiate and, and connect with partners around creating, you know, creating the, I love what you're saying, the erotic is ecstatic? Did I get? Like, how, how, what are the things that need to be in place to have those kinds of experiences. And I'm curious, like, so if you were to talk a little bit about what needs to be in place to have that kind of an experience, what would you say are some of the foundational pieces,
Unknown Speaker 32:31
um, the ability to communicate your wants, your needs, and the things that you might be interested in, try the ability to communicate what you absolutely, positively don't want. The things that and the ability to know fully that your partner will respect that. And the ability to also talk about the things that you're like, Hmm, that's not gonna really do much for me, but if it gets you off, you know, maybe willing to try it. And then imagination. Also, there's, there was the thing that I in some communities, some essence, communities that I found, that was a real turnoff, where people seem to really take this idea that like, you know, bottoms were community property or not, when as a community are, but like, bottoms were existed for the pleasure of the top. They didn't really have a lot of say in how things ran and always like, bottoms are a gift that's giving you and showing you that kind of trust. Like, you need to worship them. And so, and there are ways in which, you know, more experienced bottoms than me taught me as I'm kind of a top heavy switch, you know, on the switch, but rarely, more so as I've gotten older, but rarely, but so there were experienced bottoms that taught me how to do things as a top safely. And there were more experienced bottoms who validated parts of my tarp persona for lack of a better word, like without bottoms, you're just a bunch of like, fucking like popsicles. Like you're just a bunch of like, hate it. And I don't mean to say this in the good way. You're like, without the consent of the bottom you're like somebody that needs to be put away. Thanks for Thank you bottoms for allowing us to, you know, for not just allowing us but wanting us to do all those cool tortures things. But I really, I mean, emotionally, physically, if it hadn't been for a lot of the more experienced bottoms that I learned from, like they really do. had a lot to do with, uh, with how I approach play, how I approach what I see is, quote unquote, permissible, and what is not. And like, if you can find someone who wants to do the thing that you want to do is permissible, that's kind of, you know, and as long as you're both were both really aware of what the actual risks are, and then you get to decide whether or not you want to take those risks and, and not shaming or judging someone who says, you know, I want to take that risk, understand what the risks are of that activity, and decide I want to do that, OR, and NOT. And also not judging or belittling people say I fully understand what the risks are for that. And that makes me hot, and I want to try it anyway. And trusting that they actually do understand fully what the risks are. For things like you know, my play branding, play piercing, choking and breath play. Work stop at Enzo has taught a bunch of workshops, Enzo and I was doing a like erotic breathwork was like the title of the and people. I was like, bump into people in the elevator or whatever. And he's like, Oh, I'm so sorry, Mr. breastplate works out really no, no, very, not at all the same. And for those who don't know, breath play, at least in some senses is around modulating or limiting someone's ability to breathe. And that is very different breath play is very different from breath. And so I think that first time I taught I must suspect like, you know, three or four times a day, somebody's like, oh, when your breath like nope, nope, I'm not doing a breath lay workshop. It's rotted breath work.
Unknown Speaker 37:04
So it's a great, that's a great segue into please tell me more about erotic breathwork especially the way you think about it and the way you teach
Unknown Speaker 37:15
it. So the way I so you know, I owe a lot about, I speak his name at the beginning of all of my workshops, doing as part of my affinity ancestor, Chester Maynard, gave me words to understand the breath for things I was already doing, and then taught me more about the breath than I ever thought was possible. And so for me some of the key things about my particular and one of the things I always tell people, like there's no wrong way to breathe, right? There's no as long as you're breathing mindfully, it's all good. My particular form of breath work, however, one we don't put a lot of effort into it. So I think it's a Holotropic breathwork, where it's all like, oh, you know, they're like, really like talking. We don't do that here to King the challah, we don't do that here. And really, I call it erotic breathwork because it's about connecting with that the most deepest, strongest, most fundamental energy in the body, and that is arrows. And a lot of times when I'm talking about a lot of brekford, people think I'm just using that as like a euphemism for sex. But when I'm talking about the erotic, I'm really using RG Lord's work. So there's an essay that she wrote a really long time ago called the use of the erotic, the erotic is power. And that really is my personal professional and political manifesto when it comes to arrows anyway. So Eris is that deepest lifeforce that, for me, it's also about how we understand our bodies as sacred vessels. And how we understand that God and I'm using that as shorthand, and I hate using that extra thing, because I'm not a Christian, but like, people understand me. They created, let's say, the creator, the creator, does not exist outside of ourselves. The Creator chicks exist in inside of ourselves. And so how do we have that communication with the creative? How do we remember our inherent sacredness, we use the breath to travel inwards. So here's a little example for you what I'm talking in my tradition, I practice ephah which is the pre Christian African, specifically, you have been with African spiritual tradition and also That's science. And when you get initiated prior to getting a machete, you get these hot from making air quotes to get these pots. And then you also different pots when you're initiating, and you as the Initiate do not get to see what's in the pot, the elders open the pot and put stuff in the pot. And for people who don't understand, they might say what's in the pot represents the gods. But no, it's an actual piece of the Orisha is in that pot, it's not something that represents it is a piece of the Alicia in that pot. And so that's what are our bodies are these pots, there's a piece of the universe, there's a piece of the tree chips in like we house are one of the things I say we are minute manifestations of the Divine. So our secret, our consumable containers, how's this, take a piece of us. And one way to access that is to use the breath as a vehicle for that traveling in Word. And also using it as an anchor to ground. So use the breath to come into a deeper, more authentic relationship with ourselves with our body. And in doing so it becomes possible to communicate with the divine. And that all comes from the breath. And it's a it's a it's a relaxed breath. And it is a steady breath. And most importantly, the jaw and the butthole I was hold community breathwork sessions every month and I always say to newcomers, I'm going to tell you about your butthole a lot just get ready. So we have to have a good jaw. And a relaxed butthole because we're holding on when we're tense energy can't flow through us. So we have to relax so that the energy can float with some I'm often talking about people's butthole what else
Unknown Speaker 42:11
I love that I just asked you for just a second. So first of all, I want to go back for just a moment. And so talking about spirit God being within ourselves and using the breath work as a vehicle to connect with that part of ourselves with our soul. To me that sounds like what you're saying is it's a an integration of our earthly bodies and our spiritual experiences that
Unknown Speaker 42:51
I'll go for that. for that. I also have started recently, recently, and recently because I've had no meaning recently means like in the last 10 years. So I've also recently been talking about bodies plural, so our physical bodies, our emotional bodies, and our energetic or spiritual Baiser I think of them to me, I think energetic body, but I always worry that if I say energetic, people think I'm being like, enthusiastic, so for and I'll say No, I mean, your spiritual body. So I talked about the multiplicity of those bodies, and how they are the same but aren't the same and how you can use the breath to, communicate and to integrate all of the bodies into one and also to be specific about which body you're in communication with. So I can use the breath, we can use the breath, integrate the emotional, the spiritual, and the physical bodies. And I can also be really specific, oh, I have chronic pain in my left hip. How am I going to use my breath to remediate that physical pain in my left hip. So then I'm, you know, being specific about using the breath and my physical body. Or I have a spiritual wound because I grew up Catholic and queer. I didn't want to use that as example. I grew up Catholic and queer. And, you know, the priest told me I was going to hell and that the devil, the devil had taken hold. So now I have the Spiritual Wars. So how do I use the breath to heal this spiritual wound? By using the breath to heal emotional, but a lot of kind of differentiating between using the breath to address something in the physical body versus using the breath to address something in the spiritual or energetic body. And a lot of it is about intention and a lot because it is also about visualization, Chester had this thing about Africa. I'm not gonna say as great as he did, but he, he was like, we don't do imagination because imagination is like you're pretending and so I'm not asking you to pretend I'm asking you to visualize something that actually suffered, He said it much better. So there's a lot of I try to help people visualize particular things like the the staff were the the energy centers and some traditions called stockers that many traditions have this concept of energy centers in different parts of the body. So so the one that I feel like people can, can get easier is this sort of main channel in the middle of the body. So we talk about, you know, visualizing that and visualizing the light moving between different energy centers, and between the perineum and the crown of the head. What else makes my breathwork different? And also I do. My, former godmother died before we can have a more of an in depth conversation about this. But I had been talking to her about the ratios and the chakras and how they might be connected. She was like, oh, yeah, and then we like, never got back to having a conversation. So there's a way that I also incorporate particular things from a Fah into my breath work, particularly ocean, who is the most simple the simplest way to talk about her, and also the most incorrect, but the simplest way to talk about her would be to say, She's the goddess of sex, love and beauty. And that is like, a overly simplistic and overly restrictive description of what she is responsible for. Anyway, I use a lot of ocean stuff, when I am teaching
Unknown Speaker 47:05
breathwork sounds like it sounds like not only are you bringing together your experience in the Western world, your experience from African spirituality, your experience from you know, your life, your life path, which is why and vast and I love what you said, or what I read earlier in your bio about, you know, your experience of being a living. Today, I'm actually gonna go back to see it, it's like, you know, your lived experience of being fat, black, queer femme, you know, all of these pieces you bring together, and so they run through your work. And if somebody wants a chance to actually experience you, I mean, your transmission is amazing. At and I am so thrilled to get to spend this time with you. But if somebody wants to get a chance to experience here, how do they do that?
Unknown Speaker 48:11
Well, the easiest way and the, with the less the way with the least amount of anger would be to come to one of my monthly sessions. So the first of every month, and I'm sorry, the first Sunday of every month, I host something called Black breath matters. And that is exclusively for black folks. And we use a rhotic breath works to sort of process what it means to live in a body that's racialized by the state. I mean, all the things that brings up, which are myriad and can be different from week to week, so so that is a closed circle. And then every third Sunday, I too, but whole breathing for the win. Because many of my students and many of my friends who have come to my other events, they're like, Oh, am I breathing through your butthole. And like I say that we can describe it that way. That's how I describe it was to describe it that way. So now I call it butthole breathing. And that's every third Sunday. So the easiest way to get in touch with me is go through my website, which is fierce passions, that calm and one easy way to remember that is that in Cali has Shiki is Swahili for fierce passion. But fierce passion was taken as you have to add in that summit because this app.com And there folks can read more about my work, they can register for an event. If they're interested in working with me one on one, there's ways to you know, contact me and set up schedule, Discovery calls. So it's all on my website. I never asked people if I can help it
Unknown Speaker 50:02
And of course, of course, these things will all be in the show notes. And so I'm curious if somebody was listening to this amazing conversation and followed us to all the incredible locations we went to would be one thing that you would want them to walk away with. Like, there's so many incredible gems here. But what would be like this one thing that you want to transmit away to somebody who's
Unknown Speaker 50:34
whose was one thing I would want people to know, is that the body and its pleasures, its physical pleasures, there is no way that they can be blasphemous or evil. As long as there's consent, right? You're not forcing anyone to do something. So that anyone who would tell you that your pleasures are wrong or evil, they themselves speak with their they're not coming from the right place, because that's not true. That's not possible. You were created, your physical being is created as a sacred object. And the pleasure like there's a reason why the fucking clitoris has a gajillion fucking nerve endings. It's not just for shits and giggles, right? Like, that's, we want to talk intelligent design, which I don't. But if we're gonna talk intelligent design, like that was on purpose. There's a reason that, you know, the head of the penis has all of these arising nerve endings, there's a reason that the anal sphincter has all of these nerve endings. And it's not just so you can feel yourself shit, like, pleasure is part of the reason that the physical body exists. And so as long as you are not harming anyone, as long as you are getting consent, there's nothing wrong that you can do for your pleasure. Yeah, within those things, so, you know, explore on your own, what does your body want, and maybe what your body wants has nothing to do with what society tells you. Your body is supposed to want based on your age, race, gender, size, ability, etc, etc, etc. Explore for yourself, what makes your body feel good.
Unknown Speaker 52:33
Ah, that is so good. You know, I got goosebumps when you were talking about that. So, so yes. Well, thank you so so incredibly, very much our time. Yeah, for taking the time to be with me today and to share your experience. And I am looking forward to seeing more of what you're up to.
Unknown Speaker 53:02
This has been wonderful. I love having these conversations. Because, you know, they really shake loose a lot of things. When I had the whole thing about when you articulate something, you make it smaller, but also being able to articulate it give it form. And so I really appreciate these ability, this opportunity to like, give form to some of the things I've been thinking or sitting with for decades now. Thank you so much.
Unknown Speaker 53:32
My pleasure. My pleasure. And for those of you listening again, this has been the better sex podcast. Please like, comment, follow, subscribe to the podcast and please check out fierce passions.com to learn more. And on that note, may your sex and your pleasure be awesome.