Ecstasy is Necessary by Barbara Carrellas
Barbara Carrellas writes exuberantly about sex. Her basic thesis is that it’s necessary for a fully expressed life. I don’t know if I agree with her about that, but I do agree wholeheartedly that living with enthusiasm is undoubtedly necessary. Hers is for sex.
So given that, Ecstasy is Necessary is a paean to breath and energy orgasms rather than just the genital sort. Carrellas takes the sexual into the mystical. She writes that her single most important lesson of her erotic life is: “Each one of us is in the process of our own, unique, individual, sexual evolution.” We need to be able to answer the questions: What do I value? What do I need? What do I desire?
What she calls the Something More Factor is what drives all of us both sexually and spiritually. I have to agree with her. In 30 years of spiritual direction practice, I’ve found it over and over again. Inside each soul is the idea that there are places we don’t yet know, haven’t yet conceived, know we want to get to. That’s the Something More Factor and it’s bar none the greatest motivator in the human psyche.
Carrellas writes an exquisite document that we all need called My Sexual Permission Slip in her Prelude. What freedom! Permission is necessary for genuine experience of every stripe. Her website adds more: “Most of us have been taught to compartmentalize our lives—to keep our work, spiritual and erotic lives as separate as possible—in order to keep the peace and not offend anyone. I advocate exactly the opposite approach. When our erotic energy is aligned with our spiritual purpose, it releases our creativity and manifests in prosperity and happiness in all areas of life, including fulfilling relationships with other people.”
OMG. Spirituality and Sexuality in the same paragraph? Ms. Carrellas is right, and she follows the delicious footsteps of sex therapist and researcher Gina Ogden’s ISIS Survey—which also puts spirituality and sexuality together.
One of the major realizations during the course of living a spiritual life is that nothing is separate from spirituality. Nothing. No exceptions. It’s all included. Oh, there are plenty of things that are separate from theology, from dogma, from creeds, but an actually spiritually-lived life includes breakfast, sex, bathing, joyriding and any- and everything else you can think of. It’s all one thing. Life, and life is divine.
Which takes me right back to ecstasy. Ecstasy is a fascinating word. It comes from Latin roots ex stasis and it means out of stasis, or what is static. Ms. Carrellas maintains that ecstasy is necessary, but in fact, I’d go one step further: ecstasy is inevitable. The more authentically we align our spirit/soul/body triumvirate, the more ecstasy we will experience. Stasis is never the rule of the universe; change is the number one constant. So, of course, ecstasy is necessary and inevitable.
When you next feel that you’re losing your daily ecstasy, Ms. Carrellas’ words of wisdom are a lovely guidebook into one path for the expression of ecstasy. Go for it. You deserve it. And besides, it’s inevitable.
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