TheAlchemy of Touch
and Sacred Sexuality
If you have found your way here, you have likely been on a path of personal and/or spiritual development for a long time. You know that spirituality, or Consciousness, is a key component. You also recognize the importance of Love and development of the Heart. However, religious and spiritual systems, both East and West, have been much more ambivalent about the energies of the lower chakras—especially the sexual expression of our Life Force Energy.
Yet, without wisely integrating your sexuality into your path of personal development, you do not have access to your full power in the world—
- Your power to create,
- Your Life Force Energy,
- Your zest for living, and
- The core vitality you need for healthy aging and longevity!
But our culture presents many obstacles to this!
Lots of confusion, past traumatic sexual and relationship experiences, abuses of power, shame, guilt, lack of self-confidence; and such diversity of desires, needs, and expectations between partners that things don’t mesh well. Or things go well for a while but get stale over time.
And, for those not in an intimate partnership, there’s such diversity of desires, expectations, and influence of past experiences between potential partners—it’s hard for people to find appropriate partners and cultivate mutually beneficial, pleasurable, and joyful relationships.
On top of this, our culture offers little to no knowledge of how to maintain sexual vitality along with aging—when we are no longer running on an abundance of youthful hormones. And old patterns of relationship block openness and availability to fresh experience.
What can we do about these obstacles?
How do we get there from here???
Introducing The Alchemy of Touch and Sacred Sexuality—
A Pilot Program
In these turbulant transition times, it's becoming abundantly clear that "business as usual" will not work. New times require new ways of being in the world—and The Alchemy of Touch takes us to the depths and foundation of our natural abilities of self-perception and healthy connection with others. Clarity. Safety. The kind of being-in-the-world that's needed now!
This new program draws on ancient wisdom, modern neuroscience, and a weaving together of proven modalities to go deeply into the sense of Touch, soften old conditioning, and cultivate new neuropathways. Grounded in depth, joyful, engaged in community, and full of Life.
Of the five senses, the sense of touch is the most primal. It develops first, and it's experienced throughout the body. The other senses, located in the head, are specializations of the sense of touch:
- Taste—Molecules of food touch the taste buds on our tongue, and we enjoy the taste (fresh strawberries, anyone?).
- Hearing—Sound waves of air molecules (from bird song?) touch the eardrum and reverberate through the delicate structures of the inner ear. This allows us to hear what's going on in our environment.
- Smell—Molecules of a substance (in steam from soup cooking on the stove?) are breathed in through our nostrils and touch olfactory nerves in the nasal cavity.
- Sight—Photons of light from a distant star took billions of years to get to Earth. The photons touch the retina of our eyes, and we see the star!
In the Alchemy of Touch and Sacred Sexuality, we awaken our sense of Touch safely, at its depth, beyond our conditioning and habits of numbness. We enjoy a surprising variety of benefits from an enriched sense of Touch. When you create from the foundation, everything created from that level can flourish in an interconnected, holistic way.
Benefits of the Alchemy of Touch Program
Benefit 1—Refine your self-knowledge and communication skills to create safe, mutually beneficial, dharmic relationships of all kinds.
One of the key modalities we will work with in The Alchemy of Touch and Sacred Sexuality is inspired by The Wheel of Consent(R) a system developed by Dr. Betty Martin, based on her 30-year career as a chiropractor and her later work as a sex therapist. Based on experience with thousands of clients and students, she discerned four basic structures of interaction through touch, each of which has its lessons and values, and all of which work together for mutually empowering and mutually nourishing relationships of all kinds.
The Wheel of Consent is now taught in many sex therapy training programs, and it has mostly been applied to very effectively improve people's sex lives. However, Betty Martin believes that the deeper value of the Wheel is for cultural transformation—because it gives people embodied experiences of their own inherent value and self-sovereignty and of the inherent value and self-sovereignty of others. It fosters the kind of authentic empowerment and sensitivity of feeling that support true community. If you want more information on the Wheel of Consent, click here.
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"You cannot keep your hands from loving what they have really felt."
—Jacques Lusseyran, a hero of the French Resistance in World War II, whose other senses developed extraordinary abilities after he went blind as a child.
Benefit 2—Transform your relationship
with your body, pleasure and sensuality.
We human beings are designed to thrive on pleasurable connections with ourselves, with others, and with the natural world. Yet our cultural conditioning is more about self-criticism, judgement of others, fear of boundary violations (because of undeveloped understanding and communication skills around boundaries), and past impressions from difficult or traumatic experiences, power imbalances, dulled senses, etc.
Further, fears and confusion around sexuality have carried over to suppression of sensory enjoyment—especially through touch. Human beings thrive on affectionate touch, but most people are either touch-deprived or enjoy touch only through sex. People seek pleasure through overeating, other forms of overconsumption, and psychoactive substances.
The Alchemy of Touch re-connects you with the essential pleasures of touch, and through that, of the specialized senses—so you are less attracted to non-beneficial pleasure-seeking behaviors.
From Joy [Ananda] all things are born,
by Joy they are sustained,
and into Joy they again return.
—The Upanishads
Benefit 3—Develop the skills and erotic capacity
to enjoy a sumptuous sex life, if you so desire.
In The Alchemy of Touch and Sacred Sexuality program, we will be waking up our sense of touch and learning the modes of interaction revealed through the Wheel of Consent modality. This will be practiced and grounded in the body through non-sexual interactions, with everyone fully clothed. The blossoming of the sense of touch is quite pleasurable and nourishing in itself. Participants will be guided to extend what they've learned into their sexual interactions—but this level of practice is done privately, outside of class!
Benefit 4—Integrate your life force/sexual energy
into your path of personal/spiritual development.
I find it fascinating that, across many diverse cultures, icons depicting fully developed human beings have similar characteristics. They show light or a corona of fire around the entire body—
not just halos around the head. Also, they show delicate filaments of light radiating from the body. I believe these represent a refined, developed sense of touch that connects them with Creation.
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This is an Eastern Orthodox icon of Theotokos, the God-Bearer (Mary) as the Burning Bush—a revelation of the Divine on Earth. |
This is a Tibetan thangka painting of a god and goddess in sexual union, representing the creative, generative, Blissful Power of the Divine. |
This is a Mexican folk art rendering of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The original image miraculouslyappeared on a fabric cloak in 1531. |
Structure of the Alchemy of Touch
and Sacred Sexuality Program
The in-person, pilot program will consist of 3 week-end workshops (Friday evening and Saturday during the day) over a 2-month period. Between in-person meetings, the group will connect via Zoom for check-ins and Q&A as needed.
Further details will be sent to you after your registration.
Dates and Times
Friday, April 4, 7:00-9:00 p.m. and Saturday, April 5, 10:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Zoom meeting, Tuesday, April 15, 7:30-9:00 p.m.
Friday, May 2, 7:00-9:00 p.m. and Saturday, May 3, 10:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Zoom meeting, Tuesday, May 13, 7:30-9:00 p.m.
Friday, May 30, 7:00-9:00 p.m. and Saturday, May 31, 10:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Commitments
Financial—
Cost for the pilot version of the program is $250.00. (If you are strongly motivated to do the program but can't afford it, please contact Susanna.) Later programs will likely be more expensive. There are advantages and disadvantages to a pilot program. With the pilot program, you get lots of personal attention, and you will be asked to contribute lots of feedback on your experience in the program. You get the adventure of being involved in co-creating something new and profoundly needed in our world. It will be a fun, fascinating, and transformational experience!
Program size will be limited to 14 people. If you have not already discussed your participation with the facilitator(s), please contact Susanna, so we can set up a brief interview and feel confident on both sides that the pilot Alchemy of Touch program will be a good fit for you. You can save a place with your $50.00 deposit, which will be refunded if it doesn't seem to be a good fit.
Confidentiality, Self-Responsibility—
Because of the delicacy of the work, each participant commits to maintaining confidentiality and to treating ourselves and each other with compassion and respect. We approach this work with an attitude of responsibility for your own boundaries and for being as true to your perception of your own needs and your own best rate of progress as possible.
Although we expect this program to contribute enormously to your physical and emotional well-being, it is not a medical or psychotherapeutic program. If you are experiencing psychological instability or emotional turbulence due to unprocessed trauma, it will be best for you to join at a later time when you can get the most out of it.
Register Here!
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Make your $50 refundable deposit here, if you have not already been invited or discussed your participation with the facilitator(s). Then contact Susanna right away to arrange a brief interview. |
Pay $250 in full HERE. |
What others have said about working with Susanna
“I am a retired relationship counselor
and sex therapist, so I was surprised at how much I learned from Susanna’s
workshop. I am also a long-time
meditator. The most powerful thing for
me about the workshop was that it gave me a direct experience of the connection
between my spirituality and my female body and some tools to continue
cultivating that connection. The
workshop was one of the most profound experiences of my life.”
—D.W., Florida
I have been practicing what I learned in Susanna's workshop for three years now. Doing the practice daily has been a tremendous benefit to my spiritual life as well as to my physical health and emotional well-being. In general I feel more grounded and integrated. Cravings and regressive attachments have fallen away spontaneously. I feel more at peace with my own sexuality and more compassionate in general about this area of human life that can bring both great suffering and great joy.
I think it is exactly this kind of work that is at the edge of human development and that will perhaps be most instrumental in activating the final step in the complete liberation of the human spirit. As such, it will also be a great blessing to our beloved planet, all its inhabitants and indeed to the whole universe. —S.L., Iowa
Register Here!
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Make your $50 refundable deposit here, if you have not already been invited or discussed your participation with the facilitator(s). Then contact Susanna right away to arrange a brief interview. |
Pay $250 in full HERE. |