What we witness as we grow up, and the stories we inherit around food, emotional nourishment, what it means to nourish ourselves, and what is and isn’t acceptable nourishment shape our development and likely our current relationship with nourishment, including how we feel about nourishment and our ability to take it in.

I knew I wasn’t going to scratch the itch, but something had to give. So rather than continuing to try to push it away, I let it have me. I yielded all of my attention to the itch and it grew. The sensation took over my entire body. It came in great undulating waves, crashing into the boundaries of my skin before splashing back into the core of my body. The sensations were intense, crossing back and forth between pleasurable and painful. In some moments, I thought I was going to have an orgasm. The next, I thought I might throw up.

Preparing to write about pleasure tonight began with a small ritual…

I light a few candles and lift my sage bundle. It smells sweet, pungent, ashy. Touching the flame to its leaves, I drop into a deep breath and blow into glowing orange embers, entranced by their dancing light. Smoke swirls up and around my body, bathing me as I move from a feeling arising within. I’m present to the heat, the light, and the smoke transporting the dayworld into the mystical…

I’ve been on a solo road trip for the last few weeks, and I’m currently staying in Phoenix. Every time I step outside, I’m hit by the unbelievable (to me) heat of the Sonoran desert. It hits hard at first. Shocking. Similar to when you open the oven and the heat rushes out into the room, smacking you in the face on the way.

This is an intense time to be in a human body. It requires a certain perspective and capacity to live vibrantly in a vessel that has been brilliantly designed to gather information through multiple avenues, all day and all night long, both consciously and below our mind’s awareness. It can be hard not to numb ourselves to certain embodied experiences, attempting to cherry pick the ones we feel capable of enduring, let alone actually enjoying. But in fact, when we (attempt to) select certain emotions, sensations and feelings and ignore others, we truncate our capacity to experience everything. If we wash out “negative” feelings, then the tremendous, pleasurable, and joyful experiences become washed out, too.

Chris wrote to you about how her avoidance of discomfort and pain led to disconnection and isolation. She shared about needing to learn to be with all of the sensations in her body, and emotions in her heart, and how that became a doorway into belonging, connection, and deeply nourishing pleasure. While reading her words, I realized that while my family operated in some similar ways – my dad’s mantra was, ‘happiness is a choice’ – the impact on me was different. Rather than trying to move away from pain and discomfort, I came to assume that pain was simply the way life was, and no one could do anything about it. I dismissed the experiences I was having, and chose to be happy – or at least to make it look like I was – and felt so very alone.

Nothing about our bodies, our nervous systems, or our brains is black and white. They do not function independently of one another, and what we need, what brings the most wellness and wholeness, is understanding, inclusion, and integration of the complexity of our systems.

The nervous system is our primary internal navigation system, pulling the levers and influencing our behaviors with lightning speed, just beneath our conscious awareness. Although all human nervous systems are made of the same essential parts, our particular life experiences sculpt unique neural pathways that shape how we respond to situations and our environment.

In Western Culture, the word erotic has been conflated with sex, and sex has been reduced to what you do with your genitals with another person. It’s a rather limited understanding that gives us little if any room to actually exist and explore… We want to invite you into a very different understanding of the word erotic.

I’m in bed with my partner of 3 years. The sunlight is beginning to stream through the curtains, and we’re just stirring from slumber. He’s spooning me and his hands start to roam across my body in a gentle, barely-awake way. His hands speed up, almost imperceptibly, he gently pushes his hips into mine, and in a flash, I go from feeling held and relaxed to scared and trapped

When it comes to fundamental layers of American culture, such as systemic racism or misogyny, change does not come easily, quietly, or peacefully. If we look to ecology and its ever-unfolding evolution, we see that Life is not always gentle, and systemic change is often violent.

In the last few months, I’ve learned so much about the underbelly of my emotions, the uncomfortable stuff I’ve been able to breeze past and work around in busier times. Feelings of bitterness, frustration, insecurity, and a short temper have crept in from the periphery, and these days, I have to consciously scan for what’s good because so much of what’s going on feels like a threat.

Rest restores balance and resilience to a stressed system. Habitual, forced action is a barrier to deep wellness. The ingrained cultural values of advancement, innovation, and improvement have left many of us depleted and out of touch with the natural rhythms that have sustained and evolved life on Earth since the beginning of time.

As a little girl, I loved having a body. I could run, roll down hills, jump, cartwheel, spin until I got so dizzy I fell over, swing, climb, and after some instruction, tumble and flip, too. Sure, sometimes I got hurt, skinned a knee, rolled an ankle. But my body, miraculously, healed itself.