21/06/2023
Prayer, Reclaiming, Redefining and encompassing the Archetype of the Sacred Prostritute
In developing the basic philosophy of Erotic Body Prayer, I wish to reclaim and broaden the scope of the word “prayer.” One of my mystery school teachers was a contemporary mystic named Ron Roth, who became known as called Sri Ronj before he died. My history with Sri Ronji began around 1986. I first heard his name, Ron Roth, while I was meditating. I had never heard of him before, so I wrote it down on a piece of paper and put it aside. Weeks later, I received a brochure in my psychotherapy office about a workshop on archetypes by Caroline Myss. Of course whose name was also on the brochure but Ron Roth. I attended the workshop with Caroline where Ron made a guest appearance to lead a healing meditation. In that first experience of Ron, I was not impressed. Since then, he became a significant guide on my spiritual journey.
One repetitive teaching Sri Ronji shared was "You are
wondrously made" changed my life better understanding the ecstatic path.
Ronji spoke of was about defining prayer. Sri Ronji taught one definition for the word “prayer” as “pal al” from the Sanskrit writings meaning “seeing yourself as wondrously made.” This is an affirmation I use in my work, especially in creating safe and sacred space for erotic touch. Participants are
guided to say to each other, “You are wondrously made.” Sri Ronji also shared the word for prayer in Aramaic (the language Jesus used) as "slotha". When Jesus spoke what is typically called The Lord's Prayer, he said, “When you pray, pray like this.” The Aramaic word “slotha.” means “to set (your mind as) a trap,” to catch the thoughts of God. Sri Ronji says, “I’ve come to see that prayer isn't about our words or thoughts. It’s about the real-
ization of oneness with God and all creation. "What we hold in that trap is our interconnectedness.”
The journey of erotic spiritual work contains at its core these two intentions. To pray, knowing that everyBODY, despite shape, form, color, sex/gender, orientation, functional wholeness and dis- ease or wellness status is “wondrously made.” Along with knowing in the "trap of one's mind" that the phrase “We Are One” is central to ecstasy and prayer. I imagine the ancient sacred prostitutes held these two intentions as they brought their bodies to serve Goddess/God and their celebrant in rituals of healing.
A thousand years after the temples of the sacred prostitutes were squelched or destroyed, a mythic vestige of the archetype resurfaces in the Christian literature. One of the Marys breaks a vase of oil to pour over the Christ's feet. She is depicted sensuously spreading the oil using her hair. I recognize this archetypal act as that similar to an erotic healer praying with her body and her heart, giving Christ (the anointed one) an offering of pleasure.
Several K i n d s o f P r aye r
Accentuating Sri Ronji's teaching of holding intention (or set- ting the trap of oneness and highest potential), I would refer also to the research of Larry Dossey, M.D. I heard Dr. Dossey speak about the research of using prayer for healing.3 The researchers used groups of people who would pray for those (whom they did not know) around their physical disease processes. When looking at two kinds of prayers offered by groups towards subjects, their findings indicated the groups that prayed with specific intentions like “get rid of this cancer” had less evidence of change than the group whose prayer was like holding the subject in love and light or Well-Being.
Erotic Body Prayer is the use of ecstatic states to propel a sim- ilar intention for the highest good. As we consider the rich body of research and analog material that teaches us of healing, it is always my desire to offer as many personal truths as may be found on a given subject. While conducting an erotic body prayer session, specific themes, images or self-statements may emerge that allow one to set a more direct and clear intention than that implied in the Larry Dossey studies. “Body stories” may emerge in the process of the ecstatic exchange that becomes a direct prayer. Feelings, sensations and word clusters may show up around body image, sexual performance or function, religious shame or guilt, pleasure, and being witnessed erotically. “Nasty,” “dirty,” “prohibited,” and “unacceptable” are words and stories of judgment that the gift of pleasure may heal, when one realizes the erotic and spiritual are one.
An example of this happened while I was working with a man who was very overweight for his height. As we began some massage
and ecstatic breathwork, it was clear to both of us he felt great
shame about his body form. A simple acknowledgement of that shame allowed him to be more present. Using erotic touch in the massage with him, he seemed to lighten up, almost physically to my perception. As I closed the session, I did a Reiki treatment on him in which I felt pain and pressure in my left ear. I asked him, “Do you have an earache?” “Yes,” he said, “how do you know that?” I replied, “Well, I often feel things in my body where the energy is going in yours, thus I felt an ache in my ear.” “Wow,” he said. So in this instance it was clear to me I had been given some information that his ear was ready for healing. So I asked him to imagine the earache leaving as I simply spoke softly, “Earache leave. Be whole.” The intention here was very specific for physical healing. It was my belief he became available to the physical heal ing after the emotional healing around the body had been released. His earache was gone and so was some of his shame. Sri Ronji speaks of mystics like Jesus never using prayer as pleading for something, but as a decree. There are times when it is clear that the healer is not interfering with the client’s life but acting in accordance with the client’s desire to heal body stories and embrace a full physical/spiritual manifestation. Each person’s soul journey influences when or how the healing manifests. In these cases, you are not really stepping out on a limb by affirming their truth.
Concluding some ideas on the nature of prayer, I recognize it is often a process. I did some work with Elizabeth Kübler-Ross before she died. She spoke of marinating people in the energy of prayer. Whenever possible, “touch people as you marinate them in love,” she said. She loved working with babies, especially babies born with HIV. Marinating the babies in love often had miraculous
results.
Throughout my life, I have been privileged to work with many healers and shamans from many traditions. Often through the energetic presence of the healer, a decree or a ritual, I have seen miracles take place. And what I also know from these practitioners is that a cancer, a pain, a circumstance may be relieved, but if the subject does not do his/her own psychological, emotional, spiritual, and body-story work, the ailment will reappear.
P l e a s u r i n g P r aye r
Pleasuring prayer encompasses all these ideas and consists of simply charging our bodies while setting an intention. Pleasure raises the energy to set in motion the intention in our hearts. Pleasuring prayer also may allow us to re-wire some of the old stories in our bodies weaving all these concepts together. Pleasure is a moment in which we experience wholeness.
--------------------
I'm reposting this material from my Erotic Body Prayer book to keep feeding the understanding of pleasure principles.Pleasure can be both the launch point or propellent energy to move us through all passages of our lives. Pleasure takes us into slightly altered spaces thus acting as a bridge between the worlds. As we approach the next juicy workshop on Being More Alive by Practicing Death & Dying we will create a mask filled with pleasure as we set an intention to move through the cycles of life, death and rebirth. Drake Bear Stephen a two spirit shaman will guide brothers to create a mask to hold the energy of pleasure and an intention for this journey through death and rebirth.
Let's reclaim and reframe prayer to live in delight.
