Hello and welcome to embodied astrology.
My name is Renee Sills. I'm a Consulting.
Astrologer astrology teacher and somatic.
Educator. I'm interested in the ways
astrology helps expand conversations around embodiment
art process, politics and more. In this special episode.
I'm talking with Evian Whitney about embodiment and Technology,
the evolution of sensual and sexual identities.
Non-binary anus asexuality. Feminism and sexuality.
And of course astrology. We'll be considering all of
these themes in relation to current astrology, and
everyone's natal chart. Evian Whitney is a sexuality,
Doula sex educator. And sensualist, since 2011,
their work has focused on decolonizing and shaming and
liberating sexuality at the intersections of identity
trauma, healing pleasure and embodiment.
Evian is the author of sensual self prompts and practices for
getting in touch with your body, a self-guided journal that will
help you prioritize your pleasure and come home to
yourself. Through your senses.
They're also the host of the Central Self podcast, which is a
wonderful resource for sex and sexuality education, pleasure
practices embodiment and more. I'm releasing this episode on
May 1st 2022. The day after a new moon and
solar eclipse in the sign. Taurus Taurus is often
considered the Earth. Easiest of all the Earth signs.
It relates directly to our bodies and our sensate, sensual
existence in this way. Taurus is closely associated
with pleasure, desire. Fire and satisfaction the outer
planet, Uranus is transiting Taurus, between 2018 and 2016,
Uranus in astrology represents queerness Innovation
destabilization and Revolution. This Transit has accompanied a
huge wave of interest and embodiment, and somatic
practices with eclipses, in Taurus and Scorpio this year
needs for evolution and Revolution when it comes to
embody autonomy, pleasure trauma, and somatic
Consciousness are emphasized. Everyone's work with Directly
with all of these themes and the Insight that they bring around.
Their work is necessary medicine.
In these times. I'm so excited to share this
conversation with you and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
First of all, let me just say thank you for being a guest on.
Embodied astrology. It is a real pleasure to have
you here. Oh my gosh.
It's an honor. Honestly to be here.
I'm really excited about our conversation.
Yeah, yeah, me too. I'm going to probably ask you a
fair amount of questions about what it is that you do and I
feel like you're, you know, sometimes like there's an
introduction to a guest or something like that and I feel
like that's going to unfold and of course if I was talking but I
also wonder if yeah, if there's any particular way that you
really feel like you like to kind of introduce yourself to
people or want people to know. You right off the bat.
Yeah. Well, my name is Evie on and we
will start there. I call myself a sexuality Doula,
and these days, I'm really leaning into my sex, educator
background and refining that, too, or at least expanding that
to be inclusive of sensuality and wanting to be like a
sensuality educator. I think that, that is an aspect
of our sexuality, that is really important.
That not a lot of people talk about.
So I'm really jazzed about this space that I'm in really
defining that not even just within my work but within my own
personal process, like learning who I am as a sexual being or a
sensual being, and like learning learning what my body can do and
learning what my body feels. And yeah, I there's so many
things, there's so many things but I'll I'll just I'll stop
there. Yeah.
Yeah, thank you for that. I feel like you're also a person
and I identify like this to like that you bring a lot of
different streams together and that you're also like knowledge
hungry, you know, and like you're just probably going to
keep learning and maybe changing the name of what it is that you
do and how it is that you do that for a long time.
Just so good to meet you today. Yeah.
Exactly. It's totally that.
I've been thinking about that a lot as I get older, and I'm
starting to add different labels.
And descriptors of who I am, like really embodying those
things. And I'm like, wow, you know, I'm
literally transforming every single day.
You know, there's always something new for me to discover
and I am very hungry. Like, I'm always wanting to
learn more. Like I have this imperative to
to evolve and I think that is really Ali reflected in my work.
I try not to make it so apparent because it could get a little
scattered. But, yeah, my work is, I think
an expression of the constant work that I'm doing on myself
personally boo. Yeah, I feel you.
So, yeah, I first came into contact with your work.
I believe it was in 2016. When you were also living in
Portland, where I am on Chinook territory, and I was producing
them pan. On on, on sexual healing and I
was interested in talking to people about their Journeys with
healing through sexuality. And so you were for by some of
the folks at shoo-bop at the feminist sex store.
Yeah, sure. And I remember we had a couple
of back and forth and it didn't quite work out for you to be on
the panel at that time. And then as it happens, you
know, it was like I know my life was in a big space of transition
at that time and I lost track of you for a while and then came
back in contact with your work last year and was just astounded
to see what you had built. And this like, incredible.
I want to call it a Ministry, like, that's kind of what it
feels like to me. You know, that, that you're
really creating a lot of sanctuary and healing space for
people through embodiment. And uplifting the energy of
pleasure, and sensuality and sexuality and desire, and
healing. So yeah, it's been real cool to
kind of come back into orbit with you and into contact with
all the things that you're doing.
And I feel like they're doing a lot.
And yeah, before I get into all that, I want to say that this
morning. I was listening to a recent
podcast episode of yours when you talk to Adrian Marie Brown,
Who's a big inspiration for me? And it was, it was such a
pleasure to hear the two of you in conversation together.
I love that conversation. It was so good.
Yeah. Yeah, I I felt like I learned a
lot and that listening to both of you and the ways that you
boast frame, your Journeys and wisdom around embodiment and
pleasure and activism, really helped me like, remember and
clarify, deep truths. That have also felt resident for
me, and my journey And it's like I went thing that I really love
about, you know, there's a lot to say about living in 2021.
But one thing that I love about living at this time is that
there's this kind of chorus and like synchronicity.
I feel like with a lot of folks like coming to certain wisdoms
through various different paths and like speaking.
Yeah, speaking to this remembering and and then when I
was I was reading your workbook that you sent me and in the
beginning of it, you know, you have this offering around like,
tuning in with relationship to technology and your you've made
this workbook to be tactile and sensory and like to write to
bring people into this bodily process.
And all that to say is like I Was preparing for this
conversation today and we were emailing and we're going to get
together on zoom and I was like, I have never even met this
person in real life. Like I don't know how they
smell. I don't know how tall they are.
And I feel like a friend but then this distance and I have a
lot of questions about technology.
Anyway, I'm like, how do you feel about, you know, coming
into this space? And is there anything I guess
that you want to like offer at the beginning of this podcast?
As we come into this conversation, either for
listeners or for us together to like help us ground in this time
and through this medium? Yeah, that's so real.
I think about this a lot as someone who is really putting a
lot of focus on. Since you ality and somatic
work, like, I mean, kind of touching back to the scattered
nature of all, the things that I'm interested in.
I got really really inspired this year at the beginning of
this year, really to study somatic work and to really dive
deep into the deeper Realms and nuances, and Landscapes of the
body, and the feelings, and Sensations, and emotions.
And Stories and traumas, like I really in my work.
I I think my education has been focused on the body through sex
and pleasure and orgasm. And, you know, I sort of regret
that The other Realms and experiences of being in the
body. I didn't really explore all that
much. And so, I mean, that's really
exciting time thinking about the ways that my body and habits
space and the things that the information that my body is
constantly taking in and the information that my body is
trying to give to me as well. As this really weird, kind of
contradiction that I'm rubbing up against around the work that
I do and And the podcast that I have and the social media
presence that I have, it's all very digital, you know, so like
on the one hand, in my personal life.
I'm really trying to ground myself into my body and even
ground myself into my work and new ways.
We're like, that's one of the reasons why I'm so excited about
this journal because it is, it is something that I created that
is outside of me. It doesn't live in the digital
space. It'll be something that can rest
on somebody's bookshelf and they can hold and Put in there, you
know bags and they can doodle on like, I'm so jazzed about that.
So I've been having a lot of excitement around the sensual
experience of being in space, with people, or being, or
creating space for people like something.
I'm thinking about even now is us having this conversation.
Usually, when I do podcasts, it's like, you know, I'm in a
dark closet and like are Cameras are closed or off and it's just
audio. And so I've been playing with
like what does it feel like for me to actually take up space
with my body and to like show up in ways that are physical
tangible sensual, you know, while also again that
contradiction of being on the internet.
I mean, it's probably one of the least sensual places is to be on
the internet, you know, and What I try to do with my work is.
I try to marry those things. I don't even know if Mary's the
right word, but I tried to find a way like, how can we have both
at the same time? You know, like how can I use the
internet to help people connect to their bodies and connect to
themselves? And how can I use the essential
practices that I have cooked up to get people maybe off the
internet, you know? And and to be in touch with
their bodies and this is really new territory for me.
You know, I've always wanted to have my work be More received in
the Physical Realm and to, you know, have these very tactile
and sensory experiences with the work.
I mean, right, before, covid happened.
I was just starting to get into this groove of doing like
speaking events and teaching workshops and then covid
happened. And so, you know, kind of like
threw off my groove. But now it's like, okay.
This is an invitation for me to explore.
What is possible here, you know, and Yeah, lots lots of good
stuff in there around boundaries and making sure that, you know,
I'm able to hold space for myself as I'm exploring these
contradictory spaces of being in the digital realm and also in a
non digital realm and off of the internet, you know?
Yeah. Yeah.
All that resonates so much for me.
I remember talking to a friend of mine.
Moms when I was 12 or 13 and the internet was a new thing.
Like it was a, it was a real new thing.
And yeah, yeah, and I was, I was really excited about it.
I was definitely like an early internet proponent, and my mom
was pretty witchy and she had kind of witchy friends, and I
remember talking to one of them and saying, I think the internet
is training wheels for humans. To remember that were psychic.
And it's, it's been curious to me over the last several years,
especially after getting a smartphone.
And then also, especially since Instagram, where I've developed
relationships with the internet and with social media in
particular, that feel like simultaneously, so, generative
and life-giving, because I'm coming into contact with like
what. I feel to be true kin like as a,
you know, I Person that I felt lonely a lot of my life.
And I'm like, I have all these like, kind of bizarre interests
and I feel like, I don't always find community so easily, and
then it's like being on social media.
Sometimes I'm like, oh, this is like Hogwarts, like here, all
these other magical people, like wow.
Oh my gosh, like how exciting. But then at the same time my
relationship to my devices and to these platforms like can feel
really addictive and can feel very dissociative.
I feel that so much and I wrestle with that daily, you
know, it was actually I feel like you gave me a reading at
the beginning of 2021 or around around the beginning of 20 21.
And one of the things that you said in this reading that has
ranked true for me throughout this entire year, but it's like
if you feel like you want to get off the internet, sometimes like
follow that impulse, you know, like if you feel like you want
to go dark and you Really understand why I like follow
that impulse and that I've been really internalizing that
because I've had those impulses a lot this year.
Yeah, and I think it's because of the work that I'm doing right
now, that is really not meant to be explored with with the gazes
of other people, you know, right?
It's meant to be solitary. It's meant to be quiet.
It's meant to be private, you know, exactly.
And that's a, that's way different from when I first
started And I mean, I I was on the internet, I'd been on the
internet for a long time. But I mean, most people know me
from a very, very old blog that I had called apricot tea which
was a fashion blog. And so fashion blogging is very
much about. Like here's what I'm wearing.
Here's what I'm doing, you know, is before vlogging was a thing.
So it was later. I would be blogging like
sometimes twice three times a day just showing people.
Wow, when I'm eating and what I'm wearing.
And these random What's that? I'm having.
So like that was that was kind of my lineage.
You know, I came to the internet being like see me watch me,
uh-huh, consumed me and and that's, that's been fine.
I've enjoyed it. But now I'm like, what does it
look like to be a little bit more quiet, you know, to wow,
reserve some things for me and that's, that's been, that's been
fun to navigate. Wow.
Thank you for saying all that. It's like it leads me right into
this question that I have prepared.
To ask you which is about something that's happening in
your chart currently. And yeah, so for any listeners,
everyone has given me some permission to speak a little bit
about their chart. And so I want to just start by
saying that in astrology a lot of what astrologers do is
compare the cycles of what are called transpersonal or outer,
planets to the cycles of what are called personal or the inner
planets, and this is kind of like speaking to the That we
have as human beings to the context that were arising in,
which are so much bigger than us, like context of culture, and
time and Society, Etc. So there's been a movement in
the heavens that some people would call Pluto in Capricorn.
It's been going on since 2008, but particularly since 2019.
It has been aspecting your chart really notably and everyone has
a Sagittarius ascendant, but you also have.
I read a plastic this chart, not whole science for any nerds out
there. But so you also have Capricorn
in your first house and Pluto has been kind of making its
transition from your first test. Your second house.
And this is a transition that in some ways describes a movement
from a self oriented existence to a movement.
That is a sustaining existence and One way to think about this
is like as we come into the world.
We don't really have agency to sustain ourselves.
Like we're very much dependent on other people and we need
attention, you know, we need attention in order to survive
and then at some point fairly soon we start to learn how to
sustain ourselves whether that's like picking up something tasty
and like putting it in our mouths, you know, or like
figuring out how to lift ourselves away from the ground.
Like that's all self-sustaining energy.
And so in your chart like I could see that there's been this
long-term process of transformation since 2008.
That's about you really coming into sustaining yourself and not
a deeper level to sustain ourselves means that we have to
feel that we are valuable and worthy enough to sustain.
And so this kind of question of like, what parts of me am I
investing in? And how do I feel my own value?
And since Pluto as a transpersonal planet, kind of
represents like a collective transformation.
It's moving through a sign Capricorn that in a lot of its
associations, has to do with patriarchy white supremacy
capitalism and this larger kind of machine of institutionalized,
oppression and the way that that machine is becoming so visible.
Since especially since 2019 and 2020 that like the workings of
this machine are being really exposed in a lot of ways.
And I think that's having an effect on a lot of us as
individuals to see how this machine works through us.
And so, when I hear you talking about, needing, recognizing your
need to not exhibit yourself and to not objectify yourself, but
to like, actually really go within and take this Instinct
towards healing that you have and apply it in your own
practice. This and let it transform you
from the inside out, that feels like some of what this Transit
could do. And so, I'll just say a few more
things. And then I'm like, what are you
thinking, which is these images? Because over the last couple
weeks, were recording on October 11th.
And over the last couple of weeks.
There's been all this movement in the sign Libra and you have
Libra up at the top of your chart, which is your career
placement and amongst other things.
One of the things that Libra can represent is the aesthetic
appeal of something and over the last few weeks Mars has been Our
kind of representing the potential for separating from
certain kinds of objectification, our ideals
around Aesthetics. The sin has been there bringing
Consciousness and illumination of this part of your chart just
in general and then mercury has been doing its retrograde dance
and I think asking for a rethinking around value and
aesthetic and relationship and for you, particularly, not only
is this happening in the place of your Public Image.
Age and your career, but it's happening in conjunction with
your natal Mercury, your natal mercury in Libra person, and
Mercury is a thinker and a writer and a speaker.
And you know, that's, that's exactly what you are.
You're a thinker, a writer and a speaker.
And you're really working with, I think a lot of these, these
themes. So, yeah, one thing that's
happening in the sky right now is that these Libra placements,
which are personal placements. They're moving fast are coming
into connection with that. Doing Capricorn energy.
And so a lot of folks who have been, like, working with these
Transformations for a long time, have recently been making really
pivotal shifts and they've been rethinking things, and they've
been kind of restructuring the ways that they're doing,
whatever it is that they're doing.
So, I know you've been through like, some major identity
shifts. Very, very recently.
And yeah, I'm wondering if if you would share any Impressions
that you got or things you're thinking about.
Out without astrology. And then also, if you could talk
about like this shift that you've been in this past, I want
to say it's a maybe the past year or two.
Not quite sure how long it's been going on for you.
I would I'd say it's been the past like couple of years, but I
think I've really been rooting into it more through 2021 and a
lot of those things. I mean, there's so many things.
I mean, one of the things that came through this year in a row.
Way, although, it's been something that I've been
thinking about for a while is my gender identity.
I came out as non-binary in, I think it was December 2020 and I
did that from a place of both, just like wanting to hold myself
accountable to the feelings that I have.
And to also just like Really literally come out and let
people know. Like, I don't want you to
interact with me and this way that you have been interacting
with me in like, I am a different person.
And I would like, for you to respect respect that and then,
you know, as I mentioned before, it's that accountability piece
where I just really need to get out of my own head about it.
And and actually make a statement that says like, okay,
there's no going back, you know, because for me, my gender
identity I can very easily Gaslight.
May I do this with everything but my gender identity, it was I
I very easily gas-lit myself about like a my non-binary
enough. A my trans enough.
Is it? Okay that I'm coming out when
I'm 33 and so I felt like to come out publicly.
You know, it's something that I do actually in my work where if
I'm if I'm chewing on an idea, a workshop or a book or post or
something like that I can. Get in my head so much about
like, when should I do it? How should I do it?
Is it okay that I do it? And sometimes, I'm just like,
all right. I'm going to announce it to
folks because that way like it's out of my head.
And now I have to just like do the thing and so in some ways I
was I was doing that by announcing and just like really
saying like hey y'all. I'm non-binary and I did that
with so much trepidation. I mean, it was, it was quite a
bit. It was it was a lot for me to do
that and it was it was so warm and I was welcome.
Deeply by my community. And even I heard folks be like,
I thought you came out as non-binary years ago.
So that was really cool, especially because of, you know,
the gaslighting nature of my brain.
So yeah, I when I came out, I knew that I had to shift a lot
of things about what what I was doing in terms of the work that
I do. And one of those things was my
podcast, my podcast was called the sexually liberated.
Liberated woman. It's been called that since,
like 2015, and I realized that, one of the things that was
keeping me distant from that as a project, was the name.
I just didn't feel like the more that I connected to, who I
really was, and the full spectrum of who I really was.
I realized like, yeah, the sexually liberated woman,
doesn't really include me. It includes a lot of other
people, but it doesn't include And so that's actually something
that I've been thinking about a lot and I'm not sure if this
tracks with the transits that you mentioned.
But feeling like, you know, I've done this work in a lot of ways
for myself, but I've also done this work for other people and
I've put a lot of people, their experiences, their stories,
their traumas kind of on the Forefront for me, which is kind
of my nature, but also, I think it's just the way that I have
been taught that I have to do. And so this this space that I'm
in, with my work right now is, what does it look like for me to
be the center of my work? You know, I feel like I tapped
into that a lot within like the first few years of the work that
I was doing. Like when I first got started
being a sex educator. It was very much about like who
Am I who do I want to be and like you're allowed to come join
me on this journey, but like I'm not an expert don't listen to
what I have to say and then you know things Bend and the work
just grew and expanded ways that I just did not expect and I
think I kind of bumped myself off of my access a little bit.
And so by claiming my non-binary, identity bike like
changing the name of my podcast. It wasn't just about doing
something that would make me feel affirmed.
And my gender identity was also like, I'm including myself into
my work. Like I'm not, this isn't just
for other people. It's also about me as well.
And that's, that's a theme that keeps coming up.
I mean, recently kind of, I would say that I came out as
asexual or being on the a spectrum, which for me, I it
feels different than being being on binary for me, for me being
non-binary is very personal and very intimate.
Whereas being like coming out as asexual.
I'm like, this is so dumb. I hate that I have to do this.
Like it's it just feels very much like We all just have our
own nuances and be where we are. Like, I don't know.
I just it's something that's still very alive for me.
As I am still dealing with some Fallout from a post that I
published on Instagram about Ace phobia and not wanting people to
perpetuate a phobia. But yeah, I feel like I kind of
got away from your intentional question, but that's the oh no,
that was incredible. Yeah.
Yeah, I both of those things
were things that I was. I mean, I was definitely
thinking about your podcast name change.
I know that, you know, I've been following you in this last year.
And so I've seen those public coming out moments of, you know,
coming out as non-binary and coming out as asexual.
And I have to say that, you know, I'm you have Venus in
Virgo, you have a lot in Virgo. I also have this.
I have Venus in Virgo and one of the ways that I personally have
felt that placement is I was like a very palpable lack of
connection to what Society has prescribed me to be as feminine
as a person that was assigned, female at Birth.
And I don't particularly have an argument with femininity or
being related to and with femininity, but I also it
doesn't end there for me and, you know, any time.
I'm and I felt like I've experienced this a lot growing
up in the community that I did, which was a very in some ways.
Like very new age you community, and there was a lot of talk
within the healing World about like the divine feminine, and
the Divine masculine, but the way that it was represented and
enacted was really along the lines of a very strong gender
binary and a segregation between people with different genitals
and I felt so enraged by that and like very like I did not
resume. For me at all.
And then, yeah, I've also kind of felt like, I don't know.
I just you made a post about asexuality.
A few months ago. I feel like it was in spring or
summer of 2021 and you introduced me to Angela Chen's
book and that post and your post was so powerful for me to read
and it was basically, you are saying like you'd been
rethinking sex and you'd been naming things like slow dancing
sex or, you know, different kind of different forms of intimacy
and reading your words allowed me to ver that verify and
validate for myself that the experiences that I've had
throughout my life are real. And that my particular knowing
that, I'm a person that really enjoys, like, romance and
intimacy, but that what a lot of people consider to be sex in
terms of like, genital stimulation and penetration,
like isn't always the Thing for me, right?
And it takes a lot for me to want that and to sincerely be
able to stay with it and continue watching it, and I've
experienced so much shame for that.
And it feeling of like, oh God, like my, you know, my hormones
are probably off like something, you know, blah, blah, blah.
Like some shit is wrong with me. And so, reading your post.
I was like, hugging. Thank you.
You just changed my life. You just freaking change my life
with your post. I want you to know that.
Well, thank you that that Delights me to hear and also I
resonate so much with what you were saying about kind of this
like, and you didn't say this, but for me what I heard is like
feeling like am I? Okay, like it's not.
Is it okay that I am? I have these experiences because
we are world is so sex-obsessed and by sex-obsessed I'm talking
about like a specific kind of sex.
It's not like sex is the word that I see it as which is like
anything can be sexy. Your body is turned on enough,
you know, right. But sex as like, penis vagina,
penetration orgasm and I've never been my jam.
And there's many reasons for that.
I'm sure but it's never been my jam.
And I've also, in my work, I've seen a lot of people feel like
it's not there Jam either, you know, like they're trying to
keep up with the Joneses, but they're not even sure like that.
They even want to be friends with the Joneses, but every
house that like, This is what you should do.
And this is what you should have.
And these are the experiences that you should have.
And if you don't have them, there's something wrong with
you. You need help.
You need therapy. You need to heal yourself
deeper. And those are a lot of messages
that I enforced upon myself, when I started doing some work.
And so this this realization of being a sexual being on the a
spectrum. It's almost like, duh, but also
wow like that. What?
That it, just like Shook, it's still shaking the foundations of
so many things that I've believed about myself
personally, and also about sex as a whole, you know.
Yeah. Me being a sex educator, and it
really is radical. And it's obvious that it's
radical because I'm like, people are really upset about about a
spokes. You know, I have a lot of people
who are in my comments right now who are saying all kinds of
crazy things about asexuality. Yeah, really it, you know, it's
so interesting to me because it's like I feel you on the like
this is so annoying that you even have to come out like this
because it's like what what you're basically doing is just
decentering sex from like a very sex Centrist society.
That also put sex in a box that is like very ablest very
monogamous very like heterosis normative and patriarchal and
white supremacist in the fact that it has like erased a whole
In constellation of ways of being, you know Universe of ways
of being inside. Like the one way you can have
sex like that, you know, and it's like that way of having sex
is fine. Like it's great.
Nothing no shade on that way of having sex.
It's just like there's so much more.
And yeah, I kind of feel the same way with With the gender
conversation, you know, where it's like, what a travesty of
language to have divided, our Consciousness into camps of, did
you know of difference based on right?
Genitals. And, and not even based on the
full spectrum of what genitals can be.
But like, to very homogenous examples of what they sometimes
are. Yeah, I mean I have felt so free
and so liberated. Now that I'm able to have the
scam of gender or the gender binary, lifted from my eyes, you
know, and I feel the same about sexuality which is you know,
it's a little scary for me to be honest.
I think especially because of the work that I do and because
sex sells I mean, don't even get me started on the sexual
Wellness industry. Um, the ways that yeah
capitalism is coming into play when with things like this.
It's no longer like have the best sex of your life because
you deserve it. It's like have the best sex of
your life because you deserve it.
So by her sex toy, you know. And like I get it, we live in a
capitalist Society. So I don't want to shade anyone
who who is selling sex toys. It's not that.
It's just too too decent her sex and to kind of like put a kink.
And into the definitions that we have about sex and sexuality.
And to also like, give people permission to decentralize sex.
It's making. I feel like it's making people
freak out. Yes, like it's a really and I
understand it's a radical thing to think about but for me, I'm
not doing it to be radical. I'm not doing it to be
contrarian. For me.
It's like this is this is what feels good to me.
And right. I'm noticing that It's also what
resonates and feels good to other people.
The idea that none of us are the same like our bodies don't look
the same or genitals. Don't look the same.
We don't express our genders in the same way.
So why would we have sex or experienced our sexualities and
the same way, you know, right and why does it always have to
be something that is a show? I mean, I think one of the
things I really loved reading and Angela Chen's bookcase was
kind of Of where now? I'm forgetting.
If Aunt, what pronouns Angela Chen Yu Suzuki in her.
Yeah. She okay.
So where she's basically talking about like progression and
feminist thought or certain branch of feminism towards this
idea of like, okay, we're going to be radically empowered women
and have like crazy sex with a ton of people and this is what's
going to Define our radical empowerment.
And meanwhile that sex is Objectified, its commodified and
it's performed and it's not really necessarily embodied all
of the time not to say it isn't plenty of the time but plenty of
the time it's not. And so then I feel like, you
know, I hear through you as a sex educator and sensuality
Doula, you know that you're you're asking people to feel
their actual bodies and that in all of its Simplicity, totally
is terrifying because you might be using Sex, as a way to get a
get away from, you know, what, especially for people who are
socialized. Well, I'm I was about to say
people who are socialized female, but then I'm going, no,
it's this whole, it's this whole mess.
It's how people are socialized into these two camps male-female
saying your, your desire should take this particular shape.
And if it's not taking that shape, then something's wrong
with you and so, all of us are out there.
Performing outside of our bodies, like not actually
listening which is leading then to sexual abuse sexual violence,
manipulation commodification and bodies on and on and on.
And so you're asking people to feel all this.
Which is what happens, you know, if we try and get in touch with
our own pleasure, and it's like if my own pleasure actually is
like me lying on the floor alone.
How do I claim that for myself, in the midst of this Society?
That's telling me that I'm wrong for wanting that and that's
making me like a sad sack of aloneness to spend the rest of
my life alone or something like that.
Right? It's what's bringing what's
coming up for me is like, you know, I'm thinking about like,
girl, Bosco. Culture and there's me know,
what am I thinking of? I'm thinking of like women
entrepreneur culture, you know, it's like there's this, there's
this like, Resurgence of people being very proud of the fact
that like, okay. I'm a woman and I'm going to be
a CEO or, you know, your next president is going to be a woman
etcetera Etc. And so what's interesting about
that for me is that that was kind of in response to the ways
that men occupy and Cap space within businesses careers and
stuff like that. And my gripe with that has
always been like, you know, you want to essentially like pink.
A fi capitalism and patriarchy, by just having a woman, do it.
Right? And so, I kind of see the same
happening with sexuality. It's like, and it's been like
this since the beginning, you know, like the idea that in
order for you to be sexually liberated, you have to have sex,
like a man. Just like in order for you to be
a successful woman business owner.
You have to own a business and make as much money as Jeff.
Bezos like a man, you know, an exhibit, these abuses of power
and things like that. And I'm not going to pretend
that I wasn't in that frame of thought, you know, in the very
beginning. I mean, I'm sure if you dig deep
enough, you'll find some articles of mine that are
incredibly outdated and I don't believe in them anymore because
they fall. Line with that thinking like, oh
the way to liberate your sexuality is to just fuck like a
man, you know have lots of sex with many different people, do
it from a place of physicality. Not emotionality, do it from a
place of maybe even dissociating from your physical body and just
like focusing, only on your genitals.
And you know, I've tried that personally and it doesn't work
for me. It just doesn't work.
And so like this realization that I'm asexual, which has been
a realization that I've had for like most of my life, you know,
it's just really finally claiming it very much like, you
know being non-binary. It's like a permission slip for
me to stop being someone that I'm not and there's so much
liberation there for me that I'm I feel actually in the days that
I have I have been Talking about asexuality very publicly on my
podcast on Instagram. I've noticed that my body feels
lighter and I think it's it feels very similar to when I
came out as non-binary. It's like I Shrugged off a lot
of the baggage of performance that I felt like I had to do as
a sex educator, you know, like I have to be having all kinds of
sex and have amazing sex toys, like all of this.
Like, wow, I that doesn't resonate with me, but I can
still do the work that I do and I can still do Do it well and I
can still Champion people's pleasure and their Liberation
and their healing but it doesn't have to look the same ways that
I've been doing it or that other people say that we should be
doing it. So that's liberating and it's
also like scary a shit because it's very counter to what I
threw. A lot of folks are are talking
about right now. Hmm.
Well, thank you for doing that. And and and thanks for saying
that to you because I feel like that's also a good frame.
For another question I have for you about your chart because in
your chart so your Sagittarius rising and then you have Virgo
on What's called the midheaven and that's the highest point in
your chart and I like to think of that place in the chart as
the light that's drawing your your Evian plants, you know that
the light that the Evian plants is growing towards.
So up at up there up in the heaven of your chart you have
what's called a stallion, which is a grouping.
A of three or more bodies. And in Virgo, you have the sun,
Mars and Venus, and they're all conjunct this place of the
midheaven and just so briefly. So your son is kind of
Representative of your life, force, and vitality and personal
expression, Venus is a really important planet for you because
of where it is. It's the highest planet in your
chart and it also rules the sign.
Libra. Your natal Mercury is.
And so you as a figure that is a communicator and a sharer and
creator of thought and content and learning new language, Venus
is the ruler of that. So, Venus is up there and Venus.
Well, Venus can represent a whole lot of things but Beauty
and the feeling of attractiveness and also personal
value are really big ones for Venus, Mars is there and Mars is
again. Then also a lot of things but
also sometimes a symbol for sexual desire and satisfaction.
And so, this grouping of planets is square.
It's 90 degrees to your ascendant in Sagittarius to your
rising sign where you have the planet, Saturn and Uranus.
And one of Saturn's symbols is Authority and you're in a system
bull is Liberation. And so they're kind of like an
interesting combo. We're Iron can be quite rigid
and Uranus wants freedom and they have to figure out how to
work together those two and their they're right on your
ascendant. So they're in the they're
they're kind of directly in their field of view.
I would say they're like the glasses that you're wearing
through your life kind of and they're shining the light of
Sagittarius, which is really Associated.
I mean, I've spoken to Sagittarius in some ways as like
this hunger for knowledge, but another thing that Sagittarius
can be associated with is belief systems.
Yes, and feelings of Truth or right and wrong can sometimes
come in very strongly with sad, especially when when Sagittarius
is aligned with one of the things that can be really
aligned with which is religion. So, I don't know, you know it.
I don't know for you, where you feel like certain belief systems
arising from in your life. But this aspect in your chart,
this Square aspect. One of the ways that I could see
it embodying or enacting in your chart is as a person that has
internalized, a certain side of belief systems that they've been
in your full view somehow as you came into your life and that
they greatly shaped the ways that you were able to embody
Your vitality, your sexuality, and your desire and feeling of
attractiveness. And that part of your life
journey is to awaken to those belief systems.
Eames and to liberate yourself within them.
And sometimes that's going to mean radicalizing or revolting
and sometimes that's going to mean like really traveling far
and wide and digging deep for your own truth.
And as you do that, then how you're consistently kind of
coming into the world is through, you know, this light of
Virgo, which is about healing, and the body and creative
intelligence, and then these placements of your body.
Your like, actual. Tackle literal body, the sun,
Venus your beauty, you know, your charm.
What you're putting out into the world.
You're speaking about the things you're speaking about and Mars
right? Sexuality and desire so I don't
know that was a lot but I'm wondering if if you'd be willing
to share with me about this journey of Liberation that
you've been on and anything that's like resonating for you
with those themes and like how it began or what first made you
realize. Guys, you know that you were
being confined in certain aspects of you know, what I had
pulled a quote of yours. Can I read it?
Yeah, from your bio. So yeah, this isn't a section of
your bio that you have on your website.
And you said, I entered this work of sexual healing and
Liberation from a selfish place. I wanted to better understand my
sexuality and sensuality, after years of being taught, that
ownership of those things were off-limits.
A that my body was a side of Temptation to myself and others
that the voice of my desire shouldn't be trusted and that I
wasn't allowed to claim my wants because of the rigidity of
respectability. I wanted to challenge and
rewrite those narratives. I wanted to claim my sexuality
as mine outside of the shame and Trauma.
I inherited intergenerationally. So who yeah, I'm like, did I
write that road that you wrote that, that is on here?
Yeah, so can you talk to me about this like about this
journey and you know your journey of Awakening and
Liberation personally and how brought you to this moment.
Oh, it's so deep. It's so so deep and, you know,
I'm as you're talking about this, I was thinking, like, when
did I start to reject Authority? And my mom.
Always tells the story about how I was very independent.
And I was very curious and exploratory.
I'd it's, I've always been this way.
But when I started walking very young.
I think I was like nine months old when I started walking.
Oh, well, I was I was a go-getter.
I really wanted to do all the things and I would do these
things where I would like climb on things, you know, and my mom
would be like Evian you're going to fall and I could talk by then
and I would say no I'm not and I was you know, but I've always
wanted to test the boundaries, you know, like I've always
wanted to like figure things out on my own and the moment that an
authority figure tells me that I can't do it.
I'm like, are you kidding? Watch me.
And then, you know, sometimes I fail but it's fine.
So yeah, I'm thinking about how how that has been a story for
me. And you know, I feel like
Throughout my life. I've always felt that what was
presented to me, or what was given to me?
Or what I was taught to do or to think, or to have or to feel
wasn't all that there was. And, you know, I was raised
Christian and a pretty conservative home.
I would say we were, I don't think my parents would describe
it as this, but I felt like we were Evangelical, you know, I
grew up signing Purity contracts and things like that.
So it was very very much indoctrinated and me this idea
of respectability and the ways that I'm supposed to carry
myself within my body within my sexuality within my race, you
know, and I don't know, I feel like I think one of the first
things that I ever really experimenting with in terms of,
you know, kind of giving a middle finger to Authority was
having sex before, I was told that I should, you know, I mean
I was told that I should have sex on my wedding day, you know,
save myself until marriage very abstinence-only teachings that I
was given and you know, I I made a choice and I won't say that
that choice was totally informed but I made a choice at that time
to be like, I'm not going I'm not going to do this.
Like I'm not going to I'm not going to live by these rules
that I don't understand or I don't agree with and I think
that That was my first me. There are many many different
ways that I have rebelled against these systems for me
that were very oppressive. But that was like the major one,
you know, that was like my entire religion was talking
about not doing this thing and my parents were talking about
not doing these things and I was reading books about not doing
these things. And so that was like one of the
first steps that I made toward my own sexual Liberation and not
even just sexual but just The agency of my body and the agency
of my choices and that I want to do it.
So I'm going to do it, you know, and I think that's one of the
reasons why sex is been so fascinating for me and sort of a
Gateway through which I have liberated, all aspects of
myself. It's because it was billed to me
as this thing. That was so bad and something
that you should not do. While also, on the other hand
being like, But it's so beautiful and it's there's so
much love here and sometimes it can feel really good.
So, I really wanted to just like carve my own Road and find find
my own meaning like make my own meaning around these things and
not necessarily take it from an authority figure.
And that's been really challenging for, you know, my
family to understand, because they still have the beliefs that
they do that. I was that I was brought up with
and There's I mean, thankfully my mom has a lot of respect for
the work that I do. Now in the beginning.
She was like, not keen on it at all.
My dad is well is very much like this is not good for you.
And this is not something that you should be doing.
And so I'm even though I'm in the space where I'm very much
defining the rules and creating my own boundaries and And also
continuing to give a giant fuck you to all of these systems of
Oppression that have told me that I'm not allowed to take up
the space. So I'm not allowed to have these
experiences or to claim my body as mine.
I am in it and it feels like this is the way that everyone is
occupying the space and I get these reminders that like, no,
it's we're still, we're still in a world and we're still living
in a culture that has these specific views.
Seems, you know, these systems of Oppression are still are
still with us. And I don't, I don't really know
where where it comes from. I mean, I think my reading with
you recently, really kind of shed light on like, oh, it's not
like I'm not just doing this to be annoying, like it's me.
It's literally an imperative for me to do this and I don't know
where it comes from Beyond it. Just feels like I I want to
question every single thing that this world has told me that I
am. And, you know, sometimes that
questioning leads me to be like, okay, that's true.
There's some truth to that. Like I can, I can internalize
that. Or I can, I can flip it on its
head and make it mine in my own way.
But most of the time, it's like, no, don't tell.
Don't tell me what to do. Yeah.
It's very much like coming back to like, baby Evian room.
Like, don't tell me what to do. Sure.
But like, don't tell me. Don't tell me that I'm going to
fall. Let me find out.
My own, you know, yeah. Yeah, thanks for that.
Yeah, I'm hearing that in like also feeling my God sagittarius
virgo reality as well and can resonate a lot with like Not
resonating with authority, not resonating with what other
people are telling me to do and be.
And, and then also having the experience that, you know, the
more that I live in, to my authentic, self the healthier
that I feel. And the more that I feel like
the relationships that I'm in, can be healthy because I'm at
least. Able more deeply able, probably
not fully able, but more deeply able to not perpetuate, the same
harm that I've come from. And, you know, a lot of the harm
is self-harm. It's like the way is that I hate
myself, keep myself small, keep myself, second-guessing myself.
And then, of course, that means I'm going to show up in my
relationships, not my whole self, and therefore, kind of
funky and And yeah, I really I, you know, feel very just deeply
appreciative as the way that you've gone about this kind of
work and sentiment, and your call for deeper embodiment by
really living into it yourself, you know, and making it a
practice and being so generous with your own process.
You know, that you're willing to share this in such a public way
is like, I mean, it's a true gift and it is a lot of Labor to
put yourself out in that way as a possibility model, you know,
and Oh my God, that's so true. I was just thinking that
actually, you kind of read my mind like, how, how so much of
my own work has been me pioneering.
My own path toward what this looks like, because I don't, I
mean, there's there's a lot of there's a lot of people that I
am inspired by but like I'm thinking of, you know, this
thing that me and Jonathan did where, you know, we lived apart
for a year, like there was no manual for that.
There was no like books that I could read.
That was like, this is what you do.
If you have this feeling that you love your partner, you love
being in a relationship with them.
And you also want to separate yourself from them while
spraying relationship. Like there's, there's no there's
so much of my process and so much of my journey, even when it
came to sexuality and sex education.
I mean, when I started doing this work and 2010 2011 there
was like not as much at all. Sex education on the internet.
Like I really want for Young Folks to feel so much gratitude
for the amount of work. Labor.
That folks like me have done to create this.
This, this container that were and now where you have
comprehensive sex education, like, at your fingertips on
Instagram, but there were no people that I looked up to at
the time who looked like me who had experiences like me, that
was talking about sex in a way that resonated with me.
And yeah, it takes a lot of labor at and it takes a lot of
trial and error as well. And oftentimes in my work, even
with with you know, this new conversation that I'm starting
with myself and other people around asexuality.
I'm learning like oh kind of the hard way that yeah.
This is that there's there's a lot of pain here and there's a
lot of confusion here and there's a lot of fear here that
I feel like I'm having to I'm trying not to but internalized
and like do something with because these conversations
aren't being had as much. As I thought they would be.
And so it's not intentional for me to be a I don't like the word
pioneer. When I said it, I was like, you
know, it's like milker. Yeah, I'm like a Pioneer but
like yeah like in the psyche, I don't want that.
But yeah, it's not like it's not like I woke up one day and was
like, I'm going to like flip everything that I've ever known
on its head and hopes to be a role model for other people to
do it. It's yeah, it's not easy.
It's definitely know when you were talking.
I was thinking about just some images that have been kind of
planted in my head recently by two different people like two
teachers Janice Lee and by a common law, if a hoop in there
both in different ways kind of spoke to these ideas of like
simultaneous, fissures or riffs, or like collections of
possibility, kind of opening up in the places where something is
failing, you know, where it's like, oh God, I can't uphold
this bullshit anymore. It's not feeling good to me.
I have to try something else. This thing is failing me.
So now I have to fail at it. And then when we make this, when
we allow the failing to be like a collective offering like when
it's like, oh, it's not just a personal failing, it is a
Bailing on all of our parts to make space for people who have
this experience, you know, then like a big crack in can open the
facade and we can all kind of like deep in a little bit more
into state of humanness. Right?
But that work that that I feel like you're in.
You know, that that I meant to of kind of working on the
Internet or something or like making content sometimes I think
of it like dandelion seeds, you know, where it's like, okay.
I'm just going to see See this thought and out you go, and
you're going to float around out there, and it's like an
imperfect thought, it's just one seed, it's a little nugget and
it's going to land on. Someone's Garden patch where 5
million other seeds, and pollen, you know, and let, let's just
hope that the seed that I'm blowing out is going to put, you
know, plant into something that can nourish its best potential.
Yeah, and, and that, that is something that I'm learning that
especially recently like within the last couple of years.
I have a responsibility to make sure that the seeds that I am
putting out into the world are not seeds that are going to be
confusing or harmful or I'm also just playing around with like
it's okay for me to keep some of these seeds to myself and like
let them marinate a bit, you know?
Yeah. Because I think before in the
past, I would have been, like, I have a thought, let me tweet
about it, you know, and you're not fully formed and I'm going
to Be in process with this thought and also have you you
know, rebuttal back at me about this thought that I don't even
fully know because I literally just thought it.
It's been really interesting for me to like take a step back and
and like slow down like slow my Pace a little bit and just like
keep some of those things for me.
While also realizing that whatever I put out into the
internet, like I have to be responsible to, you know, and
that's a lot of pressure, especially, like I'm thinking
about cancel culture. Which I don't even know if
cancel culture is a thing to be honest with you.
But this propensity, we have 22 not giving folks Grace when they
make a mistake, or yeah, if something is confusing and they
say it and they're sort of kind of like trying to refine it in
real time. Like there's not a lot of Grace,
put out for people like that. So I've been really, really
precious and private with my process lately because I'm like,
there's there's some things that like Like I want to say and I
want to express but I can't control how other people are
going to receive it. And you know, if other people
ask me, follow-up questions, I don't really have the right
answers for them just yet. So I'm just going to take a step
back and I'll let this, yeah, Germany and my own brain.
And if, and when I'm ready to, I'll share it with other people.
Yeah. Yeah.
I really appreciate you saying that feels feels like important
medicine in general thinking about any kind of effort that
we're doing. That's going to be some kind of
effort to sustain ourselves in like capitalism.
But also like, especially working in this venue.
Yeah, so I'm yeah, wanting to talk to you a little bit about
this, this new creative baby. You've been birthing this
workbook, sensual self prompts and practices for getting in
touch with your body. It's such a beautiful offering.
I was looking through it and Really appreciating that you are
putting a book out into the world, that is a guided self
inquiry and that you're, you know, you're offering your
generosity and facilitation and you've given a beautiful
introduction and a lot of prompts.
I think you say, you said it's like a hundred over 150 prompts.
Yeah, for people to, to write their own book on what it means
to be, they're uniquely sensual and For ourselves and like your
prompts are awesome. They cover such a huge range of
what sensuality and sexuality can include, but also how it has
been in a person's life and how its developed and their Visions
for how it could be. So I'm wondering if you could
speak to a bit around, you know, why you have created this book
and what the process has been for you and your work as a
sensuality and sexuality, Tula. And sex educator that that has
guided you too. To work with people in this way
of kind of like giving them a certain set of tools for
awakening and Reawakening Awakening their sensuality.
Yeah. I like to create things that I
wish that I had had like 10 years ago, you know, food.
This book for me, was something that I wish that I was.
I spent a lot of time in Barnes & Noble, like, trying to figure
out who I was, what was wrong with me.
Me just to see if like, if if I could get to the bottom of the
issue that I had around my sexuality, or the ways that I
felt so much anxiety, whenever I had sex, like, I wish that this
book was on the shelves, because so many of the books that I read
were very prescriptive. Like, we'll just do this.
If you have this issue, do this like that'll solve your problem?
Or try the sex toy or try this? Exposition or breathe in this
way when you're having sex and those things are great.
But I wanted something that was more empowering, you know, like
I didn't want to empower Myself by reading a book.
I wanted to empower Myself by figuring out what feels good for
me, you know, like what feels good for my process at this
time. Maybe I can pick it back up.
Revisit it later when I'm a little older.
Like I just wanted the process to feel alive when it came to my
Liberation and my healing. And so I've really created my I
work based off of that framework, you know, when I was
doing one-on-one client work. It's very, very common for me to
just like, ask a whole bunch of questions, you know, like
someone would be like, so what do you think I should do in
order to? I don't know, have the best sex
of my life and I'm like, well, what is the best sex of your
life feel like? And sometimes clients would be
like, why are you just tell me what I need?
You know, like don't don't ask don't turn the questions back
over to me, but I want to because I want people to empower
themselves. I don't ever want someone to
look at me or to other authority figures and think like, well,
that's what they do. So that's what I have to do.
I want for folks to answer their own questions and get curious
about their own process and kind of get into the mud, when it
comes to discovering who who they are.
And like these really beautiful nooks and crannies of that.
And so that's why I wrote this book, the way that I did, I
really Lee wanted to offer people little nuggets of
reclamation through question and through, through practice and to
make the questions and practices, not super lofty
because I think sometimes This work can feel really lofty, you
know, it can feel it can feel like a lot to do and I
understand why people kind of relinquish their power to
experts and stuff like that because it's a lot to it's a lot
to be responsible for your own pleasure and your own healing
and your own trauma, you know, so I want to make sure that
like, I'm empowering folks to ask.
Questions, but not to have these questions be like, think of the,
let me think of a question. That's like really deep.
Like why do you think you have the trauma that you have like,
no one wants to answer those questions, you know.
Like so I want I want the questions to be fun.
I want the process to be exploratory and curious, and I
was making sure that when I was in that in that state of writing
the book and writing the prompts and the practices, I Thinking
about you know, what would I have wanted to give myself
during the darkest? Most confusing times of me
trying to figure myself out, you know, and a lot of these
questions were written from that place and also just like wanting
to be an invitation for folks to think about different ways of
seeing their bodies and their sexuality and I had a lot of fun
creating it was so fun to be in that space to write these
questions. And think about the practices
and also I'm like these just feel like really fun and doable
things to do. You know, like it's I think
sometimes we think that healing and Liberation looks like
crawling on the ground and crying and you know, having
nightmares and staying up late at night and doing like
intensive 6, hour-long sessions and therapy and sometimes it can
be that, you know, sometimes it can be breathwork that feels
like you're exorcising demons from like Your great-great
great-great-grandfather, you know, but other times that that
process of healing and Liberation can feel light and it
can be pleasurable, you know, and we don't have to take it so
seriously, and so, yeah, since you will self is like my, my
invitation for people to literally figure out and like,
create themselves a sensual beings.
Hmm. I love that.
I love these words, Reclamation and practice to feel like For a
Venus in Virgo, midheaven person, like, Reclamation and
practice feel like, such deep offerings of this kind of love.
Yeah. Yeah, that this piece is really
important too because I know that, you know, I could, I could
write a book about sensuality and have people just like hold
it in their hands and intellectualize it to think
about it. But since you ality isn't
something that we that's meant to be thought about, you know,
it's something that we're supposed to embody.
D and feel out and explore brightens, you know, have have
these like visceral experiences with.
So I really wanted to make sure that Not only was I asking
interesting questions to get you to think about things but I'm
also creating a space for you to literally embody since you ality
by. Yeah, you know, trying it on for
size and enjoying that process and seeing what it feels like.
Yeah. Yeah.
I love that. I mean, I was thinking about
like going, Excited for this book to come out and I want to
hold it in my hands and I want to work with this book.
And, you know, I was thinking like, wow, okay, 150 prompts,
you know, like if I really committed to working with this
guide and doing 150 prompts, you know, that Evian is suggesting
and, you know, let it letting them in as questions for myself
to reflect on and work with and like really writing that book
for myself and and committing to the practice.
I I bet that I would be a changed person on the other
side. You know, I bet that I would
really reclaim a lot of different parts of myself.
I hope I mean that's that's my sincerest wish and desire that
people who pick up this book or not.
Just going to like look at the pretty clothes and the clothes,
like I want you to work with it, you know, this.
Yes. Meant to be worked with and and
not just, you know, I was, I was thinking about this book to
there's so many different ways. Is that a book?
Like this has been made, you know, like having a diary, or a
journal where you answer questions about the day or
yourself. And sometimes, you know, I've
worked through journals like this in the past like I remember
being 12 and having a journal where I was asked questions that
were really just like on the surface like what's your
favorite color today? You know, and I mean a there's
there's there's space, of course, but then I remember
having another Other Journal that was like, asked me to go
really deep. Like what is, what is a fear
that you have? And like what would you, what
would you want to say to that fear to like, you know, give it
some space or some some love or some kindness?
Like those are, those are questions that Just feel really
alive, you know, and I feel like if if you are able to come to
this book with intention, I really believe that you will be
changed by it. I really do.
So, I hope. Well maybe I can ask you one of
the prompts that I that I was like, ooh, I wonder what Afghans
answered. This would be my gosh.
I'm so curious about You're about to ask me, you know, I was
just I was really interested just for you to hear from you
today about what pleasure feels like for you today.
And if there are things that are getting, you feeling good in
your own body today, in October of 2021.
What a beautiful question. Thanks for asking me that, I as
someone who asks people, lots of questions, both in the work that
I do. And also like, on my podcast.
It's very rare that people ask me questions that are poignant,
you know, so, thank you, pleasure.
I'm feeling into pleasure as being a full body experience.
And that feels really rich for me right now.
Like I in the past pleasure has been centrally located to like
one part. You know, if I'm eating
something good. It's like oh, it feels really
good in my tongue or I feel I feel the sensations of that in
my mouth or if I'm having sex, you know, it's centrally located
to my genitals and lately. I've been playing with what does
it feel like to feel this pleasurable?
Asian, if I'm eating a piece of chocolate cake, like can I feel
pleasure and other parts of my body that may not be engaged,
you know, like what does it feel like for me to feel the pleasure
of this chocolate cake and my fingertips?
We're in my thighs or yeah, like or in my chest, you know, and
then like I'm also thinking about savoring and stretching
that since Ation of pleasure out from, not just being like, okay,
I ate the cake. The pleasure is done.
But like, what does it feel like afterwards?
Like after eat the cake, like sometimes that Sugar, I get that
Sugar Rush like, oh, does that feel pleasurable in my body?
Can I feel the sugar in my bloodstream?
What does that we like or even like thinking about the memory
that I have of like? Wow, I an hour ago.
I ate chocolate cake. I wish I had that cake again.
Like I'm just, I'm really, I'm really Stared in exploring
pleasure. And making it into almost like
the spiritual experience. Like something that sort of
transports me both into my body. And also I don't know if it's
outside of my body, but into just like different Realms of
being with my body if that makes sense.
So yeah, I've been I've been really trying to feel into that.
And in order to do that. I have to slow down.
I have to you. I have to chew my food.
I Q. Breathe, you know, that's
something that I've also been inviting into my life.
A lot more lately is doing breathwork and and feeling into
what my body feels like when it's fully oxygenated, you know,
and how foreign of a feeling that can be remember the first
time that I did breathwork. I was like, why do I feel like
dizzy but also high and also like I have taken psychedelics,
that's really weird. It's like what up?
What an interesting physical Sensation that is to feel like
my, all of, my, my cells in. My body are fully, oxygenated.
So. Yeah, there's, there's
something. There's something about seeking
seeking pleasure and really savoring.
It really allowing it to be what it is.
And also, like, can I, can I lengthen this pleasure out into
every part of my body, you know? Yeah.
Hmm. Thank you.
Thinking about that for a while. Yeah.
It's interesting. Right to think about that.
I mean, even as I'm saying, and I'm like, like what other, what
other ways can I explore that? You know?
Yeah. I'm really feeling when you were
talking about the chocolate cake.
I was thinking about how their ideas that I have about what's
pleasurable to me, and that means that their ideas that I
have about, what's not pleasurable to me, and that I'm
dividing them. Em.
And like I was curious about, yeah, kind of holding the
chocolate cake metaphor within a larger day that of core and kind
of feeling like, oh, could this, you know, could this offering of
chocolate cake to my experience, be an offering to the whole day?
Like, can I receive this pleasure in a way that's going
to allow me to like, bring chocolate cake to my clients
later in the afternoon and then share chocolate cake with with a
partner or like, Bring chocolate cake into, you know, my writing
or dream about chocolate cake later.
Like, you know, how can this really like stimulate more
chocolate cake in the world? Now, I'm going to think about
that too. I mean, really, you know, with
this book that's kind of what I'm asking for people to do with
everything that they do, like just really thinking about.
Okay, if I can have this moment, this five minutes, ten minutes
of tuning into my body. D tuning in to the sensations of
my body thinking about myself as a sensual being and not have
that, be an isolated event, but like something that hopefully,
they have linger throughout the rest of their day.
Like, I would love to see people, not just think about and
write about who they are as sensual beings, but to have that
be an invitation that gets carried out into every act that
they do. Like if I were to take Could sip
of water. How would I do that?
Son? Truly, you know more what
sensuality can I bring into my work?
How can I bring since you ality into the way that I drive to
work? You know?
Yeah. I'm just, I'm really curious
about that and I don't, I don't even have the answers to those
questions. Like, I feel like sometimes I
think in questions, but but it's something that I want to
explore, for sure. Yeah.
What I hear you saying?
And then, when I think about a moment ago, when you spoke about
sensuality as a spiritual practice, you know.
So, I guess, one of the ways that I would hear what you just
said is as a practice of communion and relationality and
reciprocity, which I think are are our natural ways of being
actually as human beings, that we ideally live in communion and
relationality, and reciprocity. And that horrible travesties of
the last definitely several hundred years.
And certainly several thousand years that have been drawn
human, kindness been to separate us.
And make us, non-relational and individualistic and
hierarchical, and competitive, and the, you know, the premise
of like, could my life be a sensual life is such a huge
question because it's like, we're none of us are here alone.
Just creating our soul, you know, masturbatory Pleasures.
Like that's actually impossible. Even if we think that that's
what we're able to do and to really, you know, to be in
pleasure for real is like, you know, we have to be here,
uplifting. GE and one another that says my
pleasure isn't shit, you know, if I'm coming into contact with
somebody else and they are not having a pleasure filled moment,
you know, like it's going to impact probably pretty
substantially. That's right.
That might have to be my next book to be honest.
Like how can we Okay, so we've figured out and we've gotten to
the root of who we are as sensual beings and what that
what our pleasure looks like. Actualized.
How can we, how can we bring that into the World, you know?
And that's why I really appreciate adrien-marie Browns
work of political activism because I feel like she talks so
much about that. And yeah, and it's really
inspiring for me as well to think about pleasure for
Pleasures sake. Yes, and also pleasure for The
Liberation and connection of other people and yeah, I don't I
don't quite know what that looks like yet, but I feel like if we
start with our Selves first, if we begin nurturing and and
feeling that we deserve and we are valuable enough to
prioritize our pleasure. Maybe we will start to have
ideas come through in terms of what that looks like from a
salt, not from a solitary experience, but from a communal
experience as well. Yeah.
Definitely.
I yeah, really. Also just wanted to follow Up
and give about a dream Marie Brown and also to audre Lorde
that you know, and you two talked about that in your
episode and her essay uses of the erotic.
I feel like that the first time I was really kind of struck with
that question. I was like where where does
eroticism actually rest? And like what is its potential
was encountering that I say? Yeah.
It's so powerful. So I'm wondering I've now it's
like as you're thinking In forward, are you?
What are you excited about? You know, what are you leaning
into? How are you?
Where are you on your journey right now?
And like, what are you opening up to, As you move into this
next phase. Well, a new book is on the
horizon, which is exciting great.
Like, right after actually, this book wasn't even fully released
yet. Like, I didn't announce it yet.
And I had some literary agents that are like, it's time for you
to write your next book. We would like to help you with
that. So I feel and I so resonate with
what you said about how, you know, you create something and
then it's like, oh man, I should have said this so I should have
why tonight? I mean, I'm still editing the
book in my brain even though so I'm actually really excited
about really diving deeper and refining, but also there's
something about I think kind of like lingering that I was
mentioning like lingering into that pleasure and like
stretching it out that I feel that I didn't really get to do
with this book because of the format, you know, the format was
very much like a journal, you know, I didn't have a lot of
space to to write about my ethos and to give people more flowery
and poetic diatribes about like how you should live your life
for you. No, what what does sensuality
look like as a practice? And so I'm really interested
next into feeling more into that like diving deeper into this new
book and continuing this thread that I'm following of
decentralizing, sex, and sexuality and seeing how that is
going to transform my work. And not even just the work.
That I do, but the relationships that I'm in.
I mean, I've already started to feel that the relationship that
I have with my partner. Jonathan is being made that much
more juicier because of my new this new lens that I've picked
up around. Like okay.
What if sex wasn't the only way that we could experience
pleasure with each other and also like what if our entire?
A body was a pleasure Center, you know, like what does it look
like for us to be in space with each other?
With that knowledge? I'm really excited about
exploring those things. And I get, I mean, I was
actually thinking today because as we're recording this is also
I think National Coming Out day or International.
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. I'm happy coming out there.
Yeah, likewise. I was thinking today like oh my
gosh, what other things could I possibly do?
Because I always think like there's okay.
I've done the thing, you know, I came out as queer in some ways.
I feel like I came out as black like, that needed to happen.
I've come out as a sexuality, professional a sex educator as
non-binary. I mean, I'm like what else could
I possibly come out as. So I'm also thinking that, you
know, like what other what other things am I going to shift and
shake up, you know, what other new identities or or
Embodiments. Am I going to bring into my life
in 2022? Because I feel like the work
that I'm doing now is setting a really sturdy foundation for
other rebirths and reclamation's to happen.
So I'm really excited about nature.
Yeah. Wow.
Oh thank you so much. For all of that.
I'm excited about the future that you're in and to be, you
know, next next to you and Orbit with you in this future.
And I feel like everything that you just said, I just was
marveling at your chart, that your son is exactly Square to
Uranus and Uranus inside to terius is a little bit of a
generational placement, which I'm part of to I was born a
couple of years earlier than you.
And so we're in a were in a you know, kind of cohort of people
that I think are pretty excited about self-realization and
Awakening of Self and yeah, this this idea of like coming out I
was thinking oh, I hope everyone is still coming out when they're
in their 80s and 90s ago, you know, I hope that this could
just gets to continue to be your Life Path of like coming out all
the time and being like Oh, and I'm this too.
Yeah. I want that for every one.
You know what I want for us all to be curious about the many
Transformations that we're going to go through and the Iterations
of our beings that we're going to go through and you know, I
always say in my work like your sex education doesn't stop when
you know, you're this age. Like I'm hoping that you will
continually sexually involved or evolve like as you grow older
and that when you're 65, you're still going to be educating
yourself. Yeah.
And likewise, with all these other, these other pieces.
I hope that I'm still coming out at at 65, you know.
And I hope that I'm still coming out at 85.
I have no idea what that would look like.
And like, what else could I possibly know?
You're here to surprise yourself?
Yeah, I guess your life is about.
Well, thank you so much. I'll be on.
It has been a real pleasure to talk to you.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
This was so fun. And thank you so much for the
work that you do. I felt so nourished and nurtured
by. The ways that you show up in the
world and this this just profound way of looking at
astrology and as something that is not just like up in the sky,
but it's something that we can bring down into our bodies.
I've been, I've been really inspired by the work that you
do, and it's helped me come into myself and really beautiful
ways. So thank you so much for being a
teacher to me. Thank you.
Thank you for seeing. Peeved.
Well, I'll be sharing your website and Instagram links in
the show notes. People can find you at Evian
Whitney.com and at Evian Whitney on Instagram or Evian dot
Whitney. You're also on Twitter.
I'm seeing do tweet or you a tweeter.
I try not to be. I feel like Twitter is a social
media platform. That is really dangerous for me,
especially because of what we talked about earlier.
Like I have this this Legacy of being a fully formed that but
two thousand strangers that I don't know.
So I temper, I temper, my my Twitter usage.
I really just if I have a fully Farm thought that's where I'll
go, but I don't use it that often.
Okay? Okay, so people can find you on
Instagram. Also, they can follow your
podcasts and fold that self. Is there anywhere else you want
to let folks know to find you or to look for you?
I mean they can definitely check out my book.
Since you will self. I think by the time that this
airs, yeah, it'll be out into the world which will be really
exciting. And yeah, you should be able to
find it at any bookstore. Great.
All right.
Well, I look forward to our next conversation.
And yeah, until then. Yes.
I'm so excited. I'll stop recording.
Now. For more information on Evian go
to Evian Whitney.com and follow them on Instagram at.
On Whitney, you can also find these links in the show notes.
I also want to give a plug to embodied.
Astrology, is research resident in 2022.
Katie Henderson, who in ways very different than Evian is
also doing some amazing work around sex.
Sensuality and eroticism, Katie just released several episodes
of erotic storytelling on their podcast erotic embodiment, and
you can also find that link in the show notes.
If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with your
friends and networks. You can find more guests
episodes that embodied astrology.com in.
The listen section, get free monthly horoscopes and stay
tuned in with the Earth's skies and planets by signing up for
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By more information at embodied, astrology.com /join.