Dear Sexuality,

I am admittedly hesitant to post this piece, however, after sharing it with a good friend we discussed how this is precisely the kind of hurt that many women are working to heal at the moment and important it is to name it. I see it as a symptom of the larger divine feminine healing that is so desperately (and predominantly) needed in today's world (for both men and women and society as a whole). So I share this with the hope that it can help awaken us to this deeper healing:

Dear sexuality,
I am sorry for misunderstanding and mistreating you. Growing up I heard judgments about you and I felt I needed to be ashamed of and hide you. I felt you were a dark secret, forbiddingly loved, and subversive to my good and true being. I did not recognize examples of wholesome sexuality, people who stood as burning bushes, pure in their virulence, respectful in their sensual love. I did not understand advice, urgings to treat my body with reverence, to honor and respect you and nurture and protect you like one would a beloved sapling or sprout. Instead I heard this advice as directions to repress you and deny you, which at times I did and other times I raged against in unhealthy ways. And so I never learned how to be with you in a healthy way. 

I trampled on you in my play. I fed you the polluted soil. I blocked you from the sunlight. My own unconsciousness allowed me into partnerships that did not nurture of care for you or did not allow me to fully appreciate and absorb the nurturing that was there. I did not ask these partners to be mindful of you or even know that I should. I did not ask because I did not know that I needed to. The potential for this care was there in some cases, but unrealized because I was so disconnected from you, from being with you, in a healthy way. And eventually this unconsciousness grew into self-hatred and I grew to abuse you. I feel this hurt my core. I feel your pain that I caused. 

I recognize that society reinforces this pain and there are so many with this pain. My heart goes out to us all as we face this and work towards healing. 

I have learned that I need to respect and honor you; to feel a deep burning "rightness" with you. Help me learn how to do this. Please give me the insight and the words to help advocate for you and grow in healthy relationship with you. Please forgive the mistakes I have made and will make as I learn. Speak to me of your needs and how I can lovingly meet them. I honor you as a significant part of my being. I await the true unfolding of our right relationship and all of the potential that is held there.

With love, gratitude and a hopeful sorrow,
Summer