Reclaiming Eros in Magic: My Story & Ways to Reclaim Yours

Three years ago, I had an experience that I knew I would share one day, and I couldn’t fathom sharing it for most of the last three years. But today is that day. While it still feels vulnerable, I trust that it’s important for me to share it. 

This story needs to be told not because it is unique, but because it is common. Yet, it’s something that many choose not to or feel unsafe to talk about, which is exactly how I felt for a long time. 

The truth is, what I’m going to share is as fundamental as eating, drinking, birthing, and dying–it’s in your genes. It’s your ability to be present with your most innate and primal power, the power of your erotic and sensual energy. 

This is not about sex and orgasm, although they can certainly interweave. When I speak to the erotic here, it is as one of my teachers, Kalah Hill, would say, our origin story. Your erotic and sensual desires point to why we are here today. It is where we all came from, and that is a powerful concept.

Eros is your sense of desire and capacity to access pleasure in your sensorial body, whether it’s a full-bodied walk through a forest where every one of your senses comes alive and erupts into bliss, or physical intimacy with a partner, it’s all eros. 

Here’s my homecoming story to my body, pleasure, and erotic power. You’ll also find some ways to start exploring this work and how you might want to incorporate it into your practice. If you want to do a deep dive, join me in a 2-hour live workshop here. 

It’s a “Kundalini” awakening!

Some will read this story and say, “You had a Kundalini awakening!”. If that’s the language you would use, I want to challenge you to think broader (unless it is a part of your cultural and ancestral practice). Kundalini is a Hindu term that describes the coiled, primordial life force residing at the base of the spine. Like many practices, the term “Kundalini awakening” is yet another that has been misused and appropriated by people outside the culture. 

As is often the case when terms are appropriated outside of their culture of origin (beyond the harm of cultural appropriation), it causes a separation from one's own cultural and ancestral inheritance. 

While the phrase ‘Kundalini’ is unique to Hinduism, erotic energy and the unique ways it manifests in each person are not. After having this experience, I devoted myself to discovering how these practices were incorporated into my ancestral traditions and how others continue to work with them today. 

This is how my erotic awakening occurred and how it led me to explore my ancestral inheritance of working with this sensual and primordial energy. 

A Homecoming to my Body and my Power

A past mentor instructed me to journey to the lower world. I didn’t think much of it because I had made lower world journeys in the past. This time was different. It was the Leo full moon, and when I entered the cave pathway into the lower world, I was met by an older female ancestor whom I’d worked with in the past. She had something to share. 

She instructed me to begin rocking my pelvis forward and backward. While this was a little out of the ordinary compared to past journeys I’d experienced and past interactions with this ancestor, I was in the lower world, so ordinary doesn’t really apply. Because this was a trusted ancestor I’d worked with in the past, I did as she said.

Within minutes of moving my pelvis back and forth, an explosion of erotic energy cracked open in my pelvic bowl. The ancestor was loving but firm in her direction. She wanted me to continue with various pelvic motions and stay with the intense energy coursing through me. While I did my best, the intensity was so great that after a few minutes, I shifted into different positions, moving from standing to lying down and then sitting on my knees. 

I was able to stay engaged by focusing on the drum beat and my breathing. Even though part of me did not know what was going on, I knew I had to surrender to the experience.

I completely lost track of time, but the realization that people in other offices were within earshot of me did make its way into my mind (this happened when I had an office and storefront in Arizona). While the orgasmic energy coursing through my body was extremely intense, I could tell there was more. I knew I had to surrender even more and that it was going to be loud when I did.  

When I surrendered, I felt energy shoot up from my pelvic bowl into my heart. A primal yell escaped my mouth without my permission, and orgasmic shock waves radiated out of my heart with such force that it sent me falling backwards. Heaving on the floor, I had just experienced the most intense full-bodied orgasm of my life, fully clothed and without physical touch.

An Extended Afterglow and Shame

As I lay on the floor, I was simultaneously blissed out, confused, and a little ashamed. It was unlike any usual orgasm I’d ever experienced; I wasn’t even sure if it was an orgasm. I was fully clothed, didn’t touch myself, but felt orgasmic bliss radiating out of my body at a level of intensity I’d never experienced. Not to mention my vulva continued to vibrate with pleasure for days after.

I’d heard of a kundalini awakening before, but it wasn’t a part of my practice. I also knew this was something different, or at least something with a different name, because it was a European ancestor who guided me through this experience. 

As I navigated life with my body buzzing and my vulva still on fire, my head was spinning. While walking around with a permanent orgasmic buzz might sound enticing, as an overworked new mom of twin 2-year-olds running a business, it was jarring.

Over a week’s time, the intense sensations I experienced eventually stabilized in my body as I slowly metabolized this experience. Fortunately, this experience was not the end of my story, just the beginning. 

This experience encouraged me to confront aspects of myself that had been overlooked. I was able to face my relationship with pleasure, sex, desire, and my body with a fresh perspective. If you think herbalism and spellwork are suppressed, watch out because the suppression, erasure, and vilification of erotic energy, pleasure, and sex is (no shock) truly impressive. I now understand that it was by design that I felt shame after this experience. It’s also why so many feel uncomfortable talking about these kinds of experiences, pleasure, and erotic power. 

As you’ll learn, if you explore these parts of yourself, reclaiming your erotic power is political, radical, and liberatory. I am certainly not the first to share this; Black women and femmes, like adrienne maree brown and Audre Lorde, have been leading this work for decades. 

Reclaiming My Erotic Power

In the last three years of integrating this experience and learning more about my erotic power directly from my body, working with my ancestors in journey states, and with the help of others guiding this work, I’ve begun the life-long process of reclaiming this part of my ancestral inheritance and magical practice. 

My experience and the ensuing exploration it spurred changed every facet of my life. It brought a sensorial awareness into my life that I didn’t know was available to me. I have access to entirely new states of consciousness and ways to feel and move energy as a result of intentionally incorporating my erotic power into my practice. My senses are more heightened, and my entire practice is transformed.

Reclaiming this part of my practice extends far beyond energy and magic. It has positively affected my mental, physical, and emotional health. It uncovered my queerness, pansexuality, and femme-ness. My connection to my erotic power continues to liberate me from an overculture that only wants me to produce and perform within the confines of cis, het, and patriarchal parameters. 

The changes that unfold in you as a result of exploring your erotic power will be unique to you and likely look very different than mine. You likely have practices in your ancestral lineage to connect you with your body, pleasure, and power. I think we all do. 

Reclaiming Your Erotic Power

What I don’t want you to walk away with here is that you need to have some explosive and mystical experience to explore this work or claim your erotic power. You don’t, or maybe yours will or did look completely different from mine.

I believe that the practices that open these sensorial channels were once standard, taught, and shared between generations. Just like my wise ancestor taught me in this journey.  I believe that in our past (and still today in some places), these experiences didn’t happen in isolation, but were coordinated and deeply held by elders in the community who understood the power of erotic energy. 

There are many paths to reclaiming your erotic power, and there are, in fact, many leading this work, but it can take some digging (remember that suppression I mentioned earlier). How you decide to navigate your journey into this realm will be a personal choice. 

Remember, erotic energy lives within your body. While you might feel intrigued to learn from others, it is not necessary. Your body is your best teacher. 

As someone with European ancestry, challenges to exploring this work presented quickly due to the Inquisition and the burning times, which caused extreme suppression of anything deemed heretical, especially erotic power in women. While I have read and learned from others, much of my exploration into this realm has been through self-exploration, spiritual journeying, and working with my ancestors.

There are lineages where this work has remained intact through the generations, like Tantra and Daoism. While these are the lenses through which much of this work is presented, I believe these practices were/are alive in all of us.

As with any craft that’s been deemed inappropriate by a patriarchal, white-supremacist over-culture, getting to the root of the matter will likely be a unique and winding path. 

Bringing Erotic Power into Your Practice

Here are some gentle ways to begin exploring this realm. Here are some starting points. Get more details about these in my upcoming workshop, Reclaiming Eros in Magic. 

• Take some time to be with the topics of pleasure, your body, and sex. What does it bring up for you? What excites you? What makes you uncomfortable? Journal about it or have conversations with others whom you feel safe talking about these topics.

• Explore possible trauma with your body, pleasure, and sex. This may require the assistance of a trained professional, depending on your personal experiences. The books Sacred Sex by Gabriela Herstik or Pleasure Activism by adrienne maree brown can be supportive places to start. 

• Carve out regular time to be with and engage your sensorial body (solo and/or with a partner). This doesn’t have to be sexual, although it can be, but could be as simple as going for a walk and engaging your senses.

• Explore the elements (air, fire, water, earth) through your senses. For example, to work with the earth element, grab a rose or your favorite flower and engage with it through your senses. Smell it, gently brush it over your face and body. 

• If working with your ancestors or guides is part of your practice, approach them with curiosity about this work and how you might explore it. 

• Read or listen to folks who have led this work or are leading this work. Here are some of my favorites: Sacred Sex by Gabriela Herstik, Pleasure Activism by adrienne maree brown, Mysteries of the Dark Moon by Demetra George, the essay Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power by Audre Lorde, and Witches, Witch-hunting, and Women by Silvia Federici. 

I’m not here to present myself as an expert, but I do want to create spaces where talking about pleasure, erotic energy, and how it pertains to magic is more accessible and trauma-informed. My goal in sharing all of this is to help normalize it, especially for mid-life and aging women, femmes, non-binary folks, moms, and caregivers who, like me, maybe feel like this realm isn’t for them. 

Eros and pleasure are for everyone, and I’d argue we need them now more than ever. 

Have a similar story, or did something in this resonate?a I’d love to hear about it. If you want to explore this more, I hope to see you in the live workshop or the replay, where we’ll discuss the story of Lillith and how she relates to this work, history, and practices to begin exploring your erotic energy. 

In Care, Cassie