One of my early inspirations and teachers, I’m using the term teacher even though we never met, Kenneth Ray Stubbs, passed away this week.
Growing up in South Africa, in a time of censorship and restriction, the country being sanctioned, made access to resources difficult, and travel was hard for me.
When I came across a copy of his Erotic Massage book, it was a treasure, and gave me so much.
As I’m writing this, I become aware of how many resources I came across, in the unlikeliest of places, at the time.
I’m a little skeptical of ‘signs’, which can be taken in so many ways, but there was a lot pointing me to this path.
And I actually have one of his books in my room at the moment.
I’m sitting in Goa writing this, it’s early morning, I’m just off the beach at Sunrise Restaurant with coffee, pancakes on the way.
I am filled with gratitude for Ray, and the others, who were pioneers in this work.
I look back at over 25 years of teaching, sharing massage and touch, all the people I’ve shared with, all those who taught me, and all the experiences we shared. The beautiful, the harsh, the magical, the tender, the loving, the healing, the learning, the spiritual, the pleasurable…
I look at myself in this journey, how it’s changed me over time, healed me, grown me, shown me so many aspects of myself.
For a long time I’ve said what amazing teachers Massage and Touch are.
And what amazing healers, connectors, way-showers, portals to so much, opener, revealers, pleasurers and more…
And in this I am inspired.
To share more, teach more, as much as teaching in this way is really helping you uncover and connect with what’s there already.
I’ve seen the power and possibility of Massage and Touch for so many years.
I’ve seen how they can heal a relationship.
I’ve seen how they can heal us.
I’ve seen how they can bring what’s in our subconscious to awareness.
I’ve seen how they can create intimacy and connection.
I’ve seen how they can take us to the stillness, the quiet within.
I’ve seen how they can be acts of worship and prayer.
I’ve seen how they can be pathways to the Divine within us.
I’ve seen how they can be a way to experience energy.
I’ve seen how they can open our bodies, our hearts.
I’ve seen how they can release our tears.
I’ve seen how they can sooth and comfort us.
I’ve seen how they can be teachers for us, in relationship and pleasure, how they show our patterns.
I’ve seen how they can be spiritual experiences.
I’ve seen how they can be pathways to such deep pleasure.
And I’ve seen how pleasure, the energy of sexuality, of vitality, can be a path of healing.
I’ve seen how they can be ways to release and unblock creativity.
I’ve seen how they can be ways to connect with our bodies, our sensuality.
I’ve seen how they can be meditations.
I’ve seen how they can expand us into places we’ve been longing for.
I’ve seen how they can be expressions of love, of Love.
I’ve seen how they can be simple, and how they can ceremony.
I’ve seen how they can be experiences of liberation.
They are pathways to surrender.
And more…
In the giving and the receiving of touch we see ourselves.
We see where we’re open and where we hold ourselves back, where we’re closed and contracted.
We see our fears, the fears that sit in the body.
We see the patterns of our past, the stories we’ve live with, created and accepted.
We see our limitations and inhibitions, our rigidity and our softness.
We see how Touch and Massage are paths of exploration and discovery, the limitless adventure of the body.
We see the possibilities of energy, how they become paths to expanded states of consciousness, awakening the biodelics within us.
We see how many ways there are to experience intimacy, and pleasure.
We see how they become elements of spiritual practice.
We see how they’re able to heal our disconnect and separation.
We see how they help to release the guilt and shame, the blocked emotions that sit in the body.
And we see how they help us to see, to feel, the beauty in ourselves, and in another.
We see, we feel, how they take us deeper and deeper into ourselves, opening inner pathways of discovery.
We see how exciting they can be in relationship.
We see how limitless the sensations we experience can be, how much there is to feel.
We see how many ways there are to touch, ourselves and another.
And we see how vast, how high, how wide, how deep, the energy of pleasure is.
Wherever you are in the world, I’d love to come and share with you.
I have developed a range of Touch, Body and Massage experiences and practices that give us such a range of possibility.
