A while ago, I wrote a post on one of my first interactions with sacred service in a much more private forum. I'm sharing that post here, lightly edited, in the hopes that it will spark thought and discussion. You can log in with facebook or create an account to comment.

I had a really wonderful opportunity to explore sexuality, spirituality and the different levels of connection with deity. I am nervous talking about it because it does stomp on a lot of traditional taboos about sex.

There had been mutual attraction between the two of us for a long time, but we'd never acted on it. I'm not entirely sure why. Eventually, it became clear that there was a lot of interest and there was nothing standing in the way except nervousness and lack of certainty about what exactly we wanted. I don't know what all the causes of the nervousness were. It had been a long time since she'd started to approach a new lover. She had recently been through a situation where her sexuality, spirit and sensuality were not valued. We did not want to disrupt our friendship or shared spiritual interests.

We came together and Venus sparked within me. I realized that I had an opportunity to offer myself in service to Venus, to love and to focus on welcoming my lover back to the sexual and sensual side of Venus's path. I embraced this intent and began to work to create a safe space in which to welcome my lover. I focused on acceptance, on rejoicing in our sexuality, on saying "you are beloved." She was able to step into that space and to join me there in ecstasy. it was both magical working and offering:a gift to my lover, but also an offering of love to the goddess.

Yes, it was absolutely an experience between two humans in our relationship. We explored the physical manifestation of love between us; we grew closer. We had an experience that was ours. However, the working and offering of the previous paragraph transcended that. I was there not only as Sam, but as Venus's. I was working the magic of love. This was both less and greater than the interaction as Sam and beloved. Less in that I think I could have created that experience for anyone sufficiently open; anyone I could trust to treat the experience with respect, anyone who could trust me and be open enough to walk into the space I created and join me there. That is, there are aspects of the experience that did not depend on the unique relationship between us. More in that I felt a connection with the eminent deity within me, the spark of Venus, the part of her that we remind people to find within their own heart. I was acting out the role of lover, welcoming the beloved. I was the flame, stirring the cauldron. And together, we were love. And acting that out, creating that for someone, experiencing the joy of giving that is bigger than any of us. The connection between the two of us was something that was uniquely ours in that moment. The specific experience of the working and offering of the sexuality of Venus's path was uniquely ours, but it was a manifestation of a relatively universal mystery that can be offered to anyone who is ready.

I said that to the extent I was acting beyond myself I was Venus's. But Venus's what? I was not her host, not manifesting her. I was connected to her within myself, and offering an act of worship to her transcendent beyond that. I felt a connection to her, a sharing of the energy of the experience. The experience was sacred to her, but she was not called into the space, not a participant. (Nor would I feel comfortable with that without explicit consent of everyone involved.) I felt her approval, her joy to my offering, to bringing more love into the world, to helping someone re-open to a kind of love. I think the realization of this possible intent and the skills necessary to pull it off came from my study and work with her. However, the decision, the desire to offer this service came from within myself. In the moment, going forward was easy, only because I had pondered and explored ideas like this for months before. More than anything I was Venus's servant, her whore. Yeah, this is the first thing I've ever done where the term sacred whore really seems to apply. There I'm emphasizing both the idea of sexual service offered as well as the idea that this service is somewhat generic, offered to advance the goddess, not offered between lovers in a relationship. Obviously we use the term today very differently than the historical temple slaves that were the genesis of sacred prostitution.

Before I explore my reaction and conclusions, I want to make it clear that I met the beloved in a position of strength. She had the strength to return to the sexual aspects of Venus's path on her own. Similarly, even though I will always be able to reach out to that side of Venus's work, some day I may be accepting the gift of this type of experience. I'm open to helping people go places where they could not have gotten on their own, but that isn't what was happening here. There's a special joy in accepting a gift that you could have reached for yourself, and that was part of what made this interaction special at the level between us. In no way did this diminish the strength in love of either participant.

I love pulling apart this experience because it illustrates so much of what I feel in being open to spirit. It existed at multiple levels. It definitely was a sexual experience between two people building their love. No other level can take away from that. At the same time it was a instance of a sacred experience that could be shared with others. Those levels could be separate and could happen without each other, but here they were combined. So, did I care less about the person sharing the bed because I brought in something more universal? No, our experience remains ours; it is both complete alone and a component of the whole. What if the connection wasn't shared at some level? Well, that happens all the time; things mean different things to different people. For myself, I've chosen to accept my experience even if it has meaning and connection that is not shared. And yeah, the reality of a connection that is not experienced on both sides is an interesting paradox of human love. In this instance, that paradox actually both happened and didn't happen. When we were talking later, I described my perception of the multiple levels of the experience. She said that she hadn't experienced it that way, but having experienced the mystery, once I pointed at it, she was able to view things from that standpoint. She then shared her view, and as it happened I connected with that. So, we walked away with a multitude of views of the experience, broader than either of us found on our own. For myself it would not have taken away from anything if we had ended up experiencing things differently. Even the motivations are complex. I did this for myself wanting to connect with another, I did this for myself wanting to offer to Venus, I did this for Venus, and I did this for my beloved. This experience also helps me think about how slippery a connection to Venus is, how difficult it is to capture how I relate to her in any given interaction. Where do we draw the lines between worship, offering ourselves as the gods servants, and calling the gods into us and offering them a chance to work their will. I've pointed where I felt the lines are for me in this experience, but things are a bit fuzzy and different people might interpret things differently.

For me, the experience was beautiful on all sorts of different levels. The human connection was wonderful and I'm glad that opportunity arose. It helped erode some additional taboos around sexuality to be able to experience offering my service in a sexual setting. I've believed that sex is something I want to treat as sacred, but we can help each other approach the sacred, even approach mysteries of sexuality; having a safe way to validate that helped me grow. There are a lot of reasons for approaching sexuality; multiple reasons or intents may apply at once. I reject the idea of judging peoples motivations for sex. You engaging in sex for reasons I do not value does not take away the value of my sex. You engaging in sex with me for multiple reasons, some of which I value, does not take away from the shared part of the experience where our values overlap. I believe this with a passion, and having an opportunity to put my will behind my words and embrace an experience with intent that I valued but that others might not was hugely significant for me. It felt that in addition to putting my will behind the experience I was acting to give power to the idea that I do not judge others' value in sexuality. Having my beloved see my work, respect it, and treat it as sacred is huge. Being able to do it in a context where a more traditional sexual interaction was also taking place helped me be free and comfortable enough to bring my full will into the experience. being given the gift of acceptance, being told that acting as Venus's sacred whore didn't take away from anything and was actually valued as sacred is huge. Having someone strong and connected with their love enough to explore this sort of thing is really wonderful. Actually, I have multiple people like that in my life; that blessing is of uncountable value.

How would I react if someone I knew less well approached me and asked if I could create an experience to help them come closer to the sexual side of Venus work? It depends. I'd need to do it for my own reasons, not theirs. I would need respect, I would need confidence that our ideas of sacred were compatible. I'd need safety. I'd need to have confidence that the value was worth the cost. It actually involves a fair bit of connection with someone to confirm those things. However, it's something I'd at least consider. I have actually been approached by someone where I didn't have a sexual connection wanting to explore a particular sacred sex experience. That didn't end up working out because we were not able to approach each other in a mutually sacred context. Perhaps this is something that will only work for me in the context of relationships that would already have a sexual component. Who knows; the future will tell.