I embrace love as a craft that can be learned, taught, and practiced. Creating a space for doing this is at the core of Lovers Grove.
What Does it Mean to Teach Love?
I've written about a number of experiences as a lover. I talked about three experiences with BDSM. There all of us involved grew, gaining strength and confidence in our ability, stepping past fear, and learning how better to heal and connect. In Sacred Water Sports, I talked about helping myself and other lovers connect with the taboo, stepping past shame and fear. I talked about an experience as Venus's sacred whore, welcoming someone back to their sexuality.
All of these experiences can be offered to anyone who is ready and sufficiently open. In the post on sacred whore work, I explore this in great detail, discussing how the cauldron love of the experience is sacred for me independent of any relationship between those involved. Being that open is an advanced skill, but I have experience and success promoting that sort of openness.
At Lovers Grove, we'd like to meet people with that sort of openness, help them understand how they would like to grow as lovers, overcome fear, and work together respecting the needs of everyone involved.
Openness of the Fire
One of the great things about the Fires of Venus and Primal Arts communities is that they are open. We trust people to know what they are ready for and to know what risks are right for them to take. They are traditions based on empowering people to make their own decisions.
It would probably be easier to have a small grove of lovers working together, building trust and safety within the community. However, instead we've chosen to honor the openness of our roots around the fire and love openly, working with those who come to us in search of growth. We need to face the fear of vulnerability and connecting with the unknown on an ongoing basis. We need to do advanced work in that context. However, by taking this risk, we hope to have a greater impact and to better share journeys of growth with the world.
Sacred Lover
We've embodied this work in the Office of the Sacred Lover. I like that term better than sacred whore for what we're doing. First, whore has a lot of negative connotations. While I'd like to fight the shame associated with sex work, I don't have to start by reclaiming all the negative terms involved. Second, sacred whore often has the implication that the whore is channeling the goddess or working in some special spiritual setting. This work is deeply spiritual for me. My work as a Sacred Lover will be an offering to Venus. Never the less, the spirituality doesn't line up with what sacred whore often means in ways that matter to me; I hope to explore this in a future post.
Sacred lovers are not prostitutes. Prostitution is generally focused around meeting the physical sexual needs of a client. Working as a lover tends to involve more of an emotional connection. Lovers Grove has much more of a focus on coming together in strength and meeting the needs of everyone involved. While sacred lovers agree to love openly, their boundaries and interests are a very important part of what is possible in a given interaction. Sacred Lovers aren't better than prostitutes; just different. There's more uncertainty with a Sacred Lover, but there's also more room for growth.
Taking up a commitment as a Sacred Lover is between the lover and their gods and goddesses. This sort of commitment is not about giving others tools for guilt or shame, especially those who hope to meet as lovers. Many factors including available time, connection, and interest in a particular experience affect what is possible. Love is risk.
My commitment as Sacred Lover
Openness Does not Diminish
for me, it is sacred to offer myself, my body, my spirit as part of teaching and practicing love. I do not decrease my value by offering myself freely so long as I offer myself in a context of strength and respect, rejecting shame. I will meet my fellow lovers and myself in the strength of love and respect for our mutual needs.
An ongoing relationship is one context in which love can be sacred. I reject the idea that being open or free with my love cheapens me or my relationships. The interesting question is whether my needs and that of my lovers are respected.
Without Shame
I embrace sexuality, physicality, affection, spirituality and communication as some of the sacred tools of the lover. I reject any shame associated with the free application of these tools in the context of sacred love.
As a sacred lover, my calling is to find those who need to learn love and offer myself in service of that need. I will love openly with strength and pride without shame.
Approaching Sacred Lovers with Respect
So, yes, this does mean that I'm open to meeting people I've never met or hardly know as a lover. Context, timing and respect matter a lot. For example I'd be amazingly unhappy if someone cornerned me in a professional setting trying to describe what they wished to do to me as their lover. In the next months we'll be working through the details of how this all works at the Lovers Grove site. One thing that is always likely to work well is to say (or e-mail) "Hi. Can I talk to you as a Sacred Lover?" That way I can suggest an appropriate time and get into the right space to approach this work.