Our Newsletter - Your Community

Janet Kira Lessin, Chief Focalizer for the World Polyamory Association and Coordinator of the Harbin Hot Springs Annual Polyamory Conference, June 25 -27, 2010. She runs Synergy Farms, Maui's polyamory community, as well as the National Commitee to Legalize Polyamorous Marriages. Janet welcomes your conversation at worldpolyamory@aol.com

I left Honolulu and began my tantric path July `97 as a detour from visiting my
parents, whose health was failing back in Pittsburgh. Distressed over their
impending deaths, I'd become "short" with Mason, my live-in. I snapped at him,
then became remorseful and apologetic. My sister called from Pittsburgh and said
Mom was dying. "Get home quick," she said, panic in her voice.

I saw a chance to escape from Jason. Jason, alcoholic, had been beating me up
more and more. I loved him; yet realized enabled his drinking and violence. I
feared he'd kill me in a drunken rage. I also needed a break from my other
boyfriend, Phil, with whom I'd taken up from pity and as a balance to Jason. I
pitied Phil. He'd become impotent when my best friend, Janice, dumped him and
fled to Alaska to get away from him.

Phil had suggested we go to a tantra workshop. He'd found one and set his sights
on it: the tantra segment of the Loving More polyamory conference in California
in July. I pooh-poohed his suggestion and said. "I don't have the money." But
the money materialized and I was on the way to the tantra workshop and my
destiny. " The Gods must be crazy," I thought; but who was I to question them?

At the tantra workshop in California, I sat across from Dr. Sasha Lessin, the
teacher. We fell in love, made love, cohabited in Maui and married--all by the
first week of October.

As I settled in with Sasha on Maui, Mom hovered near death; and I fought hard to
repress an increasingly nagging, subconscious irritation. "What is repressed
turns daemonic," Sasha teaches.
During an early vaginal healing session with Sash in our therapy room at home, I
began recovering unpleasant memories of Mom. I lay on my back as Sash kissed my
clitoris and systematically explored the inside of my vagina with his fingers. I
felt a sharp pain when he barely touched a certain place inside." What
associations do you have?" he asked. I closed my eyes and looked within, but
dismissed my first answer. "This is too silly, it can't be," I said. My Judge
came out and my Critic started censoring me. But Sash urged me say what came to
mind.

"When I was small, we walked home for lunch from school. We didn't have a lot of
time to walk, eat and get back up the hill to school. I always felt like I
needed to poop after I ate, but my poor diet constipated me. Mom would yell
outside the bathroom door, `Hurry up! You're going to be late for school,'" and
I'd painfully force myself to poop, if I could. Sometimes I cried; I couldn't
make myself release. I forgot all that until now." "What did you want to say to
your mother then? What do you want to say to her about that now?" Sasha asked.
"Tell her, as though she's here now and will listen with empathy."

I told her how tortured I was in the situation until my charge was gone and I
was no longer tense. My body relaxed and let go of the old pain and shame of the
lunchtime bathroom battle. Sasha moved his finger in me from the place that
triggered my memory and another spot inside that felt exciting. Then he moved
his finger back to the trigger spot. "Now how does that feel? Is it still
painful in that spot? How about here? No? Now how does it feel here?" The pain
was gone! And I felt free, light! "No," I realized, "there is more." I felt
lighter, but not totally light.

Right before Christmas I received the call. "Mom died today. She's gone," my
sister reported. It was over. My house was full of holiday company. A couple was
on their way to our home to do therapy. I cried for a bit as Sasha held me. My
company said politely, "I'm sorry for your loss."

All too soon, a knock came to the door. The couple in trouble was here for our
help. I pulled myself together and, amazingly, I was there for them. "You can
mourn later," I told myself.

I couldn't afford to go home to Pennsylvania for the funeral. On top of that, I
had more company coming from the mainland. We live in Maui and when the cold
weather comes into "the States," many people like to escape to Paradise. Sasha
had just spent a year on the road, in exile during a bitter divorce settlement,
and had accumulated many "lodging debts" that now demanded reciprocity.

I was newly married and in a new relationship, living in a new home on a new
island. On top of it all, we defined ourselves as "polyamorists" as well. I had
never been actively poly; and had only toyed with the philosophy and had affairs
and cheated. There were many adjustments for me. Besides, I couldn't leave Sasha
alone to handle our house guests by himself now, could I? "Pleaser" had come in
and taken front and center stage big time.

We had a "date" with Sasha's long time lovers, Coyote and Rose, two days later.
"Should we cancel?" we pondered due to my being in mourning. "No, I'll be okay,"
I decided.

I liked Rose immediately. I felt such warmth and love radiating from this
delicious being. What a goddess! But there was something about Coyote I just
couldn't put a finger on. I wasn't just not interested and not attracted; I was
downright repulsed. Poor Coyote. He had done nothing to me; he was quite sweet,
with gentle energy and kind eyes.
Sasha was honoring me. I was going very deep into the sensations. He focused on
me for what seemed like hours. I became one with my body after so many years of
feeling barely there. I felt all the levels, subtleties and intensities of the
different types of orgasms. My mind raced with stories as I sank deeper and
deeper into altered states of consciousness, carried there by my beloved devotee
who worshiped at my shrine.

All of a sudden, I felt violently ill. I raced to the toilet to vomit. I
expelled the "poison." Sasha came into the bathroom and supported me.

It all came back to me as my body convulsed and I wretched to free "it" from my
throat. "Oh my God! Tom! Oh my God, he's raping me. He's choking me with his
lingam. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. Help! Someone help! He's killing me!
Oh my God, someone please stop him, he's killing me!"

The memory of the rape of 4-year old Janet came forth from the deep recesses of
my subconscious mind.. My mother had a boyfriend while my father was at work. We
would all sit around naked after their lovemaking and laugh. I was a precocious
toddler who ran between them. I slipped and fell into Tom's lap, my young lips
brushing past his lingam.

I became embarrassed for some unknown reason and ran to my mother. She laughed
and held me, reassured me all was fine. I ran back to Tom; he reached for me. I
laughed and jumped lovingly into his arms only to be betrayed.

He shoved my face, my mouth, over his huge, erect lingam. He became excited and
thrust mercilessly, deep into my tiny, little-girl mouth. I had polyps in my
nose from allergies, and I couldn't breathe properly. I wasn't getting enough
air! I was choking! He was tearing my mouth with the force! He ejaculated. I
couldn't breathe! HELP! I was drowning. HELP! I was passing out. No, I was out
of my body. I was dead.

I hovered and watched the scene from the ceiling of the room. My mother had been
beating on Tom, and he simply ignored her in his lust. I collapsed and hung like
a limp doll as he smiled and went "hmmmmmm" with blissful delight.

The focus finally shifted to me. He became aware and began to respond; but it
was too late. They both worked feverishly to revive me, but neither of them had
the slightest knowledge of CPR. My mother screamed hysterically, "You've killed
my baby! You've killed my baby girl!" Tom smacked her and somehow calmed her, at
least for that moment.

"Let's call Marty; I can hear him next door working in the yard.." The neighbor
called and seemed to know more. At least he wasn't as distraught as the two
perpetrators.

He struggled with my body for a while, but his efforts were fruitless. I looked
in amazement at all the fuss below. As they talked, I "noticed" my body and
zoomed over to it in my etheric body. I'll never forget how I looked as I gazed
down at the form that was myself. It was as if I was a rag doll and was
deposited on the floor as such. My left arm was cocked over my head in a 90
degree angle. My right arm was twisted behind my back. I lay face-down with my
shoulder-length mousy hair all matted up. I was curious, but I don't recall any
other emotions that I felt.

"You two have to turn yourselves into the police," Marty whispered softly.
"She's gone, June. Face it; she's dead."

My mother let out a piercing wail. She screamed, "No, no, no, no, no!" The two
men calmed her the best they could. After a long discussion, they made the
decision to call the police. They turned to leave the room.

Time stood still at that moment. From behind my right shoulder, my "guides" came
to take me across. They spoke to me in symbols and words not translatable into
human language. They showed me the alternative future histories of what was to
come if I decided to stay with them. The love I felt was 100 times any love that
humans are capable of feeling here on this plane. It was truly "bliss," truly
"heaven."

They showed me how my mother would be in jail; how she would finally end up in a
mental institution. They showed me how my family would suffer; how my father,
brother and sister would react, feel ashamed and never quite recover from losing
me.

Despite the peace and beauty of all that was offered to me, I didn't give a
second thought when I saw what would happen. I no sooner could think, "No thank
you; I'm staying" when I found myself rushed back into my body.

I was fully charged with the love of the divine light. Energetically I was still
in that next dimension. As I snapped back into place, the force of it bolted my
body upright into a standing position. My chakras glowed; my aura intensified
with a bright Christ-like light. "Hello!" I declared with a big shit grin on my
face. Having just touched the face of God himself, I was alive, happy and
joyous!

Tom, June and Marty all turned in their tracks at the doorway. They turned and
saw me alive after nearly 45 minutes of being dead. All three screamed and
bolted from the room like they had just seen a ghost. They had; and it was me.

I said to myself, "Wow, look what I did to the adults," and giggled. Suddenly, I
felt exhausted. I had been vibrating at an intensive level; and just as quickly
I settled back into my body and the rhythm of this third-dimensional plane. I
found my way to my bed.

I fell into a deep slumber. Hours later, my mother cautiously crept back into my
room and saw my sleeping form. I had forgotten what happened for almost 40
years.

Sasha stayed with me and continued to process until the wee hours of the
morning. I was completely destabilized. What I had thought was my life, my
childhood, had all been rewritten and had taken on a new meaning. With my
mother's death, my psyche had felt "safe" to reveal what lay within.

Poor Coyote, he didn't know why I reacted to him so negatively. Here, with a
bald head and large ears, he had resembled my perpetrator! My logical mind knew
this was a nice person. My inner child was in panic. "Run away, run away fast,"
she screamed to me.

Like the layers of an onion, with many layers to go, my healing process had just
begun, Even with this memory released, catharsis was only the first step. A few
weeks later we "rewired" my primal brain with an alternative program during a
Holotropic Breathwork session. That story is for another time.

I never did quite resolve things 100% with Coyote. We did manage to go another
layer deeper, to connect and to make love--if only for a brief time. He and Rose
are gone now from our lives, perhaps forever. They did not like "processing."
Alas, my processing has only just begun.

Sasha and I continue on our journey. I am grateful for his love, devotion and
support. I am hopeful that I can now live a full life, free of the internal
tortures which affected my health, my life expectancy and my happiness.

I hope in the telling of this intensely personal story that others may see the
avenues to their personal healing. Tantra's a valuable tool of love for the
healing of others, for greater depth and intimacy and for sustaining pleasurable
sexual connections throughout the duration of any relationship--not just in the
early years, but until death do us part.