Thank you to my well and wise spirits who shower me in endless love for flowing these words through me. Thank you Jesse and Brian for seeing these words with new eyes and giving them new voice.
The offering of this ritual is intended to liberate ourselves and our ancestors from shame that prevents us from coming into relationship with our pleasure. Though these prayers are intended to open and close a Mindful Erotic Practice, please say, sing, or carry them with you wherever you are called. The invitation for a practice is to follow pleasure through whatever arises, bearing in mind that there is no “right way” to do this. Bliss is not the only pathway to liberation. All of your sensations, emotions, and experiences are a contribution to the energetic sacrament that is a healing balm for your ancestors. This sacrament that is the offering is made of the sensations and experiences that arise in your practice: movements, sounds, touch, emotions, thoughts, images, words, breath, heat, etc.
I invite you into the experience of the Earth as the common ancestor of all of us, the lineage that connects each of our bodies to each other, and connects us to ancestors that we may not consider to be “genetic ancestors.” The ancestors that are called in at the beginning of this ritual are ancestors of all of us by nature of our relationship with the Earth. They act as mediators between you and those of your ancestors who receive this healing. They collect and distribute the offering to those of your ancestors who would most benefit, and also create a barrier between you and the ancestors receiving the healing. You can read more about the saintly ancestors that I came into relationship with while writing these prayers in this essay I co-wrote with my friend Jesse.
Finally, I invite you to email me to share any reflections, feedback, or experiences relating to these prayers. If you would like to reach out to me anonymously you may do so through my contact form by putting “anon@anon.com” in the email field and omitting your name. I would so enjoy receiving how these prayers make their way through the world and land for you!
Opening Prayer
I call to our honored and beloved, well and wise ancestors of sacred sexuality, pleasure, and sensuality.
You who knew the taste of lovers’ desire on your lips, you who felt the sacred drip down your bodies, you who dared to swim in the deepest oceans of ecstasy and roll in the waves of pleasure.
You who lived lives and died deaths of joy and wonder. You who met shame with open eyes and found desire hidden there, and cast off this weight to dance in your fullest pleasure.
I call to you who are the joy and pleasure of our bodies, the strength and the vitality.
I call to you who teach and mentor, who initiate and guide us into the sacredness of our bodies, the ecstasy at the edge of our beings.
You who taught others to navigate shame, to honor it as a doorway, and to come into blissful dance with the truest desires of their hearts. You who traversed the endless sea of rapture to bring others along with you. You priestesses, saints, mystics, and elders, with wisdom and blessings to share.
You who danced with Life as her lover, turn around now, reach out your hands to us and bring us with you. Pull us into dance so we may know once again, so we may remember the rhythm of ecstasy.
Closing Prayer
Honored and beloved well ancestors who have held the ocean of this space, we thank you.
You priestesses, saints, mystics, elders, and teachers, who lead us to learn from the deepest desires that our hearts sing and our shame reveals. Through you we offer what wants to be offered– the experiences and ecstasies of this space–the breath, the heat, the pleasure (name your own experiences here)
We offer them to those ancestors connected to us by place, blood, and love who did not or could not access these spaces in their lifetimes. To those whose pleasure was a burden, a weight of shame and fear, we offer this sacrament of energy generated of flesh and blood, bread and wine, from this body that descends from you.
Eat, and be strengthened and emboldened.
Drink, and be free from fear, shame, and guilt.
Eat and drink, and be united with the deepest desires of your heart and the divine love that swims in the pleasure of the flesh.
We offer this sacrament: the heat, the breath, skin on skin (name your own experiences here) the satisfaction of seeking and finding out the joys of dancing with pleasure. To all beloved ancestors we offer this to you, that you may know what it is to swim freely in the ocean of your desire and to be nourished by the pleasure of life.
Thank you for receiving our gift. May it guide you to rest fully in the joy of your legacy and the peace of a well-lived life. May you find joy in bearing witness to life’s continuation, nourishing its soil with your bones. We release you with love for the blessing of all.
marissa gamberutti 