This one won't be for everyone Its called Reclaiming Eros: Sacred Whores and Healers, edited by Blackburn and Wade. A friend sent it to me, knowing that I am, one, a therapist somewhat disenchanted with the field of traditional psychotherapy as it defines itself currently and the often conservative views of my field's mainstream and always seeking new reading and resources, but also knowing that on a more personal level, my ways of being and healing aren't sufficing lately. After being with and loving the same man for many years, even while I am genuinely in the know that it was the right decision to end things, still he was my extraordinary partner and lover for many years, and my heart feels like it carries behind it a huge sack of bricks sometimes when I think of being with someone new. Its rare for me to feel so disconnected but almost never have I felt so much so the way I have these past months. Working as a sexual healer definitely isn't my calling but I deeply admire the work being shared and offered.

Enter this book which is a collection of interviews with a wide variety of healers outside the traditional mainstream, (though fortunately, the mainstream is somewhat widening even more so these days, at least in certain parts). It offered new insights into the idea of sacred sexuality, and introduced me to brave souls I had never heard of. It is worth checking out if you feel cut off or shut out from your relationship with your body and heart, if you feel like therapy in whatever form has been helpful but somehow not enough so, and/or you are like me, and know that you have many more miles within and without to travel in every direction. Just a lot of wisdom and advice that was courageously put out there in this collection. It made a difference and since its with a tiny publisher, I thought here is one place to spread the recommendation. Here's some various quotes, not necessarily my favorites, but just a sampling of many worthwhile thoughts .

"I do this work because, in the area of sex, we've not been educated. We don't know whats possible. We're educated in all kinds of other areas, but not about our own fire, our own eroticism. I'm doing this work because most people don't know what their options are. I call for zero tolerance for sexual ignorance."
-Joseph Kramer, founder of The Body Electric School

"You can talk to a psychotherapist about sexual abuse for years, but for intervention on the physical plane, we call on a sacred intimate or erotic shaman. It is in the physical world that the trauma took place and that's where the healing most effectively takes place."
(Joseph Kramer)

"If we don't own our own orgasms, we don't own our own bodies, we don't own our own lives....The reason this is still so taboo is because women are still protecting the male ego. Built into most men's definition of how good they are in bed is measuring their success by their partner's orgasm. That's why so many women fake orgasms."
-Betty Dodson

"When an initiate comes to me, I say, "Let's make a new world." I surround them with new sights, new smeils, new sounds, and new sensations. I change their sensory world to create a time and space where they have the potential to create new thoughts, new beliefs, and a new way of being in the world. I deliberately refrain from referring to those who seek healing with me as "clients." Instead all who come to me are honored as initiates. Addressing them otherwise dishonors the sincerity of their seeking and the value of our healing mission together."
- Nut Butterfly

"Penetration of the body can be penetration of the spirit. We could not do the things we do to ourselves, to each other, or to the planet if we truly felt connected...Many of my clients are men who feel they have to be in charge all the time. They come to me simply because they want the opportunity to let go of control for awhile. It's a huge turn-on for them to have someone else dictate to them what they must do. They have a longing to be soft, to surrender and let me take charge. I believe its a longing to embrace the divine feminine within."
-Singing Deer

"The collusion of an odd mix of forces such as well-meaning feminists, mental health care providers, and right wing politicians has created an atmosphere which is, in many ways, more phobic about eroticism, much more sex negative than it was decades ago. The results of uncovering and publicizing how much sexual abuse and trauma exists in the culture were and are of tremendous importance. Paradoxically, and unfortunatelt, this has contributed to a dramatic pendulum shift towards hyper-vigilance and caution about the misuses of sexuality and the broad brush repression of anything remotely or even imaginatively sexual."
- Steve Howard

"Love means that you care so much about another that your deepest desire is to see them fully blossom into just who they naturally are."
- Rudy Ballentine