The Eightfold Paths of BDSM and Beyond

by Lee Harrington

  Vishuddha

  Known as the Throat Chakra and associated with the color blue, Vishuddha is located at the throat, parallel to the thyroid gland. It deals with issues of creative expression, voice, communication, action, choices and will. When out of balance, we become critical, judgmental, silenced, inarticulate, or become overly sensitive to criticism. We literally “swallow” our thoughts when feeling challenged in our expression and choices.

  Ajna

  Known as the Third Eye Chakra and associated with the color purple, Ajna is located at the forehead between the eyebrows. It deals with issues of trusting inner guidance, higher intuition, insight, vision (both natural and mystical). If out of balance, the mind will try to override intuition; we don’t trust ourselves, and we stop being open-minded. In turn, those with Ajna blockages often confuse their fantasy life and their living truth, an issue especially important to keep in mind in kink and magic. It is just as much of a problem to be too closed down to possibility and spirit, as it is to be too open and unable to control our ability to see the spirit world. Located in front of the pineal gland that regulates melatonin, it is said in some forms of Daoism that depleting this gland is possible with near death experience or use of hallucinogens, and dying with this gland empty can lead to the creation of hungry spirits. In the Shakta school of tantra, this chakra is seen as two separate chakras, with the second being the Bindu chakra, located at the back of the head near the cranial occiput (the dip in the back of the head).

  Sahasrara

  Known as the Crown Chakra and associated with the color white or violet, Sahasrara is located at the top of the head, the “soft spot” on babies. It deals with issues of pure consciousness, inner wisdom, death of the body, karma, connecting our physical and spiritual lives, spiritual crisis, connection to the divine, and existential challenges. When we are afraid of death, we become afraid to live fully. With Sahasrara out of balance, we can suffer from chronic exhaustion, disinterest in life, or dark nights of the soul that stagnate our being, lasting for an extended period of time.

  Blockages

  Becoming aware of our blockages is useful for moving towards becoming our full potential. If we are spending our energy on moving around these blockages, imagine how much we could do and what we could accomplish if we were working with a fully charged and cleared system! In addition to that, there are some of us who are so clogged in one region or another that we may be dysfunctional or non-functional. This becomes an issue for not just the person who has become dysfunctional, but those around them.

  Blockages also get in the way of Kundalini. Meaning “coiled” in Hindi, this is the full potential of our energetic selves. It sits waiting at the base of our spine, at our root chakra, longing to wake. Some picture it as the Goddess Shakti, and others as a serpent, thus the original translations of yogic texts referencing “serpent power.” Serpents also have the potential to shed their worldly self while still staying alive, able to ascend or rise to their next level of being without having to die.

  “Our death-negative culture has produced a bliss-starved population.”

  -Barbara Carrellas, Tantra: Sacred Sex for the Twenty-First Century

  We have the power to do this by allowing our Kundalini to rise, to uncoil, to crawl its way up from root to sacrum to solar plexus to heart to throat to third eye to crown and out until we tap into the earth beneath our feet and the universe at large beyond our skull. We awaken to our next level of self. We achieve enlightenment, for a moment or for a lifetime. Or we can just have an amazing experience tapping into the source. But none of this is possible if we are overly blocked, when are spending too much energy on re-routing the system to be able to uncoil ourselves.

  Muladhara

  For those of us with root chakra or Muladhara blockages, consider exploring ways to work through your fight-or-flight response as well as fears regarding security or stability. In a kink arena, this can be gaining control of orgasms, prostate massage, g-spot massage, and finding ways to express trust in your relationship without being clingy. By finding stability, your sensuality will often increase, and sexual issues decrease. Now note the word “issues.” This does not mean that someone who enjoys heels will stop enjoying heels; it will only “clear out” if the desire came from an unhealthy or abusive history that was cleaned out by healing Muladhara. Nor does increasing sensuality mean that sternness and focus in D/s relationships will decrease. We are speaking of capacity to have these things, not the giving up of what gives us core pleasure. There are those who change their desires while examining and clearing their blockages, but oftentimes this only happens when it is revealed to the self that the reason they were into an activity was from a place of pain, fear, sadness, or insecurity.

  Svadhistana

  If we find blockages and challenges in the sacral or womb chakra, one of the most useful exercises I have found is to find space to talk about our desires with no repercussions. This could be sexual desires, or longings in life. Begin with discussing these desires with yourself in a journal or internal dialogue as start, but to move out the larger muck in the system, work with another individual or loving group can be very useful. Other ways for developing and embracing our creativity, joy, enthusiasm and are deep-tissue massage, belly dancing, embracing a sex life we truly enjoy, and finding loving partners or friends who will embrace our desires and enjoy our creative ideas with us, or at least support us in having our own endeavors. Any time we can release shame of any sort, Svadhistana moves all the more clearly.

  Manipura

  It amuses me when people engage in terrifying and challenging kink scenes and have no idea what to do when the person facing their fear (could be either the Top or the Bottom) suddenly erupts in laughter. Many times, I find that this involves working through blockages at the solar plexus chakra. Laughter, screaming, and other safe outlets to fully express the emotions we feel are huge tools for working through blockages here. By feeling fear or other intense emotions and doing something that we long for anyway, we learn to trust our inner voice, embrace our courage, bravery, desire, and connection to our full will. We might also have fewer digestive problems.

  Anahata

  Self-care and self-loving are two of the biggest first steps in healing our heart chakra. Loving masturbation, rituals of body love, taking yourself out on a date, and in general learning to love who you are inside is of vital importance. This includes loving who we are as individuals who enjoy kinky pursuits. Until we learn to love ourselves, we are likely to continue sabotaging the attempts of others to love us. Crying, cleansing breathing, and being in a space of receiving the multitudes of forms of love from the universe-at-large, or unconditional love from humans are also wonderful tools. By clearing our blockages in Anahata, we can create loving connections without feeling used (or feeling the need to be), forgive ourselves and others, discover compassion and acceptance, and embrace our passions fully, and be able to give and receive sexually with ease. In kink terms, this includes having the capacity for all forms of sex and able to choose what brings us love and joy. True devotion to ourselves, our loved ones or the divine becomes possible.

  Vishuddha

  I think all of us at one point or another have had blockages in our throat chakra. One of the more challenging activities to work on, while focusing the energy here, is to practice asking for our desires of any sort. Combining this practice with asking for our sexual desires adds all the more juice into dissolving the blockages between us and our ability to express our voice, communicate, take actions, express our own will and change our life. Drumming, chanting, moaning, singing, screaming, and anything else that makes noise is also helpful. Engaging in role-playing where the character practices saying the character’s needs can be a stepping-stone for expressing our own desires. For others, activities that make them move from taking a sensation with silent stoicism to expressing the sensations out loud are useful.

  Ajna

  Practicing any form of sex magic, an
d staying aware while you do so, is one of the more potent choices our third eye chakra. Sleeping or playing in the great outdoors, being open to trying new things or new possibilities are also wonderful. We can restore pineal gland balance by getting lots of sunlight and some full darkness, restoring our sleep cycles and in turn our Ajna chakra as well. Within the kink community, spending some time as a loving voyeur is a useful tool for finding balance here, not to be confused with being a letch, to be discussed more in the Path of Asceticism.. However, with any of the chakras, but especially the heart and third eye chakras, in the kink community it is important to be aware of being open. If you find that you are, practice grounding and centering exercises bringing all the other chakras together in alignment for balance.

  Sahasrara

  Orgasm, and explicitly orgasm that feels like it is coming out the top of the head and creates a connection to the divine source, is an incredibly potent tool for clearing out the crown chakra. This crown-opening sensation can be accompanied by some through breathing our energy upwards while receiving intense sensations during pain play. Other tools include playing dead, examining our grief in role-playing scenarios, and any activity we can do that personally makes us feel our connection to the infinite or universe-at-large. By opening up in balance and establishing connections through our crown, and in turn through our root, we become a circuit through which the energy of the world can flow.

  “We cannot create energy. We are conduits for energy. When we run out of energy in our lives, the question is how do we become connected to the source or power? It’s like a light bulb. A light bulb cannot generate light on its own, only when it is connected. What’s interesting is that it’s all the twisted parts of the bulb that somehow transform that power into light as well as connect us to the source of power.”

  - Master Skip Chasey

  Dialysis of Desire

  When there are blockages in our energetic system, we are unable to have that energy move freely. Taylor Elwood and Lupa, authors of Kink Magic: Sex Magic Beyond Vanilla, argue that this stops us from being able to fully experience emotion, as:

  Emotion = Energy + Motion

  This concept is expressed over and over again in a large spectrum of thoughts on personal energy. Within the circuit of an individual, energy channels up one side of the body and down the other, pumped by breath or focus through the chakras and nadis, then down the other side. Like the arteries of our bodies sending oxygenated blood out from the heart before bringing it back through the veins, our energy runs through these channels in one direction, then back in another.

  Within a two-person circuit, this breath pump works by pulling energy in one direction or another. For some it is easiest to work by pulling energy in through our root, up through the chakras, then out through our crown. Our partner, in 69 position, pulls in through their root, up through their chakras, then out through their own crown. I have seen this same-directional system work in partners facing one another, by envisioning the energy flowing like a figure eight between the participants. If our blockage is due to always running things in one direction (being stuck in a rut, our prana stuck in one pattern), pulling in through the crown and working in reverse can be incredibly useful for knocking us out of habit.

  Interestingly, in most systems of magical discussion, these 69 and figure eight patterns are not the norm. They are considered advanced techniques, or options for those who need to work in non-dualistic ways. The rest of the systems seem to rely heavily on the idea of one partner who pulls in and acts as the receptive partner, and the other who pushes out and acts as the giving or active partner. This is often described in feminine/masculine, female/male or Goddess/God dyads. Unfortunately, this gendered language alienates individuals outside of a gendered binary mode and assumes that women are naturally receptive while men are naturally active. It can be useful instead to consider the notion of receptive/active partners as set for a specific encounter which allows for submissive/dominant, Bottom/Top, Journeyer/Guide, and beloved/lover as dyadic paradigms.

  Referring to the giving partner as the active partner infers that there is no work in being receptive. That taking in is easy. That being fucked is all about lying back and thinking of England. But the reality is that being receptive is not easy. Not accepting, but truly receptive. To be an actively engaged receiver, we must process what is given to us, not just sit on it. We must be present and fully participating in the work. We must not just take in what is given, but invite it, pull it in, pump it up into our being.

  By having a giving and a receiving partner, there is a pump between two systems to help flush out systems as well. The first partner takes in through their root, and gives out through the crown. The second takes in through their crown, and gives out through their root. Establishing which will be which is important, as different individuals may have different beliefs regarding which is the receptive role and which is the giving role.

  Sometimes, it is not about moving energy through the entire system of each partner. Energy may flow from one sacral chakra to the others, or from one individual’s third eye to the other individual’s heart and back. Sometimes one partner will focus on keeping the energy moving while the other blanks their mind to either clear out their system, receive visions, or experience the bliss of the sensation. This work does not have to be about healing, for some it is a way to enjoy mindful hedonism or to more fully engage by maintaining eye contact and energy contact during sex.

  Cyclically running energy between two (or more) partners is a powerful form of energetic dialysis. Engaging with a trusted partner, and with the filters and rituals appropriate to the relationship dynamic, many different experiences can take place. A Bottom might take in suffering, and give back love, which in turn is processed into love at the end of the lash—the next cycle to build ever higher. One partner can dedicate their energetic column, protected with wards in advance, as a “cleansing station” for the other partner’s tainted or clogged energy. The receptive partner may take in a giving partner’s bliss and have it erupt from their lips as oracular wisdom. Two partners can work together to help build up energy for a ritual, or to simply get each other’s systems running at maximum efficiency. The easiest way to start all of this work is to synchronize breathing. As we synchronize, we harmonize. Whether we are standing ten feet apart with a bullwhip in hand gazing in each other’s eyes, or pressing up against our lover’s back during passionate anal sex, we can start pumping by getting our breathing in time with one another. The two easiest styles are either to work where one partner breathes in as the other breathes out, or simpler still, both partners breathe in and out in unison.

  Emotions we transmitted through our breath are determined by the type of energy we want to put into motion. If we want go into our partner’s sorrow, we need to breathe from a place of sorrow ourselves. When was the last time you were authentically sad? What was going on for you then? Now take a moment and look at your breathing in that moment. How were you breathing? Breathe that way.

  If we start breathing from a place of pain, our partners will oftentimes begin sympathetically breathing with us in that same way. This is why skilled sales people start by matching our body language, then our breath… our subconscious mind goes “Oh, they are on the same wavelength as me.” Then they start ramping up their tone of voice, and their breath, to be more excited, happy, and enthusiastic. Our brain, already convinced that they are part of our system, starts getting excited, happy and enthusiastic as well. Suddenly, we’ve purchased a new refrigerator.

  We can “buy in” with our partners to an experience by first synchronizing our breath with them, then pumping the energy back and forth between us, then changing the pace of the breath slowly infused with the energy we want the scene to take on. Eventually, with practice, we can learn to change or process our emotions by changing the motion of our energy and changing our breath. Next time you are overjoyed, stop for a moment and notice how you are breathing and what your body position
is. Repeat the exercise with the next time you are depressed, angry, silly, dominant, submissive, passionate, and soon enough you will have a catalog of breaths to choose from for this work. Your lexicon may not be identical to that of your partner though, so you will need to learn their terminology over time as well.

  It is also possible to do this in solitary work. Get your own pump going, then slowly turn up the edges of your lips as you breathe in and out. By changing our facial expression, we are now breathing in happy thoughts, because our body thinks we are. To do energy-raising or energy-cleansing work alone, find ways to seal your own circuit; for example, putting your tongue on the roof of your mouth, covering the crown with a shawl, or sitting on something solid that the energy will not leak through. Then, when the gunk, or the bliss, or the working is ready to be released, lower the tongue and breathe out, uncover your head and release through the crown, or stand up and let the energy pour out your feet in a column of light from your root.