Strip Reports

Are your voyagers taking their clothes off – or Goddess knows what else – in your ceremonies and sessions? And it can’t necessarily be brushed off lightly? Annie Boheler knows the score.

Annie’s a somatic experiencing practicioner who’s building a framework for sex positivity during a sesh. 

A classmate of mine on Vital Psychedelic Training, she’s also a trained herbalist, a somatic intimacy coach, a declared anarchist and a former erotic dancer.

“There's all sorts of things that could come up,” says California’s Annie Boheler of the great unspoken topic in many therapy rooms, let alone psychedelic ones… the sexual self.

Even if we’re not ‘going there’ as such, “Someone could be like, ‘I'm gonna take off all my clothes,’ because of any reason on psychedelics,” Annie reminds us, “Like, ‘There's a bee in my clothes,’ or ‘Fuck society, I'm taking off my clothes’.” 

Find out more on Annie's website www.loveagesomatics.com on Instagram @rewildingintimacy

“It could be nonsexual, but very intimate too,” sagely advises the sexuality, intimacy and relationship coach who’s learned with The Kinsey Institute, and Somatic Experiencing International.

What’s the sex positive psychedelic therapist or guide to do in this situation fraught with a heroic dose of awkwardness? Besides stay up on the trends.

The tactics Annie suggests form the basis of her upcoming sex positivity training program. They include chatting over beforehand what options you both have if, for example, the voyager wants to go one further from stripping off and start, y’know, playing with themselves (it could happen). 

It doesn’t say anything about that in The Tibetan Book of the Dead (the actual one, I think it does a bit in the Leary one).

“An increased capacity, awareness, and ease with discomfort can help us feel a bit more in control of a psychedelic experience”

Such an incident could be just the beginning of a shame reinforcing downwards sex spiral. What’s the most deft response? Can you just leave them alone for ten minutes, with a gentle “I support you being yourself” like Annie offers as one option?

Or is that not safe, so you’ve made clear that it’s not the done thing in your shared holistic therapy rooms during the prep sessions?

And even the most agile surfers of inner space might struggle to navigate that little chat.

“Once again, it’s about explicitly naming it: ‘Hey, we're about to talk about something really intimate. And for you this is only our first time meeting. So you only share what you want; there’s no pressure,’ or saying, ‘I do this for my work, you know, it's very comfortable for me. And there's no problem that it seems a little bit new for you. That's okay.”

“Somatics means mind body connection in from the perspective of therapeutics, with a goal of healing or growing”

‘Attunement’ is the somatic experiencing (‘SE’) skill of “kind of being able to see and reflect this person's energy: if they’re more reserved, or they're really excited to share.”

The next-level emotional intelligence – EQ – which SE cultivates has relevant uses, says Annie.

“If we have some experience with somatics, or somatic experiencing, we've increased our internal capacity to be with emotions in general, whether they're comfortable or uncomfortable,” advises Annie, “ during a psychedelic experience, that increased capacity can allow us to have a bit more, I guess, ‘control’ – because of that awareness, and comfortability with discomfort.”

Embodiment therapies and upbeat approaches like Adrienne Maree Brown’s emergent strategy and ‘pleasure activism’ make enjoying yourself somehow socially acceptable and subversive, simultaneously: both lust and appreciation for life.

“Somatics means mind body connection in from the perspective of therapeutics, with a goal of healing or growing,” says Annie, “’Somatic experiencing’ is orienting around our senses: sensations, the temperature of the air, emotions, visualisations, any impulse to move. If we slow down enough, we can tune into these different things. There’s no right or wrong way.”

Find out more on Annie's website www.loveagesomatics.com on Instagram @rewildingintimacy

Slow down, do your shadow work

Carl Jung, the Kemetic tarot and a regenerated wicca feature in Shadow Zine, a boutique publication from cutting-edge coven The High Priestxss. 

Its editor, designer turned shadow sorceress Claire Yurika speaks to me atop the blasted heath of Zoom.

Claire Yurika put the brakes on a glittering fashion career to focus on her inner work.

“Allowing shadow to pass through a room brings softness, like switching from overhead office lighting to a lamp-lit glow,” is her eloquent description of life post ‘shadow integration’.

Psychologist Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud’s star student who favoured a spiritual and proactive approach to living, claimed the world would be a much better place if we all did the same. 

"Shadow work could be explained as exploring life”

Crucial to this effort was a merciless examination of ‘The Shadow’, the side of us that we suppress and deny. Taming these instincts involves earning their trust. Shaming them leads to frustration, and later madness.  

“The shadow is where there is subtlety, and mystery”

Dr Rick ‘Spirit Molecule’ Strassman stressed the importance of self-reflection to psychedelic therapists in his Vital lecture earlier in the syllabus.

And at 2022’s Breaking Convention conference Magnificent Maria Papaspyrou (The Psychedelic Divine Feminine, Institute of Psychedelic Therapy), cited collective shadow integration as key to emerging from our liminal age intact.

“Most of our shadow work is about fear. It's fine to be fearful of wasting your life. Investigate why that scares you”

Shadow Zine is Claire’s polished, playful and practical companion for our own shadow work, published by her cutting-edge coven The High Priestxss in London. In my latest broadcast interview, Claire talks about how shadow work can save the world, slowing down, self-agency and ancient Egyptian magick in the cosmopolis. 

Follow Claire on Instagram for more shadowy goings-on.

Grab your copy of Shadow Zine here.

Britain's only traditional master builder is erecting stone circles in Glastonbury

Mark rewilding

Mark Leib is a contemporary geomancer and biodesigner. He uses the ancient tradition of sacred geomtery to create structures, spaces, settings and sensations in the now.

"The planet can heal and sustain us like a plant can, whether that’s in the Amazon or a field close by," Mark says. Hear more from him, and all about his stone circle building workshops near Glastonbury, England in my first broadcast below.

A geomancer (left) talking down the astralabe

Mark’s an award-winning restaurant and nightclub designer. He gave up throwing shapes to master them instead and trained in the arch-discipline of traditional master building for ten years.

The almost-forgotten art kept pace with civilisation in this part of the world from the Egyptian empire if not before, and was used to raise pyramids, temples and cathedrals. It’s also one of those antediluvian innovations that somehow spread across the globe – Mark points out that seed fossils have been found atop South American pyramids, where farmers left their fledgling crops to harness bio-energies.

Sacred shuteye

Among many techniques it includes building in harmony with the energy fields of natural objects nearby. So like “Chinese medicine for the construction industry” and “feng shui for the encvironment.”

He’s currently the only traditional master builder in Britain and one of only a handful in the world. But their ranks are swelling as people turn to holistic solutions for habitat and health.

Futurists too are frothing at the mouth at ‘bio-architecture’ examples like these Buckminster Fuller-style concept domes by BioArc.

BioArc’s dome habitats

Mark began fusing his ancient and modern skills in projects ranging from modern menhirs to integration tactics. And amateur megalith masons are in luck, because Marks’s hosting a workshop near Glastonbury, England on Sunday 8 May 2022.

Soul Sanctuary’s site near Glastonbury

Particpants will build a stone circle together and learn the fundamentals of sacred geometry.

Enjoy a day in the countryside, maybe bust out a ritual later on

If you’re up for it get in touch with Gibby from Soul Sanctuary via gibby74@sky.com.

The treatment can be applied to mandala and labyrinth designs too

No going too fast as per usual, I don’t want to hear about anyone burning out after whacking up a pyramid in their back garden.

Mark’s website: www.markleib.com