In part one of this series, I introduced you to the concept of Eco-Sex or Ecosexuality, an emerging discipline that combines ecology, sexuality, art, and activism. Understanding Ecosexuality as an abstract theory is one thing, but bringing it directly into your life—live and in-person—takes the concept to a whole other level, making it accessible and real. In this article I will show you how to use Ecosexuality for sexual wellness in the form of simple tools and rituals.
Holistic Sexuality is Healing, Practical, and User-Friendly
Let’s review! One way to understand Eco-Sex is as a kind of holistic sexuality, one rooted in sexual practices that don’t harm the planet. This is what my book, Eco-Sex: Go Green Between the Sheets and Make Your Love Life Sustainable, is all about. For me, Eco-Sex is but one tool we can use to cope with climate-change-induced solastalgia, the “homesickness we feel when we’re at home.”
I ask my readers this question: if you care about the fate of the planet and want to preserve it, do your sexual practices reflect those values, too? If you want to have a long, flourishing sex life into your elder years, it’s wise to focus on these issues now, because the choices we make today (in the bedroom and in every other part of our lives) will affect the health and habitability of our planet in the future.
Here’s a practical approach to developing an ecologically-friendly sex life. It incorporates sustainable, body-safe sex toys, organic lube, proper disposal of condoms (never flush!), eco-conscious beauty/primping products, sustainably manufactured lingerie and bed linens, organic, locally sourced and vegan aphrodisiac dinner dates, chemical-free, body-safe birth control, recycled fetish-wear, and more. I always tell readers that being a conscious consumer also requires thinking about the people who make and sell your products: are you buying from a big-box store or a union-friendly shop?
This approach to Eco-Sex invites you to grow more conscious of the planet in every dimension of your life, from the way you shop, to what you wear to feel sexy, to what you eat and feed your lovers. There is a major side benefit to melding eco-consciousness with your sex life—it’s a fun, unexpected way to perk up a connection that’s gone stale. And these planet-healthy choices are often healthier for you, too.
If you’ve ever reached for flavored condoms or edible undies to re-light a dimmed spark, Eco-Sex practices offer an instant way to inject some freshness without creating any unnecessary waste or introducing any toxins into your body. It goes a long way to promote sexual wellness and you needn’t shop for products to invite Eco-Sex into your life this very moment.
You Don’t Need to Buy a Single Thing to Embrace Eco-Sex For Sexual Wellness
Embracing ecosexuality doesn’t require anything but your body and nature’s gifts, and you don’t need to live in the woods or on a farm: even the simplest city setting will do. If it’s cold or the weather is inclement, you can actually bring nature inside. (More on that in a bit.)
Not only can everyday Eco-Sex practices enrich your connection to your body and your relationship to your sexual self, they can also be shared with your lovers and even your clients, helping them to work through blocks and revive their sensuality. This can lead to a richer, happier, thriving relationship to sexuality which promotes sexual wellness, for both single or partnered people,
A Simple Eco-Sex Sense Journey to Reconnect to Your Body For Sexual Wellness
Photo by Javon Swaby from Pexels
Note: Make sure you’re Covid-safe before practicing this or any outdoor ritual. Modify depending on where you live and what’s accessible to you. Keep a mask with you at all times, even while outside, just in case people approach you.
This ritual can help you reconnect directly to your own earth-generated erotic longings. If you can go to a beloved place you’ve missed due to solastalgia or just the pandemic, even better. Is there a river, lake, or beach nearby? Do you live close to a hiking trail or forestland? If not, you can do this by a window inside your home, in your yard if you have one, on your rooftop if you live in a city and have access, or in a park. For sexual wellness, I suggest doing it alone the first time, but it’s a fun ritual to do with a partner, too!
Begin by closing your eyes and taking a deep breath. Inhale through your nose. Exhale. Repeat three times. Now you’re ready to begin your Ecosex Sense Journey.
SCENT: Tune into your sense of smell. What scent is in your nostrils? If you’re on the ground, laying in grass, soil, or sand, drink in the scent of the earth. Does it smell of a dewy morning or has the sun already dried the warm wetness of the night off of the nearby plant life? If you’re near a body of water, can you smell salt or moss, even rotting moss? Are there flowers blooming anywhere nearby? Sit with the scent(s) for a few moments, letting them linger and remind you of something from your past, as smells often do.
TOUCH: Now tune into your sense of touch: what is touching your skin? If you’re lying on the ground, experience the sensation of the earth touching you. Does it feel hot or cool? Moist or dry? Soft or hard? If you can take some soil, gravel, or sand in your hands, do so. Let it sit in your palms for a moment, and connect to the way that feels—does it feel different to hold the earth than to be held by it? Let it pour out through your fingers.
If you’re immersed in water, even just with your feet, feel into the quality of the water: is it still or moving? Warm or cool? Slimy or bracing?
SOUND: Keeping your eyes closed, tune into the sounds around you. Is there wind? Does it echo? Is it a soft breeze that gathers in the distance and gently comes closer? Are you hearing the wind rustle through the trees and other plants? Are there bird songs or sounds? Dogs barking? City sounds? Take in all the sounds one by one, and then allow them to become a symphony of sound, so that you can no longer hear them distinctly. Then tease them apart again, hearing each sound’s origin as you first heard it.
SIGHT: Now, open your eyes. With all your senses on overload, take in the visual delights all around you. If you’re still lying down and looking up, are clouds dancing in shifting colors and shapes? Are they slowly moving across the sky? Is the sun so bright you must squint? Is it above you, to your right or left? Setting or rising? If it’s night, take in the moon, if it’s waxed enough to see. What color is it right now? Are there visible stars?
If you’re in or near a body of water, drink it in with your eyes. What color is the water? Dark, murky, clear, bright blue, grey, or green? Is it moving or still? Where does the edge of the water meet the sky?
You’ve connected to each of your senses except taste, as I don’t want you to lick anything outdoors (we’ll reserve taste for another exercise). Now close your eyes again. Move through each step, with calm purpose, but this time, after you’ve connected to the Earth, bring that energetic charge down to your genitals.
For example, during the scent step, after you inhale the smell of the bark of a tree, fill your lungs with that breath and then breathe down to your pelvic region. If it’s hard to do with your breath, you can visualize a color traveling from your nostrils, through the front of your body until it reaches the second chakra area. I like to use orange when working with this chakra. Let the breath or color linger there, and then allow it to dissipate. You can do this with each sense, in any order, or just choose one according to your mood and circumstances.
When you’re finished, you might feel totally blissed out with endorphins surging or even kind of post-orgasmic. But in the same way you might feel after a deep release, you may also feel a bit vulnerable. Close the container of this exercise by thanking the Earth for so generously sharing her erotic resources with you and contributing to your sexual wellness.
Note: if you really want to do this exercise but can’t go outside for whatever reason: weather, illness, lockdown—you can bring the Earth inside to you. I tell clients to gather soil, sand, or gravel from their favorite places in the warmer months so that they can continue to do these rituals inside all winter. A large, sturdy shoebox is a great place to store sand or soil, and if it’s big enough for you to stand inside of, even better. If that’s not possible, you can recreate some of these steps near an open window, or with plants that you keep in your home.
Or you could use something like salt to represent the earth and water from your tap, then tell your phone to play nature sounds. You can specify: “babbling brook,” or “rain,” or “ocean,” or “birdsong.” Lie on your floor with these sounds playing and place the fingers of one hand in the bowl of salt, and the fingers of the other hand in the bowl of water. Then go through the exercise above, knowing you’re plugging into the earth, even if you can’t be physically out in nature right now.
Ecosexuality Melds Gorgeously with the MEBES® Model
If you already use the MEBES® model in your sex coaching work, ecosexuality practices can fit right in, adding more tools to your sex coaching toolbox. I suggest playing with them yourself, in no particular order, before bringing your clients along. In fact, ecosexuality practices can help you create a healthy container for sex coaching. If you’re feeling out of sorts and unclear, these simple practices might be a wonderful addition to your current practice and help you prep for sessions.
MIND/MENTAL:
If your mind is cloudy, a nature or walking meditation might be just the thing to soothe and clear your head. For this, all you need to do is go outside without distractions—no phone—and walk, slowly and purposefully, paying attention to your breath. Ideally this should be done where there are few people around, in a more natural setting. But even if you live in a bustling city, consider strolling over to the nearest park, bike, or river path. Just 15 to 20 minutes is enough, but you can go for as long as feels right.
EMOTIONS:
When you’re feeling emotional distress, nature can provide instant healing. This is especially the case when you’re experiencing overstimulation of your nervous system from communicating via Zoom, FaceTime and text. These virtual modes of connection have been lifesaving over the course of the past year, and yet they can also simply exhaust you past what feels like the point of no return.
For sadness and anxiety, a few minutes of sunshine or sitting near some trees can often help more than other substances you might be tempted to medicate with (however, if you’re on anti-anxiety medication, please don’t refrain from taking it without speaking to your doctor or therapist; these eco-sex practices work great in concert with appropriate medication).
Nature offers us a restorative, healthy coping mechanism which is important for sexual wellness.
BODY:
The sun on your skin, your naked back lying on warm or wet grass, your feet in the sand, your entire body immersed in a lake, river, or ocean, your face in the wind; all of these offer ways to reconnect to your body through your connection to the earth. Taking a few minutes to do something as simple as closing your eyes and laying your palms on the bark of a tree can reset your whole system. The key here is to tune into the healing nature can provide, and then tune back into your body, as described in the ritual.
ENERGY:
As detailed in the ritual above, connecting with nature can have a profound and almost instant impact on your energy and sexual wellness. Just taking a deep breath of an invigorating natural scent can immediately reset your system, helping you to connect to the calm, focused, nurturing, and uplifting energy that a successful sex coaching session requires.
SPIRIT:
Whether or not you believe in some kind of power greater than yourself, once you spend some time connecting to the energy of nature, you’ll fully understand why certain cultures and religions see the divine in the trees and the sea. Native Americans and other indigenous cultures recognize that the natural world is imbued with divine energy and that this energy is also in us. If you can find yourself somewhere on the spectrum of this, working with the erotic energy of the Earth can heal and restore you—and your clients.
One of the best things about ecosexuality is that it’s available to all of us, no matter our circumstances, and it can calm and heal us on all levels which is important for sexual wellness. Developing an ecosexual mindset helps you align your choices in the bedroom with your values for preserving and protecting the planet and all life. Even better: it’s fun and erotic to explore your connection with nature, with or without a partner.
Happy Earth Month!
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