In the summer of 2009 K___ and I went to Gathering, as it turned out, for the last time together. During this trip I had a life-changing peak experience: a journey with 5-MeO-DMT. Words can barely describe how intense this was. If I had to describe it simply, in a sentence, I’d say it’s a chance to die and be reborn. In the process I had my ego cracked open! As I came back, reluctantly, from the white light, I saw the faces of my Faerie Kin smiling at me, patiently waiting for me to understand thr obvious: that I had been in the way all along! It was as much of a breakthrough as the summer of ritual, and hurt like hell.
When I got home I searched the Internet for things to help me make sense of my experience. I found a frustrating book, which I read, and a painting which sits on my wall to this day:
Salvia Painting by mpm5
A little later I created a ‘sonic poem’ to describe what I’d experienced:
After that trip things improved dramatically between K___ and I. The journey had changed me deeply – I was softer now, more yielding, more open. I even started to sub to her. For a while it looked like we might save our great love, but in fact the opposite happened: the improvements only highlighted how damaged things were between us.
In parallel my relationship with Ewelina was deteriorating. I started to feel truly lost. They say the darkest hour comes just before the dawn, and that’s exactly what this period felt like. I was in a shitty short-term job I hated, my love life was fucked and my creative partnership was on the rocks. How the fuck did that happen?
As if all this wasn’t bad enough, I got an email from Kinky Salon San Francisco. They said we’d stolen their name and they wanted to start their club in London. I spun out. Everything I’d built was falling apart.
In February 2010 K____ and I visited our new friend Katie Sarra in Devon. I had met Katie at the Night of the Senses in 2008, when Kinky Salon was nominated for Best Club and she was up for Best Artist. (She won, we didn’t.) Katie and I became friends immediately, and in the months that followed she painted live at Kinky Salon and I gave her a Kinky Initiation. So when she offered us a chance to spend a few days at her beautiful Dairy Cottage, we jumped at the chance.
During that trip K____ had a Yoni Healing with Katie that proved to be the death knell in our relationship. With consummate skill Katie released the anger and grief our difficult relationship had locked into K____’s body. As they emerged from Katie’s temple I knew something terrible had happened. A month later K___ ended our relationship.
Meanwhile Ewelina and I had mutually decided that Switch wasn’t serving us. Within a few weeks I had lost my lover and my business partner.
The next three months were pretty scary. For a while I’d had the idea for a venue that would host sex-positive events, and the name Sacred Pleasures. A couple of weeks after the break-up I decided to go for it. But in truth I didn’t really know what ‘it’ was: at this stage it was just a name and a vague, amorphous concept. Fortunately I made an excellent decision at this juncture: I surrendered to the process and allow it to tell me what to do next. I had learnt from the 5-MeO journey that the best thing to do was simply to step out of the way. And so my latest, and perhaps greatest, (ad)venture was born.
Although Sacred Pleasures was new, a lot of the groundwork had already been done. Through Fakir Tour and Dossie’s visit I’d gathered a fantastic mailing list and gained valuable experience of hosting these types of events. Through Switch I’d learned about collaboration and partnership, and also about staging beautiful events on small budgets. Through Kinky Salon (which we subsequently renamed After Pandora) I’d learned about hosting play parties and building a loving, sex-positive community. And through 7 years of journeying with my Tribe, I had become an Ethical Pervert, someone who could create and hold space for individuals and groups to experience deep and wondrous healing magic.
Although I didn’t fully know it yet, I was fucking ripe for this!
The year that followed was a rollercoaster of personal growth, intense learning and beautiful peak experiences. Soon after we opened I did my first ritual suspension, described in detail here. A couple of months later Dossie came to London again. Amazing people came and a new community started to form. There were hook-pulls, pleasure parlours, play parties and much much more. And somewhere along the way Claire became deputy dog, an invaluable and integral part of the business.
It’s been a year since SP opened its doors. This time last year, at Lammas, we set our stall with an Open Day. Tomorrow, to mark the occasion, I will once again suspend with the wonderful Yossie Silverman, my trusted shaman and piercer.
It’s been a year none of us will ever forget. When I think about how beautiful it’s been, I get a shiver – what my friend Naamah would call ‘affirmation bumps.’
And according to Avanti, next year will be even more intense. Bring it on!
Faerie will be sharing aspects of his journey and his practice at Your Kinky Cherry on Weds 7th Sept. Find out more >>
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