Piercing Through The Mindfucks | Psy-Fi's Sacred Island Workshop on Sex Magic - Pt. 1/7 (feat. Dara & Simon)

Psychedelic festivals are not 'merely' a place for self-discovery, self-expression and the gathering of the tribes. An integral part of any good psy festival is the broad offer of seminars, workshops and lectures aimed at specific topics to further enable healing and the overcoming of hangups in the listeners who are willing to learn and work through their barriers.

And while I have been wanting to participate in many of those workshops over the years, I have always found myself happily stuck at the mainfloor, unwilling to give up the experience in order for long-term healing prospects. This year at Psy-Fi festival however, I saw a workshop series on the timetable that seemed too important to skip.

And boy am I happy I went to check it out!

Sex Magic

The workshop that attracted me on the timetable was called "Sex Magic" and I figured I would give myself some room on that Friday to participate and hear what the lecturers had to say, vowing to cut some mainfloor time off my plans in order to learn something about myself and to work on some presumable sexual hangups I feel no longer serve me.

And so I went dancing that day and eventually walked over to the 'Healing Island" where all the workshops on the festival are taking place during the week. A place where connection is not only probable but hard to avoid.

Meet Simon & Dara, contemporary shamans

When I arrived I was amazed and not really surprised: The big tent for the workshops was packed and about 100 additional listeners were sitting in front of the tent on the grass listening intently. I felt like I belonged here, the vibe was amazing and so I sat down next to a group of girls listening to Simon and Dara with keen interest, smiling at me as I approached.

We all knew we had a reason to be here ;)
Here you see the Sacred Island with the workshop tents as it looked in 2017

The workshop had already begun and I was thrilled to hear the loving attitude Simon had when he was talking into the microphone - here was a dude who shared his vulnerability story with all of us in order to show us that mindfucks to sexuality are pretty much inherent in our society where sex is both emphasized and - at the same time - taboo'ized.

He shared how he got into sex as a young adult and how his first sexual partner helped him immensely to not get hung up on self-imposed performance pressures and worries. His lighthearted approach to this rather intimate topic set off a wave of relaxation in the many listeners - we all felt we had always wondered about the things Simon was talking about from his own experiential perspective and the many smiles I saw in the group of listeners underscored that impression.

Instead of dwelling on his own story, Simon included the listeners in his lecture like I have rarely seen before - it was anything else than a one-way lecture. It felt almost like he was moving the audience consciously to be a little more vulnerable than we normally allow ourselves to be, and that dawned on me and seemingly many others around me: "Hey if we're gonna be vulnerable to learn something about ourselves, might as well do it here, on a psychedelic festival where the dogmas, pressures and artificial notions of "civilized society" rarely ever get in the way of connecting to likeminded people with similar issues on the search for healing."

Within 5 minutes of listening we had arrived at a somewhat crucial point: "So, if I can ask you, how long do you usually last? I ask this because it's a problem for many guys out there who are scared to death to admit it. And putting that pressure on yourself is the first roadblock to breaking through your constraints. So I will just ask into the group randomly, if you feel you want to last longer in sex can I just hear some durations you would like to work on?"

A guy in front of me looked at his girlfriend next to him and raised his hand as she smiled: "15 minutes!" People giggled in understanding, not the type of laughing at someone but rather a chuckle of relief. Here was someone mentioning the unspeakable, and we all felt strengthened in the impression that we really could be vulnerable here - all of us had a story we wanted to work on, and in that we felt united.

"15 minutes, cool. Anyone else?"

"Pretty much forever, well, until she begins to scream then it's always over", someone said. People laughed, many dudes nodding with a smile on their face. I could totally relate. The moment she really starts to enjoy it the self-imposed pressure I feel usually makes it all come to an end. It had been a great idea coming here. We already felt more connected than most groups of "strangers" I had been part of in my life.

"Yeah, pretty ladies make you lose your mind when they are screaming your name huh?" Simon smiled and the dude nodded again, looking somewhat proud to just have shared some of his inner vulnerability without being made fun of by anyone.

"How about you dude, can I ask?" Simon said to a dude sitting in front. "It all depends on my alcohol level, but I really want to last longer without it"

"Yeah and you can man, we've all been there. Thanks for sharing."

Simon looked to the back of the tent again. Now that the basic atmosphere of trust and shared vulnerability had been set some dude really got his courage together and yelled:

"10 seconds!!"

And the whole tent laughed, both girls were smiling at one another with a huge twinkle, and many of the guys around me almost looked liberated. And I felt the same way: "Wow, I guess it's a common issue nobody ever talks about in public" I thought. Awesome!

Whenever you have a lot of conscious people in the same space all bundling their intention and motivation for gathering, real magic can happen. It was palpable, and many of those just wandering by the tent stopped to sit down and listen.

I sensed this could really go somewhere, and it did. Mightily so...
Here's a taster of the two so you can get a feel for them, filmed at Psy-Fi festival 2017, before we dive deeper in the next part of this series as to what transpired and how it changed me.

You can find out more about the two and their work on their official websites daraandsimon.com & nakedtheretreat.com or read up on part 2 tomorrow.

To be continued...

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Thanks for stopping by <3