The first play party I ever went to, we were going around in the opening circle and everyone was sharing their mildest and wildest desires. One person at a time there would be an announcement about a yearning for a foursome with dildos and floggers, followed by roaring cheers and laughter. Then another announcement about a toe fetish, followed by a hand shooting quickly up. “Oooh oooh! Choose me!”
I sat there in a stream of silent suffocating tears. I was the only person who couldn’t share in this group of 52 wild ones. Because what I really wanted was embarrassing. I wanted love in a sea of debaucherous lust.
When the play party finally started, I scurried out of the dome with a blanket dragging behind me like Lionel from the Peanuts and grabbed some supplies from my tent. A beeswax candle. My journal. A pack of cigarettes.
Melted the beeswax candle onto the wooden picnic table, lit it with a lighter, then my cigarette in the candle. The stars above shone fiery and a majestic sort of sad. Ah, that’s the vibe.
I started writing in my journal about how I was really feeling. Until one by one all the other dejected love-seekers in the orgy pen came out to join me.
“Oh my god, is that a cigarette?! Can I have a drag?”
Somehow, we felt like we were the naughty ones, smoking cigarettes (gasp!) in Southern California, while tantrikas groaned shamelessly in a pit of oxytocin for all the solar system to hear.
“Can we get in trouble for this??”
Over the next few years, I dated a ton of Really Good People. My next big love was with a man I still think is probably more of a saint than a human. He forever changed the shape of my heart, and met my love-hungry bits in ways I desperately needed.
But no matter how well-loved I was, there was always something missing when I got into relationships with monogamous people. The lusty erotic free part of me felt trapped and hung up.
When this man and I finally broke up, he said to me, “I think I’m meant to deliver you to your Big True Love.” And I said to him, “It’s time for me to marry my soul’s aliveness.”
I got horribly clear that this meant I could no longer hide that I was polyamorous. I had to come all the way out.
One October night, I was wearing a harmless yellow dress with pearl buttons down the center, all the way from bust to knees. I did a witchy ritual with myself where I shouted at God down by the ocean (my favorite kind of ritual). I hollered and bemoaned and insisted that I NEEDED to be met in the FULL aliveness of my soul. That I refused to fold in, contort or hide any longer.
“Bring me a man who can meet all of my complexity. All of my beauty. All of my loyalty. All of my sensuality,” I cried.
“I’m willing! I’ll no longer hide.”
Then, I put it on the internet, just for funsies.
The next day — I mean THE VERY NEXT DAY — I met Seann at a conventional restaurant in a somewhat conservative town. And in that first meeting, Seann name dropped not one, but two books on polyamory. At first, I was taken aback. Did he really just do that?
And then, I was completely clear, without an ounce of doubt: I called him there to that restaurant through that ritual. Through that devotion. Through that pounding expression of truth that I shouted to God (and Instagram) the night before.
Only when we come all the way out do we make ourselves “touchable and findable” as David Whyte phrases it.
The thing is, I spent years not believing that what I truly wanted — a loyal husband to make babies and grow a family with, who also shared a polyamorous identity — could exist for me.
But the cliché concept of “if it exists in you, it exists in someone else,” is cliché for a reason. It’s true. And like Rumi says, it’s all about removing the barriers between yourself and love. Which I really think is about removing the barriers between yourself and your truest expression of love. Because again, how will you ever get met in your most honest ecstatic places if those parts of you are closeted, tucked away, stashed in shameful, doubtful hiding?
It’s a lesson in romantic love, but it’s also a lesson in platonic love, creative love and vocational love.
Are your the truest, most turned on and joyful you in your friendships? In your wild scribbles across the page? In your professional collaborations? Or are you settling for a dulled down version of yourself? And therefore, dancing a less ignited communion between you and everybody else?
At the end of the day, we all want love. Big love. Butterflies in our bellies, ride-or-die resonance. The fastest way to get it is to be clear and vocal — touchable and findable — in your most authentic expression of love. And the fastest way to kill it is to keep your yearning locked away in a tiny box in the back of your closet, dusted over. To let the fear of not getting met… guarantee it.
I know this can be a dangerous endeavor. Come with risks of loss or exile. Judgement or banishment. Freeze, collapse, anxiety or panic. That’s par for the course when you’re expanding your capacity for pleasure. None of us – trauma histories, or otherwise – are wired from the start to go to the edges of our yeses. We’re wired to protect from threat. And we rarely let down our guards unless we’re guided to do so in an environment of relative safety and trust. Unless our souls insist that we MUST, and our hearts lead us to a place where finally, finally — we can.
At the beginning of my journey with love, I didn’t know – couldn’t admit to myself – how much I wanted a polyamorous partner. I felt twisted inside, like something was wrong with me that I couldn’t be satisfied with the perfectly lovely people who loved me.
Ultimately, my need to be securely chosen was stronger than my need to choose myself. Still, each time I was loved better and better by monogamous men and women, the tension between my truth and my reality would get worse. They’re really great, but I don’t think we’re all the way aligned. Fuuuuck. What do I dooo?!?
Friends and teachers, books and ethically slutty elders, had the answer. They kept insisting that more was possible for me. That I could have it ALL. That it was naive to think secure attachment and polyamory didn’t go together. Proof that I was still so young, with much to learn about the way the world of truth and alignment really works.
Alignment requires knowing where your body and soul draw your realest yeses and realest nos. And we can’t always get to that truth in our minds. We have to find our way there through a pussy that won’t get wet. Through a heart that won’t all the way open. Through the words we swallow only to eventually vomit forth, no longer able to hide from ourselves or anyone else.
There are consequences to love this big. It won’t let you pretend or half-heartedly befriend a romance with life that is not your own. It will force you to know your honest desirous fantasies and then put them into reality one twisted, erotic, terrifying day a time.
You will be called into a kinky tryst with Doubt. You will be asked to find out how long you’re willing to tilt your mouth open in waiting, down on your knees, surrendered and free. Bound to your truth. Already devoted.
But then, when big love meets you there in your most clear and unfettered offering, you will belong to yourself, I mean REALLY belong to yourself, just as much as you belong to the emerging song between you and everyone else.
And this – this will make you a SIREN. Irresistible. Spell-binding. Enrapturing. Drenched.
As in love, so in business.
As in love, so in creativity.
As in love, so in community.
Where are you hiding your wildest siren song?
Where do you long to be met even more?
I’m singing at your shore, mouth open, inviting you into the water.
Maybe it’s a bad idea. Or maybe it’s the best idea ever.
Xox,
Rachael
PS – I’ve got a new offer for 6 seasoned CEOs, coaches, authors and creators who are ready to marry their souls aliveness in their work even more. If you’re hungry to come into your next biggest expression of love – and be met there by your clients and audience (holy shit, it can be this good?!?) – let’s danceeeee. 6 months beginning in October. Early enrollment discount for the month of Feb only. By the end, you’ll be down on your knees, mouth open in an erotic duel with the mystery, certain, even in your yearning, that your juiciest YES is about to hit you like a first kiss with your favorite lover of all time. Clickity click. <3
PPS – If you’re looking for support from a sage sister on all things polyamorous love, check out my friend Irene Morning’s new book, The Polyamory Paradox: Finding Your Confidence in Consensual Non-Monogamy. It’s reallll good. xo