SEX & SOUL: Integrity, Power, Desire
An IN PERSON workshop in Boulder, CO
Postponed to Fall 2024 (likely November- stay tuned!)
For women, non-binary folks and femmes
Only 12 spots available.
Held at a home studio in Boulder. Location given upon registration.
7 spots at full price. 1 spot at a 10% discount, 1 spot at a 20% discount. The 40% discount spot has been claimed. Please read my SLIDING EQUITY SCALE page for details and discount codes. Payment Plans (4 biweekly payments) are available and calculated at check out. Longer payment plans available by request.
This is a space to cultivate and illuminate your erotic life.
This work is reverent, compassionate and soulful.
This weekend will be an immersion into what Sarah Byrden has termed, A “Great Remembering”… based in a unique translation of Daoist and Chinese 5-Element cosmologies and delivered with potent transmission and integrity, this is workshop offers a unique and certain “gravitas”, true encounter with a power and and integrity that is rare in modern sacred sexual teachings and cultivation. It is for cis-women, non-binary folks and femmes, and a fit for you whether you are currently partnered, single, sexually active or celibate.
Who are you sexually from the inside out, beyond performance or socialization? Is your desire speaking for conditioning or for the deepest part of you? What is the true integrity of your sexual energy, beyond a concept? What does true power in the sexual realm feel like, as a sense in your animal body? What would it mean to hone, cultivate and trust your deep desire? What is longing to heal and express in your sexual life? What is orgasm beyond a discharge of energy? What is pleasure beyond titillation? What if you knew that your desire was a signal trying to reach toward your personal destiny? What if I told you that any expression of beauty is a Yang expression? That Yin energy is all but demure and contains a formidable mountain of power? How would a new mythology about Yin and Yang energy, expressed through the cells of our body, change your understanding of yourself and your relationship to everything? (These teachings will turn every concept of “masculine” and “feminine” on its head in the most life-giving and freeing way.)
This workshop will hold a container for the inner intimacy that is required if we are to make the brave passage into the deeper areas of our sexual truth. It will be a sincere, honest and deep dive. Together, we will cultivate sexual energy and Eros (in a non-sexual way), courage, vulnerability, honest expression, longing and a capacity to hear the deep stirrings of our personal sexual souls, outside of the limitations of identity, performance, habit and socialization.
Our container will be woven through the potent technology of sexual archetypal qigong forms, biomorphic primal and fluid movement on the ground, life-changing teachings on Yin and Yang energy that will shift your understanding and embodiment of self in profound ways, self-inquiry, writing, voicing, witness and community nourishment. The power of being in person together is what creates the ground for personal breakthroughs, insights and powerful healing. There is no replacement for our time together in body and space.
Our questions and challenges around sexuality are as infinite and unique as we are. We will hold space for the intricate nature of our sexual lives and have space for questions that are alive for participants spanning choice in partners, low libido, high libido, a great love of sex, a great fear and sadness around sex, creative blocks, sexual addiction, sexual disinterest, self-respect and body love, the pain and shame of sex and sexuality, our deepest longings to be “seen and met”, the rightful place of vulnerability and emotion…
Participants need to know they have the confidence, physical centering, and psychic anchoring to hold them in time and space. A clear sense of containment is required. This workshop is not a fit for those who may be currently feeling destabilized, traumatized, struggling to heal, or in need of reestablishing basic nervous system or life coherency or in fresh stages of healing from sexual trauma.
**Please note that there will not be any nudity, request of sexual energy exchange between participants, or sexually explicit demonstrations at this workshop. Any anatomical teaching will be demonstrated on silicon models of respective anatomy. This work is taught in a culture of reverence and care It is non-sexual in its delivery. To that end, the same level of respect is asked of participants.
ABOUT THIS WORK
Our sexuality is one of the most fundamental aspects of our lives. It is our most intimate, vulnerable, and personal sphere, and is more important and all-encompassing than we ever imagined—it is the most sacred and primary energy that we have. When we are far away from our true sexual energy, which is the root of our existence, we suffer in many areas of our lives.
Ancient Daoism and Chinese Medicine hold sexuality in its rightful place as a primordial power and acknowledge it as the fundamental energy of every aspect of our lives—responsible for physical health, vitality, creativity, generosity, trust in life, and our ability to live a life that is aligned with our unique and original purpose. Our sexuality holds, quite literally, the code to our destiny.
This workshop will be a homecoming, a great and beautiful remembering of the inherent goodness of sexuality that will return you to your sacred self and the wild river of your life. If you have made it this far, there is a longing and a question that has already been stirring inside of you. You are in the right place. This is a sanctuary for intimate questions, desires, and struggles around sexuality, and a place to receive somatic practice technologies that will bring you closer to the power, dignity, truth-telling and essential goodness of your sexual energy.
Whether you are in a partnership, single, choosing celibacy, and no matter your sexual orientation or gender identification, this is the place for you to move into a more integrated, embodied, and intimate relationship with your sexuality.
ABOUT YOUR GUIDE, SARAH BYRDEN
Sarah Byrden is a somatic educator, writer, storyteller and wilderness guide of 25 years. She believes that our sexuality and sexual lives are of the most essential, potentially endangered and extraordinary wildernesses of humanity, in need of a new and trustworthy mythology, energetic and somatic understandings and technologies that reach deeper than culture, and a reverence for the soul inside of sex that our lives depend on. She is a two time TEDx presenter and carries over 2,500 hours of formal training in western and non-western healing modalities. Sarah has worked with thousands of students through the various facets of her work, ages 13-80, from Indonesia to the Himalayas, Coast to Coast in the United States, from grassroots movements on college campuses to retreat settings and front porches. She has been teaching depth sexuality work, based in archetypal qigong, Chinese 5 element teachings, and Daoist understandings of sexual energy for over a decade, breathing sexual ground, integrity, coherence and sanity into adults in both mainstream and new age spirituality circles, survivors of sexual violence and students on college campuses. She founded The Elemental Self in 2012 as a bastion of soul-centered work and is a tried, true and trusted master of her craft. Her style is grounded, real, loving and full of heart and soul. Sarah’s work builds bridges and catalyzes change. She creates conditions and experiences for reclamation, transformation, healing and remembering – inside of the self and between self, world and other. (Please note that Sarah is not a therapist, relationship coach or doctor of any kind.)
Please note : As of late 2019, Sarah Byrden no longer : endorses study with Zhenzan/Zhenevere Dao, teaches or studies in association with Zhen Dao or MogaDao, operates under the designation of “MogaDao Teacher”, represents, affiliates or endorses Zhen Dao’s teachings as a tradition or entity (MogaDao) in any way.