This week I walked in for my tarot reading shift at this incredible little shop in Seattle and realized it was a rock shipment day. More specifically, my coworker was in the process of unpacking about two dozen shiva lingam stones.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

These stones are pulled from a specific river and made in the shape of a phallus and come in all different sizes. They represent the divine masculine and feminine energies coming together and pack quite the punch.

We tend to have a lot of fun with shipments of stones. This one was no exception, especially seeing as we unpacked a few 12-inch, very girthy specimens. My coworker and I both being of the very feisty Leo variety enjoyed playing with and flaunting the energy of the stones as it permeated the store.

We are also of the quite-empowered-in-our-sexuality-and-unashamed-about-it variety. Our type seems to be coming to the forefront, especially as more women choose to remain single into their thirties. In many ways, it’s as if we have had no choice but to focus on self-empowerment.

Looking back on this latest Venus retrograde period, I’m quite intrigued by how body-focused it was for me; restricted diet, no caffeine or marijuana and very little alcohol. I felt myself coming into my body with a clarity I’ve never experienced before. It felt like an immense blessing, reinvigorating my commitment to walking the path of a paradigm-shifter and allowing that decision to infuse the essence of who I am at all levels.

I also swore off of sexual and intimate interaction with other people. It felt incredible just to be in my own energy and realign my values with an emphasis on taking care of myself at the physical level first and foremost.

Saturn through Scorpio took me for such an often-excruciatingly emotional ride that everything ended up feeling empty and dead. My sex drive went away entirely for a little bit there. This was an entirely foreign experience for me, but a necessary part of healing.

Venus retrograde was like a reset button for my entire being with Saturn providing the necessary discipline and motivation I needed to focus on health and purification. Now I have a more visceral sense of the merging of the divine feminine and the divine masculine within me, giving me some hope that I might get to do some of that conscious co-creating I keep writing about.

One of the areas I’m most passionate about is sexuality and relationship. I don’t write about it here very often but it is a primary focus in the work I do. A friend and I had a conversation the other day about the observation that our culture is changing so rapidly, and new ways of thinking and being emerging so quickly, that it almost seems like we’re facing trial by fire. We were speaking specifically about sex and love and the ways a fiery essence can make things feel more enticing and possible than normal. The opportunities to just let go and flow into new ways of being seem to be surrounding us all the time.

I revisit a conversation about non-monogamy with my therapist pretty frequently. He often reminds me that there are reasons our societal structures exist in the forms they’re in; that the institutions of marriage and family exist because relationships are hard, child-rearing is hard, and we need rules and models.

Sometimes it seems like he uses that “they’re hard” argument as justification for the status quo, which makes me bristle. To me, the fact that they’re hard combined with the fact that our current institutions seem to be breaking down quite rapidly indicate that we need to encourage exploration into other ways of doing relationship.

Imagine if it was the norm to have an entire network of support around a child — extended maternity leave, aunts, uncles, friends and mentors who not only help out with child care but provide the child with alternate versions of whatever mom and dad are modeling. Maybe that sounds Utopian for some, but some of us are here to bring the Utopian to Earth and figure out how to make it work. Because we have to.

I live in a city with a thriving non-monogamous community. I am part of a ‘secret’ group on the book of faces that now has over 900 members — all of whom identify as or are dating someone who identifies as polyamorous. I know more non-monogamous people who are not part of that group. Every time I turn around another couple I know is opening their relationship.

To add to that, the kink community is thriving as well. People are in fact opening up to different ways of relating, of embracing their sexuality, and of experiencing both on terms that are on completely uncharted paths. We are carrying forward the experiments of the Sixties, but outside of the communes and cults. Of course there are people for whom these alternative styles are not working, but I keep coming in contact with people for whom it is working extremely well. It’s very heartening.

My period of detoxification reminded me of the importance of loving myself first, of aligning my day-to-day life and practices with my values, and of making sure that I am owning my own experience — whether it is fiery and overtly sexual or inwards and in need of down time. Now, however, in a long-awaited outward flux, I feel the hustle and bustle of my love for life and my enthusiasm for doing everything I can to lead as authentic an existence as possible. I’ll enjoy it while it’s here.