WhimNRhythm

EDITORIAL NOTE: This reader-written guest essay has not been edited to maintain the authentic voice of the essayist.

The seductive Susan Marilyn Block read an essay that I wrote in her honor as part of her radiant radio show, one super Saturday night—now forever timeless in my memory—and the great, gathered at the Dr. Susan Block Institute, shared tantalizing transformational therapy, timely for our current circumstances, while we listened from our room at my father’s house in Buford, Georgia!

We, included husband, and all around life reflection, BeLive, also known as Brian James Lucas, Moffett, and Chef BeLive, and I relate with the what actress Megan Fox famously said about Machine Gun Kelly being her twin flame, or the same soul— “El Sol” (the sun, the light)—in different human bodies—so sharing the story from my perspective may, in some ways, include his. . .

Our room, while we listened to the dear doctor was part of a wondrously white house atop a slight hill, of once densely wooded Native American territory, more recently portioned into properties, father’s a half acre that also sheltered my dear half-sister Aliela, who was 27 years younger than me, and who lived there every other week, as father shared her with her mother, who lived in another house close by.

The side yards of the house included native trees, along with several prolific species from China—that the internet described as invasive—but we adored because they invited flocks of wild singing birds who relished eating the small fruit that grew from the callery pear, wild apple trees, and privet that grew in the wooded areas of the property!

The resilient snow-tolerant plants may have descended from a diamond cutter from China who previously lived at our house, and according to our neighbor on the right, had a practice of cutting diamonds in the driveway—allowing the resplendent diamond dust to blow and settle into the front lawn!

I had worked determinedly last fall to remove most of the grass in the backyard, and created divided plots for a winter “greens” garden, but wasn’t able to plant it before the freezing temperatures made starting seeds outside impossible, so instead, BeLive and I worked together to create a summer garden with the most rare edible medicinal plants we could find including an “Incan Golden Berry” plant, a “PawPaw” tree, a “blackberry jam” plant, “Litchi” cherries, American beauty berry plants, Garden Huckleberries, “Dreadlock” amaranth, heirloom tomatoes, Chinese Pink Celery, Malabar spinach, Hopi purple, pink, and blue corn, “Lemon Drop” watermelons, Japanese soybeans, and many other types of vegetables and fragrant herbs!

Our back neighbor, Angela, a seasoned homesteader—and former beauty Queen from Romania—gave us chicken manure to nourish our plants, from a coop full of chickens that grazed and pecked about, just behind our back fence, cockle-doodle-doodle-doodling freely as they pleased!

There was a flock of six Guinea birds that occasionally visited, squawking thanks and praise at us for collecting so many bags of leaves that made nice homes for the tiny creatures they enjoyed feasting upon.

And then there was our most-communed with animal friend, a Labrador German Shepherd puppy from relatives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, named Diamond, who persistently reminded everyone of the sparkling essence of playfulness, and loving adoration that connected us!

The particular night we listened to the Dr. Suzy show, BeLive recovered from a brutal attack on his life that happened outside of a local pizza Tavern that caused him to regain consciousness inside of a local hospital— feeling like the unknowing victim of a hate crime, so as he and I soothed ourselves in the small room, lit with green, blue, and pink grow lights, the plants quivered with delight as the hypnotic voices of Dr. Suzy and her charismatically bohemian husband of 35 years, “Captain” Maximillian Lobkowicz sent dear husband to a regenerative dimension—some call sleep.

I was only able to “tease” the idea of us calling in, as the dear doctor astutely mentioned on the show—while I left comments on the Facebook Live Stream—as BeLive only returned from the astral realm just as the show was ending…

Nevertheless, there was so much resonant synchronicity in everything she and Max said; and the stimulating topics were so much more sensuous and enlightening than the previous week’s “Luzer,” war-themed political conversations —and as a total surprise—she read my Facebook response to that “Ukraine Love Train” show, while she and Max spoke lovely affirmations about my writing, “far out,” Max said—and also, I very much dug—the show!!!

The married humor and graciousness modeled in Dr. Suzy’s exchanges with Maximillian Lobkowicz—who is a self-exiled prince, from a noble family, in the region formerly known as Bohemia, now the Czech Republic — warmed me gently, and the whole experience was like getting live, personal, ASMR—Autonomous sensory meridian response—Brain Orgasm Therapy!

I felt the release of endorphins, oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin in such copious amounts that I prepared a special supper of supremely sublime slop to slobber husband—who was, deservingly, born during the Chinese year of the golden pig!

In all seriousness, sharing harmoniously attuned and aligned sensuality is always crucial for us, and especially now, as we create magic pleasure portals, to more expansive living environments, preferably with pristine bodies of water and plenty of paradisaical fruit trees nearby— where we are free to be nude, in the sunshine—as is natural and healthy, and has even been endorsed by some governments, such as Germany for health reasons!

Until then, I am a featured author in a nude fine art photography, and empowerment book called “Natural Beauty,” conceived and photographed by esteemed West Coast, and Burning Man festival photographer, Kyer Wiltshire!

The book shares essay celebrations of the body, written by women, from all over the earth—in many languages—along with portraits created with the most gorgeous, preserved, wild, and treasured landscapes within the planet!

When I started this particular writing, I was doing my best to rewire my neurological pathways around how my father—who’d always adamantly encouraged my literacy, writing, and ability to articulate myself clearly, chose to hide ( rather than to actually read the essay in the book —that I wrote in honor of him and my mother ) after I had proudly opened it to my page, and announced, that it was my first published written work, on the kitchen table for him to read!

Later, when I noticed him hurriedly putting the large coffee table book out of sight, and asked him why he was doing so, he said emphatically, that he did not want little sister Aleila to see the book.

In a somewhat dramatic display of respecting his wishes, I did my best to command BeLive to take the book to the car, where it wouldn’t offend—but mostly where I wouldn’t have to see it, and be reminded of the dismal failure to translate a sense of loving celebration to the father I felt I’d venerated.

My mother threw the copy that I sent her—that currently retails at $60 dollars—in the trash.

My brother, being a fine art photographer himself—and lover of well photographed boobs, who had previously given me brotherly advice on how I could use my spirituality to improve the perkiness of my breasts, sensed the value of it, saved it, and shared the news with me on a phone call from Orlando, so perhaps the command from father Marv that the book be hidden, was a slight improvement, though my fathers’ repeated insistence that I avoid or hide aspects of who I was from my sister—what he described as an effort to “insulate” her against certain “adult” influences—was a shock to my system!

When we arrived at my fathers house, Aleila was the age that I had been when my father had effectively abdicated his role as parent (to my brother and I) when the courts granted our mother the legal ability to move us across the country to Orlando, Florida.

From 8 to 13, while I lived at my grandmother’s house in Florida, Daddy wrote us detailed individual letters explaining the situations that prevented him from being an active father to us during those years.

Later, when I was 13, in high school, and had chosen to live with him after he relocated closer to us—from California to Georgia—he continued to speak openly with me about all matters, including sexuality, even memorably, when I was 14, explaining to me what golden showers were, so it was truly astonishing, that at 36, that he was emphatically “not interested” in even speaking about or reading my first ever published writings in a book available to the public.

Prior to this visit, I had idolized my father and prefaced ahead of most others his well considered reflections about life. He has most often exuded a contagious fun-loving enthusiasm, and as a child observing his extraordinary physical abilities (he continued to do back handspring, and balance on thin railings, even while we were there at the age of 64) he made traveling as a family an adventure.

He had always candidly shared with me the details of his intimate life—as if I was one of his friends, and when I was 27, he said that he allowed a woman he had waning romantic interest in to give birth to my sister because he had a deep natural impulse to “nurture progeny.”

He later divorced Aleila’s mother, but while we were living there, he continued to share a bed with nine-year old Aleila.

I heard him speaking sternly at her for wearing her underwear in the hallway, outside of his bedroom—ostensibly because he didn’t want her exposed to BeLive and I, which I found disturbing at the time.

Father had given me a dress code requirement while living at his house, and asked that I always wear clothing around Aleila— which had been challenging after spending almost a decade with BeLive, who for 33 years has surrounded himself with Rainbow & Grateful Dead Family, Tribes of Burning Man, and raw foodie naturalists.

In these subcultures, nudity around other human beings is a more common practice, and, generally speaking, nudity, and a liberated expression of the body is embraced as a natural, and healthy part of the fun of being human!

My “step-son” Zivu, who was raised with these cultures, has shared with us the joys of nude bathing at Harbin Hot Springs, and with his fiancé Vana we’ve had many family gatherings where shared bathroom time is part of the adventure!

When we lived together in Long Beach we watered the plants with the living water whenever it was easy and pleasant, and also left golden offerings in containers so as to allow the flow of creative ideas and fluids to Be Relaxed and Loving!

My childhood was very different. My parents divorced when I was 5, and during the court’s custody proceedings, I was required to be assessed by a court psychologist—who required that my brother and I write our feelings.

In middle school, because my mom was very strict and didn’t allow me to play as often as the other students after school— but had a major fetish for craft supplies, I defended myself, and Daddy—in the crafty journals she would buy me—when she would accuse me of being various curse words “just like [my] fucking father.”

I also yearned for, and wrote about him rescuing me from that more intense circumstance, and he did, giving me the opportunity to educate myself at one of the most celebrated public performing arts schools in Georgia at the time, North Springs High School—where The Cosby Show alum Raven Simone was in my freshman year drama class.

I’m not naive enough to believe that the radically expanded perspectives, that I have cultivated since—through education, at one of the most esteemed communication and film universities (University of Southern California), years of devoted yoga practice with internationally influenced instructors, the past 10 years of dedicated experimentation with entheogens; and public sex therapy over the past 6 years of being involved with The Dr. Susan Block Institute for The Erotic Arts and Sciences—are to be expected from dear father; certainly not while he described himself as a willing “corporate slave.”

I did, however, have to leave the house when he played his weekly live stream of the Unitarian Universalist Church service on Sunday’s. Not because I have anything against them, as an institution, it’s just that father—who called himself an atheist—sternly asked me not to share, while in little sister Aleila’s presence, the story of how I first fantasized about “jumping out of my window,” when I was her age—in the service of explaining why the cannabis plant has been an important medicine for relaxing some of the chronic, and debilitating health conditions that have existed in our family, including asthma, allergies, and chronic need for tissues that both my father and Aleila suffer from— so it was triggering to notice him trying to guide Aleila to listen to these Unitarian members—whom she clearly did not like as much as she liked me—share their heavy stories of overcoming adversity—when Father had so actively restricted her own sister from sharing hers !

I had hoped Aleila’s mother would understand and support the need for honest transparency around sharing some of the health issues I’d dealt with since I was 8, in the service of creating greater family understanding, especially while we cohabited together, and most especially since father had shared with us concern about his showing predisposition toward his mothers’ debilitating Alzheimer’s syndrome, even going so far as to suggest several times to me and BeLive that he was worried about early onset dementia—one night accused BeLive, over the phone, of abducting Aleila, while he and I were watching a movie at the theatre, and Aleila was sleeping peacefully at her mother’s house—but alas, and here’s an Easter egg for you Disney Encanto lovers; I was the proverbial Bruno in this scenario, and both of Aleila’s parents agreed, “We don’t talk about Daniele! Oh, no, no!”—at least not in a way that honestly acknowledges the reasons why she moved in!

The name Bruno is of course subversively referencing the archetypal Brujo, or Witch, Witch doctor ( also known to modern science as an HSP or “Highly Sensitive Person”)—the one that has challenged the communal status quo and journeyed to realms that others in the community fear…

One of those realms, is that sister Daniele—since inciting, along with her then boyfriend Brian (aka Cheffy BeLive), a very public news-televised entertainment controversy, featured on major news websites, all over the world, that lasted on and off for a couple years, due to her involvement, playing a servant, in a controversial Academy award winning film, Django Unchained, (among other reasons)—had been either unable or unwilling to continue creating much money for herself within the capitalist system, we Americans have been conditioned to believe, is what makes our country great.

Shortly after their TMZ and CNN fueled public sex story faded from the news, and her acting residual paychecks dropped down to below the poverty level, she convinced husband to sleep with her in the back of his old red truck next to the Pacific Ocean, and other places in Los Angeles, and to support their basic needs with energy exchanges with kind people.

When the last energy exchange (sorting through mounds of decaying junk for several weeks at Jacob, the Chimemaker’s house) led to stepson Zivu asserting, over the phone, that the two were no longer welcome at the house (after they’d spent 4 years organizing, sorting, and donating an weekly expanding collection of decay filled salvaged items, making the space possible for him, his sister, Inanna, and their mother, Leoné, to have a home there—) Danièle’s mental health took a turn for the worse, and she called father Marv in a suicidal haze! Thanks to that call, he offered them a room — in the big white house!

I’m certain that my almost daily private decision to continue exploring my connection with LSD, cannabis, psilocybin and other entheogenic substances, over the past year, while residing at my fathers house, provided a necessary, visceral relief—allowing the relaxation necessary to balance the sad, depressed suicidal experiences—that had plagued me since I was 8–with more orgasmic euphoric expanded sensations of pleasure, happiness, and love.

Allowing pleasurable love to be a more dominant guide in my life connects with a time when BeLive and I were invited to reside in an RV in the parking lot of the Dr. Susan Block Institute for the Erotic Arts and Sciences, when it was based in Ingelwood, California, during the Fall of 2017.

Singing, and sharing love songs with others was the first intention that I shared during my initial erotic hypnotherapy session with Dr. Suzy.

At the time, I smoked and drank occasionally to cope with anxiety, and the idea of sharing my body and voice with others felt much less than the loving cherished ideal that I longed for.

Living at the institute was the first time that I privately microdosed LSD (I had been given by generous strangers in the parking lot at Grateful Dead shows) before participating in Dr. Suzy’s weekly sex therapy shows at the Institute.

Participating in her shows in this heightened state, fundamentally transformed the worry and shame I had previously associated with communal pleasure into a more sensitized, consensual, awareness of sharing love with others!

Like other experiences we’d had with Psychedelic exploration, her shows activated sensations we hadn’t felt since we were children, and instead of my parents hitting me for eating when I wasn’t “supposed to” or behaving in a way that made them uncomfortable, we were actively celebrated for expressing ourselves in ways that expanded our senses and creative adaptabilities—such as “Sploshing—helping us to recognize discomfort as temporary, and to consciously choose the most pleasurable way forward.

Now that Netflix, and the massively successful book turned documentary, “How to Change Your Mind,” has normalized the conversation around psychoactive exploration—it seems to that a natural evolution of this conversation is the beneficial effect that cannabis and other psychoactive plants and substances can have on our ability to become aware of and embody a more visceral awareness of love.

For the last 2 years BeLive has been doing everything possible to be sensitive with me as I’ve been processing the grief of my mother who has refused to speak with me— since I tried to help her clean her house during the spring of 2020–except for once, when I felt so desperate and lonely, I left her a message telling her I was planning to end my life.

At the time, amongst other troubling circumstances, I was so confused and concerned about my lost relationship with my mother, who worked as a nurse at Florida Adventist hospital during the 2020 Covid pandemic—I don’t remember much of the conversation… It was mostly me sobbing, begging her to explain why she hadn’t been able to speak with me.

She started to explain that it felt like someone was hitting her over and over again— at that point I wasn’t able to hold the phone to my ear, I was so consumed by grief—that my attempts to help my mother clean her house and potentially eat healthier were seen by her as violent abuse.

She has since blocked or ignored all calls except for recently when we drove from Georgia to Florida to leave her flowers, she sent a text message thanking me for the flowers and explaining that she had “forgiven” me but that she could not have any conversation with me. When I texted asking why, she turned back into what the online Urban Dictionary describes as a ghost.

In my whole life I’ve never lived anywhere longer than 4 years. My parents and brother are the longest running loving relationships that have mattered most to me so it was devastating to watch my relationship with my parents, and especially my relationship with my mother—in the wake of my public sex therapy— crumble into an almost unrecognizable version of what they had been before.

When my Father refused to make time to speak with me during the Thanksgiving holidays about my mental health, and I instead started my weekly practice of calling the suicide prevention hotline for therapy, I spent most of the time from Thanksgiving to Christmas at the Korean spa in Atlanta doing my best to sweat and edit together a music video I had made of our family vacation.

The music video helped me focus (as my Aunty Darlene, my father’s half-sister had suggested) on the happy loving experiences we’ve had with my father, and also on the flowing water energy—perhaps a form of visual hydrotherapy—that was helping me remember the natural flow of life that was and continues to guide us!

At the end of the music video, I juxtaposed less than a second of me standing nude from behind in a clothing optional beach.

Later, I shared the music video with father and explained that going to clothing optional naturist areas was the most effective form of therapy that had worked for me (he had repeatedly asked that I receive therapy while I lived at his house), and explained that the moment had been filmed in an area designated for public nudity.

I also shared with him the scientific research data, (and my personal experience), that naturist activities created a mental health climate that makes for a better overall sense of physical wellness and enhanced self-esteem.

The more I explained, the more I realized that the love and care I thought my father valued and shared with me, he had redirected toward my sister— and especially the ideas he shared with her mother of how they would prefer to raise her.

So even though Aleilas mother— in most every interaction I’d had with her—had expressed insecurity and dissatisfaction with her own body, my father expressed that he would rather Aleila not be included in any music video that contains nudity, as a form of positive health-based therapy, though he wasn’t able to articulate any legal or intellectual reason that explained why.

During our last week at Father’s house, we deep cleaned the room he and Aleila shared. We moved the furniture, vacuumed and cleaned the dust layered walls, and fan, and furniture that my fathers’ corporate job had not given him time to notice or wash away.

I cleared Aleila’s toys that were covering bathtub counters, floors, and furniture, and returned them to her room, and in her room I cleared her bed covered with clothes, organizing them, and put them in closet space and drawers.

We transplanted several fragrant hyssop and alpine strawberry plants, a persimmon tree, an elderberry bush, Stevia, oswego tea, self-heal, pink lemonade blueberries, and a special herb for brain health—gotu kola.

I texted father explanations of everything we had done, but he never directly responded to any of them, and when he returned from his vacation, he added a new lock to his door, without bothering to share with me any explanation, telling BeLive only that he was “mad as hell,” and felt “violated.”

After leaving Georgia, we only made it to North Carolina before I was moaning on the street consumed with grief of how I was so unceremoniously dismissed by both of my parents.

Two ladies heard me moaning, one was a former social worker. She held me, and rubbed my back, and reminded me that I was “safe,” and that she could hear me.

I explained what had happened with my father, and she said she often heard stories, while working as a social worker, from young women she worked with, who found themselves in similar situations to mine.

She said her name was Sue, and her eyes sparkled like emeralds lit by fire as she left, and reminded me that I had to remember my strength.

By the time we reached St. Louis, my grief and stress had turned to anger. I was only able to remember my strength after hitting BeLive so hard in the head, I thought I’d fractured my hand.

Humbled by the pain in my hand, I called Dr.Suzy for a therapy session. She reminded me to cherish BeLive—and all that we are, and can be for one another—a crucial reminder because I haven’t had many close relatives in my very large extended family who have been able to share functional advice about marriage with me, from the perspective of it actually sustaining.

(Most of the marriages I’d witnessed on my Father’s side, while growing up, ended in divorce or separation, and my mother would often speak of the ruining trauma and disgrace she experienced because of her marriage and relationship with my father.)

For the last 9 years, I have been actively cultivating the mental, emotional, and energetic neuroplasticity required to reprogram my deep emotional dependence on my parents—and their fear-based programming—and to literally change my mind toward a belief in more expansive forms of love.

After my therapy call with Dr. Suzy, changing my mind meant going to the emergency room—a place I have avoided (even when I broke my ankle at 26) because of a deeply ingrained skepticism about the environment my mother worked in for all of her adult life that never cured the source of what ailed her.

BeLive and I sat on the concrete outside the ER at Baptist Health Madisonville Hospital Kentucky. I was exhausted and the thought of having to address strangers in that vulnerable state, and admit that I had ‘hit [my] husband in the head so hard I may have broken my hand,’ was daunting.

Too exhausted to hide my feelings, or resist help, I gulped a giant swig of a homemade cannabis mimosa MCT oil tincture, and I cried openly, with the hard concrete cradling me, and with the cannabis gently lubricating my ability to express how I felt. In this state, BeLive was able to recognize my fears with love.

While we were in Georgia, he had picked, dried, and cooked the delicate fluffy and fragrant pink mimosa blossoms, and dark green leaves into fractionalized coconut or MCT oil, creating a tincture that, when combined with cannabis, helped tremendously with my anxiety during our time at my fathers house, and our journey beyond.

After about a half hour or so of sitting on the concrete outside our car, the tincture relaxing my fear of hospitals, a kind older gentleman, dressed as a security guard, approached us asking if I needed wheelchair assistance.

Relieved, I accepted, and BeLive walked alongside as he wheeled me in. Thanks to the tincture I was relaxed enough to be honest with everyone there who asked, for hospital legal requirements, about how I had hurt my hand.

The tincture also made a noticeable difference in my ability to feel levity of spirit, and light-hearted humor with the humans who worked at the hospital, and also BeLive—who I was able to cherish, by my side, holding my hand.

As my hand recovered, we traveled through Kansas and Missouri staying in hotels. As we left Kansas for Colorado we had finished our reserves of our tincture, and were headed to meet a friend who had more cannabis for us in Denver.

For some reason unexamined and unknown to me I felt acute waves of anger, and without the soothing tincture, my nerves felt less than blissful as I tried my best to focus my energy on the task of driving.

When we arrived in Denver my suicidal thoughts had returned! I begged BeLive to leave me alone so I could process the feelings without directing the energy I was repressing at him, and sat in the bathroom moaning into the water for as long as I could.

When I couldn’t stay in the bath any longer, I tried to express to BeLive what I was feeling, but with his habit of interrupting, and desperate for someone who could remain neutral, and recognize the reality of what I was experiencing, I called 911.

I remembered, from calling the suicide prevention hotline (prior to hitting BeLive a week before), that the suicide prevention counselor had suggested that I call 911.

Back then in St. Louis the 911 operator sounded impatient with me when I couldn’t find an address and expressed that I didn’t have insurance or any known way to pay for ambulance services.

But when I called that night in Colorado, the 911 operator reassured me that whether I had insurance, or could pay or not, that someone at the hospital would be able to help me.

When I arrived at the North Suburban Medical Center, the whole thing felt like a scene from an acting class. I allowed myself an angry reaction when they asked me if I knew where I was—“at the fucking hospital, where my mom works,” I yelled before curling up into a ball and sobbing—the 8 or 9 people in the room—who seemed prepared to strap me down if necessary, all left.

After a few minutes, some primal instinct caused me to try to walk out of the hospital. I figured since I had called for help myself, and I had been abandoned, that I could leave by myself.

From the stern faces of the employees who cornered me and locked the sliding glass doors to the E.R., I deduced that I was being held by the law that allows people who are a “danger to themselves or others,” to be forcibly hospitalized without their continued consent.

When I asked urgently to use the bathroom, the male nurse blocked the door, and tried to tell me, in so many words, that I wasn’t listening to him well enough, and that I needed to listen to him—my bowels disagreed.

In what became a scene from a German psychological thriller, the team of at least 7 silently refused my request to file a formal complaint, or go to the bathroom, and after I dropped a hot juicy load of human compost on the floor—they forcibly carried me to the bed and strapped me in, smearing themselves in my brown fluids, and complaining audibly, as they tied my hands and feet, and shot my left shoulder with some needle that no one bothered to explain the contents of.

Hours later when I was finally given the chance to clean and speak with a therapist, whose job it was to decide if I could leave the hospital, I was told that it seemed like she was speaking with a different person than the person whose report she had read.

And ain’t that nature? Aren’t we all influenced by hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters to act in ways we wouldn’t otherwise?

My life had been defined by these types of natural disasters— inflicted initially by my parents’ lack of love for one another—a condition that defined my life and struggles to conceptualize a version of existence where I deserved to feel consistently safe and loved.

As a result of this condition, I’ve lived in so many different states of fear, and played so many different roles…BeLive told me later that the male nurse, Justin, asked if I had taken crystal meth or if I was “bipolar,” apparently— though I’ve never tried that drug, or received that diagnosis, for him—I appeared as that character.

When I was first told I couldn’t leave, or receive water, I initially asked to file a formal complaint. I changed my mind the next day when I was released. The hours of literally lying down in my own waste had enlightened me.

Supported by the audience of hospital employees, I had played out the scene I’d witnessed in so many acting classes and films, a scene I wasn’t aware enough to pre-plan for the Dr. Susan Block Show, but just as kinky and necessary for my development—or so may have agreed the father of modern Western psychology, Sigmund Freud.

Though I can’t remember really studying anything Freud actually wrote—I was more interested in the broad sweeping romance of Joseph Campbell’s mythology— I do remember my father, when I was very young, explaining to me what the word “anal-retentive” meant, so I love the idea that Justin and his team at Suburban Medical played a major role in treating whatever anal retentiveness may have prevented me from feeling the flow of life with more functional pleasure and love!

When BeLive picked me up from the hospital and we returned to the hotel, I slept for hours, and then we did enemas together. He helped hold the bag so I could start mine in bed, and remain relaxed as the warm coffee and herbs slowly entered my rectum.

The purifying herbs helped gently soothe the residual shame, and disbelief I felt after my scene at the hospital. That, and a video I was sent by our friend Obi Ndefo—who lost both his legs when he was hit by a drunk driver— about “what dying really is.”

When I watched the video of a former doctor, who worked with people who were dying and now believes that death is “a transformation moment and expansion,” —a “window to a universe that embraces us in every single second of our existence,”—a reality where “we’re killing ourselves, but …need a death moment to transform…to let go of all of the preconceived notions of what it means to be human.”

While listening, a benevolent acceptance of my folly washed over me, and I remembered—maybe from an episode with Dr. Suzy—that the word for orgasm in French translates in English to “the little death”— a moment to transform our senses, together, toward total surrender to our shared connectedness and love.

We had been encouraged by the Emergency Room therapist who approved my release to stop and rest as much as needed—while completing our planned drive back to Cali, and thankfully though I had no money saved, BeLive had made connections with several sponsors, who believed in our creative potential, and sent money to pay for our gas and accommodations.

As we left Denver, we both felt that going to the closest “clothing-optional” hot springs was the most wise decision we could make for our continued therapy, renewal, and well-being.

Though the small and slightly crowded pools at Orvis Hot Springs, surrounded by privacy fences, were next to a local highway, and not the primal cathartic wilderness experience the website images suggested, the chance to be legally nude in the sunshine for the entire day, around other people who also believed they also deserved a space to soak without clothes in rejuvenating mineral water was deeply relaxing.

From there we headed to the next hot springs that seemed to be in a more remote location, hoping for more space to enjoy the water. Five hours away we found Meadow Hot Springs in Kanosh Utah. Though not explicitly clothing optional, these springs were in a large meadow, surrounded on all sides by mountains, making the immersion in the earth elements more visceral.

There were only two other people, in the deep geothermal pool with clear water going down at least 20 feet. The people were friendly and shared with us about another Hot Springs near Orem, Utah called 5th water, and then kindly excused themselves so we could have the entire pool to ourselves.

We stopped for almost a week in Orem, where we stayed at a La Quinta hotel next to Lake Utah. The pleasant, clean and generally functional vibe of religion-influenced cheerfulness we experienced in Utah seduced us into examining our religious programming while gathering our energy at the hotel.

We watched “The Road To Wellsville,” a film that makes light of the creator of Kellog cereal—and the original religious-based health ideas that influenced the Seventh-Day Adventist religion we were both raised with—especially the sex repressive ideology that encouraged a diet of foods that would encourage abstinence from sexual activity.

We watched “Childhood’s End,” a 4 part mini series based on a sci-fi novel written in 1953 that imagines the end of the world as brought by the invasion of lucifarian creatures who end all wars and world hunger, guiding humanity to a peaceful existence and stewarding the children of the earth toward enhanced extra-sensory and telepathic powers

The author of the childhood’s end novel famously described religion as the “worst virus to corrupt the mind of man,” and the mini series, through various characters, explores many of the moral and religious beliefs Brian and I were raised with—and how they often play out as actions and conditions that resist the relaxation and ease necessary to know true love.

When we finally made it to 5th water— encouraged by articles on the internet about former president Teddy Roosevelt regularly swimming nude with first Forest Service chief Gifford Pinchot, and clarifying information online that said, federal law only prohibits lewdness, not nudity—we finally enjoyed some nude soaking!

BeLive covered himself with the dark black mineral rich mud, and we were very much energized by the walk, and the small amount of medicinal mushrooms we ate at the beginning of the hike that opened us to a more immersive communion with the nature around us.

When I saw how exuberantly happy BeLive was about the hot springs, I continued searching the internet for more hot springs on our way to California.

Big Warm Spring on the Shoshone Indian reservation sent a tribal police car to greet us and inform us that, due to Covid, the pools were not open to anyone who was not an official resident of the reservation.

Even so, the hypnotizing wilderness we drove through to get to the reservation was a spectacular influence for a song, and we loved soaking in the penetrating sound of the wind as we burned Palo Santo bark in the car and discussed our relationship with the earth— later dancing barefoot in the deserted highway as the sun revolved toward the horizon, and created tremendous displays of luminous salmon pink and gold clouds against the steely violet mountains.

Many creative enemas later we made it to Sierra Hot Springs, a clothing optional hot springs resort about an hour away from Reno, past the Nevada border in California.

We checked in at night, and since all the mineral pools were open 24 hours a day during our time there, we awoke at 3am and loved walking through the fragrant forest of Ponderosa Pine Trees, finding the Temple Dome and pristine hot water, with a goddess in stained glass on the side of the dome with flickering candles, and a large warm pool that made soaking in the smooth water under the bright stars, high in the sierras feel like a lucid dream.

Afterward, we made our way through the Tahoe National forest, staying a few nights at the glorious Harmony Ridge Hotel, at the edge of the nature reserve—with a Redwoods greeting us on our back porch, and many kind people who made us feel extremely welcomed in the pristine garden, complete with edible Chinese Lantern ground cherries, an apple orchard, and abstract marble sculptures.

While visiting the Harmony Ridge Lodge, we spoke with our friend Obi Ndefo—who I watched for years in YogaWorks classes in LA, before knowing his name, because he was always going at his own pace, and doing his own postures, regardless of what everyone in the room was doing. Later, I saw him perform a monologue during one of the Actors open mic nights at The Greenway Court Theatre in LA (and like a true Theater geek, I approached him enthusiastically afterward letting him know how much I loved it) and again, I met him for a third time, when I actually learned his name at the bookstore of the Agape International Spiritual Center.

For a few years, while in LA, BeLive and I had served as creative consultants with him for several projects he developed.

Obi had seen a song we recorded in our room at Father’s house and invited us to LA to create an original song for a Television series soundtrack to go along with another TV show project he was developing.

BeLive and I were jolted into fits of excitement after Obi paid for the Air BnB and our flights to Eagle Rock Los Angeles, and so, in an effort to balance the good news with self-care, we went to another nudist resort, Laguna Del Sol, hoping to drop by the nude community garden, beach and maybe even take a naked paddle boat ride!

Instead, I sat up all night in Dark Star (our Ford Explorer), wiggling in half happy baby pose, near all the RV’s by the lake but with enough distance to focus on this writing, under the full moon— in Pisces and according to our Facebook friend Tara Leela, who travels around the world studying Gurus, it was also a “sky filled with nectar that rains down in Amrita …and enliven[ed] 16 kalas, virtues of love, compassion, and courage.”—and with spirits guiding me to write through the night and to glance up to see elegant geese waddling toward the sunrise.

Though we’d paid to stay at the large resort for a few more days, when we arrived to our room, both of the indoor pools in our “luxury” hotel, complete with chlorinated water, were cold and dull, and left us craving water that felt more alive and buzzing.

Though some rebellious part of me loved the idea that a giant nudist resort had found its way to one of the places I had memorably lived with my Father—near the state’s capital city—we checked out early and made our way south from Sacramento to Harbin Hot Springs, a clothing optional hot spring BeLive had visited many times with his children and their mother.

The warm mineral springs balanced the hot California sun and arid climate, and after a delightfully hilly and breezy drive, we made it to the San Jose airport headed for LA with great grace, glow and generous overflow of fluid smiles to share!

On the plane I was reminded of the plane ride, when I was 8, after my parents divorced, after my mom received custody, she stayed in California to work and save money for our private school fees, and sent us on a plane ahead of her.

I remember my dad had told us previously that people sometimes die in plane crashes—my brother and I sobbed uncontrollably (after we were dropped off, in first class where they put the small children next to the stewardess staff), the tears coincided with our recognition of a form of death of what our family was—coincidentally, I often sobbed the same way after my first orgasms as an adult.

Sharing orgasms, like death or any part of life is like sharing water, frequencies, songs, sounds, sensing the swells and ebbs of shared harmonies —tones we earthlings share, in these collective senses—there is a spectrum of remembrance, a unified continuum of existence, like a wave of energy— from fantasies of death through the living spirited waters of eternal orgasmic grace to the love light that guides us ever onward!

A lover of beauty, DaLove is known internationally for producing, dancing, singing, and acting as Daniele Lorise Watts. She currently co-creates music with her husband, a visionary creator of gourmet raw, fungi, and plant-based culinary arts movements, Chef BeLive. Together, they BeDaloveLiveLight!

EDITORIAL NOTE: This reader-written guest essay has not been edited to maintain the authentic voice of the essayist.

by Daniele Watts, aka DaLove