Art and Sex are the same.

Yeah, I said it. And it’s about time for us to talk about it.

We’ll start here: I have a rudimentary, Westernized understanding of Eastern Philosophy, but one thing that drove my artistic and healing journey is chakra work. Chakras are spinning energy centers of the body, from Root to Crown, which help us connect our emotional, physical, and spiritual bodies. Some say there are 7, others say 13, and there’s certainly a lot of information available at your fingertips if you want to learn more about this from someone both smarter and more connected than I am.

What I want to talk about today is the Sacral chakra, because I’m going to be honest: Sex is the biggest problem I’ve had to overcome in my personal growth. The Sacral chakra is the orange one, also called the pleasure center. Our pleasure centers are, physically, for sex, and sex sometimes equals babies.

This is indeed how spirits are brought to Earth, which is why A Certain Flavor of Religious Person believes women and the womb, the portal to the other side, should be regulated and controlled.

This is a big topic of discussion in the world right now, particularly America, which I will not get into today. Instead I would like to talk about how deeply important sexuality is, and how continuing to suppress it hurts us individually and collectively. The truth is, there is so much more to making new life than just making new humans, while that is a choice I believe people should have the opportunity to make for themselves. Sex is just one tool at our disposal for creativity.

Sacral chakra energy can also be used for making art.

As someone who has experienced sexual trauma, I learned to avoid all things sex. Men, women, everybody better STAY AWAY!! Instead of facing something that terrified and hurt me, I learned to make art instead. This was a great coping skill while I was unhealthily dissociating, of course. But as I grew to understand myself, and as I learned different philosophies surrounding sexuality and spirituality, my art was no longer a way to disappear and hide. It became a great coping skill for analyzing the trauma, too, and sharing my heart with a world I never really understood. It helped me heal.

I saw a change I wanted to make in myself and I made it happen by driving my creative life force into art.

Drawing feels to me like a message from the Universe, through my Crown chakra, helping me clearly see myself and opening my Third Eye. Theatre taught me to use my Throat chakra and share my story. This work brought me to like-minded people, opening my Heart. Suddenly I could step into my Solar Plexus power and feel worthy and safe with my Root.

And I wouldn’t have been able to do any of that if I hadn’t released the life blocked up in my Sacral center and made the art which helped me survive and thrive.

If that’s all too much woo-woo spiritual language for you, let me just say this. Everything is connected. If you want to start living a happy, pleasurable, artistic life but feel stuck, look at where you’re directing your most powerful creative force: your sexual energy.

That’s not to say you should ignore and suppress it, like I did, because sex is a necessary human need for almost everyone. But it’s worth analyzing how you can use this energy to change.

Sex is everywhere, infused so deeply into every human thing it is impossible to ignore. Sex is power. Sex is money. Sex is connection. Sex is art. In all our media, we are constantly faced with this topic and therefore I constantly grapple over my relationship to it, because it’s my biggest lesson in life. My personal quarrel with intimacy doesn’t really matter, because while I have my own lessons to learn, I was given one big message to share: Sex is strength, creativity is magic, and YOU are a divinely powerful being!

The problem is, we often allow ourselves to focus on the temporary pleasure that permeates our entire bodies. Yes, this is the fun part, and this joy is why everyone is so focused on (and sometimes repulsed by) the act of sex itself, and therefore ignore the creative magic that is bubbling right beneath the surface.

Have you ever wondered why this is such a forbidden topic? I mean, there are genuine life coaches out there telling you to masturbate while thinking of your manifestations to bring them about faster. And it works! Not because the physical act immediately changes everything, but because combining your intention with sex is an insanely transformative force of change.

I’ll let you in on a secret, though. You can do the same thing by getting creative, using your mind and body, your intentions and creations, to shift your entire reality. Have you ever heard of vision boarding? Bullet journaling? Art therapy? Scripting? Visualization practices? All you have to do is put your imagination to work.

Every artist you admire began exactly where you are now: sitting with the desire to create. Everything else is a learned skill, which you can hone by channeling that Sacral energy. The Universe gave us these gorgeous gifts, the first being the free will to think anything we want, and the second being the creative power to make anything we want. She really said, “Go forth and create! The world is your playground, and you’re in charge. I’ll just be over here watching and cheering you on!”

And this is what we created? Come on, now. Really? It’s draining to participate in this process, but I have good news: we still have a choice!

No matter what the ‘rules’ are, you have power. Everyone — man, woman, nonbinary person and otherwise undefined, majestic, beautiful human — must simply own it. We shift the narrative, one person at a time. Focus on you, but don’t give up on the rest of us.

Share your heart, your art, and your story. Someone is listening, and it will give them the courage to share their art and their story, too. Through this little pyramid scheme, the collective consciousness shifts and we can transform our world into something great.

Change is here. And we must use our sacred creativity to do it.

I like to do it through art. Maybe for you it’s cooking, or gardening, or writing. Through every creative work you do, you are participating in the greatest act of defiance against the systems that suppress us. Never, ever forget that you are more magic than you could ever imagine, and your sexuality is the key.

In this day and age, we have the right — nay, the obligation — to turn live our most authentic lives, be our true selves, and transform our sexual energy into making art, thus making the world a better, more beautiful, more loving place.

There’s nothing stopping us but the idea that we can’t. I know you’re tired. I know you’ve been abused, you’ve been hurt, you’ve tried everything. Maybe you don’t see a way out of this loveless pit of hell we’re swiftly descending into — but trust me. If you can find it in yourself to reignite, reconnect, and revitalize your life through creativity, everything will change.