This week I left The Pot, which has been my home and the London venue for Sacred Pleasures for the past 21 months.

I felt a heap of conflicting emotions as I moved out. This is not surprising, because the last 2 years have been the most exhilarating, exalted, intense, terrifying and beautiful of my life so far. It appears that opening, holding and living in a space for personal growth means I get to grow too. A lot. Occasionally I’ve thought “Please make it all stop”, but mostly I’ve just wanted to ride it more and more, expanding my consciousness and shamanic abilities day by day, week by week, month by month and year on year.

As I moved the last of my bags out on Tuesday afternoon, it felt natural enough for some grief and sadness to surface. Not only am I giving up my home, I am also saying goodbye to a venue that has touched me, and many others, deeply. Among many beautiful and moving tributes I was particularly struck by this one by erotic writer and Sexological Bodyworker Scarlett French:

Ruined for normal living by Scarlett French

So it felt natural enough for me to be grieving – and the feelings were so intense at times that I contacted death specialist Kristie West for advice and support about letting-go of my attachment as the process unfolded. (Thanks Kristie, your advice was perfectly timed.)

Alongside this I felt a relief at being free and a sense of new possibilities opening up. Although I have spent many years being stable in London and am something of a homebody, a part of me yearns for the open road: rucksack on the back, thumb up to the passing traffic, not quite knowing where I’ll rest my head tonight. Travelling still holds romance and adventure for me, the exhilaration of being free from ties and attachments. I remember a similar relief surfacing when my father died – alongside the grief, there was a clear sense of relief. At the time I felt guilty about this, but now I accept it as part of the process of letting-go of a strong attachment.

Guilt also surfaced, because apparently I have to feel guilty about something during any major transition. This time it came in an unexpected form: a sense of guilt and shame about all the stuff I own. As the boxes piled up in my storage unit, I felt guilty on the one hand for owning so much (why couldn’t I be like my friend A___, who managed to whittle his gear into two boxes and a suitcase?); and on the other hand I felt ashamed of having accumulated so little, of having nothing more than a bunch of boxes to show for nearly 40 years on this planet. Shouldn’t I have a house, or a boat, or at least some serious-ass furniture by now?

Between these conflicting poles I felt the pain of my need for security and safety, and how this often holds me back. The desire for more things is a desire for safety, the solidity of something physical to help me feel more grounded. The desire for less things is a desire for freedom, the lightness of having nothing to allow me to feel more alive. I dance between these two poles as I learn to let go, and this has been brought acutely to the surface as I separate from the magical space that has housed, loved and transformed me.

As I gathered my bags and headed to Euston for a trip up north to visit friends, I asked myself how I could bring this all together in a transformative intention for the summer. I plan to be away for July and August, and I want this time to deepen my self-knowing and self-discovery. This is what I wrote in my notebook:

My intention for this summer is to find a place called ‘home’ inside my heart and to learn to travel with it.

And that brought it all together. I began to imagine myself as a kind of tortoise with my house on my back, enjoying that feeling of ‘home’ wherever I go. And go I will: from London to Dorset for the first Tantra Festival, thence to Nowhere for a week of desert mayhem. Right after Nowhere I get a week to decompress at the beautiful Esclarmonde in southern France, then a few days roaming around in Europe before Xplore Berlin at the end of July. (I booked my place for this one as I was writing this post!)

From Berlin to Dublin, where I’m facilitating and demo’ing at the Bliss Weekender; and from there back to Dorset for the delicious Festival of Tantra and Conscious Sexuality, where I’m facilitating two workshops with the wonderful Claire Black. And if I’ve still got money and juice left after all that, I’ll be off to Folleterre for the Summer Faerie Gathering to round things off. Ahhhhhhhh! Whoooooosh!

With these exciting delights ahead of me, it’s easy to get excited and to skip over the strong feelings of loss, grief, guilt and shame that have arisen. Instead I’ve sat with them, met them face to face and allowed them to pass. And that wasn’t so bad in the end, was it?