The Fire Spell: Sex, Desire, and Creation
There is a quiet way that people abandon themselves. It doesn’t always look dramatic, and it doesn’t always look like walking away from something obvious. Sometimes it looks like staying. Staying in a life that works on paper. Staying in a relationship where love exists, but desire has quietly disappeared. Staying in a version of yourself that feels… fine. Manageable. Acceptable. Explainable. But not alive.
I spent years in a relationship where desire slowly faded into something almost unrecognizable. There was care. There was history. There was goodness. But there was not aliveness. And I didn’t always know how to name that. I didn’t always know that it mattered as much as it did. I told myself that love could exist without it, that maybe this was just what long-term partnership looked like, that maybe this part of me—the part that wanted, that felt, that burned—was something I could live without. I was wrong. Not because that relationship was a failure, but because I had quietly agreed to live without something essential.
There is a way we’ve been taught to relate to sex that doesn’t serve us, and it tends to live in extremes. On one end, sex is something performative—exaggerated, externalized, and separated from real life. On the other, it disappears entirely, especially in spaces that are meant to be “serious,” “healing,” or “respectable.” And in between those two poles, there is very little language for what most of us are actually craving: something integrated, something human, something that belongs inside a meaningful life, not outside of it.
I want to bring sex back into the realm of what we deserve—not as something separate from life, but as something integral to it; not as something we quietly abandon in relationships where it’s deeply wanted, but as something we honor as part of what makes us alive. Sex is one of the most potent creative forces we have, and because of that, it is also one of the most powerful ways we free ourselves. And this isn’t just about sex. It’s about the life force underneath it—the same energy that allows us to create anything at all. To write, to build, to risk, to express something internal and bring it into the world. It is the current that moves through us when we feel turned on by an idea, a person, a possibility, a life we can almost taste but haven’t fully claimed yet.
When we suppress that energy in one area of our lives, we often suppress it everywhere. We call it being practical, responsible, realistic. We tell ourselves that we’re choosing stability, that we’re being good, that we’re doing what’s expected of us. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, something begins to dim—not all at once, but enough that we start to forget what it feels like to be fully here.
We did not come here to be perfect. We came here to make something of what’s within us—to take what is internal and bring it into form. Yes, everything we create ripples outward, and yes, our choices affect others. But if we let the fear of impact stop us from creating anything at all, then we will have missed the point entirely. This life is not a purity test. Perhaps our essence will return to something like pure love, pure light, pure knowing, but to try to be perfect while we are here—while we have the rare and fleeting opportunity to be imperfect—feels like the real loss.
We are here to be messy, to make mistakes, to fail, repair, learn, and try again. Not recklessly and not without care, but with awareness, with intention, and with a willingness to minimize harm while still participating fully in the act of creation. There is a kind of mastery that can only be earned through experience, and the satisfaction of something well-made, something deeply resonant, is sharpened by everything that came before it—the missteps, the awkward attempts, the things that didn’t land, the ideas that fell flat. We are not here to get it right the first time; we are here to be brave enough to try.
And this is where love and sex return—not as distractions from life, but as reminders of it. Love asks us to be present, to be seen, to risk connection, to stay open even when it would be easier to close. Sex asks something similar. It asks us to inhabit our bodies, to feel, to want, to surrender control, even briefly, and let something move through us that we cannot fully script or predict. Both require vulnerability. Both require risk. Both invite us out of perfection and into experience, and both, when they are alive, refuse to let us settle for a life that is merely acceptable.
We will never be perfect. And while we may strive for greatness, we don’t need to let the fear of never reaching it stop us from beginning. We find our place through trial and error, through tears and laughter, through staying in it long enough to become something more honest. And woven through all of this—through the effort, the uncertainty, the creation—is love. We get to feel it for each other and for ourselves, and one of the most extraordinary things is that we can make it.
Even when we feel too small, too uncertain, too far from who we think we’re supposed to be, we can make love. And somehow, in that act—in that meeting of bodies, of presence, of openness—something shifts. Something softens. Something returns. Not because sex solves everything, but because it reconnects us to the part of ourselves that is still alive, still responsive, still capable of feeling deeply and creating from that place.
We are not separate from life. We are inside of it. And when we allow ourselves to feel, to want, to create, and to love, we remember.
The Fire Spell
A spell for releasing perfection and returning to embodied aliveness
Materials (optional, not required)
A candle (or several)
Music that makes your body want to move (optional playlist)
A private space where you can be fully yourself
Bare feet or minimal clothing (to feel your body more clearly)
The Ritual
1. Arrive in your body
Light your candle as your witness and your mirror.
Stand with your feet firmly on the ground. Let your knees soften. Place one hand on your body—your chest, your belly, your hips.
Take a slow breath in. Then another. Say (out loud if you can):
I am allowed to feel.
I am allowed to want.
I am allowed to create.
Let the words land physically, not just mentally.
2. Begin to move
Start small. Shift your weight. Roll your shoulders. Let your hips sway.
There is no right way to do this. Let the movement be honest, not graceful.
Optional song: “Wonder Woman” by Yemi Alade
3. Stomp and wake yourself up
Begin to stomp your feet into the ground.
Feel the impact. Let it be imperfect. Let it be loud.
As you move, say:
I am here.
I am in my body.
I am alive.
Let your body start to generate heat.
Optional song: “Rolling Drums” by Godfrey Mgcina
4. Call in your desire
Bring your awareness to something you desire.
A thing. A kind of intimacy. A piece of work. A life you can feel but haven’t fully claimed.
Let it rise. Notice where it lives in your body.
Optional song: “Soul Work” by The Great Medicine Show, Zen Chillman
5. Shake what you’ve been holding
Begin to shake your body. Your arms, your legs, your chest, your hips.
Let it be messy. Let it be uncoordinated. If sound wants to come, let it. A sigh. A breath. A laugh. A growl.
Ask yourself, without stopping:
Where have I been holding this back?
Let your body answer.
Optional song: “Shaking Medicine” by Guy Barrington, Praful
6. Let it become expression
Allow the shaking to shift into something more like dance.
Let your body lead. Let your hips move. Let your chest open. Let your arms take up space.
This is where desire becomes visible. This is where energy becomes creation.
Stay here for as long as it feels alive.
Optional song: “Jericho” by Iniko
7. Choose one act of creation
Slow your movement slightly, but don’t collapse the energy. Ask yourself:
What is one small way I can move this forward?
Choose something simple and real:
write one paragraph
send a message
begin a project
speak something true
touch your own body with intention
Feel the action in your body before you take it. Then say:
I don’t need to be perfect to begin.
I am allowed to move.
Optional song:“Apparently” by Random Rab
Closing
Place your hand on your body again. Feel your breath. Feel the energy that’s still there. Say:
I choose aliveness over perfection.
I choose desire as a guide.
I choose to create with what is alive in me.
If you lit a candle, you may blow it out here. Then—before the energy fades—take the action you named.
That is how the spell completes.
Integration Note
When we suppress desire in one area of our lives, we often suppress it everywhere.
This spell is not about forcing anything. It is about restoring movement—in the body, in desire, and in creation.
Return to it whenever you feel yourself becoming still in ways that don’t feel like peace.