In this mini-excerpt from her memoir, Messy Bitch Magic, author Ani Ferlise makes her self-pleasure practice a part of her rock solid, 4-hour morning routine …
“The anus is a portal to GOD!”my teacher’s voice bellows through my computer speakers, waking me from a sleepy haze. I slink from my desk onto the floor, covered in what are supposed to be lavish sheepskins but are actually yards of scratchy, questionable “material” from the glamorous “Joann Fabrics.”
It’s 4:45 a.m. I am up early ‘cause I’m next-level priestessing by embodying the Divine Feminine and training to be a spiritual sex and love coach.
I am in what I call the “magic room” of my new house with Rune. The magic room is a space all of my own with altars, flowy drapes, candles, and sheepskins (aka the hairy, itchy, dirt-cheap fabric that I may or may not be allergic to). Bouquets of dried flowers hang from the ceiling.
It is here that I start my mornings with my rock-solid, four-hour routine. I meticulously light my candles. There are about twenty of them, and they each have a different significance. I whip out my “rewiring the mind for success” journal prompts and write the same things over and over again, channeling all of my energy into changing my brain so I can stop sabotaging myself, heal up, and lean into my pleasure and my power. Again.
Once my brain has been reset, I sit in front of two mirrors and start a breathwork practice. Deep, slow, inhale in the mouth; long, extended exhale without a pause after. Then I begin my daily self-pleasure practice. No porn, no thoughts or fantasizing; I’m just supposed to breathe, feed my body pleasure and then, when I orgasm, send out a prayer for what I need.
The pseudo-sheepskin and fallen dried-out flower petals itch my thighs as I lay there spread eagle, staring blankly at a whitewashed picture of Mary Magdalene on my mirror altar as I furiously masturbate—I mean self-pleasure—in a hazy, glazed over state.
That’s right. Ya girl got her shit together. I have a magic room. I’m a good partner. I’m building a business. I’m softening and healing. I’m facing my shadows. I’m learning. I’m blessed. I’m grateful. I’m amplifying my pleasure.
I also (still) fucking hate my fucking life.
I “cum” and it feels like my pussy sneezed.
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Messy Bitch Magic by Ani Ferlise will be published on February 28, 2023. Learn more and pre-order your copy HERE.
In this excerpt from her memoir, Messy Bitch Magic, Ani Ferlise comes face-to-face with her inner mean girl at a Priestess Weekend retreat …
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As I drive down a long, windy, dirt road, all alone, I do my best to imagine myself basking in the beauty of the Earth as I walk barefoot and dainty through a field of wildflowers. I cringe. The crescendo of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Rolling Stones blasts my eardrums as particles of dust fly everywhere. I’m here.
I lower the volume and park next to other the cars; every single one a Subaru. No, really. Every. Single. One. I get out of the car. My eyes lap up a sea of bare-faced, lanky women. It’s all soft smiles, headpieces draped across dewy foreheads, and pore-less faces peeking out of long gorgeous hair, like two silk curtains framing a sunny window.
Flowy white and red cotton dresses cling tightly to tall, slender bodies. Words gracefully ooze out of hydrated lips. I am a meatball. A round meatball in a world of sinewy strings of spaghetti. I take a deep breath and pray my hair extension tracks aren’t showing.
I stomp in my motorcycle boots over to the skinny spaghetti girls and announce myself boldly, “Heya gals!”
Heya?… Gals? Fucking really?
Through soft gazes and smiles, I am met with a collective whisper of a “hi” and that’s about it. I find myself standing on the outside of the circle, not quite sure how to interact. Dreaded scenes from middle school flash through my mind. All the popular girls showing off the new Hollister jeans I could never fit into; me desperately trying to show off the purple sparkly belt I proudly but poorly crocheted myself; the cool girls rolling their eyes and walking away in that Victoria’s-Secret-body-spray kind of way.
Sweat droplets emerge on my upper lip. This is a new low. I am NOT about to be the weird kid with lip sweat in gym class. You know the kind. Always smelled like tuna salad sandwiches and loved Linkin Park?
Mean Girl Ani quickly takes control of my brain. She chews gum. She says: “Listen. You’re cool now, bitch. You came here from New York. You’ve gone to warehouse parties in Brooklyn. You’ve seen poetry on the Bowery. You’ve gotten your damn ass wiped by an old terrifying witch— you’re good.”
“You’re right,” I whisper back at her. I feel relieved—until Self-Hating Ani comes flying into the scene so aggressively that she knocks Mean Girl Ani into the dirt. She puts her hands on her hips. “Listen,” she taunts. “You’re a chunky little meatball mess. Everyone here is so much skinnier than you. And that big ass mouth of yours? You’re already freaking everyone out, coming on so strong, with that loud ass East Coast fog horn of a voice.”
A stage appears in my mind. Mean Girl Ani stands to stage left, Self-Hating Ani to stage right. In perfect unison, they walk to the center. The lights dim. The show is about to start.
Mean Girl Ani: Okay I might be shorter and curvier than these sluts, but I’m not, like, the ugliest. Plus, this shit they’re listening to? IT FUCKING SUCKS.
Self-Hating Ani: Keep complaining about the music. Doesn’t eradicate the fact that you’re by far the fattest, ugliest troll here.
Mean Girl Ani: Fine. I’m ugly! At least I’m funny. Funnier than these wet fucking blankets.
Self-Hating Ani: Your humor is only relatable to Tri-state trash and you know it.
Mean Girl Ani: You’re a dick. I’m a badass bitch who has more personality in my left pinky than these granola ass bitches do in their entire 95-pound bird-boned bodies.
The one act play between my two selves is interrupted by a drum playing a steady beat. I realize I’ve been staring intently into a patch of dead grass for several minutes. To the beat of the drum, the girls gather around the fire. I guess I didn’t get the memo that drumbeats mean “flock to the fire” in Priestess. Oops.
A large circle is forming, and I awkwardly wedge my meatball body between two ethereal women. My head aligns roughly with their shoulders. I am suddenly painfully aware of how coffee-stained my dress is. How loud the jangle of my bracelets is as they CLANK CLANK CLANK against each other. How toxic my anxious BO smells.
“Welcome sisters and beloved daughters of the Earth,” muses a cloaked, beautiful-in-a-serious-way woman who I recognize from the flier as the hostess of this “experience.”
“I am priestess Maeve. I am not a high priestess, because I don’t believe in hierarchies here. We are equals. All of us. Let’s join hands.” I wipe my sweaty palms on my coffee-stained dress real subtle before joining hands with my fellow Sisters of the Earth.™
She continues, “Please speak your full name out loud, and your intention for being here.”
The first person up is named Kale. No really—Kale.
Kale takes a very, very breathy pause between each word to sound more intentional. “I (BREATH) am (BREATH) claiming (BREATH) standing (BREATH) in (BREATH) my (DEEP DEEP DEEP BREATH) power” (EXHALE).
Next is Star Cloud. Star Cloud also makes the same breathy proclamation of power, taking her painfully sweet time between each word. I think I might be hallucinating when a girl introduces herself as Love-Grace.
Every intention is pretty much the same — a very slow, very breathy, pause-between-each-word-to-sound-more-intentional, eyes-closed claim to stand in their power. I wonder what the fuck that even means for someone named Kale—like, telling the vendor at the farmer’s market to make sure there’s no gluten in her raw veggie bowl?
Shit. It’s my turn. My fingers tremble theatrically like I’m an extra in the background of a made-for-TV movie about Why Drugs Are Bad. I clamp down on the hand I’m holding, hoping it will quell the DTs. I straighten my spine. My tongue is large and dry in my mouth. Fuck it.
“Hi, I’m Ani. My intention is to, ya know, see what’s up and connect!” I sputter quickly.
I know that I don’t fit in here. I know that I don’t want to fit in here. Seriously … Kale?
As the sharing continues, I feel myself mentally checking out with each breathy declaration of some spiritual cliché or other. Then I see a woman with her eyes closed, dirt covering her bare feet, suddenly standing in the center of the circle, breaking “the flow” of the introductions.
“I … am … Mary … Magda … LION!” She sucks in a gallon of air, holds it for thirty long seconds, and then releases a “RAWWWWR” from the depth of her guts. She is clearly going for “primal lion” but she’s actually serving a more ten-year-old-boy-cannonballing-into-the-condo-pool vibe. She proudly makes eye contact with every single person in the circle with forced ferocity while growling under her breath.
I feel a switch flip from within.
A sinister little switch.
I am nasty and I am going to spend the weekend being a total asshole.
Why? ‘Cause this is fucking weak and bullshit and fake. Literally, no one needs to breathe that deep and anyone who claims to like the taste of salad is a fucking liar, anyway. Diana would tear this place to shreds with her
barely human teeth. I mean, come on. Diana might be an unhinged witch with anger management issues, but at least what you see is what you get.
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Messy Bitch Magic by Ani Ferlise is out February 28 with Numinous Books. Pre-order your copy HERE and follow @ani_ferlise for more updates.
