Hey darlings, I received a copy of this fabulous email from Sister Goddess Donna, Pleasure Poetress, Mama Extraordinaire, Brilliant Wife, and Fundraising Queen. She has recently moved back to town from New Orleans and plans to take my next Pleasure Revival class. I love what she has written and so I asked her if I could share it with you on my blog. She agreed! Whoo hoo!!

Here it is...

Hello Lovely Ladies of Richmond and Central VA!

I may have sent Elli Sparks’ Pleasure Revival info to you while I was in New Orleans, and now I am back in RVA to put my money where my mouth is. I would love to have the “pleasure” of your company on my personal pleasure revolution. It would “please” me to be part of yours as well!

I was a HUGE skeptic before dabbling. I thought what the h-ll is this load of bull but turns out it not! It’s actually really great. And if nothing else, it is a really nice way (and excuse!) to concentrate on what makes you feel good. And for me that means I can tackle almost anything when I feel good. Maybe it is the same for you.

I am really looking forward to the class and to meeting other women in Richmond who are interested in giving themselves and everyone around them the most enjoyment their lives can offer (and more!). You do not have to summon every ounce of energy for this…it about focus, direction, knowing yourself.

Think it’s all about sex? Wrong! Think it’s about a selfish way to consider yourself first and no one else? Wrong again. Pleasure begets pleasure—for you and anyone party to it. You probably already know this but if not, try it out for yourself. It is about working with “what you’ve got” and enjoying the “skin you’re in.”

May sound cliché, but it feels good & it makes living a lot easier and fun. It’s also about realizing and knowing your passions/dreams and living in a fulfilled way. It’s not to say that you don’t already do this…sometimes we could use a refresher course, a new perspective, a few friends along the way.

Think you are all set and don’t need it? Well done you! I want to be there! I wish that I could say that this is a part of my entire life but I get stuck at points in work life and family life and would love to make it smoother, happier, and more emotionally, spiritually and financially rewarding. (And I will! hee, hee!)

I hope that you will consider taking advantage of Elli's class. I would love to see you there.

SG Donna

Out for a birthday dinner

Pleasure Revival

Sister Goddess Elli shares her story...

Seven years ago I birthed my second child, a gentle green-eyed boy, little brother to a bright and beautiful 2 ½ year old sister. A son, a daughter, a loving husband, and a stay-at-home mom – life was perfect!

Nine months later and one week after September 11^th, a pediatric cardiologist diagnosed our sweet son with a double heart defect. He had been born with this one-in-a-million defect. He would have a shorter and more difficult life because of it. And, there was nothing we could do about fixing it.

A mild underlying depression that had been with me throughout adulthood expanded into a sinking sadness and lack of hope. Communication in my marriage suffered. I was physically available to my children but rarely emotionally or spiritually there. Our family situation was deteriorating and putting us dangerously close to falling into the 80% of marriages that fail when presented with a very sick child.

During that time, I met a woman. We shared first names. However, Eleanor was tall and blond and I am petit and brunette. Something, maybe it was her name or maybe it was divine guidance, told me to befriend her.

I am lucky I listened to myself! My children are lucky I listened. My husband is lucky. Nearly everyone I know or meet is lucky I listened because Eleanor introduced me to Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts!

Eleanor turned me to Mama Gena’s website (www.mamagena.com) where I bought a copy of Mama Gena’s first book. I read it and started practicing the Womanly Arts.

Eleanor took a class at the School of Womanly Arts and then started a small “Womanly Arts” study group in Richmond, I joined the group. My fabulous husband loved sending me out to those meetings as he knew he was in for a treat when I returned. Oh, sometimes it was a delicious sensual encounter we enjoyed, other times it was simply the awareness of a growing appreciation I had for his love for me.

During that time, I also addressed my son’s illness with the loving support of my new group of “Sister Goddesses” (that’s what we call each other at the School of Womanly Arts, because, as Mama Gena says, as women we are all sisters and there is the divine feminine in each of us!). I sought out the world’s best pediatric heart surgeons. I requested their opinions. With loving and divine guidance, I chose to take our family down a long and winding road filled with numerous heart surgeries to repair my sweet son’s heart.

During the six and a half years it has taken to repair my sweet son’s heart, my darling daughter, who has fallen in love with the theatre, wrote her first plays: “The Woman Who Lost her Purse” and “Money Chaos”. She has written others since, but you don’t even need to see her plays to guess what kind of other stresses our family faced during those difficult years!

Half way through the eleven heart surgeries, I took my first class at Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts. I found it so difficult to make space for my own pleasure during the on-going health and financial crises. But, the moment I enrolled I found myself on a pathway of learning – learning how to use the Power of Pleasure to have my way with the world, as Mama Gena says. How brilliant, fabulous, courageous, spectacular, hopeful, and celebratory of me!! I am so grateful I took that first bold step towards my own Pleasure. And, I can tell you that everyone who knows me is grateful too!

I took several classes by phone before Mama Gena closed the School momentarily to reinvent her curriculum. In the spring of 2006, she presented her Mastery of Pleasure Program to the world. My husband and I were in the midst of our deepest financial woes so, call me crazy or call me brilliant, I wanted to learn more about the Power of Pleasure, so I paid several thousand dollars and enrolled. I attended her amazing 6-month program during the fall of 2006 and again in the following spring when I served as a "Big" Sister Goddess providing leadership to one of the small groups within the Mastery program.

After two years of connecting with "Sister Goddesses" based in NYC, I decided that I required sister goddesses in Richmond in order to live! The original group had since moved on, with two moving out of state to pursue their desires. So I am now teaching what I had learned from Mama. Combined with my own experiences I am offering “Pleasure Revival Meetings” in Virginia and Maryland!

I would love to turn you on to the Pleasure Revolution too!!