Sexual Sanctity: A Memoir of My Burning Times and Learning Times

Chapter Two

Anshin B Kelly T.M. M.W.

Jun 22, 2025

Chapter Two

The Fourth Spectated Burning

Section One: Torment in Religious Realms

"The passage in a woman that lets the

Baby through, looks only

Wide enough for Lovemaking

And yet, all of humankind have

Passed through Her this way -

She IS The Mountain,

And The Mountain

Gave birth - hemorrhaging

When Core Origins within,

Are taken for granted,

And ignored." ~ From, Red Mother Mountain, by Anshin B Kelly(1)

It was my second year of Highschool, the year I turned sixteen, and grew what would become a rather legendary pair of hips. You may think legendary is too big a word, but I promise you, in a lot of ways, it's not even close. Things were actually going relatively well on certain levels of my consciousness for the first time in my life up until that point. I was well liked, I had friends, and I was vibrant with the life-flowing-juice that comes with the bloom of youth. But on the deepest levels of my consciousness, my Soul wasn't taking no for answer; she was going to find a way out of The Burning Times, or pass from this world.

The Fourth Spectated Burning was not an isolated event, but one of those events was me contracting poison ivy rash on my face. One thing I am sure of is that my tormentors within and without, immensely enjoyed humiliating me as a main way of keeping me pinned down and blocked from the truth; both in being able to articulate it, and therefore change my circumstances surrounding it.

That year was the first year in my life that I began to meet my Soul in a more powerful, (and maddening, for my frightened self), direct way. The year I turned sixteen subconsciously, yet immeasurably, I began to realize that the burnings could be overcome. That somehow I was being transformed by the flames over the years that had tried to consume me. I began to rebel, say no, kick the door down, and if I didn't succeed, I would bear my teeth like a caged animal, and for the first time in my life I consistently got my tormentors to see that they weren't dealing with no small, helpless child anymore. They were dealing with a woman, a woman. The Being who bleeds without dying; the Being who gets burned by the flames, and yet, is, the Eternal Flame of Life Itself.

"Rose of Fire,

Eternal Ember,

Will of Love."

From "Prayers for the Soul Bones," by Anshin B Kelly(2)

My pyre in those days was routinely built, come to think of it, by women. Young women struck down in the bloom of youth; women in their thirties and forties who were being consumed by their life's disappointments, torments; Burning Times. Women in their fifties escaping into various media outlets, focused on everyone, anyone, anytime, but their own inner wounds. Women in the throes of Seniorhood; where their ripe old age should be treated and honored as a gift, but instead, is feared. Feared by their children and grandchildren, by their husbands and male peers, and most of all, by themselves.

The young religious women of my age group were drawn to my natural, inner sense of Feminine Sexual Energy and Sanctity. Of course, I was not truly awake to that sense yet, but there's one thing I knew for sure, She Flowed from Me. Within the strained, and abusive walls of my immediate family dynamics my sisters were witnessing more fully the way I was viewed and treated by my mother, and elders of the church community, and what happens to young women who have a relationship with the Sacred Feminine. I can articulate now that, just from the sheer power and holiness, that are the changes that come to girls at the threshold of womanhood; suddenly, the false accusations of my "impurity," those dark and terrifying feelings of dread, fear and loneliness that tried to permanently distort my internal view of myself, were being seriously, and profoundly threatened by the Holy Truth that is Womanhood.

When I look back on my upbringing within the folds of the Church Community, it brings me pain to see how rigid, and controlling it was in many important areas of nurture and growth. The spiritual concept "Absolute Sex,"(3) while recited in phenomenal volumes of religious teaching and scripture, was not integrated at all into the community. Sexual Energy was deeply feared, and therefore attacked, controlled, and even at times especially at the upper rungs of the different smaller, and bigger branches of the community, extorted for monetary gain, as well as gain in clout. The young women I was friends with were routinely terrorized out of getting too close to me. One of my sisters especially, became consumed with the despair that comes from being held down too long; and she learned to "play the fence" in our relationship. I see now how she would suck up to those in the community, including older girls, and change her tone with me, to show the community that she was "the one to be trusted," while her older sister, me, was most definitely an embarrassment, and not to be trusted. But like many women and girls of the community, she'd keep me close too, she needed me after all; a convenient scapegoat when her reputation was on the line, as well as a companion when her days and nights got lonely, and too unbearable to experience alone.

When I look back on my life now, I see a beautiful, vibrant, courageous, but deeply traumatized young woman, fighting for her very life, and the lives of her closest female friends, especially her sisters. The raw, plain truth is; if you were a young woman with wide hips, or full breasts, full hair, sparkling eyes or all the above, who appreciated that beauty, the emotional, verbal and communal instruments of torture, in the form of gossip, ostracism and isolated, private "lectures" on your need to "purify" or "cover-up," would become a constant torment in your young, inexperienced, tender life. Mother of God forbid, if you rebelled and refused to "confess" to your "indiscretions" or buy into your alleged "impurity," the situation would escalate. Young woman, after young woman became consumed by the pain, fear and torment of being judged, and closely controlled. Our mothers clearly had already been groomed this way, I can only assume, as a way of survival. Looking back, I realize by that time I'd survived many spectated, and hundreds, if not thousands more private lacerations and burnings throughout my young life. I remember my mother doing little to punish me directly for disobeying her rigid expectations in those days, but I do remember the punishments being constant, in the form of harassments, verbal digs and cruelty, and chronic physical assaults, often for something as simple as disagreeing with her, and having little to do in the moment with a specific indiscretion I may or may not have committed. Her chronic helplessness about her own life, translated into a kind of warped "helplessness," "against" my Bloom of Womanhood, and Sacred Sexuality.

I see now how I was often the only young woman left standing, amidst the flames of the church community's Burning Times. I wouldn't admit that I was guilty of impurity, fundamental disobedience or immoral behavior, because I wasn't. Elder after elder, female peer after female peer would assault me with sometimes even well-intentioned, nonetheless manipulative, language about my beauty, behavior, clothing, way I walked, spoke, everything, you name it; one thing is for sure, it was constant. I was a curious, beautiful, juicy, vibrant and fierce Little Woman, with full hair, bright smile, honey eyes, and big hips. I was there for many live talks the religious movement gave about Absolute Sex, and I soaked it in, like a sponge; and I loved it. From a very young age I knew I had the passion and talent to become a midwife, and I was always overwhelmed by the feeling of Fullness and Wholeness I got when I would think about how we all came to be on this beautiful, wild, and ferocious Sacred-Sex-Driven Mother, Goddess Earth. I would stare, awestruck as pictures of mothers breastfeeding their babies, and sometimes I'd share this feeling with close friends and mentors in the church. I can see now, that it was this kind of innocent, and naive sharing, that would land me with the deluge of spiritual and physical assaults, that most women, and many men too, didn't have the ovaries or the balls to just say directly to me, or do in an accountable way; it was often behind closed doors and/or in a mob of wagging, licking tongues of consuming fire. I was made an example of. Everyone, especially the women, and especially the young women, were shown over and over again, what happens to those who love the Goddess, and who love what a woman Truly Is.

Section Two: Torment in Secular Realms

On the inverse of things, my extended family, and school community were no exception when it came to surviving, or being consumed by The Burning Times. For starters, my grandfather was a pervert. His brother had been killed by the Burning Years of the Second World War, but he was not, by far, the one of the two brothers, who was consumed by it. My Great Uncle David, I know now, with his Mother Beatrice, or "Grandma Bea," and my namesake, were the spiritual and psychological Channels through which, from the realm of Spirit, guided, protected and sustained my entire family in America. They had triumphed over their Burning Times, and Death had no hold on them, except as The Threshold, that is Mother Death, the Other Side of Life; and they trusted Her Wisdom to guide them out of the darkness, toward the promise of Resurrection, and Rebirth.

"Instead of sexuality being considered a gift, it was now the root of all evil, and Woman, was the obstacle to men's holiness." The Burning Times, 1990 documentary on European Witch Hunts

When I look back, my grandfather's perverse behavior towards his grandchildren (especially his Asian grandchildren), was not exactly hidden. My grandparents cruelly persecuted their daughter, my mother for decades because of her decision to join the Unification Movement. I figured out, even as a young woman, that the persecution had little to do with difference of "beliefs," or even fear of "cults." It was racism, pure and simple. The Unification Movement began in Asia and the leaders were therefore Asian. My grandparents were products of World War Two; American propaganda against the Japanese, and all Asian people, specifically through the formation of the Japanese Internment Camps, who imprisoned, tortured and killed not just Japanese, but all Asian American people, regardless of ethnicity. After the war, my White American grandparents hijacked their own emotional, spiritual and physical lives by taking "the high road." They were proud liberals who valued that pride over substantial, solid values, and actual inclusion and tolerance. Their racism was excused, and hidden behind the grand walls, fences, bushes and gardens of their eventual, North Shore Massachusetts, somewhat sprawling estate. Just for example, they helped build schools in Africa and supported African exchange students and were active in the various local medical, educational, and economic African Exchange Programs; in the meantime, behind the grand, but enclosed space of their private lives, their Asian American flesh and blood grandchildren, of their wayward daughter, were forced to maintain their estate, to "pay back their family's debts" to them. My mother, right up until the day my grandmother passed away, remained psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, and therefore physically captured by her abusive parents. My sisters and I worked weekly, and during the summers daily from the ages of about nine on; plowing, planting, harvesting and preparing their acres of land. We wiped down, mopped, swept and vacuumed, and generally maintained their small mansion on a weekly basis. My mother worked just as hard, but looking back, she drove us to work beside her to that degree. We were screamed at, guilted, and even beaten if we protested. My mother was captured; tormented internally and externally by her captors who reinforced, and maintained her wounds and beliefs about her feelings of worthlessness. She put up with excessive amounts of verbal, emotional and financial abuse from her parents, and forced us to do the same.

Stockholm Syndrome. How clear it is to me now…

One of the primary reasons I had to finally go no contact with my family, at least until deeper healing can occur, is because of the profoundly warped belief in my guilt.

"There are demons inside you, mocking me, jeering at me and I just want to hit you until they come out…" (4)

My mother, all my life, defended her parent's actions. At some point during her life, she developed Stockholm Syndrome for her primary abusers. They were never the guilty party, no, we needed to feel gratitude towards their benevolence, and put up with their "shortcomings." Even over-spiritualizing the issue and saying that our silence was "an act of selflessness." Of course, no person can actually function this way without becoming extraordinarily wounded and warped themselves. Starting at about sixteen, my youth, my zest for life, my body, my Sacred Sexuality, my love of The Goddess in all her forms, veiled or naked, became the primary victim in my mother's distorted relationship with her parents, her spouse and her church community. My father was to blame for her toxic marriage with him, and I was to blame for not excusing it. One of my sisters developed Stockholm Syndrome where my mother was concerned, and at least right up until the day I stopped speaking to her, in her mind, I was to blame for all the suffering in her life. My criticism towards my mother was viewed absolutely, as an attack on a traumatized, but basically innocent victim of her circumstances.

My sister and my mother would scream and cry, carry on, and insult me until I'd lose my temper and retaliate. As soon as I did, I can recall clearly now their warped sense of triumph; they got me to crucify myself, or, at the very least many times turn my defense of myself into something untoward and fundamentally bad. It was the "proof" they needed that I was the "problem" and always had been.

During the Salem Witch Trials, it is known that the two biggest instigators or accusers were women. These two women became drunk, psychotic, with the power they felt in simply pointing a finger at a woman they wished to attack, and the religious male dictators in their community would take it from there.

I take full responsibility for my actions, whether just or not; however, it has been more healing than there are words to express, to be able to clarify to my Soul the fact that during my Burning Years, and others, I was surrounded by tormentors from close communities. Not every time, but I think most of the time, psychologically, and sometimes physically, my temper, defense mechanisms and/or retaliatory actions were purposely instigated by my tormentors. Their need to feel power when they felt so powerless, or need to deflect when they felt so guilty, or need to attack when they felt so angry, made them desperate to keep me as the community's scapegoat. It became my life's greatest wound to heal, with God alone, and take responsibility for. Because God knows, no one was going to do it for me, or help me do it myself.

Section Three: Torments of the Cultural, Feminine Famine

Almost no one, to this day, will talk about how routinely young women, who are minors, will participate in parties with alcohol, and God knows, other recreational drugs as well, and how routinely these girls are raped; "willingly," or not.

The conversation in Burning American Society, often driven by Western Women, is to ignore women's suffering, and try and figure out how to hurl the blame on someone, or something else. A good scapegoat is often someone who is trying to uphold for themselves, or guide others in the practice of Sexual Sanctity. The conversation is often distorted, (by women), into a circular conversation, and therefore logic, that says, "such and such female reproductive medical service is a right," and insist that that medication, procedure, and/or contraceptive is the answer to all women's problems; and if they just have it, women will be "liberated" and "happier." Sexual Boundaries, or Sanctity is viewed as "oppressive," the conversation is cut off where these narrators and voices wish to have it cut off, (where it doesn't support their circular thinking), and insist again, and again, 'round and 'round, that solutions lie in the hands of "others," always "others," never, in the need to actually address women's suffering in our culture.

I can not describe the pain fully, that I experienced from the wounds of not only listening to, and watching young, teenage girls of my age group in my early high school days experience rape, but also watching them spiral into broken behavior as a result. If all this weren't bad enough, further psychological, emotional and spiritual lacerations were caused by the way these young women would confide in me their inner turmoil, desperation and lack of self -worth; then turn around and mask their jeering and deep unhappiness in cruel jokes, under-handed comments, and general exclusionary, and tone-deaf attitudes towards me.

I guess the moment I became "A Little Mother" to people beyond my siblings, was when I rescued and protected Lane, my handmade doll. My intensely difficult life, close to nature, and ample exposure to Powerful Spiritual Ideas, helped to form deep within me, fiercely sharp instincts.

For the first time in my life during high school, I was over an hour away from my home during the school day. My sisters and I went to the only Waldorf Education High School in Eastern Massachusetts. It was a very small school, of about fifty to sixty students. One amazing characteristic of this school was that among the sixty or so students, probably close to a fifth or more at a time, were exchange students, from all over the globe. My family, and the Religious Movement I was raised in, are made up of people from all over the globe as well, so my life from birth has been consistently, and extraordinarily blessed with multi-cultural, inter-faith, inter-racial, and inter-ethnic life experiences, that have deeply served me in ways so numerous, I liken them to the vast, diversity of the oceans.

By that time, American Culture was in a deep, cultural feminine famine, that we are only just now, slowly waking up to. What I mean by feminine famine is that the feminine continuity from grandmother, to mother, to daughter to granddaughter, was deeply wounded; suffering from decades of deep, cultural, psychological hemorrhage. By the early 2000s America's obsession with superficial youngness, especially in women, as well as Western women's movements promoting aggressive masculinizing of girls and women, was like thousands of pyres lit across the country, with spectated burnings of the Sacred Feminine, burning day and night. Young girls were culturally groomed to cultivate, and live out this warped, modern female idea, that "liberation," "freedom," and "empowerment," lie in how men act. The modern girl was conditioned with the mantra,

"Equality is being able to sleep around like a man, but not be labeled a whore, the way men can dog around, and not be labeled a whore."

I probably heard this particular mantra, if not on a daily basis, definitely, on a weekly basis, from young, high school girls. Although I was many times deeply tormented and conflicted by the two opposing worlds I grew up in, that mantra made absolutely no sense to me.

By around sixteen years old, I was horrified to see how female conversation, and confidences were horrifically, and routinely invaded by young women who would "police" what we'd say, particularly about boys and men. Looking back, it was like the psychological version of the Inquisition; breaking the feminine community by warping, deceiving, grooming and manipulating young women into believing that equality meant not only becoming completely sexually uninhibited with men socially, but to also artificially "defend" men, usually their sexual partners, (or abusers) from other women's "criticism." For example, I remember distinctly, that some women told me that I couldn't say that long hair is "womanly," because some men have long hair as well. Or Mother of God forbid say that a man's long hair looks girly. This kind of policing was considered the priority in conversations and social commentary concerning so- called women's lib. and societal "progression." The obsession of women had become, "how do I disappear into a man's world?" All the while fooling themselves, their daughters, and other young girls into believing that they weren't trying to disappear into a man's world; they were promoting women, straight to the "top;" where, may I remind you now, without proper guidance, wisdom and preparation, one can be killed by the storms at the mountain peak, and the drastic change in altitude. "The top" is full of the world's worst kind of men, always has been. I don't know why a mother would encourage her daughter to blindly think that place is empowering.

It was my tenth grade year that a few very nice young men showed interest in dating me. To this day, I don't know how safe it would have been to date in high school. The "courtship" stage of building romantic relationships between men and women in American culture, had already had thousands of spectated burnings throughout the decades. In the animal world, it is clearly seen that the tone, and rhythm set for courtship between males and females is consistently, and mostly, set by the females. In other words, Courtship is one of the pivotal expressions of the Sacred Feminine. It has been no different for humans, since the beginning of time.

I remember my deep inner conflict about my religious upbringing and my social life during my sixteenth year, often started a lot of confusion among my classmates, especially the young men who wanted to date me. I didn't know it then, it was just maddening at the time, but my Soul was like a Force Field around me. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself that I could get away with "breaking church rules," and doing what I wanted, including dating outside the church body, that absolutely relentless Force Field of Soul and Instinct would not let me.

Because I'd heard heartbreaking stories over and over again about my female, underage schoolmates getting raped either "willingly" or not, at drunken parties, I really had no desire to go there, despite their passive aggressive, underhanded treatment, emotional gashes and lashes, and toxic weedling. But, I did wish to begin courting, except, there was no such thing as courting in early 2000s America.

Among other things, pornography and the internet had taken hold like a vast oil fire, all across America and the world. Girls being lured by faceless internet predators became a pretty routine, terrifying cultural reality. Young boys, and girls I would find out were effortlessly, and chronically being exposed to pornographic images of women and men, and becoming addicted to masturbating to those graphic, toxic, and violent images, before they were even close to sexual, mental, let alone spiritual maturity. In other words, drunken partying, and widely, and easily available pornography, I'd come to find out at sixteen, were just an integral part of the American teenage life. At least I know one thing; my Soul-Instinct's Force Field protected me from terribly destructive realities that I saw wound, break and annihilate the Tender Innocent Feminine, over and over again, all around me.

I was standing up to the psychological Inquisition in my church community by defending my innocence; and deeply, instinctually, defending my innocence by not being manipulated by the psychological Inquisition in American Mainstream Culture, in my secular community. As my mother said many times during those Burning Years:

"When I prayed at my darkest, tormented hour, I saw fire in front of me, but when I looked back, I saw fire behind me. I knew that if I was going to go through fire, I better move forward through it, not backward."

Footnotes:

(1)

Song: https://suno.com/s/yGnO4PF9SK0LNGiU

Poem: