Using Plant Medicine To Amplify Your Pleasure Practice

Anne Louise Burdett, Founder and CEO of TOCA Botanica introduces us to the world of plants, how to incorporate them into your sexual practice, and use them with Chakrubs 

As a clinical herbalist and farmer, I am witness to how plants can impact our most intimate selves, and how deeply we can transform through healthy practices of intimacy. It is clear to me that this inherent overlap of health and ecological literacy are underrepresented and underappreciated in our society. And, even sometimes, abused or used improperly by the “wellness” industry.

The intersection of sexual wellness and plant medicine for us is essential — both for individual and collective wellness, and for building and contributing to a world that we want to live in. That’s why I created TOCA. It’s a commitment to continuing this legacy of care and wellbeing through connecting with the ecology and plant life around us.

 

 

The overlapping world of plants and sexual health

My work in sexual coaching and sexual education is based in a practice of releasing trauma, stored pain and grief — in partnership with building a new way of loving and learning into the body through the ways we develop mental and emotional patterning. This can allow for a very expanded sense of pleasure, both sexually and sensually in our daily lives. I have seen how deeply effective using our plant allies alongside other therapeutic exercises and tools has been in facilitating other’s personal shifts and growth.

TOCA is a sexual health product line. We make botanically based intimate oils with high-potency plant formulations, including hemp/CBD. The formulas are very effective for both decreasing barriers to pleasure — like pain, irritation, injury, trauma or other difficult-to-address issues — while also increasing our pleasure potential through heightened sensitivity, engorgement and blood circulation, prolonged play and experimentation, and increased capacity for multiple orgasms.

But with our oils there is both the product, and the practice. The reason we make botanical based lubes is because they work. And by work, we mean that medicinal plants impact our tissue states, our nervous system and our subtle energetic bodies in myriad healing ways. We also use stone essences in our oils because they reach a different vibrational part of our being, and we are interested in pleasure and healing on all levels.

I selected the plants for TOCA’s oil formulations from 10+ years of clinical experience and a deep and lasting connection with the plants themselves.

 

Get to know some of our plant allies

GINGER

We use plants like Ginger to decrease inflammation, while warming and opening the tissues and allowing for heightened sensitivity and engorgement.

HELICHRYSUM

Helichrysum is an amazing tissue repair herb, used for generations to increase tone and elasticity of the sensitive mucosa of the vulva, and to repair any injury or irritation after giving birth. Helichrysum is a skin tonic that makes your most sensitive tissues feel like they are glowing.

KAVA KAVA

Kava Kava is widely known to decrease pain and increase pleasure. Kava has a long history of use as a way to connect and feel present and relaxed.

CANNABIS

We also have high potency hemp extract, also known as CBD extract. Cannabis has perhaps the longest history of recorded human use of any plant on earth. We have co-evolved with this plant as a primary and useful ally for as long as there has been knowledge of human/plant relationships. It’s no wonder our human bodies are so elegantly designed to be able to utilize this plant’s amazing benefits. CBD has a profound relationship with the human body’s potential for pleasure as we have explored on the TOCA blog.

 

Amplify your pleasure: using oils with Chakrubs

We have designed these oils for intimacy and play, but they can also be used on all tissue as a daily tonic to maintain a healthy balance and tone.

However, no matter how good our oils may be, if you aren’t developing a personal practice of touching, loving, and communicating with your body and whole self, it will be hard to reach the maximum potential of both your vital sexuality and the power of these plants.

As a company that makes intimate oils with stone essences and medicinal plants, we are in love with Chakrubs. So to help you develop your personal pleasure practice, we have created these exercises.

First, I encourage you to spend time with plants. Whether they are the weeds in the sidewalk, or the aromatics you can smell from our intimate oils, plants are all around you. Consider if you use plant medicine in any form, where these extracts came from. What does the plant look like, where does it grow? Visualize it coming into your body as a friend and ally. What might it be doing to help you? What do the plants need?

 

Using TOTO intimate oil with a Chakrubs Yoni Egg

This is a gentle way to introduce a yoni egg practice into your body as well as awaken and build sexual energy in your womb space.

Choose a yoni egg to work with. Chakrubs Yoni Eggs come in different materials so you can choose which feels most relevant and resonant with you. TOTO has essences of Tourmaline, Rose Quartz, and Orange Carnelian. This collection of stones have resonance and relationships with each other and they can work together to protect and create boundaries energetically so you can release and feel totally open and vulnerable. As well, they can heal past experiences that you may be holding, release blocks and allow for a depth of pleasure that you have never imagined.

Settle yourself somewhere comfortable and sweet. Take some breaths and look around your space. Let your body relax and adjust to being wherever you are. Begin to do a slow body scan with your hands. Slowly run your hands, starting at the top of your head, across all the contours of your body. Get to know what each curve and crevice feels like, allowing them to speak to you. You are saturating every cell of your body and part of your being with pleasure. Remember that connecting with yourself and others sexually is healing and when done consensually and safely, builds power in your spirit and can bring desire and passion into everything you do. Explore yourself with love and intention.

While exploring your pelvic area, spray some TOTO on your hand and start to warm up your tissues. This can be working towards high arousal or just simple, pleasurable sensation and greeting. Once you feel yourself warm and open, take your Yoni Egg and cover it with TOTO oil. Move slowly and gently with yourself and use the Yoni Egg to trace around the base of your vulva. Stay here for a moment and when you feel ready, slide it into your vagina. Make sure you feel comfortable. No need to rush the process of entering your body. Start lying or sitting down. If you are standing it is possible the egg will slide out until you have had more practice.

Once the egg is inside, you can play with strengthening the muscles of your pelvic floor and throughout your pelvic and vaginal area with kegels. This is for tonifying the tissues but also to heighten pleasure and sensitivity with practice. You can control and contract these muscles during any kind of sex and it can dramatically increase your ability to have multiple orgasms, ejaculate and pleasure your partner.

To do kegels you will want to slow down your breathing and relax. On the inhale pull all of your pelvic muscles together like closing a drawstring on a bag. Hold and then release. You may feel the Yoni Egg moving around inside of you. See with your mind the stone essence of the egg vibrating into your tissues. Continue to pull the drawstring bag closed and release, and as you practice more you can hold this for longer, and/or do repetitive holding and releasing at increased speed.

To finish your practice, you can either bring yourself to orgasm with the egg still inside or simply close out the session when it feels over to you. We recommend using some additional TOTO oil to massage your inner thighs and lower belly as a sweet way to thank your body for opening to today’s practice.

 

Using QULO intimate oil with The Xaga Root

The Xaga Root and QULO are a match made in heaven. This is an anal play session for activating and bringing love to your sacral chakra.

Stand up and take some time to relax into your body. Tune into the feeling of your body grounded on the earth. Close your eyes and feel all four corners of your feet on the ground. Move your hands around your pelvis, butt, thighs, back. Twist and lift your legs, swing your arms around, let yourself feel loose and light. Feel if there is anything your body wants you to know.

When you feel relaxed and blood flowing through your body, get into whatever position feels most comfortable for you. We recommend lying on your back or on your stomach for comfort. Take a bit of QULO oil and rub it over your hands. Begin to massage your ass cheeks and explore areas that bring up the most sensation for you. When you feel excitement growing, you can add a bit more oil to your fingers and begin circling your asshole with your fingertip. Once you’re able to dip a finger inside with comfort, you’re ready to bring in The Xaga Root.

Take The Xaga Root and cover it with QULO oil. Take the time you need to slide it around and work it towards and into your anus. There is no need to rush here. This combination is for moving energy, for blood flow, opening, relaxing and being able to fully feel and be present with your sensation and your pleasure. The stone obsidian in the Xaga Root can absorb negative energy, help work through trauma, create stability and clarity and vigor, and the stones and plants in QULO will warm your tissues, tingle and ripple through the sensitive mucosa. Both in repair and in prevention of tissue injury QULO will tonify and strengthen. Take your time to feel the healing process unfold through the pleasure you are experiencing.

 

Where to find us

For us at TOCA, knowing your own body, healthy intimacy, communication and respect for self and others, are foundational practices to a strong and empowered future— and pleasure is a practice that can help us get there. We encourage you to explore the world of plants as transformational tools to help cultivate and grow your pleasure practice.

To build desire, play and satisfaction into your life, find our pleasure oils here and explore them with any Chakrub you own.

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Image credits: TOCA