I am moved by the existence of

three butterfly echoes in the body

a reverberating truth that

holds me in cosmological and somatic wonder

photo by Mason Rose

my name is Evie Vigil, I identify as a trans nonbinary and genderqueer facilitator and multi-media artist. This photo of me was taken near the beloved rio grande river, in my hometown of Albuquerque NM where I’ve returned to continue emerging my practices as a somatic sex educator, writer, eco-ritualist, film-maker, performer and scholar.

How did I arrive to 3 butterflies and these particular intersections?

My story began to take shape in college where for 5 years my educational focus was on environmental science and ecological conservation. Upon completion of my BS in Zoology from San Francisco State in 2013, I felt exhausted and disenchanted by my institutional discipline. What I desired was a relationship of curiosity and reciprocity with the natural world. What I received was a training in categorization with an emphasis on how well I could present grade-focused research. I decided after graduation to take a sacred pause and develop my own sense of belonging to land and place. I realized years later that my gravitation towards somatic sexual healing and animist spirituality was fortified by this experience. Objectification, reductionism and a lack of reverence for the holy in nature permeated the scientific fields I was learning within. It felt like a larger cultural symptom of disconnection fueled by colonialism and supremacy culture. I believe the trauma that unfurls on structural levels around violation and lack of consent towards land and people can be felt in our bodies and is reproduced en mass within our culture on micro levels.

so what about sex ?

Before my institutional pause I began to develop my practice as an artist and leaned into sex work as my primary source of income. Although precarious and stigmatized, navigating the work came natural to me. My experiences were vast and sometimes profound in their complexity. I learned more acutely about the ways cultural and sexual trauma affected people’s shame and desire on a somatic level. I learned about risk management, harm reduction and how to negotiate dynamic consent. I learned touch based bdsm skills and strategies for moving through many types of intimate containers with strangers. I was simultaneously amazed by the infinite amount of ways that pleasure can be expressed, sought out and practiced. Over an 11 year span I learned how to run my own business as an erotic laborer in many emanations. I continue feeling the overall resiliency and wisdom of emerging from a sex worker lineage and honor this lived experience as foundational to my SSE practice.

Outside of sex work, my curatorial, performance and film projects explore realms of queer esoteric erotic potentiality. I have initiated and participated in the creation of experimental events, these include: immersive art installations, film screenings, musical performances, theatrical life drawing classes, drag shows, sound baths and ongoing seasonal rituals. I co-organized Tempt Fest queer erotic film festival as a platform to exalt queer sex working artists and erotic film-makers in a way I had never seen done before. Learn more about my visions and collaborative projects here.

I arrived to Somatic Sex Education with a longing to fortify my skills in touch based care work and to gain more insight into the ways the body holds and releases trauma. As a survivor myself, I’ve been particularly interested in learning how to guide others towards an authentic and embodied erotic expression with emphasis on pleasure, prayer, acceptance, and empowered choice and voice. I found an extension of home within SSE, where my values around trauma informed erotic liberation are shared and understood. Read more about my Somatic Sex Education offerings here.

the erotic and spirit aspire together

Spirit has always moved through the channels of my body via personal and collective sacred space making. I have arrived here through the exquisite guidance of teachers, beloveds and ancestors. I am a mixed descendant of hispanic/mexican/polish/scottish & sephardic jewish diaspora with centuries of lineages from New Mexico on my fathers line. I carry the complexities and stories of my people close to my heart and visions. I engage in folk catholicism/animist mysticism and prayer practices that have been transmitted to me through dreams, ancestors, teachers, family and friends or created through the matrix of my own somatic+ spiritual research. I have explored the expansion of awareness, attention, psychic capacity and whole body nourishment through ritual focus and believe prayer to be a delicious element of erotic aliveness.

life projects and practices that are meaningful to me:

earth building, woodworking, animal hide processing, rosary circles & Marian devotion, pilgrimage to holy sites, deep listening & sonic meditation, Shabbat, ceramics, poetry, plant medicine, candle-making, film-making, mythology, multi-cultural mysticism, attention and offering to water ways, singing & music making, growing corn and tending to gardens, solidarity building and organizing among other sex workers, trans people & working class + marginalized communities.

I feel overwhelming gratitude for the opportunity to animate and investigate these intersections and to guide others towards their fullest and most marvelous expressions of love and spirit.