My soul used it ALL to crack me open.
Ohad Pele. 2025
Several years ago, at the peak of my 2nd Saturn return, my whole world collapsed. My life was sweet back then. So sweet that in the middle of a night, during an ISTA Level 2 workshop that I was facilitating in Arizona, I woke up, went out of my room to stand naked under the desert's sky, and prayed: "Master of the Universe, I am so so grateful… everything goes so well in my life… (I counted my blessings), But… what's next?"
And then —Boom! My life shifted.
I was not aware of it at the time, but the seed for the destruction of my old life was planted that very week, during that workshop in Arizona. I did not pay enough attention to the way people perceive me in my leadership role. My ideals about sovereignty and equality met reality.
A woman with whom I shared a practice felt that she was unable to be herself when she was paired with me. She later complained that I misused my status.
A year later in Israel, a very righteous activist collected dozens of allegations of sexual misconduct against a well-known healer. That evening, the healer went into the forest and took his own life, tragically leaving behind a wife and children. The righteous man, unable to deliver the healer to his friends in the media, didn't stay idle. He immediately wrote that he bore no guilt or remorse for the healer's suicide. On the contrary, his death clears the field, and there are others who need to go the same way and kill themselves too. At the top of his list was ISTA, which he started to publicly name as a “cult”, and me, as a senior teacher there, a “cult leader”. A skilled marketer by profession, he successfully orchestrated an international media campaign that began with an article in Haaretz newspaper about "The truth behind the Sacred Sexuality Community". The dead healer had nothing to do with this community, and I personally did not know him at all. Nevertheless, his journalist friend dug through the internet and found the woman's complaint from the Arizona workshop. From there, a snowball started rolling, and the life I knew was gone. Nowadays, I can say, thank God! I was upgraded. A whole new level of existence was waiting for me to grow into.
But first, I needed to face all my fears and demons, including the fear that even you, dear reader, would judge me, and that I would never be popular again.
Working at the cutting-edge frontier of Sacred Sexuality, as we were in the old days of ISTA, I was aware that this was a high-risk job with no insurance. But I took it anyway. I could not avoid taking it, as at the time, it had been the clear calling of my soul.
My soul was the one who pushed me into the Sexual Shamanism field, all the way through to the top leadership of the largest and most effective worldwide organization. And my soul, blessed be She, destroyed it all to dust and ashes when the time had come to move on.
"גם כי אלך בגיא צלמוות לא אירא רע כי אתה עמדי. שבטך ומשענתך המה ינחמוני" "Even though I walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death, I fear no evil, for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff — they comfort me." — says David in the book of Psalms.
The path of our initiation often takes us through the valley of death and destruction – destruction of the one we knew ourselves to be. My soul had definitely led me down that path, as always, with full-on power.
Yehoo Shalem, my beloved and talented son, in one of his deep songs, sings: "When Miss.Fortune comes your way, raise your hands and praise" — and so I did.
Spitting blood and swearing, humiliated by the media, and feeling hunted by people on social media, I lifted my now shaky arms to the same starry night sky and humbly blessed the divine intelligence, who didn't let me get stuck and stagnant. Who woke me up to see things that I was previously blind to.
"Your rod and Your staff they comfort me," says the psalm's verse, and indeed I was given not only the rod and the whip, but also the staff and the cane. It was given to me in the form of a loving, wise woman named Katara.
She and I had just fallen in love before it all started to crumble, and when shit hit the fan, she did not run off, but decided to hold my hand and coach me through it. With the sharp clarity of a smart engineer, deep devotion, and total trust in my soul's ability to champion it all, she was my priestess of love, guiding me through the dark night of my soul and taking my sacrifice’s offerings all the way to the great Goddess's altar.
The journey through the valley of shadows was my path towards renewal and rebirth, though at the time, it felt like being dragged towards the stake through a dark alley paved with rotten tomatoes, surrounded by a cheering and spitting mob, waving their forks on social media square.
It was painful. Very painful.
But I knew that despite the pain, I had to listen carefully to the whispers of deep truths nestled within all the noisy distortions of the media. I was being called by my soul to recognize tender hidden truths concealed under the covers of gross stories and names I was called. There are hidden secrets in that shit, so I knew, even when some parts in me wished to kick and scream, defend myself, tell my story, and regain the public recognition of my innocence.
But decades of immersion in Hasidic mysticism and the tough, loving gaze of my priestess reminded me that this whole ordeal was not made against me. It was tailor-made for me — meaning, for my awakening.
Along that path, I met my fears and learned not to dismiss them as "these are just fears" but to listen to them with respect and learn. I met my grief and learned to un-resist it, to let it shatter me completely all the way through to ecstasy (yes, it can lead to ecstasy). And I met my anger, that had never had an honorable room in my inner guesthouse, and allowed it to lead me to the core of my sacred clarity. How refreshing!
I also met my inner scared child, who found a way to manipulate reality by hiding behind my inner shaman and secretly trying to get his painfully unmet needs met. I had to recognize those parts of me who are so afraid to be seen as "bad and wrong" that they jump to defend my character the moment they hear any criticism or complaint, leaving others feeling invisible and unheard.
I met all kinds of parts in me that were hiding in the shadows of my personality — and loved them all up, with tears of gratitude. Those parts are not to be fought with or killed, but to be listened to, loved, and through love and compassion allowed to integrate into greater wholeness.
Walking through the valley of cancel culture shows you many things about yourself, but also about your social circles. Despite the threat of cancel culture, my life-partner Dawn Cherie, my children, some real good friends, and even my old parents (who hated my work in the field of sexuality), did not blink an eye. "Whatever people say, we do not care,” they simply said. “We know who you really are".
"We're curious to see how you're going to rebirth yourself on the other side of this journey," Some of them added and went to get some popcorn.
This journey has transformed me in numerous ways and brought about significant changes in my life and my work. I left ISTA, blessing it to be whatever it needs to be nowadays. My focus turned inside. The river of creativity that was wanting to pour out through me is eroding itself deeper into my inner worlds, gushing through the mystical path of my lineage. I sometimes even suspect that my mischievous ancestors and teachers were part of this whole scheme, as they wished me to dive deeper into my soul's mission.
It was hard. Sometimes it still is. But I would not give it up. I wish I could transform more gracefully, of course. But sometimes the phoenix must burn. There are forests that need fire to renew. And before the butterfly emerges, the caterpillar hangs itself and becomes a formless goo within the chrysalis.
I love my new, dark and shimmering wings; they remind me of the starry night sky in the Arizona desert, where it all began.
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The tools and rituals that Katara and I discovered, which helped me move through this crazy journey as an initiation rather than an ongoing trauma, were crystallized and structured into an 8-day transformational workshop called "Black Butterfly – the art of soulful transformation". We love sharing them with those who are ready for the journey.
