Poetry for me is as much a spiritual practice as sexual ecstasy

Hear the bold and burning words of James Broughton, poet of ecstasy and prophet of freedom: “Poetry for me is as much a spiritual practice as sexual ecstasy is.” In this declaration, he unites two forces often kept apart—poetry and ecstasy, spirit and body. For Broughton knew that true poetry is not a mere arrangement of words but a rapture of being, an opening of the heart to mystery, as profound and as transformative as the rapture of the flesh. He places them side by side because both are acts of surrender, both are acts of creation, both are gateways to the divine.

The meaning here is radiant. Poetry, in Broughton’s vision, is not only literature but ritual. It is the shaping of breath into rhythm, of silence into song, of vision into words that carry power. It is prayer without temple, worship without creed. And just as sexual ecstasy dissolves the boundaries of self, uniting one with another in a blaze of life, so poetry dissolves the boundary between self and world, uniting the poet with beauty, truth, and spirit. Both are experiences of wholeness—moments when the human is lifted beyond the ordinary into the sacred.

The ancients knew this well. The Greeks spoke of Eros and Mousa, of desire and the Muse, as kindred forces. Sappho sang of love and longing with a voice so fierce it pierced centuries. The mystics of many faiths, too, compared their visions to both poetry and passion. Rumi declared that his verses were born of love’s fire, while St. Teresa of Ávila described her raptures in images that echoed both prayer and desire. Broughton’s words are thus no modern provocation but the revival of an ancient truth: the spiritual and the sensual are not enemies, but reflections of the same fire.

History offers us striking examples. Consider Walt Whitman, who in his Leaves of Grass celebrated the body and the soul as one, refusing to divide them. His poems shocked his age, but he spoke with prophetic force: “The scent of these armpits is aroma finer than prayer.” To him, the ecstasy of the senses was also the ecstasy of spirit. Or look to William Blake, who saw in every act of creation—whether of the flesh or of the imagination—a spark of divine energy. Both men, like Broughton, affirmed that poetry and ecstasy are mirrors, each revealing the sacredness of existence.

Broughton’s quote also challenges us to abandon shame. For too long, cultures have divided body and spirit, praising one and condemning the other. But he reminds us that both are gifts, both are paths to transcendence. To write poetry is to breathe with the soul; to experience sexual ecstasy is to burn with the flame of life. Both, if embraced with reverence, reveal the same truth: that we are more than fragments, that within us lies a force that can dissolve walls and awaken eternity.

The lesson for us is clear: seek wholeness. Do not exile your spirit from your body, nor your body from your spirit. When you write, write not only with the mind, but with the heart, with the senses, with the full fire of being. When you love, love not only with the body, but with reverence, with presence, as if each moment were a poem written in flesh. Let poetry become your prayer, and let ecstasy become your hymn. Both are ways of awakening to the divine woven through the ordinary.

Practical wisdom flows from this. Begin by treating poetry not as duty but as delight. Write not only for perfection, but to let your soul speak. Read aloud, sing your words, let them carry rhythm like breath. And in your intimate life, treat passion as sacred, as a moment of union that reveals the beauty of existence. Honor both as practices of attention, surrender, and presence. For both poetry and ecstasy demand the same thing: that you step outside yourself and into the eternal flow.

Thus James Broughton’s words endure as a blazing torch: poetry is as much a spiritual practice as ecstasy, for both awaken the soul to its fullness. Let us pass this teaching to generations to come, that no part of life be scorned, that all be embraced as pathways to the divine. For in poetry and in passion alike, we taste the truth that we are not merely flesh or spirit, but both—burning together in the eternal dance of creation.