Sexual energy is "just" energy...the same energy that makes the plants grow and the sun shine and the flower-children blossom...but we can feel it much more profoundly when it is moving through our first chakra. It is "creation" energy.
Tantra, which is a meditative practice that is meant to bridge or unite body and spirit, offers ancient tools and practices to help us harness sexual energy and use it to be happy, conscious creators--rather than pretend sexual energy doesn't exist, or be blindly led by it...or do whatever we do with it, which for many of us is not very conscious.
In my daily life, one example of how it operates is: upon finding out the staggering sum I owe in taxes, within moments I returned to a state of relaxed gratitude. I didn't create a drama, or get negative. And that created a path in front of me, so that my entire tax-paying experience was almost laughably pleasant. When drivers flip me off, cut me off...when the Blockbuster clerk scolds me...I smile. I'm happy--maybe just happy that I'm not affected by their antics. (I was once pretty darn crabby.)
And the way that helps the planet? Well, imagine the neutralizing effect it has (at minimum), and the wave of pleasure sent out to others, which they send out to others. The Blockbuster clerk actually apologized. Are there other spiritual practices that can do this? Surely there must be, but this is my favorite. And I'm sure many of us are conscious enough to be able to re-route even without a spiritual program. I like that tantra takes sex out of the darkness, and into the light, where I am convinced it was meant to be. Nothing that feels this blissful and creates new life should be considered nasty or dirty. (And it can be spiritual...yet still be as kinked or fun as one wishes.)
The New Paradigm means seeing ourselves as creators, not victims. The New Paradigm is a shift in which we realize that we the perceiver is actually creating while perceiving--a condition which is being proven by physics. It turns reality as we know it, inside-out. Because we actually have a HUGE effect on the world around us...not even necessarily through our actions, but through our thoughts. And even though it is called New, yogis have known this for thousands of years.
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
When Yoga Meets Politics
No matter who wins the election, 50% of us will be dissatisfied. Rather than thinking we know which individual political candidate will create the change we want, what if we hold some other common vision? Rather than needing to know exactly how you want that vision to LOOK, or who’s going to pay for it, imagine that there is a bigger and better version of the world than you’d ever dreamed…and FEEL it.
Friday, September 9, 2011
A Tidbit from my Mother-Daughter Book
ENERGETIC CONNECTIONS WITH MY MOTHER
This book is my mother’s biggest fear. Why would she fear that her daughter would write an engaging, pioneering handbook about enhancing the mother-daughter connection? Shortly after I embarked upon a spiritual path, my mother confessed her fear: that I would discover she was a bad mom. Was she a bad mom? Well, that’s not exactly the point. The point is, she had an idea in her head that that’s what happens when people go to “therapy,” or do personal growth workshops. They discover bad parenting. But just to add to the fear that I’d discover she was a bad mom, here I am writing a book about…moms. So as she reads this, she is no doubt waiting for the part where it says she was a bad mom. There is evidence that our thoughts create our world. How disastrous that that fear of hers would be about to manifest…it could be in the next couple of paragraphs! I may be leading up to it now!
Can you see how a belief like that might color her experience? Of life, and of reading this book. Can you see how reading a book from a fearful place, or from a place of vigilance, would cause a feeling of contraction?
Just to liberate her right away, I will proclaim to the world: you were not a bad mom! Part of growing up and part of personal growth is looking back and seeing how our habits were formed so we can be aware and have choices.
And for all the rest of us, moms whose daughters are still growing avidly, I will proclaim: we are the perfect mom for the daughter we have.
The way my generation was parented was often based on a fear of authority. In reaction to that, there is a generation that has been parented from the opposite place, a place of child-led parenting—pleasing the child as opposed to doing the potential damage that the fear of authority clearly created.
And I would like to offer another option: yogic parenting. Conscious parenting. The premise is soul connection. The premise is that at the highest possible spiritual level, this child chose her parents precisely for what she’d get—and not get. And our responsibility is not to go on autopilot, not to unconsciously repeat what we were taught or told, or decide that pleasing the child is the less damaging, easier route. Our responsibility is to be conscious.
If both mother and daughter listen to their own inner voice, the highest voice that comes through at any given moment, we will be guided to a place that will be fulfilling for both of us.
Life is always changing, all around us. How do we handle that change, how do we adapt and enjoy? What messages do we send ourselves when our life does not seem to be flowing in our chosen direction? And on top of that, what do we do or say when our daughters’ lives are not flowing in their—or our—chosen direction?
This book is my mother’s biggest fear. Why would she fear that her daughter would write an engaging, pioneering handbook about enhancing the mother-daughter connection? Shortly after I embarked upon a spiritual path, my mother confessed her fear: that I would discover she was a bad mom. Was she a bad mom? Well, that’s not exactly the point. The point is, she had an idea in her head that that’s what happens when people go to “therapy,” or do personal growth workshops. They discover bad parenting. But just to add to the fear that I’d discover she was a bad mom, here I am writing a book about…moms. So as she reads this, she is no doubt waiting for the part where it says she was a bad mom. There is evidence that our thoughts create our world. How disastrous that that fear of hers would be about to manifest…it could be in the next couple of paragraphs! I may be leading up to it now!
Can you see how a belief like that might color her experience? Of life, and of reading this book. Can you see how reading a book from a fearful place, or from a place of vigilance, would cause a feeling of contraction?
Just to liberate her right away, I will proclaim to the world: you were not a bad mom! Part of growing up and part of personal growth is looking back and seeing how our habits were formed so we can be aware and have choices.
And for all the rest of us, moms whose daughters are still growing avidly, I will proclaim: we are the perfect mom for the daughter we have.
The way my generation was parented was often based on a fear of authority. In reaction to that, there is a generation that has been parented from the opposite place, a place of child-led parenting—pleasing the child as opposed to doing the potential damage that the fear of authority clearly created.
And I would like to offer another option: yogic parenting. Conscious parenting. The premise is soul connection. The premise is that at the highest possible spiritual level, this child chose her parents precisely for what she’d get—and not get. And our responsibility is not to go on autopilot, not to unconsciously repeat what we were taught or told, or decide that pleasing the child is the less damaging, easier route. Our responsibility is to be conscious.
If both mother and daughter listen to their own inner voice, the highest voice that comes through at any given moment, we will be guided to a place that will be fulfilling for both of us.
Life is always changing, all around us. How do we handle that change, how do we adapt and enjoy? What messages do we send ourselves when our life does not seem to be flowing in our chosen direction? And on top of that, what do we do or say when our daughters’ lives are not flowing in their—or our—chosen direction?
Monday, January 10, 2011
Fired Up
“NO pain, NO gain.” Remember that lovely workout adage?
Do we still need it?
What if you were told that there is going to be a happy ending, for sure?--that every bit of your life, whatever your current concerns are, magically turns out better than you ever would have expected. How would you live? And what if you were told, in a way that you couldn’t ignore, that there was NO reason ever to worry? Would you keep making up reasons to worry? Would you need more proof? Why do we humans insist that life has to be hard? And why do we insist that there has to be proof?
Is it that we look back at human experience and it WAS? There are very few history books describing the beauty and spirit of our ancestors. It sounds like all they did was fight each other. Apparently the people who write history books are interested in stuff like that. It is so interesting to me that my homeschooling daughter has only a very passing interest in history; she has sat through enough of my yoga classes to hear me suggest: stay in the present moment. Don't put any energy into regretting the past or worrying about the future. And then create a vision from NOW.
If you need to look at the past, take a look at a history line and see humans' rapid development at a glance. We are amazing! Living in amazing times! Why look back at less conscious times? Many would say, to study our mistakes. Ok, I'll save time: anything that did not come from a place that honored the planet and its inhabitants...was a mistake. That would include creating far more trash than the planet can process. Let's create our world from a new place in ourselves. Not from lack, fear, or desire for power or money, all of which have cocreated the stress we live with.
There is no need to look back at the remains of our old perceptions, even in our own individual dramas. Let's look forward. Yes people used to think the world was flat. Guess what, we as a species are still that unaware. We just don't know what the next huge paradigm-shifting piece is, yet.
What if? What if we looked toward experience, and from this new vantage point, our future looked euphoric? Or even just placid? What if life wasn’t hard, out there in the future; what if food and shelter were easy to create in such a way that everyone was satisfied with their share? What if? Does the evidence around us prevent us from being creative enough to imagine that? If so, that means we are victims of that external evidence; it has us in its grip and we need to check in on it repeatedly to make sure we are still not free, or happy, or rich.
How can we train ourselves as a species to outcreate that? To create something new. It’s mere visioning! Physics has observed, says Corrie--that life is all in the eye of the beholder and where the beholder is positioning herself, that she is in other words an active participant in creation. Can we therefore create what we choose? Can we the people come to a few basic agreements that could change the world? Does change need to explode onto the scene because a bomb was dropped or a child was killed? Do we need to rally ‘round tragedy? Or can we rally around an amazing new paradigm, a great Creation, a vision that actually does change the world? Are we listening?
Anyway. Did I mention? I walked on fire last weekend.
“Real fire?” is the first question I’m asked. Yes--real fire that’s been baked down to a scrunchy perfection for three hours, chanted to, sung to, then spread into a glowing-charcoal sidewalk under the rich and infinitely starry New Mexico sky. An energy of fear and excitement mingle and check each other out...as is often the case where there's fire. The beauty of this gathering is that everyone is willing to feel the fear and transform it into excitement. The new moon that weekend made the sky extra dark and the lunar cycle perfect for intention-setting. Fifty people who were willing to do things differently were present to inspire each other to create great visions for the New Year. And most of us walked on real fire. For a few it was our second or third or fourth firewalk. My experience is: it doesn't get easier. But it does get more fun.
Once one has walked on fire, with no physical trace whatsoever (my feet were actually cold from the time they spent in the snow, not hot from the time they spent on the coals) it is absolutely clear that where we place our minds has a direct effect on the experience of our bodies. Once one has walked on fire, there is a sense that nothing is impossible. There is a sense of euphoria, both a personal “I did it!” and a Universal, “Life is magical!” It is very clear that we create our worlds, and that our minds can be put to much better use than worrying that life has a bad ending.
Not only is there nothing to worry about, but we can and are being called to create our own experiences--and a New Earth--from the highest place we have access to--our Spirits. Think it won't work? If I had considered all the reasons walking on fire wouldn't work, it wouldn't have worked.
I loved the "no pain, no gain" adage for ages. I worked it. So willing to go there--it felt genetic. But in recent years, my experience has shown: no pain, HUGE gain. And part of the gain is: the experience that life can be painless. Life—can be painless! No, really. Life can even be euphoric in the face of potential pain. I've lived it. I walk my talk. On fire.
Yes!
It’s all about where you put your mind.
Do we still need it?
What if you were told that there is going to be a happy ending, for sure?--that every bit of your life, whatever your current concerns are, magically turns out better than you ever would have expected. How would you live? And what if you were told, in a way that you couldn’t ignore, that there was NO reason ever to worry? Would you keep making up reasons to worry? Would you need more proof? Why do we humans insist that life has to be hard? And why do we insist that there has to be proof?
Is it that we look back at human experience and it WAS? There are very few history books describing the beauty and spirit of our ancestors. It sounds like all they did was fight each other. Apparently the people who write history books are interested in stuff like that. It is so interesting to me that my homeschooling daughter has only a very passing interest in history; she has sat through enough of my yoga classes to hear me suggest: stay in the present moment. Don't put any energy into regretting the past or worrying about the future. And then create a vision from NOW.
If you need to look at the past, take a look at a history line and see humans' rapid development at a glance. We are amazing! Living in amazing times! Why look back at less conscious times? Many would say, to study our mistakes. Ok, I'll save time: anything that did not come from a place that honored the planet and its inhabitants...was a mistake. That would include creating far more trash than the planet can process. Let's create our world from a new place in ourselves. Not from lack, fear, or desire for power or money, all of which have cocreated the stress we live with.
There is no need to look back at the remains of our old perceptions, even in our own individual dramas. Let's look forward. Yes people used to think the world was flat. Guess what, we as a species are still that unaware. We just don't know what the next huge paradigm-shifting piece is, yet.
What if? What if we looked toward experience, and from this new vantage point, our future looked euphoric? Or even just placid? What if life wasn’t hard, out there in the future; what if food and shelter were easy to create in such a way that everyone was satisfied with their share? What if? Does the evidence around us prevent us from being creative enough to imagine that? If so, that means we are victims of that external evidence; it has us in its grip and we need to check in on it repeatedly to make sure we are still not free, or happy, or rich.
How can we train ourselves as a species to outcreate that? To create something new. It’s mere visioning! Physics has observed, says Corrie--that life is all in the eye of the beholder and where the beholder is positioning herself, that she is in other words an active participant in creation. Can we therefore create what we choose? Can we the people come to a few basic agreements that could change the world? Does change need to explode onto the scene because a bomb was dropped or a child was killed? Do we need to rally ‘round tragedy? Or can we rally around an amazing new paradigm, a great Creation, a vision that actually does change the world? Are we listening?
Anyway. Did I mention? I walked on fire last weekend.
“Real fire?” is the first question I’m asked. Yes--real fire that’s been baked down to a scrunchy perfection for three hours, chanted to, sung to, then spread into a glowing-charcoal sidewalk under the rich and infinitely starry New Mexico sky. An energy of fear and excitement mingle and check each other out...as is often the case where there's fire. The beauty of this gathering is that everyone is willing to feel the fear and transform it into excitement. The new moon that weekend made the sky extra dark and the lunar cycle perfect for intention-setting. Fifty people who were willing to do things differently were present to inspire each other to create great visions for the New Year. And most of us walked on real fire. For a few it was our second or third or fourth firewalk. My experience is: it doesn't get easier. But it does get more fun.
Once one has walked on fire, with no physical trace whatsoever (my feet were actually cold from the time they spent in the snow, not hot from the time they spent on the coals) it is absolutely clear that where we place our minds has a direct effect on the experience of our bodies. Once one has walked on fire, there is a sense that nothing is impossible. There is a sense of euphoria, both a personal “I did it!” and a Universal, “Life is magical!” It is very clear that we create our worlds, and that our minds can be put to much better use than worrying that life has a bad ending.
Not only is there nothing to worry about, but we can and are being called to create our own experiences--and a New Earth--from the highest place we have access to--our Spirits. Think it won't work? If I had considered all the reasons walking on fire wouldn't work, it wouldn't have worked.
I loved the "no pain, no gain" adage for ages. I worked it. So willing to go there--it felt genetic. But in recent years, my experience has shown: no pain, HUGE gain. And part of the gain is: the experience that life can be painless. Life—can be painless! No, really. Life can even be euphoric in the face of potential pain. I've lived it. I walk my talk. On fire.
Yes!
It’s all about where you put your mind.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
For Mature Adults Only
A bite of my mother-daughter book:
~~~~~~~
Somehow, what gets stuck in human beings and keeps us from flourishing are the “bad” moments, the uncomfortable moments, the moments of conflict. These moments can keep us from being fully expressed in the future, because they were so uncomfortable when they happened in the first place. Like when I knocked a cartoon figure from my teacher’s desk in fifth grade—it went clattering to the floor and its little protest sign broke off…all because I was making a grand gesture with my arms. Do you think this made me want to be expressive?
What if it’s not an accident? What if you’re in a great mood so you randomly get up and sing a love song to your whole class, who respond by staring back, in stunned embarrassment that you were willing to be seen--do you think you’ll ever do it again? No, of course not. Wait--would you? Why or why not? How much does or should our past experience dictate our now? We learn from our mistakes, but how do we even know what’s a mistake and what’s just something that the world isn’t ready for yet?
And what if someone else sang to their class and it was taped, and put on YouTube, and had a million hits? All of a sudden it’s cool, to get up and serenade the class. And it would be cool to know this kid, who is now a YouTube sensation--but who is taking the risk to BE this kid? To be fully expressive? Didn’t that end before kindergarten? Maybe it didn't end, but it likely became more of a risk.
As we age, we are taught to pull our expression further and further inward (unless we’re a rock star) until we become mature adults. That’s what “Mature Adults” means, right? It means boring people who are in judgement of us; mature adults are the gatekeepers of the expression of pleasure and joy and anger and intensity. Mature adults define our borders and boundaries and “contain” us. And that’s what our society used to need, because of limiting belief systems that told us that if grownups didn’t contain their kids, they’d grow up to be criminals, outlaws. But slowly the world is coming to realize that the personal power and expression of individuals is not inherently dangerous, if we are connected to the highest part of ourselves.
~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~
Somehow, what gets stuck in human beings and keeps us from flourishing are the “bad” moments, the uncomfortable moments, the moments of conflict. These moments can keep us from being fully expressed in the future, because they were so uncomfortable when they happened in the first place. Like when I knocked a cartoon figure from my teacher’s desk in fifth grade—it went clattering to the floor and its little protest sign broke off…all because I was making a grand gesture with my arms. Do you think this made me want to be expressive?
What if it’s not an accident? What if you’re in a great mood so you randomly get up and sing a love song to your whole class, who respond by staring back, in stunned embarrassment that you were willing to be seen--do you think you’ll ever do it again? No, of course not. Wait--would you? Why or why not? How much does or should our past experience dictate our now? We learn from our mistakes, but how do we even know what’s a mistake and what’s just something that the world isn’t ready for yet?
And what if someone else sang to their class and it was taped, and put on YouTube, and had a million hits? All of a sudden it’s cool, to get up and serenade the class. And it would be cool to know this kid, who is now a YouTube sensation--but who is taking the risk to BE this kid? To be fully expressive? Didn’t that end before kindergarten? Maybe it didn't end, but it likely became more of a risk.
As we age, we are taught to pull our expression further and further inward (unless we’re a rock star) until we become mature adults. That’s what “Mature Adults” means, right? It means boring people who are in judgement of us; mature adults are the gatekeepers of the expression of pleasure and joy and anger and intensity. Mature adults define our borders and boundaries and “contain” us. And that’s what our society used to need, because of limiting belief systems that told us that if grownups didn’t contain their kids, they’d grow up to be criminals, outlaws. But slowly the world is coming to realize that the personal power and expression of individuals is not inherently dangerous, if we are connected to the highest part of ourselves.
~~~~~~~
Sunday, December 19, 2010
'Tis the Season
Lily has been obsessed this week with “feel-good” movies. Coincidentally (surely!) I’ve been crabby, and looking for the route out.
“Mom, is this a feel-good movie?” she asked in the middle of Burlesque. That was the first time I heard her use the term. She was born a feel-good person, so of course this term would catch her attention. Her personal dramas always have happy endings, but it seems suspicious to her that it’s a movie genre.
The afternoon after we saw Burlesque, because we’re homeschoolers and we can do whatever we want, she was watching Amelie, as a French assignment. Kind of. Later, I asked her how it was. “It was a feel-good movie,” she said.
“Seriously?” I thought she was teasing me. But I do recall it had a happy ending.
I too have a reaction to the label ‘feel-good.’ It smacks of marketing. How gratifying that my daughter is suspicious, because she’s otherwise fairly gullible. I imagine her questions, the ones she’d ask if I weren’t in such a crabby mood: “Mom, does anyone NOT feel good after a feel-good movie?” I imagine my crabby retort.
“If people don’t leave feeling good, is it still a feel-good movie?” This is the kind of question that makes me gaze at her speechless. I am going into a mini-trance just typing it. Wisely, she never asked either, which gave me space to wonder why I’m so unreceptive to feel-good movies. I seem to assume that these movies cannot possibly be works of art and therefore must be works of marketers, because they know, they totally know, because they do focus groups, that people will PAY to feel good. Sure, people pay for other movies that aren’t feel-good movies…but I’m not suspicious of those movies. I only feel this wariness about feel-good movies. They write the endings after the results of the focus groups are analyzed. I’m so crabby.
Two of my facebook friends recommended The Blind Side; Lily has been avidly reading the comments to my status update query regarding feel-good movies—perhaps only because she receives notifications on her phone. As she reads my comments she critiques my facebook comment-writing style, which makes me crabby. “That was confusing,” she points out, and indeed the next person who commented was, indeed, confused. (Somehow, her friends’ comments are not confusing at all…even though they don’t use vowels.) Anyway--Lily and I once tried to watch The Blind Side and couldn’t. We tried--I had thought she was enjoying it; I thought she’d object when I said I’d had enough, but she agreed.
“It’s lame,” she had said. I was relieved. I excused my facebook friends’ questionable taste with the fact that they are from Indiana, and Lily was curious.
“Really? Really, mom? People from Indiana have bad taste in movies?” She was asking in earnest. I was hoping she was not going to make this the thesis of her homeschooling term paper.
“I don’t know,” I said, “maybe just the ones from my hometown.” I’m from Indiana too, so I can say whatever I want, right? Ever crabby.
Meanwhile this week I was writing a eulogy--bummer--and coming face to face with who I even am as a human being and how much of my ancient ingrained human-ness I can transform into Light in order to come ever more into harmony with my partner. It was a long two days. I could see why people take pills. I have every skill and tool and awareness to not declare war on the world, on my partner, on my kid, on myself, so I didn’t, but I was still edgy as I drove to my hair appointment.
And I was trying to remember what had lifted Katrina last week, when she was in her own allergic reaction: all that is not love, within, reacting to the unremitting flow of Love, causing acute discomfort to the human self. Our shadows, we have seen, sometimes react against Love Itself. It's just an energy dynamic. We see how it works. We’ve got its numba. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make us pause, sometimes. I knew I had a choice, a route out of the darkness…but what was it again? I tried to resurrect Katrina's experience as I drove north on Sheffield to my hair appointment...what was it?
And then I remembered what lifted her up, into a mini-epiphany: she had missed feeling good, she missed being close to me, and simply chose to change, for no reason, chose to reroute…immediately…yes! And that’s all I needed to do too; realign with love, JUST because it feels better. Right!
Just then, a white Honda pulled in front of me with the license plate: “LOVE WINS.”
Uncanny. Confirmation. So much better than a movie! Instant gratification. The Universe loves me, is invested in my happiness. Absolutely arresting—though in truth, there was a part of me that still wanted to stay crabby nevertheless. Yeah...
Do I deserve to feel happy and be loved right now? On my crabby drive up Sheffield? Even though I am totally flawed as a human being? Apparently yes. Even though my issues aren’t totally, totally sorted out yet? Apparently yes. Yes. Love wins. Yes: love whatever’s in your way, love whatever is blocking the way of Love. LOVE WINS was a stunning moment delivered by the Universe and followed by a series of 11's in a more esoteric but still staggering communication to me that all is well.
Turning toward the Light, I repeatedly experience, is immediately rewarded, with good feelings and license plate communications and lucky numbers, and is worth accessing by almost any means necessary…even feel-good movies. Really, whatever it takes. It is absolutely essential--and I'd even venture to say, it's the meaning of life--to be present to LOVE, every moment that we are alive. Whatever it takes...dropping the ego story that thinks I'm right, dropping the ego story that resents that I'm wrong...whatever. Just find the love, the Divine Presence. Now.
In case I still didn’t get it, LOVE WINS proceeded to park right in front of me when I reached my destination.
--I must add, friends from my hometown also recommended two of my favorite movies as well: Slumdog Millionaire and Little Miss Sunshine. So actually people from my hometown have GREAT taste in movies, when it agrees with mine.
(And hey, is Burlesque indeed a feel-good movie? And if so, aren’t all musicals, Corrie Lenn Borris? Because otherwise... wouldn’t they be operas?)
“Mom, is this a feel-good movie?” she asked in the middle of Burlesque. That was the first time I heard her use the term. She was born a feel-good person, so of course this term would catch her attention. Her personal dramas always have happy endings, but it seems suspicious to her that it’s a movie genre.
The afternoon after we saw Burlesque, because we’re homeschoolers and we can do whatever we want, she was watching Amelie, as a French assignment. Kind of. Later, I asked her how it was. “It was a feel-good movie,” she said.
“Seriously?” I thought she was teasing me. But I do recall it had a happy ending.
I too have a reaction to the label ‘feel-good.’ It smacks of marketing. How gratifying that my daughter is suspicious, because she’s otherwise fairly gullible. I imagine her questions, the ones she’d ask if I weren’t in such a crabby mood: “Mom, does anyone NOT feel good after a feel-good movie?” I imagine my crabby retort.
“If people don’t leave feeling good, is it still a feel-good movie?” This is the kind of question that makes me gaze at her speechless. I am going into a mini-trance just typing it. Wisely, she never asked either, which gave me space to wonder why I’m so unreceptive to feel-good movies. I seem to assume that these movies cannot possibly be works of art and therefore must be works of marketers, because they know, they totally know, because they do focus groups, that people will PAY to feel good. Sure, people pay for other movies that aren’t feel-good movies…but I’m not suspicious of those movies. I only feel this wariness about feel-good movies. They write the endings after the results of the focus groups are analyzed. I’m so crabby.
Two of my facebook friends recommended The Blind Side; Lily has been avidly reading the comments to my status update query regarding feel-good movies—perhaps only because she receives notifications on her phone. As she reads my comments she critiques my facebook comment-writing style, which makes me crabby. “That was confusing,” she points out, and indeed the next person who commented was, indeed, confused. (Somehow, her friends’ comments are not confusing at all…even though they don’t use vowels.) Anyway--Lily and I once tried to watch The Blind Side and couldn’t. We tried--I had thought she was enjoying it; I thought she’d object when I said I’d had enough, but she agreed.
“It’s lame,” she had said. I was relieved. I excused my facebook friends’ questionable taste with the fact that they are from Indiana, and Lily was curious.
“Really? Really, mom? People from Indiana have bad taste in movies?” She was asking in earnest. I was hoping she was not going to make this the thesis of her homeschooling term paper.
“I don’t know,” I said, “maybe just the ones from my hometown.” I’m from Indiana too, so I can say whatever I want, right? Ever crabby.
Meanwhile this week I was writing a eulogy--bummer--and coming face to face with who I even am as a human being and how much of my ancient ingrained human-ness I can transform into Light in order to come ever more into harmony with my partner. It was a long two days. I could see why people take pills. I have every skill and tool and awareness to not declare war on the world, on my partner, on my kid, on myself, so I didn’t, but I was still edgy as I drove to my hair appointment.
And I was trying to remember what had lifted Katrina last week, when she was in her own allergic reaction: all that is not love, within, reacting to the unremitting flow of Love, causing acute discomfort to the human self. Our shadows, we have seen, sometimes react against Love Itself. It's just an energy dynamic. We see how it works. We’ve got its numba. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make us pause, sometimes. I knew I had a choice, a route out of the darkness…but what was it again? I tried to resurrect Katrina's experience as I drove north on Sheffield to my hair appointment...what was it?
And then I remembered what lifted her up, into a mini-epiphany: she had missed feeling good, she missed being close to me, and simply chose to change, for no reason, chose to reroute…immediately…yes! And that’s all I needed to do too; realign with love, JUST because it feels better. Right!
Just then, a white Honda pulled in front of me with the license plate: “LOVE WINS.”
Uncanny. Confirmation. So much better than a movie! Instant gratification. The Universe loves me, is invested in my happiness. Absolutely arresting—though in truth, there was a part of me that still wanted to stay crabby nevertheless. Yeah...
Do I deserve to feel happy and be loved right now? On my crabby drive up Sheffield? Even though I am totally flawed as a human being? Apparently yes. Even though my issues aren’t totally, totally sorted out yet? Apparently yes. Yes. Love wins. Yes: love whatever’s in your way, love whatever is blocking the way of Love. LOVE WINS was a stunning moment delivered by the Universe and followed by a series of 11's in a more esoteric but still staggering communication to me that all is well.
Turning toward the Light, I repeatedly experience, is immediately rewarded, with good feelings and license plate communications and lucky numbers, and is worth accessing by almost any means necessary…even feel-good movies. Really, whatever it takes. It is absolutely essential--and I'd even venture to say, it's the meaning of life--to be present to LOVE, every moment that we are alive. Whatever it takes...dropping the ego story that thinks I'm right, dropping the ego story that resents that I'm wrong...whatever. Just find the love, the Divine Presence. Now.
In case I still didn’t get it, LOVE WINS proceeded to park right in front of me when I reached my destination.
--I must add, friends from my hometown also recommended two of my favorite movies as well: Slumdog Millionaire and Little Miss Sunshine. So actually people from my hometown have GREAT taste in movies, when it agrees with mine.
(And hey, is Burlesque indeed a feel-good movie? And if so, aren’t all musicals, Corrie Lenn Borris? Because otherwise... wouldn’t they be operas?)
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Just Between Us
In one of the “best” private high schools in Chicago, girls are making out with each other and exposing each others’ breasts to willing boys, at parties, for the boys’ viewing pleasure. Boys record these make-out sessions on their phones. Shyer girls record them themselves for shyer boys. What luck, that kids were born at this time in history when such amazing technology exists! How clever! How convenient! No longer do boys need to find their dad’s stash of boring old still shots; they can keep live action in their pockets! And no longer do girls have to pretend that they are not sexual beings! They are! Not only are they sexual beings, but stars, emailed from boy to boy for unlimited exposure! Fifteen minutes of fame, indeed! We are living in a new age! What freedom! What clueless parents!
I’m stunned, that with all this evolution on so many other levels, we—parents of the new millennium--have allowed our kids to become live porn for each other, instead of teaching them to be heart connected. It’s not that I’m sexually naïve. If I haven’t done it myself, I’ve read about it; but years have gone by since the last time I heard of a sex act that jarred my world as much as the news that high school girls are making alcohol-fueled soft-core porn videos for boys.
What does a girl need to ignore in order to let herself be filmed at a party? How desperate to be loved and seen must she be? When did women start to disassociate like this, and create disassociated daughters? With all the evolution and awakening and access to information and technological wizardry of the last 20 years, sex is still in the dark. Disassociated from love, from a heart connection, and universally unrecognized as a union of SOULS, of spirit shared, it is passed on to kids in ways that allow them to dishonor one another. How can we teach this honoring, though, if we don’t embody it ourselves?
How on earth do we do this? How do we walk our talk, rather than leaving our own sexuality in the dark and commenting woefully on the de-generation of this generation of teenagers? Can we fully embody our own sexuality in a way that honors it as the creative force it is? Can we celebrate it in ourselves and revere it in our partner, our mirror? When will NOW be the right time to make a change?
We average everyday people have squished sex into this tiny category, moved it to the end of the day, and only if our partner deserves it; we’ve kept the energy of sex so locked up in the genitals for so long, that we have culturally forgotten what it truly is: the energy of transformation, the energy of creation. Meanwhile kids, in an effort to discover what sex is, in an effort to actually feel something in this world of digital media, have learned to use our magnificently evolved electronic technology for sex play, without an evolved spiritual perspective. Why not? What do they know? We have never known how it feels to liberate this energy from its conventional pathway and send it throughout and around our body, throughout and around our partner, throughout and around our lives. We’ve never learned how to embody it without shadow and secrecy and shame.
What if? What if instead of the “don’t do what I do, do what I say” perspective, we evolved ourselves? What if we boring old adults with mortgages experienced the way that when this supercharged energy flows through the rest of our cells we feel and look more youthful and live from a joyful, conscious place? What if?
Have you ever tried to promote a tantric sex workshop? A whole weekend, people wonder. A whole weekend, about sex? What are we gonna do? We can’t take time from soccer games and birthday parties and bar mitzvahs and our Netflix queue to be sexy!
It’s about time.
It’s easy to say there’s not enough time. Especially for that! But this creation energy, sexual energy, is the same energy that makes the world go round; it’s life force, it’s the same energy that fuels the people and situations around us; liberating it makes our lives more synchronistic and easier to navigate. That’s the biggest draw for me: tantric sex, conscious sex energy, fuels my life. I am able to create my life, able to create happiness. Plus! I can see karma coming several miles away, without needing to interact with it. I can see illness coming a mile away, rarely needing to embody it. It’s not just about sex. It’s about living life from an awakened, happy state. It’s about evolving sex at the same rate of speed that the rest of the world is evolving.
There is no reason why we all can’t be ten times happier than we are. We have everything else we need. Don’t we? Our needs are so well met, better met than at any given historical time period, and American needs are met more easily than anyone else’s on the planet. We now have plenty of time for the world’s most blissful, most misunderstood activity—but we can’t, we can’t do it in the middle of the day, or move evolved, conscious, life-affirming sex to the top of the to-do list, because it’s been so culturally repressed. Or we can’t, because our partner was irritating that morning. Or we can’t, because we don’t have a partner—the second most used reason for avoiding addressing sexual energy.
What is the point of all of this ease and comfort and abundance? So we can have more time to watch movies? Surely it’s not to evolve our perception of sex so that we can raise sexually enlightened children.
There is no known cultural or spiritual permission to have spiritual sex. It is not held within the language and comprehension of the sacred. But it is, indeed, sacred. It is ready to evolve, into the Light. And Now is the time.
The Tantra Heart beginning level workshop in Chicago October 8-10 is the place, a sacred space, to begin awakening to the light behind the darkness that has shrouded sex. It is a safe time and place to let your own inner light shine, to awaken yourself to the abundance of Universal Love that is ready to come forth on the New Earth. Imagine a world in which you were honored simply for showing up, for seeing and being seen, in the Light. This is the world—this is the community, at least—that is being created Here, Now. Join us to get a taste of the future.
Let’s be a living example for the next generation, by learning to fully embody sex-heart-consciousness, so that kids have real live role models for how to live as fully connected, enlightened sexual beings.
Tantra is where yoga was 20 years ago: edgy, unknown. So be a pioneer. The unknown frontier is so much better than what we have inherited and what we are passing on to our kids, because we have an opportunity to create it, consciously. I’m in. Are you?
I’m stunned, that with all this evolution on so many other levels, we—parents of the new millennium--have allowed our kids to become live porn for each other, instead of teaching them to be heart connected. It’s not that I’m sexually naïve. If I haven’t done it myself, I’ve read about it; but years have gone by since the last time I heard of a sex act that jarred my world as much as the news that high school girls are making alcohol-fueled soft-core porn videos for boys.
What does a girl need to ignore in order to let herself be filmed at a party? How desperate to be loved and seen must she be? When did women start to disassociate like this, and create disassociated daughters? With all the evolution and awakening and access to information and technological wizardry of the last 20 years, sex is still in the dark. Disassociated from love, from a heart connection, and universally unrecognized as a union of SOULS, of spirit shared, it is passed on to kids in ways that allow them to dishonor one another. How can we teach this honoring, though, if we don’t embody it ourselves?
How on earth do we do this? How do we walk our talk, rather than leaving our own sexuality in the dark and commenting woefully on the de-generation of this generation of teenagers? Can we fully embody our own sexuality in a way that honors it as the creative force it is? Can we celebrate it in ourselves and revere it in our partner, our mirror? When will NOW be the right time to make a change?
We average everyday people have squished sex into this tiny category, moved it to the end of the day, and only if our partner deserves it; we’ve kept the energy of sex so locked up in the genitals for so long, that we have culturally forgotten what it truly is: the energy of transformation, the energy of creation. Meanwhile kids, in an effort to discover what sex is, in an effort to actually feel something in this world of digital media, have learned to use our magnificently evolved electronic technology for sex play, without an evolved spiritual perspective. Why not? What do they know? We have never known how it feels to liberate this energy from its conventional pathway and send it throughout and around our body, throughout and around our partner, throughout and around our lives. We’ve never learned how to embody it without shadow and secrecy and shame.
What if? What if instead of the “don’t do what I do, do what I say” perspective, we evolved ourselves? What if we boring old adults with mortgages experienced the way that when this supercharged energy flows through the rest of our cells we feel and look more youthful and live from a joyful, conscious place? What if?
Have you ever tried to promote a tantric sex workshop? A whole weekend, people wonder. A whole weekend, about sex? What are we gonna do? We can’t take time from soccer games and birthday parties and bar mitzvahs and our Netflix queue to be sexy!
It’s about time.
It’s easy to say there’s not enough time. Especially for that! But this creation energy, sexual energy, is the same energy that makes the world go round; it’s life force, it’s the same energy that fuels the people and situations around us; liberating it makes our lives more synchronistic and easier to navigate. That’s the biggest draw for me: tantric sex, conscious sex energy, fuels my life. I am able to create my life, able to create happiness. Plus! I can see karma coming several miles away, without needing to interact with it. I can see illness coming a mile away, rarely needing to embody it. It’s not just about sex. It’s about living life from an awakened, happy state. It’s about evolving sex at the same rate of speed that the rest of the world is evolving.
There is no reason why we all can’t be ten times happier than we are. We have everything else we need. Don’t we? Our needs are so well met, better met than at any given historical time period, and American needs are met more easily than anyone else’s on the planet. We now have plenty of time for the world’s most blissful, most misunderstood activity—but we can’t, we can’t do it in the middle of the day, or move evolved, conscious, life-affirming sex to the top of the to-do list, because it’s been so culturally repressed. Or we can’t, because our partner was irritating that morning. Or we can’t, because we don’t have a partner—the second most used reason for avoiding addressing sexual energy.
What is the point of all of this ease and comfort and abundance? So we can have more time to watch movies? Surely it’s not to evolve our perception of sex so that we can raise sexually enlightened children.
There is no known cultural or spiritual permission to have spiritual sex. It is not held within the language and comprehension of the sacred. But it is, indeed, sacred. It is ready to evolve, into the Light. And Now is the time.
The Tantra Heart beginning level workshop in Chicago October 8-10 is the place, a sacred space, to begin awakening to the light behind the darkness that has shrouded sex. It is a safe time and place to let your own inner light shine, to awaken yourself to the abundance of Universal Love that is ready to come forth on the New Earth. Imagine a world in which you were honored simply for showing up, for seeing and being seen, in the Light. This is the world—this is the community, at least—that is being created Here, Now. Join us to get a taste of the future.
Let’s be a living example for the next generation, by learning to fully embody sex-heart-consciousness, so that kids have real live role models for how to live as fully connected, enlightened sexual beings.
Tantra is where yoga was 20 years ago: edgy, unknown. So be a pioneer. The unknown frontier is so much better than what we have inherited and what we are passing on to our kids, because we have an opportunity to create it, consciously. I’m in. Are you?
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