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Inviting Love In

kypris — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:42:36 +0000

How many of you have heard that to attract the love that you want in your life, you have to love yourself first?

There is a pretty big consensus among coaches, therapists, and spiritual teachers that when you are looking for love, the best place to search is within you.

There are two components to really telling the universe you are ready for love. The truth about attracting anything into your life is that you have to feel good about it, not scared, and not feeling a huge lack and neediness. Also, you must be open. So the two things you need for opening to love are:

1. Removing Armor

Do you feel wounded by an old relationship?
If you are really honest with yourself, are you still angry, hurt, or upset about that?

There is a thing that can happen for us women, (and for men too!) where we start to hold on to past hurts and view all new relationships through a looking glass clouded up by those old hurts and stories. While we are holding on to the story that we are a victim, we cannot grow or be open to love. True love requires that we be able to LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY. If we are still afraid of being hurt again, it is extremely hard to give unconditional love to anyone, including ourselves. What most of us also do is that we put ARMOR on our hearts to protect us from getting hurt again. Once that armor is on, we feel nice and cozy and safe, but we are cut off from our ability to feel deeply or to truly connect with anyone.

Years ago, I had many layers of armor around my heart, from years of living with a man who didn’t treat me well, and a childhood of emotional neglect and criticism. Needless to say, I didn’t feel safe in the world, and I especially didn’t feel safe with men. I had done years of therapy and self examination and spiritual practice, but I was still carrying a lot of armor, and I didn’t even know it. Eventually, Spirit led me to a 4-day workshop focused on opening and connecting with others and learning to live in pure unconditional love. About two days into that workshop I started to feel that armor on my heart, and I wanted it GONE. Two of my shaman friends who were at the seminar came in and assisted me, laying me down on the floor and working in shamanic reality to remove the armor. One used a ceremonial knife (gulp) to symbolically cut away the armor from my chest. I literally felt the ripping sensation and the sudden nakedness of not having the armor once it was pulled away. I kept breathing while they held me safe. My other friend worked to help me open and trust now that the armor was released. After that I felt freer and lighter, and suddenly I could hug people and not feel like there was always an invisible wall between us. I hadn’t even been aware of that wall before, but now that it was gone, it felt so GOOD. For the first time, I was able to truly receive love from another, and it made me a bit giddy.

2. Receptivity and Vulnerability

It can be hard to become truly open to sharing your heart with another, to be willing to receive the love they want to give you and to share your true feelings. Once if we have healed old wounds and removed our armor, we can feel like a peeled grape. And you might be wondering how you can keep yourself safe without the armor. It is important that women learn how to create a feeling of safety with men, and that men learn how to support that feeling of safety for women. Obviously this is a big topic. I can start by telling you what being receptive feels like.

For me, being receptive means that I am open to connecting with men. This means that I smile at men when I am out in public and say hello. It means that when my partner wants to give time or attention to me, I say "yes" as often as I can. It means that my heart and body are open to receive energy, attention, and gifts of time and even presents, from men. For men, receptivity in a woman feels like a big relief, to finally have someone willing to receive what they have been aching to share. And when the two meet, there is expansion of the heart, and True Love can begin to grow.

In our True Love 101 class we’ll have more time to share with you about these concepts, as well as the 5 components of true love and spiritual practices that can help create true love in your life. Click here for our schedule of classes…

Kypris, Dakini and Shamanic Tantra Teacher holds a master’s degree in Biology, as well as a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology, and is an initiated HeartWisdom Tantric Priestess. She is the author of “Journey to Sexual Wholeness, The Six Gateways to Tantric Sexuality”.

Yabyummy is a teaching temple that provides a tantric path to gain sexual wholeness through breathwork, visualization, and tantric massage. We are committed to unifying sexuality with spirituality and spirituality with sexuality for growth minded men, women and couples.

Under the Peruvian Sun

kypris — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:17:00 +0000

I am riding on the back of Inti, a sturdy brown and white mountain pony, across beautiful tan grass plains amongst tall sharp mountain peaks. He is showing me the wonders of the land, and a few other things.

Later that night in the hostel, I am reading my novel to relax and suddenly what I am reading makes me tingle all over: a vampire tells of his human life when his mother was a priestess of INTI, the Sun God, in Cuzco, at the time of the Spanish conquest and invasion. Now in the novel, he acts as the avatar of the Sun for the woman he loves, making love with her to transmit and open her to her full power.

This gets my attention. I am in Cuzco on vacation preparing to make love to the Sun God through a medicine journey in three days. Not only was my horse named INTI today, but there is the little fact that I recently took vows to open myself to a human partner who will channel the Sun God for me.

When the day for the San Pedro journey arrives, I am a little nervous, but also excited. I ready myself for a sacred medicine journey with San Pedro cactus (known to Peruvians as Huachama). The plant is said to assist in traveling to the upper world of the shaman, the place of the soul’s knowledge, and to heal emotional wounds swiftly and surely.

I am in a magickal garden with San Pedro cactus, flowers, and trees growing, sitting with my group of friends on this trip, drinking the cactus down. It is a little bit scary. The cactus drink is thick and syrupy, like Aloe Vera Gel. And it doesn’t taste good. It’s slimy. And brown. Lesley, our guide for the day, tells us to hold our nose and drink it down in one gulp. And to remember that as we take the cactus in, we are taking light into our bodies. That does it for me. I imagine my body absorbing light into every cell as I drink the cactus, and imagine it is filling me with radiance. I crunch a lemon candy after to take away the aftertaste and it is done! I wait for the cactus to take effect, and wonder what will happen.

San Pedro does contain mescaline, but it’s not much of a hallucinogen, at least not for me. I remain aware of everything all day long, but I also become painfully aware of my body’s energy–where it is open, where it is blocked, where it needs some cleanup. A freight train of sunlight starts to run through me, and I get scared. This is like tantra on steroids! Lesley tells me to breathe into each chakra as it opens, that the cactus is clearing them out, getting rid of the sludge, performing powerful healing.

I breathe and explode into tears. As my heart opens waves and waves of sadness come through me. I let go, totally and completely, of EVERYTHING that I’ve been holding. Mother Earth takes it, every bit of it, and it takes hours, I think. She releases me, tells me to walk in the garden, to smell the flowers, to see the beauty. I feel another pull, to the "Ayhahuasca house", the house of death and rebirth where the Ayhahuasca shamans come to do there work on other days. As I enter a painting of Huascar, the Peruvian Lord of Life and Death, greets me. Oh my God, he is SO beautiful, I want to go into his darkness, to be with him forever. He holds me and I find even more tears, release even more. And I start to wonder if it will ever end! I have asked for this journey to show me how to heal my relationships to human men. To show me how to open my heart even more. Apparently it means dumping gallons of tears!

I am happy, I am with Huascar in the underworld, and this is where I long to stay…with death. And I realize that I am not afraid of the dark at all. I am afraid of the light. I want to stay in the dark, where I feel safe. And he shoves me, tells me to go. He tells me I am in a body to live this life, not to stay in the dark with him.

So I go, grumbling all the way. I go out the gate from the garden and into the Sun on the brown grasses of the rolling hills. Down in the valley the grass is green and water runs. Sheep and Llamas graze on the land. And the grass seems to sparkle. The hills seem to be made of sunlight. It is all so beautiful it is hard to take in. How can I deserve this much beauty?

Spirit sends me a man to practice heart connecting with, a man from these lands, whose ancestors were here before the Inca. And as we wander, our connection deepens, and we move energy between our hearts and our bodies, I practice being with a man with no boundaries and no expectations between us except those I want in the moment.

He calls me a princess, he tells me he loves me, he tells me I am beautiful. The sun shines down on us and through his braids and the feather in his hair. He respects my no and keeps on loving me. He keeps me safe as we wander the hills. And I thank the Sun and the San Pedro for sending him to me to heal my heart with, to practice loving him. To practice being loved by an avatar of the sun.

Back at home, my heart is filled with that sun, and the light is pouring forth from me, with everyone I see and everywhere I go. I feel an excitement, like a kid on Christmas morning, that a new life partner is coming for me, who will dance in this light with me. There is no longing for him, no sadness, just a knowing and an eagerness for when I meet him.

Today I feel the sun on my face and I know that something has shifted in me, that I am different. That the Peruvian sun has changed me forever. And I will return. At night, I still dream of Peru, of a land that has changed me forever. I fly over the landscape like an eagle, I wander the beautiful golden hills touched with sparkling sunlight. I am surrounded by a beauty so immense that my heart must open.

Kypris, Dakini and Shamanic Tantra Teacher holds a master’s degree in Biology, as well as a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology, and is an initiated HeartWisdom Tantric Priestess. She is the author of “Journey to Sexual Wholeness, The Six Gateways to Tantric Sexuality”.

A Day In The Life Of A Tantric Shaman

kypris — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:05:54 +0000

(yesterday)

I wake up from a fitful night’s sleep, glad that it is time to get up and begin my day. While still half-awake, I feel into my dreams to see if there is anything important there, but the dreamscape is silent. Over the past few nights I’ve been working a lot in my dreams, getting downloads of unconditional love, so I suppose it’s okay to have a dreamless night! Still, I feel a little disappointment that I have nothing to mull over.

Some mornings I slip right into meditation in my cozy bed, but this morning I remember that my guides have been telling me to meditate outdoors, to get more deeply in touch with nature. I go out to the pomegranate tree and arrange myself on the yoga mat with my blanket and drop in. It feels good to hear the birds singing, and I listen to the hummingbirds chasing each other and drinking their morning nectar for a moment before I start my hour of solo practice. I begin with the breath of fire, waking myself up, and feeding my inner fire with short sharp breaths. As I do the practice, I wake up, and start to feel life force flowing into my body, opening up the same channels that sexual energy flows through. I start to feel warm, and I remove the blanket. As I continue to breath, a smile starts to come to my face, and a happiness fills my belly. Ahhhhh. I feel a deep inner stillness at he center of my belly, surrounded by a gentle warming flame. I feel GOOD.

After the breath of fire, I work with my chakras, breathing into each one and clearing it out. AHHH, this feels good too, like taking my morning shower. my physical and emotional body starts to feel clear and clean and open. I give thanks then, gratitude for everything the day before that gave me joy. And I spend a few more minutes sitting in stillness, listening for what Spirit wants to tell me today. I check in also to see what I need to know for my clients today. What will they need? Usually I get a little taste in my body of one thing that they need most, a guidepost for their healing session.

Now it is time for the day to unfold. I dress and shower, and make my way to the temple. Once there, I prepare the space. This is one of my favorite parts of the day, making the space beautiful, burning incense and sage, lighting candles, playing soft music. I am ready to begin.

My first client arrives and we work on some challenges that are unfolding in her relationships. She wants to learn to center more into herself, to find her power as a woman, and to connect with her own sexual self. I spend an hour listening deeply to her, channeling information from my guides, and teaching her practice. Today we work with movement, because she is ready to RELEASE! We dance and breathe and learn to do a deep clearing of each chakra center with the breath and movement. She lets herself move her body and releases deep sounds of anger that she didn’t even know were store inside of her. Afterward she feels energized and relieved. I send her home with some music to use in her daily practice.

Now it is time for me to attend to business, and I ground myself in the everyday as I answer email, take phone calls, edit the website, and many other mundane tasks. It helps to balance me to spend this time, and rather than feeling resentful about it, I am grateful for the variety in my day.

I take a nice long break at lunch time to care for my body, because for me a large part of the practice of tantra is to care for myself. Today I go to yoga class and eat nourishing food to replenish myself for the afternoon and evening.

Now the day shifts and becomes more intense. I have a RED session today—deep and powerful hands-on work. I will be using my sexual/life force energy (and that of my client) to open, to heal old shame and guilt, to allow more freedom and ecstasy in sexual connection, This work often follows for my clients after an intensive study of breath and meditation and movement practice.

I take an hour to prepare the room, lighting candles and incense. I put sheets on the bed, and call in my animal guide allies to hold the space. As I call in Black Jaguar I hear and feel a loud purrrrrr, and I know that this will be a yummy and powerful session, that there will be deep pleasure and an opening.

Once my client arrives we spend 3 hours experimenting with tantric touch. I begin by listening to him share about how the work has been integrating since our last session, a lingam massage. He is excited about learning to move sexual energy through his whole body and starting to have whole body orgasms in his self pleasure practice. Anchored in himself, he’s eager today to learn more about sharing this larger sexual/heart/spirit energy with a woman.

We begin with meditation, imagining ourselves to be trees, rooted in the Earth and branched into the stars and the sun. Once we are feeling strong and loved by the Divine, we begin intentionally connecting, flowing our roots together and interweaving our branches as trees do in the forest. We see vines growing from our hearts, connecting and entwining us with love that begins to flow back and forth. As we disrobe, we flow into touch and breath and how to work those together, stay present, and bring diversity to the ways we connect and touch. I show him how to create safety with Earth touch, and I drop into feeling him give that to me. He feels the joy of having a woman totally receive him as a man. We move to water, total loving touch, then fire, deep sexual passion, and come up into air, tingling and vibrating from all this blissful energy. We keep experimenting as he finds his way into a giving that is as blissful as receiving. Time seems to dissolve as we both push the envelope of the bliss barrier, seeking the place where we can allow ourselves to be bigger, and finding the obstacles that keep us from receiving pleasure. We feel pleasure deeply in our bodies, and still I hear the voice of Spirit speaking gently and quietly in me, helping me to track his energy and his needs in the moment, helping me to be his guide on this blissful ecstatic journey. My guidance allows me to hold space for him and to give him all the unconditional love in my heart. In the light of that unconditional love, he melts, and his heart opens to a blazing fire, aligned with his body, his lingam, and his Spirit. He tells me that he feels like an eagle, soaring above the earth and seeing all his life and all his relationships in perspective for the first time.

We come back to earth at the end with berries, chocolate, cheese, and crackers, and bask in what feels like the afterglow of sex, even though we haven’t actually made love. I feel into how big my energy body feels, and look to see how much his face and eyes have changed from when he came in. He tells me how profoundly the session has changed his perception, and promises to check in a week from now by phone to share how it is integrating into his life.

I say goodbye to my client and turn my mind once again to self care. I have learned that this work requires a lot of that! I shower to ground myself, I sage to bless the space and the work. I go out and walk, I eat. I give thanks for the beauty and healing power of this work and notice how connected I feel to the trees and the birds in the park. Life is good and my heart is full of love and bliss.

Namaste,

Kypris

Divine Desert Union

kypris — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:05:21 +0000

I am in the desert, about to enter into a day of divine union practice with my partner. About to dive into the ultimate sacred sexual ceremony. About to enter deeply into ecstatic sexual communion with my beloved. About to become the Goddess, opening to oneness with God through my lover and the ecstasy and power and love we would create.

The weather is windy and sunny and warm, and I feel relieved to be back in my most sacred space. The desert is the place I feel most at home. I am more comfortable and alive in the desert than in my own room in the city in my own bed. The quiet is like a song that nature sings, that I must come fully present to hear. I love the peacefulness, the absence of people, the way I can hear the wings of the ravens beating when they fly overhead. I love the way I can see for miles across the dry lake bed. I love the morteros and petroglyphs nearby and the knowing that I am on ground that has been inhabited and held sacred for centuries. I love the game of gazing at the clouds and rocks and seeing patterns in their shapes. I love the heat, the way the sun shines on me relentlessly most days, warming me until I unfold like a flower. At night the stars sing to me, beckon me, and I gaze at them sometimes until I can no longer hold my eyes open, drifting off watching meteors streak the sky. I feel relaxed, loved, held, open.

The desert seems to welcome me, and I remember all the magickal things that have happened here. I remember the time a coyote gave me a freshly killed red-tailed hawk. I remember the time Spirit yanked me out of bed one morning and marched me across the lakebed into rocky hills, leading me to a perfectly preserved deer skull with antlers. The desert is my drug of choice. I feel relaxed, peaceful, powerful, magickal here.

Today I begin my day with meditation in the van I slept in, keeping out the cold and winds of the night before. There is a sacred circle of rocks placed all around our campsite, and I feel the presence of the guardians at each direction, Serpent, Jaguar, Hummingbird, Eagle/Condor. I feel the circle around me, creating a container of safety and peace within the desert, creating a space for the ceremony I am about to dive into with my lover. Over the many years I have been coming to this valley in the desert, my sacred circle has always been empty and waiting for me, like an expectant lover. Every time I arrive, I am so grateful to fall into this space, so glad that is here and open for me.

But despite all this, today I’m not feeling very Goddess-like. I’m scared.

It’s a fear that’s in my bones. Not simple nervousness. It’s a fear that maybe too much will be revealed. Maybe this time is the time I will be split open by God and fall into madness, unable to confront myself. I feel puzzled because I’ve been planning this day for two months. But I’m afraid of opening to my lover, afraid of being vulnerable for an entire 8 hours. I reach inside and hold this part of me that’s feeling scared as a mother would hold a child. I comfort myself and ask what is wrong. Slowly my inner self tells me that I am afraid because I am still holding on to the past, to old hurts I’ve felt with my lover. Even though those things have been discussed, processed, and duly released months before, I still have some releasing to do. I’m still hanging on to being a victim. And I’m scared that there is more hurt to come, scared of opening and then feeling the pain of loss and abandonment again that I felt in the past.

I tell my lover how I am feeling and he agrees to hold space for me, to begin our ritual with talking about my fears and sadness. In that space he shares with me that he too feels frightened, but about other things. My heart starts to melt, I see the vulnerable child in him, and I feel so compassionate for who and what he is. The magick has already begun. I feel Spirit come in, helping, supporting, and I start to surrender to all of it, the ceremony, the feelings, the plan that Spirit has for this sacred time. My lover brushes my hair. I am lying on a soft mattress with the desert sun shining into the van and the breeze blowing over my naked skin. How thirsty my skin has been for that breeze! How hungry my scalp has been for the tingling of the brush, wielded by someone else. I sink into the pampering of it, letting myself open more, relax more, soften more. I fall into love with my lover again, and I feel again all the love that I felt for him when we first met, only it’s bigger, richer, intermingled with all kinds of flavors and spices that our lives together have created between us. Before I know it, he is between my legs, pleasuring me, and I flow into pleasure, my yoni opening, my juices flowing, my sexual arousal becoming a slow and gentle fire inside me. I worship his lingam when I have had enough pleasure, feeling the taste and aliveness of him, the smell of him, in all of my being. I open even more, wanting to take him in, to receive not only his semen but his essence, his soul, into me.

And then I am climbing up his body, he is sitting up to meet me, and we are in yabyum, me sitting in his lap. Now I start to feel the fear again, as we get more intimate, as I become more aroused, as I try to open. I feel both joy and fear at once. I try to relax into the joy, to let go of my inhibitions, telling myself it will all be okay. And for a time it is. He enters me and we rock together, barely moving, and I feel him pulse inside me whenever I squeeze my yoni. I open and allow him to go deeper. I let go and ejaculate, several times. I am trusting as much as I can. surrendering as much as possible. I feel good, and wonder if my fears will stay dissolved or if they will return as we go deeper. We pause and my lover feeds me, placing strawberries and chocolates on my lips, I do the same, feeding him, grateful to him for the opening and ecstasy I already feel.

We come together again, and now he is more passionate, asking me to breathe with him, and we are connecting even more deeply, connecting not only my yoni and his lingam, but then our bellies, then our stomachs, then our chests, pressing against each other and breathing. I am struggling to stay with him, to be present. My mind wanders, I am afraid! I try to fall asleep while we are making love, I yawn, I feel bored. I have hit a wall. I can’t go deeper, I can’t breathe with him, I don’t want to do this anymore! I am afraid! Gently, he holds me, breathes, waits for me to return from wherever it is I keep disappearing to. I start to watch myself vanish. I am amazed. I thought my lover was the one who was running away, emotionally, but all this time it’s been me. I see that as we continue, I feel Spirit holding me and comforting me. Right now all of me is a little child, and I need comfort.

We rest and shift, moving into more traditional lovemaking, drawing back a little from this depth that is too much for me. And slowly I watch myself come back to life. My lover makes love to me with determination now, dropping with me into a place that is purely sensual, feeling just the delight of our bodies. He makes love to me with tenderness, and I see tears in his eyes, and feel them in my own. I feel so much love for him. And then we are diving into passion again, intensity, and this time it is a forest fire. It feels like all the desert has rushed into me and into our union, and we have become like two powerful gods, mixing the elements that created the world with our lovemaking. We climax together, sending our sexual energy out and up for our healing and to feed the desert and the Gods.

And then I feel gentleness, a soft gentle place as the passion wave withdraws, and I am spent. I am satiated, I am complete, I am done. I feel my lover’s arms around me and for a while I drift off to sleep. When I wake, I feel pulled to get up and out of the van, to stand under the open sky. It is colder now, and I bundle up in layers of fleece and wool and faux fur. I sit and look at the sky, as the sun slowly begins to set.

And then the miracle happens. As I look up, I see a huge cloud turned orange and pink by the setting sun. The cloud is perfectly shaped like an Eagle, like the thunderbird of legend. I feel blessed and awed by this gift of spirit, what feels truly like a sign, an acknowledgment of our ritual, of the energy that we sent out to the world. I begin to cry and feel excited like a little girl at the circus. All at once. And I know that this union is not only with my lover, but with the desert below me, and the sky above me. I am one with everything. For days afterward I feel the peace, passion and joy of this place and this new miracle.

Namaste,

Kypris

Kiss and Tell

kypris — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:42:27 +0000

When I was four years old, my kindergarten teacher caught me kissing one of my classmates behind the bushes on our playground.

She was obviously scandalized by my behavior, and I remembering wondering why. It seemed a natural exploration, given that I saw adults kissing each other all the time. I longed to learn what they knew. I wanted to dissect the mystery of the kiss.

My first real kisses were intensely arousing, and I still remember feeling all the nerves in my lips and tongue come alive, as my yoni burst into an intense wetness and desire for its own touch. I remember the fire of arousal burning hotter and hotter in me as we kissed, and wishing for more, but not being sure what "more" would be. I remember the sweet ache those kisses created in me for days afterward, and wanting more of that feeling of a tongue sliding sweetly over my lips, teeth, and tongue. With later kisses, I remember the jolt of having my budding breasts and nipples touched for the first time, and how the pleasure of that touch seemed to radiate through my whole body, like a miniature sun of pleasure. I remember the feeling of deep connection, a desire to merge, that those kisses created for me. Years later, I felt no surprise when the movies "Pretty Woman" and "French Kiss" both described a kiss as special, so special that it cost extra to kiss a "lady of the night" if she would allow it at all.

Kissing is where the deepest opening lies to my heart. Maybe it’s just a girl thing, but kissing opens me, and plugs me in to all the love I have for the universe and for the man I am kissing. When I open like that, I make love from the deepest place in my soul, and touch and lovemaking become 10 times more powerful.

As a teacher, I have learned to apply the principles of shamanic tantra to kissing and to touch. Joyfully, I practice breathing (which can be tough while kissing!), being in the moment, and connecting to Spirit while I kiss. Doing all this turns kissing and touching into a soulful and playful healing that helps the kundalini rise and burn through my old ways of being in relationship. In this place I can find the freedom to express my touch or kiss as passionate, playful, deeply emotional, or sensual, depending on my mood. Then I have total freedom, no longer confined to only one way of being and connecting with another. Ultimately my practice creates deeper and more profound connection, a more open heart, and a passionate soul.

I would love to hear from YOU about your first kiss, and how it made you feel. What is it about that first kiss that you would like to create in your life today? Share your story by leaving us a note in the Leave a Reply box at the bottom of this page.

Namaste,

Kypris

Moving with Spirit

kypris — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:42:57 +0000

Yesterday I danced for a small cancer fundraiser, and found myself worrying for a week beforehand about whether or not my performance would be "good enough". Normally I dance 5 days a week, and walk the other two. But over the last month I’ve not been moving enough. And now, going into a dance performance, I was worried. "What if I can’t connect to Spirit?" "What if I look foolish?" "What if nobody likes my dancing?". Well, one thing I know for sure is that "What if" thoughts come from my ego and from living in fear of the future! When I find myself thinking these thoughts about my dance, it is time for me to stop, take a breath, and remember why I dance.

Why do I dance? To feel alive, to feel sexual, to connect to my innermost feelings and express them, to connect to others in a juicy and powerful space, to feel more like me, to shake off all the emotional baggage I don’t need, to discover facets of me that I didn’t know were there. Dancing 5 days a week, when I do the practice, not only keeps me in great physical condition, but improves my mental and emotional health, and my authentic connection to the moment and to other people. Through dance I find, over and over, the path to an ecstatic connection to my body, to Spirit, and to other people.

So as I arrived at my show yesterday, I remembered all these reasons why I dance, and I realized that performing is no different, only I am sharing all of this with an audience. I opened my heart to all the people in the room as I flowed into moving with the music. Dropping in once again to that powerful ecstasy, I was transformed, I became the Goddess, and I was one with Spirit. And afterward, someone in the audience shared the gift of these words with me: Love like your heart’s never been broken, Work like you don’t need money, and Dance like nobody’s watching.

Namaste,

Kypris

How much love can you handle?

kypris — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:15:36 +0000

It is the new year and as I often do, I think about what I want to bring in to my life for the year. This year I am focusing on receiving, in ALL areas of my life.

Have you ever noticed that it is easy to give, but oh, SO hard to receive?

Over the holidays, what do we focus on? We focus on what presents we are going to give to which person, and whether or not they will like it. And if we forget someone, we feel horrible. But do we focus on receiving gifts well? Do we make an effort to say thank you, and to show our appreciation for the gifts, and to put them to use right away in our life?

I have a receiving altar, AKA an abundance altar, in my bedroom. Whenever I receive ANYTHING, be it money, gifts, love notes, or a power object, I put it on my altar so that I can look at it several times each day and feel my gratitude for that gift in my heart. Then I make sure to start using that gift immediately if it is something I truly want to receive. And if it’s not? I pass it on to someone who is better suited to integrate that thing into their life.

This feels good to me, like I am finally starting to learn about the FLOW of abundance and love in life. Because let’s face it, gifts and money also have bits of LOVE attached to them. It is really hard to separate the two in my life. When someone gives me money for a session or an event or a book or video, it is because there is a bit of love in them for that thing that I’m providing. I get to feel that love when I receive the money into my life and send that love on when I spend the money. Do you see? Love and money are tied together.

Now I’m sure we’ll all agree that things have been challenging lately. We are in a bit of an economic downswirl, and I know it’s been frightening for many of us to feel the pinch. And fear can be so wonderful because it MOTIVATES. It has driven me to begin the process of making deep and lasting changes to my relationship with money, with love, and with sex.

I have talked about money and love, but what about SEX?

Here’s a newsflash for us all–take some time to let your partner give to you. Instead of focusing so much on how you can make them feel good, on how you can prove that you are the sexiest thing alive by showing off all your tantric positions and techniques, maybe just sit back and let yourself receive. Then give back. Then receive again. Let there be a give and take.

When I am receiving I have to be vulnerable, and that is scary. If I don’t respond with the appropriate orgasm or connection, if I am not able to receive because I am scared and I snap the energetic connection between us, then I fail. So when I have these feelings I just love myself more and say "open, open open—receive!". If I am giving, then I can get stuck in wanting to control, in expecting a certain response from my partner, in goals. When this happens I take a breath, come back into this moment and trust Spirit to guide me to a better place than I could ever imagine.

So when we get together for "Sex, Breath, and Intimacy" this Sunday, January 11th, we will focus on giving AND receiving love. We will be learning to breathe in the abundance of the universe, and to know there is no true scarcity of money OR of love.

I hope you can join us.

Unconditional Love

osho — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:31:32 +0000

This month I would love to share with you one of my favorite expositions on love by Osho. If this resonates for you, please share your comments on unconditional love with our community.

Enjoy!

Kypris

Excerpted from "Courage, The Joy of Living Dangerously", by Osho

"Ordinarily people love only when their conditions are fulfilled. They say, "You should be like this, only then will I love". A mother says to the child, "I’ll love you only if you behave". A wife says to the husband, "You have to be this way, only then can I love you". Everybody creates conditions: love disappears.

Love is an infinite sky! You cannot force it into narrow spaces, conditioned, limited. If you bring fresh air into your house and close it off from everywhere–all the windows closed, all the doors closed–soon it becomes stale. Whenever love happens it is a part of freedom; then soon you bring that fresh air into your house and everything goes stale, dirty.

This is a deep problem for the whole of humanity–it has been a problem. When you fall in love everything looks beautiful, because in those moments you don’t put conditions. Two persons move near each other unconditionally. Once they have settled, once they have started taking each other for granted, then conditions are being imposed: "You should be like this, you should behave like that, only then will I love"–as if love is a bargain.

When you don’t love out of your fullness of heart, you are bargaining. You want to force the other person to do something for you, only then will you love; otherwise you will betray your love. Now you are using your love as a punishment, or as an enforcement, but you are not loving. Either you are trying to withhold your love or you are giving your love, but in both cases love in itself is not the end, something else is.

People come to me, they always say, "The other is not loving me." Nobody comes and says, "I am not loving the other." Love has become a demand: "The other is not loving me." Forget about the other! Love is such a beautiful phenomenon, if you love you will enjoy.

And the more you love, the more you become lovable. The less you love and the more you demand that others should love you, the less and less you are lovable, the more and more you become closed, confined to your ego. And you become touchy–even if somebody approaches you to love you, you become afraid, because in every love there is a possibility of rejection, withdrawal.

Nobody loves you–this has become an ingrained thought within you. How is this man trying to change your mind? He is trying to love you? Must be something false, is he trying to deceive you? Must be a cunning man, tricky. You protect yourself. You don’t allow anybody to love you and you don’t love others. Then there is fear. Then you are alone in the world, so alone, so lonely, not connected.
…………….
If you understand me well, drop all fears and love more–and love unconditionally. Don’t think that you are doing something for the other when you love; you are doing something for yourself. When you love it is beneficial to you. So don’t wait; don’t say that when others love, you will love–that is not the point at all.

Be selfish. Love is selfish. Love people–you will be fulfilled through it, you will be getting more and more blessedness through it. And when love goes deeper, fear disappears; love is the light, fear is darkness.

Absence of Angst

kypris — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:21:33 +0000

Angst: angst 1 (ängkst)
n.
A feeling of anxiety or apprehension often accompanied by depression

There are a lot of things going on in the world right now that are making it difficult to stay out of fear. I am no different, and when all that combines with a challenge in one of my relationships, I want to fall into old habits of self-pity and angst. But as with all spiritual growth, there comes a time when I am ready to try something different.

I was driving home from teaching a class one night and talking to a girlfriend on the phone. She commented that I didn’t sound too horribly sad. I told her I was practicing "fake it till I make it", knowing that my emotions would catch up with what I wanted to create: a happy and joyous me, perhaps a less woeful and intense me. Someone who could perhaps roll with life’s punches a bit more easily. As I hung up the phone and pulled up to the curb in front of my house, my headlights revealed a raccoon climbing over the gate to my front yard. I sat and watched him, knowing that it was no coincidence that I’d just talked about "faking it" and then seen a raccoon. In fact, I’ve lived in California for 25 years and only seen a raccoon one other time, many many years ago. I knew this was important.

Animal Spirits are powerful teachers for people on a shamanic path, and I knew the raccoon had appeared to give me a message from Spirit. In fact, I realized that raccoon had been showing up in my shamanic healing journeys in my classes lately, and I had been ignoring him. Consulting my favorite guide, "Animal Speak", by Ted Andrews, I found that one part of raccoon medicine is about masks. Specifically that raccoon can help us to let one aspect of our personality go to sleep, down into the shadow world, so that another part of ourselves can rise up to the light and be born. And that was exactly what I wanted.

So I agreed to try something new with my lover. I agreed to not bring up anything that was emotionally challenging, that would create an intense dynamic in our conversation. This was a big change, because we’ve been having a lot of challenging conversations over the last year. Pia Melody, author of "Facing Love Addiction" calls this "putting the relationship on hold". She says that sometimes couples get into such entrenched patterns with each other that it’s time to put on the brakes, back off, and spend some time working on themselves. It’s essentially a "go to your corners for a time out" strategy. And it’s working.

The first thing that I noticed was that it was a huge relief to just hang out and be pleasant and know that neither of us was going to start any tough discussions. I could just be in the present moment, breathe, and stop worrying. I could let go of my angst, for the moment, and save my need to process emotionally for my girlfriends and my mentors and my journal.

The second thing was even more powerful. I noticed that I was having the best date with him that I had ever had. I’m not exaggerating. At the end of this date I felt full, I didn’t need anything more. We had hiked, wandered through a bookstore, made dinner, made love, played games, watched movies, made love some more, and ended with breakfast. What was even more astounding was that the sex was really fantastic–I was completely present with him, not worrying about how to get him to do anything, or checking out because I was angry with him about something. I was totally in the moment and the moment became ecstatically orgasmic, rolling into a 30-40 minute orgasm. So you see it’s not that we didn’t share things, we just didn’t get into our old patterns with each other.

But there’s another thing I have to be grateful for. In getting myself through the grief and fear that have been coming up for me in letting go of my preconceived notions about what I wanted in this relationship, I have come into a really powerful connection to Spirit. I have increased my daily meditating to an hour. What I notice that longer meditation does for me is to lift the intensity and let me feel the peace that’s underneath it–the Peace segment of "Peace, Love and Passion". And this is exciting, because "Peace" is the part of that 3-part equation that I’ve been working hard at enhancing for a long time. I’ve had a lot of passion and I’ve had a lot of love in my heart. But I’ve had very little peace. And suddenly through this event in my life and through my practice and through the sheer fucking grace of the God and Goddess, I have peace for hours at a time.

In the past I would have been tearing my hair, gnashing my teeth, and eating a lot of ice cream right now. But not this time. In the past I would have had to end the relationship because it would have been too painful to continue. But that isn’t happening. Instead, the magick of another layer of healing around how I relate to men and how I love myself is coming into my life.

One final new and exciting thing that has come from all of this is the "Four M’s". You might notice that there are a few new types of events on our calendar, "Harnessing Eros, a Manifestation Puja", and "Ecstasy in Motion, a Dance Puja". In my journey through this latest life challenge, Spirit gifted me with 4 principles for developing unconditional love: Meditate, Masturbate (or Make Love), Move, and Manifest! This is a fun and juicy set of daily practices, (while our "Six Gateways" are learned and practiced over longer periods of time). I try to do each of the 4 M’s each day to keep my heart open and stay in that place of Peace. And what is peace, but the absence of angst?

Namaste,

Kypris
Creating Peace, Love and Passion

Breaking Your Bliss Barrier

kypris — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:50:20 +0000

This weekend I spent 24 hours with two lovers, playing and making love and daring myself to be in joy. I opened myself to letting go of jealousy, fear, and lack. And for the first time I am open, so open that my heart feels like the sky. All need to contract, to control access to my heart, to control my lovers actions, has washed away. And my yoni feels like a juicy ripe peach ready to be plucked. How in the heck did I get here from the place I was just a few months ago, when just the thought of my lover with another was enough to send me into heart-pounding panic and the desire to run from any possible hurt?

Well, I am having a growth spurt. Not growth in my body, but growth in my everyday emotional state. I am learning to contain more pleasure, and more and more to let go of fear, and sadness.

It was at our first six gateways retreat in June that I really became aware that I limit how much bliss I can feel. There I was on the second day of the retreat, moving sexual energy with three different yummy men, feeling myself open and feel fabulous, and then BAM! I hit a wall. I found my bliss barrier.

I’d always had some awareness that somewhere within me I had been limiting the pleasure I feel, not just in sex but in all of life. I had been noticing for years my tendency to focus on the negative. For me, sex is a microcosm of all of life–so if I am limiting the pleausre I am feeling in sex, I am limiting the pleasure I am having in all of life. And that was something I didn’t want.

So with this new awareness, I began to pay more attention during lovemaking. Sure enough, I found that I was limiting my pleausre there too. I was limiting the amount I could open my heart to feel love, and my yoni to feel ecstasy and orgasm.

I decided to try a new approach to solving this puzzle–a combination of practice and prayer. That’s right, prayer. After all, I took a vow to be married to Spirit and spend three nights a week with Him. Shouldn’t that time include asking for the healing I wanted in my sexuality?

So I have been praying and I have been practicing. I have been breathing love into my heart from God, and putting my sacred tree roots in the ground to be held in the arms of the Goddess. I have been looking at myself and how I stand in my own way. I have been breathing Dragon Fire through my chakras. I have been asking the God and Goddess to open me to more bliss. And I have been pushing my edge.

And then I had the dream. I saw myself in my back yard, trying to help a hummingbird who kept falling to the ground, flightless with the cold of the setting sun. I tried to help her fly, to set her free, but it was no use. Finally, out of solutions, I picked her up and held her to my heart. And she blossomed. She nuzzled into me and looked up at me with her tiny face, and that face was full of love. She stretched her tiny wings to show her pleasure. And as I continued through my dream landscape, holding her, all my fear and sadness and anger faded away. Nothing in my dream could upset me. It was surreal, like I was on some mega dose of ecstasy.

But more surreal, when I woke, my heart was filled with an unfamiliar sensation. It was holding joy. My chest was tingling, open, and I felt like crying with happiness. I never knew that joy could be so full of emotion. I think I always assumed that joy was boring. But no, it was as intense as the sadness I had been carrying! Since then it has been as if my heart has grown wings. Although I still sometimes feel sadness and fear, anger has almost entirely left me. And when I feel the sadness and fear, it always transforms within a few hours back to this intense feeling of ease and happiness.

So it was flying on hummingbird wings that I broke through my bliss barrier this weekend, and entered a place where my old limits no longer applied. I made love for hours, felt Steven’s lingam opening me deeper and deeper, and my yoni responding by becoming more sensitive and ecstatic with every tiny touch or movement. After a while I lost count of the climaxes, and of the number of times I ejaculated. Everything merged into one long valley orgasm that seemed to last forever, perhaps at least a half hour, while the three of us held deep ecstatic loving union with each other. My heart opened wider than ever before, and I became filled with this pleasure, as vast as the ocean, no longer feeling even a hint of fear or sadness. So much love began to spill from my heart that my nipples felt like laser guns beaming love to the universe. My chest tingled, and the size of my heart seemed to grow, while my heart itself seemed to be filled with white fire. I felt bigger than usual, and my entire body became a sexual energy container, feeling alive and ecstatic and open. I surrendered completely to the will of my lovers, letting go of all needs, simply flowing in lovemaking with them in that moment.

I can hardly wait to see what will happen not only during our six gateways retreat on September 6 and 7, but afterward. The retreat itself will be white, done fully clothed, and with lots of yummy sacred sexual practices designed to help you break through your own bliss barrier. I hope that you can join me and share in whatever that experience becomes.

Namaste,

Kypris
Creating Peace, Love and Passion