Returning from Ceremony with my sisters, I am overflowing with Gratitude. On the snow dusted grass, at the edge of Lake Joseph, we gathered for 24 hours, a full moon and sun cycle to share our gifts. The Shift has started. Looking into each others eyes, harmonizing, shimmeying, storytelling, meditating, mmmm....and the kitchen, Goddess! The kitchen overflowing with more delicious roots, berries, lentils, salads, chocolates, berries... than we could eat. We have such gifts, our intution is ripe, our voices clear, we are ready. Our histories are blessing us more and more as we bring understanding and love to the same stories that used to torment us. Thank you Queen GodIs for helping me hear this tonight.
I return home to my sex meditation under the orange waning moon. Today I have heard stories from wombs ready to release traumas and energies no longer serving. As I spread my legs, freshly bathed, I focus my mind on a pleasure prayer.
God, Goddess, may this pleasure spill up my spine and runneth over from my heart and breasts. May the universe experience its deepest pleasures through my human form. May this joy set the frequency for my life. May this laughter and ecstasy cleanse me. May this sex purify me and my Sisters. May this fullness fill our holes. Love, love is being made. May we see love, hear love, be love. I am making love out of the form that is my body. Thank you Spirit, oh thank you for making us life creating. Thank you for making us Life, creating. This life force swelling in my yoni, in my third eye, may it widen the straw of our love. May it awaken any parts of us that are not turned on, so we may be trully grateful for life.
I bow to the sex in me, it is Spirit, it is Creator of life, love, healing. I am trembling. Sex appeal is Life Appeal. May my capacity to feel this full, this happy, this nourished expand in my life as it is now in my body. Each inhale is opening me. Sisters, our wombs are the Source of our Healing, our wombs are Source in human form. These are the portals through which ancestry is brought onto the Earth, when we touch them with devotion we are touching Spirit.
Ashe
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
The Tantra of Contact Improv
The past four days I have been nourished by the rituals and compassionate conversations of those occupying the new paradigm. Many of the Occupy Wall Street folks have joined Starhawk in trainings for co-empowerment and leaderless groups this past weekend. What is becoming clear to me is that the culture of the new paradigm is liberating us. It's different than the old paradigm of activism where we have a lot of work that may or may not be effective and if the revolution happens then we will be liberated post revolution. No, it's the relationships and CONNECTIONS that are forming in this soil of Occupy that are liberating us. It's who we are being, who we are occupying that is liberating us... occupy to me is an invocation to be here now in our Earth bodies fully present and connected. In light of that I have retitled my blog, Occupy Passion.
Our relationships and connections are the ecosystem of our Love and Life Force Energy. When we nourish them with the rich soil of boundaries and accountability, water them with our sacred love fluids, and heat them with the fire of our passion, we have the energy to contribute to the world we envision. This is the tantra of politics my loves.
Grace Lee Boggs, a legendary activist for the past 60 years, has just published her new book The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty First Century. She calls our attention to the paradigm shift happening now, it is as transformative as our paradigm shift from hunter/gatherer to agriculture. She reminds us that as this new MOVEMENT is beginning to emerge it is less about critical mass than it is about critical CONNECTIONS.
MOVEMENT and CONNECTIONS is exactly what we'll be exploring tonight at the Tantra of Contact Improv. Connections includes the oneness between people and it also includes connecting the parts of us that have learned not to know each other, like sex and spirit.
And where does the revolution occur? It's right here baby, in our bodies and our relationships. When I pay attention to where a MOVEMENT initiates from in my body, I feel that deep life impulse that comes from the channel of energy running Earth to Sky through each of our bodies. To align with it does not always bring peace, to be in nature is not always comfortable, but it is pure.
In the new paradigm security is rooted in our nervous system and our reverence for our bodies, including our Earth body. In the new paradigm our resources are:
Our relationships and connections are the ecosystem of our Love and Life Force Energy. When we nourish them with the rich soil of boundaries and accountability, water them with our sacred love fluids, and heat them with the fire of our passion, we have the energy to contribute to the world we envision. This is the tantra of politics my loves.
Grace Lee Boggs, a legendary activist for the past 60 years, has just published her new book The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty First Century. She calls our attention to the paradigm shift happening now, it is as transformative as our paradigm shift from hunter/gatherer to agriculture. She reminds us that as this new MOVEMENT is beginning to emerge it is less about critical mass than it is about critical CONNECTIONS.
MOVEMENT and CONNECTIONS is exactly what we'll be exploring tonight at the Tantra of Contact Improv. Connections includes the oneness between people and it also includes connecting the parts of us that have learned not to know each other, like sex and spirit.
And where does the revolution occur? It's right here baby, in our bodies and our relationships. When I pay attention to where a MOVEMENT initiates from in my body, I feel that deep life impulse that comes from the channel of energy running Earth to Sky through each of our bodies. To align with it does not always bring peace, to be in nature is not always comfortable, but it is pure.
In the new paradigm security is rooted in our nervous system and our reverence for our bodies, including our Earth body. In the new paradigm our resources are:
- social responsibility
- creativity
- trust
- conscious communication
These resources are inexhaustable and create value for us in ways that replace the values class, race, and gender have constructed.
In the new paradigm Contact Improv is a tool to build connection, to build shared new realities, to consciously initiate leadership and willingness. It is the art of sharing energy and intimacy with gravity and space, Mother Earth and possibility. It is the template for our capacity to trust, love, and co-create. In the new paradigm every physical practice is a doorway to cultivating emotional, erotic, and soul intelligence.
Tonight I'm so thrilled to offer the Tantra of Contact Improv, to share the magic of Contact Improv with you to deepen a relationship in your life. Bring someone who is in a relationship with you. Relationships are delicacies and boot camps for our souls. Bring em in to the studio, let's play.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Dance for God, because that's what you do on a Thursday night
Tonight I joined an amazing circle of dancers with my teacher, Banafsheh, "an embodied mystic of the divine feminine."
We started the class bowing to the Beloved, the Divine. As we opened our hips and our hearts we were asked to focus on who we are dancing for. We partnered up dancing while connecting deeply into the eyes of another. Dancing is like the condensed essence of the soul for me. Some of it brought wet eyes, some moments brought protective politeness, some moments I glimpsed a deep sadness meeting my openess. The intensity of this connection is far more compact than conversation, it is our whole being in communication. Dance like sex asks us to be fully in our bodies while giving and receiving energy and I feel is the most intimate request of our human forms.
Tonight we were invited to channel spirit through the crown of our heads and into our sex. We were reminded that dance is the core practice of igniting our life force energy. I know this deeply and I often find myself teaching this, but to hear it from teachers around me, and especially those older than myself feels unbelievably nourishing. Most of my students are older than me and explicitly comment on their desire to connect to their youthful sexual energy through my age. But I know that this wisdom is ageless and the transmission of it across generations is becoming restored.
What I'm so moved by is that the healing is happening everywhere. In our dancing tonight we sat in a circle where a young woman gifted us with her trust and her story of rape and depletion. The room felt more relaxed and present than I have ever felt when hearing this story. We gently spoke our questions our experiences and moved into prayer for her wholeness. I intend to share this here and now without revealing her identity holding the intention that more dance classes penetrate us so deeply and so collectively. Banafsheh reminded us that we are not whole if one of us is not whole. This sisterhood feels incredible, it trembles me with love. It feels so different than the unconscious competition or comparison that can so easily slide between gorgeous women.
We all rose from the Earth to Dance for God, because that's what you do on a Thursday night in the city. It's becoming simpler. Being whole, being sisters...is becoming simpler. Thank you for reminding me tonight.
We started the class bowing to the Beloved, the Divine. As we opened our hips and our hearts we were asked to focus on who we are dancing for. We partnered up dancing while connecting deeply into the eyes of another. Dancing is like the condensed essence of the soul for me. Some of it brought wet eyes, some moments brought protective politeness, some moments I glimpsed a deep sadness meeting my openess. The intensity of this connection is far more compact than conversation, it is our whole being in communication. Dance like sex asks us to be fully in our bodies while giving and receiving energy and I feel is the most intimate request of our human forms.
Tonight we were invited to channel spirit through the crown of our heads and into our sex. We were reminded that dance is the core practice of igniting our life force energy. I know this deeply and I often find myself teaching this, but to hear it from teachers around me, and especially those older than myself feels unbelievably nourishing. Most of my students are older than me and explicitly comment on their desire to connect to their youthful sexual energy through my age. But I know that this wisdom is ageless and the transmission of it across generations is becoming restored.
What I'm so moved by is that the healing is happening everywhere. In our dancing tonight we sat in a circle where a young woman gifted us with her trust and her story of rape and depletion. The room felt more relaxed and present than I have ever felt when hearing this story. We gently spoke our questions our experiences and moved into prayer for her wholeness. I intend to share this here and now without revealing her identity holding the intention that more dance classes penetrate us so deeply and so collectively. Banafsheh reminded us that we are not whole if one of us is not whole. This sisterhood feels incredible, it trembles me with love. It feels so different than the unconscious competition or comparison that can so easily slide between gorgeous women.
We all rose from the Earth to Dance for God, because that's what you do on a Thursday night in the city. It's becoming simpler. Being whole, being sisters...is becoming simpler. Thank you for reminding me tonight.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Honoring the Sexual Priestess
On Wednesday, Nov 16, we gathered for a beautiful ritual Sister's Honoring the Sexual Priestess. The conversations in preparation, post class and the mornings after have been tremendous. I was excited to hear men wanting to create a men's circle to honor the Sexual Priestess and inquiring of the template of our ritual as a point of reference. A dear psychic friend has been downloading intuitive information very similar to myself and what I keep learning through this process is the communal nature of how the Sexual Priestess is sharing her love and wisdom through so many of us today. When we gather the clarity of this healing amplifies!
Many of you have asked for details and recordings. While I did not choose to film our ritual I'd love to share some pieces of it here and look forward to sharing the next one with you.
We entered a saged and cedared room to cast a circle with our intentions. I lead a womb and breast centered dance meditation drawing us deep into our physical bodies and the Earth body. This allows us to connect with the spirit realm and intuitive downloads heightened by the group matrix in a way that grounds our wisdom and integrates it into the physical plane. Together we created a beautiful altar over a plush velvet shall. Each woman made a creative offering to the Sexual Priestess through songs, sacred plants, drawings, texts from contemporary Priestesses and a gorgeous painting.
One of my favorite parts of the night was a beauty adorning ritual. Each woman became encircled, honored, caressed with our hands and devotion through our gaze as we expressed the love and reverence we feel for the Sexual Priestess through the woman's body. I experienced it as a decorating of her body, through energy and intention, just as intricate as laying rose petals and jewels.
From this fully present and love filled space we entered an inquiry, sharing a question we are living in right now as we connect to this archetype.
The question present for me, "How do I connect people to the consciousness of the Sexual Priestess and not just my embodiment of her, not just my body?"
Thank you for being in this inquiry with me and for all your loving support and curiosity. I am creating a performance piece to communicate how much the Sexual Priestess archetype enhances the spiritual pleasure we can give and receive with each other. I look forward to sharing more rituals with you as I develop this artistic offering.
Many of you have asked for details and recordings. While I did not choose to film our ritual I'd love to share some pieces of it here and look forward to sharing the next one with you.
We entered a saged and cedared room to cast a circle with our intentions. I lead a womb and breast centered dance meditation drawing us deep into our physical bodies and the Earth body. This allows us to connect with the spirit realm and intuitive downloads heightened by the group matrix in a way that grounds our wisdom and integrates it into the physical plane. Together we created a beautiful altar over a plush velvet shall. Each woman made a creative offering to the Sexual Priestess through songs, sacred plants, drawings, texts from contemporary Priestesses and a gorgeous painting.
One of my favorite parts of the night was a beauty adorning ritual. Each woman became encircled, honored, caressed with our hands and devotion through our gaze as we expressed the love and reverence we feel for the Sexual Priestess through the woman's body. I experienced it as a decorating of her body, through energy and intention, just as intricate as laying rose petals and jewels.
From this fully present and love filled space we entered an inquiry, sharing a question we are living in right now as we connect to this archetype.
The question present for me, "How do I connect people to the consciousness of the Sexual Priestess and not just my embodiment of her, not just my body?"
Thank you for being in this inquiry with me and for all your loving support and curiosity. I am creating a performance piece to communicate how much the Sexual Priestess archetype enhances the spiritual pleasure we can give and receive with each other. I look forward to sharing more rituals with you as I develop this artistic offering.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Celebrating the Dark Artistry of the Goddess
We are approaching Samhain, more commonly known as Halloween, when the veil between the living and the dead is the thinest. The wisdom that evolves us across generations is more readily available to us during this season and so is our resistance to this wisdom.
The costumes, the glucose spikes, the masks, the characters we let ourselves become at Halloween may deepen our journey or they may become an entertaining distraction from it. Perhaps we'll have the best of both worlds, we'll entertain ourselves with the truth while looking out from the costumes of the familiar! That's exactly the intention behind the ritual I am offering tomorrow on the New Moon, Celebrating the Artistry of the Dark Goddess, Wednesday, 6:30 to 8 pm, at Red Bean Studios. Register here!
I am often asked to lead Kali inspired rituals during this season. This year I'm recognizing that the ritual of the Dark Goddess is intimately connected to my studies of healing trauma with Peter Levine, author of "Waking the Tiger." The tiger in the nervous system is the one who pounces when someone attacks me. She is the one who pumps my heart fast and steady when I speak loudly. She is the one looking through my eyes when I trust that who I am is valuable. When she sleeps, people can smell it on me. The boundaries get fuzzy and protection feels like a draining task that fear has asked me to perform.
I recently joined a room of mental health professionals and therapists for a training with internationally recognized trauma expert, Peter Levine. He works with the children in Japan who survived the tsunami. He works with veterans returning from war and adults who grew up in concentration camps. I dare say he works courageously close to the Dark Goddess. Kali Ma, the hindu form of the Dark Goddess, destroys that which is untrue. For thousands of years people have invoked Her energy to destroy the energetic imprints of the events which did not honor our true value.
I'll be integrating the somatic technology that Levine uses to Wake the Tiger. He defines trauma, not as a result of a situation, but it is the result of the tiger sleeping during the situation. Kali, like rage, is often misunderstood and feared. Her limitless unapologetic freedom can be presented out of context, falsely legitimizing our unconscious lust and unexamined envy. We invoke her in this ritual with great respect and purpose. She is the Mother Nature energy at its most powerful-civilization-rumblin-core, she is the Goddess of death. She kills illusion. She expects us to be courageous and we have the opportunity to make her right.
Dark and Shadow are Not the Same
There is no Shadow inside a Mother's womb or in the Earth, there is only fertile Darkness, possibility, and transformation. The Shadow exists where light is actively obstructed. The energy we expend to prevent this area from seeing the light of day is energy that is no longer available for trust, love, and passion. Dark Goddess, we ask you to awaken the tiger inside us, to unfreeze the memories our body has accumlated as we grow our emotional and spiritual resources. We ask for psychological rejuventation that allows us to break cycles that have replaced trust, love, and passion.
Come adorned in black, ready to dance, come ready to release a part of you that is no longer you!
Chocolate and fruit will be served.
The costumes, the glucose spikes, the masks, the characters we let ourselves become at Halloween may deepen our journey or they may become an entertaining distraction from it. Perhaps we'll have the best of both worlds, we'll entertain ourselves with the truth while looking out from the costumes of the familiar! That's exactly the intention behind the ritual I am offering tomorrow on the New Moon, Celebrating the Artistry of the Dark Goddess, Wednesday, 6:30 to 8 pm, at Red Bean Studios. Register here!
I am often asked to lead Kali inspired rituals during this season. This year I'm recognizing that the ritual of the Dark Goddess is intimately connected to my studies of healing trauma with Peter Levine, author of "Waking the Tiger." The tiger in the nervous system is the one who pounces when someone attacks me. She is the one who pumps my heart fast and steady when I speak loudly. She is the one looking through my eyes when I trust that who I am is valuable. When she sleeps, people can smell it on me. The boundaries get fuzzy and protection feels like a draining task that fear has asked me to perform.
I recently joined a room of mental health professionals and therapists for a training with internationally recognized trauma expert, Peter Levine. He works with the children in Japan who survived the tsunami. He works with veterans returning from war and adults who grew up in concentration camps. I dare say he works courageously close to the Dark Goddess. Kali Ma, the hindu form of the Dark Goddess, destroys that which is untrue. For thousands of years people have invoked Her energy to destroy the energetic imprints of the events which did not honor our true value.
I'll be integrating the somatic technology that Levine uses to Wake the Tiger. He defines trauma, not as a result of a situation, but it is the result of the tiger sleeping during the situation. Kali, like rage, is often misunderstood and feared. Her limitless unapologetic freedom can be presented out of context, falsely legitimizing our unconscious lust and unexamined envy. We invoke her in this ritual with great respect and purpose. She is the Mother Nature energy at its most powerful-civilization-rumblin-core, she is the Goddess of death. She kills illusion. She expects us to be courageous and we have the opportunity to make her right.
Dark and Shadow are Not the Same
There is no Shadow inside a Mother's womb or in the Earth, there is only fertile Darkness, possibility, and transformation. The Shadow exists where light is actively obstructed. The energy we expend to prevent this area from seeing the light of day is energy that is no longer available for trust, love, and passion. Dark Goddess, we ask you to awaken the tiger inside us, to unfreeze the memories our body has accumlated as we grow our emotional and spiritual resources. We ask for psychological rejuventation that allows us to break cycles that have replaced trust, love, and passion.
Come adorned in black, ready to dance, come ready to release a part of you that is no longer you!
Chocolate and fruit will be served.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Submission
I've been creating "Submission," a solo dance performance for the Halloween Masquerade Puja Party on Saturday, Oct 29, at the annual Sacred Sexuality Round Up. I recently started offering classes after a 10 month break. I'm discovering that during the sabatical from creating classes, I was creating something less visible, a new way of experiencing myself. Now that I'm returning to teaching and choreographing dances the experience has changed. Tonight the solo came to visit me.
This solo cannot see. She can listen. She is willing, supple, and She does not scatter me as She moves me. She is Submission. She has come to speak to me this time not as a lover, not as an obstacle, not as the all mighty... in the familiar forms. She teaches me to surrender without collapsing.
She rotates my thighs slowly in the caves of my hip sockets. Her timing is just a touch more graceful than the timing of tentativeness. Then She whips me with movement in a way that is similar to ecstatic bowing, wrestling, chanting, whirling, flying on merry-go-rounds, vomitting violently, and head banging. She makes me feel the delicacy of my physicality.
There is some part of me that is not delicate and not physical, that I live from in these moments.
She touches me as air surrounding my warm skin. She tosses my spine at times just to assure Herself that I am not bracing or defending my posture. Ninety minutes into rehearsal She pops me out of the studio to sit and recognize Her with these words. I hope to receive Her again. I want Her to take me. I plan to go home and turn on the music and wait for Her to join me again. She is mentoring me to serve.
This solo cannot see. She can listen. She is willing, supple, and She does not scatter me as She moves me. She is Submission. She has come to speak to me this time not as a lover, not as an obstacle, not as the all mighty... in the familiar forms. She teaches me to surrender without collapsing.
She rotates my thighs slowly in the caves of my hip sockets. Her timing is just a touch more graceful than the timing of tentativeness. Then She whips me with movement in a way that is similar to ecstatic bowing, wrestling, chanting, whirling, flying on merry-go-rounds, vomitting violently, and head banging. She makes me feel the delicacy of my physicality.
There is some part of me that is not delicate and not physical, that I live from in these moments.
She touches me as air surrounding my warm skin. She tosses my spine at times just to assure Herself that I am not bracing or defending my posture. Ninety minutes into rehearsal She pops me out of the studio to sit and recognize Her with these words. I hope to receive Her again. I want Her to take me. I plan to go home and turn on the music and wait for Her to join me again. She is mentoring me to serve.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Walking Back In
My body felt warm and relaxed after two hours dancing in the studio. Each week for the past 4 weeks I had come to open my body with new movement and to untangle the memories and definitions that constricted who I am when I dance. As I left the studio I touched the elevator down button and turned to my phone. A young blonde woman leaned against the wall smiling at me. "This may be strange but..." I looked up to see who was speaking. "Did you dance at Arlington Center for Dance?" she asked.
"Yes." I answered simply, summing up ages 6 to 18 of professional ballet training 3 to 8 hours a day, 6 days a week in a small school 5 hours away in Virginia. "I know who you are," she was beaming. I didn't recognize her face but I started to open as if I had, knowing that she was aware of such a huge part of my life before I moved to NYC for dance.
Just 3 weeks prior I had called a Healing Circle for Dancers in this very studio after many burning converesations with dancers who had left the dance world and in some way left a part of themselves still in it. "You probably know my father more than you know me," she gave me his name and then hers. Her father used to fly the scrims in and out during our tech rehearsals and performances. Yes, I believe I had heard the director calling his name for years. Here his daughter stood before me at the doorway to the dance studio.
"Are you dancing now?" I asked. She explained that she had left when she was 12. She "walked out," her hands gestured a sweeping "X" across her body. "I mean I walked out completely." She went on to say that she recently started social dance, swing, but it wasn't "real dance." Her eyes and tone suggested that I would agree, having shared the same strict definition of dance from our backgrounds. But I didn't. I was so happy that she was opening a new relationship with dance 15 years later. "And now these crazy people," she swung a hand toward the studio already filling with the next group of dancers, "actually convinced me to perform." She looked undeniably happy.
She started to repeat again that she "walked out, I mean walked out" on dance. "Yes," I nodded, "that's very common. I'm so happy you are reconnecting to the part of you that loved dance before our studio defined it." She had no idea the syncronicity of her seeing me in this studio at this time of the week where I come regularly to "walk back in" to dance, whole. "I'm so glad you said something to me," I said as she turned to enter the studio.
I have always loved dance more than anything, even when someone else was describing what it was and what it wasn't. But these days there is a phenomenal choreography of dancers dispursing for 10, 15 years, and then slowly turning to face back to the center. "Steve, can you fly the scrim in for the next scene? Raise the lights on stage right, we want to see their glowing faces."
"Yes." I answered simply, summing up ages 6 to 18 of professional ballet training 3 to 8 hours a day, 6 days a week in a small school 5 hours away in Virginia. "I know who you are," she was beaming. I didn't recognize her face but I started to open as if I had, knowing that she was aware of such a huge part of my life before I moved to NYC for dance.
Just 3 weeks prior I had called a Healing Circle for Dancers in this very studio after many burning converesations with dancers who had left the dance world and in some way left a part of themselves still in it. "You probably know my father more than you know me," she gave me his name and then hers. Her father used to fly the scrims in and out during our tech rehearsals and performances. Yes, I believe I had heard the director calling his name for years. Here his daughter stood before me at the doorway to the dance studio.
"Are you dancing now?" I asked. She explained that she had left when she was 12. She "walked out," her hands gestured a sweeping "X" across her body. "I mean I walked out completely." She went on to say that she recently started social dance, swing, but it wasn't "real dance." Her eyes and tone suggested that I would agree, having shared the same strict definition of dance from our backgrounds. But I didn't. I was so happy that she was opening a new relationship with dance 15 years later. "And now these crazy people," she swung a hand toward the studio already filling with the next group of dancers, "actually convinced me to perform." She looked undeniably happy.
She started to repeat again that she "walked out, I mean walked out" on dance. "Yes," I nodded, "that's very common. I'm so happy you are reconnecting to the part of you that loved dance before our studio defined it." She had no idea the syncronicity of her seeing me in this studio at this time of the week where I come regularly to "walk back in" to dance, whole. "I'm so glad you said something to me," I said as she turned to enter the studio.
I have always loved dance more than anything, even when someone else was describing what it was and what it wasn't. But these days there is a phenomenal choreography of dancers dispursing for 10, 15 years, and then slowly turning to face back to the center. "Steve, can you fly the scrim in for the next scene? Raise the lights on stage right, we want to see their glowing faces."
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