As memories birth ever new feelings, thoughts, and sensations my present awareness observes it all, while engaging with the beloved friend. Observing the layering of memory born sensations, watching feelings and thoughts scoring initial moments of reconnection, like music enhances and colors a movie. 

First there are excitement and the apprehensive question: how much they will open to engaging and how deep they will choose to go in sharing and bearing their hearts and souls to me. There is a fear and tinge of sadness at the thought of them maybe choosing to be defended or evasive. 

Then there is the warmth of joy at meeting their openness and affection for me. As threads of affection and soul bonds, are enlivened, and light up joy, expands into ecstatic elation. The intensity of elation coinciding with the opening of boxes of forgotten and unintegrated feelings of the past…

And past pain reminds how we fell into unhealthy relating patterns and wounded each other in the past, admonishing me to be especially mindful and compassionate now that I know better. 

Open questions of a past self present themselves to awareness. 

Conscience speaks of how I expressed in an unhelpful, or even harmful, way towards them and initiates expressions of acknowledgment and heartful apologies. 

Old desires, attachments, and longings return to be remembered, known, honored and given a new place or form in this new adventure in relating. 

There is grief for all that could not have been, the unattainable dreams for this connection, and the time and life not shared or journeyed together. 

And making peace with uncomfortable truths and reality as it was and is. 

And as we share where we are in life, what we have learned and unlearned, all is in a gentle flux, seeking to attune to the relating that wants to unfold for us. There are no definitives or set points beyond our reciprocal love, affection, and choice to relate… All else has to grow into a new form, as time shared waters all that had gone underground in months or years of silence or no contact. A fertile void embraces and ambiguity suffuses this renewed relational meeting of souls. New intentions, agreements, and commitments slowly begin to define the bandwidth and intensity of the flow of relating and energy.

Meeting in reciprocal appreciation, playfulness, and engaging in deep soulful exchanges is more than nourishment on all levels of my being, gently washing away distortions and pain from hurtful relating and misperceptions in past relationships, ours and others. 

The gift of reconnecting with special souls goes beyond returning their unique frequency to my experience, it also induces an integration of relational disruptions and hurts. And feeds the knowing that repair is not just possible but also an opportunity for rebirth and renewal in magical and unexpected forms.

Photography by Unknown

The post Reconnection and Renewal appeared first on Venuskind.

For most people the word healing describes a goal-focused process akin to the healing of a cut in our skin: a localized process of hurt, inflammation, scabbing over, creation of new skin and retaining a faint or obvious scar.

Healing to me has a more layered meaning and is absolutely process-oriented not just goal-oriented.

In an interconnected web of existence, a world made up of on quantum particles and their potential for entanglement, as an organism within a complex interdependent ecosystem – healing is not limited to the individual being or organism nor solely dependent upon them. In other words, everything I do to heal myself feeds into the web of our shared existence, our collective consciousness, and affects my relational systems and engagements with All That Is. Equally all that is done by other aspects of the All affects and influences me via the field of consciousness.

Healing in my understanding is a life-long practice – it is not something that can be done in a few months or years (unless you look through a purely reductionist lens at localized physical ailments).

To me it entails being aware of our woundings, early childhood traumas, and what is often overlooked what was missing to support our healthy development. The trauma and developmental impairments afflicted on us through neglect are the hardest to notice and become aware of and yet their are often the most important aspects of our woundings in need of healing.

We need a certain level of psychological knowledge and developmental understanding to attain to our tender and wounded aspects skillfully, while also practicing being gentle, compassionate, and loving with all aspects of self. Gently ending internal wars, divisions, and other self sabotaging or self harming patterns we have learned.

It means questioning all we have learned and belief, researching and learning more about the things we hold strong beliefs on, contemplating and critically reflecting on our life experience and trying to find other ways of perceiving or framing our memories and stories.

In the process of healing we will find aspects, traits, skills, parts of us that we lost along the pathways of trauma, adaptation, and conditioning. We need to recognize, reclaim, nurture, and cultivate these to integrate them into a more whole and integrated version of ourselves.

Our perceptions are changed by this healing process as distortions from trauma lose their hold over our mind, and with new perceptions new layers of reality become visible and call for our awareness in engaging with them. More discernment makes itself available to us. And what once seemed black and white to our conditioned minds and hearts suddenly has multitudes of nuances of grey and colors.

Healing reclaims feeling. We feel more, we learn to engage with our emotions wisely, never suppressing them, nor fueling those which may burn or harm us. Learning about the pitfalls of being identified or lost in our emotions, to respect their power and bring in consciousness and intuition to help us channel and utilize their energy in service of our path and life as a whole.

We become appreciative observers of life within as without as life now reveals more and more of its subtle magic, humor and playfulness to us. Fear loses its grip over our thinking and feeling to regain its function as a navigational signal.

Learning to feel and think without identifying ourselves with emotions and thoughts, becoming more detached and yet more engaged. No longer being hijacked by tsunamis of emotions, blinded by limiting beliefs, we can be fully and sustainably present.

Healing is deeply relational. I concur with the notion that many of our woundings have been created in relationships and necessitate corrective or healing relationships to fully heal, as there is only little that can be done in the absence of relating in terms of healing. Being a mystic I would count all kinds of relationships as potential sources of healing, not just relationships with humans. One of my most powerful healing and corrective relationships is the one I have cultivates with Self (or higher self) and which is my most nurturing, loving, and joyful relationship.

Allowing energy to flow through us with less obstructions, having more spaciousness in choosing what to engage with and what to let pass us by in order to protect our wellbeing and expansive trajectory.

Healing is an ongoing process and journey for multidimensional beings, whose every change to one aspect of inner being affects all other parts and thereby calls for recalibration, adaptation of skills and practices, or cultivation of new skills. It is a premise for true growth, expansion, greatness, and change.

Once we have attended to ourselves enough, an inner knowing lets us know that moment, we will not only desire to share our tools, experiences, and knowledge but also be able to do so with the necessary awareness, discernment, and knowing to minimize potential obstruction or harm to others, while remaining open to keep learning and showing up better.

I feel myself transitioning from primary focus on personal healing to making collective healing my focus. Whatever form that may take or which adventures beckon along that new pathway are still unknown to me. But I hear the call clearly and delight in following it as intuition guides me.

Photography by Unknown

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These are some of my reflections at the end of this adventure in humaning.

Men of my age and older

Having been surrounded for more than a decade by very aware, caring and spiritual people has upped all my baselines for communicating and relating. And engaging with mainstream ‘normal’ men gained a surreal retro feel thanks to the evolution and growth shared in various communities. I caught myself over and over in surprised and speechless moments of “People are still doing this and not aware enough to see it for what it is and change or grow?”

Habituated to fellow growth-minded people the slow pace of progression and learning in others, coupled with an unadulterated and unapologetic rigidity in holding on to dysfunction felt not only alien but put me off, even if the man had other good qualities.

A history of immersion in psychology, communication sciences and being part of the polyamory community has taught me early on about communication, consideration and respect for another’s needs and feelings. So much so that it has become second nature and my world is primarily populated with people who are eloquent practitioners of it. Therefore the disjointed communication styles, absence of consideration of my needs and feelings, unabashed egocentricity, unconscious mind games, ego tantrums and other manipulative attempts felt jarring and alienating. And I realized these block communicating and relating so much that even the most basic levels of these are repeatedly or permanently unavailable with these men. Though the reasons for said blockages are amalgamated by individual unaddressed patterning and wounding the general dynamic was quite repetitive.

Overall I observed the immensity of emotional and spiritual poverty rampant in men of my age, the ways they try to compensate or flee it (sex, status, money, etc.) and the suffering, fragility and loneliness underneath all their striving or posturing as they have achieved enough of their goals to be confronted with their fecklessness in the face of the hole within they tried to fill with them.
I am saddened by how few of them are courageous and willing enough to face their shadow and integrate it now. Too many messages and conversations had men acknowledge that they probably should address this or that and then giving me rationalizations and excuses why they won’t just now or ever. Of course change and healing is impossible, shouldn’t I know?

With men who are spiritual and have their own self work journey the fault lines lie along similar lines though in a more tempered and less obvious way. They also strive and posture by displaying their spiritual practices, jobs, achievements – the more integrated have a humorous awareness of it when pointed to it while others will react with the same fragility to be found in other men. I cannot help but see a lack of decisive actions and investment in things of value due to the ease of being distracted or too sluggish to leave the (spiritual) comfort zone. A lack of ability to slay the Buddha on the path and progress beyond on the one hand and the inability or unwillingness to marry spirituality with the mundane on the other.

Conditioning is truly strong and finds ways to operate in new ways along old lines, the spiritualized ego is just one of the more visible ways this shows itself. If we do not keep alert, sharpening our awareness and consciousness our human affinity for comfort and consistency will limit our progress and insert unhealthy stagnation and calcification. A valuable reminder to be honored.

Power differentials

The most fascinating experience I made for the first time in this intensity and across all encounters is a dynamic power differential which put me in the stronger position without any intent or effort on my side.
All the disappointments, heartbreaks, and subsequent ongoing self work that emotional unfulfilment has brought into my experience has blossomed and is bearing a magical fruit. Said fruit is twofold as it manifests as the ability to fill my own cup by having a variety of ways and flexibility to fulfill my needs independent of a singular other. Sitting alone and dropping inside already washes away all burdens, worries, and needs in the luminosity of presence and equanimity. Taking full responsibility for my experience has grown and transcended me beyond the strangling grip of trauma and conditioning into a state of compassionate self love that allows me to navigate life with awareness, trust, playfulness and inner strength.
The second manifestation is the curated life I have been slowly building from the inside out, rich in connections and relationships that can nurture me more than *enough* and which evolve and grow steadily and healthily. When filling my cup internally or from Spirit doesn’t quite hit the point there are cherished friends and acquaintances who will do it. And often it takes only a word or sentence here, a hug, moments of shared laughter or commiseration. Even little things are superfoods to my heart and Soul in this web of love that lights up around and in me.

Having worked on my childhood trauma and with my sexual desires and energy has shifted my relationship with sex in ways I haven’t had a chance of being so acutely aware of in the absence of viable sex partners. I realized that the past years had taught me to transform the dense, sharp, burning imminence of sexual desire into other forms of energy in service of my spiritual practice or into a gentle, encompassing, warm, expansive erotic energy that is more akin to a wide flowing river than the intensity of burning fiery sexual need. My urges no longer hijack or control my being, I can feel, sense and take pleasure in them without having to act on them right here and now, frustration, or loss of the energy. There is no enslavement nor opposition to sexual desires, just an allowing, awareness and loving intentional engagement. Which is very different to the way it dominated and drove the decisions and action of the men I encountered, even the spiritual with a few exceptions (true tantric practitioners). This dominating drive was often the reason why connection was impossible as their system had concept of relating and connecting outside of sex. Not only a mental poverty but also a terrible pattern of starving the emotional body.

I enter every encounter as a whole being open to new experiences, cognizant of the goodness and abundance of life, while these men act from mindsets built on scarcity, competition, domination and neediness. A power differential asserts itself as I am less driven than them, moving at the pace of my awareness and intuition, my desires for the encounter being for it to be respectful, kind, and interesting/expansive. While on the other side they are under pressure to fulfill their burning needs and desires for ‘the one,’ sex, admiration, alleviation of loneliness, filling the emptiness in their life, etc. The exception being that spiritual guys have less of a pressure and more of a desire and the best of them meeting me in a similar openness to mine.

This calls for extra mindfulness and compassion in my words and actions in order not to enter into the dysfunctional patterns this power difference might invite and to be kind and caring towards the tender aspects of the man. Gifts always come with new responsibilities to keep relating balanced and fair.

Take away for me

All the work to disempower and dismantle romantic conditioning and be more spacious about relating and loving has changed how I perceive relationships, my visions and needs in relating with an intimate partner or friend, and lastly me. I can smile at my inner romantic when she starts going off creating Hollywood movies in her future projections, and still stay anchored in awareness and act from my higher senses and mind.
No longer a slave to these narratives by blindly following them nor by rebelling against them, I have learned to allow life to write an authentic and healthier narrative into every encounter with potential while practicing detachment from outcomes and surrender to the way life unfolds.

And so here I am in a state of awe of the wholeness this path has gifted me. Grateful for the expansion of my awareness, the learning of skills that help me navigate challenging feelings and pains of the past with tender compassion and firmness in service of the wellbeing of all. Grateful for the lessoning of the selfishness and self absorption of the ego which used to blind me to the needs, wants, desires, and feelings of others in the pursuit of my emotional fulfillment. Thankful for leaning into interdependence, allowing vulnerability, honesty and tenderness to strip me to my essential nature and truths in the face of worthy beloveds, learning and practicing how to keep filling another’s cup while keeping mine full *enough*.

I bow in gratitude for my teachers in the past months for the insights and learning they co-created with me. Grateful for them helping me realize that companionship and friendship are fundamental to me and my vision of an evolutionary and fulfilling relationship and that many fail to meet the basic skills and awareness needed for that starting point, let alone the evolutionary trajectory I see as intrinsic to my life and loving. Grateful for making me realize how unique and special a man has to be to co-create a relationship and life with me that would be worthwhile to surrender my aloneness for. Laying the foundation for the proper appreciation and gratitude for the one that will take this role in times to come. Grateful for making me more committed to my path and consciousness work to avoid the pitfalls of conditioning, rigidity, and stagnation which render us lifeless.
Hoping from the bottom of my heart that our encounter was in some little way enriching and nourishing to them and that their Soul flourishes and delights along the path she choose.

Last but not least I bow in gratitude and awe to Life/Self/Source for the playfulness, love, creativity, care, and challenges they pepper my life experience with. And for the blessed and indomitable knowing that what is mine will never pass me by!

Photography Karen Williams by Paul Innis

The post Online Dating appeared first on Venuskind.

When communicating with people who lack an aligned spiritual background, or who have not delved into it as far, my mind starts translating, explaining, and becoming more detailed in conveying its meaning. Realizing the difference in cosmologies and how these influence the conception and perception of my words and their meaning, and understanding beyond the mind that some of the meaning of my words lies in the invisible which necessitates a listener to have an intuitive or conscious access to the invisible to fully grasp what I am sharing or pointing to.

I catch myself attempting to make that meaning tangible and perceptible for those without access to the non-physical through words, which necessitates more words and a higher level of complexity or communication of interconnected aspects.

Someone called it my ‘branched’ thinking, which amused me at first because that has a different meaning to me, as I conceptualize that as taking an essential or fundamental idea and following it into branches of its meaning and manifestation. Which I do at times but had not in conversations with them.

In my morning reflections today I became aware what they were trying to verbalize by talking about my ‘branched’ thinking. They were pointing to something I had not been mindful of, though I was conscious of in my higher mind: my wish to verbalize my multidimensional perceptions and thoughts.

That was an interesting moment of realizing how the higher mind acts without the ‘human mind’ being aware of it, even if consciousness is utilizing the ‘human mind.’ What I refer to as the higher mind is not located in the brain, and may include what we usually think of as the mind (human mind), yet it exceeds it by accessing the field of consciousness in more subtle or higher layers depending on how you picture it. It is through this aspect that access to the higher realms and dimensions is possible to us. Some people perceive it and conceptualize it as the heart-mind.
A term I intentionally side-step as it subtly affirms to too many their dualistic perception of heart and mind and the rejection of the mind (mental, intellectual), which to me is something I don’t want to feed into. One could argue that ‘higher mind’ might be misperceived as a disregard of the heart but that is easier to address than the other perceptive distortion because it is an effect of mainstream thinking.

Back to my adaptations in communication when speaking with people who are not familiar with relationship dynamics, energetic dynamics, and spiritual cosmologies pointing to the oneness of all that is or the field of consciousness. As my perceptions and reflections of life are based on these knowings they often feel alien, weird, or outright nonsensical to those who perceive life through the lens of mainstream conditionings, which deem the physical and quantifiable the only reality.

Therefore while sharing of myself and my perceptions I am aware of a need to make the invisible and intangibles, which are real aspects of life to me, shine through and become more visible and tangible to the human mind.

It feels like changing languages, and coming up against the limitations of my language skill and vocabulary in the other language, and having to accept my falling short of truly conveying my meaning and releasing the hope for their full understanding. At best 50% or 60% of it is accessible to the open minded but closed bodied/hearted. With people whose intuition is more intact and integrated it can go up to 70% or 75%, which is not too bad.

And how does my being know or guesstimate the percentage of what has been transferred? The feedback is mostly clear and loud in the non-physical, non-linear, and non-verbal. This is also where cues to rephrase, explain, or drop a subject come from even if the other doesn’t communicate their confusion.

Don’t get me wrong I get the same ‘lost in translation’ feedback when communicating with some spiritual people, whenever what I share is from my current growth edge and ‘too far out’ for their cosmology or current grasp. The difference there is a different kind of openness to the unknown, a part of them hearing me and opening to what may lay out of their ken… allowing the meaning to come to them in time, if welcomed.
In a sense a listening happens with with others too, but the part that hears and opens is not as integrated into their waking experience or awareness. Which makes it unclear if that knowing will ever be theirs in this lifetime, depending on their life’s trajectory. It is like a seed that doesn’t fall on fertile welcoming soil, but on a hardened soil in a dry and hot climate, making it a matter of alignment of many factors if the seed will ever get a chance to root and grow.

Becoming aware of my unconscious attempts at and challenges of translating the mystical into the mundane is quite entertaining. On the one hand I cannot help feel a deeper appreciation for the dynamics of communication and its complexities, and on the other hand I cannot stop laughing at this human experience and its countless futile toils.

Making it conscious allows me to stop wasting my energy in attempts which are not going to be fruitful and only end up confounding and mesmerizing another in ways that are not conducive to a meeting of equal beings.

Once again I wonder how subtly my path keeps changing and transforming my expressions and how I live in the meeting point of two worlds. What a gift that I am surrounded with beloveds, who not only understand my mystic’s experience, heart, and mind but also inspire her to travel and explore further.

Who would have thought that a mundane thing like dating could be the source of reaping sweet fruits of insight? But then isn’t all made of consciousness and awaits our attunement and ability to commune with it in playfulness?

What magic this life holds for all…

Art by Robert Cook

The post Lost in Translation appeared first on Venuskind.

When I look at it closely and feel into my response, I hear the voice of the wounded child that wants to be nurtured and taken care of resonate with my pull to accommodate this narrative. I see the aspect of self that is lazy and wants things handed to it instead of creating and working for them resonate with this. I sense the appeal to my masculine to take its “rightful” position of leadership, the promise of empowerment reverberating in it. The validation of “I know best” that the ego holds, the illusory promise and feel of “right order of things” hailing from millennia of conditioned gender roles and narratives. I see residual and persistent thought forms, emotive responses and beliefs arising from patriarchal romantic conditionings resonate with it.

And so I sit in silence and let the narrative of the leading masculine and surrendered feminine hover in space as my awareness illuminates it to know its nature, level of truthfulness and distortion. Drawing on eclectic spiritual teachings, knowing, insights, sensed and felt experiences with both energies my observations are combined and recombined with these to illumine and distill more of the underlying patterns, energies and archetypal forces at play in this narrative and in the seeding, enforcing and amplification of this new agey subgroup of patriarchal gender narratives.

I sense the overlay and undercurrent of history and the affinity of the ego to recreate the past in its mistaken idea of safety. I recognize the blindness towards the nature and quality of both energy signatures arising from matrix conditioning, incapable of perceiving the reality of the energy while the mind keeps projecting and overlaying it with subconsciously held narratives of masculinity and femininity. I see how entrancing and actively resistant these narratives are to the perception of existence beyond the concepts of the matrix or even imagination beyond the entrenched narratives which are heavily protected by weaponized cognitive dissonances.

From the detachment of a higher vantage point of perception, i.e. beyond self-identification and its limiting factors, this is quite amusing to observe. A highly intelligent and deceptive virus (patriarchy) adept at adapting to and defeating his hosts immune system strategies by making the immune system believe it is part of its defense and serving the wellbeing of the host. It is fascinating and entertaining, I can see why consciousness chooses to play at this in so many variations, layers and dimensions.

From my blended perception, i.e. from a union of human and higher Self perception, I lean towards wanting to engage with more reality and leave the games of egoic illusions, archetypal storylines, wars over layers of the matrix artifice behind me. These games feel exhausting, futile, senseless, destructive, stale and repetitive. I want more, I want different, something new.

I now operate more and more from the knowing of my essential conscious/divine/energetic nature. My practice of making more time for being in that nature and experiencing life from that state is shedding layers upon layers of conditioning, ancestral and karmic burdens of distortions and allows me to clear my eyes, heart and mind to perceive life anew. To dream of bringing into being new and more joyful ways of perceiving, making sense, relating, creating and being on this planet and with all that is.

Rehashing old games of duality, gender oppositions, disempowering relational dynamics, pigeonholing ourselves in ever more fragmented identities, beliefs, opinions and groups is a slow and painful path to walk from where I perceive things. Nonetheless, I respect people’s choices to experience life in that way. We came here to experience life in individual ways which serve and grow our soul’s journey and ultimately the evolution and self-exploration of divine consciousness and I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of that. 

I am all for exploring and playing with power dynamics in life, relating and creating. I don’t mind being in a submissive role or a dominant role. But that is all it can be for me: a role I choose to play with awareness, not who I am. I AM so much more than the narrow definition of the feminine or masculine in the new age mindset or current narrative spin. I AM all, I can embody all traits, roles, expressions and play with all. As can everyone else. Why limit myself to a stale overplayed repertoire when I came here to drink experience to my fill? 

There is so much the new age propagandists don’t seem to understand about the way the feminine and masculine energies work together or what the hieros gamos feels like when embodied. The idea that “one leads and the other follows” is painfully colored by patriarchal dominator thinking and cannot even come close to fathom the beauty of how the union of masculine and feminine expresses, feels, senses and vibrates. There is no leadership in union. Who is there to be lead and who can lead in oneness? What is this foolish nonsense we are being served up if not the regurgitation of old paradigm thinking?

 If you have experienced and felt the union of masculine & feminine within, you will know the numinous nature of the union and how it creates and acts, which defy words and explanations as we lack proper concepts and words to hope to express it even in the vaguest terms. Similar observations can be made in the experience of union between self and higher Self. There is still so much we have to EXPERIENCE for ourselves to truly KNOW about reality. Higher experiences defy the limitations of our current perceptions, thinking, culture, norms, languages and modes of communication.

The invitation I extend to those who are willing to read, listen and reflect upon this is to explore new paths and pioneer novel, playful, expansive explorations beyond the pitiful and limited archetypal narratives humanity has been handing their power over to for millennia. 

Join us in owning our quantum consciousness nature and let us play outside the limiting normativity and prescriptivity that some try to lord over our minds, hearts and bodies. Let us strip off the narratives, identifications and labels that make us susceptible to the allure of their cat’s gold of matrix fueled illusions and let us alchemize real gold of consciousness with Spirit. 

There is so much more to explore, be, learn, create, experience, share, give, receive and become one with. Let us not settle for less than our soul’s and consciousness are capable and hungry for! 

With love and blessings to all ways of dancing the dance of consciousness.

Art: Yin and Yang by Wuukasch

The post Masculine Leadership and Feminine Submission appeared first on Venuskind.

The sly power of dysfunctional romantic conditioning and the repetitive nature of ego, shadow and subconsciousness is truly fascinating and at times daunting.

At least this time around it wasn’t spent in confusion, delusion or unconsciousness but under the guidance of my Self and in high awareness and observer mode. The idea being that if I do this with full awareness and and full allowing it would be a last experience to close out the pattern and cycle equally. I am so grateful for the humorous way my Self teaches me about the patterns of my small self and the enchanting way I am called home to be loved on and showered with gifts from Spirit once the lessons are learned. 

Every disappointing relationship, betrayal, manipulation, abuse, injustice, denigration or selfish behavioral pattern I have been confronted with has helped me to unlearn the “good girl” programming and to prioritize my relationships with Self and Source before ALL else. 

I am grateful to my teachers, catalysts and mirrors who have led me home to the place which fills my being with love, bliss, wellbeing and balances what needs balance. Please understand, though, if I choose to no longer engage with you or keep you in my experience when you cannot meet me on the levels of relating I prefer. I trust you will find countless others who will avail themselves for the continuation of the ego games we played or who will help you awaken and reach for more or better ways of relating.

I am grateful for the relationships and soul kin who relate with me on dimensions of reciprocity, compassion, generosity, integrity, creativity, ease, bliss, love and most of all on the dimension of Spirit. Without you I could have never survived and thrived through the karmic load of the old cycle. Thank you for being in my life and making me laugh! 

I am ready to leave these experiences, patterns, beliefs, karma, dynamics and people behind me and to welcome more of the balanced and holistically fulfilling relationships into my life which mirror my expanding relationship with Self. Thank you Source for always teaching and loving me through all my experiences.

May we collectively transcend the darkness of the old scripts and rise into the light of loving, equal, sovereign and generous relating!

Photography: Tony Thornburg by Unknown

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When pure awareness shines the light of perception on something it knows it down to the multi-dimensional nature and creative potentiality of consciousness it is made of. It is the power of this kind of perception that awakens flow and transformative potentiality in the observed if it is in a stagnant state. 

This, and only this, level of awareness beyond the mind of the small self creates true change and freedom. Not the awareness of the human mind, not to acknowledgment by the small self but the presence and awareness of the Self and its higher dimensional frequency.

Whenever the small self observes something it re-affirms and recreates the observed from history, collective agreements, conditionings, concepts and ideas embedded in language which perpetuates the dysfunctional patterns of the matrix. Yet when we operate from a union of self and Self, and as the Self observes from a zero-point consciousness the observed is recreated and affirmed in a new form with a new potential for expression.

I immensely enjoy my lessons on the workings and mechanics of consciousness and the technologies of creatively and positively engaging with the quantum field. 

Art: The Bridge by Patrick Tilp

The post Awareness appeared first on Venuskind.

My heart whispered:

“If someone, whom your conditioning, culture, religion or society has labeled as “less than,” enters your experience pause and expand into full presence. Know viscerally that the differences your mind seems to perceive are mere illusions in the greater context of existence, know the lies and hidden self-aggrandizements embedded in the labels you learned, know the violence of denigration in the labels and narratives handed down to you, perceive and know the being-ness of the other and you shall know awe. 

Observe thoughts or narratives of charity or pity, see their dark and disempowering nature, release them from your mental body and replace them with knowing of sovereignty, compassion and service from the oneness of Self and Source. 

Can you see their presence opening countless doorways of wisdom to hearts and minds willing to be receptive to the wisdom on offer?

Can you see the magnificence of the soul that chose to explore an incarnation that was sure to be met with many obstacles, exclusion, resistance and pain? 

Can you see them being another you?

Can you be at the zero point, anchored in wholeness and oneness, being alert, open, receptive, giving and ready to co-create?

Now that you dropped the baggage of the old paradigm, you are ready for them to teach you a whole lot of new dance moves, you have never known to exist nor been capable of executing in your former mind state.”

Every time I look at this picture I feel a humbling gratitude for the intricate magnificence of life and the consciousness and love embedded in all our experiences. Both patiently waiting for our senses and awareness to awaken to them and delight in their abundant gifts and revel in joy. 

What could be more delightful and majestic than the play of rays of consciousness in innumerable forms, states and embodiments? 

Photography by Unknown

The post Heart message appeared first on Venuskind.

It is temptingly easy to walk the path of the ego and uphold narratives of victimhood and helplessness while giving away our power by blaming life or others for the pain and challenges we face. Our cultures have conditioned our responses and thinking to fall into these self harming habits and they sure can be overpowering. Yet at some point in our life, evolution, maturing and growth we have to cultivate the ability to check our ego and keep it from lashing out at others and diminishing ourselves with thought patterns of blame/ guilt/ shame and denial of our co-creative responsibility for our lives.

We cannot change our experience, communities and world if we keep going back to the dysfunctionalities we were raised in. We need to learn to cultivate self leadership, to support each other in this shift. Therefore I will not silently accept when I see actions that lack integrity and wisdom play out in harmful ways. With fierce compassion and kindness I will remind you when you have fallen out of alignment and offer you my hand in finding your way back. And I hope you will reciprocate in kind when my darkness gets the better of me.

Let us learn to tell our stories and experiences without blaming, guilting and character assassinating others while keeping our eyes fixed on ourselves and the power we hold to change and create. I know it is hard and challenging but also very empowering and holds the gift of freeing us from the addiction to unconscious perpetuation of the pain we experienced. 

We can choose to transmute our pain into inspiration and become more loving and kind with ourselves and others or we can let it fester into suffering which we (passive) aggressively take out on others.

I do not wish for a council, no external authority to create a corrective in our communities because I trust you and I to work it out without giving away our power and shrinking from our responsibility and accountability for our actions and words. Accountability not only in a larger karmic sense but in a very real everyday life sense.

The conscious/ spiritual/ self work communities have to awaken from the trance of their infatuation with “love and light” to hold everyone accountable and not keep bypassing the wiles of spiritualized egoic patterns. It is a truly lacking facsimile of love that allows the other to remain stuck in blind ego pain. Love doesn’t coddle, it gently reminds us of the grandness and strength at the core of our being, it leads us back home and calls our deeds by their real name: without blame and also without acceptance of our bullshit rationalizations.

We are capable of so much more! 

Please let us not remain in the illusions of our egoic comfort zones but keep waking each other up to deeper truths and higher wisdoms we can access through our hearts and spirits! 

Photography: Embrace #47, 1970 by Eikoh Hosoe

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One of the oldest offshoots of Hinduism in the world, tantra has seen a renaissance in the last 40 years.

The ironic thing is although tantra has gotten a lot more attention recently, it’s also been greatly misunderstood; many people think tantra is either a sex practice or black magic.

The Meaning

The word tantra comes from the combination of two words: “tattva” and “mantra”.

Tattva is the science of cosmic principles, while mantra is the science of mystic sounds and vibrations.

This means that tantra is the application of cosmic science with the determination to attain a deeper spiritual connection.

The Big Misunderstanding

Unlike many other traditional religious perspectives, tantra takes the entire person into account- their worries, fears, and worldly desires.

Most teachings believe that the pursuit of material pleasures and spiritual aspirations are mutually exclusive; that is, they are in direct opposition to one another.

This gives rise to an inner struggle that can lead to lots of inner turmoil.

In tantra, instead of drawing a line between these two seemingly different impulses, it’s taught that a practitioner should embrace both.

Since tantra means “to weave”, many tantra masters teach life can only provide fulfillment when we follow the pattern designed by nature.

Anger, fear, attachment, and negative emotions tear the threads and causing the fabric to rip.

Tantra seeks to repair that fabric.

To the tantra practitioner, worldly experiences are the same as spiritual experiences- there is no difference.

This simple philosophy has led many to conclude that tantra encourages people to be indiscriminate in their worldly pursuits.

But in reality it’s a philosophy that encourages seeing the divine in everything, no matter how dark or materialistic.

They’re all the same.

Weaving the Fabric

Tantra isn’t a naive philosophy or world view in anyway.

It encompasses everything.

Even in the hardest of situations, there’s still room to notice the deeper meaning.

And ultimately, this leaves lots of room for a person to grow into their own understanding and how they fit into the world.

Tantra is an ancient Sanskrit word, meaning “to weave or to expand.” In tantric sex, we weave and expand our energy with our love partner, for the purpose of opening up to the entire universe. Shaped variously by Hindu and Buddhist traditions, sometimes constricted by Confucianism, Tantra in its widest meaning describes an approach to living that links the physical universe to the cosmic whole.

Sexuality, the most physical and intimate of human interactions, is thus seen a sacred activity, continuously reenacting the original creation of the universe. The First One, separating from Itself to know Itself, embracing Itself to experience Itself.

Tantra proposes that each one of us must undergo within ourselves this total union, a joining of the female and male within us. And when love partners dance the path of Tantra together, the relationship is transformed into a sacred journey to Oneness.

Tantra describes a movement of energy, a welling up within us, of joyous excitation. Unlike forms of meditation that cause us to withdraw from the world of senses, Tantra encourages us to start with the senses, building on their ability to focus us in the present moment.

This energy need not be explicitly sexual; all sensual experience is appreciated as a tool for awakening the energy within us.  In the moment that we shift from overt physical pleasure to an internal joy, to a focus on the internal movement of energy, the subtle nature of our being is exposed and Tantra takes place. Nor does Tantra exclude experiences which are not overtly pleasurable; this same internal shift of focus can take place as we experience outward pain, even death.

Tantra occurs only in the present moment; yesterday’s experience has no relevance.

When I smell a rose, I smell it in this moment, not yesterday or tomorrow, but right now, right here. And if I embrace that moment of smelling the rose as the prelude to a spiritual experience, if I invite the rose-smelling into my total being, aware both of the scent and my total bodily response to the scent, aware of the softness of the petals and the rose energy in my heart, then in that moment I am open to the fullness of who I am. This is Tantra.

And if you and I both smell the rose together, and sharing that experience, dissolve our separateness into an infinite Oneness, then together we experience Tantra.

Tantra brings poetry to lovemaking. When my lover caresses my face and our eyes meet and we breathe together and acknowledge our rising passion, sense our hearts joining and our spirits soaring, the energy rising through the power centers of our bodies, this is Tantra.

Some spiritual paths teach us to deny, to say not this, not that; they teach that who we are is not the body, not the mind, not our actions, not our thoughts. Stripped of what we are not, these paths allow us to see the emergence of who we may be. Tantra takes the seemingly opposite approach and teaches us to say YES! to this, YES! to that. I smell the rose and I am that experience, my lover touches me and I am that experience, there is nothing that I am not, I am everything. All experience can be a doorway to who I am, provided I focus on the experience itself, with the intention of energetic awareness.

To learn and benefit deeply from Tantra, we must practice being still, undistracted. When I am smelling the rose, I smell the rose.

To make love in the Tantra way means to be fully present, to allow each moment to be the entire experience. In Tantric lovemaking, there is no goal, no race toward release or orgasm.  Instead, there is complete attention to each touch, each breath, each movement of energy.

Every moment in our lives can be shaped by Tantra, can be lived in fullness and acceptance.

However, our minds, our thoughts, are constantly darting here and there. We are consumed with busy-ness, at our jobs, at school, taking care of our children, our home, our parents. Birthday parties.  Thanksgiving, Christmas, weddings, funerals. We are bombarded by input from phone, TV, fax, e-mail and junk mail. Bills.

When we finally get away on vacation, often as not we’re busy skiing or snorkeling, eating, shopping, museuming, being transported from place to place.

Stop the World, I Want to Get Off! But first, I need a haircut, car wash, new blouse, shoe repair, show to see, and of course, those bills to pay. Our lives are structured around busy-ness, not around living in the moment.

While we are skiing, or snorkeling, or playing tennis, basketball, or golf, the world does disappear, leaving only the action of the sport. This is the attraction of athletics. It is a natural occurrence.

But how do we make time for a momentary tantric relationship with a flower, let alone an hour with our lover? How do we say Yes! to each moment, when the next moment is already here and then gone?

We need to do even more than make time to smell the roses. We need to learn how to let the scent permeate into our belly, deepening our breath and opening our heart to the expansiveness of spiritual experience.

Athletic pursuits require practice and training. They are designed to take place in a zone outside of daily living.  Tantra provides us a way of living daily in that zone.

Tantra is being in the flow. 

Being in the flow of all that is. 

In the present moment. 

Being in the flow,

of all that is in you.

~ Soul8love

Photography: Unknown

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When relationships shift or end I have learned to be vigilant as I keep my ego on a short leash to assure it doesn’t play out the narratives of break ups and suffering it has been conditioned to believe.
I do not allow it to denigrate the other to make itself feel superior, I do not allow it to wallow in thoughts of a victim mindset, I do not allow my ego to take its feelings and thoughts to social media that can in any way that can be hurtful and disrespectful of another’s privacy.
Instead I remind it of the good times shared with that person, the good traits and deeds of the other I appreciate, I keep reminding it of my wholeness, capacity for creating joy and the beautiful network of love and connection I have surrounded myself with… and I make it reflect on the on the mistakes I made in relating with that one and on the lessons to be learned from it.

Regardless how unfair, low or dark the other might act in their self-inflicted pain I will keep to the higher road, reminding myself that I used to do similar disservice to myself and others when I was less experienced and insightful and deepening in my compassion for them as I forgive myself my past mistakes.

I know that whatever is leaving my life or changing form is only making space for a renewal and better things to come and so I can let go with more dignity and integrity than before and without succumbing to lower vibrational lures of my subconscious.

I will no longer be beholden to narratives of disempowerment, scarcity, victim mindset and unlove and thank all my teachers and tutors along this pathway to freedom and sovereignty.

Yes, I love the sound of my feet walking away from the neurotic, self-defeating scripts of break ups and relationshifts as I keep choosing love and freedom!

Art: Egyptian queen Hatshepsut by Christiane Vleugels

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Our wiser ancestral traditions had the ability to engage with ideas, be they opinions truth folklore or myths without rigidity, with a sense of discernment, a beginner’s mind and trust in their heart’s guidance.

The ability to engage with anything internal or external from a playful curiosity, devoid of judgement and fear programs, seeking insights into truth’s and illusions’  emanations is truly rare.

Why are we so afraid to allow our mind to entertain the foolish, the different, the dejective and let our curiosity and intuitive capacities of creating knowing use these for a more differentiated and subtle understanding of our reality?
Why is it so hard for so many to grasp the beauty and miracle of our individual realities thanks to our meaning creators of minds?
Why are we quick to forget how easy it is to manipulate our brains, decisions and thinking with simple strategies and techniques? Why are we ready to embrace this knowledge but so unwilling in researching how we have fallen for manipulation?
When have we begun to be so awfully serious, fear-driven and incapable of holding several contrasting ideas in our mind?
How are we so blind to the oneness of seeming dualities all around us?
Isn’t it time we stepped out of this suffocating game of ignorance and fear to claim our wholeness and sovereignty?

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.“
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Photo: “Utopia and Dystopia” by Kelia Anne

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I am afraid when I realize just how much of men’s trivialities I have allowed to become a part of my own life. Rubbish, idle rumors, insignificant instances trumped up and broadcasted for all to hear. Intrusions on the mind, sacred ground.

Has the mind become nothing more than a public square, a table for tea-time gossip?

We have forgotten that our minds are the corners of the heavens? They are our temples. It is hard enough to relieve ourselves of those facts which are necessary for life, in order to have a moment of true experience, let alone to unburden ourselves of the claims of others.

May our minds be chaste, so as not to degenerate into bar-room antics, dirt and peanut shells, hustle and bust. For this is nothing more than intellectual and moral suicide!

Our ears were not meant to be used as fishing nets, catching everything in their past. Our heads were not meant to be overcrowded rooms, out hats keeping in the steam.

Free your ears of dust, so that you will have time to make your hands clean. For it is hard to forget what is useless to remember.

~ Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle

We are facing an even bigger challenge than Thoreau’s generation in cleansing our minds and consciously directing and denying our attention to the garbage raining down on us in form of news, entertainment and virtual chatter.

Never before have human been exposed to so much empty, repetitive and unnecessary noise and data like in our technologically driven lives. And never before have we been so happy to binge on what is detrimental to our mental health and overall wellbeing.

Some of us who are still in touch with their needs will go on social media and news fasts and it helps for a while. But we forget to take care of the other part: clearing and cleaning our mind of what is useless and harmful.

We need an even more disciplined practice of choosing what we let into our awareness, mindfully clearing out that which doesn’t serve us and having a daily practice of meditation to create space and we need to feed our mind on expansive knowledge that serves our growth.

Artist: unknown

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