The more I retreat from socializing virtually
The more I am unavailable
The richer my remaining encounters and relationships are

A lovely paradox to live, navigate and experience.

That is one way of putting my latest experiment in relating in a nutshell, of course the experience itself is much more nuanced and the insights gained multidimensional and manyfold. Retreating from social media and its temptations in staying connected with those, who in times before internet would have been lost to my experience until our life paths crossed or aligned again, has been a source of deep contemplations, emotional and mental integration and a fundamental reset to my relational system.

There is beauty in the possibilities of virtuality, the multitude of information and knowledge available to us in our increasingly digital realities. And in the glaring light of infinite possibilities, distractions and temptations it is easy to remain blind to the costs of living our relational lives to a high degree within digital instead of analogue realities. Which points in part towards the loss of exchanges in form of tones of voices, micro-expressions, body language, chemistry and energy and goes much further than we are aware of until we make ourselves change our experience.

There is a massive loss our relational system encounters in engaging too much in the virtual and not enough in the real. A loss in nourishment, calibration, and co-regulation with others, which are essential to our wellbeing and health. Unfortunately the habituated behaviors and communication styles that arise from being too much in the digital have a way of bleeding over into the real and disconnecting us further when we remain unaware.

Have you noticed how little REAL encounters you have with others these days? 

In a real encounter all participants are present, open hearted, ready and capable to attune to each other, listen, share and express from their essential nature. There is a marked absence of the machinations of the ego, mind games, automatisms, and mindless chatter or replay of patterns. No matter if people are spiritual or not, the majority do not take the time to be fully present and attuned to an exchange as their being is way too exited, vigilant, minds racing, emotions chaotically overflowing or ebbing – which only allows for personalities and minds to meet but no deeper meeting of souls and beings to be possible. 

The engagement in the virtual has furthermore robbed many of several layers of trust, which once arose from feeling safe to express who they are in contexts of friendship or acquaintanceship. The experience of safe spaces where everyone gets to express freely and healthy discourses on the matters shared (not on the validity of another’s feelings, experience, or worse person) is possible, has become a luxury hidden behind paywalls of therapy, workshops and retreats. And even there the corrosiveness of current trends is undercutting a true and prevailing acceptance of ALL that is present by only allowing for what aligns with the given groupthink. If we do not consciously create such safe spaces for each other we are becoming part and enablers of this toxic patterning that cuts us off from each other and renders egos ever more fragile, violent and dangerous.

Real encounters are also more prevalent when people have enough time to themselves, to integrate experiences, to self care and nurture, to know themselves and their inner universe and have the spaciousness and willingness to open to the vastness of another in their unique complexities. They cannot be easily had by a relational system that is being drained and exhausted by non-stop information overload, emotionally manipulative content, and the rise and intensity of fanatical and manipulative language, and disappointing social encounters and experiences in the virtual sphere.

They can happen wherever one person is willing and ready to hold space for realness and invites the others into presence. It takes only one person to open the door, and equally only one to bar real encounters. I sense there is more here that wants to be explored and known by us…

The past 3 months have been incredibly nourishing and delightful to me as I had more real encounters in that time than I recall having in years. My awareness was focused on the quality of relating, energy exchange, reciprocity, and my body’s responses in order to learn anew what works for me and serves my wellbeing. It was surprising to realize how important fairly short exchanges with strangers or near-strangers can be whenever we are fully present to them and the others follow our invitation into it. Amazing how a short conversation, smiles, and meeting of beings can uplift and nurture the relational system for days to come – if experienced and reflected from a space of open hearted presence, playfulness and gratitude.

What a gift to reset to the real and get new insights into my relational system and its workings.

~ August 2022

Photography by Tatsuo Suzuki

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And yet the internal experience and quality of life and aliveness is very different to what I once experienced at earlier points of this lifetime. Life has dramatically shifted from something to be lived and shaped out there in the experiential or ‘material’ world to something that is wholly internal and energetic. In my experience all of life is ‘internal’ and not reliant on what the mind deems as ‘external’ and all is One, interconnected, interdependent, cocreative.

Even when engaging from the conditioned personality the observer in me knows that I am not just that. Any Identifications with body, personality, and mind have profoundly weakened which allows for a different kind of engagement with life. An engagement liberated from the fetters of attachments to narratives, concepts, opinions, preferences, and what is key: free from enslavement to separation consciousness and duality. Creating a more peaceful flow of experience, and more sustainable presence.

Being less identified with the personality/self liberates me from futile strivings for status, validation, and other vacuous ego fodder. It fades the need to consume, distract, avoid, or assert the will in other ways on external realities that seem unacceptable or inconvenient.
Normalized obsessions with cultural conditioned values (fame, wealth, looks, success, etc.) are transparent in their futility and emptiness while the desires and delights of my soul are illuminated in their value and nourishing quality (community, kindness, cooperation, creative play, love for knowledge and knowing, etc.). Knowing that I am an expression of the Self – unborn, undying, all-encompassing and yet empty – releases any need to prove my/self, be special or different from ‘others’ as they are equally part of the One/Self.

And from these shifts in experience and knowing new questions and quests beg to be explored and lived:

Which role and path is given to this expression of Self?
How do I best balance receptivity with creative participation?
How do I participate in life in a way that turns my knowing and abilities into a service to All That Is?
Which residues of conditioning and misperception are holding me back from harmoniously and joyously flowing with life? And how do I release them?
Which mysteries of existence are waiting to reveal themselves through my experience?

I still experience triggers that regress me into states of forgetfulness and blind identification with the conditioned personality and her narratives about life. Experiencing my/self as struggling to find my way out of these immersive dream states, yet I thankfully remain a lucid dreamer, equanimous in the knowing of the true nature of being and the impermanence of experience.
Years of self work and shifts in consciousness allow for more trust, patience, and compassion in engaging with aspects of trauma and shadow expressing through this body-mind and other body-minds in my experience.

I can see and laugh at the absurdities the conditioned self creates and shadow boxes, while being compassionate and loving of all being and experience. Which in turn cultivates deeper and more encompassing compassion, kindness and understanding for others.

Being a mystic to me means being a student of existence and life, observing the human state with all its psychological dynamics and limitations, living in awe of the mysteries of life, in the joys of moving between consciousness levels, having a playful and creative approach to life, and delighting in the magic unique to embodiment.

Art by Unknown

The post Being a Mystic appeared first on Venuskind.

For letting me repose in and relish desireless EMPTINESS and delight in embodying the void.

For making me ask myself how I can bring more of the qualities of the VOID to my experiences and encounters.

For teaching me to face REALITY as it is and stop fighting, denying, or projecting upon it from fear and a lack of acceptance.

For helping me get crystal clear who ‘my kind of people’ are by correcting my perceptions of embodied and lived SPIRITUALITY and alignment with my being.

For making me read Alexandra Stein’s “Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems” and plunging me into revisiting my past to purge more of the damages incurred by MANIPULATION, BETRAYAL, COERCION and OPPRESSION. A harrowing and dark experience which liberated me and created space for more possibilities in my perceptions and life.

For ongoing and potent DREAMWORK to release past woundings and misperception, inspire new lines of inquiry, and to introduce new emotional and energetic set points.

For deepening my lessons on FULLY SURRENDERING to SELF, teaching me to let go of willing and instead to intend and show up, while trusting deeply in the fulfillment of my Soul’s desires. Releasing more of my identifications with my tribe of selves as well as becoming more compassionate and considerate of them.

Teaching me that the BLISS the mystics speak of is not just to be found in ‘peak experiences’ or ‘peak phenomena’ but also in the elation derived from surrender to Self, heart-centered being (not emotion-centered being there is a crucial difference), the integration of shadow, and the transmutation of the conditioned self through the luminous power of consciousness. This kind of bliss is not reliant on external circumstances or the absence of pain or suffering, its subtle and pervasive nature shines through all of experience and brings levity and joy to the attuned being, which in turn allows for even more expansion into being and blissfulness.

For healing more of my MISPERCEPTIONS and ATTACHMENTS to one of my parents, moving me from the toxicity of neediness and resentment towards compassionate detachment.

For DEARMORING me and teaching me to feel more and cultivate useful skills in navigating life from a more open and vulnerable state by deepening my trust and Self-leadership.

For guiding me to expand into PLAYFULNESS and release limiting thinking and self censorship.

For teaching me to RELATE and LOVE in a new way by gifting me with deeply meaningful and expansive explorative experiences with evolutionary minded Souls. Allowing me to get intimate with all aspects of myself and become clear on what I truly need, want, and desire in relationships and how to manifest it, whilst reminding me to beware of settling for ‘less than’ my being desires.

For giving me the realization that I no longer turn to LOVE RELATIONSHIPS as a panacea for a deficit of love, as that has been taken care of by self and tribe love, but to co-create evolutionary containers for shared magical and extraordinary adventures.

For making me conscious of the unconscious AMBIVALENCE towards men that steeped relating with them into a dualistic dynamic of desire/delight on the one hand and fear/repulsion on the other.

For teaching me about the importance of an internal felt sense of EQUALITY, POWER, and ADMIRATION in love relationships.

For giving me opportunities to practice OPENING FULLY to a man and surrendering to the experience of relating with trust. And also reminding me that having an attraction, great connection, or feelings of love for someone doesn’t imply a need for turning it into a committed relationship.

For helping me remember, reclaim, and update old DREAMS and aspects of my being.

For inspiring me to create a new VISION BOARD from a knowing of wholeness and understanding of what fulfills and grows me instead of the distortions of desires and unconscious scarcity beliefs.

For giving me an opportunity to actively and PHYSICALLY CHANGE what doesn’t align with or serve me, which was unbelievable rewarding and important at this point of my journey. After years of having been taught to be patient and trust the unfolding without physically intervening this felt especially liberating and delightful.

For reminding me what great delight and pride I take in the WORK OF MY OWN HANDS and that it is way sweeter than enjoying the luxury of having someone else take care of stuff for me. And that no matter how tired, sore or exhausted I felt my little bull’s heart was aglow with glee.

For giving me ample opportunities to be sensing, experiencing and seeing the vastness of my STRENGTH, DISCIPLINE, and PERSISTENCE in expression and enjoy how amazing it feels.

For allowing me to discard things, which my mother had held onto without my consent or knowing, and which kept unwanted energetic cords alive with past aspects of my life. And for the delight that followed said DISCARDING as rushes of energy returned to my body and being.

For granting me the knowing that every part of me and the ego mind which operates on adversarial perceptions and narratives becomes a SLAVE to duality.

For teaching me that mastering DUALITY does not mean directing or dominating it but rather knowing its true nature and engaging it from consciousness without submitting to identifications, attachments, and dogma.

MASTERY in the mystical sense is not about domination, as that is beholden to fear not love, it is about being ONE WITH duality and playing with its seeming contrasts in creative, joyful, aligned and expansive ways. Seeing through its appearance of duality and contrast to perceive the underlying oneness.

For teaching me about the need and joy of living from ALERT PRESENCE. Not an alertness in the sense of vigilance (which is mostly rooted in fear) but alertness arising from being fully present, open and in harmonic resonance with the rhythm and flow of life.

For giving me the realization that these times call me to be with WHAT IS without getting entangled or invited into shadow play by narratives and stories wanting to wrap themselves around it. They call for my ability to stand strong in my discerning sovereignty and Self while engaging with the moment from curiosity, playfulness, compassion and love. To be CONCURRENTLY SEPARATE and ONE WITH ALL.

Teaching me to no longer allow my mind/body to be pulled in false dichotomies, meet dualities with a knowing and intent of ‘both/and’ to break the spells of limitations and distortion, and to allow Consciousness to offer new perspectives and pathways to INFINITE POSSIBILITIES from the vastness of its wisdom. New perspectives and solutions which not only help me navigate the challenges set before me but also to thrive and delight in engaging with them.

For sensitizing me to the fact that due to my experience of spiritual trauma and entrainment of a narcissistic God, I have to be mindful that the deep-set distrust and ambivalence towards said deity does not CROSS CONTAMINATE subconsciously my relationship with inner Presence (higher Self) or Source.

For teaching me to reclaim and step into my INNOCENCE and access the immense power and spaciousness it comes with as I consistently love on my inner child.

For challenging me to get past linguistic obstacles and learn to express VULNERABILITY as easily in German as I have learned to do in English. Helping me drop some of the unhelpful cultural conditionings and reigniting my love for the poetry and richness of the German language.

For bringing back old and new MALE FRIENDS into my life and teaching us to relate on higher levels of awareness, authenticity, vulnerability, compassion and love. I appreciate and welcome the replacement of friendships lost in years back and the upping of masculine energy in my circles. Acknowledging the fulfillment of longheld wish.

For ending on a gift and high note, which give me a knowing and positive outlook on 2022’s oncoming magic and gifts.

Photography: Chelsea Jackson Roberts by Francesco Mastalia

The post Thank You 2021 appeared first on Venuskind.

Will you hold another who has been touched by the darkness within? Will you love them enough to allow them to fall apart in your arms? To unravel, to become unglued, and to feel unbearably lost as the wisdom of their process unfolds? Will you be the space in which they can finally meet the feelings and emotions that have been kept at bay for a lifetime?

To love another in this way you must touch everything that is unresolved within you – all of your own unmet sadness, abandoned shame, discarded grief, and deserted aloneness. You are willing to no longer stay safe on the sidelines. You are willing to get messy. Even gooey and drippy.

 
Will you set aside your need for the other to change, to be different, to be “cured,” to be transformed, and to be healed? Will you resist the temptation to talk them out of their embodied experience, to tell them everything will be okay, and to dishonor the creativity hidden inside the unwanted? Will you allow your heart to break with them, and endure the urge inside you to put it all back together again? Will you fall into the unknown with them, holding them close, and provide a home for their brokenness?

To care about others, yourself, and the world in this way you must stay radically embodied. You are no longer interested in transcending suffering, confusion, and neurosis, for you see these as thundering expressions of the path itself. Please don’t turn away. As your attention moves out into the conceptual world, return to the wild intelligence of your body, for it is there that love is working behind the scenes, giving birth to its sweet activity in this dimension.

It is in this factory of love, which is operating as the temple of your own body, where the sacred world is revealing its essential secrets of healing: there is no “other,” there has never been an “other,” and there could never be an “other.” There is only the reflection of your own being.

Love is taking the pieces of your heart and is using them to re-assemble the world in front of you, each as an invitation sent to reveal to you the preciousness of what is really happening here.

~ Matt Licata

Photography by Unknown

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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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