Fierce Love

There is time enough for solitude, a cautious heart, and gray reflections of the past. This is not that time. This is time for the fierce love of God-Goddess, Shiva and Shakti.

Surrender everything to this love because it will demand everything of you. And it will not hold you, not the way you think. There is no other way. No other direction but “Yes.” The path out is always through (although you waste so much precious time arguing and pretending otherwise). You want to go back to a time when things made sense. You want to retreat to safety but it doesn’t exist. You go back but it’s all different now; no one remembers you.

There is only surrendering to this moment. This heart cracking open to the Beloved. Letting go of everything including the having of You. When I follow the long wet tunnel of wanting, to the end where the light is, I arrive at the beginning. At the Source, the origin of you-me-we.

The Shiva Shakti union is the epic love that generates the stars and snails. Ancient Tantrica’s making love in the carnage of the burial grounds. Life defying death. Death eating life. Sun illuminating the moon. Red blood swirling into the white pearl drops of semen. We see them dancing together in every microcosmic orb: spinning, ecstatic, erotic, disintegrating into wholeness, whole-yes, holiness.

Shiva sits on the earth, crown to the sky, a column of pure presence. Shakti straddles him, her back to us, piercing his heart with her own, undulating with life inside of his immense embrace.

I am learning how to sit with my back to the door at restaurants now. Learning to soften and surrender to your skillful means, protective care, watchful eye.

Celebrating the authority of Shiva, author of presence and clear direction. Celebrating Shakti as she wraps herself around him, fleshing out the story with her vibrant light-color-beauty. A love story. A tale of origin. We cannot write it alone.

Love fiercely, Dear Ones.

In this time of thanksgiving, I bow in gratitude to you.

Increasing Your Abundance with Lakshmi

Part of our Awakening Shakti practice is to balance our mental and masculine “do-do-do” with our embodied feminine power of deep receptivity. The more we practice, the more we effortlessly magnetize to us what’s desired from our feminine radiance rather than exhausting ourselves trying to make it happen.

I offer you the Hindu goddess, Lakshmi, as one of the most magically feminine avenues for calling in the abundance you seek, whether that looks like the gold coins that fall from her hands, loving your own beauty, or knowing your own divine wealth.

With the tulip bulbs bursting through the soil and sunshine back full force after months of chill shadow, the audacious sexy exuberance of springtime mirrors Lakshmi’s abundant energy.

As the goddess of both material and spiritual prosperity, Lakshmi delights in the sensual pleasures of the earth realm so she hovers quite near to us. She loves your perfume, the swell of your breasts, the mango juice on your tongue, how happy you are when there’s plenty of money and your generosity flows.

Allow yourself to see your world through her eyes--the beauty color texture everywhere around you. Offer your daily gratitude, like rose petals at her feet, for all that is expanding in your life.

Several years ago I had an intuitive reading and the practitioner told me, “Some goddess named ‘Lakshmi’ really wants to make sure that you know she is one of your primary allies; I’d never heard of her so I asked her to spell her name so I could get it right.”

Although I was familiar with Lakshmi, I started taking our relationship much more seriously after that. Shortly after, I received a large stone statue of Lakshmi as a gift and placed it on the Fung Shui “wealth” corner of my deck. She is surrounded by flowers now and her lap is filled with crystals, special stones, coins and other offerings.

Perhaps your gremlin mind says, “It can’t possibly be that easy.” So spoken by the entity in you that thrives on struggle, negativity, pain and chaos. Consider the source and don’t let that voice stop you.

More of Lakshmi’s abundance, grace and beauty is yours when you remember to ask for it. Remember to praise her lavishly (she loves that). Keep reassuring your heart that’s it’s really safe for you to open and receive life’s bounty.

Maybe you’re not done mucking around in the old story of lack and not enough and it’s all up to me to make it happen, if only....

That’s OK. We all hang out there sometimes until it gets too painful or just plain boring. Lakshmi waits patiently.

When we call on her, a manifestation of our own abundant Shakti life force energy, we co-author an entirely different story. We’ll have new challenges of course and new questions to be with: “How do I manage all this abundance? Who will I share it with? How do I get used to feeling all this orgasmic joy?” I personally find these to be much more interesting questions to grapple with.....

Mind the company you keep and put yourself in community with those who create and attract abundance. The Awakening Shakti community is a great place to begin. Join this sisterhood of awakening women committed to a new earth and the full expression of our feminine power, embodied love, and sensual energy.

Please share this post and your comments below--we’d love to hear from you. And click any of these links for more info about upcoming Awakening Shakti programs:

Starts May 26: Six Month Unleash Your Shakti Initiation Program

Shakti Women's Retreats Level 2 in May and Level 1 in Sept

Schedule a Private Phone Coaching session with Lisa

She Who Cannot Be Contained

A little something to melt in your mouth, in honor of the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day....

By Lisa Schrader

In celebration of her Too Muchness.

Big hipped, loose lipped, sassy swagger, fierce hearted, emotional roller ocean all over, wanting more more more...

She Must Move,

gypsy girl spirit undulating snake rhythms hypnotizing,

slipping through your fingers, rattle you awake,

soul whisper wise woman running with the wolves

and lurking in the corners of your dreams

Women are Wet: joy teary, heart weary with weeping, blood mooning,

milk letting down, down, down

on pink petals, sweet nectar glistening

Giving, tending, mending, gathering the seeds,

sowing the cycles of blue sky, green harvest, fire burn and dawning dew.

She calls: worship me, open me, love me,

be warrior enough to penetrate my tender trust with your presence,

unleash the blinding magnificence of this she-beauty,

the jewels in the temple are yours...

Or don’t.

You’ll find me here the same

and ever changing,

luxuriating on the rose petal bed,

dipping my fingers in honey,

sipping wine song, and

dancing in the sacred, throbbing heart of Yes

Celebrating the mothers, grandmothers, sisters, girlfriends, daughters, and women we are. Celebrating the men, fathers, grandfathers, and brothers who love us.

Join us for the annual Spring Shakti Women's Retreat in the Northern California Sierras March 25-28 and luxuriate in your sacred feminine essence. Only 2 spots left in our circle of 13 so reply or register asap if you want to join us.

Abundant blessings,

Lisa

Do I Need a Partner for Tantra?

I often get the question, “Do I need a partner to practice Tantra?” either from singles or from those in partnership with someone uninterested in or resistant to exploring sacred sexuality.

The short answer is, “No, you don’t need a partner to practice Tantra.” Think of it like dancing. You can have a rocking good time by yourself getting your groove on. And dancing with another can magnify the experience: your energy together could rise into ecstasy or descend into something all bumbly and awkward.

As a dancer and a Tantrika, I’m practicing being in my own energy and wholeness first, before engaging with others. I’m learning to create my own bliss and take responsibility for my own turn-on. This allows me to move through my day in communion with the orgasmic tremor of life, pulsing all around us with sensuality, sexuality, mojo, beauty, and love. This is what the work of “Awakening Shakti” is all about.

It feels really good to live this way; it keeps my body healthy and makes me happy; I have a lot more energy for my family, work and community. It’s also taken some practice to realize that this experience is not dependent on my relationship status, my bank balance, how I look in my jeans—or anything else that fluctuates dramatically in my life.

Yes, it is exquisite to dance with and love another. We were born yearning for this kind of communion and it can be beautiful, sacred, and holy. My feminine body hungers for the masculine--we’re talking the real, sweaty, salty, beautiful body of a man, not some concept. Tantra with another can be an unsurpassed, ecstatic celebration of physical and spiritual union.

All that, however, begins with the individual. Whether you find yourself single or partnered, a space for miracles opens up when you begin to cultivate a deeper relationship with your own divine life force energy or Shakti. Explore the erotic dance of your inner marriage of masculine and feminine aspects. Make love to yourself, make love to life, know your heart as the Source of love. Expand your capacity to receive pleasure. Bask in your own radiance not as a strategy to get the attention of another (although doing so authentically will make you irresistibly attractive) but simply because it’s your essence to exude the “perfume of fermenting joy.”

Ready to unleash more of your sensual power and radiance? The next Six Month Unleash Your Shakti Power Initiation Program begins Thursday Jan 27 (like, tomorrow) and we still have a few spots open. All calls are recorded if you miss one. Join us. MORE INFO

Perfume of Fermenting Joy

When she walks into the room,
everybody turns:

some kind of light is coming from her head.
Even the geraniums look curious...
We're all attracted to the perfume
of fermenting joy,

we've all tried to start a fire,
and one day maybe it will blaze up on it's own.
In the meantime, she is the one today among us
most able to bear the idea of her own beauty,
and when we see it, what we do is natural:
we take our burned hands
out of our pockets,
and clap.

Tony Hoagland, from "Grammar"

I found this piece in an Oprah magazine many years ago. It's been tacked up on my fridge, posted next to my desk and copied for friends many times. It never ceases to touch something deep within me: a devotion to the embodied feminine, a longing to be seen, a hunger to love myself with total abandon, a falling into the sacredness of beauty in me, in you.

What does it touch in you?

In two weeks, on January 27, the next Six Month Unleash Your Shakti Power Initiation Program will launch with a maximum of 20 women who are ready to know and embrace their own sacred sensual power. We still have a few spots left. Is one of them for you? MORE INFO

Blessings on your loving, on your beauty.

To be Worshiped by Your Lover, First Worship Yourself

Perhaps you saw the posting recently from my friend Arjuna Ardaugh telling men “Why its Wise to Worship a Woman.” From the responses I heard from women, I think it’s safe to say that if Arjuna was not so happily married to my dear sister friend Chameli, he would have no trouble getting a date right now.

I hear a collective cry of longing from my women for this kind of cherishing from men; “How can I find a guy (or get my current partner) to worship me that way?” Without question, being honored this way is an unparalleled gift. Most women want to be opened slowly and deeply, to have our Beloved move with reverence through the inner gateways and into the ruby-lined sanctuary where our most precious gifts of love and passion reside. I believe that when the masculine and feminine merge in that realm, an alchemical process happens that transforms them and illuminates the world. It’s why I’m a devoted student and teacher of sacred sexuality and Tantra.

Back here on planet earth, however, the medical establishment reports that over 50% of women currently suffer from “FSD” or Female Sexual Dysfunction (which includes lack of interest in sex). Clearly, we are a far cry away from worshiping the inner sanctuary! We seem to have a veritable epidemic of “dysfunctional” women. Perhaps, just maybe, the feminine body, in her infinite wisdom, is saying “No” to sex that doesn’t touch her heart, feed her soul, and honor her essence.

We’ve already expended far too much of our precious life force energy bitching about how men just “don’t get it.” We fantasize about Mr. Worship riding up on his white stead and sweeping us off to his pleasure palace to initiate us into ecstatic states. We’ve also compromised our health and cut ourselves off from our SHAKTI, our feminine succulence and radiance by pretending we can live without our sensual vitality.

Enough of that! Here’s the good news (or bad news depending on how empowered you’re currently feeling).

If you want to be worshiped by your man or lover,
you must FIRST worship yourself.

To attract the lover who will be inspired to worship the divine feminine within you, YOU must worship the divine feminine within you. You must know that place deep inside, honor your body, speak your truth, open your heart to your own flawed perfection, surrender to your mysterious wildness, and burn in the flame of your own fierce passion. When I know myself as “worship-able,” then I attract a lover who recognizes that in me.

Arjuna’s beautiful wife is my soul sister friend, Chameli and her life’s work is Awakening Women to their divine essence. I have learned so much about honoring the sacred feminine by watching how Chameli cares for, loves and celebrates her own feminine essence. In cherishing herself, she inspires worship from her Beloved.

The very good news is that there’s nothing to “do” because you are already divine. It is an “un-doing” and a relaxing into the “real” goddess within. Allow yourself to fall madly in love with the feminine essence inside of you—her dark moods, her irrational rants, her infinite capacity to love, her willingness to surrender completely. As you discover and honor her, her radiance will increase. Others will be drawn, inexplicably, to her light. And what else can we do in the face of such beauty, in the atmosphere of such love, in the fragrance of such perfume, but bow our heads in worship.

Want to learn more about unleashing your sacred sensual power? Join me for one of my FREE Teleclasses or visit my Awakening Shakti website.

Come to Your Senses

Awakening the senses brings us present in the body—a prerequisite for true intimacy and sizzling sex. Engaging our sense of smell, taste, touch, hearing and seeing signals the body to open more deeply to pleasure and provides a gateway to more ecstatic sexual experiences.

First things first—take a look at your lovemaking space. Does it look like a sacred tantric temple, a bachelor pad or a dorm room? Get rid of the clutter: the “stuff,” anything work-related, the stacks of books, magazines, and mail. Once you’ve got a clean slate, add in colors, beautiful objects, sensual images and anything that makes your space visually sensual to you. (Best not to have a TV or computer in your temple space, but if you insist, at least cover it up.)

Put on something sensual! Guys, you may love your old holey sweat pants but they probably don’t turn her on. Use flowers, incense, fragrant candles or essential oils to add perfume to the air and delight your sense of smell. Choose music for the mood, listen to twinkling wind chimes, moan and talk sexy in your lover’s ear (YES!).

Engage your taste buds with sweet, sour, and salty treats. Suck on slippery mango, lick chocolate sauce off her nipple, or give him a sip of fine Port--from your mouth. Ignite your tactile senses with feathers, furs, velvet, silks, and satins. And don’t forget the edgier delights of scratching, pinching, spanking, and biting. This is also a great time of year to play with ice cubes.

Notice if you favor some senses but ignore others. Try a “sensory awakening” exercise where you each take turns receiving--blindfolded. Or if you’re single, give yourself this gift. Go slow. Have fun. Notice how some time devoted to awakening the senses opens up your body and shifts, expands or deepens your lovemaking.

What are your favorite ways to awaken the senses?

For more creative ideas on expanding your sexual self expression, joy and pleasure, check out my book “Kama Sutra 52: A Year’s Worth of the Best Positions for Passion and Pleasure” or visit me at www.AwakeningShakti.com