When Things Fall Apart...

“It is only the extent to which we expose ourselves over and over again to annihilation can that which is indestructible arise within us. "

(Based on a quote by Karlfried Graf von Durkheim)

I light a candle next to me and ask that this little flame carry love, courage and hope to my brothers and sisters in Japan.

Last week I shared with you a poetic manifesto celebrating the sensually alive woman, titled “She Who Cannot Be Contained.” Now She shows us another facet of her awesome power, reminding us, once again, that we’re like flea-sized Lilliputians busy erecting buildings, monuments and nuclear reactors on her back. We forget that she can awake from her slumber at any moment and, with one lazy stretch of her spine, shake us all to oblivion.

Maybe you’re having trouble finding the relevance in all those extremely important items on your To-Do list. Maybe you find yourself slipping into fear, feeling a little short of breath, anxious about nuclear fall-out and thoughts of impending chaos. Maybe your heart feels heavy with sadness or your mind’s a muddle with confusion. Maybe you also feel awake, alert, eyes wide open.

In moments like this, I’m reminded of a phrase from Carolyn Myss: “I smell God.”

Shake up. Wake up. Hello Heart. Hello Fear. Hello Faith.

We might not be in Japan but we’re all in this together. And what I’ve learned from navigating fall-out in my own life is that when things fall apart, it’s time to focus on that which abides. What is that for you?

For me, it’s my SHAKTI practices of Love, Energy and Spirit. Connect with my heart, feel my feelings, expand my capacity to love, reach out to others. Pray, meditate, give gratitude, serve, be humble, plug into my essence, go to Source and Spirit for soul connection. Get grounded, take care of my body, tap into my divine life force energy for nourishment and miracles.

Listen to your heart--she will tell you what to do. My heart told me to light a candle, talk to my mom, pray, write this blog to you, and eat a big salad for lunch. I also donated to the American Red Cross for the relief efforts. http://www.redcross.org/

I also know in times like these that it's important to come together, pray together, open our hearts together. The annual Spring Shakti Women’s Retreat begins in about ten days. We only have a couple of spots left. There has never been a more important, auspicious and powerful time for us to gather. The waves of change will keep coming: will you meet the surge with your own deeply surrendered and awake feminine power, fully tapped into your guidance? Join us, dear sister. We're holding a place for you in our circle. MORE INFO & REGISTRATION

Be good to yourself.

With great love,

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.

"Memory in the Cells" Author Luis Diaz Talks with Lisa about Sex

Today I have the great pleasure of being the host on Day number 8 of the Virtual Blog Tour for Memory in the Cells by author Luis Angel Diaz.

Newly translated from the popular Spanish edition, author Luis Diaz describes his book Memory in the Cells as “where Eckhart Tolle meets What the Bleep Do We Know, but taking you on a much more practical journey.” He says Memory in the Cells teaches “emotional education” and shows the reader how to transform the “pain body” into the “joy body”, helping to heal all aspects of their lives.

Yesterday, Luis visited Yvonne Perry’s blog at http://weareoneinspirit.blogspot.com. For today’s stop on the tour, I decided to ask Luis some questions about sexuality, pleasure, joy and the heart connection.

* * * * *

Lisa: You speak a lot about aligning ourselves with the “flow of life” in your new book. Can you speak about how that life flow is specifically connected to our sexuality and what happens when we resist or suppress that?

Luis: Sexuality is the one area where we mostly have stagnation, because we have been brought up in a culture that chooses sex as the target for all sort of blame and accusations! Sex is linked to sin and sin is linked to shame, fear and guilt. These are the most contractive emotions we hold in our bodies when it comes to sexuality. That leads to all sort of physical, emotional and mental imbalances. But for me, sexuality is creativity and interconnection with all life. Therefore, awakening and opening those contractions in our bodies leads to a more vibrant, creative and alive state of being.

Lisa: In your work you speak about the pain body and the joy body. Is there such a thing as too much pleasure? How do we distinguish between healthy, “joy body” sexual pleasure and becoming “excessive” or addictive in our desire?

Luis: Only the person having the experience can decide what is excessive or addictive and that's based on their own awareness and programming. In my own experience, pleasure is linked to the satisfaction of my needs. Therefore, it has different connotations, depending on the nature of the need. I've observed that the joy body in me operates at a very abstract energy level that is difficult for my mind to comprehend and at the same time, it operates at a very physical level, like when I enjoy the pleasure of eating a piece of chocolate. So, in the sexual area for me, the difference is not moralistic, but energetic. And it´s based on the feelings we have while and after the event. There is the pleasure of the joy body which is moving and flowing and there is the programmed cultural pleasure with the ideas I have about myself and what is going on with the other person that feels toxic and confusing most of the times.

Lisa: I very much appreciate the emphasis in your work on the heart and emotional health. Can you speak to differences between the masculine and feminine in this realm and specifically what male/female couples can do to support each other with greater heart connection during lovemaking?

Luis: Even though female and male have their different roles, they share some very important traits that need to be present to create trust and quality in a relationship. For me, what we do during lovemaking is not relevant at all if there is not quality built in the relationship prior to it.

Mutual support and acceptance; giving space and autonomy to each other; showing care and affection; offering respect and honoring; bringing honesty and integrity to the communication plus allowing the other to feel and think whatever they want to, will create a very deep and trusting flowing that builds the container for a greater trust and heart connection. Seeing the other as an equal and respecting their presence as a friendly creative force in my life, facilitates the connection and exchange of beauty while we both grow together.

* * * * *

I hope you enjoyed this interview with Luis Angel Diaz and that you’ll check out his new book Memory in the Cells, which is coming to Amazon on Tuesday October 5, 2010. You can receive a complete library of beautiful personal development gifts when you buy the book on the day of its launch.

In addition, Luis is hosting a very special FREE telesummit entitled “Healing at a Cellular Level” on September 27^th, 28^th and 29^th with a distinguished panel of some of today’s most inspiring authors and speakers on the topic of emotional healing and holistic wellbeing, including myself.

If you’d like to attend, all you have to do is request a “launch reminder” about the book, and you’ll receive all the information to attend. If you cannot make the live event, you can download the audio at your convenience.

To find out how to buy Luis’s book and receive these gifts,
including the FREE pass to the 3-day online telesummit, go to

http://www.memoryinthecells.com

AND you can read all about the telesummit and the guests at http://tinyurl.com/cmr-telesummit

Be sure to follow Luis tomorrow when the next stop on his Virtual Blog Tour is Rochele Hirsch’s blog at http://tinyurl.com/hirsch-diaz-interview

As usual, please do feel free to share your comments and thoughts below. I love your feedback!

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