Kissing School, lessons on love, lips and life force

Seven Practices for the Arts of Everyday Intimacy

2012-01-26T21:31:00.000-08:00

As an intimacy coach and educator I am privileged to talk with people about their most personal experiences. In these sacred conversations I've discovered many different definitions of intimacy. For most folk their "intimate" experiences are very narrowly defined and usually of a short duration, happening within a particular context. What I know for sure is that intimacy energy that's been stuck into a box tends to loose its lifeforce, its passion and warmth. We wonder where the passion goes.

I've been teaching Kissing School since 1998 and in every class I've witnessed people blossoming when intimacy gets taken out of the box and is freed to become a rich undercurrent of every day; so here for you are some ideas for cultivating the arts of Everyday Intimacy just in time to warm up your Valentine's Day.

I would like to offer a more dynamic definition of intimacy. As many of you know, I usually relate to the world from the viewpoint of its underlying energy, the dynamic that holds something in place. Intimacy is a particular resonance, a particular arrangement of energy fields that we give ourselves permission to experience. It's a chosen arrangement of our energy frequency, like a particular sound you are choosing to make as you play your guitar.

Artists of loving strum the vibrations of "intimacy" well to the degree that they know the tune, and know how to conduct that frequency through their body and the instrument. Our instrument of love is actually the body/mind/heart and soul, and the energies of intimacy are what we will play through it. In fact, you'll play the resonance that matches your current definition of intimacy. Consider gifting yourself and your beloved with an expanded definition, and share an expanded experience this year.

Take a minute now to begin trading up, and feel your way into a clear intention to claim an expanded relationship to intimacy. Declare your desire to take up your instrument and learn to practice the skills that ring with the resonance of sweet, hot, satisfying energies of intimacy.

Your experience is always a matter of what you practice feeling. Learning to experience everyday intimacy is an art, so groove with the tools, find finesse as you practice, and make the expression uniquely your own.

Practice regularly, until the music, the resonance, the vibe flows easily from your bodyheart. Our relationship to the instrument and our intimate expression becomes a dance of surrender, connection, transparency, presence, compassion, tenderness and appreciation. These are the energies of intimacy that tune the instrument, guide the fingers, feed the heart and send the music soaring.

1) Surrender
Open hearted, open minded, open in our breath and body, we're available to be met. The walls between you and I are down.

2) Connection
I am connected to the fullness of me and I share this with the fullness of you. There is a meeting in the energetic space between us and it fires our attunement with the fullness of each other.

3) Transparency
The masks are off. I am willing to see you and be seen by you, whatever arises.

4) Presence
I am in touch with, and grounded in, my fullness and I share it with my physical touch, my heart's embrace, my generous warmth, the openness of my mind and the presence of soulfulness. I am here and now.

5) Compassion
I recognize that I have stood in similar shoes, I recognize your predicament, and I stand along side of you in support, arms open and heart warm.

6) Tenderness
Intimacy is largely a matter of sharing. Closeness develops naturally when you express the tenderness you feel in your words and deeds.

7) Appreciation
Appreciation is the magic pixie dust of intimacy, blossoming each other open. Become a master of enjoying each other out loud.

I invite you to be more intimate with each other, more intimate with your life. mmmm, Happy Valentine's every day!

Chakra, Breath & Divine Love Energy Meditation

2011-10-18T11:23:00.000-07:00

Are you eager to embody more of your Spiritual energy, with more grace and ease? Join me in a powerful new meditation offered up by Spirit.

By utilizing the natural flow of the chakras in relation to our breath we will clear and charge, and begin to organize our energy system, deeply useful in and of itself. When we engage this chakra practice in conjunction with the energies of Divine Love it transforms and becomes a deep, profound and embodied communion between our body, heart, Soul and Spirit, weaving us together in the matrix of All.

This is a meditation process which is basically simple, but ultimately requires one to practice holding attention and felt intention in several areas at the same time, so it’s best learned one step at a time. After mastering one level, begin to integrate the next.

We’ll be using the 7 personal chakras located in the center of the physical body. Chakras are communication bridges between the physical energy system (meridians) and the subtle energy bodies: the mental, emotional, psychic and spiritual. If these chakras are fully activated they become spheres of interconnected light about the size of a round honey-dew melon and easily distribute the subtle energies in a harmonious and inherently healing way. We experience a coherence and sense of well-being and wholeness.

A quick review of the 7 personal chakras

The chakras are alternately receivers or expressers of energy. The odd numbered ones, (1,3,5,7) are expressive, the even numbered ones are receivers (2,4,6).

· Chakra 1, root chakra, located at the base of the body’s trunk, cultivates our relationship with Mamma Earth and her resources.

· Chakra 2, sex and creativity chakra, located in the pelvis. This chakra utilizes the resources of chakra 1 and creates with them.

· Chakra 3, personal power chakra, located in the solar plexus, diaphragm area. This chakra accesses the creations of 2^nd chakra and offers them to the world with more or less confidence.

· Chakra 4, heart chakra. As a species we have also recently developed an additional heart chakra called the High Heart, or Crown Heart chakra which is more resonantly in tune with our Soul and Spiritual energy. Simply place your attention in the center of your chest and both of these chakras will be activated. This is the embodied access of our Soul and the central anchor of our spiritual energy body.

· Chakra 5, the throat chakra, located from collar bone to the jaw hinge. This is the center of sending our truth out into the world, having arrived from the lower chakras up, and upper chakras down.

· Chakra 6, the third eye, located inside the head in the area of the pineal gland, behind the bridge of the nose. This is actually our psychic energy body, which may expand to our whole system, but for now let’s expand it to honey-dew sized. This is the field which accesses our IN sight, intuition, inspiration, direct knowing.

· Chakra 7, the crown chakra is located from the jaw hinge to several inches over the head, it’s a big one. This is our connection with the consciousness of All That Is.

The Meditation

As you begin any meditation, especially energy meditations, please ground yourself in whatever way works for you before you begin. Place your feet on the floor and hands to your side, not on your body. If you’re sitting in lotus or tailor position just rest your hands beside you, not on your body.

Stage One: practice inhaling into the receivers (2,4,6) and exhaling from the senders (1,3,5,7).

A first practice would be to go up the chakras (always begin with the root chakra) and activate them one at a time. Chakra one sends, take a deep breath and exhale out the root chakra, this will actually help you ground. When you get a clear, felt sense of chakra one, bring your focus to chakra two. Inhale into your pelvis, receiving, and simply filling the chakra with your exhale. Continue on up the whole chakra system, focusing on one at a time, alternately receiving and expressing.

This may well be enough for a first practice. Once you have a clear felt sense of these dynamics, however long this takes, proceed to the next level.

Stage Two: holding focus and flow in several chakras

Begin with only the receivers, placing your attention on all three of them (2,4,6) as you inhale and simply allowing the energy to rush through you as you exhale. Cultivate a felt sense and remember that the chakras are round, inside you and receive from all directions. Drink in the energy and feel it rush and circulate thru you as you exhale.

Then switch to the expressive, odd numbered chakras. Place all of them (1,3,5,7) in your awareness, one at a time, and take a deep breath and exhale through all the expressive chakras. You may find that the root chakra and the crown chakra radiate more directly down and up than in a full circle, that’s fine.

Stage Three: whole system breathing

This is where the whole meditation becomes a dynamic field of clearing, activation and harmonic communion with self and the holographic fields in which you reside.

On your inhalation you’ll place your attention on 2, 4 & 6 and receive into them from the holographic field all around you. As you exhale you’ll send out the energy from 1, 3, 5 & 7. You may find that long slow breaths allow you more presence, engagement and expanded awareness.

As with any energy activation process you may find your body making room for the increased flow by vibrating, shaking, making spontaneous sounds, and movements. Let it, it’s realigning and distributing your flow patterns, welcome it.

Stage Four: engaging the energies of Divine Love

Divine, or unconditional love, is a multi-layered, multi-dimensional resonance which is tricky to absorb whole. Experiencing it as facets, much like the rainbow colors that come from light through a prism is do-able. When Divine Love light comes thru the prism of our heart it resonates as 6 qualities we know, at least on the surface. The qualities are: appreciation, compassion, forgiveness, humility, understanding and valor. These energies of unconditional love are surrounding us at all times, we need only to draw them in and experience them. Your understanding of these virtues will deepen and expand as you engage your relationship with them. As you do so, your life will change as these qualities align you with your deeper path and fields of matching synchronicities.

Stage 4, level one: Receiving Divine Love

Choose one of the qualities of Divine Love and use it as a feeling tone (not a concept) that you will inhale and receive from the universe into the even chakras.

You may well feel that receiving these qualities into your whole self is overwhelmingly powerful, ringing your chimes, cracking open your heart. It’s your soul saying thank you for tuning in, at last. Divine love is the nature of everything, the building blocks of All That Is. It may well feel deeply moving, you’re tapping into that which you truly are.

I recommend focusing on each receiving chakra (2,4,6) separately to begin with. You may only be able to fully experience one in each sitting, go slowly enough that you actually feel yourself receiving that quality from the universe into you.

Stage 4, level two: Expressing Divine Love

Placing your focus on the expressive chakras, (1,3,5,7), one at a time if need be, send a deeply felt sense of the chosen quality out into the hologram of life with your exhalation. Go slowly enough to fully feel the resonance. This energy will be magnified by spirit and sent to where it is most needed. Alternately you may dedicate this energy to someone, some place, some event that is important to you.

Stage 4, level three: Receiving and Expressing Divine Love

When you are ready choose one of the qualities of divine unconditional love and feel into it. When you are ringing with this quality, begin breathing slowly and at the root chakra send your quality out, riding on the exhalation. Then inhale this quality into the second chakra, exhale it thru the solar plexus, into the heart, out thru the throat, into the third eye and out thru the crown. Repeat this several times, maintaining your deeply felt connection to receiving and offering this quality from and to All That Is.

Stage 4, level four: Receiving and Expressing Divine Love into your whole system

Once you have some skill and experience with focusing upon the individual chakras it’s time to expand your focus to all the even, and odd flow patterns. Begin by choosing the quality you desire to experience more fully and feel into it, touch its resonance. Then on the inhalation open to receiving this aspect of love from the universe into 2,4,6 and expressing it from 1,3,5,7 on the exhalation.

Stage 4, level five: Combining aspects of Divine Love

When you’re at this stage you’ve experienced a lot, but since we are always expanding and evolving there is always room for more engagement with the Divine. This is the point where you will activate more than one quality at a time. Perhaps today you wish to experience compassion, understanding and forgiveness, or appreciation and valor, or understanding and humility. Take your pick and feel into each quality individually, setting your energy field in resonance with each one and layering them into your energy matrix.

Then begin your breathing, inhaling and receiving your love combo into the even chakras, and expressing, offering this flavor of love back into the hologram of All That Is.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve always been very generous with my out flow, but I’m only beginning to learn to truly receive. So the most profound piece of this practice arrives when I crack open my pattern and actually feel the universe appreciating me, embracing me in compassion, freely forgiving me, being humbled by me, truly understanding (standing under) me, sending valor and strength to me. I can hardly do this practice without crying. In these moments I remember a wise being saying that when a human’s soul is touched, they often leak. Just remember to bring the tissues with you; there may be a lot of leakage.

If you are brave enough to practice this meditation I’d love to hear about your experiences. If you feel you need help, bring it to a private session and we can tease out the bits that are getting in your way.

Enjoy!

Kiss and share the elements of creation

2011-10-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from Kissing School, 7 Lessons on Love, Lips & Life Force C. Byrd

Reclaiming the elements, an elemental kiss sublime

The natural elements of nature are as inherently woven into our watery and earthy cells as they are all around us. To join with these earthy rhythms subtly reweaves us to the energetic fabric of mother nature. These voluptuous practices can be done singly or as a sequence and are limited only by your bliss tolerance. Layer the elements, all into the other and your experience will be exponentially expanded.

Kiss as if you are water

Feel the rhythm of the waves pulsing thru your body,

capture the rhythm with your breath

lips merge as rivers into ocean

taste the salty depths of the sea and the fresh sweetness of the mountain brook

rock with swells

surrender within the cycles of motion and rest

sinking into the softly undulating depths even as all this is happening, now,

breath alive, deeply now, now

flowing lip and tongue

Kiss as if you are earth

Before lips, remember nature spirit

Move slowly the soft animal that is you

Look around and fall in love with your surroundings,

Arrive, very here, very now.

Primal.

Lips full, presence of ripe desire

savoring textures of tongue and tooth

Breath deep growling and moan

Vines of arm and leg encircling

Flesh heaving into hills and valleys

Sooo solidly meeting you

I rest in trust

Kiss as if you are fire

Cool fingers seek the warm silk of your hair

Face mask of frozen burdens begins to melt

Cells awake, tingling awake with yearning life

Eyes flash into yours telegraphing penetrating presence

Breath sucks in deep as our lips quiver and spark, not quite touching

Rushes dance my spine, I tremble with voltage

Tongues flicker

Fingers penetrate thru muscle and bone

Energy pulsing thru the space between molecules

Kisses light hot

Kiss as if you are air

Wind knows its direction, even if we do not

It seeks fresh, expansive joy

Cool fingers breezing over warm neck valleys

Sweet enlivening

Breathe thin and full the mountain scent

Brilliant lit with sun’s sharp angle

Kisses clean, vibrant communications of what is real

Or full with musk of river valley,

warm wind and heavy with earthy moisture

lips full of sweet thick breath of passion

The Pause that Refreshes

2011-10-13T11:40:00.000-07:00

We like to think we can “power” through our daily tasks, but our determination to get everything done might just make things feel even more chaotic.

Even though at first it may feel that if you keep your nose to the grindstone you will be able to accomplish all your goals, there is a huge possibility that you will be pushing through from your smaller, ego identified self and miss out altogether on the vast reservoir of inspiration and energy your Soul, or higher Self offers.You may find that working methodically, along with a deeper awareness of the flow of spirit running through you could be much more effective.

Should you feel pressure throughout the day and find that your life feels frenetic, you can take a short break to relax, relieve some of your internal pressure,and gain a larger perspective on the ways in which you work when linked with your inner resources.

Taking a short walk and getting grounded, sitting for a few minutes in meditation and resting in silence or in your heart, or doing a relaxing yoga pose while focusing on your breath could take your mind off of your work and help bring your focus within. Giving yourself time to recover your energy and calm your mind may make it easier for you to concentrate, access inspiration and make things feel less hectic.

Short breaks during the day are essential for maintaining our mental, physical, and emotional energy levels. If we simply power through our work, we may feel overwhelmed by all the things we have on our plate, which in turn makes it difficult for us to focus on our goals. Resting, however, lowers our level of frenetic energy and instead recharges us with positive energy. When we give ourselves breaks, we actually give ourselves the gift of healing, for we allow our bodies not only to recuperate but also to take in the curative energy of the universe. By letting yourself rest today, you will work with more focus, efficiency, and vitality.

Love, live & prosper!

Bliss and Freedom in Wack-a-doodle Times

2011-10-05T20:36:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a lot of meditating and energy alignment practices these last many months and I've found myself either in a cauldron of transmutation, or resting in a harmonic web of life, cultivating my capacity to befriend uncertainty. I've been getting some lessons on the resonance of true power and connecting more fully to my inner resources. Like many of you have shared with me, I'm finding wild times but I'm also feeling a growing sweetness and am really eager to see what's next.

What's the worry? says soul. When we're dropping into the unknown we're always going to find a deeper, expanded experience of our own creation. Relax, open your heart, breathe, be curious and listen for what rings your chimes.

Another message arrived one day. Expanding your joy and increasing your bliss tolerance as a practice makes a lot of sense, don't cha know? Have you seen your sense of humor lately? When was the last time you felt free enough to be goofy or spontaneously playful? Watch children, take a lesson, and lighten up; you'll be shining in no time. All of life benefits when you shine.

Such a good idea for so many reasons, most fundamentally because anything out there is mirroring our energy in here. Come on soul, tell me more.

OK, tell me what happens when you go inside your body and allow the resonance of freedom to flow through you.

Good lord, I'm melting into flowing buoyancy!

There's a movement that spirals through me untying the knots in my body.

I feel edgeless and my molecules are floating in a field of space.

I feel no resistance.

Precisely, freedom, apply liberally and relish the ease.

So I've been playing with this experience, challenging myself; can I embody the grace of freedom in this random moment? How about when the yapping dog has been at it for hours? Can I find the flow and ease of freedom in my cells as I get up from too long at the computer? As I miss my lover? Not always, but when I do let freedom ring through me I discover that I am entraining the field around me, and real choice is possible and the world-mirror shifts; and small miracles arrive.

Most rarely align with their true power, because it seems illogical to them that there is power in relaxation, in letting go, or in love or joy or bliss. Most people do not understand that their true power lies in releasing resistance-which is the only obstacle to their true power. ~Abraham

There's plenty to go around, stay present and harvest a big bushel full of joy and freedom and all the experiences that resonate with it. Feast and be glad!

2011-10-02T18:09:00.000-07:00

Soul Time

Dimensional time zones

The Shifting Sands of Multidimensional Time

I’ve always been fascinated with our experience of time.Folks talk about time as if it’s a fixed and consistent unit of measure, andyet does anyone really experience time that way?

There’s a Celtic notion called time out of mind which always stirs the mystery within me for timeseems to stretch and shrink like plastic according to what my mind and heartare experiencing. How else could it be that timeflies when one is having fun and becomes an eternity while waiting in thedentist’s office?

Quantum physics notes that “reality” is a state specificphenomenon. In my example time seems to shrink in the midst of my fun state ofoneness and creative engagement where there seems to be nothing but the presentmoment. Resistance or separation from the present, wanting to avoid the presenceof dentistry keeps me pulling back into the time before now and waiting becomesan eternity. Trance states, dreams, passionate encounters, childhood summers,and moments of open awe all contain very plastic states of time.

I hit a pocket of experience during the harmonic convergencein August of 1987, called a Kundalini Awakening, in which my experience of timeand space was deeply altered for several years. I learned to fall in love withthe big, fat, full-of-amazement moment,the HERE/NOW, in the midst of a range of expanded states of Being. Kundaliniactivations are as varied as the people who experience them. I was good andthoroughly electrocuted from energy accelerations that had me shifting fromthird dimensional consciousness to fourth to fifth and back again in an hour, aday or a twinkling.

Time and space are very different experiences in different dimensions.Space, solid or otherwise, becomes permeable, gets very colorful, full of lightsand webs of energy. Some days everything, everything, goes molecular, comesalive, breathes, pulses and vibrates, and there are presences everywhere. Timescrambles in all of this pulsing life, the sun may take what feels like hoursto set while resonating with colors, an orchestra of natural andmulti-dimensional sound and radiant life, then snap back into something lesssurreal, or melt in some other direction altogether. I learned that differentdimensional consciousness brings variations on the flow of time, and thesevariations are very interesting and useful to play with.

We tend to think of time in 3-D as linear, but it’s moreaccurately experienced as circular. We have an experience and then we projectour reaction to this experience out into our future, either NOT wanting toexperience it again or definitely WANTING to experience it again. Then iteventually circles around into our experience again since we’re hanging ontoour projection.

As we lean into 2012, the shifting dimensional resonances thatare happening within our earth and with her inhabitants is having a tangibleimpact on our experience of time. We hear about and sense a lot of change; timeis speeding up, or seems wobbly, or is collapsing. The ancients speak of timeending soon. That may in fact have been a possibility we were heading towardbefore we changed our collective minds and decided to enable a transformationinto a fully embodied, fully ignited spiritual being living in the humaninstrument. We’re cultivating a very different relationship to time and space,so I think that time is ending in theways we have known it in a 3-dimensional paradigm.

Three dimensional or circular time is based on a reactionarybond to past and future with very little present time in it. There’s fixednessto it, it has lots of rules and rigidity; and is conditional, with a limitednumber of possibilities within it. There’s a lot of worry about the future andattachment to the past. These paradigms break down as we learn to anchor ourconsciousness in the higher fourth and fifth dimensions. We cultivate theability to choose, not merely react, that we may experience the freedom andpower that is our birthright. This creates an activation field in time andspace. To the degree that we argue for our limitations and cling to the “rightand wrong” judgments and illusions of separation within 3-D consciousness, timewill feel hectic and choppy, we generate struggle and fear-based outcomes.

While we’re shifting and living in 3-D and 4-Dsimultaneously, we experience more fluidity, depending on how our thoughts andemotions are entangled. As we stabilize more fully in a higher 4-D consciousnesstime structure changes and time is not fixed. We have choice and present timeright this moment that is not based on past or future. The information isavailable, but we’re choosing in the now. Paradox also happens, fluidness andflexibility come into play. Change can happen quickly because we have morechoice about how we choose to experience ourselves.

When we start holding your attention in the higher 4^thand 5^thdimensions we playin a different configuration of “reality”, with different gravity configurations,different spatial relationships, and time begins to slow down. In 5-D we canslow time down, speed it up, or stop time. We live in simultaneous time and have access to multiple realms ofconsciousness simultaneously, based on the time application and vibrationallight quotient we hold. In this reality, for instance, there is plenty of timebetween molecules to rearrange creation in an abundance in your present timeframe without any limitations.

So you’re not yet anchored in that empowered loka offlexible time? Giving ourselves permission to intentionally play with timeactually assists us in cultivating our power and expanded capabilities, and whowouldn’t want to be able to create the time of our lives?

Time to arrive

When we begin a journey to a destination with an arrivaltime in mind and we feel we’re possibly going to be late, what do we usually do?We speed up, focus in and push ourselves and perhaps the vehicles ahead of us,as far down the road as we can see. In doing this we’re actually shrinkingtime. We’re not here now. We’re squirtingour energy out of our body, ahead of us into our future. Time shrinks becausewe have no now, it evaporates.

What to do?? It sounds contrary, but we have to pullourselves back into a very plump NOW. Here’s what works every time for me. Getin the car; take a moment to envision yourself arriving at the destination,relaxed and in good spirits, at exactly the time you want. So envision theclock before you start your journey and tell yourself that you’d like to arriveat this time, or before, feeling fabulous. See it and feel it clearly.

Relax, get into your body and into your moment, drive offand notice the scenery, enjoy the beauty around you. You’re shifting into 4-Dconsciousness, so everything gets more flexible. Stay tuned to your senses, thebreeze, the lovely music you’re playing. You’re basking in the fullness of NOW,and it expands. Don’t look at the clock. If your intuition says there is abetter, more enjoyable route, take it, you’ll probably find out later that youmissed a big jam-up. Stay tuned to the moment, trust yourself and arrive atyour desired time.

This kind of practice can be applied to any project ordeadline you’ve agreed to. Try it out with something that isn’t a super BIGdeal so you don’t pressure yourself needlessly. In this hour I’d like to …..See it all falling into place and finishing at the end of the hour. As you growmore adept, time shaping will seem the simplest thing ever, and your skillswill grow as you shift again, into the simultaneous time of 5-D.

Walking your Futureinto your Now

One of the most common things I’m asked is, “How do I createexperiences for my future from my now?”

This is really fun and simple. Get your energy coherent,i.e. get grounded and into your body, relax your mind and settle your emotions.Close your eyes and envision the desired future experience out in front of you.Feel it happening as if it was actually going on in present time with all the sensationsand goodies you’d desire.

When your future vision feels solid and brilliantly alive dosomething important. Turn the projection around and walk it back into you, theyou that is in this present time here and now. Merge the future energyconfigurations with you, now, here. Embrace it, feel it, glory in it. Then walkaround with it and watch what happens.

Constructing afullness of time

I just learned this practice a few months ago and it hasmade an incredible difference in my experience of these zippy days. Again, thisis a very simple process and asks little more than a few moments of focus,intent and internal agreement. This can be done any time shortly after youawake, and I find that before leaving the bed is the easiest to remember.

Gather your energy to yourself and focus. State yourintention to expand your experience of time this day. Place all the goodiesyou’d like to experience more fully into your intention. “I choose to (a 4-Dparadigm) expand my experience of time today, and within this fullness I chooseto expand my experience of...and…” Fill in the blanks with your desires: joy,prosperity, connection, well-being, inspiration, and great food for instance.

Speak your intent several times either out loud or toyourself. Write it down if you’re the forgetful type. Then feel into it, whatwould your day feel like if this was your experience? Finish your command with atstatement of grounding such as, amen, so be it, or and so it is.

Soul Tribes

2009-11-22T17:36:00.000-08:00

I was out in the garden wrestling with blackberry roots and I realized that a short sound bite had been skipping thru my head for a couple of days, looping round and round in the background of my mind... "Flintstone kids, ten thousand strong and growing...". Geeze, a kid’s vitamin jingle, what was that about?

"Well, I’m glad you asked!" says the singer of the head tune, one of my less reverent inner guides. "What have you been pondering about these last several months?" Lordy, that’s a big question!

In that year I’d been wrestled to the ground by a kundalini awakening, which had literally ejected me out of my psychotherapy practice in the city and into the wet, cool grit of country soil. In the midst of a "spiritual emergency" I was being energetically electrocuted and was getting hauled thru the graduate course in grounding. In that year it had become clear that the trip had only just begun, and I was pretty clueless as to where I’d end up. What was I pondering?? Everything was up for grabs at that point, "What kind of a question is that?"

"You were asking how to find your spiritual community, the folks in your ‘soul tribe’. Well, where you go or what you do together is not really the point; no matter where you meet them you’ll recognize them by their light, their energy."

"Well, what’s the underlying question you’ve had these months since being unleashed from your normal moorings?" Hhhmmmm. Oh yeah, thru all this I’ve been seeking community, spiritual community, is that it? "Bingo!" Well, what’s that to do with the Flintstone kids??

Most of the time I love that my guides teach me with lots of playfulness, frequently in tunes, half pirated and rewritten to suit; but when a vibrating girl on the edge of a migraine is perched on the side of a hill fighting 2-foot long blackberry roots there’s a certain seriousness that’s required. Get to the point, please.

"All right, all right...now think, what’s a flint stone? And how would you join that with the energy of a kid?" Hmmm, well, it’s probably a kid that’s lit somehow. "Yes! You ask how to find your spiritual community, the folks in your ‘soul tribe’. Well, where you go or what you do together is not really the point; no matter where you meet them you’ll recognize them by their light, their energy. They will spark, their eyes will be lit up. Particularly if you’re both in your bodies, you‘ll find that your energies spark each other, and you are expanded by being in their presence."

OK, my heart mates are lit up, they spark. OK, that’s good, oh and their inner kids are alive and well? There is a lightness to them, great, that works for me. What’s the rest?

"Well, you tend to think these folk are scarce and hard to find. I’m telling you that in the area of your usual activities there are at least 10,000. These are strong people, and people who are growing. Get it? Flintstone kids, ten thousand, strong and growing!"

I crumpled onto the side of the hill and looked around me with new eyes, eyes lit with the flames of my heart and I began to weep as I let this gift sink in. Ten thousand?? My heart had been feeling so very alone most of my life as a spiritual seeker. Ten thousand? I began to feel the presence of ten thousand lit up playful souls shining everywhere in my life. I melted into the side of the hill, into the arms of Gaia and wailed the pain of loneliness from my cells. Some days grace can almost be too much to bear.

The Chakra, the Kiss. and the Connection

2009-11-22T17:28:00.000-08:00

To Kiss or Not To Kiss, What was the Question?

I was being interviewed for a "Kissing School!" video and the producer asked me, "are there different kinds of kisses?". My mind was instantly overloaded with images and I realized that there probably are as many kinds of kisses as there are intentions for giving them. The technique itself doesn't carry the kiss, it's the energy transmitted, the emotion or thought behind it that informs the kiss. The technique may translate the intention skillfully or not, but that's more a matter of finesse and perhaps even more the quality of presence within the act.
Contemplating this later I started sorting out various roles that kissing plays in this culture by relating them to the qualities of energetic makeup represented in our chakra system. The language of chakras comes out of a mostly eastern vision of various psychic energy transformers within our bodies which we unconsciously use on a daily basis. To the degree that these energy centers are functioning to exchange and modulate the energies between our body, mind, emotions and spirit, our intentions will be activated thru our energy system into nerves and chemistry and expressed outwardly by our body.

Consider your last kiss. What was going on with you when you planted it? Were you placing a benediction on your beloved's head? That's a crown chakra intention, or blessing coming from your spirit, maybe arising from the warmth of your heart chakra, and placed upon his crown, the 7th chakra which acts as an antennae to the divine. This has an effect of connecting them to a benediction from the energy of spirit itself. Intention delivered.

Ever had your toes sucked? Not the same energy at all! More than likely this was done as an act of titillation by someone with a major charge in their 2nd chakra, the center of sexual and creative energy. However if you really received it, it may well stir more than your second chakra, mostly because the feet are connected to your root, or first, chakra. When we get the root chakra charged up we tend to be more grounded; that's bioelectrical talk for having the ability to circulate your energy instead of shorting-out.

The grounding connection from that toe sucking action has the potential to activate a lot of various energies, shifting the charge level in the whole body. Initially it helps bring your mental body consciousness all the way into the body in order for you to experience, with clarity, that warm wet action on your toe. Along the way this embodiment of the mental body naturally fills every other part of the body with heightened awareness from head to toe. A major bodymind rush!

Then this grounding action generates circulation which in turn kick-starts a swelling flow into the 2nd chakra. Toe sucking is usually ticklish so you're probably also giggling, and that belly laugh activates the personal power (3rd) chakra in the solar plexus, which ripples into diaphragmatic action bursting open the door of your heart (4th) chakra as the energy rises and melting begins.

Ultimately powerful communion states begin to be possible if the energy continues to rise; sounds from the 5th chakra of wisdom bubble out activating harmonics in the bodymind instrument, upward into the psychic realms of chakra 6. And if you allow All to open and unfold that toe kiss has the possibility of melding you into bliss states, Oneness, ecstasy, possibly the fully embodied orgasm...

One kiss, many roles, perhaps with a common denominator. Wake up baby, and really be alive and vibrant in that body so we can really connect! Let me feel the fullness of you resonating thru your whole system. Fill me with your kiss, let me fill you with mine....

Now, not all kisses and not all intentions come across as inviting and friendly; with the effects of warming and opening us. In a dualistic world view there are always shadow sides and kissing has it's darker roles as we all know. They tend to come out of distortions of our inherent energy flows.

Chakra three, the energy center at the solar plexus is often home to distortions about power. Many people tend to view power as something one holds over another, and it's natural for them to express this in their kiss. Kiss of death, kiss my butt, kiss this! Excessive use of force, not making room for the partner's presence, the "I'm doing it to you" kinds of kisses. Everyone's had them. Not everyone wants them, and they can easily become a form of war. Biting, hard, and brutal kisses. You're my object and I'll do what I want with you. I have power over you.

And of course there are purely sexual, 2nd chakra shadow kisses; no heart, no intimacy, all heat and hurry. For someone seeking purely lustful contact this may not be a kiss from the shadow side, but for someone wanting to deeply relate these kisses can be pure hell. They leave demons behind, hungry ghosts. We didn't get the nourishment we'd desired; the energized contact, the sweet melting, the fullness of feeling and merging of soul weren't offered, weren't shared. We're left wanting, and these wants haunt us.

Hungry ghosts are part of our life on many levels, the hunger that still haunts us after a junk food feed, the soul emptiness after a night of tv watching. Hungry ghosts generate addictions because we rarely go deeply enough into our experience to feed them our wealth of nourishment.

We mistake more, lots more of the same for the possibility of satiety. A kiss that originates from the depths of our heart, the home of our soul, and which warms, swells and flows into our whole self never leaves one hungry for anything, except possibly the ability to expand one's bliss tolerance....

Beloved, let me kiss your boo-boo; or turn over your offered hand, unfold it gently merging my warm lips into the heart of your tender palm, my kiss will heal us. Kiss me playfully, all over, melting all the stress I've hidden in my body, I long to flow again. Let me erase any illusion of separation; lock lips with me, matching paces, breathing together, falling deeply into our eyes I see me in you, I see your deepest You...Welcome me with this kiss, send me away with another, nibble me anytime you'd like a taste. It's just that I must kiss you now, for there are never, never enough reasons not to kiss, my dear.

Embodiment, Tantra and Kissing

2009-11-22T17:12:00.000-08:00

Iinterview with Cherie Byrd, MA by Diana Cristina

Last month I joined my sweetie upon a nest of pillows and blankets and we spent the day kissing. This wouldn't be so unusual, except that, as if in a strange dream, we were in a schoolroom with several other couples doing the same thing while learning tantric embodiment practices: breathing exercises, energy meditations, sensual heightening, and touch training. Everyone was either grinning, looking love-drunk, or weeping, hearts cracked open.

I later met with the instructor, a wild woman named Cherie Byrd, to learn more. I began by telling her that I'd felt slightly wicked even considering coming to the class, but that the idea of being in school learning how to stay in my body and run energy while making out was just too deliciously weird to pass up.

Cherie: That's right, the whole idea of going to school to learn the arts of loving is pretty radical in this puritanically engendered day and age! It's not unheard of in other cultures, however, particularly in the past. I find that the process of being taught to love while engaging the energy of Spirit often rings a bell in our soul memories, echoes from past lives; there's the tug of something familiar.

I'd bet that a large piece of your "slightly wicked" curiosity comes from your teenaged subpersonalities. Remember that our teenage days were most likely thick with hungry desires that were not only unschooled, but were ultimately dangerous. You could be suspended for kissing in class. Sex? You could get pregnant, diseases even. Do you think your whole self would want to be present for that possibility? Not likely, so we contorted our full-bodied bodaciousness into what we felt kept us safe. Furtive loving was the rule; peer training consisted of, "Be quick, be quiet and be cool." Much of this early training stuck; consider for a moment the bound-up sexual and creative energy this non--education has generated over your lifetime.

Diana: Are you saying that these past experiences continue to block our energy?

Cherie: All our past models of experience that are too small for how we desire to be "here and now" block our present experience. We create energy habits based on those experiences and project these into our future, which we then unconsciously live out. They become our underlying definition of what's possible.

When we're young and beginning to explore the paths of romantic love and sexuality, we have experiences, and from these we make decisions about how we are going to function. We make choices, not necessarily consciously, about how open, how experimental, how free we'll be with our sexual energy. We decide whether we like it or not, that it should be done in just this way, and if it should it be meaningful. We sculpt our thereafters based on very little real education.

We certainly didn't go to class to learn to be powerful and trusting and loving with our sexual energy. We probably never even heard that it was possible to integrate our spiritual self into our sexual energy! I think one of the things we figure out pretty quickly as teenagers is that sexual energy is hard to control. In an interesting way, it's not meant to be controlled, which is a very scary thought at first glance.

The energies of both sex and creativity are the focus of second-chakra energy, and this is the chakra in charge of "flow." It stimulates flows within our whole psychophysical energy system: not only the flow of the bioenergy, but also our mental, emotional, psychic, and spiritual energy. The flow of our manifestations, or what we create, is inherently tied to this regeneration chakra. Both sexual energy and creativity are meant to take us into the unknown.

For a sexually unschooled teenager, this is troublesome, so we make second-chakra decisions about safety and power, and judgments about sexual goodness and badness, and arrange our subtle energy bodies to hold these, to block the flow as directed. These energy distortions, this holding, becomes our norm until the pattern becomes too small; then it becomes our suffering.

Consciously changing these energy habits opens us to the possibility of choosing again. Working intentionally with your energetic process while cultivating the art of kissing expands your relationship with your inner lovers, realigning that second chakra in relation to your whole presence. You begin to move into a more richly embodied, trusting, and powerful relationship with yourself, which frees your ability to access your loving nature and your deeper self.

You've probably noticed that most sexual stimulation in this culture tends to come from outside of ourselves; the other person turns us on, or the picture or video does it to us. Tantra is a practice that offers us internal access to our energy, sexual or otherwise, which brings our power and choice back to our self.

Diana: Let's talk about the idea of embodiment. I've heard about people walking around not being in their bodies, but I can't figure out if I'm in mine or not.

Cherie: Not knowing whether or not you're in your body usually is a sign that you're not there! It's often easier to see this in someone else. Have you ever kissed someone and wondered if there was actually "anyone home?" What are you noticing? Maybe a lack of presence, a kind of robotic or automatic response? No electricity, no juice, no chemistry.

The odds are good that the person is energetically disconnected from his or her subtle energy bodies, and from the here and now. We have to be in the here and now to be in our body, or else we're in the "there and then." Have you ever caught yourself driving down the freeway and all of a sudden "coming back" from being spaced out and wondering just where you are and whether you passed your exit? We often drive on "automatic pilot." When we learn to do something well, we frequently decide not to be there for the execution of it, and we miss it.

We're not home in the body, which is meant to be the amplifier of the qualities of our experience. Ideally, all of our subtle energy bodies vibrate, fully expanded, in our whole body. If not, we're disconnecting and limiting our experience of our life.

Diana: So what happens with our subtle energy bodies when we're out; what does that look like?

Cherie: Typically, when we're out of the body, the mental body is pulled out of the torso and connected to the two upper chakras ‹ a favorite energy habit for those who love to be in their heads ‹ or even further away. The emotional body won't stick around if the mental body isn't in the torso to keep us safe while we feel what is there, so it's as far away as possible to keep it from vibrating. The psychic and spiritual bodies are usually contracted to their smallest possible state, and the whole system is most likely ungrounded, which short-circuits the whole mess.

All this distortion translates into the physical body through a chakra and meridian system that responds by running on the energy of the past until we've drained our reserves. The majority of us walk around in this state, or some variation of it, much of the time. We're carrying our energy in response to very old ideas about how to be safe, and in our maturity, this can be very limiting, keeping us disconnected from the direct experience of who we really are, as well as eventually making us ill.

It's easy to see that making love or being creative from this energetically frayed and depleted state leaves something, or someone, to be desired. Beyond the second chakra, if one is working on developing spiritual energy, power, or access to one's inner selves, it's really crucial to have tools for integrating and running his or her energy. All these states of vibrant consciousness need the body to be an integrated and resonant container; otherwise, we get into even more amplified states of our dissonance, which is usually not pretty. We really have to "get here" before we can "go there" into higher states of consciousness.

Diana: Is tantra a system for learning embodiment?

Cherie: It can be. Tantra, in its widest sense, is usually considered "energy weaving" or energy mastery. It's a set of beliefs and tools, beyond the domain of religion really, that generates a type of mystical communion through the energy of one's being: communion with one's own subtle energy bodies first, which generates that resonant container for communion with the energy of All That Is.

In the West, tantric teachings are frequently just focused on sexual energy, or perhaps a mix of the sexual and spiritual, instead of the whole energetic system. I see sex as a really fun place to practice embodied energy mastery and the arts of communion. One of my favorite mystic poets, Rumi, comments, "There is some kiss we want with our whole life, the touch of spirit on the body." This can be interpreted many ways, but what I've found is that simply cultivating a kiss that carries the energy of one's wholeness can be a daily practice that brings us sweetly into an experiential attunement with our deeper Self. Sharing this presence with another is a very deep blessing.

Awakened inner lovers never settle for mediocre

2009-11-22T17:02:00.000-08:00

It makes me grin when I think about it, for it seems I have created a very privileged role for myself. I’m in practice as a holistic psychotherapist and I teach "Kissing School”. I’m blessed with a lot of deeply intimate conversations with friends, clients, and perfect strangers about their sex lives, their longing for love, passion, what turns them on and off. I hear about the struggles between sex and our beliefs regarding its value, its relationship to spirit, to body images, and the power issues between partners.

I'm told frequently that people feel cheated, that real sex doesn’t live up to the promises, the fantasy. It’s clear that sexual and sensual shutdown seems to be rampant in these stressed out times. I hear tales of hormones, non-responsive partners, depleted energy and general disconnect from the experiences of the body. Our inner lovers seem to have been stuffed into a dark closet along with too many other good ideas gone wrong.

Interestingly enough in this time of massive information, coaching, and personal trainers I find almost no one holding the idea that we can educate these abandoned and clueless inner lovers to be deep, intimate, potent and fulfilled. There is almost no awareness that sexual energy can regenerate and heal us, offering a luscious counterpoint to the wear and intensity of our lives. As a culture we’ve pretty much split ourselves off from the impulses and energies of the body in order to function above the neck in an extremely mental world. For this we pay a very high price.

The body is designed to be an amplifier of our inner experience, enriching us with the felt qualities of our life and when we choose not to engage this amplifier in our moment-to-moment consciousness we loose touch with our soul and we become numb, disconnected, out of touch with ourselves and what we are experiencing in any given moment. This disconnect has a large impact upon the health and vibrancy of our bodies and our emotions because it literally unplugs us from the bioelectrical circuitry of our subtle energy bodies.

These circuits carry the mental, emotional, psychic and spiritual energetic communication impulses to the etheric energy meridians of the physical body where they are chemically translated into physical experience. When we disconnect from our body we generate a deeply diminished exchange of bioelectricity or consciousness for the conversations of the body/mind. The body becomes clueless and we experience a sensual disconnect. We no longer sense our emotions as they are happening, our experience of our physical body is blocked, we lack inspiration, and we feel cut off. We are no longer functioning as a whole system.

Let's face it, its next to impossible to leap into an experience of full body orgasm when we are not being fully embodied organisms, no matter who is doing what to us. What to do? What’s necessary to generate a functioning energy system so that we can directly tap into our own juice, heat, electricity and healing? Education and practice mostly, along with a lot of internal permission.

There have been schools for the loving arts all through recorded history in which people were trained to experience giving and receiving love. They were many and various in their intentions, ones for healing the war out of returning soldiers, or for achieving heightened states of spiritual union, or for enhancing the realms of communion in ones daily life. They’ve left us a legacy and we can learn from them.

It makes sense that energy mastery is at the core of most of these teachings. Developing resonant states of awareness within the bodily tissues, learning to move energy and empower the flow of communication between our body, emotions, mind and soul are essential practices for an empowered life. These practices naturally generate a responsive and potent inner lover; for when we are present in the body sensual awareness can be deepened into a fine art. Subtle nuances become very large events. The dance of energy between self and other moves us. It becomes possible not only to experience a full body orgasm, but also to be a body/mind/heart/spirit that is fully orgasmic.

From this fully embodied state one can experience orgasm from a kiss, from a tongue sliding between fingers, from a drop of water running down the spine, from any point of connection with a partner or oneself, the world, or from the mere idea of it. Well-educated inner lovers have the ability to open us deeply to healing, transformation and the rich presence of our inherently bright spirits. Learning begins with where we are now, graduate school is optional.

7 tips for igniting your inner lover

2009-11-22T16:49:00.000-08:00

Cultivating an Embodied Inner Lover by Cherie Byrd, MA

Seven everyday steps for igniting your inner lover:
1) Learn to BE HERE NOW. By trying to be everywhere we end up nowhere. Our access to our power is available now, and now, and now, and...Bring yourself to it again, and again and...
2) Learn to breathe deeply and do it a lot! Diaphragmatic breathing generates an increased flow of chi, or vital energy in the body. If you are aware of your heart chakra open it at the top of the inhalation allowing it to fill full of light. On the exhalation allow this lightforce to flow thru the body. This practice will directly impact sexual potency.

3) Learn to walk using your whole body, beginning the step from the hip and allowing it to flow thru the upper and lower body, arms swinging in counter position to the legs. Now do it while breathing diaphragmatically. With this we encourage the brain/body conversation. Awaken your inner pharmacy!

4) Drink pure water often. Yup, another bid for increased water drinking. One of the reasons that water is so recommended everywhere is that water is an essential carrier for the bioelectricity. Our whole field droops when we are dry.

5) Get good massages, practice yoga, or do frequent stretching of any kind. Our chronic tension patterns are the prison bars of our inner lover. We have to move past our disembodied energy habits in order to recreate them. Keeping the mind focused encouragingly within the body during the massage and the stretch will open the door to new possibilities.

6) Reconnect with your senses. Awareness and permission are the keys. Really feel every nuance of what goes on in your shower, taste a whole meal often, feel the texture of the earth underfoot as you walk in nature. Learn to become multi-sensual; walk feeling the earth, smelling the air, seeing the various shades of all the colors around you, feeling the variance of temperature on your face as you pass through the sun and shade while breathing diaphragmatically! You'll become so very alive.

7) Risk letting down the walls between you and other...people, plants, pets, sunsets, experiences. Feel yourself in the presence of life. This is where intimacy lives.

Intimacy beyond mediocre

2009-11-21T21:53:00.000-08:00

To Connect or Not to Connect, THAT is the Question

Cherie Byrd

Why aren't all lovers bursting full of heart and soul, radiating passionate life force? Why aren't all their days filled with the energy of their beloved sweetly rushing through their bodies as they go their way? Why aren't these luscious souls swooning with enflamed hearts and bodies full of bliss hormones when they are together?

I have the great privilege of talking about intimacy with lots of people. I am often heart broken by the number of people who readily acknowledge that their love life is mediocre, at best.

Is it your belief that the goal of sex is orgasm? Oh, there is sooo much more. Sex is about amplifying connection, with the result of exponentially igniting your mutual energy. This gives us access to "the source" of passion, ecstasy and oneness. There are realms of passionate energy that dwarf the experience of genital orgasm entirely.

Have you mistaken sexual "technique" for passionate connection? Do you feel well connected and truly met by your lover? How often are you fully present and available to connect with them or for that matter, initially with yourself?

Underneath all the technique, the half-hearted gestures of romance, all the fumbling caresses, pecks on the fly and almost hugs, or even the casual enquires about our well being, or the wave across the fence, lives a desire or an intent from one to another to make connection. And yet, how often do you really feel there has been even a breath of meaning or connected oneness in these moments?

If we're paying attention at all, these near-miss connections will actually feel non-nourishing, empty, like eating wax food. We know, inherently, on every level of our being that there is more and so we continue to seek this connection, this nourishing, fulfilling resonance. Some experiences give us a small measure of what we're seeking and still we remain deeply hungry at the same time. Some attempts offer us a slight sense of companionship which is comforting, and yet these, too, often leave us so very hungry for more. More depth, more zing, more abandon, more heart and soul.

Come on baby light my fire....

Why do these semi-connections fall so far from the flames of passion and many times leave us feeling even more depleted and lonely? Why does the tired mom feel that having sex with hubby is just another chore to do? Why do most men feel exhausted after making love? Loving and intimacy ignite us when we first reveal ourselves to each other, when we feel so deeply met. How do we lose that fiery energy?

The flames of passion die because most folk just don't know how to activate and sustain an ever deepening connection.

We've even lost an ability to imagine the possibilities. After all, there was no class for creating intimacy in school, our parents were usually unable to model these behaviors, and other than the fantasies of movies, we're left pretty clueless as to the realm of possibilities and how to tap them.

Technologies of Frustration

Most folks are seeking chemistry with another but not activating their own chemicals. We're looking for someone else to do it "to" us. We live in a very co-dependent society in which we think our beloved is supposed to deliver the joy juice to us, ie if we like the way they look in those jeans then we can get turned on by them. If they don't turn us on then we decide that they're somehow not meeting our needs. This is a sad but subtle tone in most relationships.

So what happens for folks when they can't get turned on? They amplify the technique, rub harder, buy more gadgets, try gimmicks, fantasies, plastic wrappings or pain, anything to FEEL more. Some even choose to just shut down. There is little or no attempt to make the energetic connection. No connection leaves the experience flesh limited and you displace your inner power of true connection and aliveness onto the power of the gimmick. The actual Source energy is left untapped, not felt, and not shared. Frustrated. Disappointed. The knowingness that more exists, remains; and it remains unsated, undisturbed, unnudged and untouched.

The truth is most of us don't know how to connect from our inner selves, much less to another being, be they our partner or our children, friends or the wait person at our table.

One of the common versions of dis-connection in our current culture is even called the hook-up. That pretty much tells all, we send our energy out to another and hook their energy for our benefit. We hook up to get our needs met; or to make sure they see us in a particular way. We even engage in disconnected sex to try to feel something, anything. We seek the heartless blow job to relieve stress, cultivate the keep-me-company-so-I-don't-have-to-feel-so-alone companion so I don't have to go deeper into myself and open even wider to you in vulnerability as a person to you, my beloved partner. We settle for so little by giving so little of ourselves.

Connecting means gifting yourself, without fear, without shame. It means gifting your heart, your focus, your presence, your sexual energy, your soul to another, to this moment, to the deed being done, but it does NOT mean giving yourself away.

To connect we begin with us, stand in our own energy, get grounded, present, and willing to connect. Our energy radiates in our being but doesn't go jumping into the other person, or hooking them to us. When a person is energetically in this position, and revealing their true self there is an enormous amount of energy that gets activated and is available to share.

When our beloved also has this inner stance and wants to connect from their true self we generate an exponential energy surge together. This amplification happens even just standing still in front of each other gazing into their eyes IF both people are connected to themselves, grounded, and open to reveal themselves, with masks-off. From here energy builds like crazy, to the degree we remain open.

NOW we are talking connected. NOW we are talking intimacy. NOW we are talking the experience you desire to know and share, the one of being connected in love! This can take some practice; for joy, for joy! grin, sigh, moan... It's what Kissing School, Spirit in the Flesh and the Spirit of Sex are all about. They are the permission slip for you and your partner to begin to have an honest, mediated discussion and experience in the safety of a learning zone.

Blessed be the connected ones!

Brailling your way into on-line dating

2009-11-21T21:33:00.000-08:00

On-Line Dating article requested by love.msn.com for their April 2007 column!
Cherie Byrd

The true gift of on-line dating is the quality of focus, clarity and intention that’s required to be successful in manifesting our dreams. Most people initially go on-line with very little clarity about what they truly desire in a relationship, and the responses they receive will always mirror their beliefs and confusions.

Anyone can fill in the blanks and post a profile in a matter of moments, and what they will quickly find is that they get a vast array of responses. Much of the time you’re left wondering, WHY did this strange person respond to me? Because your profile was vague enough that they could see themselves in your picture, after all they like sunsets too. Who wants to wade through the muck of confusion that will inevitably come your way as a reflection of your own? Clarity if a wonderful thing!

What does it say about a person who begins their profile with a statement like, “Well, I don’t know what to say about myself, it’s really hard to post 200 characters”? Or, “My friends tell me I’m a really nice person.” What would a relationship with them be like? The first one has no sense of themselves; the latter is defined by everyone else. Scary.
Then there are the folks who start off saying they’ve been finding a lot of liars on line and they really want honesty. Why is it that they’re attracting a rash of liars? Clearly there is a resonance within them that broadcasts fear, lack of trust or victimization. Very scary.

There is truly a vast array of fish in the global on-line sea, and your clarity and discrimination are required to attract the ones that are nourishing for you. Take time with yourself to meditate on, envision, or journal about what is essential in relationship for you before you even write the profile. Make sure that you’re writing from your heart as well as your head or your lust. Try “wearing” the vision you’re conjuring and see if it really fits and feels like it lifts your spirit and opens your heart to a larger experience of love. Write if off line first, tell it all to yourself, and then pull out the ideas and realizations you wish to share.

Each time you discover an important aspect of yourself that you left out of your profile go back and rewrite it. The process itself helps you cultivate clarity; your profile will shape and define your intent, desires and relating skills as well as what you attract. Notice that each time you change it you will attract different feeling people, that’s just how the universe works. When you tune your dial to a particular radio station you get a different feeling music. The clearer you are, the less static and dissonance you receive. Remember that the clarity you want is about the essence of the person, not necessarily the costume they happen to be wearing. Our costumes will change and wrinkle as we age, we’re in relationship with the person inside.

Keep in mind that on-line meet and greet is a very virtual reality. What gets said in profiles, emails and phone calls is inevitably going to be skewed. Everyone one wants to play nice, if not seduce you into liking them. Everyone is speaking to the great unknown and the blank mirror is bound to be filled with projections, and fantasy, and fears, yours and theirs.

If you feel safe with this person, and are genuinely interested set up a short, public meeting relatively soon, and read the vibes in person. Our intuition is a primary source of information when we’re sizing up a situation, and intuition is much less loaded with fantasy when we’re sitting in each other’s energy fields.

What does your heart say about this person? What is your gut saying? Do you feel confused or less clear about yourself when you’re with them? Or do you feel genuinely seen and felt and heard? If you’re struggling in their presence recognize that there are dissonant energies between you and you’re probably contracting your relationship with yourself in their presence. Find a friend with whom you feel at ease, open and curious; one in whose presence you can relax and feel genuinely met. The odds are good that if you’re feeling this, then they are as well; this is the person to invite back for a second date.

Cherie Byrd, MA, is an internationally recognized holistic psychotherapist, author, healer, speaker and educator specializing in body/heart/mind/spirit integration, spiritual emergence, and sacred sexuality. She has been in private practice in Seattle, WA for 30 years and is a pioneer in the field of Energy Psychology.

Cherie is the creator and facilitator of trainings on sacred sexuality and the embodiment of high frequency states of consciousness, including her internationally recognized Kissing School. She is the author of Kissing School, 7 Lessons on Love, Lips, and Life Force, and has been profiled in print, screen, and audio and internet media around the world. Cherie can be reached at www.KissingSchool.com, or 206.324.2526.

Techniques of lip and longing for your returning warrior

2009-11-21T21:14:00.000-08:00

The kiss, a user’s guide. Part 2 interview Cherie Byrd, MA

Byrd hates “the peck” — when lovers quickly snap a kiss on the cheek and leave.

“A peck is saying, ‘I don’t have time to kiss you.’ It’s also annoying. You’re breaking contact each time — peck, peck, peck. It’s like poking somebody. It’s never satisfying,” she says.

“When you kiss somebody, you want something that lingers, that makes you go ‘umm, umm, umm.’ It flavors your morning,” Byrd says.

Goodbye kisses, frequent in military marriages, are sometimes the most important kiss you can give.

“The truth is, you don’t know if you’ll ever see that person again. It’s dangerous sending them out to war, and it’s dangerous just going out into the world every day,” Byrd says. “The goodbye kiss is the, ‘if I never see you again, I leave you with this gift of connection, this gift of my love for you.’ ”

And the hello kiss? Well, that can set the tone of the entire evening.

“If he comes in the door, and you look him right in the eyes, take that face and bring it to you like you’re drinking out of a goblet of joy — that’s a way to turn an evening into something,” she says. “Even if you never kiss again the whole evening, you’ll both be humming with this sense of connection that keeps the flow going.”

The kiss should never simply be a mashing of the lips or a full-on tonsil examination. Instead, Byrd says, you can be endlessly creative while keeping the rest of your body alive.

“Frequently, people stop breathing. It also happens when they hug,” Byrd says. “Then there’s no energy moving, no connecting going on. You want to climb into their skin and have them climb into yours and climb into the embrace of your lips,” Byrd says. “This is about connecting, saying, ‘oh, you’re so tasty, let me devour you and appreciate the yummyness that you are.’ ”

Moving the rest of your body with the kiss, stroking their back, running your fingers through their hair and touching their face, also helps make good kisses great.

“If the whole body is kissing, that makes the best kisses,” she says.

Loving the Returning Warrior, which can be anybody some days...

2009-11-21T21:08:00.000-08:00

All About You: Your Love Life

The Art of Kissing, interview of Cherie Byrd, MA
By Allison Perkins
When you kiss your spouse, do you peck them on the cheek? Twist tongues? Exchange spit? Press your lips against each others’ until it feels done?
If that’s all you think kissing is, then you may be doing it all wrong.
Cherie Byrd, psychotherapist and instructor at the Kissing School in Seattle, says kissing is so much more than just moving your mouth. Kissing should be a way two people connect with their souls, their hearts and their bodies. Kissing isn’t a duty — it’s a gift.

“One of the fundamental things that needs to happen in a relationship is that each person needs to know how to connect with themselves,” Byrd says. “If you’re not in touch with your own self, you can’t get intimate with someone else, because there's no one "home". It’s this whole practice of feeling at home in your own body, breathing, feeling, and using your inner energy. We need to cultivate our own presence."

“Old cultures have ways of teaching what sexual energy is and how it empowers you,” she says. “We don’t have that in this culture. We need to start with something basic that we do every day. Usually, that’s kissing.”

People travel from all over the world to attend Byrd’s one-day class, which costs $375 per couple. More information about the classes can be found at http://www.kissingschool.com/, or pick up Byrd’s new release: “Kissing School! Seven Lessons on Love, Lips and Life Force.”

During the sessions, Byrd says she uses kissing as a way to teach people to open their own heart and to offer it to their lover. Besides kissing techniques she uses breathing, eye-gazing and learning how to touch each other’s souls through massage.

“You can drink that love right up while your partner is working on your feet,” she says.

Too often, Byrd says, people want a formula for kissing and lovemaking, to know they’re doing it right or long enough. But there is no such standard.

“This is the experience of sharing emotions through the body. Somebody is receiving something; somebody is offering something,” Byrd says. “There is a dance of energy in the kiss. It’s all about feeling your beloved loving you.”

If you can’t make it to Seattle, Byrd has some suggestions for couples trying to reconnect on their own, especially those who are reuniting after lengthy overseas deployments.

After a long deployment, let your kiss welcome him home As soon as you see him emerge from the plane, look him in the eye. “Men, particularly warriors of any kind, really respond to the emotions of their beloved, even more than their own emotions,” Byrd says. “The beauty they see radiating from their woman is not physical beauty, it’s inner beauty. It’s the energy of who they are. “Even if you can’t be heard for all the cheering and crying, you can always send your love into their eyes and hearts.” Women need to have the courage to open their heart and embrace their husbands, no matter how many walls he’s built at the moment or how much he has changed. “You need to look him in his eyes and really see who’s in there,” Byrd says. “Send your energy in there.”

She said women should not be surprised to learn that their husbands return not feeling like the same person who left a year earlier. Byrd says women need to unconditionally accept who their husbands are in that moment. "For you to allow yourself to be tender enough to merge into their arms in that moment, it’s like giving somebody in the desert water,” she says. “You’re not asking them to be anything other than who they are in that moment, and that really is nurturing.” Once at home, it’s important to re-knit him back into the family in small ways that show you appreciate him.

“The whole practice of appreciating them is a huge nurturing step to take,” Byrd says. “It’s the small appreciations: You can thank him for driving that night, or it might be something as simple as telling him you don’t remember his eyes being that blue. “You’re telling him you see him, and you appreciate him.”

How touch can help a returning warrior feel safe and appreciated

Byrd stresses that after being apart for long periods, a couple has to learn to re-create a sense of safety with each other. “The threads of energy between you are not so strong any more, and you really are learning how to nurture each other and need each other in a tender way,” Byrd says. “Kissing can be the practice that helps you get there.”

Overcoming a feeling of vulnerability can be one of the most difficult challenges for soldiers returning from war, Byrd says. Wives can help their husbands melt down those walls, she says, by nurturing them through touch and massage. And there is no quick fix to regaining a sense of stability. As the walls dissipate, and he realizes he’s still OK, Byrd says little by little, he will regain a sense of calmness and security.

“Nurturing is a primary sense of safety. They need a sense of connection again,” she says.

Kissing can help you get there. Byrd says before you even begin kissing, couples should connect through the foreplay of kissing. “We think of kissing as foreplay, but the foreplay to kissing is making a connection with yourself and your partner. You can be in a bubble bath or just letting your skin touch each other. It’s a very powerful way of getting connected.”

Jammie Down Days

2009-11-18T05:15:00.001-08:00