What you will find below:
A. An essay invitation about noticing the Divine within
B. List of classes and events I am hosting in June – August
A. Invitation to an Inquiry about the Divine
A lot has been on my mind lately. This month’s Solstice weekend marks a year anniversary of my weekend training with Andrew Harvey who coined the phrase “Sacred Activism” http://www.andrewharvey.net/. I have now thought for more than a year about creating a series of classes/workshops around the concept of Sacred Activism. So far this is the framework for what would occur in such a course: 1) It would involve having people create a daily spiritual practice for themselves of 15-30 minutes in duration. The purpose is to have the daily experience of the presence of the Divine in one’s life. This would create an inner reservoir of knowing the Divine to be present. Knowing not as an intellectual exercise but as a kinesthetic reality. 2) People would then track their ability to identify with their own Divinity/ capital “S” Self as to see if it expands. 3) People would create a project in their community that allows others to have similar experiences. It can be any kind of project but it needs to be something that allows the people involved to do what they love to do or be their deeper more connected Self.
In reading the works of the teachers I have found such as bell hooks “All About Love” http://www.education.miami.edu/ep/contemporaryed/Bell_Hooks/bell_hooks.html
< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQUuHFKP-9s >
Eckhart Tolle “The Presence of Now” and “A New Earth”
www.eckharttolle.com/ -
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPg9DnMP2D4
John Wellwood “Perfect Love Imperfect Relationships”,
I am always searching for exercises and experiences that will give people access to self-love. If we each had developed our own daily spiritual practice that put us in touch with our inner sense of Divinity and we strengthen our association/identity with that over our association with our ego identity we could help move our human consciousness forward. I believe we could begin to have daily experiences where we intentionally exercise our sense of ourselves as connected, peaceful, loving and complete. It might make a shift in our ability to sustain life on the planet.
I recently have been looking at videos on the TED website ( Thanks BettyKay!) and saw both one on a woman brain scientist who was aware when she was having a stroke and another by a brain researcher who sees that intelligence is a function of prediction. We are very close, I think to a scientific breakthrough in our ability to choose to identify and possibly consciously shift to our right hemisphere functions where we experience a sense of oneness and the dissolution of the ego. I believe, having looked into this for a while that it is in our right brain that the experience of Immanence occurs. Look at the videos and let me know what you think.
Here is the link to the ted.com video called “My Stroke of Insight” by the Jill Bolte Taylor : http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229
And here is the talk on brain science.
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/125
From the introduction: "Jeff Hawkins urges us to take a new look at the brain -- to see it not as a fast processor, but as a memory system that stores and plays back experiences to help us predict, intelligently, what will happen next."
He actually quotes RC theory saying that the brain looks at each new input, matches it with old/similar input, makes predictions, and acts accordingly.
If you enjoy these two, you can search for "brain" in Ted.com and find more.
The Divine not as transcendent, out there but as immanent, in here. One of my most recent experiences of this Knowing Immanence occurred during a phone call to my mother shortly after my return from visiting her in Cleveland last month. I was sitting outside on my patio facing the 15 ft tall Camilla Tree that lives there. The tree has deeply glossy dark green leaves and was filled just then with magenta blossoms. The sky was quite blue and luminous. I sat there with my Blackberry phone to my ear, speaking to my mother about her activities at the North Ridgeville VFW hall and her Tuesday night bowling league and how she was coping with the transition of my Grandmother’s recent death. Two Rufus humming birds began to flutter and dart around the tree. I gasped with wonder and delight as I then saw three swallows also come in and begin swooping around the tree. Suddenly for several minutes a golden glow cast itself over the whole scene and the birds and the tree and my mother and I were in a Holy moment. Time slowed down, I described what I was experiencing to her on the phone.
My housemate Stuart pulled up his car and moved toward me and the tree and I was able to show him what was happening and he entered the moment without disrupting or dispersing it and then as he turned to look at me and acknowledge what we saw, it ended. I said goodbye to my mother and the experience faded but I was able to keep the glow of awe and appreciation going for about an hour afterwards. Last summer I was on a major quest to expand my ability to have a sense of oneness and knowing Immanence outside of the realm of sexual experiences. I have experienced sex as a pathway to the Divine for many years and had come to see that this set me up for attachment in relationships in a way that was not always in my best interest. In other words, because I so craved to know the Divine and could easily experience this during sex with another, I got very attached to my sexual partners and quite “hooked in”. Thus when a relationship transitioned away for sexual intimacy I would be very grief stricken and have withdrawals. I was not able to maintain the same level of ecstasy in my solo sex. I wanted to expand my access to the Divine so I went to see Andrew Harvey and his workshop on Rumi the Divine Beloved and then I attended the 10-day Vipassana retreat with Jude.
I am not ready to teach Sacred Activism yet, I am still working towards it. So I am inviting all of you to look into yourself and share with me the answer to this question: “How do you access the Divine? What activities and environments bring you to the space where you know your own immanence? I want to understand all the paths to God/dess that people walk in their everyday experiences. I want to help myself and all of us have access to our own internal resources of Divinity. Please feel free to email your responses to this inquiry.
June Academy of Aphrodisiacal Living Events
Thursday June 5th
Wisdom Art Party – collage and other fun
7:00 pm - 10:00 pm FREE!
Seattle, WA 98115
This is both a Landmark Wisdom Coursework party and an art party for anyone who wants to have fun with collage. I’ve got glue, yes paste and lots of magazines as well as collage images already cut out. Come on over and make art!
Saturday, June 14 or Saturday June 21st
Super Cool Garage Sale
9am-3pm
I am taking all the stuff I won’t be moving to India & Steven’s house and we are having one Killer Garage Sale together! Don’t miss out. Come early and get lots of cool stuff way cheap. Clothing, Art, Lamps, Ritual tools, Statues, Jewelry, Books, Lots of great deals. We plan to have it on the 14th but if it rains, we will have it on the 21st.
Saturday, June 14
FLIRTING FOR EVERYONE:
HOW TO BE AN OUTRAGEOUS AND SINCERE FLIRT
with Teri Ciacchi and Allena Gabosch
3:00 PM to 5:30 PM
At the Center for Sex Positive Culture Annex
18+ $25
Flirting isn't easy. In fact, it can be downright intimidating. Add on being polyamorous or someone not looking for "the one" and it becomes even more daunting. What if you just want to be yourself, have a good time and get close to people and your intention is authenticity and love without specific goals like cohabitation or marriage? What if your goals ARE cohabitation and marriage?
What's a person to do?
While flirting may not come naturally to most people, it is a skill that anyone can learn. Teri Ciacchi and Allena Gabosch have a long history of being outrageous flirts. Join Teri and Allena as they guide you through a short series of fun exercises; sharing their flirting tips and giving you the skills to be an outrageous and shame free flirt yourself.
You will learn about:
* Touching someone in a flirty and non-threatening way
* Body postures that indicate openness
* Effective ways to communicate interest:
(no "Hey Baby, What's your sign?" "pick-up lines" allowed)
* How to tell someone you are interested in being intimate with more
than one person
* Exploring your own uncertainty about what you want
* Relating intimately without goal oriented outcomes.
* Being real with who you are and where you’re
* Feeling fear and flirting anyway
We will create a safe and friendly atmosphere and practice flirting with each other. It will be fun and relaxed while improving your ability to get what you want out of intimate relating. See you there!
Tuesday June 17th
Erotic Seattle Education Salon: “ Sex Education in WA”
Dinner @ 6:00 pm, Salon @ 7:00 pm-9:00 pm FREE!
Capitol Club 414 E Pine St (Cross Street: Bellevue Avenue)
Our June 2008 topic for the ESE Salon is "Sex Education”: Starting at the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year Washington State will join eight other states in rejecting Title V “abstinence-only-until-marriage” funding in public schools. We will discus the implications of this change in public policy. What are the characteristics of comprehensive sex education? What should kids know and when should they know it? Check out http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/real.htm for details. Come on down and we'll talk about it!
Erotic Seattle Education Sexuality Salon Discussions occur the third Tuesday of every month in Capitol Hill. A salon is an open facilitated discussion focused on a specific topic. Each Sexuality Salon will be focused on a different aspect of Sex (bet you already figured that out eh?
;-)) Salons will start at 7pm and end at 9pm and are open to all people. If you are a person that has difficulty with diversity or passionate conversation you may not want to attend.
Sex Positive intro to Landmark Mon June 23rd
Monday June 23rd
Landmark Home Introduction for the Sex Positive Community
7:00 pm - 10:00 pm FREE!
Join Landmark Introduction leader and sex positive activist Teri Ciacchi in an evening of Transformation. You will have an opportunity to chose an area of your life where you are not experiencing yourself as completely powerful and be guided through an exercise that allows you to create a new possibility for yourself and your life. Come see what all the buzz is about and hear what it is like to participate in the Landmark Forum. www.landmarkeducation.com
The Landmark Forum gives you a clear, practical and usable process to create breakthroughs in every area of your life, everyday. At this introduction you will be invited to register in the Landmark Forum, which is a 3-day and an evening course designed to unlock the limitless possibilities in our lives. The tuition is $495.00. The minimum deposit for the landmark Forum is $100.00. Included in your tuition is a ten-session seminar series where you will be coached in applying the principles of the Landmark Forum in your life.
UPCOMING Summer Academy of Aphrodisiacal Living Events:
Stay tuned as I am in the middle of negotiating another Clitoral Revelations class and a Sexy Body Sexy Mind class in Seattle for July. I am also planning to teach Clitoral Revelations in Portland and to visit Eugene. I will be at Paradise again this year the last week of August and for those of you who missed the Couples tantra workshop I did in April, look here I am doing one on my birthday weekend! Yippee…
Saturday August 2nd
Temple of the Open Heart
7:00pm-11:00pm $100 per couple
location given upon registration
Join Teri Ciacchi and her teaching partner Chris Poor as we lead you and your partner through a series of exercises guaranteed to increase intimacy and enhance closeness. Gathered from a variety of places and techniques from American Tantra as practiced by Margo Anand to the Human Awareness Institute’s “Angel Walk” and the works of Gay and Kathleen Hendricks and Julia Henderson you will be cradled in safety and surrounded by the sensuous. Be prepared to dance, sing and otherwise be inspired to relaxed full self-expression. Wear loose comfortable clothing and be sure to have eaten before you arrive. Feel free to call for details or reserve your place in advance (206) 612-3511
Personal Pelvic Viewer's now available to the public! Personal Pelvic Viewer's, invented by W. Banning Vail, and used in my Clitoral Revelations class are now available to sell to the public. Check them out on my new website at:
PARADISE IS COMING and I'll be teaching there!
Remember, our yearly camp out is only 2 months away so get registered and save some money. http://www.paradiseunbound.com/
If you've never been to Paradise Unbound, you are in for a treat. For seven days we feed you, educate you and entertain you and it's all just 25 minutes from Seattle, so if you don't want to camp out, you don't have to.
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