Beloved Festival Impact

Tantric Thoughts under a Waxing Moon

Dear Lovers,
Here is the web address for all five of the articles taken from William Dalrymple's book Nine Lives:

http://killingthebuddha.com/author/williamdalrymple/

Reading them reminded me of why I usually do not use the words Tantra, dakini or yogini to describe my work or the members of my communities. Although I do joke about my "Adventures in Dakini Land" I am ever mindful that there are people in India, Tibet and elsewhere who are true Tantric practitioners.

I feel a deep affinity for Tantra and Tantric practices when I read the following portions of Dalrymple's text, (bold emphasis is mine):

"In this frightening aspect, Tara is not alone, but instead part of a sisterhood who encompass the divine feminine at its most terrible: a brood of dark-skinned untameable Tantric divinities who are worshiped in Bengal, and who here take precedence in popular piety over the more familiar male gods: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. These goddesses, known as the Ten Mahavidyas, are attended by jackals, furies and ghosts. They cut off their own heads, and are offered blood sacrifices by their devotees. In the miniatures that illustrate the Tantric texts, they prefer to have sex with corpses than living men or gods, straddling them on a burning cremation pyre and bringing the dead to life through the power of their shakti. Such goddesses—embodying all that would normally be considered outrageous or even repulsive—lie at the shifting threshold between the divine and demonic, violating approved social values and customs. They are “going up the down-current,” as one Bengali Tantric once put it to me."

and
Though Tantrism only became well defined at the end of the first millennium AD, some of its constituent elements such as its goddess cults, shamanism, and sexual yoga may date back to pre-Aryan and pre-Vedic religious currents, and in many ways are fundamentally opposed to the ideas and structures of the Vedas, which emphasise the social and religious hierarchy. Tantrics, in contrast, oppose convention and hierarchy, and encourage individuals from every background to develop a mystical relationship with the deity. It is kama—desire in every sense of the word—that is to be used to achieve liberation in this life. While Tantric texts can represent an elevated philosophical tradition, popular Tantric practice is often oral and spontaneous. It aims at ritually gaining access to the energy of the godhead that created and controls the universe, then concentrating and internalizing that power in the body of the devotee. This turns the world and the body into channels of salvation, and a powerful means of merging with the Absolute, but also grants tangible magical powers to the devotee in the present.

These definitions of Tantra resonate with me and with the kinds of ritual magicks and invocatory work I love to do. I truly enjoy the liminal spaces The "thresholds between the divine and demonic"where I am able to "violate approved social values and customs". Admittedly the only "Tangible magical power" I want as a devotee is to love beyond my ego/personality's limited understandings of desire and preferences. Lately,my particular magick seems to be consistently taking the form of holding workshops that explore the mysteries of Love and Intimacy Building. My abilities to channel and "gain access to the energy of the godhead that created and controls the universe" remains rather limited to my rather tame Western European/Greek glimpses of Aphrodite as a Golden Wave of Love and Desire and perhaps that is as it should be.

I love that the name Tara originates in the word for "Star" and shares this with Stella Maris, & Astarte. I love knowing that Aphrodite in her origins is, as all these goddesses a Goddess of War and blood sacrifice as well as Love and desire. I believe that Aphrodite, the Peacock God and other Divine beings associated with the Star/Planet we know astronomically as Venus; is the same archetypal being seen through the different cultural lenses of humanity throughout time. It pleases me to over and over again feel the deep tidal pulls of desire and yearning and to sacrifice them to her; knowing she/he is the one true source and origin for all love and lust for me in this lifetime.

When ever I move my heartbreak from a personal sense of despair toward the universal ache of desire located in all of humanity my weeping becomes the cry for the beloved and I am no longer lost and pitiable. I am simply a devotee calling out to the godhead in one of her many forms. Then my despair and aching heart are full of wisdom and reconciliation. Then my meditation is self-recognition and integration for I am the Goddess and she is my deepest self. I am so relieved to have found a way out of despair by simply feeling it fully and allowing these waves of sensation to move out of me in radiance and magnetism.

My have a dear and devoted friend who is fond of reminding me that if I want a love life that has permanence and stability I am worshipping the wrong Goddess (Aphrodite). I adore her for being willing to listen to my endless stories of love, loss, passion, desire, heartbreak and infatuation. I pray she never becomes unwilling to lend me her compassionate ear. Thank you dear sister for all of your compassion and generosity.

Lately, however, I have been getting glimpses of something that is True for me with a capital "T". It may be possible that I am not meant to have a male partner in a static monogamous relationship in this lifetime ( no really? what was my first clue??). Now I want to be careful not to create a "curse" or limitation for myself. It is clear to me at this point that when I am infatuated with a human being I get very fixated and stuck, things stop flowing. I want to have partners that share my experience of the Divine as central and human relationships as ephemeral. Devotion to Divinity above devotion to specific humans is what I had in common with my two young male yoga teacher housemates for 11 months and was, I believe the unifying field of our ability to live together in such a small space rather peacefully, (I mean really when you think about it we got on rather well all things considered).

I have an amazing capacity to fall in love with, and then also to persistently love, other human beings. My relationships with each of you reading this is a clear testimonial/evidence of that capacity. As long as I do not get confused and think that love = people will do what I want I am fine. My experiences this past week at Beloved Festival, and my ongoing relatedness with my lovers and close intmate friends, with all of you is evidence to me that my way of loving is to be as intimate as possible and take all of us right up to the edge of social limits and customs. I know I push all of you. My love of you makes you uncomfortable sometimes doesn't it? My love for you makes me question everything I've ever been taught to believe about socially appropriate boundaries, about what it means to be straight, queer, gay, pansexual. About what it means to be married, monogamous, poly. While I actually enjoy transgressing these boundaries, I do not Love you in order to transgress. It seems to me rather that my loving, when I express it without reserve, crosses the boundaries of polite society. Perhaps this is love's nature.
Let me know your thoughts.

Going to Hawaii!

Robyn Lynn, Adele, Daenin, my Mother and I are going to play in Hawaii on the big island from Feb 16-26th 2010. While we are there we are going to play with dolphins, see Pele, go snorkling and teach at Kipuka Temple. Here is a description of our class, Join us won't you!

Temple of the Open Heart:
Saturday February 20th 2010
Noon-10pm
suggested donation $100
KIPUKA TEMPLE near Kehena Beach
on Big Island, Hawaii

Open the gateway to the heart with Breathwork in the Round. The very most important element needed for life- oxygen, will race in and push all kinds of resistance, sadness, fear, anger and illness up and out. Life, love, insight, hope, pleasure and mystery will rush down and in. After we’ve passed through this opening, Teri Ciacchi and Robyn Lynn will lead us through practices guaranteed to increase connection and enhance closeness. 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. Bring water, wear loose comfortable clothing and be sure bring an abundant potluck dish to share. This delicious event will run from Noon-10pm, with a break for dinner around 5pm. Suggested donation is $100. Limited discounts are available to those in need. Space is limited, register now to reserve your place.
Living Love Revolution techniques have been gathered from American Tantra as practiced by Margo Anand, Julia Henderson, the Human Awareness Institute and the works of Gay and Kathleen Hendricks. Teri & Robyn are visiting from Seattle and have taught at Network for a New Culture SummerCamp, ErosFest NorthWest, Seattle Erotic Arts Festival, Center for Sex Positive Culture, The Sharma Center, The Body Electric School,1st Annual Australian Conference of Sacred Sexual Educators in Melbourne.

I am Radiant Well-Being

I am growing and expanding again. I found DaVinci's Bakery on Greenwood and 100th where wheat free gluten free goodies are made. Thanks Kallie for having such an awesome bakery full of things I can eat without getting indigestion!

I just had a very moving and loving conversation with my friend X this afternoon. I realized last Thursday (because he told me and I actually listened), that he did not want to be in a physically intimate romantic relationship with me. I got very clear guidance this weekend that I am supposed to love him unconditionally anyway. It is somewhat difficult for me as my ego/id/identity wants to belittle him and throw a fit and say "you are an idiot for rejecting me". In fact I was already in the process of generating stories that belittled both of us because I was inauthentic about how painful it was for me to not get what I want "AGAIN!". Authentically though, I really want to keep loving him and being close to him. So we agreed we will be friends and that it is safe to have our child selves play with each other. I also had a two hour yoga session with Lance on Tuesday we talked for the first hour about Yoga's spiritual properties and I got a much deeper understanding of what Yoga is. Then we did an hour of yoga, all surrender poses and on the floor poses. He also led me in a yogic sleep visualization which was very healing. Julie Starkel is doing a blood test for me so I can learn about my vitamin deficeinces and then calculate my metabolic rate. I am learning so much about bodies! So my new affirmation is that I am learning the magickal art of shape shifting.
*******Below is what i sent out in my most recent newsletter***********
I am remarkably healthy and feeling well. I am the possibility of radiant well-being. As of Jan 7th my official 8 weeks of doctor recommended rest and recovery for my triple hernia surgery is complete! The CAT scan taken on Dec 23rd showed neither further hernias nor prolapse of any kind. I started doing water aerobics at the local pool today and am walking 2-5 times a week. The number of people who have stepped up to help me and provided me with services is amazing! I especially want to thank Dawn Lamp who is now a nutrition and well-being coach who sells Usana Supplements, Julie Starkel of Greenlake Nutrition who is my nutritionist, Emily Jennings and Ranjiv Jain who are my exercise coaches, and Lance DeMuth who created a series of Yoga Asanas for me to do as I recover. Luminara Serdar is doing NeuroModulation Technique sessions with me. check her out at
I can now carry things up and down stairs and walk for 45 minutes again. Being healthy is not something I assume any more. I am really enjoying learning how to eat and so many fascinating things about my body and digestion and nutrition. Wow, who knew something as essential as eating could be so complex. Food is medicine. I appear to have some kind of wheat or gluten intolerance and I would love to get suggestions for places to eat non-wheat/ gluten dishes and types of non-wheat foods that you enjoy.
As you can see I am not teaching much at all Jan – March 2009. I am focusing on developing my counseling practice, making art and tending to my intimate relationships. I find that my healing process requires a lot more centering of the self and alone time. I am cooking most of my own food, meditating and just being with myself. I am enjoying this process. Thanks for being a part of my community of health!

Fall 2008 Time for a Love Revolution!

Hello to everyone who gets my TerraFire Academy of Aphrodisiacal Living Newsletters,
There are big changes afoot.

#1 I am about to change the name of my work to Love Revolution. Shortly I will have a new "Love Revolution" website at www.livingloverev.com. I will convert my blog, video, and website ASAP and my newsletter for Oct will be under the new name.

#2 I am struggling with health issues due to the fact that I have 3 (not one as I originally thought) hernias and need a specific (laparoscopic via robotic arms) surgery.The hernias were a side effect of having such a large incision for my full hysterectomy and subsequent massive amounts of scar tissue. I do not have health insurance. I make too much to receive DSHS or get on WA basic health. My previous experience with cancer, and the fact that I am "morbidly obese" have prevented me from obtaining insurance. I do have a 100% charity from Swedish Hospital for the hospitalization side of expenses until Dec 31st 2008. I am looking for a surgeon who works or will work at Swedish and will give me both a discount and a payment plan. I am meeting with Dr Jedediah Kaufman from the general surgery Dept. at Swedish Tuesday Sept 30th at 9:15am in the hopes that he will be the surgeon to help me. Please send me healing energy, love and life force so I can retain a surgeon and receive this operation ASAP. thanks.

#3 Okay, I really want you to join the "Next Step Together" as it is the most realistic and ambitious plan I have helped create to move us toward world peace starting NOW. I have chosen to stop being resigned and cynical and start acting powerfully. To any of you who want to participate in self-governance this is the social experiment for you. I am printing the letter below and in an attachment so you can send it on to others too.

Blessings,

Teri D. Ciacchi MSW
"Love Revolution: clear explicit information about love, sex and relationships"
(206) 612-3511


An Invitation to Join the Next Step Together
In the end,
 we will remember not the words of our enemies, 
but the silence of our friends.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dear Friends, Community Organizers, Visionaries, Superheroes, and everyone who loves life:


This letter has four parts:

What's Going On?

What's In It for Us?

What Do I Do?

What's the Plan?

What's Going On: We're all aware of the political, economic, and environmental events converging at this historical crossroads. Even though most of us know that we could solve every solvable problem on the planet for 10% of what we spend on the world's military, the world seems stuck. Like so many of you, we've wondered for years how a revitalized democracy or a nonviolent mass movement or even love itself could ever take hold.

But during this past year, hope for a brighter future has surprised and shocked and sometimes even frightened us.

A very improved consensus governance system called Dynamic Self-Governance, or Sociocracy is a missing puzzle piece, a catalyst that will enable us to effectively and efficiently work together. Every week one of us sees a new application of Sociocracy, a new project,a new way to bring humanity together.

And we have created an exciting, elegant, plan for a sustainable future. It's based on the nerve-like, deeply interwoven network of life and friendship in which we all move. The human body politic has been suffering in its sleeping, but it starts waking now with you.

It's time to take a massive Next Step Together. That step is to powerfully connect everyone who chooses a sustainable future for the planet into a cohesive global decision-making structure—starting with the people you already know.

This is the next evolutionary step. We might never take it. Or we might take it after we've killed billions more people and wrecked essential planetary life support systems. Or we might take it now.

We've combined the most essential and practical strategies for building a sustainable, just earth. Now let's implement them. Really.

What's In It For Us?

A life.

A practical alternative to empire, terrorism, corporatism, racism, classism, pollution, starvation, poverty, war, violence, rape, neglect, madness, disease, isolation, fear and powerlessness

Safety in numbers Fun Community Meaning Security

Freedom Sustainability HOPE


Your fair share of power -- the deepest democracy imaginable


An honest shot at creating and relaxing in a just world -- No kidding!

The knowledge that you acted powerfully when you were called to do so.

What Do I Do?

a) Learn more about the Next Step Together at: http://nextsteptogether.net


b) Join the Next Step Together group on Facebook.

Then, using this letter, invite everybody you know to do the same. (Got issues with Facebook? See below.) We'd like a million people in the Facebook group by October 8. (Call the person who sent you this letter if you need support accessing Facebook!)


c) Get involved with the Implementation Circle process.We need local organizers, web designers, programmers, economists, event planners, activists, donors, thinkers, writers.Everyone. You have needed skills, resources and people to bring into the circle.Call or write us!


What's The Plan?

a) Gather massive numbers of already connected people in the Next Step Together Group on Facebook.

b)Implement a sociocratic governance system, connecting every Friend Group into an elegant, organic decision making structure, creating a super-majority of people who are willing to focus their power for the greatest good. Each of us will govern with equal power.

c)Once we have critical mass, we'll collectively consent to our next, efficient, giant steps using all the creativity, innovation and skill we have. We'll act together, nonviolently, in overwhelming numbers, and make pivotal, systemic change quickly.

This is the fastest way we know of to create the world we want.

It seems wildly optimistic, because the human family is drowsy, just waking up. But, in their hearts, everybody really wants a safe, fun, fair world. Everybody. At least 20% of us are already ready, eager, and gathering for this. 60% of the population will join us quickly if the 20% of us with active hope and vision act powerfully now. The 80% will then offer the remaining 20% consideration and kindness no sane person could refuse, because, in sociocracy, everyone must consent to every major policy.

Welcome to the beginning of giant, fast, smart love power!

We look forward to seeing your wonderful face in the Next Step Together group!

Very hopefully,

Tim Anderson, Teri D. Ciacchi, Bradley K. Ehrlich, Robyn Lynn & Jenifer Stambaugh
 



First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win.
-Mahatma Gandhi



* Facebook has tipped. It's no longer primarily for teens: It has become the world's most popular social networking site, after overtaking MySpace. Everybody is joining. Your page will only be available to your friends and you can see and connect with them easily. We're finding old friends there and even prefer doing email on Facebook -- there are pictures and daily updates and tons of fun-looking stuff you don't have time to try.

There is, however, little doubt that Facebook is owned by hyper-capitalist neocons -- http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook. They will make even more money if you buy the products they advertise. Don't.

And, though your privacy is not guaranteed on Facebook, the Next Step Together will never have anything to hide: We will win the world over with love and happiness.The sooner everyone knows that, the better for us all.

Finally, we will start our own, nonprofit, ethical social networking site and database, asap. But, Facebook is what is now, and every day we waste reinventing the wheel is another day 50,000 people unnecessarily die of poverty.

What's going on in Teri's world:
I want to thank all of you who wrote back or called to share your experiences of how you access the Divine. It generated lots of juicy and profound conversations. Lovely to be in the world with such myriad options of Divinity. Helps me stay connected and in touch to contemplate these things. I have also really been continuing to enjoy John Welwood's "Perfect Love Imperfect Relationships" book. I find I must read and re-read sections to stay present. I am focusing on un-shelding and un-armoring my heart (in the energectic Reichian and emotional sense). I am working this into my daily spiritual practice. It helps for me to do what I call roly poly Venus Yoga basically stretches and asanas in front of my Aphrodite statue and then one of Welwood's "presencing to love" exercises every morning. Welwood's website has a lot of great articles and I recommend them.

Those of us who have had perplexing expereinces of a incongruency in people who are spiritually adept but still somehow not whole might benefit from reading his article Embodying Your Realization : Psychological Work in the Service of Spiritual Development It introduces the concept of Spiritual Bypass, which I see as a spiritual development issue I frequently run into in the Seattle alternative communities.

I reviewed the Landmark Forum the first weekend of June and saw a big "racket" I was running. I was allowing myself to wallow in a story of being heartbroken so that my addict self could be justified in continuing to smoke cigarettes. Nothing about smoking works for me, especially as a cancer survivor. I started taking the non-smoking drug Chantix. I quit smoking Friday June 13th. It is going really well this time and I do not expereince any physical symptoms of craving nicotene, which is amazing. The key here will be my ability to stay open hearted and in love with life. I am using the Welwood exercises and my daily spiritual practice to keep an open access to the Divine.
I am going to do some breathwork sessions with Robyn Lynn of The Present Sense. She is an amazing practitioner who is also involved with both Landmark Education and an exciting social change experiment called "The Next Step Together". I'll talk about next step again in the future.

I have been blessed with several conversations with Andras Jones the creator of Radio 8 Ball http://www.radio8ball.com/ he introduced me to the Movie Black Snake Moan which. I had dismissed as potentially racist and sexist based on the trailers and cover of the DVD. I watched it found it to be quite profound about healing and sexuality and gender and the need for honor and foundational boundaries between men and daughters. I have a lot I want to communicate about this but it will have to wait until next time. I'll write again soon about the tantric implications of this movie and about my experiences with Jenny Block the author of “Open: Love, Sex and Life in an Open Marriage”.
What’s happening at the Apcademy of Aphrodisiacal Living this weekend and the rest of the summer?

So Luminara Serdar will be here this weekend and is offering her Neuro Modulation Technique sessions in my house on Friday 20th only. You'll be able to find her at The Fremont Solstice fair on Saturday and Sunday as she and Peter will be selling copper cobra aromatherapy dispensers there. Here's Luminara's message to you:

I will be in Seattle and doing healing treatments one day only, on Friday, June 20 using NeuroModulation Technique (NMT), an energetic modality which addresses the control systems of the body to effect immediate and durable changes with physical symptoms. To read more about NMT, please see my website at http://www.luminaraserdar.com/nmt.php. I will most likely have my amethyst Biomat to lay on during the treatments. This device emits negative ions and far infrared rays to help the body release toxins.

Sessions can be scheduled between 10am and 7pm by calling me directly at 
541.653.0446. 

My rate is $75/hour (normally $90, but discounted for this one day I am in town).

 A session can range anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, depending on what your body desires. We can set up the session with a time limit, or with a "body" limit, that is, we'll be done when your body feels it has had enough shift for that session.

Thank you for spreading the word, Teri!

 Blessings,
Luminara Serdar
 541.653.0446 
www.luminaraserdar.com

********

Monday June 23rd
Landmark Home Introduction for the Sex Positive Community
7:00 pm - 10:00 pm FREE!
 Seattle, WA 98115

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.
***********

Summer Academy of Aphrodisiacal Living Events:
(Detailed descriptions of these workshops available at

I will be traveling to Eugene Oregon to photo document the artist Judith Sparks work July 16-20th

I will be teaching Sexy Body Sexy Mind for women only with Robyn Lynn on Sat July 26th Noon-5pm $100 person

I will be Holding a Temple of the Open Heart Evening with Chris Poor on Saturday August 2nd 7-11pm $100 couple

I will have a birthday Celebration on Sunday August 3rd ( my B-day is the Friday 1st but Alicia Powers asked
me to be a bridesmaid at her wedding that night. Congrats Alicia & Dave!) late afternoon into evening we will enjoy
great food, singing, poetry and good company.

Clitoral Revelations at the Center for Sex Positive Culture on Sunday August 17th Noon-5pm $100 person

Attending & teaching at Paradise Unbound August 26th-Sept 1st
PARADISE IS COMING
Remember, the Center for Sex Positive Culture's yearly camp out is only 3 months away so get registered and save some money. 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.

Invitation to an Inquiry about the Divine

June 6th Academy of Aphrodisiacal Living Newsletter
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: Slotted PPV's come in petite and regular sizes for $75 and the Photo Y PPV is available for $110. This tool will give you access to understanding female genital anatomy, no more confusion about where the g-spot is. PPV's come with clear instructions for use and cleaning. Call me to order yours today! (206) 612-3511

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.

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 from 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.