A Healing Practice For Relationships

The recent People Unlimited weekend event this June highlighted the futility of analyzing and talking about our relationship issues with our loved ones.  Different couples and several family members took turns in a de facto "hot seat", while the rest of us looked on and squirmed, watching our own psychodramas being played out with different names and faces.

Blaming, apologizing, withholding, forgiving... wow — what else is life, right?



After a particularly poignant exchange between one couple ended in a stalemate, someone else stood up and exclaimed that there has never been, and never will be, any resolution of our issues by talking them out.  Our only recourse, he said, is to become larger than the issues that make us feel small, and thereby allow our bodies to expand and express.  Someone else chimed in, saying that the best way for two people to expand their communication is to hold one another.

I was really moved, because this is exactly the best advice I have ever received (numerous times), and Diana and I still practice it (most of the time :-), and even teach it in our classes.

For those of you in a hurry, here is the homeopathic version:

 

 Embrace for five minutes.


Breathe together.  


Maintain silence.


Keep Breathing.

In the article below, I expand upon this framework, and share an actual exercise that intimate partners may engage in with each other, a practice that was passed along to me by Kerry and Diane Riley of Australia.  I also refer you to their excellent book, Tantric Secrets for Men. The exercise (they call it a "ritual"), may appear a little wordy at first, but it is well worth taking the time to read and practice.   

And for all of you reading along and wondering what any of this has to do with indefinite longevity, it has long been observed that toxic chemistry in our body, brought on by negative thinking and suppressed emotions, is a major cause of disease and death.  Breathing, getting grounded, and receiving the touch of another body is Life enhancing.

This is a view that must be tested, not believed, so please practice!



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Introduction:

When talking is NOT working for you and your beloved, it's a good time for each of you to remember your own precious body instead, and physically connect with each other. It's important that the two of you will have made a prior agreement to engage this exercise in times of conflict.  It will ground you in your own body, refresh your innate sensual passion, and enliven the expansive and free connection that brought the two of you together in the first place.

So — if your partner requests this practice, even though you might be completely triggered and withdrawn, you will breathe and say "yes".  It's okay to notice you don't want to, or you're just not "feeling it" — say yes to the sacred decision you made to honor the peace in your own body, and the pleasurable flow you share with your partner.  No matter what.  Say yes to keeping the passion for life and the physical bond of loving between the two of you alive.



Refusing to honor this agreement sabotages your own integrity and threatens the very juiciness of safety that your relationship is built upon.  Your partner is trusting you enough to drop the argument and ask for harmony.  Listen to your partner deeply, and realize that your Life is more important than your ego; your Love is more important than being right.

Suppose it is you who has enough free attention to let go first. You could say, “This is not getting us anywhere. I want to be in harmony with you. Let’s do the Bonding Practice. We can discuss this stuff later when we are not so upset. Let’s put our bodies together.”

Step 1: 

Take up the Nurturing Position:

 

You (the requesting partner in this case), lie on your back while your partner lies besides you and rests her head on your chest. Place your right arm around her in a nurturing manner. She places her right hand on your heart, and you put your left hand on top of hers. Bend your right knee and place it between her legs, touching her sexual center. Her right leg is bent over yours so her knee touches your genital area.



This connects your heart center (open to give and receive love again), with your sexual center, opening you to vulnerability and intimacy. For her, being held in the nurturing position tends to open her heart center again. And by touching her sexual center with your leg, it reverses her normal reactive behavior to withdraw and shut down.

Step 2:

Use the breath to let go of any tension. If you are very upset, you will find that you will be tensing your body and holding your breath, or you will feel your partner doing this. Breathe in with a long, deep breath through the nose and then sigh as you breathe out through the mouth –ahh!  Repeat this at least 10 times, co-ordinating your breaths if you can; otherwise make sure you are both doing the deep breathing. Never allow just one of you to be doing it; both must participate.

 

As you breathe out, let go of any anger, resentments, or the need to be right.  Release all tension in the body, especially in the jaw, neck and shoulders. As you continue with the breathing, allow your mind to become quiet, allow the inner chatter about the argument to be dismissed. Take your awareness instead to the contact points between your physical bodies, especially your opening heart, and feel love, compassion, caring and forgiveness. Feel the warmth of your partner’s hand on your heart center. Focus on nurturing your partner like a child who has been hurt.  Focus on that part of her that you really love beyond the part that has upset you.



Partner B ( your lover in this case), focuses on being nurtured and cared for and then shifts her attention to her hand on your heart, healing it and opening you more to love again. If it feels appropriate she can gently move her hand from your heart center to your sexual center, gently cupping this area for a few minutes, while you keep your hand on your heart center. This allows harmony between the emotions and physical sexuality to develop once more. You now exchange roles with your partner, gently repositioning before beginning. You need to spend at least five minutes in each role for it to be effective.

Step 3:

Both turn and face each other and hold each other naturally without your hands holding the heart or sexual centers. Continue to breathe and let go, but do not say anything. Gaze gently into each other’s eyes with love and compassion while tuning into your own “higher self”, where having to be right or having to win the argument is not important. What is important is to keep eye contact and be soft, vulnerable and see the part of your beloved that wants to be loved and wants to love. Act as healers for each other, showing compassion, care and concern for your relationship.



Keep breathing gently and after a minute or so and when appropriate, one says “I’m sorry (we were fighting). I love you”.  The other listens, breaths in and internally accepts this. Then she says “I’m sorry too and I love you.”  Finish with a hug or a kiss.



It is most important not to say anything like ”I forgive you, but next time...”  This would blow the whole process.  Do not talk about the issue, just hug and kiss and suggest a cup of tea or a walk. Maybe several hours later, or the next day, you can return and deal with the issue. Dealing with it immediately after the bonding practice is dangerous because you are very open and sensitive when you have trusted enough to say “sorry”.



After you have completed this process, you may not even need to discuss the issue again because you will find that the re-established harmony and balance may well provide a new viewpoint or attitude. If you do discuss it, you may come up with other solutions to the problem which you may not have reached while in a reactive mode.



In reality, neither of you are perfect. You both contributed to the disharmony in some way. By looking within and forgiving and by balancing the energies between you, very often circumstances begin to change.

The Power of Surrender

What you are doing in these three steps is surrendering your ego and honoring your body's true feelings to keep the sexual passion and loving bond between you alive. Vulnerability is not compromise. To surrender and let go is to open to who you always already are, prior to your story.  As a result, your relationship is revealed to be a means of honoring not only your needs and wants, but your highest truth.



To love your neighbor (or your partner), as yourself, requires that you freely love your self first.  It's all about you!

The “Field” Beyond Tantra: Physical Immortality and People Unlimited

Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing,

there is a field. I'll meet you there.



When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.


Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" 
doesn't make any sense.
Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi - 13th century

My lifelong interest in all things physical, from extreme sports, to jumping off of stages while playing loud guitars, eventually led me to the healing arts, yoga, and the study of Tantra. By learning to listen to and speak the truth of my own body via tantric practices (and accept and allow others to speak theirs), I have come to consider Tantra an essential expression of being alive.

As a tool (“tra”) to expand (“tan”), Tantra enables the practitioner to open into deeper and deeper experiencing of the many disparate elements of reality.   By incorporating conscious movement and breath-work to maintain awareness in high states of arousal, the student of Tantra comes to understand that sexual energy is the most direct means we have of connecting with the universal energy of Life itself.  He or she learns how to conduct their own life force to access clarity and joy moment by moment, breath by breath.

And yet,  sickness, aging and death are still “inevitable”.   Or are they?

When my good friend and fellow Tantra teacher Laurie Handlers invited me last year to meet her “immortal group of friends” in Phoenix,  I laughed.  But I had to admit to her that I was feeling a profound sense of well-being in her company, as I always did during our visits. She said, "I think you're immortal... you should come meet some others”.  I laughed again, and so did she!

She explained that physical immortality is not some far distant goal in a future beyond this world, but a bodily feeling, in this moment, that we are timeless, and free of any obligation to die. What is the sense, she argued, of doing all these tantric practices, just to “die healthy”?

Just as Tantra teaches that the sexual embrace does not have to end with a “little death” (le petite mort), Laurie spoke very passionately about life being more than a race to a finish line with an exhausting and final ending.  If our very cells have the power to self-replicate, what exactly “stops” them?  Could it be that our passive acceptance of our own death is a root cause of unworthiness and separation between people?  Is involuntary death actually a blight that underlies poor relationships, even war itself?

Whoa — how exactly do we take the death out of life?  Ninety percent of our media news is death-oriented, our so-called spiritual leaders promote endless ways of coping with it, billions of us are praying to our dead ancestors, and our daily conversations are saturated with death’s logic.  Either we’re getting “older now”,  or grieving our loved one’s passing, or accepting our own fate and making a will — death is very LOUD!

Enter People Unlimited Inc (PUI), a group of about two-hundred self-selected individuals from all walks of life who have come together for the express purpose of “...ending separation between people in order to promote and vivify the innate value and ability of the human body to transcend all limitations of disease, poverty, aging and death.”

It’s been almost two years since I have come to Phoenix to be with this eclectic gathering, and instead of trying to describe what People Unlimited Inc is, I’ll start by saying what it’s not.

People Unlimited is not really a group, or a “community” in the sense of people coming together to share a common belief system.  There are no beliefs here!  No right-doing or wrong-doing!

Likewise, it is not a “practice”, and there are no teachers or teachings, and no books to study.  Unlimited living is a radical departure from self-help, and has nothing to do with spiritual enlightenment, and even less to do with mental understanding.

Philosophic and psychological speculation is routinely (and usually uproariously) called out at a PUI event.  The egoic mind that habitually seeks to know and control is not coddled; “coming from the gut” is more than a platitude.

No gurus, no path, no remedy — just people walking together, supporting one another to really go for their own unlimited Life.  My own experience is that almost everyone I have met since arriving here exudes the same luscious sense of well-being that I first became aware of with Laurie.  Inexplicably, I have moved beyond longstanding habits (craft beers, minimal exercise and lack of sleep) to realize a health and vibrancy that I have not felt since I was a teenager.

By an organic process of simply coming together several times a month and freely expressing our lives to each other,  the people in this new movement act on the revolutionary proposition that life is unlimited, and given the right environment, organic, physical immortality is the next step for humankind.

I have come to believe (if I may use that word), that those of us who have found ourselves together in People Unlimited are creating a unique “field” of awareness or Life that is unprecedented in human experience.

I have awakened to this physical intelligence that is at once brand new and very familiar — it’s like getting reintroduced to a long-forgotten relative — only this time, it’s me!

Connecting Sex and Spirit (and Sendai)

What is Tantra?

Translated from Sanskrit, the word Tantra means "to weave" or "expand", and is a practice of accepting the highs and lows of life (and love), and weaving together the seeming opposites of spirit/body, good/bad, and even birth and death.

Moreover, Tantra is a physically-based spiritual path that accepts and celebrates the body as a temple. And yes, that includes sexuality. Tantra understands that the very energy of Life is sexual and can be used as a doorway to the sacred.

So what does any of this have to do with the triple-tragedy in Sendai?

I received a letter late last night from a friend of a friend, a young American woman who was teaching English in Sendai, and her account of the patience and tenderness with which she and her Japanese neighbors are living with one another stopped me in my tracks. She was literally describing what Tantrists call sacred space.

In the midst of all the chaos, grubbiness and hunger, she and her fellow survivors are living free from alienation and blaming. When one of their houses suddenly gets the water back on, owners put out a sign to announce to any and all who may need it. Doors are left unlocked and open (safer in all the aftershocks), and no one is concerned about looting. Strangers ask one another if everything is okay.

Life there has resumed a richness and a slowness that the elders describe as "the old days, when people used to help each other". The skies and roads are quiet, and the stars are abundant.

Big Energy

As I looked back and forth from my feeble attempt at a blog entry last night to her wonderful letter, I must admit, I had a moment of doubt. Was there anything I could possibly say about "connecting sex and spirit" that would have any relevancy in light of such profound changes as she described? Such BIG energy?

Oh.
Big energy changes everything.

Tantra acknowledges that sexuality might be about the only “big energy” we humans are aware of, or, at least, able to feel. The moments of birth and death could also be included, although being born and dying have a lot to do with sexuality.

We typically don't get much practical instruction and opportunity to become proficient at these major life occasions, much less "master" them. Nevertheless, we have all had our "moments", whether it was a wake or a birth, or losing ourselves in mind-blowing cosmic embrace. And many of us have experienced the peculiar still point that often opens up in time of catastrophe or sudden loss. None of us are strangers to Spirit.

"The" Practice

The simple perspective of noticing and honoring Spirit in all our human moments is a primary way that Tantra ushers in the same richness and slowness that my friend was describing in Sendai. As it turns out, our body-minds are geared for repose and compassion, but short of a major life intervention, we have to practice the dance of life.

It's always considered extraordinary when people come together to help each after a calamity, but what if this is our natural state of being? It's interesting to me that peace, love and tolerance is socially "weird". Similarly, why is it that our sexuality is commonly at odds with such peace and spirit?

For me, Tantra has been a way to thread together all these disparate aspects of life. The specific practice of moving the life force that I've always associated with sexuality to other parts of my body has been major. Practicing relaxation in high states of arousal in Tantra has also helped me stay calm in other circumstances of my "real" life, whether parenting or dealing with a difficult client.

In a full-blown catastrophe? We'll see.

PS - This Tuesday's Meetup Group in Prescott AZ, Connecting Love and Spirit, will be a chance for those of you in the area to learn specific exercises to connect with your own capacity to create the sacred in your life! http://www.meetup.com/The-Prescott-Tantra-Meetup-Group/

PPS - a copy of the letter from Sendai is here: http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/2678919/sendai-letter

Tools For Intimate Communication

"For one human being to love another is the most difficult task. It's the work for which all other work is preparation" Rainer Maria Rilke

"Do not wait; the time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along." George Herbert

The Long and Grinding Road

With the exception of learning how to "slow dance" in my 7th-grade guidance class, I never learned a thing about how to communicate with the opposite sex (girls) in my formative years. My father, bless his nervous heart, tried his best in those far-flung days of 60's radicalism to assure me that anything between a man and a woman was okay, "as long as you're both in love and use rubbers". Meanwhile, the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" droned on as the background music for my raging hormones. ("Why Don't We Do It In the Road?" was also in heavy rotation.)

Just where, pray tell, does one go to learn about "love"??

Many years later, following marriage, fathering and divorce, I stumbled upon Margot Anand's Sky-Dancing Tantra, and a simple exercise called "Intentions, Fears and Boundaries", a specific practice for speaking the truth with one's lover. And yes, it set me free, but not all at once.

The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off (Werner Erhart)

The very idea of talking, much less telling the truth in my intimate moments just seemed, well, weird. Wasn't it sufficient that my lover and I were entwined and breathing heavily, our words made obsolete by the overwhelming passion we were feeling? I remember as a young man actually practicing a kind of reckless abandon in my love-making, imagining that the fewer words spoken, the better.

Over the long haul, my way of loving without communicating in words degenerated into a tangle of false pretenses and an actual avoidance of relationship. I felt unable to ask for what I really wanted, and resented it when my partners did. Maybe love conquers all, but as a lover, I was as genuine as a costumed Napoleon!

Slowly Moving Beyond Resistance

What I came to understand as I confronted Margot's teaching was that my "strong silent type" persona was actually an elaborate way of hiding that gave strength to my negative feelings. Needless to say, my unspoken fears and anxieties prevented me from feeling safe and relaxed in the bedroom, and were even backing up and poisoning the other parts of my primary relationship!

Even though I resisted at first, I discovered that sharing these same feelings with my partner in an atmosphere of trust and sincerity dissipated their power. And as I listened to my partner truthfully expressing her deep feelings, it became obvious to both of us just how much more energy was freed up for our love-making as our bond of authenticity deepened.

As the goal of Tantra is to penetrate experience as deeply as possible, ("ecstasy"), our personal concealment of feelings become exposed as a fundamental split of the Self - they prevent us from wholeheartedly participating in love-making, or any other activity for that matter. The basic Tantric practices of creating sacred space and speaking our truth are incredibly useful tools for opening our hearts and growing into who we really are. Again, the link for a PDF to these readily accessible exercises is HERE.

"In the Spirit of Intimacy", Our Introductory Class To Tantra

Diana and I are teaching these fundamentals of Tantra, just as they were taught to us by Margot Anand, in our opening series of Meetup group gatherings in Prescott Arizona, from now through April. For more info on our In The Spirit Of Intimacy classes, visit our Prescott Tantra Meetup Group site (and join!); drop a line to gbardo@yahoo.com; or leave a message for us at 928-445-7501.

Namaste`
Glenn and Diana

Awakening To (Inner) Joy - February 22

Ardhanarishvara "Thou and She art each the half of one body."
~ Pushpadanta
"You are your ideal lover." ~ Barbara Carrellas

As Diana and I began to plan our opening sessions for the Prescott Tantra Meetup Group, the obvious question was where, exactly, does one launch into this whole adventure of sexual/spiritual discovery that we call "Tantra"? And we both had to admit, after all the years we've spent practicing Sky-Dancing Tantra together, that the only real place to begin is with oneself.

In this first of our four-part series "In the Spirit of Intimacy", we'll be sharing practices and exercises that you can use from you-to-you to open up to self-generated energy and pleasure. Discover if you can actually free yourself from needing someone "else" to turn you on. We will invite you to test our theory that you are the principal source of your own pleasure. No one can give you sexual ecstasy (or spiritual realization, for that matter); it comes from within.

Awakening to your own inner joy and loving yourself has nothing to do with being self-absorbed and narcissistic, quite the contrary. Giving to yourself first means welcoming yourself as the most honored quest in your own heart. By nurturing yourself fully, you free and expand your nurturing to others, most notably your lover. "Love your neighbor as yourself" , indeed!

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Creekside Center, 337 N. Rush St, Prescott AZ

7:00 - 9:00 pm

Donations Graciously Accepted!

Questions/Comments: Diana at 928-445-7501/Glenn at 507-649-2488

• Meet with like-minded others in a safe and supportive environment as we explore, communicate and celebrate the body-based spiritual path of Tantra.

• With simple and fun exercises of breath, movement and communication, we will rediscover the deep wisdom of the whole body, and open to trusting the spiritual nature of our human sexuality.

• Join us and celebrate the union of the masculine and feminine in yourself and in all your relationships!
  
  
• Rediscover and feel how sexual energy is the physical expression of your higher consciousness
  
  
• No nudity or explicit sexual activity. Held in a space of respect, safety and serenity.
  

"Our sexual energy is the source of our life force energy and a primary key to a happy life. What we'd like to do is awaken the inner sexual being that we often keep stuffed down in that one little lower part of our bodies and allow it to move freely throughout the entire mind, body and spirit. The part of ourselves that we call our sex center is our creative center, our life force center.

There really is no such thing as going-to-the-store energy, doing-our-work energy, and then - over there somewhere else - *sexual energy*. It's all life-force energy. Tantra is the practice of using that so-called sexual life-force energy all the time in ways that nurture us. We are all capable of feeling a lot better, but you have to be willing to learn how to feel, and it all starts with you.

We have all spent so much time looking for our ideal lovers, wondering if we've found that person or if we ever will find that person. You can stop looking - you've found them! And the best part is, you will always be there for you , you'll never leave you, you'll always want sex when you do, and - your parents would probably even approve of your choice." ~ Barbara Carrellas

Practicing Ecstasy - In the Library!

Diana and I hosted our first gathering of the Prescott Tantra Meetup Group today at the Prescott Public Library. After we discussed ancient and modern Tantra, breathed to our bellies, danced wildly and meditated silently, we danced again, just because we could. In the library!

What was abundantly clear to us all today was the simple "okay-ness" of our human sexuality, and it's connection to spirit, or the Divine, as Diana likes to call it. Ranging in age from 20-something to 70-something, our large group quickly broke out in laughter and giggles as we did the "pelvic walk", moved our aroused energy up to our hearts, and hushed to a prayerful stillness as we exchanged appreciations in the concluding Puja circle.

Amazing.

Thanks to all of you for showing up and BEING, and thank you to Peter and Lewis from the Prescott Healing Arts Association for sponsoring our event.

Our Tantric Meetup Group moves to it's permanent address at the Creekside Center in Prescott later this month. Watch this space for details, and join up (if you so desire) at the Prescott Tantra Meetup Group.

Namaste` dear hearts,
Glenn and Diana


"How can we hope to heal the planet, save the rain forests, establish peace among the nations and religions, when the universal symbol and activity of human love is poisoned in our individual minds? How can love flourish when our religions tell us sex is sinful, and that our flesh is the enemy of our spirit? The damage caused by the condemnation of sex, is incalculable: violence, rape, emotional afflictions, perhaps even war itself." ~ Margot Anand

"Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn reverence for life until we learn reverence for sex." ~ Havelock Ellis

Tantra 101

A friend who reads this blog asked me today for some Tantra soundbites, something *simple*. "Okay", I said.

• The worldly and the spiritual are not separate. In tantra, worldly enjoyments are not to be shunned. “What is here is everywhere. What is not here is nowhere.” (Vishvasara Tantra) As Alan Finger put it, “Every cell in your brain reflects a star in the cosmos.”
  
  
• In Tantra, we practice approaching life (and love) with a relaxed body, an open heart, and a peaceful mind. As we become stable in states of arousal, we can weave this ecstasy into everyday life.
  
  
• The underlying reality of existence is feminine (Shakti); this divine feminine force resides in our bodies at the base of the spine and is known as Kundalini. Tantric practices are designed to awaken this infinitely intelligent, creative, evolutionary energy.
  
  
• We are all born with certain limitations. Through tantra, we engage in a process of transformation that, as I heard Gary Kraftsow once put it, “metabolizes dysfunction in body, mind, and speech.”
  
  
• The body is a living shrine, and each chakra (energy center) a sacred temple. In other words, to access the Divine, investigate inside.
  

• And lest we take this all too seriously, I find it helpful to remember that Tantra is about naked awareness: not something to believe in, but something to try out for yourself. As the Buddha used to say (so I'm told), "Come and see."

"Forget about sex. Just play first. Dance, sing, read to each other, breathe together - communicate. Don't count on sex to be the door to intimacy. It's the other way around: first develop intimacy skills. Then make love to enjoy them." - Margot Anand