More Love, Less Suffering

MY BELOVED left Seattle this afternoon after spending 30 days here with me. For those of you who haven't read of Anyaa in this blog before (you must really be new!), she lives in North Carolina, and we've been in serious face-to-face relationship for 9 months, and began speaking on the phone for hours at a time 2 months before that.

This has been made possible because Anyaa facilitates The Shamanic Priestess Process (TM) all over the country and was just beginning a 9-month circle in Portland when she called me in, and I found her, thanks to an online dating site. We'll officially be at one year on August 30th. A milestone. She's now beginning a Seattle circle which will keep her coming back to Seattle for that period of time, maybe more.

What an amazing journey this has been with this amazingly conscious woman. I've never been in a relationship like this before, and she feels the same. The things we've manifested together during this 11 month period, starting with each other, are a wonder, and continue to unfold almost daily.

Already awakening in my own path, this relationship has kicked my consciousness into high gear, challenging me, calling me on my stuff - sometimes lovingly, sometimes brutally, read David Deida's The Way of the Superior Man - teaching me to compassionately receive not only love, but criticism, all the while keeping my heart open with having to defend myself or become defensive.

It continues to teach me about all the things I talk about in Big Love Integral: engulfment, abandonment, core wounds, opening - and to keep opening - my heart, all the relationship practices, expressing and releasing, how it all fits within an integral context, and much, much More.

I know....the title of this post, More Love, Less Suffering, is easy when things are going great, and much harder when it's not happening. But what that's about is, as Anyaa left this afternoon, I found myself not suffering, even though she won't be back for three weeks, when we'll get to spend another 10 days together, deepening once more. I'm not suffering because, as our love continues to deepen and keeps going to new unimaginable levels, I don't doubt.

Perfect....my own relationship inspires me to deeper and deeper levels with my Big Love workshop. Pure manifestation. This is my intent. This is my reality.

A "What is Enlightenment" Catastrophe

In the latest issue of "What is Enlightenment," Andrew Cohen and Ken talk about enlightenment for women and how they have to get past and give up their sexual (feminine) power in order to become enlightened.

Andrew's approach is a total disaster, replete with an unbelievable reductionist view and total confusion and lack of understanding in the difference between "woman" and "the Feminine," and disappointingly, Ken does not correct him, but merely places what Andrew is saying into an integral context (to his credit, he does this very well).

Andrew totally fails to recognize any understanding that there might be different approaches to enlightenment. Before you protest, he's basically saying that the only approach is the masculine, that a feminine approach doesn't work, and that women have to drop the feminine in order to become enlightened. He does not ask that men drop the masculine to do the same.

He also claims to have been working on breaking through with this approach for 12 years and that he has finally cracked the code. Could that have anything to do with the fact that he's a man? Perhaps not in every case, but in this one, my answer is a definite "yes."

Women have been successfully doing this work for over thirty years. Too bad Andrew's ego wouldn't allow him to work with some of them as a student, instead of doing a spiritual bypasss himself, having his women students do the same, not by integrating the feminine, but by transcending and excluding it. This is like "enlightened" fundamantalism.

I'm talking to a lot of conscious women who are outraged by Andrew's audacity and I share that outrage. What a shame!

See my partner Anyaa McAndrew's blog on the same subject.

The Shamanic Priestess Process: Differentiation, Integration

The more I learn about The Shamanic Priestess Process (TM), the more impressed I am with it as a transformational path for women. Yeah, I know......it's flowery, it's feminine, and it's full of stuff we men just don't get. That's the point. It's a feminine (communion) path in a masculine (agentic) world. That's why it works so well.

The Shamanic Priestess Process is coming to Seattle, and I urge women who are seeking ways of differentiating from what they've been doing that somehow isn't working for them, to check out one of the free previews coming on these dates:

• Tuesday, March 20th, 7:30 pm, University Heights Center, 5031 University Wy NE
• Tuesday, May 22nd, 7:30 pm, Ananda Meditation Ctr, 6509 Roosevelt Way NE
• Thursday, June 28th, 7:30 pm, The Integral Loft, 80 Yesler Wy, ste 300

This deep and life changing process is getting rave reviews from the women who have experienced it.

"The Priestess process is an enlivening and powerful exploration of the Divine Feminine - both within and without. It is an essential step in self-actualization and cultural evolution. I highly recommend it. Buckle up, it's quite a ride." - DG

"Simply stated, it is the most incredible gift I could have given myself in this lifetime." - EM

Differentiation to Integration. Listen to this radio interview with Shamanic High Priestess and Transpersonal Psychotherapist, Anyaa McAndrew, where she really lays out the process and what women can expect from it.

For more information: Kathryn Russell. 206.525.2025