Pictures from the Sedona Daka/Dakini Conference

"Sri Goji" with Anyaa above,
Temple Gardens below

Temple gardens

Red Rocks Cathedral

Self made Man

Anyaa and Dez

Body painting TayloreAnyaa Presenting with Dez

Sedona Red Rocks

Beautiful Cacti

The Temple Pools

Temple gardens

Gary and Anyaa

Rewriting Civilzation's History: 9500 Year Old City Found

4500-year-old HarappanThe civilization of Ancient Egypt occurred in a past so remote that today it seems mystical. The pyramids and other temples, with their hieroglyphics depicting a flourishing civilization, have a mysterious, almost magical appeal. It seems inconceivable that people of an advanced society could have walked those ancient streets.

Now, it was announced in January, a civilization has been uncovered that would have appeared just as ancient to the people who built the pyramids as the pyramids seem to us.

Ancient Underwater City Found Off India: Discovery in Bay of Cambay Will Force Western Archaeologists to Rewrite History

Chalk up one for those who insist our planet has hosted many lost civilizations that existed long before Mesopotamia. "This news completely contradicts the position of most Western historians and archaeologists, who (because it did not fit their theories) have always rejected, ignored, or suppressed evidence of an older view of mankind's existence on planet Earth. Human civilization is now provably much more ancient than many have believed."

Another Approach to Shadow

Besides being a transpersonal Psychotherapist, My partner Anyaa is also one of the better-known Shamanic Astrologers in the US, having studied with Daniel Giamario, the acknowledged creator of Shamanic Astrology.

She's written a powerful blog about how Shamanic Astrology knowledge tells us about what going on in our divine connection to ourselves and the awareness around the practice that connects us with that Divine, and she's been inundated with responses from others who say they've been feeling the same thing in their lives.

Read it here.

The Sedona Daka/Dakini Conference Wrap Up

It is good to be back home in the Great Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina. We arrived in Asheville at 9pm on Wednesday night, picked up by our good friend, Pam. She brought Anyaa's other Beloved, Miss Lily, The Shamanic Girl Dog, a vibrant 14 year old Westie Terrier, and Pam's own Yorkie, Molly. Miss Lily and Molly are the best of friends.

It's been cloudy with sporadic rain since we arrived home, and for the first time, it appears we'll have sunshine today. The mountains have again exploded with green while we were gone for 10 ten days, My inner feminine loves the rebirth going on as you see the difference day by day. A stark contrast to an also beautiful Sedona.

The Daka/Dakini Conference held at the Sedona School of Temple Arts was actually quite good. The 70 percent of the offerings that were "consciouness-light," or new-agey, were offset by the 30 percent that was really good, powerful and important curriculum. Anyaa is stiill getting a lot of response from her presentation and it appears there will be a women's circle, "Awakening The Sexual Priestess," in Vancouver, BC, that will emerge because of it. This the work of her conference presentation, Stages of Healing the Wounded Feminine.

I had an opportunity to speak further with David Cates, a presenter I talked about in an earlier Sedona blog. David is well aware of the other paths to awareness, but only had time to focus on the masculine path of emptiness, eros, or what some call "up and out." I wish he would haave made that distinction in his presentation. As it was, he appeared to championing the masculine path.

If you are, or have any interest in being, a Sacred Sexual Healer, then this is the conference for you, especially the pre or post conference intensives, perhaps even with an apprenticeship with the Sedona School of Temple Arts. I really miss all of those participants. Deep bonds form quickly through authentic sharing.

Coming soon: Stepping Into Our Power: or, the art of do-be-do-be-do....

Last Day, Daka/Dakini Conference

Sunday was actually the last day of the official Daka/Dakini Conference and Monday night began the post event: A five-day intensive designed to assist sexual healers improve their skills. This is primarily about helping healers increase their manual skills as well as their awareness around shadow issues, primarily their own, thereby developing more empathy with their clients, and assisting the healers in becoming more authentic. This is critical to better serve their clients.

Anyaa and I were here through Tuesday as she facilitated the opening circle on Monday evening and an all-day Shamanic Breathwork (TM) for the 16 attendees. Others will facilitate the rest of the week.

Monday night's opening circle was pretty amazing. First we did a check in on why we were there and what our intentions were for the week. Most of the attendees were Sacred Sexual Healers, a concept that scares the crap out of most Americans, but given the nature of shadow around sex, especially in the US, extremely important work. The amount of sexual abuse, repression, birth trauma, guilt and shame are epidemic, and they affect every aspect of our lives.

Of course there are sexual healers who are frauds and seriously damaged and do harm, but the people who are attending this post conference event are authentic in helping others reclaim their sexuality, and sometimes, their lives. A lot of Sacred Sexual Healers come to this work because they've been damaged themselves, and helping to heal others has become a passion, as well as part of their healing process.

Anyaa became seriously involved in this movement because of her passion as a psychotherapist working with rape victims after getting her master's degree in the 1970's. She's been doing women's work ever since, helping women integrate the healthy masculine and reclaim their full power as women. She continues that work in her role as a Sacred Sexuality Educator.

Back to Monday Night: After checking in, we were introduced to Shawn Roop, a Tantra teacher from San Diego. Shawn did a presentation on Tantra that was amazing and completely unlike any I had ever seen (in my somewhat limited experience). Shawn is not merely a presenter and facilitator. He has extraordinary presence and ease, and is one of those rare individuals who provide a transmission to his audience. His talk and experiential demonstration of Tantra, especially as it applied to the Chakras as a diagnosis tool, has absolutely nothing to do with sex. In fact, he pointed out that Tantra is not about sex at all, but an all-encompassing ancient wisdom that includes sex, as it does all aspects of life. I do believe I've found one of my next teachers.

Shawn's website offers free Tantra talks and I highly recommend him.

Tuesday was breathwork day. Many of the participants had done different types of breathwork, but this was their first exposure to Shamanic Breathwork (TM). I've written here before about the Shamanic Breathwork (TM) Process and how I consider it to be a truly powerful integral process, so I won't go into that here.

Anyaa is a gifted breathwork facilitator of 20+ years and all of the 16 participants had powerful and evocative experiences. Breaking into partners, one person breathed in the morning while the co-journeyer held space, keeping the breather safe and looking after their needs, with the roles reversed for the afternoon. That night, after dinner we came back and Anyaa skillfully led us through the process that allows us to integrate our journey into our lives. This is truly life changing transformational work!

This is a wonderful group of people, some of whom have powerful visions of how they want to change the world, starting with themselves.

Anyaa and I got into bed very late Tuesday night, after she and the facilitators for the rest of the week downloaded all that was happening, and on two-and-half hours sleep, we crankily got in our rented convertible (a choice of cars we really loved in the Sedona sun) to drive to the Phoenix Sky Harbor to begin our journey back to North Carolina. Exhausted.

A great ten days. A wrap-up on the conference comes next.

Sedona Daka/Dakini Conference Wrap Up

I'm not going to have time to post today. This is Anyaa's and my last day in Sedona and we have a full schedule. Anyaa's facilitating an all day Shamaanic Breathwork (TM) journey and we have to pack and be on the road to the Phoenix Sky Harbor at 6am tomorrow morning.

I plan on writing on the plane back to Asheville, telling about Monday's events, todays' breathwork, and a wrap up of the entire conference.

Meanwhile, blessings to all.

Gary

Day 7: The Sedona Daka/Dakini Conference

We missed the first presenter this morning because Anyaa had a therapy session with a client. I could have gone alone, but welcomed the chance to just hang out around the temple,talking with people.

We arrived at Future Studios about 10:30am, where the morning sessions were taking place, in time to hear David Cates, another keynote speaker.

David Cates is now an elder in the sexual healing revolution. Thirty years ago he worked his way through college as one of the first male strippers in New York (five years before Chippendales hit the scene!). In the San Francisco underground, he was turned on to the sacred dimensions of sex, and shifted his private counseling practice to full-time daka work. He has shared his healing gifts with thousands of clients in the US, Europe and Australia, keeping his work fresh by constantly incorporating new bodymind modalities and leading-edge science into his profoundly intuitive understanding of the ancient temple arts. All the tricks boil down to this: Pay Close Attention, Be Fully Present, and Let Go!

A quote from David:

“The universe is fucking ALIVE! And ego is NOT the vehicle that can carry any of us to ecstasy. Aligning our multidimensional bodies with the present moment allows full penetration, bliss and conscious co-creation. At the oscillation rate of atoms – where Source pops through the quantum field into form – we are birthing our bodies 40 million times each second. Get in harmony with THAT!“We can’t muscle through or control it; we can only surrender…“Luckily, white tantra shows us how to relax into the tremulous vibration at the heart of matter. We don’t DO the Sacred Union; we ARE the Sacred Union. Realizing this at our core awakens us to the infinite, eternal,
ongoing orgasm of life. Identity bursts into flames. Everything else falls away."

By itself, really good stuff. However, during his presentation, David also seemed to be saying stop all the practices, stop working on yourselves and just let go into surrender.

At later stages of development, this can happen. But at survival, tribal, power, mythological, achievement, and egalitarian stages of consciousness this could be a disaster. Again, the problem is that letting go gets interpreted at the level of consciousness of the particular individual.

Some one at amber/mythological (Wilber's model) is going to have a completely different experience than someone at Spiral Dynamics' (Don Beck's model) orange/achiever levels.

The better known names in developmental psychology, like Susanne Cook-Greuter, Bill Torbet, and Bob Kegan, know that most adults are not actually developmentally ready for most of the intervention work that is commonly offered in the helping professions....nor are they capable of having anything but peak (state) experiences of higher levels of consciousness.

So the question becomes, is telling people drop what they're doing and just let go good advice? It depends on an individual's level of development. David Cates can do it, and that's his truth, but he's been doing the prep work that he seems to be asking others to stop for thirty years.

In addition, what David is describing is the masculine path of emptiness, or eros. There's also the feminine path of embracing the world, coomunion or agape. And beyond that is the path of both/and: doing the work and releasing it to the universe. No attachment.

Later that day

We took the afternoon off to get out on the land of Sedona. We visited a vortex and stood for five minutes for all of the women of the world. What an incredibly beautiful place!

At 5:30 we attended the Tantric Circus: a group of about 6-7 performers who do live and multimedia performance art based on the tantric perspective. This was erotic, delicious, funny and beautiful. The Tantric Circus performs all over the west coast and if you get a chance, I highly recommend it.

More tomorrow.

Day 6: The Sedona Daka/Dakini Conference

I'm finding myself somewhat amazed that the majority of teachings here at the conference are so basic and elementary. So much so, that I'm left with the conclusion that the majority of these attendees, sex workers, tantra teachers, healers, etc., simply have not done their own work.

As Anyaa, my Beloved, so eloquently pointed out in her talk, Healing the Wounded Feminine, and referring to Wilber's state/stages model, people can get a taste of higher stages of consciousness through ecstatic, or altered, state experiences, and "spiritually bypass" (as she calls it) their present stage. They think they've moved to a higher level of consciousness, when all they are really doing is interpreting that glimpse of the next stage from their own level of consciousness.

What's worse is, if they haven't completed the personal work that needs to be done translatively, that is, horizontal development, the widest and healthiest perspective possible at a particular stage, they tend to disassociate from what they haven't completed, leaving unhealthy aspects of that stage in their psyches that will come back and kick their ass later. It's unavoidable. It becomes shadow.

It's not until one attains the widest and healthiest perspective at their present stage (translation), that they're ready to move into the next stage. This is transformation, or vertical development, where one transcends and includes the previous stage, being able to call on that stage's particular qualities as they are needed. If those qualities aren't healthy, pathologies will develop and a healer can wind up doing more harm than good.

Beside....it can make for really boring presentations.

Although Anyaa's presentation was about Healing the Wounded Feminine, both men and women have been coming up to her, some crying, some ecstatically happy to have these realizations pointed out to them. Many of them have said that they recognized themselves in her presentation and have committed to seeking out the personal work they need, many of the women with her. Some have called her presentation profound and deep. I agree.

I am so honored to love and to be loved by this woman.

For more on transformation and translation go here: The Nature of Translation: Stop and LiveIt's the third video down.

Day 5: Trapped by Naked Yoga! and a whole lot more!

After a late night, Anyaa and I were awakened by the sound of people rustling about in the temple space outside our door. "Oh, no," I said, "Naked Yoga's in the temple!" Since the exit to rest of the house was through the door to the temple, we felt trapped. Fortunately, we also have an outside door that requires us to go around this huge house....Naked Yoga....That's cool. My non-participation is more about my newness to yoga than nudity.

Today kicked off the actual conference, and it was much more powerful, significant, and conscious than my experience yesterday. After a welcome by Baba Dez, the conference organizer, the three keynote speakers each did a 45-minute presentation.
The first was a couple from Chicago, Dr. Elsbeth Meuth and Freddy Zental Weaver, who teach Tantra to couples to enhance relationships. They did a piece on the Showtime "Sexual Healing" special they were featured in last year that was excellent. They do great work.

My partner, Anyaa McAndrew, was the second keynote speaker. She spoke eloquently about Stages of Healing the Wounded Feminine. Anyaa's a psychotherapist who has been working with women's issues for thirty years. Today's presentation was part one, about identifying the shadow aspects of the feminine, describing the wound and it's archetypes in detail. Both men and women kept coming up to her all day, telling her how much her talk meant to them. Tomorrow she'll do part two, about the healing processes needed.

The third keynote speakers were Dr. Sasha & Janet Lessin, a polyamorous couple who were to speak on Adoring Aphrodite, but their talk seemed more personal about their own journeys, heavily laden with stories of sexual healing. Dr. Sasha seemed rushed and wound up (sacred sacraments?) but the message was good.

There other good workshops that afternoon, including teachers from Charles Muir's Tantric Source School in Hawaii on Sacred Spot Massage. Charles Muir is pretty much the acknowledged leader of the American tantra movement.

Great stuff, today, including a wonderful concert ....no new age fluff. All important work.

More tomorrow.

Day 4 at the Daka/Dakini Conference: The Green Hits The Fan.....

At any large gathering of people where consciousness and awareness is in the forefront, including the integral movement, there's going to be a certain amount of "new-agism." This Sacred Sexual Healing conference is no exception.

Today I attended a 4 hour workshop with 20 other people on "conscious manifestation," one of dozens events taking place at this conference. At $100 a person for the session, I was expecting a lot. I already knew that I need to cut away and get rid of my self-limiting beliefs (I couldn't do that, I'm not good enough, etc.), and what I was looking for was how to do that: good tools that would help me learn how to better draw in the energy of abundance through my passion of service to men and couples, what's called "God-Money.

To begin, one of the two facilitators of the session was almost an hour late. There was a veiled apology (an excuse, really, with no apology) that he had been meditating and lost track of time. Ka-ching.

We then began an energy based meditation, that lasted an hour, with the intention of creating a vortex in the center of the room where we could deposit all of our self-limiting beliefs, having them disappear down the vortex. As the meditation proceeded, people began moaning and squirming, some coming together in the middle of the room, climbing all over each other (in the vortex....).

After a short break, the facilitators took us through an hour of very rudimentary teaching around self-limiting beliefs. Because I'd heard so much of this before, I felt like I was in a total beginner's class, including the facilitators, and found myself somewhat amazed that everyone seemed so taken with what I considered obvious and basic information. During a question and answer period, people asked questions that, in my opinion, weren't answered. What kind of conscious work had these people been doing?

In the last hour, we were guided back into another meditation, this one about releasing the things that holding us back, then taking our power, placing it in the middle of the room, with everyone then using every one's power to enhance their own. All the time I'm thinking, WTF? This time, at the end, almost the entire group was rolling around the floor with each other, grouping, humping, touching, and now I'm thinking about how many sex workers use what they're doing as a disguise and cover for their own sexual addictions.

As I continue to step into my own work with men and couples, I realize, once again, what a bunch of shallow new age stuff there is out there, how many people take advantage of others, and how gullible people can be. In my opinion, there was nothing in this workshop that was of value, and that it was appealing to people who think they're moving through or toward more self aware stages, when in actuality, they're having state experiences that they're interpreting as higher consciousness, spiritually by-passing the actual work that has to be done to get there.

In fairness, both facilitators have manifested a lot of abundance in their lives, but abundance is not the measurement of higher stages of consciousness. Sorry, Charlie...this was way too new age for me.

I'm going to try to find the primary facilitator and ask him if he's open to feedback, and then try to discover just what his intentions were. Maybe he was trying to reach them at their particular level of development, but that is not my sense. I want to make sure I'm not wrong about this.

Tomorrow: trapped by Naked Yoga

Day 3: A Profundity of Paradoxes

This morning I woke up feeling both profound sadness and joy: Sadness around my inability to heal others and joy at the richness of blessings in my life. Realizing that these feelings are a spiral, and that, like the ocean, they come and go, kissing the shore and leaving their mark. The sadness felt like a wave, the joy like the ocean, and tho' they appear to be separate, they are not.

The workshop today was about gender healing within each of us. Anyaa led the workshop, which consisted of us pairing off in gender pairs, each holding space for the other as we travelled through the process.

We each brought a crystal that was anointed with spikenard, the purest of essence oil, which is said to be used by Mary of Magdalene to wash and anoint Jesus' feet. Using the crystal to pass through the chakras, beginning at the crown chakra, each of us passed through both the masculine and feminine essence of our selves, as Anyaa led us through an amazing healing process that allowed us to let go of all of the gender wounding that has haunted us through the ages. The end result was as if a huge weight of guilt, sadness, and pain had been lifted from each of us. I highly recommend the process if you ever have an opportunity to experience it.

That night we each did a presentation on our gift to the world. I have discovered that I am a gifted stand-up comic, as I became, in costume, Sri Goji, who was berry, berry happy to be there. The group of 16 cracked up as I explained that I was so enlightened that instead of an aura, I had a Corona. I then channeled the enlightened spirituality of Gomer Pyle and Jimmy Stewart, who proclaimed that it was A Wonderful After Life.....After taking some questions about spirituality (some of the dumbest questions I ever heard). In the future, I'll wrap it up channeling Louie Armstrong singing "What a Wonderful World.

Like so many groups I've been in during the past few years, the connections with the others are fast and deep, and I've made some wonderful new friends.

We have Thursday off and the actual conference begins on Friday.

Day 2: Sedona Daka/Dakini Conference

We began today by spending some time in the Watsu pool at the beautiful Sedona Temple. This is a magnificent house with beautiful gardens, pools, and rock streams surrounded by towering red rocks.

After shopping for some groceries, and finishing settling in, the pre-conference group of 14 had a catered lunch together before kicking off the afternoon session, the beginning of the pre-conference. A lot of the other attendees are apprenticing with Baba Dez, Anyaa's co-facilitator in this process.

We began the afternoon session with some movement and ecstatic dance that was sensuous and altering. After that, Anyaa and Baba Dez led about an hour long "puja," a lovely heart-to-heart sacred intimacy building guided meditation process, with people moving from person to person, about claiming our inner masculine and feminine selves. We then had a sharing circle about who we are and why we're here.

Why I'm Here

Well, first I'm here because my partner, Anyaa, is one of the major presenters at the conference, and I'm here to support her in that process, and to enjoy her and our time together. But more, I'm here because I believe that healing between the masculine and the feminine is one of the most important issues facing humanity. Again, the wounds on both are so massive and they affect every aspect of our lives. For my part, healing the masculine, and moving men from David Deida's second stage to third stage, is the work I am choosing to do. A huge portion of that healing has to do with our sexuality.

After dinner, we gathered in separate circles, men and women. I can't speak to what happened in the women's circle, but we began by talking about our experiences of the afternoon. My sense was that this part was pretty lightweight work, but then I'm usually facilitating this work. The best part of the evening was the experiential process of healing our father wounds by being able to lie with each other and just be safely held by the masculine with no agenda. To do this, all six of us "spooned" in a line, holding each other and allowing ourselves. The importance of this work, besides the healing of our wounds, allows us to hold our children, our loved ones, and each other, just being present, and amazing gift that so many of us cannot do.

Tomorrow we're supposed to go much deeper with Anyaa facilitating the day.

The Sedona Daka/Dakini Conference, 2008

Monday, May 05, 2008

On Monday, Anyaa and flew to Sedona, Arizona, to attend what will be my first Daka/Dakini conference. What’s a Daka/Dakini conference? This one, consisting of 10 days with pre and post events, is one of the largest in the US, and will consist of about 185 sexual healers and practioners from around the world.

The conference is hosted by Anyaa’s long time friend, and sometimes teaching partner, Baba Dez, at the beautiful Sedona Temple, his home. Anyaa will be one of the major presenters and will be speaking on the Stages of Healing the Wounded Feminine, based on an article of the same name she wrote especially for this conference.

While here, I’ll be body painting for the attendees for donations. I brought a small compressor, my body paints, brushes, and my airbrush. Hopefully, we’ll have some photos, too.

Since I’ve never attended a conference quite like this, I’m not completely sure what to expect, in spite of reading the schedule of presenters, and being told some of what it will be like.

There are some things happening at the conference that I won’t be participating in. For instance, there’s Naked Yoga every morning, but Anyaa and I have our own practices that we’ll be adhering to. At one point in my life, I would probably have participated, but not today, even though I’m really in the best shape I’ve been in years. It’s not about that.

I’ll write some about it every day, including how I feel about it from an integral perspective. Given the number of sexually wounded people in this world, to a degree that I’ve only realized since my relationship with Anyaa began a year and a half ago, I expect there will be some really important work and learning going on, but I also expect some new-age fluff….and a lot of narcissism. No surprise….it happens in “integral” communities and gatherings, as well.

You Are The River: An Interview with Ken Wilber

Here's a link to an interview with Ken on Salon.com, giving a great overview of who he is, and what "integral" is.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/04/28/ken_wilber/index1.html

PS: at some point, I expect this to be removed by Salon.com, so I've saved a copy in my files

The Great Rebate Debate Conundrum

I received the joke email posted below from a friend, and promptly passed it around to some of my friends, initially thinking it was pretty funny:

Dear friends and family,

The federal government is sending each of us a $600 rebate. If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money will go to China .
If we spend it on gasoline it will go to the Arabs. If we purchase a computer it will go to India. If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico , Honduras , and Guatemala. If we purchase a good car it will go to Japan. If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy.

The only way to keep that money here at home is to buy prostitutes, beer and cigarettes, since these are the only products still produced in the US . Or you can send it all to me and I will be sure to put it back into our economy.

Thank you for your help.

But the more I thought about it, the more seriously I began taking it. It represents so much that is wrong with the U.S. today.

One of the first things I thought of is the Chinese proverb, "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day...teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." That this is "feeding" those of us who will receive rebate checks for a day, surely cannot be disputed. Worse, it's buying us off. it's a short-term feel-good sugar placebo that does nothing for us in the the long run, except put us further in debt.

Oh, you thought it really is a rebate, that we're being refunded money we sent in to the IRS? Silly you! Every cent we pay in taxes goes toward interest on the federal debt! We're making minimum payments on a maxed out credit card.That bring us to the next problem with the rebate.

If it's not a refund of tax dollars, then where's the money coming from? remember that Chinese proverb above? Well, proverbs aren't the only thing we're borrowing from the Chinese....Our government is taking us further into debt. Worse, as the email points out, most of us will probably spend it on electronics, or clothing, made in ....you guessed it: China.

But, you're gonna get it, whether you agree with it philosophically, or not.

So.....what's a good way to spend the mastur.....oops, rebate that you're going to get, that doesn't include prostitutes, beer, and cigarettes? I'm glad you asked....

• Buy local produce and food stuffs from a farmer's market in your area. After all, all economies will soon be local (what's left?), might as well support them now so they'll be there when your really need them;


• Better still, rip up that worthless water guzzling lawn abomination and invest in a garden and start growing your own organic fruits and vegetables;


• Put a down payment on a tankless on-demand hot water heater, so that when energy prices climb out of your reach, you'll still have hot water;]


• If you don't already own one, buy a bike...maybe an American made motorized bike (okay, the engines aren't homegrown).....but how can you argue with 250 miles to the gallon?


• Consciously choose to spend your dollars locally and in the US. Search out and find websites like www.madeinusa.com/ - "There are 293 million people living in the United States. If each one would shift $20 a month in spending from foreign made products to American made products, that would create 5 million new jobs."


• Want to save your rebate? Stashing your cash in a locally owned bank is one more great way to keep money circulating in your local economy and to support your local businesses and community endeavors.


• In the new home Anyaa and I are building, we're going to put in greywater systems and composting toilets that turn human waste into an organic compost and usable soil,. Yeah, I know, but read about 'em, first...it's a crime to use drinking water to flush waste when people are dying because they don't have clean water.

My list took less than half an hour to develop. Perhaps you can turn me on to some of your ideas. Phew! I feel so much better!

A Response to the "Non-Dual" Posting

I'm posting a response I got from my blog of a few days ago, "An Experiential Realization of the Non-Dual." My new friends, Chuck and Thea, own the property next door and are also building a Deltec, and we plan on sharing geothermal heating and cooling and a well to reduce costs.

Thea wrote this beautiful response to my post, and then gave me permission to post it. The words speak for themselves,

Gary

************************************************

Dear Gary,

I Read your blog and have had the experience of weeping after sex from the feeling of being in total ONENESS. Of Opening to a love so big (you know that one!) that it just cracked me open.

I have also experienced the presence of a "third." I have equated this to the souls of future children approaching or coming close, attracted by the energy of lovemaking, who would be being conceived were they coming into body at this (or that particular) time. I believe that evolved souls who are not in physical form can be conceived and birthed within our consciousness.

In other words, they are our children (ie: souls of our creations) walking with us on the other side.As a parent I know how powerful it is to conceive a child (especially consciously) and how much they have to teach us. Perhaps these more evolved souls don't need to take on a form to teach us about our evolution into the other dimensions. And obviously we are teaching them as well -- perhaps we hold the piece of readiness to co-create with them so we can all move on. It feels very compassionate to me to co-create with these beings without having the need to bring them into physical form.

As we ascend up the Chakras we conceive on higher and higher levels, and the form changes. The feelings of ONENESS and LOVE are what are guiding us there. Our physical children are fragmented parts, or extensions, of ourselves, and now the tables are turning -- we are returning. WE have loved each other so many times before, and now we get to go home -- back to the light of which we are made of at our core. The light of LOVE.

Thank you for allowing yourself this opening.

XOXO

Thea

The Soon-To-Be Infamous Grilling Ceremony

Almost two years ago, as my partner, Anyaa, was starting to seriously consider calling in a Beloved, she was gifted a Grilling ceremony by two of her closest friends.

Knowing Anyaa was frustrated at not being able to find a life partner, her friends, Dennis and Judith – mostly Dennis, who apparently devised the ceremony – came up with an idea: They bought and assembled a barbeque grill for her, and created the “grilling ceremony.”

While visiting Anyaa at Isis Cove – they bought the lot directly behind Anyaa’s current property, and will be building next year right next door to our new property – Dennis set up the grill and instructed Anyaa to create a list of everything she wanted to bring forth in a man.

Inviting Brad and Star Wolf, the founders of Isis Cove, the five of them added and threw out qualities and items to Anyaa’s list, until she had just what she wanted, the ideal man to call in.

As the charcoals reached the ready point, they had Anyaa throw the list into the coal fire, sending the intentions on the list out to the universe, and then proceeded to cook the evening’s meal on it, including meat.

2700 miles away, my nose hit the air and thought, “what is that?” I’d like to think it was about the same time I wrote this blog, finally getting serious about finding my own Beloved.

Since meeting Dennis, he’s become my new best friend, and I love his wife, Judith, as well!

So now it’s my turn to pay it forward for another. So, next month, I’ll be doing a grilling ceremony for another single woman at Isis Cove, Sarah Jane, who is an extraordinary cook. She’s already started her list, and a bunch of us will gather at her house overlooking Isis Cove, add to her list, burn it on the new grill, and call her beloved in…..

I’ll be calling in the upper left quadrant for the sweetest, most thoughtful and compassionate man, the upper right quadrant for the strong physical attributes she’s looking for, the lower right for the systems to all be in place and in good working order to enable them to connect, and the lower left that will help them further develop the kind of community they’ll both want to be a part of.

We’ll be honoring a universe that wants us to happy and of service, and that thrives on life’s abundance.

Oh, by the way….we will be cooking meat……unless she wants a vegetarian.

An Experiential Realization of the Non-Dual

I’ve long understood, like David Deida and Robert Augustus Masters before me, that relationship has the potential to be a powerful tool toward self-actualization , or increased consciousness, but it wasn’t until I read Jenny Wade’s book, Transcendent Sex, that I first became aware of the possibility of a non-dual experience through relationship and sex.

Note: I'm often surprised, when I use the term, "non dual," that many people don't know what I'm talking about. Non dual simply means not apart from, not separate.

Wikipedia: Nondualism may be viewed as the understanding or belief that dualism or dichotomy are illusory phenomena. It is accessible as a belief, theory, condition, as part of a tradition, as a practice, or as the quality of union with reality, and is sometimes referred to as the ultimate understanding.

I also understand that relationship, whether successful or not, tells us exactly where we are consciously and unconsciously in our lives, if we have the capacity to listen to what our inner voices tell us about ourselves. If you want to know the depth of your own actualization, it is in your relationships….especially romantic relationship, but certainly all relationships.

A fascinating read, Jenny Wade writes about people’s sometimes shattering experiences with non-dual realization during, or immediately after, sex. Sometimes characterized as the feeling of an overwhelming presence in the room, the “oneness” of everything, and even the presence of a “third.”

Some of the interesting things about these experiences are that they usually happen to only one partner, that the sex can sometimes just be casual – that is, not with a significant other – and that almost always, the person who has the experience, cannot find a way to tell the other person about their experience. Some who experienced the phenomena were religious, or spiritual, but just as many were not. There seems to be no rhyme or reason about whom this can happen to.

Fascinating, yes, and I felt jealousy for never having experienced this amazing phenomena.

Until last week.

Lying in bed after a particularly tender Sunday afternoon love making with my Beloved, I was suddenly overwhelmed with a presence all around us. This “presence,” or “feeling,” was that that of a third being, not separate, but rather a part of us, and yet not a part of us…the feeling was that of pure love…..as if we were enveloped in some sort of divine caress, loving us, and allowing me to not to just experience this, but to be the experience itself!

As it continued to caress us, surround us, and encompass us, I told Anyaa what was happening, and while she did not personally experience it, except through my description as to what was holding us, I began to weep out of pure joy and the realization that I was being offered the most amazing gift! Plus, I had the extra benefit of being able to share it with my partner as it was happening! While she had not experienced it, she understood what was happening and provided a completely safe container for me share my experience as it was unfolding.

It lasted, I guess, five or ten minutes, and then softly released us, leaving a lingering presence and awareness behind. It took, maybe, another fifteen minutes for me to regain my composure and come fully back into the physical room, and yet I still hold the awareness of the experience in my consciousness.

Why was this gift bestowed upon me? Is it because of the work I’ve been doing around conscious relationship? My own amazing relationship with an incredible and conscious woman? The Big Mind/Big Heart meditations I’ve been facilitating? All of it? None of it?

I may never know the answer to that, and I feel no need to search it out, or to understand it. I only know it happened, that I felt it, I experienced it, and I can relive it….and that’s enough.

Body Painting image by an unknown artist

3 Weeks in the Great Smoky Mountains...and My New Life!

It's been three weeks since I arrived in North Carolina to be with my Beloved, Anyaa, and four since I last posted. it's been an incredibly busy four weeks!

Leaving Seattle

First, I spent the last week in Seattle, getting what I was taking packed into a Pod, getting my car transported back here, and cleaning up the house I'd been living in for the last 8 months. Ah, that house served Anyaa and I well, what with her running a circle of women doing the Shamanic Priestess Process over those months, and I kicking off my men's groups. And while that house blessed us, we also blessed the house, creating sacred space that will linger far after we're gone.

The house will be occupied by the new renters in May, and I wonder if they will feel the indelible presence we left behind? The house deserves no less.

The Arrival

I arrived in Atlanta on Friday night, March 21st, Spring Equinox, and Anyaa picked me, and another friend of hers, up at the airport. On our journey of 2-1/2 hours from Atlanta to Western North Carolina, I watched the full moon racing behind passing trees, still bare from winter, as if in the opening scenes of a movie, keeping pace with us as we traveled north toward our destination, and my new home.

Since Anyaa lives in a 600 square foot cabin, with a 600 square foot deck, looking southwest, there was no room for an office for me. Hell, there's barely enough room for me! Anticipating this, we bought a 16'x10' barn and had it delivered to the lower pad on her property a couple of days before. I'd also ordered some tools and materials I'd need to to insulate it, build a closet and a loft for storage, and paneling and trim to finish it out for my office. That took over week! We also had satellite internet installed as the only other available internet option was dial-up,a situation Anyaa had been living with for the past three years. Not great, but better than dial-up.

I don't recommend satellite unless it's your only option. A far cry from the 100mbps speeds I was used to in Seattle. Paradise ain't perfect.

Every morning we walk to the top of the mountain, say our prayers to the universe, come back and do an hour of yoga and weights. it's the perfect ITP practice.

Wise Wolf Men's Council

My labor was interrupted on the second weekend, as there was an event here at Isis Cove, the community we live in. This was the third year that Venus Rising, the organization that developed Isis Cove, sponsored a free event called "Wise Wolf Women's Council," and about 108 women attended this conscious and spiritual event this year. New this year, Venus Rising added a men's council, and 25 men attended the fist annual 3-day weekend event.

In addition to attending, I got to present, and facilitated a 45-minute long Big Mind meditation, which offers a state (temporary) experience of non-dual realization.

During the weekend, men got a taste of stepping into conscious men's work, and many had not done any transformative work on themselves before, but came at the urge of their feminine partners who were attending the WWWC event.

Some highlights of the weekend were a firewalk (yes, I walked over the 15' long burning coals in my barefeet about a dozen times with no ill effects....what power our minds and intentions hold!), breaking a metal-tipped arrow with the soft spot of my neck by pushing on it (very scary!), and a 3-hour sweat lodge that we, the 25 men, built from scratch using native saplings and heating local rocks with fire we built.

One of the biggest highlights of the weekend for me was knowing that there were 25 men who were coming together, consciously, putting their egos aside, and connecting with one another in a way that some of them had never experienced before. These are men that I'm proud to call brother. The other was being welcomed by the Divine Feminine at the end of the weekend in a ceremony that represented the Sacred Union of the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine.....beautiful, and included a short 30-minute Shamanic Breathwork, where I clearly saw my path laid out before me.

The Asheville Integral Warriors Group

Anyaa leads a group of 7-8 women in Asheville every other Thursday night, and we thought that me leading a men's group, like the ones I've facilitated in Seattle based on the work of David Deida, on the the same night, would be a natural. To make this happen, I marketed the local Ken Wilber Meetup group, consisting of 19 members, and men in relationship with local women who have done Anyaa's work who want their partners to step into conscious work, as well.

To do a men's group, I need a minimum of 5 men to get the juices flowing in the group process. I only had four men show up for the intr0ductory evening, two of whom were already in Mankind Project (MKP) groups, one who spent 30 years in the marines and who won't really interested in developing deeper bonds with other men, and one who wanted to do the work, but in group setting. No men's group just yet.

I later found out that the local MKP group consists of about 100 men, a remarkable number considering Asheville only has a population of 60,000, and that there's already a David Deida group here, consisting of about 12-15 men: a wealth of existing men's groups.

The Local Ken Wilber Meetup

Not to be discouraged, I decided to further market the local Ken Wilber Meetup group of 19 people, contacted the local leadership to offer a presentation at the next meetup. It meets the last Sunday of the month on Sunday morning from 9am to 1pm....4 hours! Meditation, Integral Life Practice, a DVD of Wilber, and discussion....but only 2-3 people show up.

A new plan is needed.

So I'm working on that, hoping to eventually have enough men to do the Integral Warriors group. Meanwhile, I'm going to offer a series of different offerings every other Thursday night and see what happens.

A Personal Note

I am absolutely loving it here! I am in a life-partner relationship with a woman I love and admire deeply, and feel that my life purpose is unfolding before my eyes. Anyaa and I are developing a deeper relationship than was possible in our long-distance stage, no matter how much time we spent together. As I build my soul work and my freelance graphic and illustration business, I'm able to contribute around this beautiful property and Anyaa's life that allows her to relax into doing what she does best. A beautiful partnership that serves us and the people we come in contact with.

The Future

Anyaa and I, in partnership with Brad and Star Wolf, principals of Venus Rising, are in the process of developing a couples workshop where we'll take 10-20 couples to Costa Rica early in 2009 to do a week on intimate relationship and transformation. I'll be writing more about that in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, I know I've made the right decision to move from Seattle to North Carolina, in spite of leaving so many great friends and a great community that I helped found and build.

Stepping into the Void

At the last Seattle Men's Group I facilitated two weeks ago, we used the Men's Challenge Deck as a tool for being authentic. I drew a card that required me to take 5 minutes to compose a poem about the challenges in my life. The other men then judge your authenticity, keeping you real and in integrity.

Here's the result of my 5 minute poem:

Laughing,
free.....
"Thank God, Almighty,
Free at last!"
Leaving,
smiling,
complete,
integrity intact.
leaving no ends untied
but leaving still,
I step out of the old,
into the new,
smiling,
joyfully,
into the next phase of my life.
Fearlessly...
Purposefully...
Fully.

I won't tell you the men in the group perceived my attempt. That is for you to decide from your own perspective.

I leave a week from today.