Attachment

The reason why we (I) try to make all the relationship deals with each other is that we (I) would prefer to avoid the feelings associated with comparison, jealousy, abandonment and all the other uncomfortable things that emerge from Love's Pandora's box.
 "Stay with me for ever and love only me ... tell me that I am good in a hundred different ways ... maybe one day I'll belive it... protect me from feeling my hurts ... do for me what I'm not prepared to do for myself... and in exchange, I will do the same for you. "
...And i get the image of two people running a three legged race, their one leg bound together- making them both crippled.

 The notion of comparison is expressed uncomfortably well (for me) in an Alanis Morissette song: "Did you just call her amazing? Surely we both can't be amazing?... and give up my hard earned status as fabulous freak of nature."

 Lately I've been noticing the topic of Attachment: Friends and clients/ students terrified of this and wanting to avoid it at all costs by steering well clear of anything with a whiff of commitment. Or, trying to have the delights and comfort of consistent companionship, but Not get attached.

 I have felt the flavours of attachment in my system today. I can feel the potential of one or two of the above statements.
This time I'm experimenting with it. In stead of blaming the beloved for uncomfortable feelings, or berating myself for my Horrible Weakness (my particular default in these things), or trying to suppress and get on with something else, I am going for a different approach.

The phantoms emerge from the box I have opened with my willingness to love. They poses me and I feel them in my body. Stomach. Shoulders. Chest. My mind would like to explain them, give them names: Its gallant attempt at protecting me from them... but Awareness is selecting something other than that default setting. Lying on my back, i take a deep breath in and draw all of the discomfort into my heart. I take it in. Deep, deep, deeper. More and more. Saying Yes to all of it. Pain and tears come.  I keep going, inviting them in untill I feel the ful extent that i can access now.

 It takes a few breaths. My body shakes and weeps. And then, a kind of magic happens. On the in breath: pain, but on the out breath: something else... Peace. More breaths, more peace, less pain.
The heart is an alchemical fire, turning this lead to gold. Or like a tree, taking in the carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen... and Love.

 Over time, using this meditation, I can feel my heart's expanding capacity. And lately I've found that the more I can feel in my heart, the more i can feel in my body too... such powerful, healing love making I have had after allowing something like this to move through me.

 So... my take on attachment is GO for it. Allow the danger of it, allow the fullest deepest, most vulnerable expression of your love and devotion - whatever the perceived risk. Do not deprive yourself and the world of this. And when there's pain, we both know now what to do. If you can, do not grasp at the beloved to rescue you from this, nor resist the feelings that emerge. Take it in. It's Heart Food.

Here is the Advait Tantra School's guided heart meditation which I've described above. I still listen to it, even though i know it well now.

http://tantraschool.co.za/members/heart/Heart%20Meditation-02.mp3
User name: annwen
Password: tantra101


Love, however it looks
Annwen ♥

Here it begins ~ Yogini Journey

 Here it begins

Hmmm, gratitude...: I fell asleep watching the stars above the southern hills. Now the light is oranging its way up those rocks. A speed boat streaks across the calm sea and cool air comes with its quiet caress on my morning skin. I'm feeling awe at the magical movements in my life.

I stood naked in my doorway except for a string of Mala beads - a gift to mark my initiation - as Rahasya, my teacher, left me yesterday after his month's stay, saying: Goodbye Yogini.
We had decided that I would start practising. An hour later I mentioned this to someone on line and they booked a session for last night at 8.
I panicked silently... and said Yes. They came and I did it: Well, I believe...
I love bodies. I love touch. I love loving. Awakening consciousness and capacity for love and bliss is the most important thing in my life... I am in my element.

I am a tantrika... Here it begins.
Where will this lead, I wonder. How will this affect me having my own mate and family?
In this territory there are fewer and fewer road signs. I head off into an exquisite wilderness. My guides are stars and orange rocks and instinct and the breath of sea air on skin. The subtle whispers saying This way... That way...
I am an adventurer, an explorer of the Heart Land.

Tantric Touch Q&A

From Yogini Annwen, a touch work practitioner in this school:

Tantric Touch Work ~ Q ‘n A

                Client: So what is tantric touch work, exactly?

Annwen: In this Advaita tantra school, we have two ways of working. From the top down –eroticism, in other words working with the mind’s ideas around sex- and from the bottom up: touch work. Touch work supports the person into expanding their capacity to feel: Learning to feel pleasure, trust the body, love the body- learning how to love themselves and then they can be more qualified to love another.So Shakti Malan, for example, is a Dakini. I am a Yogini. A yogini follows the forms of touch work and works within that structure. Dakinis have less use for structure. They will do whatever it takes to get you to awaken…. They have licence to scare the hell out of you to speed up the process. Touch work may be considered a gentler approach, but it is in fact just as challenging for the one who is holding on tightly to that which has protected him/ her, but now imprisons and prevents intimacy. A Dakini may start with this work and then move on to eroticism work. I will leave eroticism up to the Dakinis… for now.

                Client: So, through touch you experience more... emotional feelings?

Annwen: Yes… and through more deep emotional feeling you experience more physical feeling too

                Client: hmm, does not make sense to me, must be an experiential thing.

Annwen: do you know the term body armouring?...
When experiences happen- especially as children- that are too much for us to feel, we put the experience away for later. We develop this armouring in the body (a holding, a tension- an unconscious pattern) to protect us from that feeling.
In Tantra, Now is Later.
Being supported by having someone see this armouring and work with you to soften and dissolve it will release the blocked feeling…which can be tough... especially when we really resist this happening, as we are likely to do because we're scared. And of course then you have to Feel everything you have been resisting all this time.
But, once this kind of congealed holding is softened and dropped, our capacity to feel bliss deepens. Bliss is our birthright.
From the other direction, when you become willing to feel more emotional depth - like, the tricky, sticky, yikky emotions... you will find, surprise, surprise... that your capacity to feel in the body increases too. This has been my most recent learning

                Client: Aaaaah, OK I get that
                So what are the forms of touch work?

Annwen: The three approaches that I am using are Tantra Massage, Chakra Massage and Tantric Balancing.
Tantra Massage involves developing an awareness of sexuality and love beyond our conventional interpretations.
Chakra Massage addresses resistance, numbness, discomfort, repression, trauma and judgement
Tantric balancing supports integration and inner love making of the masculine and feminine

I will make use of these different approaches as I see the need for them arising.