The Shakti School

Feminine Form Sacred Technology

holistic health

Let’s Talk About Sex

I am so happy that as a society we're talking about sexuality. Sexual assault, sexual harassment, weird-awkward-aggressive-sex-we-fled-from, etc. Yes, these are all convos about sex, our society’s relationship with it + with power and the dysfunctional social behaviors that manifest from that disintegrated relationship our society has with human sexuality. ⠀

Let’s rewind: Ayurveda teaches conscious channeling of sexual energy, valuing what they called Bramacharya: the wise use of this vital sexual energy. When we are using our sexual energy in a harmonious way, our whole life is infused with more enthusiasm around creative projects—whether that be a business, an artistic expression, or a baby. We also have better health in general because sexual energy is the most refined aspect of our life energy. The more energy we have, the better we feel. ⠀

But human sexuality is about much more than just “sex”. It’s a major pillar of our overall health and wellbeing (I wrote a book about it for a reason!). How do we use our attention and our body? If we look at one of the meanings of the word Bramacharya, we gain insight into what the ancients understood. One interpretation of the word is “to walk with God”; engaging sexuality intentionality, from the heart (your conscience, intuition, or Higher Self) before decision making.⠀

Having a connection to your physical and energetic sexual centers, is key in boosting your/society's health. As women we need to restore the vitality of our sexual energy center & help engage conscious forms of sexuality. When a woman feels tuned in to her sacred sexual essence, a new aliveness begins to pulse within in her. Her health improves. All of us are more balanced and we can usher in a new era.

You can read more in my book Healthy, Happy, Sexy and in our year-long Ayurveda Program which is all about healing our own and our ancestor's inherited patterns.

Oh, and this is a beautiful photo—also a sex photo, cause sexuality is an integral part of our daily lives, including pregnant and mom lives 😉 Let’s talk about sex more, I think everyone on earth would benefit from it.

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Who Am I?

Two big questions that most human beings will ponder at some point in their lives: “Who am I?” and “How can I get more of what I want in my life?”

One of the things I love about the Tantric yoga tradition is its systematic approach to answering both of these inquiries. The Taittiriya Upanishad, one of the most important yogic scriptures, says that if we really want to know who we are, and get more joy and fulfillment in life, we have to get to know our subtle anatomy.

Why? Because we are, according to Tantric anatomy, not one, but a composite of five bodies (pancha koshas): the physical body, the energetic body, the mental/emotional body, the inner-teacher or wisdom body, and the bliss body. When we can bring awareness into the deep layers of each of these bodies, we gain access to our highest, most evolved, powerful Self. This concept shares a lot with what modern day neuroscience and somatic psychology understand about pain and perception.

The teachings go on to explain that what is hidden in these bodies is both our unconscious negative patterning, as well as our greatest gifts and powers. When the patterns that are hidden in the bodies emerge, we are no longer under the pull of the unconscious stuff. We can now get more of what we truly want as we bring the limitations and the latent capacities of the unconscious to the surface. In the end, when we penetrate the last layer of who we are, we are left with an endless power to create, act, and know.

Start to peel back the shadows, join us at our next event: learn more.

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Womb Wellness

It’s Cervical Cancer Awareness Week.

Cervical cancer, although treatable, is the 3rd leading cause of death of women worldwide. Ayurveda has a lot to offer in terms of prevention and treatment of cervical cancer. I want to start with the emotional and energetics first…

The womb area is our feminine heart. It is the seat of our creative capacity, as well as where our ability to heal and rejuvenate our own body. The feminine womb is also a storehouse for much of our past pain, whether it is sexual trauma, abandonment, or other forms of abuse. Ironically, it is the center of pleasure and watery, creative power. Think of your womb as an oceanic force—dark and healing.

I have found that this area tends to be quite numb in many women and that they have a hard time connecting with this part of themselves, particularly if they have experience trauma like surgery on or removal of reproductive organs, or abuse. Abuse depletes self-worth, our personal power. This especially effects the womb.

One of the most enlightening and surprising realizations I came to with Ayurveda is how the seat of female sexual power lies in the womb—the dark, fleshy home of our creative energies. What I learned is that in this sacred female heart, we create. Our creation makes babies, it births social activism projects, it produces art, it bakes bread, and it starts businesses. I also learned that the womb is the seat of our destructive powers. In this sacred female heart, we bleed, we feel pain, and we slough off a layer of who we are each month.

To expand into our fullness and heal energetic balances, we must first create an open, wide base in which energy can move. Many of the women I work with have a lack of prana moving in their pelvic bowl. How alive do you feel at your roots? If you close your eyes, what does it feel like “down there”? Assess the situation with love, and then practice this meditation for increasing prana in your sacred pelvic bowl.

Tune In

Close your eyes and sit comfortably with the spine straight, or lay down. Feel your whole body begin to relax. Take a few moments to watch your breath, let it become even, smooth and full. As you feel your body beginning to relax, take your awareness down into your pelvic root and bowl. Without judgment, look around down there with your inner felt-sense. Are there spots that feel alive, vibrating and full of light? Are there spots that are tense, scary, dark or numb?

Take a few moments to breathe your presence into the realms that feel stuck, numb or emotionally/physically painful. Feel that you can access energy from outside of the body as you inhale, and on the exhale, direct it into the stuckness, allowing it to dissolve. Do this for 5-10 minutes. As you begin to notice energetic shifts, there may be emotional releases that accompany this meditation. Try your best not to judge the release, but to let it unravel.

Come back to your practice, and back to your breath. After 10 minutes, begin to visualize a dark, downward-facing dark blue triangle, its apex pointing downward towards earth at your tailbone, and the base as wide as your hips. When you feel your body breathing in, sense your awareness, and energy, move through the dark blue triangle and down to the tip, concentrating there. As you feel your body exhale, sense any holding, tension, toxins or unwanted emotion leaving through the tip, and moving down into the earth. Repeat this visualization and movement of energy 8-12 times.

The mantra SOM (pronounced sohm) is an excellent healing tonic for this area.

The female womb is the seat of our deepest emotional mystery, pulling us down and out each month, asking us to deeply feel the truth of what we didn’t process the month prior, nourishing us throughout our lives with hormones. This center is the home of our unconscious lust, and in it dwells our secret desires, hopes, and loves. It’s why at various times of the month our sensitivity can be more intense—when we might feel our most vulnerable both physically and emotionally. If this center is blocked or numb, undernourished and unloved, you may feel disconnected from your creativity, sexuality and power. Through these practices, you will nourish this center, making it a viable home for your spirit to work and live.

Our menstrual cycle can be a time in which we can let go of any toxic emotions or holding patterns that we accumulated the month before. If we do not allow ourselves the necessary time and space for this to be felt as a visceral, emotional and spiritual experience, we dishonor the very power that we are, perhaps, longing for all month long. Not only can we slow down during our menstrual cycle, but we should also take exquisite care of ourselves. Practice inwardness and slowing down during the last week and first few days of your cycle, to honor the feminine energy working through you and cultivate intentional nourishing energy.

Ayurveda’s personal approach to nutrition, as well as following a healthy daily routine, and emotional wellbeing, are the first line of defense when it comes to dealing with all diseases, including cancer…

Recent researches have proved that many of the spices used in Ayurvedic cooking have anti-cancerous effects. Curcumin, the compound that gives Turmeric its yellow color, is a powerful antioxidant, which neutralizes free radicals that increase the risk of cancer and is said to inhibit the growth of cancerous cells. Ginger is particularly significant for cancers which show high levels of inflammation, a characteristic of cervical cancer. Holy Basil/Tulsi, an herb rich in Ursolic Acid is regularly included in a cancer fighting diet.

Another tool for prevention and relief is vaginal douching, steaming, and suppositories, prepared with herbs according to each woman’s personal needs. Suppositories are easy to make at home with a little coconut oil. You can find powerful yet simple recipes for making your own online. Goldenseal and coconut oil is a great one.

If you are on the pill, reconsider. I know that this is not a popular option, especially for modern career-minded women, but here is the thing—menstrual blood helps cleanse the organs and kill off any foreign invaders (and by the way, men’s sperm is rife with bacterial friends). With every period, you literally clean out any foreign bodies in your holy womb. This is probably why many of us actually feel “cleansed” from life’s experience after a good menstrual cycle. If you are taking a pill that alters or even eliminates this natural cycle, you may be missing out on one of the best immune-boosting, life-giving processes in your life.

There are many other reasons why we may want to reconsider taking synthetic hormones. New and emerging scientific evidence actually shows a clear link between taking hormonal contraceptives and depression and an increased risk of cancer. In 2005, the World Health Organization’s cancer research group listed hormonal contraceptives as “carcinogenic to humans.” Do the research, be informed, and know that there are time-tested natural ways to prevent unwanted pregnancy. What’s more, is that natural contraceptive methods will help you further tune into your body and womb.

And finally, keep your immune system strong. Certain strands of HPV can cause cancer. If your immune system is strong, you should be able to clear this virus within a couple of years. If you have a family history of cervical cancer, you should get a PAP smear every year. Otherwise, make sure you’re having one done every three years.

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Vitality Like A Goddess

The first days of January are associated with the Nativity of Inanna, Pagan Goddess of Sumer (later she appears as Ishtar in Babylon & Asherah in the Levant)

Inanna is a goddess of love, beauty, fertility and war. Graced with a stream of lovers, including the ill-fated Dumuzi, she is cognate to Venus. The celebration of her nativity is done with good food, good sex, and warmth.

This celebration aligns with the Ayurvedic concept of OJAS, one of the three subtle forces in our body. Think of OJAS as the container that holds your abundant energy. It is the ultimate energy reserve of the body and mind. It is the purest essence of Kapha, and physically, it is related to reproductive, hormonal, and cerebrospinal fluids.

Today, in solitary ritual, pay attention to Inanna’s role as mediator of the changing themes of a woman's life, and how we might revitalize and nourish our OJAS, which can be easily depleted this time of year by running around instead of taking it easy and practicing pratyahara, as nature does.

Cultivate OJAS with a short meditation:

Close your eyes.

Take a few deep breaths. Relax for a minute, allowing your breath to deepen and smooth out.

Now slowly start to draw your attention away from your thoughts, emotions or aches, and drop it down into your belly, holding it there until you feel sensation. Then, slowly, bring your awareness into your heart.

Remember a moment in your life when you felt very deep love. Maybe it was a time when you let yourself be totally vulnerable. When you add love to your point of focus, it builds your OJAS.

Bring that moment fully to mind and notice where you feel the sensation of love in your body. Allow this sensation to move, to expand and permeate every cell of your being. When you grow the feeling of love inside your body, you boost the power that enables you to remain strong and wise in the face of heartache, disease and change.

Relax into this loving container, watching how, over and over again, you will gain and lose the feeling, and how you can refocus and experience your inherent enduring, sustaining power.

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Self-Love? How About We Start With SELF-LIKE

The biggest epidemic we face right now is the sickness of our lack of loving ourselves. I hear about it all the time in my line of work. And as I read the millionth blog post about self-love, I take pause. I think a much better place to start is self-like. You can’t fall in love until you fall in like.

Last week, a gorgeous, talented, 20-something woman asked me if I thought she was beautiful. She felt so ugly. Fat. She asked me if I thought she’d ever make something of herself. If I believed in her…I looked at her, mouth-agape. How is the beauty butterfly not landing on this child’s heart? How is the beyond-obviousness of her beauty escaping her?

But I know why.

Inside all of us lives a tiny little wounded bunny. The proverbial Inner child.

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This stuff is so real. Until we actively begin to engage with this creature….like it, snuggle it, ask it what it needs,

get to know it, can we ever hope to truly love it and integrate it. There is so much talk in the spiritual world on transcending. Just get over it. But you can’t get over it until you’ve gone through it. Felt it. Healed it through an intimacy that combines the Love Witness with the Wounded One. That love session creates the alchemical fuel needed to burn and rise.

Self-love can be defined by how capacious we are at actually liking our funny, quirky, silly little inner child. Self-love happens when we know where she/he got hurt, and we remain SUPER gentle with those places (without letting them run the show).

When I was little I would hide peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in my piano bench. I used to hate that little kid and would get mad as she showed up in me as an adult. Why can’t “hide peanut butter sandwich girl just go away!?” I did not like her. In fact, I hated her.

My first step towards healing was a full-on shamanic love fest with her. I had to SEE her. See her geeky glasses, her braces, her chubby fingers, her broken heart that longed to be comforted and understood. I had to be with the fact that she needed soothing. She was a little girl. And she wasn’t getting that soothing from the people that she wanted it from the most. Ergo, peanut butter.

Today I can honestly share that I like that chubby girl. She has mad piano playing skills. She still eats peanut butter. She’s not perfect. She’s emotional. And I like that about her. I’ve worked hard to keep her alive in a world that so often destroys innocence.

Beloved friend – what parts of yourself have you kicked out of your own heart?

Join us in Ayurveda School. I’ll teach you how to fall in like with these unintegrated spaces. And who knows, maybe even fall in love…

~Katie

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Sister Sciences in the Vedic Tradition

Ayurveda is a complex and ancient system of well-being, and just as Western medicine is based on biology and other sciences that can take a lifetime to understand, Ayurveda has many foundational concepts and tenets that you can explore and deepen your understanding of for years and years.

For our purposes, there are some basic principles that we’ll start with, so you have a clearer grasp of Ayurveda’s view of the universe—both macro and micro—and our relationship to it and each other. These basic tenets of Ayurveda are really a jumping off point both for beginning to introduce Ayurvedic ideas into your everyday life and for further study, should you wish to do so, of the deeper philosophies of Ayurveda.

If you have a yoga practice, you can also look at this Ayurvedic foundation as a way to deepen that practice. The mat-based poses many of us would refer to as “yoga” encompass just the tip of the iceberg that is the broader Vedic tradition. A part of this breadth is Ayurveda, yoga’s forgotten, but incredibly important sister science.

Think of yoga and Ayurveda as two interrelated branches of the same massive tree of Vedic knowledge, each playing its own role in your journey towards health, happiness and vitality. While yoga typically deals with the use of techniques such as asana (postures), mantras (sacred transformational sounds), and pranayama (the management of energy), Ayurveda deals with reducing disease and healing the body and mind.

Yoga supports your health, and living an Ayurvedic lifestyle supports your spiritual journey. While yoga supports healing, it is the ancient art of Ayurveda that teaches us how to heal.

~Katie

Read more in Healthy, Happy, Sexy!

Photos by Naomi Huober

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You Are So Much More Than You Know

Two big questions that most human beings will ponder at some point in their lives: “Who am I?” and “How can I get more of what I want in my life?”

Some of us may even ask ask them on a daily basis.

One of the things I love about the Tantric yoga tradition is its systematic approach to answering both of these inquiries. The Taittiriya Upanishad, one of the most important yogic scriptures, says that if we really want to know who we are, and get more joy and fulfillment in life, we gotta get to know our subtle anatomy.

Why? Because we are, according to Tantric anatomy, not one, but a composite of five bodies (pancha koshas): the physical body, the energetic body, the mental/emotional body, the inner-teacher or wisdom body, and the bliss body. When we can bring awareness into the deep layers of each of these bodies, we gain access to our highest, most evolved, powerful Self.

Body Mapping

Each of these bodies comes with their own limitations, access points, and super-powers. The more we know about each one of them, and the more familiar we get in their unique flavors, the more we have a relationship to them. And when we can relate them as as layers of who we are, the more they begin to show us their hidden contents.

The teachings go on to explain that what is hidden in these bodies is both our unconscious negative patterning, as well as our greatest gifts and powers. When the patterns that are hidden in the bodies emerge, we are no longer under the pull of the unconscious stuff. We can now get more of what we truly want as we bring the limitations and the latent capacities of the unconscious to the surface. In the end, when we penetrate the last layer of who we are, we are left with an endless power to create, act, and know.

Access Points

The physical. Many activities invite us into the physical body. Asana, for example, is an excellent way to tune in. We can feel our bones and they way they stack on top of each when we come into a Plank Pose. What happens to the tops of your thighs when you do Warrior 1 for long enough? Perhaps a burning sensation or a “shaking with joy.” Dancing will also bring you into the physical. So will a big meal, strong pain, sex, or a sunburn.

The energetic. Commonly referred to as the prana body, this can be felt when we keep the physical body still. We experience prana, according to the teachings, as subtle moving sensations like vibration and pulse, or we see it when we close our eyes as color or light. We can also experience prana as the impulse that pulls breath into the body (without us trying at all), and the force that causes air to leave again. This is one of the reasons the yogis encouraged such a strong connection to the breath. Prana also rides along the many intelligent processes in the body: the heart beat, the circulation of blood, and the capacity of our sensory organs.

The mental/emotional. This is where many of us spend a lot of time. It’s the part of us that thinks, plans, decides, emotes, and reacts. Its also the part of us that over-thinks, obsessively plans, sits in indecision, represses emotion instead of channeling it, and overreacts. Meditation is a wonderful way to access this body in a balanced and helpful way. Simply sitting and watching your thoughts, opinions, and judgements with a sense of detachment can give you more access to witnessing (and being less identified by the pulls of) this body.

The inner teacher.  This is also often called the Wisdom Body. We can think of it as the highest aspect of our intuition and conscience. It’s the part of you that urges you out of bed to meditate or go for a run when you’d much rather lounge in the sheets checking Facebook. It’s the part of us that always knows the right path to take. Just like we would lift weights to make the physical body strong, we strengthen this body by sitting in silence, and sharpening our ability to hear the voice of our soul. When this body is strong, our daily actions become giant steps forward in the direction of our highest life purpose, our calling, our big destiny. We move from a place of knowingness instead of reaction.

The bliss. It’s pretty amazing that the subtlest aspect of who we are, at the core of all the other bodies, is referred to as an ocean of unending waves of bliss. Ironically, we access this body by actually dis-identifying with everything. To practice being in your bliss body, you can try the Tantric practice of neti neti, a word meaning “not this, not that.” In a meditative seat, notice what arises in your field of awareness. A thought about your job pops up and you say/acknowledge, “I’m not that.” You feel your low back ache a little, same thing: “I’m not that.” You feel your desire for more intimate love, “I’m not that.” A hunger pang arises, “I’m not this.” You sense light in front of your forehead, “I’m not that.” You may even feel, for a split second, the bliss. And in that moment, remember,  “I’m not even that.” The more you keep surrendering into non-identification, the more, the teachings promise, the bliss can flow.

~Katie

This article was originally published on the Yoga Journal Blog on June 25, 2012.

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Fire and Nectar: Creating Balance the Tantric Way

416A6278 I’ve experimented a lot lately, really looking into how to be a balanced lady.

On one hand, I like to dance. I like to dance hard. Like a wild African trance-healer. And on the other hand, I like to sit still. I meditate like a silent sturdy mountain and I feel like Shiva’s best student (or even better, his consort). On one hand, I like to laugh – loudly. I like to run through trees and make love. On the other hand, I know I need to lay down, rub my self in oil and get intimate with my deep belly breath.

Being a yogini means you can KNOW and to DISCERN when you need to be a wild African trance dancer. And when you need to sit in the silence of the present moment.

Most systems of organizing the universe – including Ayurveda, Tantra, and Traditional Chinese medicine – understand this dyad as the two polarity-forces permeating all of nature. The Tantrics referred to these forces as Agni and Soma. The Ayurvedically-inclined called this duo Brahmana and Langhana. The Chinese called it Yin and Yang. You can call it, as does my dear friend and mentor, Dr. Claudia Welch, Ginger and Fred.

You see, the words don’t matter. It’s the way in which we begin to see these two polarities in our own life that will bring insight. For the sake of ease (and because I like saying the word “nectar,”) let’s use Dr. David Frawley’s terms – agni (fire) and soma (nectar).

Agni

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What is agni? Agni means fire. It is both living and conceptual, metaphorical and practical. Fire is transformational. It is the eater, the enjoyer, and is related to your Spirit as a transforming process. It is related to pitta dosha, purity, digestion, clarity of mind. On the hormonal level, it is related to our stress hormones, and our need for activation and stimulation.

How do I build agni? Through things like asana, cleansing techniques (diet), bhanda, tapas, tejas, certain pranayamas and meditations that bring more focus and silence.

Soma

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What is soma? Soma means nectar. It is both living and conceptual, metaphorical and practical. Soma is related to earth and water. It is what is eaten and what is enjoyed. It is the body and the moon.  It is related to the kapha dosha and to our core vital essences. It is the nectar and enjoyment of life’s experiences. It is the rasa, the lymph fluids, the immune system, our sexual fluids and the subtle electro-watery secretions of the nervous system from brain to root. It is the Divine Spirit linking all creatures in the “flow of bliss.” In the endocrine system, it is related to our sexual hormones.

How do I build soma? Dr. Frawley says, “When the mind is still and calm like a mountain lake, it will produce its own inner soma.” Inner soma is built through re-attuning to natural wisdom, meditation, mantra, and the descent of “grace” that comes through stillness and silence. Outer somas can be built through balanced sensory enjoyment, the flow of releasing stagnant emotion, through imbibing sacred plant essences (herbs and diet), smells (incense, oils and other aromatics), ritual, and restorative yoga.

~Katie

Photos by Naomi Huober

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