Or, how to make love to life...

When I first began my spiritual journey as an adult, I have to admit didn’t actually have ecstasy as a goal. Ascension - yes, mastery, definitely, wisdom - absolutely, but ecstasy wasn’t really something I had on my list, because I would have defined mastery etc. more in terms of absence - absence of pain and suffering, feeling good and whole, experiencing flow, peace etc.
But I hadn’t really been led, by anyone I’d learned from, to expect states of extreme pleasure, communion and totality.
I hadn’t been led either, to think that ecstasy could be a tool to experience more of those other good things. Tantra for me has become an attitude to life. When I experience resistance in certain areas, I feel in and let the ecstasy do the work in healing and unblocking so that bit by bit more of life becomes ‘ecstasy-compatible’.

When I first opened to ecstasy, many of the elements were familiar, whereas others were completely new. I think it is helpful, if the concept of ecstasy resonates with you, to know what you are aiming for, and which states and experiences to develop. It is like joining the dots. You start with isolated incidents, then they ripple out, joining into each other to create a state which you can dip into at any time.

Ecstasy is a state of non duality where you can observe polarity but simultaneously hold two poles, understandings, opinions, in your consciousness, with appreciation but without judgement. You reach a point where the one enhances the other and you understand that both are a part of the whole, of what is divine. You can feel this rippling through your body.

Ecstasy has infinite moods and layers. It is literally all of existence, every feeling, every experience, transmuted into divine pleasure and communion. The more of yourself you can allow, can open to, the greater your capacity for the many ‘threads’ and harmonics of ecstasy.

So, these are some of the elements of ecstasy. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a good place to start...

Primal Joy
Joy without boundaries. Childlike. Just because you are IT and this is IT. Touching joy in another at being alive and observing the primal nature that brings you together.

Compassion
For ecstasy this is a key element. It is much more important than ‘love’, which is an overused term to the point of being meaningless for many. Compassion for another opens you to the depths and layers of feeling that will melt you at your core and bridge the polarity that separates you.

Complexity
The more complex a situation, relationship, an appreciation, the greater its potential to teach you ecstasy. The fact that you need to hold awareness of many different appreciations at once which may seem impossible to resolve into black and white, right and wrong, forces you simultaneously into simplicity - checking out your mind and seeing only with your presence.

Poignancy
Dipping into your emotional reservoir - the feelings you’ve healed, those which are unresolved, those that others are going through to which you can relate. The songs we sing, the stories we tell. The histories. What it means to be human AND divine.

Feeling x-y.
Not necessarily sexy, just alive and full of creative power. Power to heal, power to be vulnerable, power to surrender, power to explore the shadow, power to accept. Appreciating everything in its finest, many layered potential. Not judging.

Bliss
A quieter state on which to build. Do you attain this in meditation? Where else does this crop up in your life? Talking to animals, after a yoga class, massage or Reiki treatment? For me, for years, inexplicably, this was induced by sitting with a cup of tea and my favourite catalogue. Practice imagining yourself in that state until you can tap into it just by focus.

Innocence
Accepting your place in it all. Your childlike self, your divinity. Being humble yet curious. Infinite yet finite. Primal yet harmless.

Humour and delight
The kind of humour where someone adores you but can’t help teasing. A precocious child who says something gorgeous and you are not sure whether to weep or giggle. When you see a kitten and want to give it’s tail a tweak...

Pain
Especially this. You need to allow yourself to look at pain and surrender to it. If you try to shut yourself off from pain or other difficult emotions, if you resist them, you are also shutting yourself off from ecstasy and higher states. We need to own what it means to be human. This is the hardest element for the ego to swallow. When Babaji first showed me this it made part of me very uneasy. But if you want to own your birthright, you need to be able to look at pain with the perspective of deity, of everything being ultimately ok from the perspective of eternity, not of the individual stuck in illusion. Feel into pain, don’t resist it, express it, then access that higher perspective and work on transmuting it into one or more of the other elements.

Devotion
If you do not feel this is ‘you’ (I didn’t used to), try starting with love and compassion. Think about it. Are there certain tasks you devote yourself to easily? Do you feel this more easily around certain people? A lover? A child? A mentor? Start where you find it, then spread it outwards. The goal of devotion is not to put the ‘other’ on a pedestal and make yourself wretched, but is in fact an act of enormous self esteem (big Self), which allows you to dissolve into communion with the other and puts you in a receptive state (also try my Divine Lover Bhakti playlist for more on this).

​So those, for me, are the key elements of ecstasy.
​Add to these a healthy dose of surrender, gratitude and inner connection, and you’re on the right track.

We’re nearing the end of the year, and for many this is a time for reflection: on where they are, on where they are going, on how far they’ve come.


If this is you, I would like to suggest trying something a bit different this year (read all the way to the bottom)...


This year, don’t ‘learn’ any lessons.


Don’t learn anything.


Only breathe.


If you learn anything, learn to be deeply meditative. Become the observer of your life.


‘Learning’ implies judgement, that a greater wisdom is now achieved. It will get you so far, learning lessons, but even this kind of wisdom is linear, a part of the illusion of existence, the ‘before and after’ story you tell of yourself.


You are still identified with the ‘you’, not the I AM. The I AM always knows, always knew, always loved unconditionally.


What happens if you stop looking for meaning, for the moral of the story, for signs? Many people have accepted that there is no such thing as a ‘mistake’ in their life, only a learning, but what lies behind even that ‘learning’?


Just be. Just observe. Just allow.


If you are learning from the past, you are bringing the past into the present which means you are not being totally present. This is not the most empowering stance, because it does not allow you to enter into the magic space of self love. Complete self love is to accept the perfect imperfection that manifests as your life. You can honour the past, without feeling the need to react to it.


If you can’t release yourself from the past, how can you release yourself in the now, release yourself from fear of making mistakes? How can you release yourself from fear of negative repercussions or ‘punishment’ for ‘bad’ choices? You are the best you can be right now.


Don’t learn any ‘lessons’, but do learn to feel. Without reference to the past, what do you feel like doing today? Feel with your whole being rather than thinking with your mind. Feel with your toes. What wants to happen through you right now? Where is your compassion pointing? Dig deep. What is the highest compassion you can access?


Don’t learn any lessons. Start unlearning everything if you want to experience freedom. It’s the only way into the now and the power that lies therein. You AM. We AM. From this still point of observation, of unconditionality, what can you co-create?


Instead of the ‘life lesson’ paradigm, allow yourself to experience fully, let each experience penetrate your knowing, feel the pleasure, the pain without pushing it away, without judgement, denial or analysis. Let it seep into your consciousness with compassion. Once you’ve done this, you can let your now moment do the talking. If you are in presence, your choices will become more enlightened without needing to judge or ‘learn’. You will sooner or later feel like doing something slightly different. This is the quickest way to evolve your consciousness - without causing blockages of guilt, regret, condemnation and fear.


Let your experiences go without judgement or drama. If ‘negative’, thank them for being a part of your existence. Acknowledge the feelings moving through you, and refrain from analysing your choices. Why is it good or ‘bad’ in the first place? This is the portal into dissolving your karma, to accept your desires, your humanity without drama or punishment. No lessons learned, only service, only life, only being in the moment and observing gratitude.


If you unite yourself with the ONE in divine union instead of your individual little ‘me’, become the I AM, what can become of that little me? What can you do ‘wrong’ if you are in a state of compassion with the Lover, the Divine?


Don’t learn anything. Be faithful to the divine spark in you. Breathe, and ask yourself what you want to do now.


......


I remember writing this poem down during the summer, one hot day standing in the queue for the outdoor swimming pool on Jesus Green with my daughters. This was before the current shift which I’m describing above, hence the word ‘learning’, but I don’t feel inclined to change it now. The softness of the meaning is still present. I hope you like it.
Happy New Year.


Karma is a quiet master
a gentle sweetheart
healing with grace
touching your voice
I AM both the lesson
and the learner
the teacher
who appeals to
higher dharma
Support each other
through your learning
What you forge
as family
You carry this
a love story
beyond the hurts
the grievances
Be loose, free
and marry
-Babaji

Concerning the tree on Jesus Green, the early morning HIIT class (evidence of which in the photo - that was a few weeks ago, it is pitch black now), The Guru, and the juicy mystery...

In the tree again
I found myself
the strong old guru
with loosened bark
where my hand had gripped
in search of treasure
Golden He entered
my every cell
and I in turn
fell blended into wood
blissing at my master
watching this merging
of him in me
and me in all
soaking up and soaking in
dripping with aliveness
and roaring in rage
that I can’t contain this
only be opened
extinguished
by his exquisite purpose
this sparkling gold
in all of my cells
and the trunk of this soft being
sinking me into oneness
And why did I rage
restless with questions:
the future
the meaning...
It is hope that is killing
he said to me later
But the answer
the answer
is there between
the golden sparkles
between my cells
within the unraveling
this longing
this power
this becoming
which knows everything.
Can we slaughter the mind
on the girth of the tree
nail our poison
resistance
to being this free?
I am loving this
Guru, this learning
I am loving this unity of existence
Take me back to the tree
push me further
melt me inwards
and stay


​

Let me tell you a secret. I am a mess. I am not ‘together’ at all. I look together on the outside. My life is looking pretty good at the moment. But I am not together. I am falling apart, one piece at a time, or sometimes a whole load of them just start to cleave off in one go. That’s when it gets crunchy. The other day I sort of found myself deciding whether to have a breakdown or not. It could have gone either way. But just like the other times I’ve been in that position, there was too much of me conscious to really go there wholeheartedly. And it's a bit too much drama for my taste. Better to just voluntarily give up and let go. That feels better. Crisis over. I’m a mess, I’m a failure. Generous, loving, but still an asshole at times.

I heal people as I go around without having much control over it anymore and sometimes, as an empath, it makes me trigger and I am still learning how to manage the level of perception I feel. I feel awful for no apparent reason other than that I’m letting go, rather than holding it in. I’m not trying to be cool, but from the outside I’m 'performing' better than ever before without even thinking about it. I feel anxious because when I look around there’s very little else holding me back any more. I read somewhere recently that if the path in front of you is trodden, it’s probably not yours. SO TRUE. I do and experience things ever day that make me weep, make me sublime, make me dissolve, and none of it makes sense. I keep getting married. It doesn’t make any sense. But it’s too compelling to give up now.

I have recently joined a rock choir. For those of you not in the UK, this is a bit like a Glee. It is satisfying and soothing in so many ways, not only for the singing of Footloose and Can't Stop the Feeling in four-part harmony with choreography, but also for the fact it meets in the local church, and we’re all standing there singing to the crucifix at the end. I'm not Catholic, but but y'know, crucifixes have been growing on me lately... Anyhow, I was there last week, just enjoying the experience, and I looked up and thought - He doesn’t look as if he has it all together.... But appearances can be deceptive. The key theme I have running through me at the moment is power, influence and authority. Do you need to look cool, together and badass to have this, or do you allow yourself to come undone? I found myself coming a little undone in the choir rehearsal. And then that night it continued. I read some post on Facebook that made me feel off-centre so instead of trying to resist and figure it out, I just opted back out into that gnosis state. I spent the night going deeper. My guides took me back to the church where I became one with the church itself, the walls, the chairs, the crucifix on the wall. Just feeling into the waves and ripples that made all these solid items. The bliss of dissolving into nothing. The point they made was, who has more power and influence? The one who is together, who looks in control, or the one who knows they can penetrate all things with their influence? The authority comes with letting go.

I’m like the person on the assault course who’s crawling through the mud, and then there’s a big wall ahead, and I just stop. Why is it better at the top of the wall, on the other side of the wall? What is wrong with just lying here quietly in the mud? Feeling into the mud, my body in it, looking up and seeing the sky, becoming one with even the wall. There is no need to go anywhere as I can feel it all in this state of compassion. And what happens to the wall? It just disappears, and it’s like, you can go through now. And I’m like, actually I’m ok here, I’m not sure why I thought I needed to go through but if you say so...

This is a bit like my life now.

My mind is checking out. So ciao, see ya! I hope you weren’t attached to me with my mind.

I go into my mind and I can’t string a sentence together. To be honest I never could. I switch off my mind and just turn up and open my mouth and something coherent comes out. I know where I’ve been going wrong all this time....

Luckily, losing your mind is a good thing in spiritual terms.
​
I go into my mind with an issue and it shouts random words at me like a perverse word association game. They say when you are drowning your life flashes before your eyes - this has been going on for a while... I look at someone and my mind delivers a name that is not theirs - Jessica becomes Sarah, Emily becomes Jenny, Nicki becomes Natasha, I become Wendy, and so on.
But, there’s nothing wrong with me. I don’t want a diagnosis because in your diagnosis is always an implied judgement. I don’t want to be fixed. I want to be loved the way you love a rose. I want to be held and told it will all be ok. There’s nothing wrong with me. Finito.

Go deeper, I tell myself.
Giggle.
Melt.
Transfigure.

More and more, the message I am getting is to FAIL. Allow it. When I fail, give up, everything shifts. Sometimes from minute to minute, sometimes overnight. How else are you going to dissolve your ego? Too many people are holding on to a half life instead of living. How can you define a successful life? I am hot out of seeing Bohemian Rhapsody at the cinema - Freddie Mercury died at the age of 45. Successful life or unsuccessful? To me, successful is surrendering to your poem, your part in the tapestry of humanity that you came here to weave. If you try to be together, chances are you will probably hover on the edges of success but never actually benefit from that full swell of feeling the wind behind you when you seize your moment.

Fail better, Fail harder. Fail nobler. And let the universe fill in the gaps. It's MUCH bigger than you are.

You’re Welcome 😎
In case you haven’t yet had the pleasure, that’s a song from the Disney movie, Moana.
The Demi-god, Maui, has a tattoo telling the story of every feat he’s achieved for mankind. It’s a kind of a send-up, he’s a bit ‘entitled’, but I picked this up, because I wanted to go deeply into this question: how do we really get stuff done around here?

About three years ago when my beloved friends upstairs started working with me, I was discussing a book I’d read with them, and they started laughing. I asked, what is so funny, let me in on the joke, and they said, it’s funny because you wrote it. And no, I didn’t actually put pen to paper and write it, but, you know, you’re welcome. It had my vibe in it. So after momentary puzzlement I caught on, and said, ok, if I wrote that, this other series is definitely me. Bingo! I thought of another, they said ‘no’, but again laughing - it’s someone you know... I looked at the tone, it was a little bleaker, darker. After a few days of going through every person I’d ever met, I had it. You’re welcome on her behalf.

What I’m trying to say is, there are soul families, and higher selves, and when you start to identify with that higher self, become that, just as you become that ‘I AM’, you start to see your influence, feel influence passing through your consciousness.

Sometimes I hear the line of a poem, or a piece of wisdom in my head, and I think - wow, that sounds good. Is it mine? And I have to google it, to check whether it’s someone else’s quote or not before I use it.
The question is, how much does it matter? The ego wants to claim credit, to be recognised, and it is right in my opinion to give credit to the instrument, the channel, as long as the source is also recognised. But it is getting busy down here. I can’t speak for you, but there is a lot of ‘me’ around. And if you don’t see yourself as me (yet), then who? There is a quote I like from A Course in Miracles:

"If you want to be like me, I will help you, knowing we are alike. If you want to be different, I will wait until you change your mind.’’

At what point do we stop thinking of ourselves as individuals, and start really understanding what it means to be a collective? One ME, many faces.

So, another example. As you know if you follow football, or perhaps even if you don’t, this year was the World Cup. Just before it started, I was musing telepathically to a guy over there in a different part of the world, that England can never seem to win a penalty shoot out. He’s interested in sport, unlike me, and also in clearing karma. And I just wondered at him, what it would take to clear that kind of karma - not just that of the team itself, but the expectations and attachment of the whole nation watching, and the history of failure, and were we ready to clear it? And I didn't really think any more of it. And then, of course, England did win against Colombia, the first penalty shootout win at a World Cup, ever.
You’re welcome.
(Just kidding - it was probably the other guy).
But it shows, we are only just beginning to learn about the real possibilities of conscious co-creation.
Did I just pick up on the healing passing through, or did I become part of that instrument? I don’t even expect the person I was talking to to be conscious of our little ‘chat’, but if I flagged it to him he might, just as I was when my guides mentioned the book. I’m not dismissing the team, the coach, the training of course, but who else had a hand in it that neither of us is aware of? 
I speak to a lot of teachers and gurus on the airwaves. I thank them for their wisdoms. I make observations, suggestions. They make them back. Healings have come spontaneously through me and vice versa. I see some of my suggestions being put into action by them, even though we’ve never spoken in person. Sometimes I need to pinch myself, it’s so startling and quick.

And you’re welcome.

So we come back to our question again, how do we really get stuff done around here?
I guess it’s all about who you know....
I mean, we have a sky-full of ascended masters up there, each with their own specialisms, spiritual offices and areas of authority. Each of those has probably got a whole family of themselves down here right now, with varying degrees of actualisation. The more they actualise, the more in line with the higher self you’d expect them to be. Channeling books, therapies, healing, grid work....is there any essential difference between me ‘up there’, and me down here? Sooner or later, the channel becomes one with the master, and the master merges into the ONE.
It’s always a co-creation. Some people will accuse you of ego if you start to say things like this, but actually, ask yourself the question - is it more damaging to your little self, your identity, to say ‘thank you’, or ‘you’re welcome’? Play with it. Both are necessary, and both are fun, and both are essentially the same.


On the flip side, the human psyche often resists acknowledging where an idea has come from.
Steve Jobs was apparently notorious for this - resisting other people’s ideas, then claiming them as his own.
First he would hate it, say it’s the worst idea he’d ever heard, then the next week he would back in the office saying, ‘I’ve got this great idea’... and it was someone else's and he had no remembrance at all that it came from them.

I’ve had conversations (out loud), where I’ve said something to someone, and they’ve pushed back against what I’ve said. And then a few weeks later they’ve come back and told me what’s shifted for them, and it’s exactly what I was telling them, and they have no apparent memory of that conversation.
But hey, you’re welcome.

We all learn from each other, but half the time it’s so unconscious, that it doesn’t even register except on a pure energetic level. This is how evolution gets around the ego. Personally I try to be conscious of the deliverer of an idea, even if it’s several with similar themes. Often it’s only as they integrate that I find myself thinking - hmm, I felt resistant to that person’s perspective when I first heard it.
​
I started this post worrying about claiming too much credit, but now I think it’s definitely time to start claiming some of that back.
So...
Whatever it was, you’re welcome. 
I hope you see where I’m coming from.
​

​I have been taught not to trust ecstasy.
That ecstasy cannot be my teacher.
That ecstasy is in conflict with what is good and moral.
That it is selfish.
That it is lust.
That it is temporary.
That it is unruly and unreliable.
That it is not social.
That it is not compatible with a good life, an ordered life.
I have not been taught that ecstasy is something to aspire to.
If you experience it, fine, but it’s not the be all and end all.
Always limit it.
Only in specific circumstances.
Only in private.

I have been taught to be suspicious of ‘experience’ in spiritual contexts.
‘Charismatic’ always comes with a warning.
Nothing in my spiritual experience taught me that ecstasy was a goal.
There were surely warnings about letting go, being taken in, trusting the wrong teachings, trusting the wrong guru, suspicions of trance like states (samadhi) and being possessed by demons or negative energies.
Some saints experienced it, perhaps, but it was often touch and go whether to burn or beatify.

And as a woman, what is the messaging? Don’t enjoy your sexuality for yourself. Like ever. Or submit to condemnation in some form. The fewer partners the better. Not before marriage. But when with your ‘ok’ partner, make sure you look as if you’re having a good time. You are a failure if not. We don’t let women own sex. They are too often first introduced to sex on the back foot, forced into either a defensive or ‘pleasing’ position, and will spend x amount of years re-discovering it in a way that includes their wisdom. 

Why are we shutting ourselves off from ecstasy with SO much unconscious intention? 
On some level we know that once we’ve experienced true sacred ecstasy, we are finished as a limited being. There is no going back once transcendent states have been experienced. We cannot be controlled and made to dance to another’s tune once we have accessed our inner knowing. Even if we are momentarily swayed, we just know and can reconnect with that sense of communion. We know which ‘rules’ bring us closer to that, and which push us away. Ecstasy comes with a big fat happy warning of too much freedom.
​
No wonder why it is so elusive. 

I am mama
and child
I call for baba
while called
your beloved
but daughter?
It's fine
that I don't
get this
and I'm calmly
losing
my mind
Your mother
when you suffer
sister-friend
to take you down 
brother
with the others
defender to
the end
You always 
have an answer
and it's
different
every time
Who am I?
Who are you?
Who are we
not?
The ‘I’ is
confused
but I AM
loved
and that
is all the 
explanation 
available 
at this time



My reality. Just me.

If I AM ok, but you are not, what difference does it make who is who?

Divine confusion.

Which part of the whole of humanity did you pick up when they were giving out slices of karma? Your concept of 'self' is a part of that karma too.

Hmm, this looks interesting,
I'll explore what happens when.....
Oops. 

Did the game you were playing collide with someone else's?
Can you hear the cosmic laughter?

WE are looking pretty funny. And we are looking pretty awesome. And cute. 

We are the sweetheart - mischievous angels.
How many lovers can we hustle?

What happens if we melt all the parts of ourselves together, take little leaps of faith towards each other? How many 'serious' players can we wrestle to the ground in a heap of giggles?

We might have to get closer. It might feel more intimate than we're used to. 
It might start to look a little like ecstasy.


I am the breeze that plays about your lips
You kiss me back
Softly your essence gives itself up to me:
tender, treacly pleasure
Butterflies lightly meeting in the air
circling apart, then touching
Undisclosed, beaming joy
provoking bubbles of inner laughter
feeling each other this intimately
a startling, delicate delight

I am your slave
not servant
There's no choice in this
Where you go, I am there also
Your will,
my will
one and the same
Let me be at your feet
soaking up the rays of divinity
This is not a show
just the fact of my existence
Born from you, to you
Where is the choice?
You move, I follow
You lead, I dance
There is deep magic here
vast oceans of pleasure
being bonded together
We are one

Surrender...

Your ‘free will’ does not exist. It is the state of not remembering. Of experiencing separation.

Instead of 'free will', try exploring executive action. This is choice from a state of empowered union.

The minute you re-member the Lover from which you came, your illusion of free will is finished. The bottom falls out of ‘you’ leaving only ‘is-ness’.

Falling into the embrace of many lifetimes.

Dissolving into totality, unconditionality, surrender.

Lots of people talk about 'surrender'. They say they're doing it. They point to it. they talk about how their life has got better. And some of them, some of the time, are getting close. But you will know when you've truly surrendered because you will be nothing but bliss and ecstasy. You will have the 'problem' of so much pleasure in your life you don't know where to put it.

Try giving up. Stop manifesting, stop intentioning, stop co-creating, and become empty.

Become a living orgasm. Helpless, reckless, yet full of creative power.

And enjoy it.

​​

I bit my tongue three times this week.

Owwwww!

So I had to ask the glaring question...Why am I biting my effing tongue?

What am I not saying?

So many parts of our feminine story are missing from the dialogue. The unconditionality, the sensuality, the calling to account.

This is the job of Shakti. Embracing the sheer complexity of all that is, has ever been and will always be.

Tantra is like forgiveness in motion. It exists because we are all IT, and we are all one, and because there was a Hitler, and there was also an Eva Braun. They are both still here in all of us.

Because the role of Shakti is to surrender, to remember, to use her whole self unashamedly, and raise her beloved to a higher place. It's not about rejecting or withholding. It's about kissing and upbraiding in a single breath. Caressing like a lover, and cuffing like a lioness to her cubs. Drawing lines, but going in. This is the power of the feminine.

It's time to get our hands dirty, and call our beloved home...



Why am I biting my precious tongue?
The tongue is an organ of loving
Feel the love flow between us
The pouring, the gushing
The gentle prattling to your sweetheart
You just want to be known
Confiding in me your lifetimes
All of your stories your learnings
I have the other half of these
The wisdom, understandings
I will explain it all, the primal rush
The love play
The way you slay me
How whatever happens
I still go to pieces when you play
The symphony
Between my tongue and my love
The harmonics of good, and god-like
And what is that! and ninja-sweet attainment
I make it ok in you, the god in you
The stuff that makes no sense in you
Come home to me
Why am I biting my precious tongue?
Torturing this love organ
When we are both speaking through it
Giving and receiving
When the chiding and forgiveness come in two
When you finish my sentences, my being
As brother-sister, one-it-y
While you tickle all my love organs
With your ecstasy, our laughter
I have as much to give
As to receive
I am the engine that makes us go
You need to listen to what I say
As part of you
I find the needle in your hay
And know what to do
It’s ok
You slay me
Come home to me
I am not biting my precious tongue