SOUNDCLOUD RECORDING: Water A Poem by April Ritchey

Click here to Listen to Water A Poem by April Ritchey

Tantra's Brave Discussion

Tantra is worship and devotion to loving...a sacred act...it can be as simple as lighting a candle or delighting in a luscious piece of fruit...so before you assume what this practice is and what others may say...know that it is a moment to moment awareness and a response to how our bodies become sensual in our experience of life. Tantra reveals to us our truest nature and gives us a wisdom far beyond what we consider in a general yoga practice. It is about the whole human and not just the part to be erased out of anatomy books or be danced around with words like "core" or "center"...there is real intelligence in our sexual centers/genitals...So when does the real discussion begin? It is courageous to begin from this honest place ...anytime we move from our pelvis we engage with our creative sexual energies...What does this mean? How do we use these energies for humanity's sake and not just for our own pleasure release? Hmm...I know it is confusing...the offers of tantra are so vast and our social constructs have become blockages and the yoga culture has become limited not really capable of handling this information without confusion. The interest in this for me is on many levels: personal, spiritual and global. Much like yoga itself...but now it's getting real and honest...So we (my tantra kula) are creating a new paradigm...one with emotion...self discovery and vulnerability. This isn't just about coupling or getting married or having great sex however all of these are welcome. I'm fascinated in this topic...more so than yoga at the moment because it is causing me to see differently...with compassion...without judgement and it makes me feel love so much more deeper that it makes me weep...There is so much possibility...if it was only about a good time...but it's not and yet it is all things at once...overwhelming is the knowledge flowing through me...not sure if I can keep up with even being able to describe it well enough...but my teacher knows...she's paved the way and I'm finding other trails as well...scary and completely alone in my head sometimes...like most explorers you just don't know what your gonna find...my breath deepens...my heart races...my body fills with wonder and my heart is on fire...A new portal has opened...beyond this dimension...beyond our factual understanding...I wish I knew what is pouring out of me but I'm just gonna go with it and hope I can surrender into it...a new ride has just begun...LOVE

Video: Tantra, Sridaiva Yoga and Sacred Body Wisdom

The Wisdom of Sexuality

Some quick thoughts about yoga and tantra....and wait...isn't odd to take anatomy classes and not consider the subtle body if you are considering yoga? I mean...to just learn asana and how the physical body functions is sort of like looking at the parts of a car...or some other metaphor...yeah everything functions...has a purpose...and if you move A you discover B and so on...The mechanics...This is our first consideration when we consider yoga as a practice....How the heck are we supposed to touch our toes and move this or that body part? Then there are the ideas enjoyed by the brain...the intellect...the stories of the mythic journey and the philosophies that make up the human condition and relationship to the big questions...Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I? and so on...The body is the antenna or the radiator of what we are really composed of which is energy. If we consider this...we need to consider how energy exists within and without of the body...how it moves...where it gathers...the blockages and where the most powerful surge of energy pulsates out of us. Funny this area in our body is the one that is the most potent and yet we don't make it general discussion. Also another thing is self knowledge...I mean yeah like beginning yoga...personal growth and coaching organizations have you exercising out your issues...to confront.... to experience and journal our way to some sort of resolution...I did all that stuff...and guess what? They only touched the surface...people get attached the catch phrases and methods and believe that is the holy grail to getting on a path to happy. And they work but that isn't gonna take you to the places of the kind of consciousness levels and vibrations that at this point I'm bumping up against in my tantric/yoga practice these days...It is unfolding...this new way of sensing and thinking. Of being in my body...of gathering information about my desire not from my mind but through my yoni...or the center of my sex...it is radical for our Puritan minds to consider but it is a place in allowing knowledge to flow from...and I've just begun. There are so many deeper places to discover wisdom...the pineal gland our sex and the super highway of energy of the meridians, the chakras....I'm sure each and every one of our cells has information to offer us...but we are choosing to narrow our vision of where knowledge comes from. Funny really...so much to discover...so much I'm dying to know...but perhaps I already know through all my gathering of information in my many life times...perhaps I was always questioning....thinking...How we are with ourselves and in relationship and so on has so much to do with discovering wisdom through these energy centers and our genitals have a big role in this...if we can wash away our social constructs and shame about our sexuality we might find the most amazing and profound gift....our own divinity....so like a beginner on the mat...and moving through the physical exercises...I'm discovering the most intense wisdom tiny bit by tiny bit...I can't express in words at the moment but I feel it and glimpse it in the images in my body and yes yoni...heart...and mind...we move too much from the brain and dis regard our body's to ability to tell us who we are and what we truly desire...anyway I'm excited to see our video...crossing my fingers that it transmits what happened...this is just scratching the surface and let me say it is well beyond "sex" and into the energy of love and divinity...because love got us all here...love made this whole deal...and that's pretty freakin' powerful. Love just keeps getting more and more interesting...LOVE

The Rose and Her Prince

It is the time you spend on your rose that makes your rose so important~ Le Petit Prince

Reading The Little Prince to Sydney tonight I can barely contain my tears...on the discussion of the rose...how he got mad and left and how he didn't understand the things she said and took them for vanity...he had to travel far and wide to get some sort of understanding of what he misunderstood...why she even had thorns to begin with...but in the end he longs for his rose...and missed her deeply...to have spent so much time on one rose...out of all the other roses meant she was the one rose he loved the most...and this made her so important to him...but the question is how does he return to her after leaving her alone for so long...? Yes how does he return...well he dissolves...to find himself...she is there on his little planet waiting for his return...she tries her best to understand him....but weeps...because she misses him so very much....

VIDEO: Self Doubt and the Fear of Success

An End in Love

My Cradle Song: Hero

I ended my marriage this week with my oldest friend Brian, Sydney's daddy. Not an easy feat by any means. Intensity surrounding pulling myself away and him letting me go took enormous strength. A fight to the finish because between us we are two very powerful energies. It was sort of like pulling heat away from fire so you can imagine the storms that raged and the babe we made together in between all of it. But we created her together...these two fiercely loving beings...she is part of who we are...she's so powerful...she came out the womb confident saying with just one look at her..."I know" as she still says today...lol...We were college lovers...and well I had a French boyfriend, Olivier, at the time...but I knew the heartache of a long distance relationship with my first love, a Dutchman, I couldn't bare it so Brian arrived...following me like a puppy and well I just came over and stayed as the story goes. lol....We went on many adventures...traveled all over this country and France and he introduced me to camping and we hiked through many magical places...we were happiest in our adventures in wilderness...we were at peace there. Many things to be grateful for through the years...Many homes with pools...and so much beauty...two cats were our children. Our relationship had its ups and downs and I refused to marry him for over 13 years...coz I knew deeply he wasn't the one but I denied it and needed safety and security more than the need to be with my beloved that I'd longed for forever...Even as a young girl I felt I was searching for him like it was in me all along to reunite with this unnamed energy. But finally after years of living together I ask him to marry me as we were very involved with a personal growth organization that helped us  wake up...I finally felt I was given the skills to be human and we did a lot of work together...both of us were guides to others...My interest in art history was pulling me into myself deeper and then I found an amazing yoga teacher and fell deeply in love with the practice and feeling my own strength.....I never had this...this sense of control with my body and the immense amount of knowledge I could discover...this was art...I was opening my heart bit by bit. As my evolution through my yoga, having the courage to bring Sydney into the world, my little happy spark of light...I named her Soleil which is french for sun....a light so bright...I swear everyone loves to be around my little doll...teachers thank me, parents adore her...yep...look out world coz we creates a love monster...lol So as I was evolving on the inside...my outside was staying the same. Pleasing, never asking for what I needed...agreeable....austere...never buying much for myself...never considering my beauty...I felt ugly and homely as the years went on...I'd used to be so free in my sexuality and daring and explosive...Intensely passionate and wild. Yeah I was a wild child in my teenage years and into college too. Over time I shrunk and didn't listen to my heart...I wanted safe...I didn't know how to survive or how to create a life and be empowered. I was in grad school forever and that never felt right...just safe. The real world seemed to have limits and I didn't want boring and complacent...My heart wanted...something....not sure what....I wanted to write...I wanted to be a poet....I wanted to have people hear my words but professors shot me down....I felt so nothing and not free and not validated for being me. Brian was funny, so persistent in his courting of me...he fell in love with me at first sight...I was curious why anyone would find me the least bit interesting....I was nothing or so I felt...I was so weak and running from fear...But he came and arrived and never gave up in his goal....me the wimp I just surrendered. We were friends and nurtured our pursuits...took crazy risks. We worked well together...but I knew he wasn't my beloved but then I let that idea go...I thought it a fantasy and not real....so I figured life is what it is....But damn it! My heart knew all along that I wasn't his...that I did have an eternal beloved and that it wasn't a crazy fantasy I made up. It is real....my soul new this I just didn't know how to listen. We made a life...the way we figured everyone else did. Seem to work for so long until I started to unfold the truth of who I was...slowly...and really sloppily but like a dam breaking...all those years of denying myself of beauty and poetry...it came pouring out of me and I couldn't stop it ....I found that I had power, I was magical and that, God damn it!  I was incredibly beautiful...I never thought I was...so I had to go...to break the bond...to break it hard...to break the heart of a man who adored me...loved me with so much devotion and power that he'd do anything to make me happy and give me what he could...even int the end as he fought with anger to keep me... he wanted me to fight out of it...so I did...and he carries still the burden of what we had because he wants me free...and you know when you lose your most beloved thing you only want that thing to go in love and be bright like you see them as you know they are but they couldn't see. So you have to let go...in pain and trust that love is always present. We loved each other....he loved me more...and I didn't know how it was all supposed to go...this life....I just went along...now I'm swimming toward me and away from the life that lead me here. Life begins...I found my beloved though he isn't ready yet for me but praying it is this life time it works out because I love him and I want him to be brave enough to give us a chance....we'll see...In the meantime...I will always have my friend and I will be overjoyed when he finds love and perhaps a new family. I see this...so I let go of certainty...I am open an ready for all of what is in store for me...Love is my guide...love is my certainty and safety. I didn't just end a marriage I opened deeper into me. Love is the only thing I'm sure will continue on and on and on...to love is to live....to live is to love and there is nothing more to do...:0 )