Emerald Energies - A Delightful Spiritual Retreat

Willingness
Kypris

January 19th, 2007

What does it really take to create the sexual and romantic life that you want? What are you WILLING to give up, overcome, wrestle with, or accept to make Spirit’s dreams for you a reality? Can you get out of your own way to let your life unfold?

In my life these last few months, WILLINGNESS has been a spiritual awakening. Not willingness to be a doormat and to put up with unacceptable things in my life, but willingness to risk. Willingness to not have everything be perfect. Willingness to be open to making a mistake. Willingness to be open and undefended against my lovers, friends, and clients.

This is a huge leap for me, as someone who had gone through so much of life with boundaries and goals and little boxes about how life must be, designed to protect me from any harm. But then I discovered this: NOTHING is guaranteed to keep me from harm. And I’ve come to see that it is important for me to balance my safety with risk, to be WILLING to take a chance.

Spider Grandmother, an Apache Deity, started this process for me in a trance vision. I was struggling violently against the grief of wanting to be in a closer relationship with one of my lovers than he wanted with me. I was devastated that I had been holding on to a dream, a need, a desire, an illusion—that was being shattered. I closed my eyes and started to breathe. I saw a vision of myself, a black jaguar, holding on to my lovers with my strong claws, trying to keep myself from falling into an abyss that I was dangling over. But when I looked down, I saw an enormous web, strong enough to catch and hold my weight if I should fall. “Let Go”, I heard Spider Grandmother say in my head, “I will catch you. You have to let go to create space for what you want.” Hearing her voice, I found a willingness to sheath my claws, and I fell, effortlessly, into her web. There she kept me safe for a time, so that I could finish grieving, and then open for what was next.

I realized in that moment that it was a lesson in willingness to let go of thinking that I know what is best for me. More importantly, it was a lesson in willingness to let Spirit take over and guide me. To get in touch with this, I stop, take a deep breath to center, and hear the small still voice within tell me what is right. This has led to some amazing shifts in my life.

I have shifted in the way that I make love. I no longer am stuck in any notion about how I want to be made love to, what touch will feel best, what touch won’t. In my new state of willingness, I embrace all of the touch and contact and connection with each lover, and drop fully into the present. When I let go of all my preconceived notions about what I want from that person, I experience more pleasure and more magick than I believed would be possible, and every touch feels amazing.

I have also shifted in the way I approach relationship. I am no longer coming to relationships with a need to decide what box they will fit into. Because I am polyamorous, and have many lovers, I have realized that if I am willing to let go of pre-boxing my relationships into primaries, secondaries, casual or friends… I have the power to allow each relationship to grow into whatever it is meant to be. Although I still have desire in me for particular kinds of relationships to manifest, I no longer try to label each relationship from the outset. And in my longer term relationships, I am willing to let them shift as they need to, rather than clinging to the way things “have always been.” I’m not saying this is easy! I’m human, after all, and it’s hard to change old habits. Some days I slip, and find myself falling back into feeling the old familiar pain of not having the security in my life and relationships that I am used to. But when this happens, I am getting better at remembering that I am whole and complete in myself, that I don’t need a relationship to feel union, that my primary relationship is with Spirit.

So how do you get to this willingness? It is a shift of the heart. It is a prayer. Sometimes for me all I have the strength to do is ask Spirit for the willingness to be willing, and that is enough. For me, it is about being fully centered in who I am in the world as a woman. Becoming increasingly open to only the energies that feel good, and increasingly willing to say no to those that don’t. Wilingness doesn’t mean sacrifice. No. Willingness means having the courage to make the changes that will jump-start your life, both in and out of the bedroom.

Namaste, Kyrpis

Shamanic tantra is a spiritual journey into a passionate creative life that includes a full and rich sexual connection to God. Initiated on this path by a powerful shamanic healer, Kypris has journeyed in search of spiritual wisdom, beauty, and the open heart through many places on Mother Earth: walking the witch-hunting hills of Salem, MA; bathing in the healing waters of Tahiti and Hawaii, and making love to the austere deserts of Sedona and Anza-Borrego. With the roots of her spiritual practice in Wicca, Kypris was led to tantra through visions of Aphrodite and Shiva, and transformed through solo practice of ritual, energy channeling, bellydance, and yoga. Led to her tantric partner by a powerful shamanic dream, Kypris practices tantra today in tandem, and works as a spiritual coach, healer, and teacher. Kypris holds a master's degree in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, as well as a master's degree in Counseling Psychology, and is an initiated HeartWisdom Tantric Priestess. She is the author of the forthcoming Journey to Sexual Wholeness, The Six Gateways to Tantric Sexuality.