"This is not a book about technique, the correct
amount of pooch or pout, or a waxing ode to the power of love. It is about love
as life and death, about love as here and now, about being fully alive in the
moment, about stepping up to the plate and running with open arms into total
being, bliss, and wonder. It’s about the fact that a fabulous, powerful,
memorable kiss is an outgrowth of a loving, connected person-someone not afraid
of their own sexual shadow. Someone willing to bring their heart into the
light…"
Jammie-down Days ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
by Cherie Byrd
Into the middle of November the darkness, thunder and hail speak
eloquently of Scorpio’s demand for going underground, deeper into the
shadow, seeking transformation and calling the phoenix to rise from the
ashes. This is not an easy season to navigate, most of us want to avoid
our shadow all together, and it leaves a lot of folks feeling
emotionally exhausted and run down, if not well and truly sick.
I’ve been recommending a lot of
Jammie-down time to clients lately. Jammie-down is a very intentional,
conscious day or two of quiet relaxation, loving and nurturance. Most
folks who find themselves at the end of their oomph will spend time
vegging out, and a jammie-down day may have some of those elements,
however their execution is geared toward heightened connection and
presence rather than disconnect and avoidance. When we rest with open,
loving presence we actually regenerate ourselves.
Jammie-down days are simpler than
retreats to uncomfortable cabins, more intimate than a noisy spa. Give
it a try, and remember it’s all about climbing into your body, your
heart, your soul and making a deeper connection with the inside of you,
your family, your furry friends and this precious moment.
Since your body does not know the difference between your imagination
and an actual event, even thinking about it is healing. Talk it up with
your beloved and family, wash all your jammies buy some food and look
forward to it all week.
Elements of a proper Jammie-down day
Choose the parts that feel most
nurturing to you, but don’t overload your time, keep it spacious and
expansive, enjoy a sense of freedom in this now, and this now.
Light a fire, candles or
fireplace; fire actually feeds our cell’s energy.
Limit or eliminate the TV,
computer time & videos, keep the content uplifting.
Wear no shoes, get some
lotion and exchange foot rubs, maybe endlessly.
Whoa, you might even turn off
your phone! Pretend it’s a spa retreat; every time it vibrates
do something good for you instead of answering, water with
lemon? File your nails? Face mask?
Consider quiet voices, or
even silence, listen to the wind, the birds singing, your
partner whistling in the shower.
Spend some time soaking in
water, hot tub, bubble bath or foot soaks your choice.
Find something you’ve been
wanting to read, get lost in it, or pass it around and read to
each other.
Enjoy lots of cuddling with
your sweetie, kids & furry friends. Get cozy and snuggly with
one another.
Get out the crock pot or
bread machine and start something flavorful cooking and inhale
deeply. Get really hungry and enjoy every morsel, make yummy
sounds and feed each other.
Make space for daydreaming
and meditating, get in touch with other dimensions of reality
Get lost in some journal
writing and soft music, let yourself feel, deeply.
Jammie dancing, let your body
move freely to the sound, keep your mind and heart open and the
body will relax and follow.
Stare at some clouds or the
edges of the trees against the sky, soften your eyes and see the
energy fields.
Take a nap and write down
your dreams.
Fill a page or two with what
you appreciate about your life and your loved ones and read it
to them.
Above all, be very loving with
yourself, open your heart and let the warm and sweet energy wash over
you, you surely deserve it.
All About You: Your Love Life
The Art of Kissing
By Allison Perkins
When you kiss your spouse, do you peck them on the cheek? Twist tongues?
Exchange spit? Press your lips against each others’ until it feels done?
If that’s all you think kissing is,
then you may be doing it all wrong.
Cherie Byrd, psychotherapist and
instructor at the Kissing School in Seattle, says kissing is so much
more than just moving your mouth. Kissing should be a way two people
connect with their souls, their hearts and their bodies. Kissing isn’t a
duty — it’s a gift.
“One of the things that needs to
happen in a relationship is they need to know when they are really
connected to themselves,” Byrd says. “If you’re not connected to your
own self, you can’t get intimate with someone else. It’s this whole
practice of feeling at home in your own body, breathing and using your
energy.
“Old cultures have ways of teaching
what sexual energy is and how it empowers you,” she says. “We don’t have
that in this culture. We need to start with something basic that we do
every day. Usually, that’s kissing.”
People travel from all over the world
to attend Byrd’s one-day class, which costs $335 per couple. More
information about the classes can be found at www.kissingschool.com, or
pick up Byrd’s new release: “Kissing School! Seven Lessons on Love, Lips
and Life Force.”
During the sessions, Byrd says she
uses kissing as a way to teach people to open their own heart and to
offer it to their lover. The techniques she uses include breathing,
eye-gazing and learning how to touch each other’s souls through massage.
“You can drink that love right up
while your partner is working on your feet,” she says.
Too often, Byrd says, people want a
formula for kissing and lovemaking, to know they’re doing it right or
long enough. But there is no such standard.
“This is the experience of sharing
emotions through the body. Somebody is receiving something; somebody is
offering something,” Byrd says. “There is a dance of energy in the kiss.
It’s all about feeling your beloved loving you.”
If you can’t make it to Seattle, Byrd
has some suggestions for couples trying to reconnect on their own,
especially those who are reuniting after lengthy overseas deployments.
After a long deployment, let your kiss welcome him home As soon as
you see him emerge from the plane, look him in the eye. “Men,
particularly warriors of any kind, really respond to the emotions of
their beloved, even more than their own emotions,” Byrd says. “The
beauty they see radiating from their woman is not physical beauty, it’s
inner beauty. It’s the energy of who they are. “Even if you can’t be
heard for all the cheering and crying, you can always send your love
into their eyes and hearts.” Women need to have the courage to
open their heart and embrace their husbands, no matter how many walls
he’s built at the moment or how much he has changed. “You need to look
him in his eyes and really see who’s in there,” Byrd says. “Send your
energy in there.”
She said women should not be surprised
to learn that their husbands return not feeling like the same person who
left a year earlier. Byrd says women need to unconditionally accept who
their husbands are in that moment. "For you to allow yourself to
be tender enough to merge into their arms in that moment, it’s like
giving somebody in the desert water,” she says. “You’re not asking them
to be anything other than who they are in that moment, and that really
is nurturing.” Once at home, it’s important to re-knit him back into the
family in small ways that show you appreciate him.
“The whole practice of appreciating
them is a huge nurturing step to take,” Byrd says. “It’s the small
appreciations: You can thank him for driving that night, or it might be
something as simple as telling him you don’t remember his eyes being
that blue. “You’re telling him you see him, and you appreciate
him.”
How touch can help a returning warrior
feel safe and appreciated
Byrd stresses that after being apart for long periods, a couple has to
learn to re-create a sense of safety with each other. “The threads of
energy between you are not so strong any more, and you really are
learning how to nurture each other and need each other in a tender way,”
Byrd says. “Kissing can be the practice that helps you get there.”
Overcoming a feeling of vulnerability can be one of the most difficult
challenges for soldiers returning from war, Byrd says. Wives can help
their husbands melt down those walls, she says, by nurturing them
through touch and massage. And there is no quick fix to regaining
a sense of stability. As the walls dissipate, and he realizes he’s still
OK, Byrd says little by little, he will regain a sense of calmness and
security.
“Nurturing is a primary sense of
safety. They need a sense of connection again,” she says.
Kissing can help you get there. Byrd says before you even begin kissing,
couples should connect through the foreplay of kissing. “We think
of kissing as foreplay, but the foreplay to kissing is making a
connection with yourself and your partner. You can be in a bubble bath
or just letting your skin touch each other. It’s a very powerful way of
getting connected.”
The kiss, a user’s guide
Byrd hates “the peck” — when lovers quickly snap a kiss on the cheek and leave.
“A peck is saying, ‘I don’t have time to kiss you.’ It’s also annoying. You’re breaking contact each time — peck, peck, peck. It’s like poking somebody. It’s never satisfying,” she says.
“When you kiss somebody, you want something that lingers, that makes you go ‘umm, umm, umm.’ It flavors your morning,” Byrd says.
Goodbye kisses, frequent in military marriages, are sometimes the most important kiss you can give.
“The truth is, you don’t know if you’ll ever see that person again. It’s dangerous sending them out to war, and it’s dangerous just going out into the world every day,” Byrd says. “The goodbye kiss is the, ‘if I never see you again, I leave you with this gift of connection, this gift of my love for you.’ ”
And the hello kiss? Well, that can set the tone of the entire evening.
“If he comes in the door, and you look him right in the eyes, take that face and bring it to you like you’re drinking out of a goblet of joy — that’s a way to turn an evening into something,” she says. “Even if you never kiss again the whole evening, you’ll both be humming with this sense of connection that keeps the flow going.”
The kiss should never simply be a mashing of the lips or a full-on tonsil examination. Instead, Byrd says, you can be endlessly creative while keeping the rest of your body alive.
“Frequently, people stop breathing. It also happens when they hug,” Byrd says. “Then there’s no energy moving, no connecting going on. You want to climb into their skin and have them climb into yours and climb into the embrace of your lips,” Byrd says. “This is about connecting, saying, ‘oh, you’re so tasty, let me devour you and appreciate the yummyness that you are.’ ”
Moving the rest of your body with the kiss, stroking their back, running your fingers through their hair and touching their face, also helps make good kisses great.
“If the whole body is kissing, that makes the best kisses,” she says.
ARTICLE RE-PRINT
On-Line Dating article requested by love.msn.com for their April 2007 column!
The true
gift of on-line dating is the quality of focus, clarity and intention that’s
required to be successful in manifesting our dreams. Most people initially go
on-line with very little clarity about what they truly desire in a relationship,
and the responses they receive will always mirror their beliefs and confusions.
Anyone can fill in the blanks and post a profile in a matter of moments, and
what they will quickly find is that they get a vast array of responses; much of
the time you’re left wondering, WHY did this strange person respond to me?
Because your profile was vague enough that they could see themselves in your
picture, after all they like sunsets too. Who wants to wade through the muck of
confusion that will inevitably come your way as a reflection of your own?
What does it say about a person who begins the profile with a statement like,
“Well, I don’t know what to say about myself, it’s really hard to post 200
characters”? Or, “My friends tell me I’m a really nice person.” What would a
relationship with them be like? The first one has no sense of themselves; the
latter is defined by everyone else. Scary.
Then there are the folks who start off saying they’ve been finding a lot of
liars on line and they really want honesty. Why is it that they’re attracting a
rash of liars? Clearly there is a resonance within them that broadcasts fear,
lack of trust or victimization. Very scary.
There is truly a vast array of fish in the global on-line sea, and your clarity
and discrimination are required to attract the ones that are nourishing for you.
Take time with yourself to meditate on, envision, or journal about what is
essential in relationship for you before you even write the profile. Make sure
that you’re writing from your heart as well as your head or your lust. Try
“wearing” the vision you’re conjuring and see if it really fits and feels like
it lifts your spirit and opens your heart to a larger experience of love. Write
if off line first, tell it all to yourself, and then pull out the ideas and
realizations you wish to share.
Each time you discover an important aspect of yourself that you left out of your
profile go back and rewrite it. The process itself helps you cultivate clarity;
your profile will shape and define your intent, desires and relating skills as
well as what you attract. Notice that each time you change it you will attract
different feeling people, that’s just how the universe works. When you tune your
dial to a particular radio station you get a different feeling music. The
clearer you are, the less static and dissonance you receive. Remember that the
clarity you want is about the essence of the person, not necessarily the costume
they happen to be wearing. Our costumes will change and wrinkle as we age, we’re
in relationship with the person inside.
Keep in mind that on-line meet and greet is a virtual reality. What gets said in
profiles, emails and phone calls is inevitably going to be skewed. Everyone one
wants to play nice, if not seduce you into liking them. Everyone is speaking to
the great unknown and the blank mirror is bound to be filled with projections,
and fantasy, and fears, yours and theirs. If you feel safe with this person, and
are genuinely interested set up a short, public meeting relatively soon, and
read the vibes in person. Our intuition is a primary source of information when
we’re sizing up a situation, and intuition is much less loaded with fantasy when
we’re sitting in each other’s energy fields.
What does your heart say about this person? What is your gut saying? Do you feel
confused or less clear about yourself when you’re with them? Or do you feel
genuinely seen and felt and heard? If you’re struggling in their presence
recognize that there are dissonant energies between you and you’re probably
contracting your relationship with yourself in their presence. Find a friend
with whom you feel at ease, open and curious; one in whose presence you can
relax and feel genuinely met. The odds are good that if you’re feeling this,
then they are as well; this is the person to invite back for a second date.
Cherie Byrd is an internationally recognized holistic psychotherapist, author,
healer, speaker and educator specializing in body/heart/mind/spirit integration,
spiritual emergence, and sacred sexuality. She has been in private practice in
Seattle, WA for 30 years and is a pioneer in the field of Energy Psychology.
Cherie is the creator and facilitator of trainings on sacred sexuality and the
embodiment of high frequency states of consciousness, including her
internationally recognized Kissing School. She is the author of Kissing School,
7 Lessons on Love, Lips, and Life Force, and has been profiled in print, screen,
and audio and internet media around the world. Cherie can be reached at
www.KissingSchool.com, or 206.324.2526.
slide the small blue bar on the INSIDE right of this player display, down til you see The Art
of Kissing School Part 1 2 or 3! There have been audio problems with the
podomatic player, so you may want to go to the link above if it fails here.
BOOK REVIEW on "Kissing
School, 7 Lessons on Love, Lips and Life Force" Review by Angela
Earle. Printed in Spirit of the Valley,
Magazine of Mountain Wellness, Aug 2006.
Since any of us may die at any moment, learning to love more fully sounds
like the most important, and most urgent, class to take. (page xii)
So opens Kissing School: Seven Lessons on Love, Lips, and Life Force. This is
not a book about technique, the correct amount of pooch or pout, or a waxing ode
to the power of love. It is about love as life and death, about love as here and
now, about being fully alive in the moment, about stepping up to the plate and
running with open arms into total being, bliss, and wonder. It’s about the fact
that a fabulous, powerful, memorable kiss is an outgrowth of a loving, connected
person-someone not afraid of their own sexual shadow. Someone willing to bring
their heart into the light… click here to read
the entire review posted on our site or
click here to read the review at Spirit of the Valley's
online magazine
ARTICLES BY
AND WITH CHERIE
To read the entire article, click on the
underlined article title.
To Connect or Not to ConnectWhy aren't all lovers bursting full
of heart and soul, radiating passionate life force? Why aren't all their days
filled with the energy of their beloved sweetly rushing through their bodies as
they go their way? Why aren't these luscious souls swooning with enflamed hearts
and bodies full of bliss hormones when they are together? I have the great
privilege of talking about intimacy with lots of people. I am often heart broken
by the number of people who readily acknowledge that their love life is
mediocre, at best.
Is your belief that the goal of sex is orgasm? click title to read more
an
interview with Cherie Byrd, MA by Diana Cristina
Excerpt: Diana:
Last month I joined my sweetie upon a nest of pillows and blankets and we spent
the day kissing. This wouldn't be so unusual, except that, as if in a strange
dream, we were in a schoolroom with several other couples doing the same thing
while learning tantric embodiment practices: breathing exercises, energy
meditations, sensual heightening, and touch training.
I later met with the instructor, a wild woman named Cherie Byrd, to learn more.
I began by telling her that I'd felt slightly wicked even considering coming to
the class, but that the idea of being in school learning how to stay in my body
while sucking face was just too deliciously weird to pass up.
Cherie: That's right, the whole idea of going to school to learn the arts of
loving is pretty radical in this puritanically engendered day and age! It's not
unheard of in other cultures, however, particularly in the past. I find that the
process of being taught to love while engaging the energy of Spirit often rings
a bell in our soul memories, echoes from past lives; there's the tug of
something familiar.
click here to read more
Excerpt: I was being interviewed for a "Kissing School!" video promo last week and the producer asked me,
"are there different kinds of kisses?". My mind was instantly overloaded with images and I realized that there probably are as many kinds of kisses as there are intentions for giving them. The technique itself doesn't carry the kiss, it's the energy transmitted, the emotion or thought behind it that informs the kiss. The technique may translate the intention skillfully or not, but that's more a matter of finesse and perhaps even more the quality of presence within the act.
click here to read more
Excerpt: I was
out in the garden wrestling with blackberry roots and I realized that a short
sound bite had been skipping thru my head for a couple of days, looping round
and round in the background of my mind... "Flintstone kids, ten thousand strong
and growing...". Geeze, a kid’s vitamin jingle, what was that about?
click here to read
more
Excerpt:
What happens to kissing? One minute, it’s the most exciting thing in our lives,
the best and most passionate way to get close to our new lover. The next minute,
it’s relegated to a few perfunctory pecks we give each other in the brief
moments immediately preceding sex. What happens to kissing? Why does it get so
unfairly demoted, and why do so many people believe it would take a miracle to
revive real, passionate kissing in our relationships? Cherie Byrd just may
have the answers. click
here to read more
Kissing School !
the educational division of
The Byrd Approach
The Byrd Approach/Kissing
School
2808-II East Madison, Suite 202 ·
Seattle, WA 98112
