How is Butterfly Tantra Distinct from other Tantra Teachings

People always ask the question how is Butterfly Tantra distinct from other teachings and forms of Tantra. The answer is simply the difference between teachers. Teachers differ greatly in their philosophies, their methods, what they focus on and their lifestyles.

I will state for the record that I believe Tantra is much, much bigger than sacred sex. I believe that getting stuck in G-spot stimulation is an addiction like any other addiction. I personally do not care if you study Tantra and never have a partner with whom to have sex. I care that you fuel your body continually with sexual energy, the vital life force, and keep yourself circulating that energy to maintain your aliveness.

I care that you become healthy, stay healthy and walk the talk meaning do the practices. I care that you live within your own integrity. I care that you speak your truth. I care that you clear your emotions. I care that you feel orgasmic on the inside and that it reflects outward through your entire being. I care that life becomes a dance with the unknown so that every moment is fresh and new. When and if you do make love, I care that you make love in the unknown.

More on this later. I welcome your comments.

Integrity = Being Your Word + Inner Guidance

Coming from a crazy family where people's minds changed like the weather, I adopted the policy of being true to my word no matter what. Even if the time came and I didn't feel like doing whatever I had agreed to, I kept my word and showed. I always wanted people to feel like they could count on me. I did not know I had huge underlying safety issues so I sought to enable people to feel safe with me. I figured, if they could count on me (my word), I could count on them. That should have equaled safe. Right?
Wrong!

Then I sought out learning experiences inside of paradigms where keeping your word equals integrity. For me, I felt I could finally feel secure knowing that I could trust what people said. After all, if I gave my word, I'd keep it. So, they must be the same. What was I thinking? People gave their word and made promises all the time. And they broke their word.

Things happened. What, I don't know. I never asked. I was not concerned with their excuses for not keeping their word. I was concerned with the fact that their word had been broken. I found myself making them wrong. I was even sneakier than that. I devalued them and still loved them, but less. I justified this righteous behavior of mine and had no room for their growth and development gap.

So were they safe with me? In fact, no. Did I feel safe with them? No.

Then I began studying Tantra. This Eastern philosophy encourages you to embrace it all, the right and the wrong, the light and the dark. I learned to embrace other's darkness (breaking of word) and my darkness (making them wrong). When this embrace empowered me to come out of the darkness, all of a sudden, I developed a lot of room for it all. I stopped taking it personally when a word was broken. I stopped being attached to outcomes. I became more appreciative of the process of transformation and just what it takes for people to keep their word, other people.

Inside of Tantra, I also became familiar with a powerful process called Latihan.

Latihan is a deep meditation where you go inside and then move following inner guidance. Some people call this authentic movement. During one Latihan session, I met my life's purpose staring me right in the eye. I began to listen to my inner voice rather than being distracted by what was "right" or "wrong" with the outer world.

I have been using this practice for 8 years. It has altered my life and altered my relationship to integrity and word. Now I follow inner guidance inside of my life's purpose when I commit to do something. Usually by the time the event comes about, I still want to do it. I am not merely toughing it out by keeping my word to anything and everything. I am keeping my word to something I have clearly chosen out of my deep commitment to what I am committed to in life. I have given up needing to have people count on me above all else and trying to make them feel safe. I have stopped making them wrong and myself right if things change. I focus on myself, my intentions and the messages I get from within. It is easy to keep my word and be with people exactly where they are. There is no more resentment.

At the end of the day, my word is in alignment with my life's purpose. And when I give it, it is a measure of the commitments that guide my life. Now it really does add up to my integrity, my truth. The bonus is that I'm experiencing many more people these days keeping their word. Something major has shifted in my life.



How to do Latihan:
You stand in a room with eyes closed. Playing on the stereo is ethereal music no lyrics.

The practice starts out by you picturing yourself standing at the edge of a cliff. You are strapped into a harness that is attached to a zip line. The zip line is stretched across a void. In other words, in your mind's eye, if you look down, you see only darkness, nothing - the void. In the meditation, you let go of your foothold and swing out over the void. You hang there attached to the zip line.

Then you reach up and push a red button that unfastens the clasp holding you connected to the zip line. Essentially, you let go and fall into the unknown.

Once you feel yourself falling, you begin to move only when movement moves you. This is not about prescribed movements, postures, dance steps or even asanas. It is simply to notice the impulse to move and then feel your way into the next movement.

Practice this for 10 - 15 minutes at first. Then move to a half hour.
Gradually build up to an hour at least once a week.

Copyright Butterfly Workshops, Inc. 2005

It's all good!

I am back in the States and I am whole and fine. As a matter of fact it's even better than that!

England was so good for me. Who would have thought? England - duh! Really it was. The benefits just keep growing exponentially. In am thrilled.

Here are a few of the outcomes from this last trip:

• My father and I are at a truce. So far it has lasted five days. Very good.
• I have been invited back for a December Tantra Festival in Dartmouth to present alongside the UK's leading Tantra teachers (Michele Wortman will accompany me and do her magical Moola- Ajna atunement).
• I came across a funny article written about our documentary in a UK online magazine. Click this link to go there http://www.channel4.com/4talent/feature.jsp?id=2026
• I have finally been approved to lead a series of "Active Meditations" to the stuffy Fire Island crowd (I know it's hard to believe that people here are stuffy, but when you make tons of money I guess you get more conservative - I don't know; I am just happy to finally be able to offer some of what I do here where I live. It's a form of giving back.)
• My book Sex & Happiness: The Tantric Laws of Intimacy (as well as my CD; Shamanic Release & Latihan and my DVD: Bliss Beginner's Tantra) will be carried at Mysteries, London's most exclusive store for New Age and Holistic information located in Covent Garden.

What can I say? I am happy. I am getting rest from the crazy pace I have kept since January 5th and I am feeling more prosperous and prolific than ever. Watch out world!

And I can hardly wait to go back to India. Want to come? Contact me right away.

Sex & Happiness Launched in London!

Just want you all to know that there was a remarkable launch of Sex & Happiness yesterday as part of an all day Tantralink Summer Event here in London.

The event began at 10am. After a brief introduction with one or two ground rules for conduct, I led the morning with Find the Empty Space, Mirror Dance, Dance Back-to-Back followed by Osho's Gibberish, Silence and Latihan. Then I led London's first Bodyhan. After the Bodyhan, to clear everyone's energy we did Egyptian Balancing Breath and Egyptian Cleansing Breath.

After a lunch break, we came back to do some yummy massage modules led by various other participants and we all got very relaxed just before I was to offer excerpts from my book Sex & Happiness: The Tantric Laws of Intimacy .

I swear, my hair was messed up and my lipstick askew, but there I was - called into the spotlight.

The fabulous book signing was a highlight in this all day event. I read excerpts to a wonderful audience of 36 people. What a delight to be so well received. There were questions and an opportunity for me to give answers and then we had champagne. I signed a bunch of books and posed for photos with many of the individuals in attendance.

I felt so honored and so author-like.

It was great.

After the dinner break we all came back to a trance dance where there was a band improvising to the movements of the group (much like Group Motion in Philly). I danced my ass off and went home totally full and also exhausted from one of the best days of my life.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge Kavida Rei of Tantralink, London and her partner Andrew for their amazing production of the Summer Event and their love and support of me. Also I want to acknowledge Kirsty Allison of Slack Alice Films (part of our film crew from the India tour) for capturing the event on video. What a blessing.

This fall – let's do amazing book launch events in New York, DC, Philly and somewhere in South Florida – oh yeah sorry San Francisco, too! Hell why stop there? New Delhi will come next.

Love to all from London,
Laurie

Beyond Tantra

The weekend before I left for London, I went to a course in New York called the Opening Course. I was urged by one of my students to take this course to see for myself how it applies to the Butterfly work.

Well, wow another peak experience!

I participated in a wonderful daylong with Nicole Daedone of One Taste. What a great revolutionary woman! Basically she has come up with a new look at a technology originally started at More University. She has made it relevant to the new millennium and brought it into a more socially acceptable paradigm in my opinion.

She calls the basis of what she offers OM meditation. OM stands for Orgasm Meditation. In this technology women receive 15 minutes of clitoral stroking three times per day by a stroker (doesn't have to be the same person each time). Her belief is that if women are filled up with sexual energy, it will make all the difference in the world. So she has provided a way where women can get filled up in a safe and structured way. Now of course, I am oversimplifying for the purposes of whetting your appetite, but I wanted to introduce the concept to you.

I plan to participate in the New York OMing sessions as often as I can and I will do research and development so as to modify any of this that needs to be modified for the greater good. Please note that I plan to sponsor Nicole in Philly, DC and West Palm to deliver this info to all who could use a boost in their Tantric practices. I want people all to get as much from this parallel body of knowledge as possible.

Combined with Butterfly and Osho Emotional Release techniques, this could take everything to
a whole new level.

I will keep you posted on my progress and I will certainly let you know when Butterfly Workshops will make the Opening Course available in places other than SF and NY. Anyone can be a stroker by the way.

Much love,
Laurie

P.S. Did I say how clean this thing was? What a pleasure to find no slime anywhere. Not a predator in the room. Now that's something.

Initiation 2007

Well, after that last blog about the weekend spent with Charles Muir and my students Shiva O and Shiva H, so much else has happened. I must admit I was changed forever based on that powerful experience.

Recently I was in Northern California facilitating my most advanced course, Initiation – The Mastery of Self-Love. That in itself was an amazing experience. There were ten participants and three staff (including me).

The course is basically about having it all and based on four distinctions: Resistance/Satisfaction, Not Safe/Safe, No Permission/Permission and Negative Intention/Intention.

People took amazing ground in their pursuit of self-love. Each and everyone came away totally shifted into a new personal paradigm for their lives.

I think the important thing here is for me to say how it has impacted me. You can find actual testimonials on my website from people who have been in the course, but for each and everyone following my latest progress, it is important that I share for myself.

I rediscovered that introducing people to a formula for producing self-love through rigorous exercises and body work, plus taking them another step of the way towards sexual freedom releasing past shame, guilt, and societal pressure most assuredly influenced the outcomes of their intended intentions - another amazing experiment in people attaining personal power and self-definition. They now see what powerful creators they are like never before.

First of all, I made the course more juicy than ever before. While I have always had optional naked swimming in this course (and for some this has been the biggest freedom anyone could experience in life), I built in additional things this time. Since Shiva O was in attendance we offered optional OM (orgasmic meditation) sessions as part of our spa which involves clitoral stimulation for 15 minutes by a man who desires nothing in return, but simply to be in the meditation. The men in the course learned about giving to a woman with no other agenda. The women learned to just receive with no reciprocity expected, required, implied, or demanded. What freedom to experience pleasure authentically what a challenge for some. Of course it helped everyone to know that I had gone first. I like myself as a scientific laboratoryJ

With the names withheld to protect their identities, here’s what people said at the end of the course when asked, “What did you bring back from Initiation 2007?”

• A clean slate. Opening a fortune cookie, seeing no fortune there; realizing that I have the freedom to make my own fortune.
• A new life and vulnerability that deserves care from me.
• Crying, and embracing the crying.
• Emptiness. Ground zero. A new paradigm for interacting powerfully with men. An opportunity and new paradigm for intimacy with myself.
• A roller coaster of expansion/contraction, like a spring going in and out.
• New physical sensations, new interactions with my daughter.
• Realizing that the Goddess provides in abundance - all I have to do is ask and receive.
• New power and appreciation for emotional release.
• New paradigm for functioning in the world, while also taking care of myself.
• Courage to move into the unknown.
• Acceptance of myself and my own humanity.
• Calm, secure, powerful awareness of myself and my interactions with others.
• I am safe. I have boundaries that I can embrace and enforce.
• Ability to move from one space to the next big enough to do it with all of myself.
• A new aspect of my power to speak my truth, make peace with others, and walk away loving myself and them better for it.
• I found my higher place.

Now doesn’t all of this make you want to be there the next time? Hope so. When I re-read it, I am blown away. I have witnessed that in only seven days people dumped their lifetime shit and came into their power and self-love. I LOVE MY JOB!

Wow What a Weekend! Tantric Healing

This past weekend I attended Charles Muir's Beginner Tantra course. This was different for me because I never before pictured myself in Charles' course. I had heard stories about him sleeping with students and all sorts of other gossip in the Tantra world so I was just never gonna be a participant in his work.

Then, when Charles and Leah, his fiancee scheduled a course in New York City, I was invited by two people I love and respect totally Dr. Judy Kuriansky and teeni dakini. How could I refuse? The thing that really turned me around though was when I interviewed Charles on my internet radio show Tantra Cafe. What a great show we did and I was so moved by his sharing on the show. I decided to press the red button and go for it.

Well, the course was a blast and very juicy - very red Tantra!

I laughed and cried in some of the sharing and processes (although there were not too many processes). Charles' style is more lecture than I have experienced in Tantra before, yet very entertaining and very informative. I learned little nuances about things that greatly increased my knowledge of Tantra. And he is certainly a master of Tantra and Hatha yoga. At 69 years of age, he is as limber as a youngster. Good show!

Now as to how my life transformed, whoa baby! The homework for the second evening for the couples and singles in the class is to have the men (Shivas) perform shamanic yoni healing on a female partner (Shakti). I already knew this going into the course and I was determined to have a really positive experience for myself. Rather than select a partner from the single men available in the course, I invited one of my Shiva students to attend the course with me and told him of the homework asking him if he was up to doing this process with me. He said YES, he would be honored. I wanted to feel that I was doing this intimate assignment with a man who I could trust and feel safe with as well as one who had been trained by me (and teeni).

As it turns out, another of my Shiva students decided to attend at the last moment and joined us in the course. He is also someone I have a very close relationship with teacher-student and friendship.

When it came time to choose the Shiva to accompany me to my space in NYC, I chose them both believing that the two of them would provide the exact amount of healing I desired and needed. I am so glad I did this and so were they. It took the nervousness and performance anxiety off the assignment for each of them to have the other available. They know I have big energy and now they could relax into the flow of the evening.

So we went to my place. We stopped for some food and wine. We shared our desires for the process, our fears and our intentions. We were all a bit nervous, but we got through it. Each of us showered and then we created a temple in the bedroom.

I got on the bed and they gave me a sensual massage. Then I said it would be okay to start the process. Shaman H asked me if I was willing to forgive and forget anyone and anything that had violated me in my life including me. I answered affirmatively. He then warmed his hands and put them on my heart. Shaman O stroked my genitals and warmed me up in the 2nd Chakra getting my juices flowing while I sang "Light My Fire" by the Doors. Then he inserted his forefinger into my yoni (vagina) and found my sacred spot. With just a little bit of jiggling around or pressing (I have no idea which), I instantly got in touch with the memory of the experience of having been burned at the stake. I cried and yelled a lot. Shaman H held me and said, "It wasn't your fault. They didn't get who you were. Let it go." That was the perfect thing to say.

Once I was done with this process, we began again next round. With a little more jiggling of the sacred spot, I became aware of an early memory of my father that I thought I had dealt with and completed years ago in the EST training. Some of you will laugh while reading this if you were around Landmark Education when I used to use this as one of my shares while leading introductions. When I was three and a half years old my mother was just back from the hospital taking care of my new infant sister in another room. My father was in charge of and feeding me porrage and orange juice in my highchair. I was a very demanding little girl (no surprise here) and I wanted him to strain the pulp out of the juice. I started crying and stamping saying to him, "Mommy would do it for me. I don't like orange juice with pulp." The scene ended with my father throwing the glass of orange juice over my head and walking out the door saying, "I'm done. I won't do this again."

So deep inside me was living the memory of this incident. From this I got the biggest 'aha' as I cried and released it. Here's the breakthrough: I have been very straight in most all situations in my life with speaking my truth, what I want and don't want when it comes to friends and business, but with the men in my life, I have not been quite as honest - afraid to say what I really want, what I really really want because unbeknownst to me, I held deep in myself the expectation that the men would throw something over my head and walk out the door.

WOW WOW WOW!

When that flew out of me, these two Shiva Shamans held me and stroked my body as I cried and cried. I said, "I had no idea that was still inside me! I am so greatful that it came out and I can be done with it. Thank you so much Shivas."

They held me and said, "We are so honored to be in this process with you. We love you so much. We want to give back. You are our teacher. You deserve love and deserve this healing."

Oh, I cried and let it all in and out.

Then we started our next round. We switched positions. Shiva O exchanged places with Shiva H. Shiva O stationed himself at my head while Shiva H went to my loins because I asked him to. He reached inside me and began to stroke and grope. All of a sudden he touched on a space that had me go wild. I screamed and cried and shifted energy from side to side until I caught his attention. I must have screamed into a pillow well beyond the normal yelling during orgasm. I really had to let go. I had an amazing series of orgasms and releases under his skilled fingers. I am only aware of screaming into a pillow so that the neighbors would not hear. I screamed my guts out beyond the beyond.

I went into class the next day and shared the intimate details. I am grateful. I really am. I moved beyond my limits and into a new space. I feel free expanded and open beyond anything I have ever known.

Thank you Shivas.
Thank you Charles & Leah.
Thank you teeni and Judy.
Thank you all for going there.

Love & Gratitude,
Laurie

My Book: Sex & Happiness: The Tantric Laws of Intimacy is out!

I am in West Palm Beach - just did two trade shows over the last two weekends and I'm about to do a Bliss course here this Saturday (in case you know anyone who would like to do it). This past weekend my book finally arrived from my publishers in India. I got 50 advance copies and the others are on the way to New York. Should be arriving first week of May. Yee ha!!!

My point is that Sex & Happiness: The Tantric Laws of Intimacy is here in my hand! I am so happy about it I cannot tell you. My life long dream to write a book is fulfilled now as I write.

This weekend at the WPB Body, Mind, Spirit Expo I felt people looked at me differently when they saw the book and then they saw me. Someone told me this would happen, but I did not know how it would feel and it felt slightly different. Books make people instant experts. I could feel it. I am no longer simply a Tantra teacher. I am now an expert. It feels tangible. Of course Michele, my colleague, made it particularly clear to people who visited the booth that this
was THE book and then this was me standing right here where they could touch me - THE author.

I learned a lot in the process both about writing, about trusting, about working with others who say one thing and have a completely different understanding of what needs to be done and then keeping their word or not. In the end of each segment along the way, I had to let go, surrender totally.

I know what to do differently for the next printing and with the next book and I'm sure I'll still learn some things when all is said and done. And surrender is the main lesson.

Isn't that just the cosmic joke over and over again? Surrender is the main lesson. Breathe and squeeze. Oooo and Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

In the advance order I think I mentioned there were fifty books. They are gone now:-) I sold a lot of them at the show and the rest are in the mail going to those people who advance ordered the book over the last year. What a feeling of accomplishment.

FYI you can order the book online at my website www.butterflyworkshops.com. You have the choice of getting the actual book for $19.99 plus S & H or ordering it as an eBook for $14.99.
Hopefully the two versions will serve everyone's tastes. And I ask you to let others know that they can get a hold of it too.

I plan to have a third option which is a combination of the book and the Shamanic Release & Latihan CD as a package for $35 plus S & H as well. They go hand in hand. In the book I talk a lot about Emotional Release and the CD is the tool I created to help you do it.

I recently had the expereince of doing emotional release to my own CD and it was amazing so I will write about it in the next post.

All I can say is that I am thrilled beyond words and looking forward to your feedback about the book.

If you have leads for book signing places and independent bookstores please feel free to follow up with me about that now. I am ready to take this book to Oprah and to the world.

With so much love & gratitude,
L