Hey lovely Faye,

Your posts I find SO interesting – an email notification popped up into my email account – so on-line again to share with you here before heading to a local Buddhist monastery!
Open says: “totally accepting things as they are without needing to change them. So 'giving love to something' is not accepting it as it is. There's a tendency to try to change it. We must truly accept it as it is in the beginning - then breathe love through it.”

I resonate a lot with this and it is so profound when it is directly experienced. I find there is a tendency to use the breath (breathing into the density) or to use love (breathe love into/through) with the often subtle intention to change it (the density), to make it go away because it is so unpleasant. That’s natural of course. There is nothing wrong with that. Hence not necessary to judge it, it happens. In recognising this we can let it go and explore a different way to use the breath and love. I have found the breath to be a powerful tool to hold my attention so as to be with the density particularly if it becomes overwhelming. So my attention rides the breath so as to be with, totally accepting towards the density. Like, hey! It’s you again density, how wonderful, let’s have a cup of tea! Ha ha!

Similarly with love. A soft, kind, loving attitude which is embracing the density, filters it and lovingly accepts it as it is. Then naturally the density will dissolve by itself.

I don’t tend to work with visualisations a lot only because of the way that I was trained. But I would love to do that more and Openhand is drawing me into it. And it looks like you are a natural with visualisations, so I am learning from you!! :)

You say “There is one more thing that I wanted to say before but felt a bit shy, but Im going to say it anyway because its a big factor in whats going on for me at the moment, and Im probably not alone, is that I have so much sexual energy charging around my body-with no where to go and I'm not entirely sure what to do with it all!”

Faye, I am with you on this! I was actually, well, it feels like that I was born with high sexual energy. I find that people - and I in the past - are shy, fearful, shameful etc etc in talking about their sexual energy. This, in my experience, is quite restricting, mentally, physically and well, spiritually.

I would like to share with you some of the things that I have been exploring so as to channel the energy. Feeling through my sexual energy (physically and mentally) and intentionally focusing my attention on moving it through dance or any kind of movement. Dance does it very well for me and movement could be yoga or pilates or a conscious session at the gym or a power walk in nature. In the past, I was into high energy movement but now I can channel into soft movement and breathing. Nature is another way. Again, feeling intentionally my sexual energy and then allowing it to move through my other senses (smell in smelling a flower, the air, the water etc; sight in looking at the colours of a leaf and the shape of a tree trunk; touch in feeling through my fingers the delicate sense of the water etc etc ). For me, this is meditation on sexual energy by connecting with nature. There are more ways and sure you will find what works for you :)

Indeed, coming into an Openhand course is profound and it makes so much difference! See you there! Or sooner :)

With much much love xx