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The Be Fully Alive Podcast On Patreon
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"We all carry the potential to realize, in real time, that the vibrant energy we experience
when we feel truly loved, seen and met, is who we actually are." Dawn Cartwright
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Episode 327 . Ceremonial Lovemaking
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The Be Fully Alive Podcast
I was first introduced to the concept of ceremonial lovemaking when I met Margot Anand more than 30 years ago.
I'll be honest, ceremonial lovemaking sounded like a terrible idea to me.
I loved sex. I knew for certain sex held a power most people weren't aware of. It seemed to me that formalizing sex, in the way I imagined ceremony might, would ruin it.
I'd never meditated. I'd read several books on sexual technique - written during the sexual revolution — which meant I learned to listen to my body and step into sexual pleasure the way I'd step onto a dance floor — as a deeply personal exploration firmly rooted in my own experience.
Then, in 1992, I found myself in Sonoma, California. Vast skies, rolling hills, stars, pink morning light. Margot Anand's Love and Ecstasy Training.
Fifty participants. Candles and altars and meditations and practices — and nights spent in the group room Margot referred to as the temple after the day's training sessions were over.
Slipping into ceremony without even realizing it.
I discovered, for myself, that ceremony is just another word for joining.
Another word for being here. With. You.
Dawn
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"Within this earthen vessel are bowers and groves, and within it is the Creator.
Within this vessel are the seven oceans and the unnumbered stars."
— Kabir, Songs of Kabir Translated by Rabindranath Tagore, 1915
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 | Episode 328 . The Maithuna Practice
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The Be Fully Alive Podcast
Maithuna is a ceremony of union. The cosmos knowing itself through lovemaking.
Maithuna is beautifully preserved in the Classical Tantra tradition. A journey of years of preparation and purification that leads, for those who are truly dedicated, to a place of Absolute Love.
True Maithuna is practiced under the guidance of a guru — in this practice episode, we'll experience the spirit of the ceremony, rather than the ceremony itself. We'll embody the devotion that lives at its core.
The sacred lovemaking ritual, a ceremony.
A progression of states that bring the lovers into a purified state of being. Maithuna is the cosmos knowing itself.
Purification, anointing, invocation, the worship of the lover and beloved. Dissolving layers of separation— the roles, the goals, the performance — until we are present with one another as Shiva and Shakti. Revealing the ecstatic potential that exists in intimacy and lovemaking.
A ceremony of homecoming.
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 | Episode 329 . The Night Amara Said Yes To Herself
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The Be Fully Alive Podcast
Amara Osei-Bonsu is 34 years old. She plays cello in the Vienna Philharmonic. She left a good marriage, not because it failed. Her marriage ended because she had been absent, from herself and her husband, for years.
She moved to an apartment in the 4th district, furnished it with flea market velvet and old apricot linen. She has custody of the cat. Amara listens to the Be Fully Alive Podcast when she's commuting on the tram.
For seven weeks, Amara has been practicing the NeoTantra practices — shaking in her kitchen in her socks, anointing her face by candlelight, learning to meet her own reflection with something closer to curiosity than assessment.
She is an excellent student.
She is also, she begins to recognize, someone who has spent her adult life approaching her own body the way her lovers have always approached it — according to logic, with an efficiency oriented toward a destination.
Leaving her behind.
And then, on a Friday evening in her old enamel bathtub in the 4th district, with Max Richter on repeat and the cat presiding from the bath mat, she discovers her body has desires, maps, sensations that no one — including herself — has ever explored.
Touching herself the way she actually wants to be touched is something she's never done — until now.
This is a story about the current that runs through us whether or not we acknowledge it. And what it costs — and what we restore — when we finally stop having sex from somewhere above ourselves in the bedroom.
Episode 320 . The Night Amara Said Yes To Herself
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 | New 8-Week Series: The Art Of NeoTantra Partner Practice
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The Be Fully Alive Podcast . 8-Week Series
For thousands of years, the Hindu temple tradition has encoded a complete map of the human journey into sacred space.
From the outer gate to the innermost chamber, from the first act of purification to the moment of mutual beholding at the center.
Every threshold, every ritual, every offering was designed to produce a specific effect on human consciousness: the gathering of scattered awareness into a single, vivid, fully embodied point of contact.
This is the map we'll follow across eight weeks.
The Art of Sacred Intimacy draws from the living wisdom of Hindu temple practice — the architecture, the rituals, the priestly traditions, the Sanskrit teachings — and brings them into the most intimate spaces of our lives. Whether we come with a partner or walking the solo path, this practice will change the way we touch, the way we connect, and the way we make love.
Monday we learn. Wednesday we practice. Friday we witness.
An intimate arc of discovery for singles and couples ready to explore the sacred intimacy NeoTantra reveals.
WEEK 1: THE BELL AT THE GATE Ghanta — Awakening
The bell rings. Awareness gathers. The senses sharpen.
Episode 309 (Mon): The Bell at the Gate
Week One of our 8-week NeoTantra practice for couples and solo practitioners. We'll discover what the temple bell reveals about awareness — and what becomes possible in lovemaking when we are truly present.
Episode 310 (Wed): The Arrival Practice
A guided practice of breath, body awareness, and arrival — awakening the senses and cultivating the quality of presence that reveals the deeper layers of intimacy we crave.
Episode 311 (Fri): Callum Stopped Checking His Phone
Seven years together. One evening of real presence. What Callum and Priya discover when they tune in and turn toward each other with full awareness.
WEEK 2: THE THRESHOLD Shuddhi — Purification
Releasing the stories, the tension, the residue from the day.
Episode 312 (Mon): The Threshold
Shuddhi — the Hindu art of purification — the seven layers of the temple mirroring our own journey of intimacy.
Episode 313 (Wed): Crossing the Threshold
That moment when we make the decision to say yes. A guided practice through the temple's layers — shaking, sound, and water — as a complete sequence of shuddhi.
Episode 314 (Fri): Elena's Saturday Morning
Elena hasn't cried in two years. On a Saturday morning in New York, she crosses the threshold alone — and discovers what becomes available in intimate life when we finally clear the space within ourselves.
WEEK 3: THE FIVE OFFERINGS Puja — The Offering
Five offerings. Five senses awakened in sequence.
Episode 315 (Mon): The Five Offerings
The Pancha Upacharas — five offerings to awaken our senses — intimacy as an offering of love and reverence.
Episode 316 (Wed): Pancha Upacharas
A ceremony to reveal the secrets of intimate connection through the senses — giving and receiving with devotion.
Episode 317 (Fri): James's Adoration
James has a natural proclivity for adoration, something he’d always taken for granted — until now.
WEEK 4: THE CIRCLING Pradakshina — Circumambulation
Pradakshina is the practice of sustained, circling, returning attention.
Episode 318 (Mon): The Circling
Keeping our beloved at the center of our pleasure reveals a new doorway to sustained erotic awareness and emotional attunement.
Episode 319 (Wed): The Circle Practice
A guided pranayama practice for couples and solo practitioners — cultivating the shared energetic field that exists as the center of every erotic connection.
Episode 320 (Fri): The Long Marriage of Miriam and Robert
Forty-two years together, and a wake up call that brings them closer. Intertwined through breath, they open an inner door to shared arousal.
WEEK 5: THE ANOINTING Abhishekam — The Sacred Bath
The deity's body is bathed with honey, milk, and rose water. This is abhishekam.
Episode 321 (Mon): The Anointing
Complete and total adoration. Elevating intimate moments, awakening the inner lover, accessing a higher love.
Episode 322 (Wed): The Anointing Practice
Annointing every part of our lover’s body with scented oils and fragrances. Igniting flames of desire through touch.
Episode 323 (Fri): Lena and the Mirror
Lena is 27 and has never touched her body with true devotion — until now.
WEEK 6: THE FLAME Aarti — The Ceremony of Light
This is aarti — seeing the divine face of the beloved.
Episode 324 (Mon): The Flame
Aarti — the Hindu ceremony of transmitted light — revealing the divine face of the beloved.
Episode 325 (Wed): The Candlelight Practice
Candlelight, stillness and wonder. Who are we in illuminated moments of lovemaking.
Episode 326 (Fri): Tomás and Remi's Renewal
Tomás and Remi have been together eleven years. Somewhere along the way they stopped actually exploring one another as lovers. This week, they begin to explore one another again.
WEEK 7: SACRED UNION Maithuna — Sacred Union
Maithuna. The Tantric teaching of sacred sexual union.
Episode 327 (Mon): Ceremonial Lovemaking
Ceremonial cultivation of ecstatic energy during lovemaking reveals dimensions of awareness and connection that are rarely experienced — and beautifully simple and meaningful.
Episode 328 (Wed): The Maithuna Practice
Following threads of arousal inward. Expanding beyond pleasure. Discovering union. A guided ceremony of sacred lovemaking for couples and singles.
Episode 329 (Fri): The Night Amara Said Yes to Herself
Amara is a cellist, three years single by choice. The night she practices maithuna alone is the most intimate, the most alive, and the most unexpectedly ecstatic evening of her life.
WEEK 8: THE BLESSINGS Prasad — The Blessing
When the devotee leaves the temple, they carry blessings home with them.
Episode 330 (Mon): What We Carry Home
In the Hindu Tantric Tradition, the sweetness of our lovemaking is food for the gods. The blessings we receive when we make love are the treasure we bring into our lives.
Episode 331 (Wed): The Everflowing Blessings Practice
As we complete this series, we step fully over the threshold into a new experience of lovemaking and intimacy. Rediscovering the true compass for our intimate lives going forward.
Episode 332 (Fri): Eight Weeks Later
We return to all our characters — Callum and Priya, Elena, James, Miriam and Robert, Lena, Tomás and Remi, Amara — and witness what eight weeks of sacred practice has made of their bodies, their partnerships, and their lives.
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The Be Fully Alive Podcast
I look forward to welcoming you into the Be Fully Alive Podcast community. We're diving deep into the elegant systems that transform complex lives into embodied aliveness.
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Thank you for being part of this evolution with me. I can't wait to share what's coming next.
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 | Making peak experiences a way of life.
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The Be Fully Alive Podcast
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