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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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The Be Fully Alive Podcast
There was a steady cadence to the late summer days I spent with my grandparents. Mornings of cereal, grapefruit, zinnias and books. Afternoon naps. Watermelon on the back porch after dinner. Fireflies dotting the spaces between the fields and the horizon at dusk.
Evenings were spent reading, my sister and I out on the screen porch, my grandparents in their twin recliners. Twin, only because they sat side by side, an inseparable pair tilted at twin angles, sailing in unison into the stillness of night. My grandmother's recliner was the color of goldenrod in September. My grandfather's recliner was much larger, broader and more substantial. His was the color of wild foxes.
My grandfather was an enigma. Up before dawn every morning, I knew him by the sound of the screen door as it paused, then closed behind him as he set out for his day. The feel of sun-faded denim in the wash. The smell of axle grease and gasoline.
My grandfather's hair turned snow-white when he was 28 years old, and it was either that, or the fact that he knew how to wield the power of the pause, that made him a strikingly attractive man. A history teacher, a basketball coach, a school principal and a farmer, he drove a 1964 dark blue Corvair, a 1949 green Chevrolet pickup and a red Farmall row-crop tractor, carving a completely different dashing figure in each. Even still, my grandfather wasn't a man's man. He wasn't a ladies' man, either.
My grandfather was rarely at home. He was out. In the field. In the barn. At the feed store. At the school. Fixing fences. Feeding the cows. Working on the tractor. Teaching.
A part of things.
My grandfather never took me fishing. He didn't read me bedtime stories.
He taught me how to drive a tractor. To dance the waltz. To persevere.
My grandfather was the principal of the school I attended. I remember in third grade, after months of unruly and disrespectful behavior, I was called into the principal's office for a meeting with my mother, my father and my grandfather.
Here's what I remember from that meeting.
Skating on thin ice.
You could be expelled.
And the spark in my grandfather's eyes.
He didn't rescue me. He didn't excuse me.
He saw me.
My grandfather recognized that, underneath the unruly behavior, was something to be met. Not extinguished.
Something that lives on in me today.
Which brings me here, to this new week filled with podcast episodes on the rewilding of our bodies, minds and hearts. The research that has taken me from the Kissimmee River floodplain to the extraordinarily sophisticated ways we reveal ourselves in intimate moments has changed my trajectory in a way almost nothing ever has, save that spark in my grandfather's eyes.
I hope you'll enjoy listening as the next chapter unfolds.
Dawn
This week's episodes . . . Monday follows the current of arousal as it moves, meanders and changes shape. Wednesday is a guided practice in following what unfolds. Friday, Vera and Sören discover the erotic freedom that lives inside “I don't know.” And, next Tuesday, September 1st, a live mini-practice session, Rewilding Love, on Zoom, details below.
Join the Be Fully Alive Podcast Community
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“I mean river as a verb. A happening. It is moving within me right now.”
— Natalie Diaz . The First Water Is the Body
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NEOTANTRA WORKSHOP WITH DAWN CARTWRIGHT LIVE ON ZOOM
This season, we follow the untamed erotic from its first stirrings inside our bodies to the complexity of meeting another person.
Along the way, we have entered the gap, loosened our grip on familiar scripts, and discovered that desire has a shape and timing of its own. What began as a return to ourselves now brings us to the living edge of relationship.
Rewilding love.
Monthly live practice sessions are one of the most intimate and transformative ways to deepen our NeoTantra practice. On the first Tuesday of every month, we gather live on Zoom for 60 minutes of guided practice, community, and connection. Available to EMBODY and EVOLVE tier members. A recording will be available. Link to join below.
Rewilding Love · Mini-Workshop on Zoom
Tuesday, September 1st, 11:45 am - 12:45 pm PT
Rewilding the Erotic Body
Something begins to stir beneath our familiar arousal loops and practiced responses. A sensation. An impulse. A feeling that doesn't have a name. Our bodies remember their innate erotic language.
Chaos, Eros, and the Wilderness Within
Our old erotic maps are no longer accurate. The familiar dissolves and for a moment there is no clear direction. Inside that uncertainty, something new begins to take shape.
The Cultivated and the Uncultivated Self
We meet the selves we have carefully built throughout our lives. The desirable, the composed, the accommodating, the certain. Then an unedited response slips through in a moment of hesitation, or hunger, or an unexpected no, and we get a glimpse. Of the untamed.
The Body’s Responsive Intelligence
Our body moves before the story begins. It leans closer, holds its breath, softens, turns away. None of these responses is a verdict. They are living communication, our bodies taking in the moment and answering as honestly as they can.
Desire Without a Predetermined Outcome
Desire appears, but does not tell us where to go. We let it remain unformed. It may become touch, laughter, distance, tenderness, or nothing at all. Desire doesn't have to become a plan.
The Shape and Flow of Arousal
Arousal rarely follows the straight path we imagined for it. It gathers, recedes, changes direction. Intensity gives way to stillness and pleasure opens unexpectedly into grief. The experience becomes rich and intimate when we aren’t in a hurry to reach a conclusion.
Wildness in Relationship
Another person enters the landscape. Their presence changes us, but does not have to erase us. We begin to discover a more intricate freedom. The freedom to remain ourselves while allowing ourselves to be genuinely touched. Moved. A part of.
Relational Ecology
A glance changes the room. One of us reaches out and the other becomes quiet. The quiet is noticed, interpreted, reacted to. Within seconds, we are responding not only to each other, but to everything we're afraid of.
The Freedom Not to Take It Personally
And we pause. Our partner's distance may not be rejection. Our longing may not be too much. For one breath, neither of us is required to defend, reassure, pursue, or retreat. Difference is allowed to exist without becoming a verdict on our future.
Asking What Our Body Needs Now
In the space that opens, a different question becomes possible. What does my body need now? The answer may be closeness. More time. A slower pace. A little room. And we listen. Not for the correct response, but for the deeper meeting that is genuinely possible.
You're invited to join us for a midday practice session exploring and experiencing the rewilding of love.
I look forward to seeing you there.
Dawn
Monthly live practice workshops are included with these membership tiers . . .
EMBODY · $40/month
Access to the entire Be Fully Alive Podcast library and every new episode. One live 60-minute workshop each month, with access to the recording.
EVOLVE · $125/month
Access to the entire Be Fully Alive Podcast library and every new episode. The monthly live workshop and recording, plus two private 30-minute sessions with Dawn each year.
Join the Be Fully Alive Podcast Community
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Chandra Bindu Tantra Institute
www.chandrabindutantrainstitute.com
310.592.1293
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