Foreword by Mantak Chia Foreword by Michael Winn Acknowledgments Introduction Principles for Self-Cultivation Practical Notes and Cautions Progression of Practices 1 Herstory: Emergence of the Divine Feminine Sapphism and Sisterhood Feminine Roots of Taoist Sexual Practice Feminine and Masculine Treasures: The Dance of Yin and Yang Feminine Archetypes Stages of Womanhood 2 Tao Energy Fundamentals: The Basic Practices The Three Treasures: Jing, Qi, and Shen Beginning Your Practice: Setting Intention and Warming Up the Qi Entering Meditation Creating Emotional Harmony Opening Channels Tao Tantric Yoga: Embodying the Shamanic Power of Animals Your Body Is Your Temple 3 Heart and Healing The Heart: Palace of the Spirit Three Fires of Transformation Transforming the Past and the Future: Ancestral Healing Healing from Sexual Trauma Healing the Womb 4 Bells of Love: Cultivating Your Breasts Breast Massage Basics: A Practice of Self-Love In-Depth Breast Massage Practices Breast Massage as Energy Medicine 5 Jade Fountain: Cultivating Your Yoni The Womb: Palace of Creative Power Sexual Reflexology Three Gates of the Yoni: Becoming Multiorgasmic Yoni Exercises Cultivating Sexual Energy: Turning on Your Jade Fountain 6 Jade Egg Practices Choosing Your Jade Egg Self-Healing with Jade Egg Practices Playing with Your Jade Egg Tao Yoni Yoga Pelvic Motion Practices Triple Channels: Alternate-Channel Breathing Bathtub Bliss Qi Weight Lifting 7 Tao Tantric Qigong: Shamanic Empowerment Empowering Your Sexual Vitality Shamanic Sexual Practices 8 Cultivating Your Qi: Exploring Sources of Vitality Connecting with Nature Supporting the Kidneys: Treasure House of Jing Channeling Your Vital Energy Bone Toning: Bone Marrow Neigong 9 Alchemy of Love: Conscious Lovemaking Sexual Energy Is Sacred Growing More Love in Your Life Sexual Massage Practices Harmonious Exchange Multiorgasmic Potential: Taoist Sexual Alchemy Evolution of Divine Human Treasures Appendix: Inspiring Your Daily Practice Resources Bibliography Index

Chapter 6 Alchemy of Love CONSCIOUS LOVEMAKING Tao Tantric sacred sexual arts can be cultivated like learning to play a violin and are worthy of an in-depth education as well as tapping into what feels natural. • Heighten your awareness of the energetic, emotional, and spiritual connection with your lover. • Develop ways to enhance healing and sexual energy for the partners in your life. • Learn how to enhance whole body bliss. Stairway to Bliss See the graph below showing two kinds of lovemaking in relation to pleasure and time. In what can be called “conventional sex,” the arousal rises to a peak, followed by compression and explosion. With ejaculation the arousal quickly dives down. Perhaps “when he shoots, he snores.” Perhaps the woman’s water has not yet become warm. Perhaps her sexual waters are still steaming and longing to move. The tantric orgasmic graph looks like a staircase to heaven. Waves of orgasmic bliss keep rolling in. Consciously sublimating the energy and merging with the Tao, each wave shows a rising of arousal and an exchange of energy, shown as a figure eight. These waves may ripple through the five elements and be expressed through the following natural urges. Fire--Connecting with your hearts and the urge to kiss. The heart is pounding and the blood is pumping and expands into a heart orgasm. Sensitive sex expressed through devotional, adoring, caressing, giving, and receiving love. Earth--Connecting through touch and taste and the urge to massage, stroke, grab and lick. Earthy sex expressed as ravishing, pounding, grinding, and thrusting. Metal--Connecting through breathing and the urge to smell. Breathe each other in and be sensitive to the skin. Breathing speeds up into ecstatic sex. Water--Connecting through the bones and the urge to bite. Vibration expands into spine and brain orgasms. Sensual sex expressed as undulating, erotic movement. Wood--Connecting with the eyes and the urge to move, surge and change positions. Passionate sex expressed as playful, vocal, sweaty, emotional intensity. Lovemaking may weave through the various qualities of the elements. If you or your lover is predominantly more of one element you might pace with familiar qualities and surprise with other expressions of the elements. All flavors can be expressions of love and are powerful medicine for the body, soul, and spirit. How Can We Grow More Love in Our Lives? The ancients have cultivated the intimate arts for centuries. They considered physical health the foundation of a vigorous, enduring, and fulfilling love life. If you are “beat” you often are irritable or emotional. Anger or harsh words can hurt our vulnerable inside and damage trust and responsiveness in lovemaking for a long time. Love in good and stormy weather. How can we cultivate love for each other? Actually our essence is love and it is mainly our emotional and thought patterns that get in the way. Taoists believed that negative emotions are toxic to our bodies, health, and relationships. Instead of suppressing emotions or dumping them on others we can recycle them into vitality. The Inner Smile is an easy way to do this and brings out the best in each other. Listen to your partner with love, look into his or her eyes, hold hands, and honestly express how you feel. “Keep in touch” by communicating and touching with tenderness, even during troubled times. When the storms hit be present for each other. Multiply Energy. Men can have whole body orgasms without ejaculating by practicing “Sexual Kung Fu” or the art of seminal retention, knowing how to pull up and circulate the sexual energy with breathing, mindfulness, and muscle control. Instead of exploding through the genitals, the vibrations rise through the organs, heart, and head, penetrate through the core channel of the woman, and circle back into him, multiplying in energy. The woman also learns how to expand her experience of a genital orgasm into a whole body orgasm. She will feel full and good for days! Soul Orgasm is possible when you feel orgasmic energy circulating and waving through the body. A fundamental circulation of energy is the Microcosmic Orbit, up the spine, over the crown, and down the front channel in a continuous loop. This balances warm yang energy and cool yin energy. It becomes a way to receive and give energy and also generate love and light. Once this pathway is open, you and your partner can exchange energy linking your orbits into figure eights, connecting through the couple’s genitals, tongues, foreheads, or hearts. The yin energy of the woman flows into the man and the yang energy of the man flows into the woman, creating a harmonious field of united energy. The exchange of energy can be felt even without touching. When a soul orgasm overflows beyond the physical, it can feel like a fountain rising out the crown. In bliss, souls can unite above the body, deepening the potential of long term relationships by cultivating a perennial garden of love, joy, trust, and respect. Sexual energy is sacred. The compassion you cultivate in your relationship can deepen your whole spiritual life. Body, soul, and spirit are one being and work together naturally if we do not separate them and judge them as sinful or taboo. When our raw passionate energy is refined and channelled upward to higher energy centers, it becomes the power behind love, creativity, and communion with the Divine. Full Circle. The more we give pleasure, love, and compassion, the more we receive. We can heal each other and help each other to expand consciousness. The whole universe is continually pulsating and vibrating. When we experience orgasm, we harmonize with our body’s, our partner’s, and the world’s pulsations. Becoming a multi-orgasmic lover is realizing that you are one with the continuous, orgasmic, creative, and mysterious universal process!