Amelia Perkins - Naked Soul Experiments

10/14/2024

I love the idea of continuing to "YUM the YIN out of each day" since taking the Inner Marriage Class.

Enrollment ends today, Beauties.

More info here: https://linktr.ee/ameliaperkins

So much love to all of you!!!

10/08/2024

I’m feeling so much hope in MEN and the world after spending time in Arizona facilitating at Desert Wisdom.

Men from all walks of life and — I’m guessing — a range of political perspectives gathered.

The workshop was about Reclaiming True Masculine Power. But here’s the kicker: it was also about honoring and integrating the Feminine.

It was such a beautiful thing to witness men go deep into the question of what has broken their heart…. And deep into accessing and integrating both the masculine and feminine inside themselves.

The team that led with workshop was beautiful. Five men and four women. These are the warrior sisters I led with in the photo.

There’s so much more to say but for now, I’ll just exclaim: there is hope!! And goodness. And possibility.

I would love this workshop to be done continuously all over the country.

Much love!

xox

https://desertwisdom.net/

10/07/2024

Inner Marriage begins in one week.

Here are a few more reasons to join...

You want to set yourself up for a beautiful co-creative partnership

You want to move towards more and more pleasure in your daily life

You want to receive more fully the beauty and goodness and abundance that is available to you

You are feeling a bit stuck and want to move into spaces where your intuition and deepest knowing can guide you

You’re tired of laboring in the mundane world and are ready to bring in other realms of consciousness to create shifts with more speed and serendipity

You’ll learn how to create the conditions for creativity and inspiration and life force to consistently arise in you

* * *

And if you'd like a taster for the inner marriage, there's a $5 meditation tomorrow. If that timing doesn't work, just sign up and I'll send out the recording.

You can find everything here: https://linktr.ee/ameliaperkins

Lots of love!

10/04/2024

Experimenting is such an act of self-kindness, Friends.

Come and join a little experiment next Tuesday in self-exploration and tenderness.

More info here: https://linktr.ee/ameliaperkins

xox

09/22/2024

Come join my little $5 Inner Marriage EXPERIENCE (because it's hard to get the full feel without your own experience.) Two dates: Oct 1 or 8. More info here: https://linktr.ee/ameliaperkins

08/29/2024

Hey Friends, Joe Weston is coming to Northampton to teach Respectful Confrontation. Many of you already know Joe. I really attribute RC to reducing my fights with Erik by at least 80%!

I remember the first time I applied the principals (during an argument Erik and I had had multiple times) and within ten minutes we'd reached a whole new understanding and never had that same argument again. I remember us turning to each other and laughing, "This stuff really works!"

From my perspective, you learn to be an emotional/energetic martial artist... able to navigate the moment with so much grace and connectedness. It's lovely.

I can't recommend this enough. It's really very ta***ic in my opinion, although that word is never said. The ta**ra of living and embodiment and relationships!

November 2-3 in Northampton, MA (I'll be there!). $395 Early Bird until September 20th. And scholarships available especially for those who will be using these skills in their organizations and communities. And others! Just reach out and I'll give the details.

Here's the link for more info or to sign up: https://joeweston.com/event/respectful-confrontation-workshop-2/

And here's Joe's TEDx Talk, which begins with a powerful story from his time working in prisons which continues to haunt me in the best way. Talk about navigating difficult situations with grace in a way where everyone is empowered and honored. Ugh. More of this please!

Why chronic niceness can be just as harmful as bullying and aggression. Learn an upgraded way to communicate effectively that is fierce and civil. Draw on th...

06/28/2024

Here’s an experiment to try.

No matter what is happening, whether pleasurable or deeply unpleasurable, pause, breathe, relax and say to yourself, “I love this.”

Or if that’s too heady, too bypass-y, try saying, “I open even to this.”

You don’t even need the words. Just the feeling of opening.

Don’t try and make it rational. It’s not rational. This isn’t about convincing yourself that you should love everything or that every difficulty is actually a blessing. Fu** that. It’s just about opening.

After Erik died, I became really curious about whether it was possible to make love to reality as it is with all its pain and beauty, suffering and pleasure.

Not just accept it but receive it fully into my body. Let myself be penetrated. Love it.

This isn’t just conceptual. It’s a full body practice.

Because reality is intense. It’s a lot to be a human in this world.

It’s so easy to be with the things that are pleasurable. Although I see all the time ways people don’t let themselves be truly penetrated by the good, the beautiful, the tender. As my friend Zoe says, “Many people have a broken receiver.”

I wasn’t that interested in the pleasurable for a time. But I wanted to see if it was possible to be intimately with reality even when everything feels wrong.

In the first few months after Erik died, I spent a lot of time lying on the floor, thinking of his death and the general devastation of my life, and saying to myself, “I love this.”

I didn’t share this with anyone for a long time because it seemed easily misunderstood. To state the obvious, nothing in me rationally loved that Erik had died.

But there was something both perverse and oddly alchemical about feeling into the pain and whispering to myself, “I love this.” I wanted to see if there was a way not to fight back against reality, not to rail about the unfairness. Don’t get me wrong, I did that too. But sometimes I would just breathe and open to it, hold it tenderly, almost like a caress. Like I could touch this moment I was in with softness and also let it touch me.

Having done this experiment in such an extreme situation made it easier to do it in other situations like at the dentist, when I got my tooth pulled.

Weirdly, in some ways it was easier to do this with the pain of Erik’s death than with the lady at the next table who was talking in such a shrill voice while I was trying, finally, to get some work done.

Again, don’t try and rationalize it. This isn’t about being a ma*****st or a good person. This is more about turning yourself into some kind of Sufi mystic poet who receives everything as God.

I suppose if Reality really is our lover we can also tell it to lay off sometimes. Tell it to treat us kindly, with respect. To stop being such a little sh*t.

This experiment isn’t for every moment. But it’s worth trying.

So if life is ripping you apart (or you are in a moment of pleasure), pause, breathe, feel into this moment and open to it. Give yourself to it. Let it take you.

Perhaps whisper to reality itself as it has its way with you, “I love this.”

Or ditch the words and simply breathe and let the moment enter you.

If that feels like too much, I suppose you could even say in kind of a friendly way, “Oh, hi there.”

But maybe put some flirt into it. A little vibe of, “You crazy devastating Reality, you have the ability to utterly destroy me, and god damn it, there’s something just a tiny bit hot in that.”

02/23/2024

I attended a bunch of grief groups this year and often left unsatisfied and angry. They were often too cognitive for me, too rational, too talky.

For me, any chance to drop into my body and just let my body lead the way, was profound. It felt like the most radically intimate way to be with grief.

I know everyone is different in what they need when it comes to times of sorrow and loss and heartache. But here are a few places where I felt held and known and met:

Shalom Mountain Retreat Center, where I met Erik, continues to be a place where I am called home to myself over and over. This is where I learned to have faith that the body, under the right circumstances of safety and holding -- and in the presence of loving community -- will use its own wisdom to release stored emotions and restore our system to flow. It was the most amazing place to let my grief rip in all its various stages and incarnations. https://www.shalommountain.com/

I did some Breathwork sessions with Beryl Stromsta. She holds online groups. And, again, the time and permission to simply breathe and let whatever needed to flow, flow was a huge gift. You can probably simply reach out to her on FB to learn more.

I've done Playback Theater with Patrick Crowley. It was revelatory to tell whatever I wanted to tell, no matter how gnarly, and simply have others act it out for me in their own lovely way. To watch my inner life made manifest externally was precious and useful. Everything was welcome and no one tried to fix it. If you’re in the Valley, check it out: https://patrickcrowley.net/playbacktheatrenow

Jeannie Zandi’s ability to be with what is has been a huge gift. She went through her own dark night of the soul and is so present and funny and lovely. Also her call to drop into the felt sense of the body, out of the mind, has been such a service. She often says, “Mercy to the humans.” And that’s what she offers, a space of deep holding and mercy. https://www.jeanniezandi.com/

MIrabai Starr has an online group called Holy Lament. I joined and barely attended. But I found her thoughts on grief to be some of the most resonant. I wrote a little blog post on her reframing of the stages of grief awhile back, which you can read here: https://www.ameliaperkins.com/post/re-imagining-the-stages-of-grief I see she’s doing a four day event in March: https://www.wildheart.space/griefmyths

(All of these are online except Playback Theater and Shalom Mountain.)

I hope this reaches someone who needs a little embodiment, a little dropping out of the mind, a little being held and seen in loving community.

Mirabai Starr reimagines Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s fives stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) as stations or portals, and has renamed them: contemplation, rebellion, surrender, lament, and return. These moments cycle and spiral and don’t necessarily come in any pa...

07/20/2023

Mirabai Starr reimagines Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s fives stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) as stations or portals, and has renamed them: contemplation, rebellion, surrender, lament, and return.

These moments cycle and spiral and don’t necessarily come in any particular order. They're simply touchstones or possible flavors in the landscape of grief.

Contemplation. This is a turning inward. Going quiet and interior to be be present with things as they are. The need to withdraw from the world and be present with what has happened, when the soul is yearning for some space to simply be. It’s a threshold time when the veils are very thin. It can feel like a dream. She also calls this the grace space. When the fire of loss comes sweeping through, clearing away everything, leaving us hollow. And in that emptiness, sometimes, if we’re quiet (and lucky) grace comes sweeping in.

Rebellion. It’s natural to rebel against a reality that isn’t ok with us. When everything annoys you and pi**es you off, when you have no time for anything that feels like BS. When something that has provided the ground of our life just falls out from under us and we’re in free fall, it’s very tempting to blame someone. Anger can jumpstart our life force again for a time, can even bring a feeling of passion. There can be a sense of existential angst in this moment on the grief journey, where everything becomes meaningless. We may make boundaries and tell our truths because any need to please others falls away or is greatly diminished.

Lament. It’s the wailing. It’s the begging of forgiveness. A time of being inconsolable. Nobody can say or do anything to take away the pain or convince you that you are ok. It’s the remorse and regret, when you wake in the night to replay the events over and over, re-imagining it all, as though you can change the story and the outcome. This is the “If only” time. If only I had done this or that. When the mind is in overdrive looking for a different outcome.

Surrender. When you don’t have the energy to make anything different than it is. Mirabai says: you just let yourself down into the arms of sorrow. When we take our place of belonging with all the others who have experienced loss and suffering. She calls it a dark night of the soul and also a shabbat. It’s a place of holy rest.

Return. Looking at reality as it is. When we enter a space that is bigger, that allows us to integrate the truth of the facts of what has happened. Where we find a new center of gravity. Where we learn to live with what is and begin to re-enter the stream of life. (And where we do our best to live a life of meaning and purpose and goodness and beauty. And perhaps be a source of that to others.)

I’ve only dipped into the Return for moments but the other stations feel familiar to me. And I appreciate the idea that all these are simply flavors or guideposts on the journey that we may touch again and again in new, perhaps softer, ways.

I like the idea that there’s no way to be victorious over grief, to do it well or correctly. And that the process isn’t a checklist towards acceptance or some path to enlightenment but rather a movement to becoming more deeply human, more human than ever.

***Mirabai Starr is doing beautiful things around grief as holy ground, as sacred reality. If you're grieving or know someone who is, you might want to check her out.***

(Image by Susan Wilkinson / Unsplash)

10/18/2022

Ta**ra holds that there are various realities, and what we consider the “normal world” is the least real.

For example, most of us exist mainly in the everyday mundane world, which ta**ra calls “the mental”.

You can also tap into the mythic or archetypal reality. It’s mythic, not because it’s a myth, or not true, but because that is the realm where the stories that shape us live. That’s the mythical structure of reality. It’s where the Gods and Goddesses and Archetypes of our cultures and stories live.

And then there is the magical realm of consciousness that is about energy. Ta**ra considers the magical realm the most real.

We're made to tap into and play in all these realms. For myself, when I spent too long in the normal, mental world, I begin to get cranky and feel starved for something larger, deeper, more expansive.

I also find that time is different in the archetypal and magical. A problem I could chip away at in the mental for months or years shifts quickly when I bring it to other realms of consciousness. At the very least, I get a fresh breeze of insight, a more expansive view.

You may already have your own ways of tapping in. I hope so. And, if you are free Tuesday, October 25, I'd love to invite you to get a taste of the archetypal and magical in The Sanctuary.
We'll be tapping into the archetypal aspects of our inner masculine and feminine and also creating a magical space for the healing any rifts in their relationship.

If you can't make it live, The Sanctuary will be recorded.
This will be the last Sanctuary for 2022. But I plan to continue to brainstorm more ways for us as a community to dip into these more magical realms so we we can come back more nourished, radiant, and tapped in.

You can find out more here: https://www.ameliaperkins.com/upcoming-women-workshops

09/07/2022

My Ta**ra tradition teaches that we all have masculine and feminine qualities and energetics within us. Not in the cliche cultural sense but in an archetypal energetic way.

The relationship between your inner feminine and your inner masculine is your inner marriage. The inner marriage is worth tending to as your internal relationship dynamics tend to reflect in the outside world. As within. So without.

This workshop is about reclaiming both our sovereign beautiful inner masculine and our inner feminine. If either is left out in the cold, we often feel stuck.

This is about our own sovereignty.

As we mature these aspects of ourself and get them back into right relationship, it effects all areas of our life for the good: our relationships, creative lives, our ability to make money, and put our work out into the world.

And simply put: life gets so much easier and more delightfully magical when we learn how these qualities can work together in the most fruitful way.

It’s an absolute game changer.

**This workshop is for women but this is important work for all humans - in my opinion!**

Inner Marriage work is particularly good for women who:

- are looking for love and want to set themselves up for a beautiful co-creative partnership
- are in a relationship and want to shift the current dynamic toward something more nourishing and pleasure-filled
- are having trouble getting on purpose or putting their ideas out into the world
- want to get their creative work into the world
- are feeling stuck and want to move into spaces where their intuition and deepest knowing can guide them

This workshop will include:

- A deep dive into the dynamics of your inner masculine and inner feminine
- The secret inner dynamic for contacting creativity and birthing something truly new
- How to develop a co-creative inner partnership that will also transform you external relationship dynamics
- Experiential exercises to heal any rifts in your Inner Marriage
- An exploration of the unique flavor of your own inner marriage based on your astrological birth chart
- An optional one hour session with Amelia to explore any shifts you want to create in your life, how this relates to your inner marriage, and how to get there.

The details:

This workshop begins on Tuesday, October 4 and will continue to meet every Tuesday for five weeks. It will take place over Zoom and last one hour.

Dates: Tuesday Oct 4, 11, 18, 25, Nov 1.

Time: You have two options in terms of time: Noon-1pm Eastern or 6-7pm Eastern.

Sessions will be recorded so if you need to miss one, you can catch up!

A session with me to explore the dynamics of your inner marriage and experiments to create a sweeter dynamic.

Below, you have options in terms of time of day and also if you want to sign up for a session with me.

There is an early bird rate if you sign up before September 15 - $157 for the class or $247 for class + session with me.

After September 15, the cost of the workshop will be $175 or $275 for class + session with me.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or just sign up at this link: https://linktr.ee/ameliaperkins

08/31/2022

Last call for the August Special 25% Off Soul Dives! Book any number of Soul Dives now and schedule anytime before the end of the year.

(I’m going to let it slide into September 1st as I hear that’s helpful for some.)

By the way, if you ever want to give someone a gift of a Soul Dive, it’s always $100 instead of $150 as generous gifts to others should, in my opinion, be rewarded. There's no end date on this one.

You can find all links here: https://linktr.ee/ameliaperkins

Sending you all so much love, big blessings, and all kinds of goodness for the new month. I still feel so connected to the school year and September always feels like a door opening onto something new.

xo