immortal_sister

is the tao found there? search not outside of yourself the tao is within

really? how old are you, 12?

consumer culture reply? haha come on now most people don't give a crap about their health enough to try to heal themselves, let alone to make their own medicine. i don't know you, so i was simply advising you of the easiest method to go about using dandelion as a medicine. if you want to pick a whole fresh plant and make your own tincture, that's great! you want to eat hand-picked dandelion greens every day, awesome! but there is nothing wrong with going to buy a bottle of herbal medicine. that's still 100x times better than going to see a doctor and getting some prescription med. dandelion has no direct hormonal effect, it does not contain phytoestrogens. we will have to agree to disagree. i am glad that you have had good results with those types of herbal products, but i felt i had to state my view on this matter, it is simply not my belief or experience with herbs that standardized extracts are superior. herbalism has existed for thousands of years and healed people without needing to be standardized in order to be effective.

i looked up the company, i had never heard of them. i just had to point out that herbal manufacturers such as this one sell mainly standardized extracts of herbs. which means only certain compounds are extracted from the plant in a laboratory. this pharmaceutical approach to herbalism is potentially dangerous, as isolated compounds can be far more damaging and have side effects, whereas when you are using a whole plant, you get all the phytonutrients that the plant contains, many of which work together to heal. i always, always recommend that people use the actual herb, in whatever form they choose to take it, over taking standardized extracts.

dandelion greens get more bitter this time of year. in the spring they are usually milder tasting. the older the plant, the more bitter it will be. i like to chop them up and eat them in a salad with other greens. or add them to soup. if you are interested in taking dandelion for its medicinal properties, i would recommend buying some tincture, or buying some dried root from a natural health store and making a decoction by boiling the roots in water for about an hour. you can also do this with the fresh root if you like. but the dried root is more potent for use in decoctions.

nice, that is definitely what my experience has taught me so far. its all about finding the middle path.. and yes, i have read david deida, i am a big fan of his. every woman should read his book "its a guy thing".

i highly dislike those kinds of websites, there are dozens online. somehow i doubt they have anything to offer that isn't already found elsewhere in indian tantra, taoist alchemy, etc etc.

although melatonin is natural, it is only a short term remedy, as you ultimately want to encourage your body to produce enough melatonin by itself. and the best way to do that is to sleep in complete darkness. no tvs, digital clocks, no light coming in from your window. complete darkness where you can't even see your hand if you hold it in front of your face. this might sound like a lot of work, but it is really worth it. complete darkness is needed by the pituitary gland (which has light receptors, like your eyes) to produce melatonin. sleeping with a face mask is helpful, but ideally the entire body should be in complete darkness. i would try this first. going to sleep at a reasonable time (before 11pm ideally) also helps the body return to a more balanced hormonal state, especially with melatonin. certain essential oils can be very helpful too. i often spray lavender essential oil on my pillow for example.

no the dandelion greens do http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/vegetab...products/2441/2 roots contain a lot of great phyto-nutrients too, but they are more so medicine than food. dandelion is an oft overlooked plant, but very powerful. the roots have slightly different qualities depending on when they were harvested (spring or fall will have higher amounts of completely different alkaloids) and how they are taken internally (in a decoction, whole or in a tincture). worth looking into.

yeah dandelion roots are great, as a the fresh greens. they contain more vitamins and minerals than pretty much any vegetable you can buy in a store! i made tincture from a fresh whole plant this fall, very potent medicine!!

if you are going to look into herbs, if you have good reason to believe it is the liver, i would recommend trying dandelion first. either the root or tincture of the whole plant. it is a gentle liver tonic, slightly cooling in nature. no real risk of side effects, although it is a mild diuretic so keep that in mind.

i cannot say if this is linked to full lotus per say, but i have been experiencing this on and off for the last few weeks. i have been taking some gentle liver tonic herbs, so i think my liver and gall bladder have been cleansing more than usual. added to that is the fact that i have stepped up my game with yoga and meditation practices, and i think some long standing blockages are opening up. i hope this is a good thing for you too. i would love to hear what others have to say!

i think making a very broad statement that female orgasms can be as depleting as a man's ejaculatory orgasm can be correct. but i think this varies a LOT depending on the kind of orgasm you are having and who you are having it with (or if alone). these are all important variables. i can only speak from my personal experience, and i was discussing this with witch in the "heart orgasm thread" a few days ago. but i feel that different kind of orgasms have completely different spiritual, physiological, and energetic components. and the more i learn the more i can focus and choose whether an orgasm will be depleting for me or not. i can relate to the dopamine dip causing a stimulation instead of a satiation. this is absolutely how i perceived and experienced orgasms when i was in my late teens - i was kind of an orgasm addict. but now, it is completely different, mainly because i am in a long term relationship with someone who practices sexual alchemy as well. it all absolutely depends on whether i have a clitoral orgasm, a vaginal orgasm (and what kind of vaginal orgasm even!), ejaculatory orgasm or a heart orgasm. it would take a while to explain it all, and i am still in the process of understanding how this all works, but to me, clitoral orgasms are the most purely physical orgasms and slightly depleting. vaginal orgasms can either be very depleting, and i can send a lot of energy outward/to my partner or be the complete opposite and build a lot of energy / transmute a lot of energy if i breath through it and circulate my energy. heart orgasms to me are not depleting at all; witch said that they were very depleting to her. but that is not my experience. i hypothesize that this is in part due to the fact that i have these orgasms with a partner and that there is an equal exchange of energy between us. although there is a great release and expansion with a heart orgasm or full body orgasm, it is not depleting at all energetically. what about a session that includes both sweaty, intense sex, and also includes highly connected energetic sex? i think this balances it out. this post is very timely for me as i just started reading the white tigress book. i have only read about 10 pages but so far a lot of things have really clicked with me, many things that i have not read explained elsewhere, or at least not in terms that i could relate to so easily. i have no interested in practicing the semen absorbing techniques though. and even if i did, i am married to a man who practices sexual alchemy and retention, so it isn't an option my first thought reading about this technique was, wow you could be absorbing a lot of bad energy! ada, in your experience you don't perceive or absorb any bad energy? how is this so? yes yes, i hear that i am all about the heart. i looked up karezza online, very interesting stuff. i'll have to share some thoughts when i have read more. and reading books written by men is sometimes frustrating, because all they focus on is the technique, the technique etc etc. i have a hard time with chia's books, although i just pulled out my "cultivating female sexual energy" to have another look at it, its been a while since i read it.

you probably know all this. but the best way to start experimenting reaching climax is by yourself. there is a lot of information out there to help women like you; it is not uncommon for women to have never experienced orgasms. every woman should have the freedom and bliss of experiencing orgasms regularly, whether by herself or with someone else. and yes, like others have said, sometimes finding men who know what they are doing and are able to help us in this process is not a simple task actual physical things standing in the way of women having orgasms are rare. however, emotional issues can absolutely prevent women from relaxing enough to allow the body to have an orgasm. i hope you find some answers. feel free to private message me if you would like.

i knew that there were great benefits in meditation for women dealing with fertility issues, but this is a great study, thank you for sharing! "One-hundred percent of insomnia patients reported improved sleep and 91% either eliminated or reduced sleeping medication use. " astounding!! This study compared secular and spiritual forms of meditation to assess the benefits of a spiritual intervention. Participants were taught a meditation or relaxation technique to practice for 20 min a day for two weeks. The Spiritual Meditation group had greater decreases in anxiety and more positive mood, spiritual health, and spiritual experiences than the others. They also tolerated pain almost twice as long as the other groups. Journal of Behavioral Medicine 2005 Aug;28(4):369-84 very interesting, and not surprising to me for many reasons. anyone have thoughts on this? from this source : http://anandnirish.com/meditation_research

yeah doesn't she just glow? lovely i look forward to someday meeting her in person. it started out as something i studied to enrich my own health, but it has become something far deeper. i know this is part of my life path, and although i am not 100% certain how it will play out, i know that i need to become a healer & herbalist (one and the same to me). i have already been an unofficial herbalist in various capacities to friends and family for the past few years, and i want to continue developing this role. i have no plans to ever go back to school. but i do hope to study with teachers privately. i currently teach the fertility awareness method, and have dreams of being a midwife someday. it is all coming together slowly, one piece of the puzzle at a time. all i know is that i want to teach women to be more in touch with their bodies, with their spirit, through natural health practices, nutrition, herbalism and so on. although i do teach some classes currently, i know my role for now is mostly that of a student. and so i seek..

drew thank you for the effie chow videos, something really resonates with me watching her speak and heal people. she has good vibes for sure. i will look into her some more. and btw, your blog is great, so much great information, i will definitely be checking it out regularly. ken sure, you can't fully "learn" female practices from a book anymore than you can learn male practices from a book. but that is the way a lot of people (like myself) start out before they find a teacher. if wang liping were to write material about it, that would be very interesting. but it most certainly does not replace a teacher. which is really the main reason i started this thread, because i would love to find a teacher. i am too visual and tactile to learn much of anything from books anyhow. school didn't work out so well for me; even though everything came to me easily, learning from books or from a chair without being able to speak to my teacher one-on-one made learning completely boring to me. i like to be able to ask a teacher questions, and have a connection with them. markern i am familiar with jade saida. she is wonderful i have her jade egg practice/meditation CD, i really enjoy it. i plan on attending a seminar with her in early spring. regarding what you were saying about having many teachers and several practices, i have been thinking about this a lot too. i am the kind of person that tends to learn many different things, from many sources, and then feel overwhelmed and unsure what to focus on, where to start, etc etc. i have been focusing more on this lately and have decided on a few sets of practices i already know to stick with and just ignore the rest for now. i overwhelm myself too easily. i too am "in browsing mode", hoping for something to click.. i have been studying herbalism on my own for some time now too, and felt aimless, reading book after book. though i was learning a lot, some of it i didn't retain, and i had no method to my gathering of information. i looked into various herbal schools, but i have no interest in clinical herbalism. i finally found a very potent western herbalism teacher to work with, she teaches in a more traditional method, from the native & wise woman traditions. and it has made a tremendous difference in my spiritual and practical development in the field of herbalism & healing. i am still just a humble student, but at least now i feel that i have a path and am progressing. i would love to similarly find a teacher to study with in energetics, taoist alchemy... wherever the wind takes me, i am trying to stay open to all possibilities...

ooh let me know if you hear anything more about that!

yup, its not easy learning things as a woman sometimes. women healers have been shunned all over the world throughout history. i wish we could say we are beyond that today, but alas.. this woman sounds very interesting. i am a big fan of this:

i have been wondering about this lately as well. i used to practice yoga far more regularly, and could sit somewhat comfortably in full lotus for a while, but my flexibility has hit a new low lately. i need to work on that. the main thing i am wondering about is that i have bad circulation in my legs, they can get numb if i sit full lotus, which is probably not that uncommon. but could sitting in full lotus for extended periods of time make this condition worse for me, since it cuts off blood to the legs?

great post drew, thank you! a lot to chew on

you are comparing apples and oranges. men will produce semen in greater or lesser amounts their whole mature lives. some internal practices can greatly reduce the amount being produced, yes, probably even stop it. there could be benefits to that, i am not a man and not familiar enough with said practices. but if continuously producing milk/colostrum beyond when it is needed was in any way natural, other less domesticated mammals would probably do it. i understand what you are saying that if you spend your life making babies, this would then be a "natural state". it remains an energy depleting activity for the body. the same way producing semen continuously and in large amounts because you are "leaking it" continuously weakens your health and shortens your life, not to mention makes many internal practices impossible. these are both examples where there isn't a strong precedent anywhere in nature of this. i suppose there's no point in arguing if your only purpose is pleasure and physical gratification, you can replenish that with your orgasmic diet and just go round and round in circles. for what i am working towards, that kind of depletion is less than ideal. i want to be able to use any and all energy i have at my disposal for inner work rather than biological functions that serve no purpose.

if you believe what you just wrote, why would you constantly try to ejaculate your energy and deplete yourself? seems contradictory.. transmuting heart energy & having an open heart chakra can make a woman more attractive, but that is merely a side effect, it shouldn't be the goal of the practice. it can also be highly beneficial, good for your health, and if you can transmute it into shen then the benefits are endless. you can store it in the heart, and circulate and transmute, but you shouldn't need to release it constantly or ejaculate it. i don't understand building this energy up all the time for the sole purpose of ejaculating it, at least not all the time, whether physically or energetically. at least that is my understanding of the purpose of even practicing taoist alchemy, please someone correct me if i am wrong. there is a time and place for that, for sharing that energy, especially in a situation where this energy is reciprocated. and yes, releasing it out to the cosmos via the crown chakra can be a wonderful experience, but could also be too much for someone who is not grounded. first off, why do you say taking energy from a woman's vulva is unnatural or backwards? i don't believe this to be so. i do believe that the heart chakra of my "taoist wizard" is completely open and he is far from a passive or taking the feminine role. why would this be so? this would be an imbalanced state. as was mentioned previously in this thread, there is a certain vulnerability that can come from opening the heart chakra, even if only temporarily, but it should not make a man passive. this is not something to strive for, and is not a "higher" state. i would love to hear men chime in and give us their personal thoughts on this matter! the only reason that i feel that my vaginal orgasms are draining is because i am somewhat yang deficient in general, and only have so much internal fire (something i am actively working on). vaginal orgasms tend to deplete this fire. i can definitely play around with it and circulate my energy during a vaginal orgasm and prevent this feeling of depletion. but sometimes its nice to let it go as well. as for the heart orgasms, one of the reasons i have them is because i am getting energy from my man, he can purposely direct his energy there. his heart chakra being open does not mean that it is hungry and that my heart chakra energy would go straight to him, not at all. i can tell that sometimes he is giving me a lot of energy, but sometimes when he is in a very yang state, more of my yin energy is naturally transfered to him, even if he is not actively "stealing it". i think its a balancing act, when two people are so close, every day, this back and forth of energy exchange is a wonderful and positive thing