You are an advanced practitioner who is ready to take your practice to the next level. You have begun the work of integrating your Masculine and Feminine, and you want to expand the capacity of your practice to tap into the universal forces of Life and Death.

This practice led by John and Nicholette Routhier is recommended for practitioners with at least several months of consistent practice. It is not for the faint of heart.

In this practice, you will embody life—through movement, breath, shaking, pleasure, erotic expression, divine love, dark love, yearning, needs, desires, vulnerability, and self-love; and then you will embody death—through imagining yourself lying on your death bed, releasing everything that makes you human, and dissolving into the cosmos.

If you are ready to expand your energetic range of the Masculine and Feminine to include the universal forces of Life and Death, this 32-minute advanced practice is your next level of practice.

Prior to your practice, prepare a comfortable and private practice space, such as a mat, rug, or sheepskin, that will allow you to move your body freely with your eyes closed. Set aside an uninterrupted period of time in which you can stay in practice the entire time.

Then begin in any comfortable position - standing, seated, or lying down.

Bring movement and breath to begin to shed the layers of the day and anything you have been holding onto, so that you can fully arrive into your practice. Relax and listen to your body. Does it need to stretch? Does it need to shake? Wiggle? Without any prescription, follow your body and its unique recipe for stepping into practice fully. Arrive more fully into this moment, into your body, into your breath, and into sound. If you haven't yet begun to make a sound, begin to bring sound into your movement.

Surprise yourself. See what comes through and how it may be different from the other times you've come to the mat. What's fresh in this moment? What are you being called to? To make love to your own tongue? To make silly yipping sounds? To move like an alien experiencing gravity for the first time? To softly run the back of your hand along your thigh? Let your body tell the story of this moment. Let your breath, sound, and movement be the players, offering full devotion, presence, breath, and depth to the moment. In service of love. In service of deepening.

After about 5 minutes, make your way to standing and begin to find a shake, a shudder from your central column. This is not a bounce or shaking of the extremities. Connect from throat to genitals and shudder like a wolf or dog. Feel the shake originating in your central column and rippling out through the rest of your body, like the rippling on a surface of a pond after a rock is thrown into it. You can begin initially with one shake, then pause and take a breath, and then another, but eventually, start to let the shaking become more continuous and vigorous. Shake off any crust or residue and let it crumble off of you with every ripple. Make sounds as your body responds to the shake. This is a nervous system reset.

After 3-4 minutes of shaking, begin to move in a way that feels good. Slow down. Let go of any vigorous movement and find pleasure in your body in the exact way it is showing up for you right now. Let sensation guide you. Listen to what your body is calling for. Let pleasure surprise you. Imagine that you are meeting pleasure for the first time, getting to know pleasure, like a new lover. Be a Yes to whatever pleasure shows you and however pleasure wants to move you. And be a full Yes to anything else that may be present for you - grief, longing, boredom, resistance. Let it all be a part of the dance with pleasure. Breath, movement, and sound, in concert with pleasure, and you, exactly as you are right now. Let all of your needs, desires, hopes, and dreams be welcome as an invitation for pleasure to move you even more deeply. "I will be myself fully, so you can take me deeper, pleasure. Let's go."

Start to bring a sense of the erotic into your pleasure. Awaken your root chakra, your genitals, your lower body, and your hips, and invite your erotic desire and passion to the 'pleasure party.' Maybe you moan or growl, give yourself a spank, or wrap your fingers around your own throat. Give yourself the full permission to get nasty. Follow every impulse, as if you are saying to a lover, "Yes. Just like that." If you no longer feel good, slow down and reconnect to the pulse of pleasure.

Begin to bring in the energy of Divine Love. Fill your breath with the light of the Divine. Through your erotic expression, feel your inner God or Goddess, in whatever way you define it right now. Love beyond your or another's preferences. Love for the sake of love coming through your body as an erotic gift.

Then invite the energy of Dark Lover. You might stay tethered to the energy of the Divine while also bringing in the dark, the wild, and the nasty. Follow your dark impulses with pleasure, for the sake of love. Perhaps you are on the hunt, or being hunted. Perhaps you are being pinned down, or pinning. Commanding. Surrendering.

Stay connected to pleasure. If you lose the tether to pleasure, slow down and reconnect to your body and breath, and then find the pathway back into your dark side. Delight in your dark side. Let the dark erotic gifts that are unique to you have full rein as a gift of love.

Then after about 5 minutes, let the dark energy relax and return to pleasure. Begin to invite your yearning. Feel how the needs and desires in the core of your heart press more deeply into the root of your heart as you fill your body with more movement and breath. Let those deep needs and desires be expressed through your body. "I just want to be free." "I just want to be loved." "I just want to be seen." "I just want to be felt." "I just want to be appreciated." "I just want to be honored, worshipped, cherished."

Meet those needs fully through your body as you move. Let your expression be an act of self-love, fully meeting those needs in your heart. Let your movement, breath, be an expression of the words, "I see you fully" and "I've got you." Let any emotion flow without judgment, as a full Yes. And stay tethered to pleasure. Move in a way that feels good and expresses that longing. Let this be your final expression.

Then gently make your way to lying on your back. Bring all of the energy you just moved with you to a place of rest, closing your eyes, and softening into this moment.

Allow yourself to dissolve. Allow yourself to melt into the earth. Call those needs into your mind and heart again, the things that you need most in the world, the desire and yearning in your heart to have those needs met, and the human experience of having your needs met. Bring this all into your heart.

Imagine that you are lying on the ground at the moment of your death - that you are on your death bed and it is clear that there is no coming back. You are at that moment of having to surrender one final time. Feel the relationship between those needs and your death. Feel how those needs take on a new meaningless experience now that you are passing and about to leave this body. Let them go. You are at the point at which you need nothing.

Allow your body to continue to dissolve. Allow your breath to get weaker. Let yourself surrender as if it were the moment of letting go of life and all of the things that you wanted in life, all of the things that never happened, all of the memories of the great things that did happen, and all of the love. This is your time. Let go.

Notice how you don't need anything here. Notice how there is nothing to do, nothing to fix. There's nothing more that can be done. Let go consciously. Let go completely.

Imagine your soul lifting up and out of your body, looking down at your body and your space. Feel it lifting up into the sky, up into the cosmos, and becoming one with everything. Feel the infinite, unchanging, ancient part of you returning back to everything. Feel how you are now part of everything - you can see everything, you can feel everything. You are part of the entire experience of the cosmos. Notice what it is like to let go of all of your needs and desires, and everything you thought needed to happen in this life, and become one with everything.

But life is calling you back. You're not gone yet. Your body still breathes. Your body still lives. There is still life for you to live and experiences for you to have. Imagine your soul dropping back into your body, with perhaps a new relationship to what you think you need and want, and what you think needs to happen in this lifetime.

In the few moments before you open your eyes, decide what really needs to happen in this lifetime, and what really wants to be expressed through you in this lifetime. Whatever it is, it is personally yours. It could be expression, the unrequited flow of love, generosity, gifting, devotion, or freedom. With this second lease on life that has been given to you, decide what is most important for you to bring to the world and to the people that you love. Because at any moment, it could end.

Let this knowledge that at any moment, death could come, completely without warning, sharpen and inspire your commitment to the present moment. How much more would you love? How much more would you give? How much more attention would you pay? How would you prioritize?

It's okay to know that death is always there, and life is always asking us to give more before death comes.

Give a bow to death - "I've got more to do, but I see you."

And give a bow to life, your needs, your tenderness, your vulnerabilities, your desires, your pleasure, your pain - everything that makes you human.

Then open your eyes and close the practice.

Music:
Bloom by Aether
Ceremony of Passage by Vas
Movement by Hozier
I Like It by Moby
One Way or Another by Until the Ribbon Breaks
With or Without You by April Meservy & Aaron Edson

Disclaimer: Although anyone may find this practice to be useful, it is made available with the understanding that we are not engaged in presenting specific medical, psychological, emotional, sexual or spiritual advice. Nor is anything in this practice intended to be a diagnosis, prescription, recommendation or cure for any specific kind of medical, psychological, emotional, sexual or spiritual problem. Each individual has unique needs and this practice cannot take these individual differences into account. Each person should engage in a program of treatment, prevention, cure, or general health only in consultation with a licensed, qualified physician, therapist or other competent professional. Any person suffering from a sexually transmitted disease or any local illness of his or her sexual organs should consult a medical doctor and a qualified instructor of sexual yoga before practicing the sexual methods described in this practice.