This Week In The Seduction Diaries

It’s the week before the very first Kitty Cavalier Seduction Retreat.  It feels a bit like a holiday week.  I can feel it coming in the air, like smelling the fragrance of cookies that were baked yesterday still lingering in the kitchen.

Last I left you, we were all on the edge of our seats to see if my Mom would say yes to my invitation to attend the retreat. On Saturday afternoon I emerged from the subway and felt my phone buzz in my pocket, and opened it to this joyous message!

YES! She is coming! Not without a few twists and turns in the seduction process but yes, Mama Cavalier will be joining us in seduction at this weekends retreat. I am so grateful to have this opportunity and experience with my Mama. 

This week I am steeping myself like a tea bag in the waters of seduction.  I made myself a list of things to do this week to prepare:
   
   1. Relax
   2. Pamper
   3.  Read
   4.  Qoya
   5.   Pray

In case I should find myself mindlessly trolling Facebook or experiencing pre-show jitters, I have this list to turn to, keeping my priorities in order.

Qoya, the #1 way to bring me back down to Earth.  Literally. 

I am writing this from the gorgeous home of Vivi Le Voix, burlesque star and professional baker.  She is my best friend and will be my right hand woman at the retreat, serving us her custom cupcakes at our champagne seduction gala Saturday night. 

Cupcakes by Vivi

Oh, and tomorrow I am having the six stitches that I incurred on my vacation taken out of my face. Wait until you hear that story!

The seduction wagon leaves for Chester on Friday morning with me, the husby, my assistants Vivi Le Voix and Freddie La Bum, huge bouquets of flowers, and all sorts of gifts and treasures waiting for the participants.  I can’t wait.

www.seductionretreat.com

Til’ next week, when my diary entry will be written by the hands of a woman who has seen yet another of her greatest dreams realized,

Kitty

The Simplest Seduction Technique I Know

Seduction is easy.  Really it is. 

It is far less complicated that we make it out to be.

Last night, I used one of my age-old tricks that has always inspired my seductive soul.  It cost me nothing, took one minute, and completely changed the destiny of my evening.

The secret? I lit every candle in my home.

I know. It sounds too simple to be destiny changing, but read on.

My budoir

Candlelight evokes an ancient, eternal sensual knowing within us. When I enter a room lit entirely by candles my blood pressure drops and my breathing becomes deeper.  Candlelight invites the spirit of the unseen.  That mystical glow that we cannot predict casts its spell over us. It creates an energy, a warmth that no appliance can re-create.  It reminds us that right there in thin air, magic does exist.

This past Sunday night I was feeling some anxiety. Sunday nights have always caused anxiety for me. Even when I wasn’t working and had nothing to do the next day, I would still feel that familiar “ok, fun’s over kids” anxiety on Sunday evenings. I had planned to watch a movie, but something about using technology to pass the time just did not feel satisfying enough. 

I know that when I feel anxiety, creating beauty in my environment and pleasure in my body is always the answer.  So, I turned out every single lamp in my home, and one by one, lit my way through each room along every candle.  Once all the candles were lit, I instantly felt myself relax.  This inspired me to turn on sweet, sensuous music (Annette Hanshaw Pandora to be exact).  Without even needing to ask, my husband began to draw me a bath.  Each room in my home had suddenly gone from being filled with noise and sharp energetic edges to being slow like honey, and sacred as an ancient temple. 

After my bath, I was going to watch the movie, but the slow, warm light of the candles was seducing me to do something more intuitive, something creative. So I laid on my bed with my journal and began writing.  After about 45 minutes, I had written the entire outline for my new book.   This is something I have wanted to write for months, resisting it every step of the way. But because of the ritual of of candlelight, my anxieties were calmed. The words that for so long had felt stuck like still water in a dried up creek began to flow like a river over a bed of stones.

Without these precious candles watching over me as I wrote these words that have been living inside me my whole life, this evening would have turned out much differently. 

You don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars to do this.  I like a variety of tapers, pillars, glass poured candles, votives and tea lights.  Candleholders can be as simple as a juice glass, or as elaborate as a sconce.  I have certain candle brands that I love, but the most affordable and easiest way to supply your home with candlelight is to go to the grocery or dollar store and stock up.  At the grocery store you will find prayer candles, some have religious labels, some do not.  Below I have posted some photographs of how I cast a spell with candlelight in my home.

It occurred to me while writing this that my very first job ever was being a cashier at a candle store in my hometown.  Thank you Betty Lou, owner of The Village Candle, for giving my 16-year old seductress a great place to start. 

PS – To receive a full education and immersion in Seductive Ritual, check out my retreat, Seduction Is A Way Of Life, May 3-5^th.  Your inner world and the world at large will not be the same after I unleash these secrets to you.  Join us in reclaiming seduction as our birthright.  

A Lavender candle warms my dressing table, casting it's beauty onto my altar wall of necklaces, 
postcards and images that are special to me.  

In my hallway, a mirror waiting to be hung projects the light of these three grocery store beauties.  Having candles in transitional places like a hallway means there is no interruption to the sensual experience.

This little pink lotus on my altar brings life to an otherwise static spot. 

These candles bring sparkle and shine to this photograph
of my glamourous hat-wearing, suit-donning, clutch-purse holding Grandma. 

Those candles also bring beauty to the bathtub.  Look at the warm light reflecting on the water. 

Nothing quite captures romance like a beaded taper candle sconce above the dining table,
and a sweet votive holding the balance on the other side of the room (visible in the mirror).

PS – To receive a full education and immersion in Seductive Ritual, check out my retreat, Seduction Is A Way Of Life, May 3-5^th.  Your inner world and the world at large will not be the same after I unleash these secrets to you.  Join us in reclaiming seduction as our birthright.  

Little Altars Everywhere

The first time I created an altar in my home, I remember treating it similarly to how I imagine one might treat nuclear material. I scrubbed the table I was using to the bone because I read somewhere that dust holds negative energy. I went to the health food store and saw all the different colored candles, each representing a different chakra. I was so afraid of excluding a chakra, I bought every color they had.  The same went for the incense. (thank you consumerism!) I started a “vision board” of all the things I wanted to transform in my life and placed it above the altar.  I would kneel in front of the altar when I got home from work every day (for about a week), burning the candles and trying to meditate, the whole time I was wondering if this was, indeed, the best feng-shui corner in the house to place the altar and whether or not it was clean enough.

JEEZ! It makes my palms sweat just thinking about that experiment.

I look back on that time with great compassion for myself.  What I realize now is that  I did not create that altar out of an overflow of devotion.  I created it because I wanted to find a way to heal things in my life that needed healing, but without having to do the scary stuff.  Like healing my ovarian cyst without surgery.  Or making all the people I hated at work less obnoxious without having to speak up.  And while we’re at it, adding more sex to my relationship without having to get out of my pajama pants.  And p.s., fixing my raging eating disorder.  No wonder the poor altar had performance anxiety!  

I have since learned that in the words of Annie Lennox, “Money Can’t Buy It.” You can ship salt from the Himalayas, fine incense from Tibet, the blood of a desert snake in Santa Fe and all the rest, but none of these things begin to compare with the power of collecting objects that mean something to you. 

My goal in my home is to make it one big giant altar.  I have little altars everywhere.  To me, an altar is any arrangement of beauty that honors the sacred.  It is something that reminds me that magic is real, that there is so much more to life that what we see with the naked eye.  What works best for me is to create altars of gratitude and honoring.  In contrast, I find that when I make an altar dedicated to a transformation I want to experience with images cut out of magazines and such, it makes me so fixed on the outcome that I start to obsess over it, excluding room for the transformation to actually happen. 

Here are some examples of altars I have created in my home and what they mean to me.  I would love to see yours too! You can post them here on the School of Charm and Cheek Facebook page. Or, if this post inspires you to see an altar where you did not see one before, as you will see in the photo at my Mother in-law’s house below, please share that too.

Altar On!

Kitty Cavalier

PS - Veronica Varlow is someone who taught me ALOT about finding the sacred and magic in the little things.  She is teaching a class at the School of Charm and Cheek March 23rd which is almost sold out.  I highly recommend this class if you would like to find beauty and magic in corners of your life that you would not have previously thought to look.

This is my bedroom dressing table.  Framing the mirror are necklaces , many of which were gifts, some which
were handmade by a dear friend.  On the dressing table are my favorite oils and lotions, handmade by my Mother. 

This Guest Altar belongs to my student Coco Chacnhil. It is an altar to Sacred Seduction that she created after taking my workshop.  It contains rose petals, chocolate, elegantly dressed fruit with goat cheese, the lyrics to a French song we learned in class, and a whole bunch of other personal items that mean something very special to her. 

This little bowl sits on my nightstand, and contains glass beads from  a vintage necklace, a stone from the driveway of my Dad's horse stable in South Carolina, and a nut that fell from a tree while vacationing with my husband in France.  I sprinkled a little glitter on it for additional sparkle. 

This altar is the first altar I ever made to honor Sacred seduction.  It has a green buddha lit up from below with white light, representing enlightenment with a little more pizazz than what we are accustomed to.  The word rejection is turned on it's head and covered with hearts to represent the belief that rejection is always a form of protection.  There are sweet watercolors to represent tenderness and vulnerability, sparkles and fur to represent making the old new again.  The marble carving reminds me of the Taj Mahal and honors the original archetypes of seduction. In the center, is an opera singer who is draped in red silk; a picture of pure passion in my eyes. 

I bought this when I was in Peru, and it graces a shelf in my bathroom, honoring true, long lasting love.

This is an altar, isn't it?? ;)

A gratitude altar for a successful Seduction class with my favorite Rumi poem "dance when you are broken open",  roses and a red candle from the classroom, and a variety of sacred objects surrounding the candle. 

This is a stone from the fire pit after my first fire ceremony at the Qoya Costa Rica retreat,  a piece of yarn from another ritual done in Costa Rica, a thank you charm that was a gift from a friend, and pink glitter to make everything shine.


This is in the home of my Mother in-law.  At first glance it is just an assembly of photos, but when looked at more closely it is an altar to family and love.  There are two photos of my nieces/her grandchildren, with a photo of her parents in the middle, and an album from our wedding under that, all placed on the piano where my husband learned to play his famous song "Ho-Down" as a kid.  So much sacredness on this altar!

  

A Story of Birth and Seduction

On this rainy afternoon, I find myself sitting down to write a blog because it’s time to write a blog.  Time to produce.  Time to pump one out.  But truthfully, I am post-partum people!  I have just given birth to a beautiful, gorgeous, powerhouse of a class - Seduction Is A Spiritual Practice.  And it is time to hold her in my arms, smell her little head, and tell her birth story.  

Until about six months ago, the topic of seduction used to simultaneously scare me to death and intrigue me beyond words. I always associated seduction with manipulation, never revealing one's true self, never being vulnerable, and using sex as a commodity. But then, simultaneously, when I would read a story about a seductress, I would burn with envy and desire. When I looked at my icons, all of them seemed to be masters of seduction.  So, because I like a little buck in my bronco, I decided to take this topic on, plunge in head first, and make it a Pleasure Project.

A Pleasure Project is what I do when something scares me, or mystifies me, or just confuses me, and I take it on as research - like an anthropologist. Whenever I feel called to take on a new pleasure project, it is not because I'm bored or need something to do. It is because something in me is calling, tugging at me, desiring to be explored and expressed. Take, for example, G-spot orgasms.  This may be an over-share, (sorry parents and husband) but this topic is something that has been on my radar forever, and I've always wanted to learn more. But simultaneously I feel exhausted at the prospect of exploring such a diverse and confronting topic. So last night I when I went to buy my favorite skin care products and the store was closed, and I found myself right next door to Babeland (a female friendly sex shop here in NY) I knew it was time.  So, with the help of a sweet and knowledgeable female associate, I courageously blew $400 on all things G.  Wish me luck. We'll see if that research makes it into the blog.

In The Tepidarium, Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema

So when the word seduction kept flying around my consciousness like a mosquito I couldn't swat, I started by ordering countless books on Amazon. Some of these books were amazing, some were downright repulsive, but all were educative. I started noticing themes of seduction and opportunities for seduction showing up everywhere.  I would ask myself, "What would be the most seductive move in this situation?" And I started having ALOT of fun.

One of my most interesting findings is that we always associate seduction with sex, when in fact, true seduction is the opposite of sex. Sex is when desire is met. Seduction is not about the culmination or gratification of desire, it is about the thrill of the desire itself. It is the game that is played as the desire comes closer, and closer, and closer, and being able to maintain that tension of wanting for a long, long time. 

As I started practicing seduction not just in my love life but everywhere in my life, I noticed a few things.  Number one, I had more energy. Why? I no longer felt the need to people please.  Do you want to know one of the most seductive things in the entire world? The ability to say NO. I realized that in my effort to make people like me, I said yes way too much.  We’ve all heard that setting boundaries and saying no to things is necessary, but no one had ever framed it as being sexy. Well that was all I needed.  I started experimenting with saying no to people, offers, requests for help, etc.  Sometimes I actually wanted to do these things, but I would force myself to say no just to experiment with that delicious tension, and become more comfortable with it.  Of course, this can be every woman's greatest fear, saying no.  What if I offend someone? What if they won't like me? But you know what happened? People started liking me MORE. My time and my attention became way more valuable to myself and to others.  And the unnecessary things in my life began to fall away, leaving way more time and attention for the things I really, really, really wanted to do.  

The Fountain, Peter Fendi

What I also I noticed is that I became way more satisfied with where I am at in the timeline of my life.  Previously I would worry that I was not moving fast enough, or that because some of the things I want in my life have not yet arrived, it meant I was doing things wrong.  But when examined through the lens of seduction, I realized that if something is not in my life, it simply means that it has not yet fully seduced me, or I it.  This is where the spiritual practice comes in.  This dance of seduction is not just something to be done with other people, but with everything we want in life. Where a no can be equally as satisfying as a yes. A yes is great, but a no just means there is more fun to be had.  Knowing this can really help a girl relax.  

I have so much more to say on this topic, of course, I must now leave you wanting.  I am so proud of this new baby. It is truly the finest class I have ever taught. I am so grateful to every woman who came to the class and is willing to join me as we resurrect the holy, beautiful, sacred archetype of the Seductress. 

PS – My next Seduction Is A Spiritual Practice is happening July 13^th and 14^th.  I would love to have you join me.