Embodiment Of The Arts

Embodiment.

It’s a word that get’s a little over-used these days, but just for fun, let’s chew on it a bit and let the flavor really sink in. 

Yesterday I was at a cupcake shop with my best friend and soul sister Vivi Le Voix, planning our June 1^st event “A Night of Opera, Seduction and Burlesque”. We were talking about what makes this event different from just going to the opera, or a burlesque show, or a class.  What we discovered is that this event is not just an observation of the arts.  It is a chance for a person to EMBODY the arts.

Vivi performing Tosca

One of the things I love about going to see a performance is that it opens my senses to a whole new experience.  However, sitting in an opera audience involves a lot of…sitting.  Hearing the different languages is beautiful but can cause the mind to wander. I always have the desire to know: what is the story behind the story? Ok, so this woman gets killed by this guy for the sake of her true love. Got it. But what was the writer really trying to express in telling that story through opera?

Similarly, when I see burlesque, it lights me up and changes my life every single time.  But it goes by so fast! I want to know, when one pastie is a different color than the other, why did the performer choose that? Was it a nod to the artist who wrote the song, like the way Carol Burnett used to tug on her ear for her Grandma at the close of every show?  Or is it a secret far more personal?  These things keep me up at night. 

Hey Sailor!
Photo by Beth Mayesh

When Vivi and I designed this event, we wanted to take these art forms that are often observed from far away and allow the audience to cradle them in their hands.  For example, have you ever stood 5 feet away from a real opera singer?  Your bones, your heart and your soul tremble at the vibrations of her voice. For most people, when they first hear Vivi sing, they get tears in the corners of their eyes and they have no idea why.  This is why we all love art so much.  It awakens us to a mysterious yearning that comes from a part of ourselves that can never quite be “figured out”. With all the things that can be figured out nowadays, this is a code we wouldn’t dare try to crack.  That, my friends, is a miracle in the flesh. 

The same goes for burlesque.  Watching a burlesque act is like witnessing an entire lifetime in three to five minutes. Burlesque uses the power of the physical body to manifest the most significant, intense emotions a person can feel.  The way the energy changes in the room when even a glove comes off of a forearm is like switching the channel on a television.  Whenever we get naked, literally or metaphorically, we are risking it all.  We are telling the full truth - showing up in our greatest vulnerability, which ultimately represents our greatest power. 

Nipples of Venus Cakerie
Photo by Beth Mayesh

On this evening that Vivi and I have planned, we intend to take you through a sensory tour of living art.  There will be Nipples of Venus Cakerie delights, beautiful wines and bubbly beverages to tease your taste buds.  Your ears will experience every sensation imaginable; from the lightest tickle to the deepest massage stroke by hearing opera up close.  Your eyes will take you on a journey of the heart with every conceal and reveal you witness.  Hearing the story behind each story will touch your very soul, and add a whole new layer of meaning to the experience.

Most of all, you will learn how to take this experience and apply it to every encounter you have with the arts after this one. Whether you are front row at a concert or reading “Poetry In Motion” on the subway, this experience will be something your body will never forget. 

We invite you to embody the arts with us, Saturday June 1^st. 

For a sample of what you will hear at the event, click here to listen to Vivi singing one of her favorite arias. 

The Sexiest Thing I Can Think Of

Today I am sitting in the lobby of a Best Western after a patience-trying experience while trying to buy a diet Pepsi in the gift shop.  Later on, I will be hiking in the Grand Canyon with my husband.  Funny how even in a motel in Tusayan, AZ, you can learn the greatest lessons in seduction. 

Last night I had an experience that made me think of a question I get often from women: “how do I embody seduction into every area of my life, all the time”.  Shortcut to the answer: you already do.  Seduction is not necessarily something to be done, it is something to be surrendered to. 

Husby and I on our way up the mountain

Seduction is the part of us that says yes or no.  It is the force that can attract a wonderful experience like hiking the Grand Canyon, or the kind of experience where the purchase of a diet soda can make you doubt your faith in humanity. 

What I find that people are often wondering when they ask this question is “how do I make life sexy all the time? How do I feel gorgeous and beautiful all the time"? Last night, I REALLY wanted to wear my most gorgeous orange floor length maxi dress to dinner. The thing about this dress however, is that with the slightest chill in the air, you can see my nipples.  Like, a lot.  It’s really one of my favorite things about the dress, and it makes me feel super sexy.  When I wear this dress I feel like an absolute Goddess, like I just stepped out of a waterfall riding a unicorn.  Who could say no to that, right?

However.

Wearing the dress in question, holding a munchkin

We were dining in the basement café of the Best Western.  It was right across the hall from the arcade.  Do I really want to show my nipples to the Best Western Grand Canyon crowd? Not today Josephine.  I just wasn’t feeling it to be a sex Goddess in that moment (even though my body which had been wearing red dust covered jeans for a week longed for that experience).  And boy howdy, am I glad I listened to my intuition. If I had worn that dress I would have had my attention on how I was being interpreted by the bikers and cowboys playing pool, not on my evening with my husband.  Playing air hockey in the arcade would have been near impossible.  This may seem like frivolous mastication of ones wardrobe choices, but that choice determined everything about my night. By listening to my intuition, I gave myself a beautiful evening, present and happy. And that, dear friends, is the sexiest thing that I can think of. 

Heating up the desert with a Qoya hip-opener

PS – the very same woman who pissed me off in the gift shop just came over and said “I admire you”.  When I asked her why, she said it was because of my fierce typing skills that she had been observing this whole time.  Aint’ love grand?? 

An Announcement That Just Can't Wait

This summer, I did a lot of biking around the city, both recreationally and getting places.  One day in mid August I was biking through Prospect Park and I saw something unusual.  It was a bright yellow leaf on an otherwise completely green tree.  I pedaled on and saw another.  I began to see them all over, some on trees, some on the ground.  The reason this felt so strange is because I usually don't notice the seasons changing until the trees look like they are all on fire.  This was strange, and it made me feel like something was coming. I felt it in my bones, like when a dog can sense that a storm is on the way.  Big change was on the horizon.

Leaves in Brooklyn

Big, big change has recently occurred in my life.  As a seductress, don't expect me to give you the goodies on what that change was until the end of this post.  If you are one of those instant gratifiers: go on, skip ahead.  But if you are the type who likes things slow, who likes to savor and hear the whole story, not just the one climactic detail, read on.

At the start of 2012, Kitty Cavalier went on sabbatical.  I stopped teaching, stopped writing blogs, all so I could focus on the busiest season at my job.  I adore my job, and I gave it my all.  We had a really great, successful season.  I also felt relief from not having to keep up with Kitty. "This is nice!" I thought. I had evenings and weekends all to myself for the first time in a long time. I would get home at the end of the day feeling satisfied, and ready to rest.

Then Spring arrived, and I heard a new song on the wind.  Seduction was calling Kitty out of hibernation. 

I first encountered seduction as a lifestyle after visiting Paris.  When I returned from my trip, a book caught my eye called La Seduction: How The French Play the Game of Life by Elaine Sciolino.  This book explains how in France, seduction is not just a game that is played by two lovers. It is a part of everyday life. Going to the market is an experience in seduction.  Negotiating a contract requires great knowledge of the art of seduction. This book changed the way I saw my life, and the way I pursued the things I wanted.  I began to see seduction not as a technique, but as a way of living.  When I am living in seduction I am acting from a place of total attraction. I am completely surrendered to listening to my intuition. I am unafraid to say an enthusiastic yes to the things I want, and to the things I don't want, I say no without regret.

There is a deep spiritual component to seduction. To practice it, one must see the big picture.  It requires great patience and trust. To practice seduction one must surrender to trusting that there is order in the unpredictable. In a world where you can text someone in Indonesia and receive an instant alert two seconds later once they've read it, it makes no sense to us when what we want does not arrive in our time.  We get frustrated and agitated, and think we must be doing something wrong.  This, right here, is the opposite of seduction.

One thing I know for absolute sure: seduction cannot be rushed.  What this means is that the chase is not something to become frustrated by, it is actually the best part. Rather than stomping out feet and getting down on ourselves for not making the things we want appear, seduction helps us to relax and savor each step of the journey.  There is a Chinese proverb: "Tension is who you think you should be, relaxation is who you are." This, right here, is the essence of seduction. 

Dancing through change

For a long time I was trying to figure out who and what Kitty Cavalier really was. I started out teaching burlesque, and I love burlesque, but I am not a burlesque expert. And burlesque is not my deepest passion.  My deepest passion is (new age jargon alert) serving the new feminine conscious that is emerging on this planet.  For the last several thousand years there has been a consciousness that everything about being a woman is wrong.  Damn our stupid periods.  Damn that we are the ones who have to suffer through the pain of childbirth.  Damn that we are so sensitive. Well, we all know this is getting turned on its fucking head right now.  Women everywhere are waking up to the truth that everything about being a woman is not only right, it is completely awesome. Our periods and the cyclical nature of our bodies? Awesome.  Being the creators, bearers, and portals to new life? Totally awesome. Feeling things so deeply that we tap into our intuitive, eternal senses rather than just logically trying to work them out? Rad.

Last week I finished my final day at my beloved job.  Many of you know I worked at Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts , a school whose teachings I am incredibly devoted to.  This was not an easy decision, as this was my dream job come to life, beyond my dreams actually.  But seduction has finally seduced me.  I have decided to stop working and dedicate myself entirely to growing The School of Charm and Cheek.   

This is a big step, a huge risk, an enormous change, and an exhilarating ride.  We are coming up on winter, and I have some hibernating to do.  I am going to be going off the radar for a bit to create the next phase of the School of Charm and Cheek.  I'll still be blogging and teaching Qoya, but I am preparing to dive deep with seduction and I need time and space to do that.  This weekend, my diamond of a class: Seduction Is A Spiritual Practice,  is the last time I will be teaching seduction for a few months.  The reason this email is so urgent is because yesterday we sold out, but I ordered more supplies and figured out a way to take five more Seductresses. I don't want you to miss this chance.  If you are being called, jump in. I can't wait to seduce with you, this weekend, or whenever the stars bring us together.   

My Secret, Secret, Secret Weapon

Veronica In Action

One of the questions I often get asked is about my spiritual practice.  People notice I have a strong relationship with spirit and want to know the actual practices I use to nurture and engage in that relationship.  Until age 18 I was forced, (and I mean forced!) to go to Catholic mass at least once per week.  Until age 13, I loved it.  After age 13, all hell broke loose.

No matter how much I stomped my feet, cried, pleaded to not have to go to Church, my parents held fast to their values.  At the time, I thought this was poppycock. Ridiculous.  Tyrannical.  Going to Church felt was straight-up obligation to me.  I found no inspiration there.  As a teenager who was dying to live as close to the edge as my social circle would allow, I just felt a continual layering on of guilt and that only reinforced my will to rebel. 

Today - Spirit, The Universe, God, Goddess, what-have-you; informs every breath I take and every move I make.  In retrospect I am grateful for my devotional upbringing.  Even when it moved beyond the point that I could relate to it, because this strengthened my resolve to find what did work, rather than just resent what didn't. It took a lot of research to find what worked for me to get close to where I felt the sweet embrace of the divine. One of the most unexpected places has been witchcraft.

I remember seeing the movie The Craft as a teenager.  My Mom was so terrified that she secretly sat in the back of the movie theatre so that she could see what I was being exposed to.  After all, that term, witchcraft, instantly conjures the imagery of the demonic, devil worship, black magic and the like.  I never went down that path, though I did sprinkle a fair amount of fennel seeds over my telephone in the hopes that my high school crush would someday call me and profess his love.  (something I read in the Supermarket Sorceress)

But what is witchcraft really? There are a great many ways to describe it: knowing the future, controlling the future. Having the ability to enchant, allure, captivate, hypnotize, enthrall, entrancing and spellbind. 

What is interesting is that in this day and age, I can think of very few women who would not like to be considered enchanting, alluring, captivating and hypnotizing.  Possession of these qualities strike me as something unique to feminine power, which not so long ago was considered an unforgivable crime. 300 years ago during the Salem witch trials, being called hypnotic could quickly get you lynched, or worse, slowly crushed under a giant boulder, torturing you in the hopes of attaining a confession of witchcraft.    Aye-ye-aye.  

Thank goodness we have pioneers like Veronica Varlow and her Grandmothers.  Veronica has been one of the greatest inspirations in my life.  My muse, my teacher, my friend, she not only has an entrancing quality that casts its spell over you body and soul the moment you encounter her, she is also one of the most generous and wonderful teachers I have ever met.  Kitty Cavalier would not exist without Veronica.

One of the most powerful classes she teaches is called "Light My Fire: Candle Magic with Veronica Varlow".  I took this class a few years ago, and I swear to you, everything I have created in my life has been the result of using this sacred art to attract what I want.  I have the most knock-down, crazy-amazing, blow your mind marriage in the universe, thanks to a candle spell.  I am making 3 times more than the highest salary I have ever made in my life, and my abundance continues to expand.  Candle magic again.  I have a career where my sole purpose is to have as much fun as possible in my life and then share it with the world to empower others.  Yup.  Candles again.

To try to describe why this class is so life altering would be like trying to describe what if feels like to swim in the ocean.  It is a power you just have to experience yourself. 

This Friday, November 16th, a dream of mine is coming true.  Veronica is bringing her candle magic class to The School of Charm and Cheek.  JUST FOR US. Ladies, believe me when I say, you would be crazy not to jump on this opportunity.  We have no plans to re-create this in the future.  Veronica travels the world and it is extremely rare that she is available to teach at all. 

So come on, join us. Be the best kind of crazy there is - no matter what plans you have to cancel, no matter how you have to drag your tired ass downtown - follow your desire to join us.  Your life will transform, I guarantee it.