A New Year's Seduction Ritual

Bath-Time Bliss

It’s midnight on New Year’s Eve-Eve, and right now I am lying in bed, writing by the light of two tapered candlesticks.  Every inch of my body has been soaked, scrubbed and balmed.  My feet are slippery with lotion in my little winter socks.  I am leaving the scent of lavender oil (handmade by my Mother) all over my sheets by laying on them with my bare skin.

One of my core rituals as a Seductress is my bath.  I have been known to take as many as three, sometimes four baths in one day.  I do not have an elegant claw foot tub or a lavish bathroom with heated floors. But I have discovered a way to turn my tiny NYC apartment bathroom into a sacred Goddess temple through the art of ritual.

On this New Year’s Eve, I wanted to share a sweet, sacred ritual that I do to make your New Year sing with sensuality.

Items you will need:

• 3 things you can add to enhance your bath.  Examples would be: Epsom salts, flower petals, essential oils, bubble bath/body wash, a water-safe object that has meaning to you like a pebble or a shell
• A few candles
• A book or magazine that relaxes you (erotica is really good to read in the bath!)
• Your favorite music (some of my favorite bath-time Pandora stations are India Arie, Brahms, Jami Sieber and The Indigo girls)
• A towel and lotion for after the bath

1. Prepare
Begin by cleaning the tub, making it fit for a Queen.  As you scrub, do so with the intention of buffing away anything that doesn’t serve you in your body and life.  You don’t have to think about these things as you scrub, just holding the intention will do the trick.

When the tub is clean, fill it with as much water as it will hold!
While the tub is filling, grab a clean towel and fold it nicely. Press play on your music.

2. Create Sacred Space
Light the candles.  As you light each candle envision each of them representing angels of sensuality, there to protect you and hold a sacred space for you to complete your ritual.

3. Dress your bath
Take a moment with each item you have chosen to add to the water. Infuse each item with your intention.  You can turn any ordinary object into a powerful piece of magic just with your thoughts and intentions.  For example, when I sprinkle Epsom salts into my bath, I first hold the salts and say “these salts will draw everything from my body that keeps me from love.  These salts are of the Earth, I am of the Earth. These salts make this water feel like a hug from the Earth itself.”

I then add pure essential oils.  As I add lavender, I say “this oil will bring soothing energy to my bath, easing any stress or tension in my feminine soul”.  As I add the rose oil: “this oil will infuse me with all the beauty, radiance and perfection of a summer rose in full bloom”.  As I add the jasmine oil: “this oil infuses me with the exoticism of the Goddess, her mystery, her intrigue, and her irresistibility”.  

Whatever items you choose, they are perfect.  You can even use table sugar to add more sweetness to your life. It is your intention that gives them their power.  Get creative and don’t hold back!

4. Step In
Step in slowly and savor every moment of sitting back into the water, letting it swirl around you.  Feel as much as you can.  Caress your skin under the water.  Let the music soothe you. Close your eyes and breathe in the steam, the scents, the moment.

If it feels right, pick up your book or magazine. If you like meditation, do that instead. Maybe journaling is your jam. Choose whatever puts a stop to the racing thought patterns in your mind and allows your body to fully relax.

Float on in the bath for as long as you like, a minimum of 20 minutes. Get out when it feels right.  Not when you need to baste the chicken, not when you are bored and want to check your email, when it feels right to your body, then you may step out of the bath.

5. Step Out
When you feel complete, close your eyes and envision Aphrodite, a Goddess born of the sea.  As you stand up, feel yourself as Goddess: renewed, regenerated and reborn, a different woman now than the woman that stepped into that water.

Envelop yourself in your freshly folded towel.  While your skin is still slightly damp, slather yourself with twice the lotion/cream you would normally use. Get your whole body nice and slick.  Then, let your hands run wild all over your skin. Massage, caress and bless yourself with your own hands until the cream starts to absorb. Play with vigorous touch and slow touch. Make sure not to leave a single inch of your body unloved.

When you are finished in the space, thank the Earth, thank the water, thank yourself for taking this time, and thank the Goddess for making you exactly who you are on this day.

Yours in Sacred Seduction,
Kitty

PS - On New Year's Day, come dance in 2013 with a special Qoya celebration! The theme of the class is saying goodbye to resolutions and hello to Seduction being the new law of attracting your desires. It is going to be a heavenly dance party and your body and soul will feel amazing, during and afterwards - I guarantee it. Join us! http://www.kittycavalier.com/#!new-years-day-qoya

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.  

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.