How to Tap the Hidden Wisdom at your fingertips
If you’ve ever been high on retreat only to crash when you came home, you’ll know what I mean about the need for Everyday Medicine. Medicine, in Tantra speak, isn’t referencing pills you pop, but rather a spiritual experience that heals the soul, soothes the mind, or gives you guidance. On a retreat away from everyday problems, people tend to ask for Big Medicine for big problems, But what is the answer to tackling life’s every day irritations and conundrums. When I asked Spirit, this was the enlightening answer.
The eight symbols of everyday medicine are an axe, a key, a wheel, an empty bowl, a lotus flower, a skull of blood, a bell, and a trishula.
-_Sri Tarini Pada
How I came to ask Spirit for Everyday Medicine
Last month I went on a personal retreat to beautiful Crested Butte, Colorado. I needed to let go of attachment to an unhealthy relationship, rest, and do some writing. My good friend Helen offered me her couch and booked me an appointment with a local healer. In session, I went deep. I cried a lot of tears. After, in the wildflower meadow Crested Butte is famous for, I walked hand-in-hand with Spirit, Who gave me the final medicine I needed to regain my balance.
One of the many lessons that came out of that weekend was how deeply I could lean into Spirit for seemingly impossible answers, and get answers. I hadn’t realized before just how much I could trust Spirit to hold me and comfort me. The Big Medicine is what I dubbed it.
When I came home I felt renewed. But, it didn’t take long before the everyday stresses chipped away at my balance, and within two weeks, it seemed most of the effects of that retreat were gone. This fascinates me. The answers Spirit gave me are just as valid now as they were in that sunkissed meadow, so how is it I feel so at the mercy of my everyday problems?
I scheduled a follow up appointment with my yoga therapist, Christine Moore. She reminded me that on retreat, we are temporarily relieved from the daily weight of our everyday problems. Coming home, we realize just how heavy they really are, what a weight we carry all the time and don’t even realize what it takes out of us.
Thinking about the Big Medicine, I began to wonder if there’s an Everyday Medicine. If Spirit met me in that meadow to soothe my biggest darkness, could Spirit be there for me in these everyday stresses? Like how to increase my salary and go full-time with Living in Tantra? How to foster more love around the dinner table with my kids? How to attract a healthy life partnership? How to soothe the anxiety that seems to follow me around like a little puppy? What’s the Everyday Medicine?
I was about to find out.
Christine drew a card from her tarot deck to shed light on the question. An eight-armed goddess, called Sri Tarini-Pada came up. In each hand she has a different tool to deal with anything life can dish out. An axe for swift, decisive action. A key for opening doors. A wheel for steady pace. An empty bowl for listening and receiving. A skull bowl of blood for blood, sweat and tears. A lotus flower, for making beauty from murky water. A bell for the benevolent hum connecting us to Spirit. And finally, a trishula (a 3-pronged scepter), representing willpower, action, and wisdom.
Dayum. The Everyday Medicine, Spirit seemed to be saying, is my own toolbox of skills. My inner wisdom, right at my fingertips. I have 50 years under my belt of figuring shit out. It’s time to take an inventory of all the good stuff I can do, things I’ve learned from experience, and consciously put that wisdom to work for me. Sri Tarini-Pada offers the framework with these eight symbols.
The symbols! Let’s take a look at those. Some are projective and masculine Axe, key, lotus root, bell and trishula). Some are receptive and feminine (Wheel, empty bowl, skull of blood, lotus blossom). Some of the tools are delightful (ringing bell, helpful key, quiet empty bowl, beautiful lotus blossom) ; others are pretty dark, even macabre (chopping axe, taboo blood, the lotus root reaching in the murky water). No one tool works in every situation. Just as masculine and feminine, light and dark, come together to give life, so do these symbols work together. It hardly gets more Tantric than that.
The tools of everyday medicine are focused on inventorying your inner wisdom. While Sri Tarani Pada offers eight tools, as you look within, you’ll probably discover many more than that! She’s just there to get you started.
DAkini Leah
The Inspired Next Series in the Meditation Club
I’m intrigued by this and want to spend the next 8 sessions in the LIT Meditation Club exploring each of these symbols and how to apply them. I’m calling it Everyday Medicine. Here’s the session schedule:
1- Axe – Swift, Decisive Action
2 – Key – Opening Locked Doors
3 – Wheel – Keeping a Steady Pace
4 – Empty Bowl – Listening and Receiving
5 – Lotus – Making Beauty from Murky Waters
6 – Skull Bowl of Blood – Blood, Sweat and Tears
7 – Bell – Connecting to Spirit
8 – Trishula – Willpower, Action and Wisdom
In addition to exploring each symbol in detail, we will begin each meditation warming up of a moment when you felt loved. None of the tools work very well if they don’t start from a foundation of love–that’s one thing I’ve learned from experience. But, this can be really difficult for some people, especially if you grew up in an abusive, dysfunctional home. “I’ve never felt love,” one of my recent clients told me. I get it. That’s one of my challenges, too, is feeling loved.
In my work with clients and in my own journey, I’ve discovered it only takes one or two love memories to shift your vibration to enough to feel loved, even if just a little bit at first. We all have at least one memory of love’s benevolent hum touching us. Once you tune yourself to feeling loved, other moments you’ve forgotten rise to the surface. Love opens our eyes to more love. That’s a good place for the Everyday Medicine.
The Benefits of Tantric Meditation
Pretty much everyone knows meditation is good for you. It lowers your blood pressure, reduces the effects of stress, helps you sleep, increases focus, and lessens symptoms of depression and anxiety. Any successful athlete will tell you he or she meditates on the big game or the race the night before. Tantric meditation is different because it uses movement, sound, imagery and breathwork to engage your sacred sexual energy. This takes you deeper into trance where you can step into Who You Really Are.
In the Living in Tantra Meditation Club, you’ll find a vibrant, loving community of like-minded people from all over the world. Our meditations are broadcast live twice a week for you enjoy live or later. Additionally, I scout out up-and-coming Tantra practitioners from all over the world to offer exclusive content only for members of the club.
I hope you’ll join us for every session in this series, because YOU, beautiful soul, deserve this Everyday Medicine. Retreats are wonderful and have their place, but once the high is over, the work of Everyday medicine takes over. You deserve to live happy and at peace, and what’s more, when you step into Who You Really Are you shift the world for us all. That’s Living in Tantra.
Dakini Leah is a certified Tantra educator through the Ohonu School of Tantra and the founder of the world’s only online Tantric meditation club. Since 2013 she’s helped singles and couples use their sacred sexual energy for healing, intimacy and self-development, Dakini Leah is available for one-on-sessions, in person or online. If you’re in Colorado’s Grand Valley, attend one of her upcoming Tantra workshops. No matter where in the world you live, you can join the LIT Meditation Club for live, interactive Tantric meditation. Step into Who You Really Are. Live in Tantra. #beLIT
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