Episode 92 - TANTRIC TIPS FROM THE GODDESS TEMPLE with Corynna Clarke

Transcript

Francesca Gentille: Welcome to Sex, Tantra and Kama Sutra: Bringing You The Soul of Sex. With me today is Dr. Corynna Clark. Corynna is the owner of The Goddess Temple website, a wonderful resource for all of us all across the country. She’s also the doctor of spiritual counseling, an advanced tantra educator, a licensed massage therapist and a holistic health practitioner, and I’m delighted to have her here with us today. Welcome Corynna.

Dr. Corynna Clark: Oh, thank you. I’m so happy to be here.

Francesca Gentille: You know, I’m delighted that you’re here for so many reasons. I’ve subscribed to some of your email lists, I get updates from you, I think we’re on Face Book today, and you have such a beautiful presence, and The Goddess Temple is such a wonderful consortia of people and techniques and ideas. And, you know, how did you get started? How did you become the owner of The Goddess Temple? Did you grow up with that, you know, when you were a little girl? You know, like some girls pretend to be princesses and queens or fairies; do you envision being the owner of a goddess temple? Talk a little bit about your journey.

Dr. Corynna Clark: Well I don’t think it was exactly like that. I think like every little girl I wanted to be a ballerina. But the way that my life turned, my oriental philosophies teacher in college suggested, he and his wife went to a tantra workshop and suggested that it would be perfect for me because he knew I had a lot of sexual issues and things around sexuality that were a little bit off for me, that weren’t quite whole, and I was in a little bit of an abusive relationship, and I just, I wasn’t manifesting to my full potential that he saw for me. And he suggested that I go, and I was – to be honest – quite turned off by the whole thing. I felt like, “Ugh, I don’t want to sit in a classroom and talk about sex for three days. I don’t even want to do that, much less talk about.” So I kind of hemmed and hawed and dragged my feet, and he checked up and made sure that I went. And I think my resistance was that I had such an amazing breakthrough through that workshop and through my first sacred spot experience, not so much sexually, but I just felt this tremendous amount of joy and fulfillment and wholeness, and I ran on the beach like a little kid and chases seagulls off the sand and just was so happy, and I felt compelled that if I could share even a tiny percent of this with other people, I would be fulfilled for the rest of my life, if I could give this same gift or even a part of this gift, that that would be my darma. And…

Francesca Gentille: And let me slow this down just a little bit. What does darma mean?

Dr. Corynna Clark: It’s like a spiritual duty or a spiritual calling or something, something that’s like your, what you’re meant to do on the spiritual level.

Francesca Gentille: So if you could bring this joy and innocence that you’d be fulfilling in a sense your souls mission, your spiritual mission to the earth.

Dr. Corynna Clark: Yes.

Francesca Gentille: And I love that when you have that g-spot awakening and the g-spot is sometimes called the goddess spot - it’s also sometimes, it has a much longer clinical name, it’s inside the vulva up towards the, you know, kind of the roof or the pubic bone – and that when this got awakened in you what I hear got awakened is the life force itself; it’s like a reclamation of vitality and…

Dr. Corynna Clark: Yeah. It wasn’t so much….

Francesca Gentille: Go ahead.

Dr. Corynna Clark: sexual because I was shut down a lot sexually and really my yoni was one of the last things to awaken with me. I had more internal, like you said, the life force waking up inside of me, my intuition, I could all of a sudden see very clearly past lives that I’d had, I could…. Things woke up inside me but my sexuality was about the last to fall in line. I was practically numb or just really didn’t feel anything for the first several many like ten or fifteen sacred spot sessions I had. I was not feeling a whole lot. But yet it was worthwhile.

Francesca Gentille: I want to highlight it, that as well. I love your story; this is so delicious and important for our listening audience, is that sense of that it took many times, that sometimes in our culture we have the, you know “Get in, get out, get over it, you know, get through it”…

Dr. Corynna Clark: Yeah, it’s not a magic button…

Francesca Gentille: that immediately you take one pill, you take one word shots and…

Dr. Corynna Clark: Right, everybody wants the easy way, but it’s, this is something that you have to take on or that I took on – I’m not telling people what they have to do – but I took it on like a practice and I worked with a couple who are both teachers and a man and a woman, so I got a chance for my man stuff and my daddy stuff and my boyfriend stuff and my all that male energy stuff to come up, and when I worked with her it was a chance for my sister issues, my competition issues, my issues, you know, that I’ve had around other women, then those came up. And I also took it upon myself to do a practice just with me and doing my own sacred spot, and that was all about my own issues, what I inflict upon myself. So I really dove into that and took it on like a practice, not just as something for foreplay or something to try to find the magic place that’s going to make me orgasm like crazy. This was something that I took on more like a project. My awakening…

Francesca Gentille: And how long did it take, like how many months or years did you feel before you really felt that more sensual awakening.

Dr. Corynna Clark: It was really like more like a couple of months and once I went through the emotional stuff and even the past life stuff and my heart feeling like it was just breaking open and my love was just going to squirt out all over the floor, I had that feeling a few times. And then also feeling incredibly empowered and connected to the goddess and connected to that source of energy where everything is sacred and amazing. So I feel like I, yeah, I think it started in my crown, went to my third eye, my throat opened and I could speak more about what I wanted and what I didn’t want and what I liked and what I preferred and my heart feeling like it was going to open up and just being able to be capable of more love and a deeper connection with people that I couldn’t before because I was more closed off. And  think it was…

Francesca Gentille: I really, I want to highlight what you’re saying, that that’s so important, is that some of us are very much rooted down in our bodies and we’re very good at structure and we’re very, you know, sensei, we’re very in our senses but maybe don’t feel that our heart is open or don’t feel that our intuition or vision is open. Some of us are actually very in our heads or in our vision or we’re, there are people that are the seers, sometimes we’re the criticizes, but we also haven’t come, also come down into our heart or come down into our erotic nature or our life past. So it can go either way; in a sense we can either come down our body when we’re healing or we can go up our body when we’re healing and that either way what I hear you saying is there’s a journey, be patient, keep practicing, have compassion for wherever it’s starting and wherever it’s going, and keep going, that really what I hear you saying, that it’s literally aeros is the life force and it’s awakening wherever it needs to awaken and it’s starting to flow and release those blocks wherever they need to release in the order they need to be released.

Dr. Corynna Clark: Mm hmm, that’s so true. Definitely. I think…

Francesca Gentille: Go ahead.

Dr. Corynna Clark: No, no, tell me what you were going to say.

Francesca Gentille: What I was going to say is that I’m very, very moved by your story and enjoying it and I think a lot of us can identify with places that we’re blocked, longing to open or perhaps sometimes to support our partner to open…

Dr. Corynna Clark: Yeah.

Francesca Gentille: And I want to talk more about how we do that and more about how you did that and what you would recommend for us along with your beautiful resource you created for all of us, when we come back from a break and a word from our fabulous sponsors. And I want to encourage our listening audience to support our sponsors because they help great shows and fabulous people like Corynna coming to you. And we’ll be right back.

Francesca Gentille: Welcome back to Sex, Tantra and Kama Sutra. We’re talking with the amazing Dr. Corynna Clark, owner of The Goddess Temple and tantra educator, and who’s sharing with us a very personal journey that I relate to, I think many of us relate to, of this awakening or a longing to awaken fully into our life, our body, our vitality, our erotic nature, and you spoke of two months of practicing initially with the g-spot – for men it might be their prostate. And I’m guessing that its kept going throughout these years, that there’s something that’s kept evolving and deepening for you, and could you tell us a little bit about that or some of the keys that we might want to practice in, you know, here at home, wherever we are listening to you?

Dr. Corynna Clark: Okay, well I definitely think sacred spot practice both for men and for women can be an incredible – it’s like jet fuel on the path to enlightenment. You can just go through your stuff so much faster. But I think we need something that we can access day to day or connection to connection, from person to person. And there are some very basic keys to having a tantric life, to even making your sex life more tantric; if it’s kind of vanilla and the same old/same old, you can incorporate these keys and make them, make the sex or make the connection an even stronger deeper one. And they’re pretty simple. One of course obviously is breath. You know, breathing more deeply, more fully, taking in life, exhaling tension, you know, and just using breath to run energy is an incredibly powerful tool, as well as to relax. And kind of level out that energy too, sharing breath with a partner, like breaths of the goddess; when you breathe out, your partner breathes in and vice versa is also an incredibly powerful way to connect and, connect chakras too, just breathing together and uniting the breath also unites the energy centers in our body. Another thing with the breath that’s powerful, like I said it’s a way of moving energy and so is actually moving, using your hands or using your mudras on the body or moving your hips or just allowing that shakti or that life force energy to move through you is very powerful as well. Using sound I think is a very big key as well, and we’re a culture that doesn’t so much always say what we want or speak about it or make noise that describes what our feelings are. You know it’s natural when you hurt your hand, you want to “Oww”, and scream and let out a noise and even use movement and shake your hand or even breath and (makes heavy breathing), try to kind of dissipate that pain. So the sound is key. Even in orgasm if you were to take a deep breath just before you were going to have an orgasm and let out with sound as you were coming, that orgasm would last longer, it would be stronger, the contractions would be more, sometimes the amount of fluid that comes out would be more, it would just be a more intense experience. So I think those things are very helpful in that. I also think having the intention to move energy through your body for the purpose of healing or awakening is incredibly powerful as well, keeping that intention in your mind and using consciousness to direct it, being aware of “Where are my hands when I’m making love? Are they moving? Are they still? Are they running through the hair or are they moving on the body or are they touching different charkas, and am I breathing? Am I making a sound? Is my intention clear? Am I using that with every breath, that intention to have a powerful experience or have an intimate experience or a healing experience?” And I think the more that we bring our consciousness into our reality, the more we’re having more powerful experiences, deeper, more intimate connections and more personal awakening for ourselves as well.

Francesca Gentille: And… I was counting as you went. I got breath…

Dr. Corynna Clark: Yes.

Francesca Gentille: So we have a sense of breath, being conscious of our breath, deepening it, extending it, playing with it, sharing it, bringing our hands or body movements, reminding ourselves to loosen up and to bring that intention into our breath, into our hand movements. You mentioned mudra, which is in ancient India or even the present India, are different ways to actually hold the hands and connect the fingers together that align different energy, energy lines within the body so we can play with that. You mentioned the sound, which can be anything from (makes sounds) to toning (makes steady sound) and playing with different kinds of sounds including telling the truth…

Dr. Corynna Clark: Yeah, or asking for what you need or what you like.

Francesca Gentille: And the fourth one was intention, which really weaves through all of them; being conscious, being intentional. And it is said that energy or life or creation follows our intention. That nothing in fact is created in life – the chair that I’m sitting on – unless someone had an intention with it first. And what, is there one more or….

Dr. Corynna Clark: Consciousness. Consciousness, not just having the intention, but also having the awareness, being present to what’s going on, allowing your presence to be like just completely open and aware and feeling what’s going on and what could be done different or better or less or more, just that awareness.

Francesca Gentille: So consciousness, when I hear that, there’s that sense of almost a meditative awareness, a releasing of expectation…

Dr. Corynna Clark: Yes.

Francesca Gentille: a deepening of the breath and what’s being opened….

Dr. Corynna Clark: Yeah, being present at that moment.

Francesca Gentille: arising right, right now as we’re, as we’re doing on this interview and this conversation where we’re dancing from moment to moment, and our listening audience may not know is that I often talk to Corynna or my interviewee before we get on the air with you, but in the moment we’re here together with you. We’re here, it’s Corynna and I and you, our listening audience, and the magic starts to happen and we never know a hundred percent where it’s going to go. It starts arising literally in the magic that’s happening in the moment between us, as all beautiful sacred moments do. And we’re going to have more sacred moments and sacred magic when we come back from a break and a word from our fabulous sponsors and have our last section of sensual segment with Corynna. And we’ll be right back.

Francesca Gentille: Welcome back to Sex, Tantra and Kama Sutra, talking with the luscious Dr. Corynna Clark, owner of The Goddess Temple and licensed massage therapist, advanced tantra educator and an amazing, amazing woman and human being. And before I ask her the next evocative question, I just want to point out something that happened in the last segment which was you may not have heard it but I know Corynna and I did where there was a little bit of a saw in the background, there was a little bit of a horn going off, and in my shamanic teachers say that when that happens it means listen up. Wake up, there’s something really important happening. And it literally was happening during when you were speaking of intention and consciousness…

Dr. Corynna Clark: Yeah…

Francesca Gentille: of the five keys, but especially those two. And it reminds us how important consciousness and intention truly are. It reminds us to really breathe that in, and how this can definitely transform and enhance our lives. And Corynna, we’ve had a little window into some of your life, but it’s never done, there’s more; there was your goddess awakening, the five keys and how long has it been that you’ve been practicing this and does it keep going?

Dr. Corynna Clark: I have been practicing tantra for over 20 years and I still get to places in my own body, in my own orgasm, where I have never felt anything like that before in my life. And I think the tendency is to think, “Oh yeah, sex is like same old/same old. Been there, done that”, but I think tantra is so much different, you never get that same old/same old. I’m still having awakenings, after 20 plus years I’m still getting to new places in my being and in my body and in up leveling my life that I just go wow. It’s amazing and I think an ever unfolding ever opening journey that just continues on.

Francesca Gentille: And is this something that you - you have a goddess temple and you mentioned sharing a goddess breath - but is it something that if I’m in, you know, if I’m Christian, if I’m Islamic, if I’m a Susi or a Sheik, do I have to leave my tradition to practice these keys or to connect with my lover through the breath?

Dr. Corynna Clark: Not at all. A lot of tantra is more universal. It’s not necessarily connected to a specific god or goddess or Jesus or, you know, Mary or whatever; it’s really, it’s scientific facts about moving, it’s a science as well. It’s about moving energy through the body. It doesn’t have a whole lot to do with faith. Sure, faith helps. I mean, if you have faith you know that. Sometimes there’s times you couldn’t get through life without having faith. But that faith isn’t conditional on believing a certain way or practicing a certain thing or, you know, chanting with mala beads or, you know, praying to the rosary or it’s not specific to one denomination or another at all.

Francesca Gentille: So there’s practices that have, really have been for thousands and thousands of years – and I like to think of it sometimes that, you know, ten thousands years ago, five thousands years ago, we didn’t have scientific terminology, we had a symbolic terminology. And so we might say the dragon, the dragon of the earth when we met literally the magnetic, the magnetic force of the earth itself.

Dr. Corynna Clark: Right.

Francesca Gentille: Or we might say the kundalini serpent, when we, today we might say the electrochemical synaptic nature that runs up and down our spine and throughout our bodies, so that there was a symbolic language that was being utilized. And today we can, we can connect with that symbolic language and we can transform it slightly, you know, to connect with our own religious, spiritual or non spiritual context that we’re carrying.

Dr. Corynna Clark: Definitely. That’s very true. I think symbology is just very inherent in Hinduism and in tantra, even when you see like or go to Kahasaro Temple and see all these different images of men and women and animals making love in different positions, and it’s not so much exactly what you see, it’s not really about that picture, it’s about after you look at this whole temple eventually you’re just like “Wow”, and you’re understanding more the relationship between God and people; that’s the symbology for those figures, even though it’s simple. It’s like life; it looks simple on the outside but there’s a whole lot more going on.

Francesca Gentille: There’s always another layer, there’s always another level…

Dr. Corynna Clark: Right.

Francesca Gentille: It’s like my son and computer programs, there’s always one more level in the game. And there’s, and that’s what we’re talking about is that there’s always one more step in the journey, one more level that we can open like a flower in our life force, in every aspect of who we are as embodied souls in this world. And you have created – I really want to take a moment or two to talk about resources for people. We have, our listening audience is from all over the country, and some of them don’t have an actual workshop near them, they don’t have a practitioner near them, and there’s resources that they can turn to to develop their practice. And what, what are some of your favorites, and are all of them found on your website or are there some other places that  you would recommend or maybe some links on your website that they can go to?

Dr. Corynna Clark: There are, there are really helpful links on my website, and there’s also ways to find a practitioner that’s near your area or a workshop in an area that you’re going to be in. I have a workshop coming up on the 29^th about the magic of Am Rita and it’s in Southern California but it’s also going to be on onetantra.com; I think you can take it for $5 or $10 dollars. You don’t get the actual live demos that we’re doing at the workshops – I think it’s just the speaking part – but at least you get a taste of what we’re talking about. So that could make it actual. But there’s actual people that you can have a one on one session with or even a phone consultation with, so there’s ways to make these connections and start learning from someone right away, which I think is very handy.

Francesca Gentille: And how would people assess what’s a good match for them? You and I know that every teacher is unique; they have their unique skill sets. Some teachers are, you know, I consider them fire bunnies; they’re more fast, they jump into “Lets really go into emotional release” or “Lets really go into sexual exploration very quickly.” Some teachers are more spiritual, where they, you know, work a lot on visualization or breath work. How would someone assess or get some questions that they might want to ask practitioners or themselves?

Dr. Corynna Clark: Everyone, everyone on Goddess Temple has been qualified; like they have to submit who they’ve trained with and it has to check out that they have some background training, some, somehow they’ve worked with, you know, tantra, you know, healing, energy work, whatever. So the people are definitely qualified. Like I know if you find them on other websites they’re not necessarily, don’t’ have to submit qualifications in order to be there. So that can help make people feel a little bit safer that they know what they’re doing, but I would say you should qualify them as much as we qualify you and ask you questions and are you serious about this as a path, do you really want to explore your sexuality, do you want to awaken spiritually, do you want this to go on. I think just having a conversation, sure you can get some from what’s on their page and what their pictures look like, but I think making some contact with them – telephone, email or both – and just getting a vibe for what they feel like, and I think intuitively we all know, you know, what’s appropriate for us and who we should be working with to take us to the next level.

Francesca Gentille: Mmm. I want to, I want to really invite us to take that in, that in our heart of hearts, in our soul of souls that we know the calling that we feel and we know that inner bell of resonance and truth when we meet that practitioner or read their writing or hear their voice, that this is someone who’s meant for us, and I’m imagining that you’ve had that experience on your journey across time, Corynna, where there’s some teachers that you’ve said, “Hmm, not right for me” and some that you felt were like water in the desert, that you just wanted more and more of.

Dr. Corynna Clark: Yes. Definitely.

Francesca Gentille: And I’m absolutely enjoying and want more and more of you and I’m imagining our listening audience does as well. So you teach, you do, do you do private counseling and coaching as well?

Dr. Corynna Clark: I do private sessions, I do workshops, I have two books coming out, I try to make myself out there as much as possible and accessible to people so they can, you know, even ask questions and get answers to what’s happening for the, so yeah, I’m there.

Francesca Gentille: Yay! How would people find you?

Dr. Corynna Clark: Goddesstemple.com. I’m also on unveiled.net, mostly pictures, there’s not a lot of contact information on there, but there’s wonderful techniques and more explicit information and techniques and kind of different ideas about how to do things and a lot of photos of the actual advertisers and goddesses who are on Goddess Temple, so that’s a way to take it to a deeper level.

Francesca Gentille: I want to thank you so much for taking the time with us, for unveiling and revealing so much of your journey, and for connecting us to our own paths, our own eternal and infinite and unstoppable paths to healing and the life force itself. Thank you so much for joining us Corynna.

Dr. Corynna Clark: It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Francesca Gentille: And I want to thank you, our listening audience, for being on this journey with us. Without you we would not be. We are all on this sacred path to bring wholeness and holiness onto our earth; erotically, spiritually, compassionately together. And if you want to learn more about Corynna, see her beautiful picture, connect to her website, get transcripts from the show, learn more about me, see my beautiful picture, connect to my website, you can do that at www.personallifemedia.com. That’s www.personallifemedia.com, Sex, Tantra and Kama Sutra: Bringing You The Soul of Sex.