Intimate Universe

Society loves the story of someone
who always knew what they wanted to become…
Astronaut, Actress, Pilot…
followed the dream against all odds
and finally made it.
But life rarely happens this way...
I remember I never had that certainty.
I kept looking at the professions available to me and thinking:
Is this really it?
Am I going to be “that” forever?
Eventually I didn’t even choose a profession.
I chose entrepreneurship.
It gave me the freedom to keep following what made me feel ALIVE.
And there is another possibility we rarely talk about:
Maybe what you are meant to become doesn’t exist on the map yet.
Maybe you aren’t supposed to find the right existing category and fit yourself inside it.
Maybe you are supposed to discover something through LIVING IT, and become its first embodiment.
If so, the information cannot possibly be available at the beginning.
It arrives through MOVEMENT.
One choice reveals something.
An experience develops a capacity.
That capacity gives you access to another possibility.
You meet someone you couldn’t have anticipated.
Enter a world you didn’t know existed.
Something begins taking shape.
The path reveals itself because you are WALKING IT.
My alumni and I have just talked about it:
“We had to clue that we’ll teach Ta**ra in the School that didn’t exist before us.”
Yet, we are doing it now.
That became a new navigation system:
Follow what generates life force…
You might become a pioneer of new ways…
P.S. Love this picture... It looks like I’ve just hatched from an egg. 😂

Happy Independence Day, Motherland Ukraine! 🇺🇦 💙 💛

THE UNION NEEDS AUTONOMY: BEYOND THE ERA OF COLONIZATION

My recent Facebook post, They Don’t Get to Colonize Anything, opened an extraordinary global conversation about Ukraine, freedom, sovereignty, and sacred defense.

And it connects deeply to another territory of my work: Ta**ra.

My background began in Social and Political Sciences, but later transpersonal psychology and nondual Shaiva Ta**ra gave me a much larger lens for understanding consciousness, relationships, and civilization.

One of Ta**ra’s profound teachings is interconnectedness.

But interconnectedness does not erase difference.

And this is where I recognize something profoundly Ta***ic in Ukrainian consciousness.

Ukraine has taught me not only about sovereignty.

Ukraine has taught me about the solidarity of autonomous beings.

People with fierce individuality who become extraordinarily collaborative when something they love must be protected.

We know how to say:

I am.
We are.

At the same time.

Belonging does not require submission.

Solidarity does not require surrendering sovereignty.

We stand together precisely because we know who we are.

This is also the intimacy paradigm I teach:

I AM + WE ARE.

If “we” consumes “I,” relationship becomes colonization.

If “I” refuses “we,” relationship becomes isolation.

The new paradigm holds both:

Autonomy + solidarity.
Sovereignty + devotion.
Difference + union.

This principle shapes the work of our Ascension of Intimacy School of Ta**ra, from intimate relationships to community, consciousness, and culture.

Ta**ra taught me to perceive interconnectedness.

Ukraine taught me what interconnectedness among sovereign beings can look like when it becomes embodied collectively.

Perhaps that is why these worlds have never felt separate to me.

Ukraine is Ta**ra as lived consciousness.

We belong to one another.
And we remain free.

THEY DON’T GET TO COLONIZE ANYTHING. 🇺🇦

I shared photographs of my home city, Odesa, burning after another Russian attack.

People were killed. Homes were destroyed.

The post went viral.

And a little battalion of Putin enthusiasts arrived:

“Russia is doing the right thing.”
“Keep going.”
“More missiles are coming.”
“Ukraine should surrender.”

Normally, I clean my space.

Delete. Block. Report.

This time I stopped.

Why am I doing their housekeeping?

Let them speak.

Let hatred expose itself without makeup.

Let META explain why comments celebrating killing and encouraging further violence against Ukrainians repeatedly emerge from its moderation machinery stamped:

NO VIOLATION FOUND.

I’m documenting that separately.

And meanwhile, something changed in me.

I stopped being affected by these comments.

I became curious. I started studying them.

Congratulations, cavemen. You have accidentally become research material. 🧐

Because there is something imperialism still doesn’t understand about Ukrainians.

Our land is ours.
Our homes are ours.
Our culture is ours.
Our future is ours.
Our consciousness is ours.

Ruzzia does not get to colonize ANY of it.

Not our territory.
Not our identity.
And certainly, not our minds!!!

So how about this?🖕

We don’t need to become consumed by hatred in order to say NO with absolute force.

We defend.
We document.
We demand accountability.
We stand together.
And we create.

Ruzzia attempted to erase Ukrainian identity.

Instead, millions of Ukrainians became more conscious of it.

Quite an unfortunate outcome for an empire.

So show the world exactly what you represent.

We are watching.
We are documenting.

And then we are returning to our work.

🖕 to to Ruzzia.
❤️ to humanity.
🇺🇦 to a free Ukraine.

Now, back to building a new world.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TA**RA ENTERS A RELATIONSHIP?
When we change the way we perceive ourselves, regulate our inner world, communicate, relate, and meet intimacy, the relationships around us begin to change too.
Lisa & Kris were part of our first Ta**ra Apprenticeship cohort.
Recently, I sat down with them to talk about what happened in their relationship through this journey.
I could tell you what I witnessed.
But I would rather let them tell you themselves.
This short video offers a glimpse into what Personal Ta**ra can become when it enters a real relationship:
Depth. Expansion. Epiphanies. And a shared journey of self-discovery experienced together as a married couple.
The second Personal Ta**ra Apprenticeship cohort is now forming.
If their story awakens something in you, send me a private message.
I would be happy to have a conversation, answer your questions, and expand your understanding of what Ta**ra can actually be.

BEFORE THE SCHOOL BEGINS…

Today I am reading through the Welcome Packets of the new apprentices entering our Ta**ra School.

This is one of my favorite parts of the journey.

Before the first training begins, I am already entering the inner worlds of remarkable people.

Their histories.
Questions.
Relationships.
Thresholds.
Longings.
Contradictions.
Gifts they already recognize.
And forms of hidden genius they may not yet fully understand.

I read slowly to perceive the person beneath the descriptions of who they believe themselves to be.

What is trying to emerge?

What has been waiting for the right conditions?

Where is their life force concentrated?

What patterns have shaped their relationships?

What deeper intelligence is already moving through them?

Part of my work is to shine light into those places.

To recognize the gifts that may have remained unnamed.

To notice possible threads of connection between people who have not yet met.

To begin sensing the architecture of the future community.

A cohort is a constellation of stars…

Each person arrives with a particular history, frequency, intelligence, and place within the larger field.

Slowly, the nodes begin to connect.

I deeply love the souls and personalities drawn to our Ta**ra School.

The ones who have already entered, the ones currently standing near the threshold.

And the ones who may still be quietly recognizing that this path has been calling them for some time.

The second Ta**ra Apprenticeship cohort is open.

The School is already beginning.

THE MEDICINE OF RELATIONAL ECOLOGY

We often think our emotional state is entirely personal.

But pain moves through relationships.

The deeper question is not only: “Who do I love?”

It is: “What becomes possible inside me when I am with them?”

And: “What becomes possible inside others when they are with me?”

My family and friends are in Ukraine. When they suffer, I suffer too. It enters my bones.

One of the greatest challenges of my life is learning how to remain honest about my grief without allowing it to become the atmosphere of every relationship around me.

Sometimes I lose my composure.

Then I take responsibility.

I let the grief speak.
I make space for sacred rage.
I move the charge through my body.
I return to ritual, affection, creativity, contribution, and love.

We cannot manufacture happiness while the world is burning.

But we can learn the cycle:

Feel what is real.
Let it move.
Clear the field.
Reconnect with the body, the Earth, and the infinite Universe.
Allow joy to return without guilt.

Joy is not denial of grief.

It is what keeps life moving through us when despair wants to become the whole world.

This is the medicine of relational ecology:

People who can hold reality with us.

People who do not require us to hide our grief.

People who also remind us when grief has become the only atmosphere in the room.

And the willingness to become that kind of presence for others.

Who helps you remain connected to life during difficult seasons?

P.S. Love this photos with friend Moremare from my recent trip back to Ukraine. She always brings joy and Bohemian beauty into the space.

THE VIBRANT ISLANDS WE BUILD

August arrived with the feeling of space opening.

A lake.
Mountain air.
Bodies moving through cool water.
Leaves trembling in the wind.
Sunlight entering through the shadows of eyelashes.

We were in Tahoe with family and friends. There was laughter, beauty, affection, shared moments, and the strange grace of people allowing life to be larger than the roles assigned to them.

I have been thinking about what we call slow living.

It is not really slow. It is organic time.

The time of bodies, seasons, conversations, emotional tides, ripening fruit, rest, sunlight, and water.

The machine wants acceleration. The body wants rhythm.

The machine rewards constant availability. The soul requires spaciousness.

Yet we do not live outside the gravity of our civilization.

Wars enter our nervous systems. Economic pressure reorganizes our lives. Algorithms circulate outrage faster than wisdom. The collective field is loud, anxious, and hungry for our attention.

How do we remain open to life without being consumed by the machinery around us?

I believe we create micro-fields. Small islands of consciousness between people who remember how they want to live.

People who protect beauty.
Practice intimacy.
Make room for depth.
Remember air, water, touch, pleasure, silence, and meaningful work.

Inside these fields, another rhythm becomes possible. We help one another return to it.

This is what I am committed to building through the Ascension of Intimacy School of Ta**ra.

A school, yes. And also an island.

The new home of the School is almost complete, and the second Ta**ra Apprenticeship cohort is forming.

Who are your people?

What kind of island are you building together?

Send me a message if you would like to be invited when the doors open.

Who would you cross an ocean for?

Convenience has become one of the defining values of modern life.

And slowly, almost without noticing, relationships begin to feel like commodities.

Useful while they fit our schedule. Replaceable when life becomes busy.

Maintained only as long as they remain easy.

I don’t want to live in that kind of world.

Over the past few days, I reconnected with two women who have been among the deepest friendships of my life.

Deep connection has a different relationship with time.

Life has seasons. There are seasons of building friendships.

Seasons of distance. Seasons of survival, heartbreak, parenting, dark nights of the soul, and rebuilding.

Real friendship doesn’t disappear because life becomes difficult. Sometimes it just waits.

And when life brings us back together, the relationship often returns with even greater depth.

Looking back over my life, I noticed something fascinating.

Almost every extraordinary relationship began with an adventure.

The relationships that shaped my life were never optimized. They required curiosity, presence, time, travel, showing up, returning, investing.

Today I hear many conversations centered around compatibility, efficiency, convenience, and protecting our time.

I understand why. Life has become overwhelming.

Still, I refuse to build my life around that philosophy.

I want relationships that ignite something in me.

Friendships that make me want to cross an ocean simply because spending a week together feels meaningful.

A partnership that inspires that same devotion.

People whose presence expands my life rather than merely fitting into it.

Extraordinary relationships ask for extraordinary commitment.

One of my mentors once told me:

“Shared joy is double joy. Shared grief is half grief.”

I am entering a new season. A season of renewed vitality, new beginnings, and a deeper appreciation for the extraordinary people who have walked beside me.

So, my friend...

Who would you cross an ocean for?

This weekend, we left a social gathering early.

No confrontation.
No long explanation.
No attempt to make a radically misaligned environment feel acceptable.

We simply left.

And the weekend became far more beautiful elsewhere.

In my early twenties, I had very little tolerance for what I did not enjoy. I would leave immediately.

Later, I entered a different season.

I became interested in releasing self-importance, loosening the authority of preference, and remaining curious when an environment did not match me.

Sometimes I stayed simply to observe what moved through me when my ego was no longer directing the encounter.

That was valuable training.

But this is a different season.

I no longer need to revisit every outdated social program to confirm that I understand it.

There is a point when tolerance stops being expansion and becomes repetition.

I still carry beginner’s mind.

It now lives beside seasoned discernment.

I am open to the unknown.

I am no longer available for environments where superficiality runs the show, where people are projected upon rather than encountered, and where assumptions arrive before presence.

Some forms of social misalignment are more than awkward.

They carry the old architecture of labeling, role assignment, exclusion, discrimination, and oppression, often disguised as innocence, humor, or “not knowing any better.”

Ignorance is not always bliss.

Sometimes it is simply an unexamined program moving through the room.

At this stage of my life, I am carefully curating my ecosystem.

I listen for alignment, coherence, depth, presence, curiosity, and the willingness to meet another human being before reducing them to a category.

When those qualities are absent, I do not need to stay longer to collect more evidence.

My time is too valuable for redundant realities.

I want the magnificent.
The intimate.
The raw.
The pioneering.

I want to meet the original consciousness in front of me.

Everything else can remain exactly where it is.