Hi I am Hachiko, the Totnes Geisha!

A long time ago (at least in Internet years), before I knew anything about Japanese culture my awareness was caught by a virtual world called Second Life. This medium offered me a perfect way to meet and chat to people all over the world in a way that did not require too much of the energy that was going into looking after my small children and dealing with my frequent epileptic seizures.

It was amazing to meet people who had such different views from mine - one guy, for example, expressed extreme frustration that monkeys kept stealing bananas from his garden (he lived in Sri Lanka). Compared to the small circles (mainly parents coping with very small children) that I hung out with, there were people there who did not lack sleep and were confident in expressing their views and feelings. Quite an eye-opener!

With my background of teaching meditation I fairly soon found myself in charge of ‘teaching students’ in a roleplay group I found based on Firefly (a TV series made by my favourite creator Joss Whedon). The roleplay aspect helped me to be quite relaxed about the job as we were all there for fun but also I started to see that people were able to use the virtual world to explore their feelings and relationships in a ‘safe space’. People were making real transformations together.

After a while of steering a worldwide community run by women mainly for women (men are welcome to join too) I felt the need to manifest something similar in the ‘Real World’. Whilst searching for a way of doing this my friend gave me the book ‘Geisha’ by Liza Dalby. This gave me the enthusiasm to create a Geisha House for Totnes which has been an amazing journey in itself.

Meanwhile in the virtual world we were exploring what it means to relate to each other. Wishing for people to ‘inter-connect’ i.e. make the most of the Internet to reach each other in ways that suit us personally (and not just the projection of others onto our ‘screen’). In order to empower my members to discover themselves and their boundaries I taught 4 Enjoyments - 4 levels of intimacy. My online school now studies these to understand what we wish to share with others and what we do not. Knowing what responsibilities we are or are not taking on makes our relating more understandable and clears the way for true communication between people/peoples.

Geido reflects a union of my experience teaching the 4 Enjoyments and my understanding of how a chaste Geisha finds herself relating in 4 levels towards herself and others. This journey is again a Feminine one as it incorporates an understanding of what people request from a woman who ‘steps out’ to be visible in the world (Geisha are very visible) and how she learns to identify the way she wishes to respond to these calls. Chambering our energy in this way allows us to be ready to develop true intimacy (on our own terms) with the world. I invite you to join me on this journey and learn about Geido’s 4 Practices.

With love,

Hachiko