The Art Of…

Inspired by the Love Curriculum

For this Friday, aka Venus Day, I am sharing something inspired by a lesser-known aspect of the Kama Sutra, a part that’s often eclipsed by its more famous pages: its love curriculum. It reads almost like a syllabus for Venus herself, as an invitation to beauty, refinement, sensuality, and intimacy, far beyond the physical. I often share these ideas with women who want to reawaken their femininity and live a life that feels more sensual.

These arts, sometimes called “the 64 kalās,” were once part of a well-rounded education in the art of love and living. While it can be used as a rich guide to deepen intimacy and create more meaningful connections in the context of romantic relationships, it also explores sensuality, ways to add touches of beauty into the everyday, ways to explore pleasure through colour, scent, story, play, craft, rhythm, poetry, and many other things.

They are often described as “The Art Of…”, and some of my favourites include performing arts, handicrafts, floral arts, a pleasing appearance, glance and facial expressions, jewelry/adornment, decorating the home, bathing, entertaining, speaking, behaviour, gardening, games, wordplay, and yes, even hair brushing is included in this curriculum.

The way I look at these are as a set of doorways, not more tasks to complete on yet another list of “self-improvement”. So I suggest you enter each doorway with curiosity. Let this be a starting point, a deliciously Venusian way to live.

Below are just a few of the arts I’ve found most evocative. So let’s look briefly at each, and I will mention one creative idea of how you can bring it into practice solo (and a way to turn it into a small ritual), and then a way to invite it into a shared moment with someone you love, practicing it as a couple. I put this all together a couple of years ago for Valentine’s Day, and many women told me they found it helpful. Of course, I highly recommend getting creative and coming up with some of your own ideas. This is fun to explore as a way of life, so you can carry these ideas with you throughout the month/year. It creates a more beautiful and sensual way to live.

So let’s begin…

Performing Arts

This section focuses on enhancing the art of performance in various forms, including dance, music, and drama. Techniques include learning new dance moves, exploring different musical instruments, or practicing improvisation.

• Solo: Take a dance class to learn sensual movements or learn to play a romantic piece of music on an instrument. Turn it into ritual: Light a candle. Choose a favourite piece of music that stirs something deep within you. Close your eyes. Dance barefoot in your bedroom or your livingroom, just letting your body remember how it wants to move when no one is watching.

• Couple: Plan a romantic date night where you both take turns performing for each other, whether it's dancing, singing, or reciting poetry.

Handicrafts

Handicrafts involve creating beautiful objects by hand, such as pottery, painting, or sculpture. Techniques include learning pottery, painting, or sculpting techniques.

• Solo: Take a pottery or painting class to explore your artistic side and create something meaningful. Turn into ritual: sit at a sunlit table. Play some soft music in the background, or perhaps choose silence. Move slowly and stay fully present with your senses. Whatever you are making, even if imperfect, it’s yours. Pay close attention to how your hands move and how they are able to create something. Beauty doesn’t need to be flawless.

• Couple: Attend a couples' painting or sculpting workshop where you can create art together and bond over your shared creativity.

Floral Arts

This section focuses on the art of arranging flowers to create beautiful and meaningful displays. Techniques include learning different floral arrangement styles or experimenting with various flowers and colors.

• Solo: Visit a flower market and create a personalized bouquet for yourself to brighten up your space. Turn it into ritual: Visit a local florist shop with no goal in mind. Choose individual blooms that call to your senses through fragrance, color, memory. When you get home, choose a vase and arrange the flowers in silence. Let them speak.

• Couple: Take a flower arranging class together (I love Ikebana for this) and create a stunning centerpiece for your home or a bouquet for a special occasion.

Pleasing Appearance

This involves grooming and dressing in a way that makes you feel beautiful and confident. Techniques include learning grooming tips, experimenting with different hairstyles, or updating your wardrobe.

• Solo: Treat yourself to a spa day or get your hair done. Do the things and wear the things that make you feel beautiful and confident. Turn it into ritual: It’s morning and the day is still quiet. You open your closet and choose a favourite silk slip that glides over your skin. The fabric flows like water as you move. The colour makes you happy. You choose your earrings based on your mood. You apply perfume “where you would like to be kissed. You match your lipstick to the colour of the roses sitting on your table. You dress not for anyone else, but as an act of reverence for yourself, your life, your presence.

• Couple: Plan a shopping trip together to update your wardrobe.

Glance and Facial Expressions

This section explores the art of communicating through facial expressions and eye contact. Techniques may include practicing different facial expressions or learning to convey emotions through your eyes.

• Solo: Practice in front of a mirror to become more aware of your facial expressions and how they convey emotions. Turn it into ritual: Sit at your vanity in the soft afternoon light. A mirror before you. Study your own eyes, the way they soften when you’re remembering something beautiful, the way they spark when something stirs. You practice glancing as curiosity. A subtle arch of the brow, the slow lift of a smile that never reaches your lips. Learn how to speak volumes without saying a word.

• Couple: Engage in a game where you take turns guessing each other's emotions based on facial expressions and eye contact.

Jewelry

Jewelry involves wearing adornments to enhance beauty and express individual style. Techniques may include learning about different types of jewelry and experimenting with wearing them.

• Solo: Treat yourself to a piece of jewelry that holds personal significance or makes you feel beautiful. Make it a ritual: It’s morning, and you’re still in your robe. The day hasn’t yet demanded anything of you. You open your jewelry box before you even know what outfit you will wear, and choose according to how you want to feel. As you adorn yourself, whisper an intention. Practice your morning meditation with your jewellery on- I love this idea of imbuing each piece with your practice, like an amulet that you can carry with you throughout the day.

• Couple: Gift your partner a piece that symbolizes something intimate, something only the two of you know. Let it become part of your shared language.

Decorating and Furnishing Houses

This section focuses on creating a beautiful and harmonious living space. Techniques may include learning about interior design principles or experimenting with different decorating styles. This is romancing the senses through your living space.

• Solo: Redecorate a room in your home to create a space that reflects your personality and brings you joy. Turn it into a ritual: fresh sheets on your bed, a poetry book on the nightstand as companion in your moments of solitude. A silk robe hangs from a hook, waiting to be slipped on. A single candle flickers beside your favorite chair. One fresh rose in a small, antique vase on your vanity table. You place a tea tray nearby, ready for the evening’s tea.

• Couple: Light candles in the hallway before your partner gets home. Put on soft music. Make the home feel like a secret garden waiting to be entered.

Bathing

Bathing involves cleansing the body and indulging in luxurious bathing rituals. Techniques include learning different bathing techniques or experimenting with aromatherapy.

• Solo: Take a relaxing bath with essential oils and bath salts to unwind and pamper yourself. Turn it into ritual: You run the water, adding handfuls of fresh rose petals and a couple of tablespoons of milk powder. The scent rises with the steam. You light a candle, or none at all. There is also a beautiful intimacy in darkness. You undress and step in slowly. The water is warm and fragrant. You sink in and let it envelop you… for 30 minutes… or more.

• Couple: Plan a romantic bath for two with candles, rose petals, and luxurious bath products to create a sensual and intimate atmosphere.

Entertaining

This involves hosting guests and creating memorable experiences for them. Techniques may include learning how to plan and host events, as well as mastering the art of conversation.

• Solo: Host a dinner party or gathering with friends and family to practice your hosting skills and create a memorable experience for your guests.

• Couple: Plan a romantic dinner for two at home, complete with a carefully curated menu and ambiance to create a special evening together. This time, let’s focus on turning this into a ritual, because this is one of my favourite things to do. As I write this, my husband and I have been together for 24 years and counting, and even after all these years, we cook meals together and have “date” night dinners at home: Moving through the kitchen like two dancers in step, one stirs the sauce, the other sets the table: two glasses, cloth napkins, a single flower in a bud vase. Choose a drink that brings back a memory, a dish that means something to both of you. The lights are low. Maybe you eat by candlelight, maybe barefoot, maybe sitting on the floor with music playing softly in the background. This can be such a beautiful ritual, together, as a way to say, again and again: I choose you. I delight in you. Let’s make tonight unforgettable.

Conjuring

This involves the art of magic and illusion. Techniques include learning basic magic tricks or practicing sleight of hand. It also includes the knowledge of love charms, potions, and rituals aimed at increasing sexual prowess, enhancing beauty, and fostering deeper connections between partners

• Solo: Explore methods like tarot cards, astrology, or palmistry on your own. Utilize online resources or attend workshops for guidance. Reflect on the insights gained from these practices. Turn it into ritual: Light a candle. Choose your deck of tarot or oracle cards. You are listening for symbols, for patterns, for any memories that express themselves viscerally. Maybe you anoint your pulse points with oil before you begin. Light incense. Maybe you whisper a question to no one in particular. This is your communion with the unseen, the alchemy between your intuition and something greater than logic. Just notice anything that comes up.

• Couple: Learn some of these techniques together, such as tarot. Spend time practicing and interpreting readings as a couple, fostering mutual understanding and connection.

Wordplay

Wordplay involves the art of using language creatively and playfully. Techniques include learning puns, jokes, or riddles, as well as exploring poetry or storytelling.

• Solo: Write poetry or practice wordplay exercises to stimulate your creativity and play with language. Turn it into ritual: Sit at your desk with a cup of something warm, your favourite pen in hand, a blank page in front of you. Soft incense burning in the background. No music playing, just silence. Take a few deep breaths and let the words come like a river pouring onto paper. Maybe it’s a love poem. Maybe it’s nonsense. Maybe it’s one perfect sentence. Mouth the syllables aloud, or underline a word that thrills you. Doodle symbols on the margins of the page . Simply write for yourself.

• Couple: Share funny jokes, puns, or stories with each other to keep the conversation light and playful, or write love letters or poems to express your feelings for each other.

Games

Games involve playing and having fun together. Techniques may include learning different types of games, such as board games, card games, or outdoor games.

• Solo: Play a game by yourself to relax and unwind, such as solving a puzzle or playing a video game. Turn it into ritual: I used to have a book that included the most popular card and board games in the world, the rules of each game and instructions on how to play them. I used to teach myself one game a week, and I always found it so much fun. There is beauty in this sense of play. Whether you explore a new game and try to learn its rules, or just sot down with a puzzle, light a candle, make yourself some tea and sit down with pure delight being your only intention. As adults, we often leave the art of play (just for the sake of having fun) behind. It’s important to return, at least once in a while, to that playfulness, even if just in private.

• Couple: Have a game night with your partner and play your favorite games together, whether it's a board game, card game, or outdoor game, to bond and have fun.

Behavior

This involves cultivating positive habits and behaviors that enhance relationships and well-being. Techniques include practicing good manners, communication skills, or emotional intelligence.

• Solo: Practice mindfulness and self-reflection to become more aware of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and work on cultivating positive habits and behaviors that contribute to your well-being. Turn it into ritual: Begin the morning without reaching for your phone. Instead, sit by the window with a warm drink, letting the sunlight touch your face before the world does. Notice your breath, the quality of your being, of your thoughts. Perhaps you light some incense. You write a few lines in your journal, free flowing thoughts poured onto paper. This is how it starts. The more you return to it, the more patterns you notice emerge.

• Couple: Practice active listening and effective communication with your partner to strengthen your relationship and resolve conflicts more effectively, or create shared rituals and routines that foster intimacy and connection.

Arboriculture (or gardening)

This involves the cultivation and care of trees and plants. Techniques may include learning about different types of trees and plants, as well as gardening and landscaping.

• Solo: Start a garden or tend to indoor plants to connect with nature and experience the therapeutic benefits of gardening. Turn it into ritual: Step outside barefoot in the early morning. The earth is still damp, the air fresh. It’s still quiet. In your hands: a small trowel, a pot of soil, a cutting you’ve been nurturing on the windowsill. You kneel. You plant. You press the soil like a prayer.

• Couple: Plant a tree together to symbolize your relationship and nurture it together as it grows, or work on a gardening project together to beautify your outdoor space.

Speaking

Speaking involves the art of communicating effectively and expressively. Techniques include practicing public speaking, storytelling, or vocal exercises. It can also include learning different languages.

• Solo: Practice speaking in front of a mirror or recording yourself to improve your public speaking skills and build confidence. Learn a new language. Turn it into ritual: stand before the mirror and gaze at yourself with kindness. Read a passage aloud, a poem, speak a truth, retell a memory. Learn how your voice curves around words, how it softens or sharpens depending on what’s held inside. Later, try phrases in a new language, and notice how unfamiliar your mouth is with the shapes. The more you do it though, notice how much confident you become.

• Couple: Take turns sharing stories or experiences with each other to deepen your connection and understanding, or practice expressing your feelings and desires openly and honestly with your partner. learn a new language together.

Adorning with Flowers

This art involves decorating the body or space with fresh blooms as a form of sensual expression, beauty, and reverence. Techniques include wearing flowers in the hair, placing petals in the bath, or creating simple floral accessories. It is a way of harmonizing with nature and adorning oneself with living beauty.

• Solo: Choose a flower that speaks to you and wear it in your hair, tucked behind your ear or woven into a braid. Place petals in your bath or on your vanity.
  Turn it into ritual: Step into the garden barefoot, the grass cool beneath your feet. Reach for a bloom, feeling its softness between your fingers. Tuck it behind your ear without a mirror, letting your senses guide you. Another blossom goes into your braid. Listen to your body, to beauty, to the morning. Back inside, you scatter petals in a crystal bowl filled with water. You are a temple. The flowers know it.

• Couple: Pick flowers together, either on a walk, from your own garden, or at a flower market. Let him place a bloom in your hair or behind the ear.

Perfuming the Body

This practice focuses on scent as a sensual and sacred layer of self-expression. It includes the use of essential oils, fragrant balms, or attars applied with care and intention.

• Solo: After bathing, warm a few drops of fragrant oil (amber, rose, jasmine, sandalwood, oud or any other perfume oil you love) and apply it slowly to your pulse points.
  Turn it into ritual: Step out of the bath, your skin warm and still damp. Reach for the small vial of perfume oil. A drop onto each wrist, behind your ears, along your collarbone. Another on your navel, the hollow of your ankles. Anoint yourself with reverence. Delight in the sense of smell and touch.The scent merges with you, who you are in this moment. You move through the rest of the day leaving traces of your presence, felt before you enter a room, remembered long after you’ve gone.

• Couple: Let your partner anoint you. They place each drop of fragrant oil slowly, reverently. Scent becomes a language between the two of you.

Combing the Hair

This art centers on the simple, sensual act of brushing and grooming one’s hair. It is a tender ritual that speaks to care, intimacy, and reverence, whether for oneself or another. Techniques can include brushing slowly, oiling the scalp, and massaging pressure points.

• Solo: Sit before a mirror and brush your hair slowly, using a wooden brush or jade comb. Add a few drops of oil to nourish and scent the strands.
  Turn it into ritual: Sit at your vanity in silence. Hair brush in hand, one hundred gentle brush strokes, each one slow and deliberate. You add jasmine or vetiver oil to your palms and run them gently through the ends. Remind yourself that this body is a gift. That this hair has witnessed your life, and that every strand deserves to be touched with love.

• Couple: Sit on a cushion on the floor between your partner’s knees. Let them comb your hair. Slowly, reverently. No words. Later, return the gesture.

These are just a few creative ideas for exploring the love curriculum from the Kama Sutra. The 64 kalās are, of course, far more intricate and culturally rich than what I’ve shared here. I’ve simply drawn on them as contemporary inspiration, offering a simplified list focused on charm and sensuality. In the original texts, they encompass a much broader range of disciplines, including fine arts, sciences, practical skills, and spiritual practices. If this topic interests you, I highly recommend exploring them in greater depth.

Wishing you all a beautiful Venus Day.

Until next time,

Mihaela