Alumni & Student Stories

In Pursuit of a Luscious Life

Cherie Byrd
B.A., 1978
M.A. Psychology, 1981

Back in Antioch Seattle's early days when she was finishing her bachelor’s degree, Cherie Byrd knew she wasn't cut out for reined-in living and learning.

"Antioch was really the best fit for me because I'm obnoxiously independent and three steps ahead of most of the planet," she says.

This is a woman who knows herself. Byrd helps others open themselves to the richness of their inner resources. As she describes it, she promotes "an ecology of soulful living." The rewards? All that is luscious in life.  

Sitting in her office with her two Antioch degrees framed on the wall behind her, Byrd describes how she found her way into private practice as a pioneer in the field of energy psychology.  

She had been working for Group Health as a cardiology technician about 10 years when she started an underground holistic health network.

"Antioch helped me find my community: Antioch students, teachers and graduates; artists and creative, savvy beings."
- Cherie Byrd "I would teach coronary care nurses therapeutic touch and massage. I began to weave an alternative thread into Western medicine. With guided imagery, patients could experience disease in a more holistic framework," she says.

B.A. Program Offered Grounding

Byrd knew she had a knack for a new and different career, so she decided to return to school where she designed her own bachelor's degree completion program with a focus on holistic health.

"The B.A. program grounded me in the fullness of my own inner knowing, and the truth of what I knew healing to be," she says. "Antioch helped me find my community: Antioch students, teachers and graduates; artists and creative, savvy beings."

She finished her bachelor's degree in just a year, documenting 10 years of independent learning. She knew she wanted to move forward with a master's, and soon.

"I quickly realized I needed more of a psychology piece with a larger context for healing work," she notes.

She elected to study spiritual and healing practices that were Eastern and Western, ancient and modern. She completed her master's and became a counselor and educator. She taught several classes for Bastyr University and had a busy practice, yet she felt something was still missing.

Alumna's Marketing Class Gave Her Focus

Byrd took a class in holistic marketing from another Antioch graduate, Shelley Glendenning (M.A. Whole Systems Design, 1994). Glendenning helped her realize she needed a stronger focus, a centerpiece or flagship product.

"I knew I had to pull something out of my practice that would work for me," Byrd says.

Today, Byrd helps others cultivate their inner lover and engage what she calls, "the bioelectrical energy circuitry of your body, mind, heart and soul; you develop a dynamic attunement to intimacy, both yours and theirs."

She is the creator and director of Kissing School, and author of a book with the same name, released early in 2005 by Sasquatch Books. The subtitle is "Seven Lessons on Love, Lips and Life Force," and it's now also being printed in Korean and Dutch. This is the textbook for her experiential, daylong classes taken by couples ranging from their mid-20s to their mid-60s. Some are in new relationships; others have been married 20 years. Since 1998, more than 1,200 folks have signed up to learn how to cultivate the kiss sublime.

Kissing School draws interest around the globe. Byrd is swamped with media interview requests, particularly around Valentine's Day. She has been heard in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Thailand, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Uruguay, Colombia, Lebanon, on the BBC in England, and more. She's especially popular in Korea, she says, where Valentine's Day is a big celebration. Although based in Seattle, Byrd also conducts classes around the U.S., most recently in New York City and Sun Valley, Idaho.         

Not Everybody Has an Educated Kiss

"You have to let go of layers of conditioning and control. And then it’s there. You have permission to be incredibly playful and you get to laugh a lot." - Cherie Byrd Why Kissing School? Byrd dated a man in his late 50s who was an uneducated kisser. How could he get to be this age and not know how to kiss, she wondered. She asked around and realized just as many women as men can't deliver a good kiss. When she started researching the idea, she found nothing like what she had in mind: kissing based on Tantra, quantum physics, the energy of loving.

"It didn't take many deep hours of pondering to realize that my heart would feel more successful teaching even one couple how to love each other fully and well than to teach a whole room of would-be physicians about Human Sexuality. Never mind teaching Death and Dying again; what people on their deathbeds regret most is their lack of loving!" she writes in her book.

At first, her classes were open to singles, but many more men than women registered. Now singles have to bring a companion, because Kissing School is open to couples only and runs $300 per duo. Those in the class practice only on their partners and there is no explicit sex. ChapStick® comes in handy, though. 

In one exercise, participants wear bibs and are fed delectable French fruit juices which their partners then kiss from their lips, chins and necks. This is an exercise for the power chakra, and involves small risks and challenging boundaries, trust and power issues, according to Byrd.

Letting Go of Conditioning Is First Step

At its core, Kissing School is about a willingness to experience your inner self. "You have to let go of layers of conditioning and control. And then it's there," Byrd says with a smile. "You have permission to be incredibly playful and you get to laugh a lot."

At the start of the day, her students are wary and unsure of themselves.

"I always have to chuckle," Byrd says, "because by the end of the class, they all look 15 years younger. They're just glowing."

What does the kissing educator get out of this?

"I'm inspired to live more deeply than the day-to-day, in a more sensual and erotic relationship with the life force, a really vivid relationship with nature," she says. "I'm seduced into being profoundly embodied and connected to my experience moment to moment."

The look on her face says it all. Cherie Byrd has found her bliss.

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