I just watched the second lecture of the foundational course and started hunting around on the website when I saw the introduction section. First I want to express my gratitude for the teaching, after many years of searching it feels like I've come home to what my soul has always intuited. Before Shaivism I studied Advaita Vedanta and learned so much, but always felt there was something missing. Before Advaita Vedanta, I studied existential thinking (Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard especially), Carl Jung, alchemical texts, Plato, and many other Western thinkers. I think I was always looking for what I knew: that life itself is. Of course my words can't capture it, but what I've learned so far studying Tantrika through Wallis's books and now the teachings I find here fit what I've come to know through self reflection--it feels like such a gift to have found the teaching. And a gift to have found a spiritual practice to go with that teaching. I am and have been many things in my life, right now I'm a volunteer immigration lawyer, an astrologer (mostly for self reflection), a mother, a traveler, and an activist, particularly on issues related to trans rights (esp. youth), immigration, and reproductive rights.