Tantra Blog

Wisdom from the deep

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:19:00 +0000

Lessons from a tropical ocean

I am writing this reflection from Neil Island, a tiny green dot in the Andamans, off India. There are some profound learnings from this experience that I would like to share with you.and it comes with an invitation to join me for a magical swim with the dolphins; read on.

The wisdom of water

Every morning at sunrise, I am up and off to the ocean, where I spend most of the morning, immersed in the deep blue. The water here is 27 degrees celsius, there are hardly any currents, and the ocean reef is teeming with life. This enables me to float and free dive for easily two hours at a time. I have learnt so much from observing the ocean and my response to her.

The workings of the fear mind

Sometimes I have had to swim through large patches of mirky water to get to a place where I could see. This has been scary, particularly when I have been deep in the ocean. There is the fear of the unknown - and also the specific fear of things in the ocean that could grab and eat me. In Cape Town, my home town, there is a black shark flag that goes out when the water is mirky like this - indicating that the shark spotters can't see whether there are sharks, and so it is probably wise to stay out the water (there have been one or two serious shark attacks by great whites in my local bay in the last couple of years). I have been told by the local dive master that all the sharks of this island have been fished out. And yet - it only takes someone reminding me of Jaws and me spotting some (dolphin) fins in the ocean for my fear mind to start detecting sharks everywhere.

The reactions of the fear mind in my body are quite extraordinary. Based on very thin - and mostly superstitious - information, it sets of chemicals that make my heart beat faster, my vision become disoriented, and my breath shallow and panicky. I feel nauseous and unable to enjoy the dive. I start reading every sound I hear a sign from God that I should be out the water.

Fear and excitement go together

Needless to say this biochemical reaction in my body is not conducive to enjoying the ocean and having a good dive. And yet my mind will keep creating this kind of response - until I arrest it with clear awareness. I notice that the sensations I feel with fear are very similar to if not the same as those I feel when another mind kicks in: the excitement mind. The excitement mind is looking for the next thrill: What am I going to see that I haven't seen before? What might I be missing? What will I see that other people haven't seen? If I let the excitement mind run, it speeds up my heart beat, makes me over focused on objects that could create excitement, and at the same time disables my awareness of the experience of the ocean.

Big daddy and boundaries

I am distinctly aware that my mind has personified the ocean as Big Daddy. The story goes that I am tiny and powerless in the hands of Big Daddy, and He can very easily get cross with me - especially if I break the rules. The rules could be anything - my mind keeps on making the rules up as I swim along (all unconsciously of course): If you swim a little bit further where the water looks like it's a few metros deeper, you have overstepped the boundaries and you'll be swallowed up by the big blue. If you swim into the mirky bits, you've crossed the boundaries and you'll disappear. If you swim further than this or that marker in the ocean, you've gone beyond where you're allowed to - and you'll disappear off the map of humankind. It feels embarrassing and very sweet to admit this. It's true. My mind is continuously looking for rules, definitions and boundaries, even in the ocean. Once it has defined a boundary, it knows what is right and what is wrong.

But the ocean has no boundaries in that way. That is astoundingly evident to me from watching the fish. As the tide changes, they change their homes, moving deeper or shallower with no effort and no stress. In fact they roam the wide open ocean. And a point in the ocean that had become a marker in my mind for where you don't go (because the water gets choppy or mirky around the corner) can suddenly open up, and take me to calm waters with exquisite new spaces.

And the ocean, it seems, is not Big Daddy. It is what I make it. I can feel the ocean as the great womb, as the playground of innocent creatures, as the realm of mystery - or I can just let it be, without defining it, or wanting to be defined within it.

And are there rules? There are, but they are infinitely more simple than what my mind makes them to be. They are rules about basic safety, to do with real factors - currents, your ability as a swimmer, whether there are other people nearby, what lives in the ocean where you are, water temperature and your body temperature. This is my business to consider. Not all the myths my mind has made up about the experience.

Meeting strange creatures

(fear of the unknown)

On the coastline just outside our cabin, there lives a creature which is rare indeed on the planet: The dugong. This mammal has fins like a whale, is about the size of a cow and has a snout that somewhat resembles that of a hippopotamus. it feeds off grass, and has no way of protecting itself from its main predator - man - who has killed it to the brink of extinction. But there are about a dozen of these around the island, say the locals. When I arrived, a couple had just spotted one while snorkeling. So this myth, I knew, was real. There was a chance that I could see a dugong.

I have a deep affinity for the ocean mammals. My time with the dolphins has profoundly changed my life. My heart would love to meet a dugong. They live off the coast of Mozambique where will be taking a group of people this March with Courtney Ward of Halo Gaia. Since I heard of them, I have felt a warmth toward them and a desire to commune with them.

And yet something in me pushes away at the thought of meeting this strange creature. The thought that the dugong might be out there when I am snorkeling immediately activates fear and excitement mind in me, and then a slight contraction that says: I'd rather not bump into one.

Why this paradoxical response in my system? It is the pure unknown of this creature. Being so directly confronted with the unknown feels terrifying to the ego-mind, which holds on for dear life to certainty and familiarity - that which it has experienced in the past, or can compute from its database of experiences. And yet this is what it means to be fully alive - the willingness to meet the unknown, the profound unknown, of each moment.

Beyond the fear of the unknown in form, I encounter in the ocean in all its formlessness. Drifting away from reefs, I see underneath me only the white white ocean. Sand underneath me, blue water surrounding me. I lose all references in the wide expansive ocean. Can I hold this emptiness, let go of the fear mind's desperate desire to swim towards some form that I can identify.

Arresting the mind

The fear mind, the excitement mind, the myth creating mind and any other unconscious mind that we may have running, will keep controlling our experience until we notice that this is happening and choose differently. If the relationship with our mind is unconscious, we believe that we are our minds, and that what the mind conjures up must be true. But there comes a time (this may take many lifetimes) when we realize that we are not our minds. If we pursue this inquiry, we realize that we are what Anadi (anaditeaching.com) calls "the pure light of I am" - we are individual expressions of the divine, that which exists beyond time, space and all of the changing world. If we start to identify with that, and let our minds rest in deep stillness, then we find the power to direct the workings of our minds.

So there I am in the ocean, feeling fear mind and/or excitement mind come up with all its compulsion for action. It feels so exquisite to be able to surrender this mind into the vast spaciousness of consciousness. Letting go the mind. Surrendering to what is. Trusting this moment, I float. I dive into stillness. And I find that there is only this vast, effortless stillness in this ocean. All the rest was just a fabrication of my mind.

Resting into being

The depth of what it means to rest into being is something hardly known by humans. And yet when I surrender into the ocean, letting go of fear and excitement and all the minds that want to control the experience, something in me gets swept along into the state of being that exists here. Early in the morning large schools of fish hover sleepily in unison. When I dive down amongst them, they make way for me but do not get disturbed beyond what the energy of the moment requires. Later in the day, they boisterously feed and play chase-the-tail with each other, and yet the sense of deep rest into being never leaves them.

I felt this quality of resting into being that is there for the ocean creatures most pronouncedly once when I was floating amongst whales. They would come up right beside me, dive down below me and come up the other side of me. Despite my keenest kinesthetic sensitivity, and these enormous mammals being right underneath me, I could not distinguish their presence from that of the ocean. They are seamlessly one the the state of being that the ocean represents. That I think is what masters mean by the oceanic experience - a profound sense of being without boundaries and identification with form.

And so I dive down, and come to rest amongst the ocean creatures, floating with the currents, dropping into deep stillness inside, delighting to my core in the beauty that meets me - the pure, innocent dance of life that welcomes everything, and resists nothing.

How much bliss can you stand?

This dropping into being opens in me a state of bliss which is way beyond excitement. It is the same bliss of pure being that I feel when my partner makes love to me from a place of deep presence in love, and not from excitement. Something in me opens up, to deeper and deeper layers of my being, beyond what I knew was there. This opening up is just as beautiful and vulnerable as the yoni (vagina) opening up to the penetration of the lingam (penis). To allow myself to feel this exquisite bliss, I have to surrender into the pleasure of pure love, pure presence. I have to give up every strategy of my mind to hold on to the familiar. The layers drop away. I taste, and see, the beauty that is there. The ocean opens up inside me. The 'me' who holds on to separate ego identity is no more. The Self who knows herself as one with This - she is illuminated and alive.

And thus is the beauty. My eyes are flooded with the most outrageous colours - aquamarine fish with red beaks and green and orange stripes, butterfly fish with extensions as fine as the golden locks of a princess, black and white coral snakes undulating through the water in weightless seamless flow. Floating alongside a massive fish almost my size, I look into this eyes and get acquainted with the still place from where he lives - even as he bites off a piece of coral, sounds echoing though the water. I feel the subtle cautions in the wavers around the exquisite mane of the lion fish - do not touch this beauty, admire from afar.

Let's explore

The wisdom of life's waters moves me deeply, and the love that arises wants to be shared. And so it delights me that existence has created opportunities, right at hand. Very soon, within the next moon (1 - 4 March 2012), Courtney Ward of Halo Gaia and myself are taking a group of lucky people to swim with the dolphins in Mozambique, supported by Tantric breath, sounds and movement work. The retreat is called Waking up to Bliss. This is a rare opportunity to swim with wild dolphins who have a deeply intimate relationship with humans, and through them to be touched by the mysterious wisdom of the ocean. For more info, clock the link above.

And then 4 - 7 May 2012 another exquisite opportunity: join breath work master Dan Brule and myself for an immersion in warm water rebirthing and water bliss. Details on my events page (shakti.co.za/events) soon, or contact Rhianne van der Linde rhiannevdl@gmail.com.

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 11:14:00 +0000

Making Love to Angels and Demons
- The Life of an Advaita Dakini -
by Shakti Malan

The following are my notes for the talk I did at the September 2011 Sexuality and Consciousness Conference in Europe. I post them as is, and hope to have the video up on youtube soon.

In the tradition of Advait Tantra, the dakini's being is the main tool of her teaching. She becomes the catalyst of awakening that she is through the journey of her own awakening. Advaita means non-duality; that which is beyond the dualistic constructs of ego reality. The more the dakini integrates the dualities in her own ego structure, the more she becomes pure presence, and her presence facilitates the awakening of those who spend time with her.

The Dakini's task in life is clear: to wake up to ultimate truth, and to facilitate that awakening in sincere seekers. Sometimes such seekers present as angels, and sometimes as demons. She makes love to them all. But the ways she makes love are mysterious, and not to be anticipated. This love may feel like diving into the depths of pain, rejection and betrayal, and it may also feel like rising to the heights of ecstasy.

In this talk, I share about my life and work as a Dakini in the Advaita tradition. Themes I will address are:

• My personal spiritual practice as a dakini

Coming into the path of dakini: vision quest, receiving the name shakti (so: you have no more name). Meeting Kali: the stripping of familiar frameworks and social identities. Wilderness years.

Practice of the deep feminine

letting go structures and forms that no longer serve - making room for the new to be born - yogi nidra
holding the womb space - living in compassion for self and the world, ahimsa - non-violence
following bliss in the body: subtle listening as a meditation, no pushing, no doing - being a channel for existence to move through
skydancing: the woman's meditation - following energy flows in my body
deep feminine: embracing the dark, moist earth as my home, welcoming dismemberment not as a state leading to remembering, but as a goddess in her own right, welcoming chaos, allowing the goddess to be unreasonable and irrational.
fiercely following my intuition and inner guidance

Awakening the heart

living courageously - embracing desires, facing fears
welcoming all feelings, feeling them deeply - with the knowing that I am the awareness
heart meditation - the undivided heart

The path of Advaita

Leslie Temple-Thurston's work in training the mind: noticing states arising, identifying the opposite state, processing desires and fears associated with both opposite states.
Tantric approach to advaita: welcoming all experiences as guests from the beyond. deeply inquiring into all understanding of good and evil, right and wrong that arise. Living life fully, and letting life be the teacher. Asking questions: what is love? what is trust? What is fidelity? What is honesty?
Consciously entering into opposite experience to what your ego identifies with: being the bitch, the abandoner, the hag, the slut.
Noticing tendencies to want to change/alter experience.. and staying close to what is.
Deep inquiry into the perception of separation: Death meditation
Practicing conscious relationship with the inner beloved: Masculine feminine integration. Pulling back projections.

• How I am in the fields of love, sex and relationship

Dakini is not a career choice - it is a calling one is born into, and it comes through initiation.
In some ways, it is a path of absolute renunciation. I am married to God (the sexy nun) and my sexuality is a vehicle for consciousness.
To make love to me is to open your being for radical transformation. I take this responsibility very seriously, and thus only make love when I have received deep permission - from existence, and from the seeker.
My desire is directed by the dharma - the taste of truth.
I have a beloved: our commitment to each other is to support each other in the greatest desire we share, which is to wake up, this lifetime. This includes waking up the heart. We are free to love as we are guided, and we leave no opportunity for any avoidance - especially any avoidance of going deep into love with each other.
Loving the beloved through each other.
A dakini uses her sexual power as powerfully as any woman, but she does this with one purpose only: your spiritual awakening.
When I started the journey as dakini, I got possessed by an african medicine woman who wanted me to use my sexual power for my own gain. I chose clearly in that moment that this was not my desire, and that my sexuality would be there for awakening only. I have a ruthless and impeccable practice of never engaging sexually as a way of avoiding states I don't want to feel, such as insecurity, loneliness, worthlessness, abandonment etc.

• Making love to demons: how I dance with body armoring, sexual trauma, contraction, defense and suppressed emotions in seekers who find me

Much of my daily life is diving into the underworld with the beloveds who come to seek my support as dakini. I call this work Totality Therapy - an approach to awakening that incorporates all aspects of our experience in a non-dual way.
Making love to demons: First catalyze awareness (go kiss the dragon) - by inviting exploration of eros and desires, lifting taboos and suppressions, facing fears.
Then processing and integrating what has been catalyzed through
polarity processing
male-female integration
heart meditation, feeling feelings

Elements that arise and how I work with them:

body armoring, contraction, defense.

body armoring is deeply associative - unraveling associations, becoming present in the moment.
blissdance: encountering body as weight, others through sensation, the way animals would sense the world around them kinesthetically.
slow approach encounter with armoring: with stephen
direct evocation through fantasies (eg. rape fantasies).
inviting awareness, and choice in the moment.
encouraging body armoring/contraction - welcoming it: fights, pushing into contraction

Sexual trauma

Trauma: all experience that has been suppressed or denied
Return to embodiment: staying with body sensations
Sympathetic-parasympathetic nervous system unwinding by allowing
Victim-rescuer-predator triangle
Identification with trauma… and return to simplicity

• Making love to angels: How I use sexual energy as a force for spiritual awakening and opening into unconditional love

Last two elements of Totality Therapy: embodiment, meditation of deep presence
Deep relaxation and receptivity in lovemaking - the guidance of the feminine
Masculine: holding one pointed focus, presence: love in the lingam
Awakening sexual energy in root, guiding up chakras
Lovemaking as deep transcendental meditation: This is the natural arising, does not require technique - only the clearing of the unconscious patterning that is in the way. Once we have made love to all our demons, the beloved arrives as an angel, ascending up through our bliss, naturally. No ego involved in the attainment. Only this pure beingness, this open, hollow channel. Nowhere to go, nothing to avoid. Surrendering to the bliss of being one with the great Beloved who has no limits.

I dance to the death of my father

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:03:00 +0000

Last Wednesday afternoon, my father died.

A few hours later, I was in the Kalk Bay Community Hall, surrounded by loved ones who had come to welcome me back after 3 1/2 months of international teaching, and to dance with me again. This dance I call BlissDance. It is a free movement space that I use to take people deeper into embodied awareness - of intimacy, of edges, of the veils and boundaries that keep us separate, and of what lies beyond. It is a dancing community of loving awareness.

We sat down in the circle. I welcomed everyone and shared with them that my father had just died. A hushed silence fell in the room. How exquisitely beautiful, this shared humanity, this knowing that death cuts through everything, and brings us right into each other's skins and hearts.

The theme for my night's class was Falling into Grace. Chosen for me for the night, by Existence herself - this turned out to also be the theme of the sermon at my father's funeral. And I got to dance, while holding the space for this collective awakening dance. I found myself instantly drawn into a huge expression of energy - intense, black and fiery, magnificently destructive and passionate. Dancing with my father into the Bardo's - the in-between realms before the soul reaches the state of oneness, a layered place that can feel very confusing for the soul, the place where demons arise and seem to be real.

But my father and I were dancing through. I was feeling his immense passion passing through me, the largesse of his being, the fiery expression of his his spirit. My father was a fearless warrior for justice and equality. He quested relentlessly for beauty, and the expression of beauty in all realms. He was no small spirit. My father was not afraid of demons. He understood that they were fabrications of the mind, and loved exploring the realm of the occult with his vast intellect. And so we danced fearlessly into and through the place of the demons, embracing the passion, dropping the fear, ruthlessly cutting away what is no longer real.

My father was a boy who had lost both his parents when he was six years old. He felt intensely, and struggled to communicate this to people around him, and so growing up with him felt at times like being in the middle of an unpredictable emotional storm. My mother is a woman of great wisdom and perspective, and somehow managed to maintain a gracefulness that still awes me today. And it was Marietjie, his last wife, and the angel who made him smile, even when his consciousness was fading - it was Marietjie who finally raised this child and brought peace to his soul. I feel so much for her, the woman who held this man, in her own words, like a mother who carries the child for nine months. And just as he was ready to be born, he was taken away, to be born into the mystery.

My father believed until his death that his daughter hasdnever had an angry moment in her life. I find this so beautiful, as his impact on my life has been the centre of all my emotional processing - years of venting rage and helplessness, desperate romance (yes, my father was the first man in my life, and the first love of my childhood self). I am infinitely grateful to my father for having provoked these emotions in me - unknowingly, he called me out into great emotional clarity and power, and fearlessness. I never felt the need to get angry AT him, because I knew he was the messenger only, the finger pointing at the moon. And it was for me to do the inner work.

And so here we are, my father and I, dancing the demons, the phoenix jumping in the fire and through, the lover whose passion knows no bounds. And he is in me, he is me. No more separation. It is complete. This love, this gratitude, this acceptance, knows no bounds.

And through the great challenge that my father has brought me, I am no longer afraid to keep my heart open as immense feelings pass through - grief, sadness, joy, gratitude - like massive winds that leave no time for distinction or narrative. I surrender into the winds, and feel my heart being blown wide open.

Later on in the dance, the heavens open up into the light. I open my arms to surrender to the love I feel for my father, to honor him, and to direct him to the realm of the angels. And yes, he is ready. The room lights up. My father has no resistance to the intensity of light and love, and he expands into this limitlessness beauty.

In our final circle I play the mantra "Gate Gate Para Gate Para Sam Gate Bodhi Svaha" (referring to the state where we have gone, gone beyond). A piercing joy fills my being. The tears don't fall out - they shower over everyone, like a fountain that pushes up with force. The dancers surround me, touch my heart, cry their own tears - how beautifully this opening to pure feeling can evoke that in others - and enfold me with their bodies, like a cocoon.

Always, when my father wrote me, he ended letters with the phrase "Jou papie" (which sounds like "your father" but means "your cocoon"). And so, my father, my first cocoon, you have passed away. Today, I felt the weight of your body in my hands as we carried your coffin to the grave. Today, I threw gravel on your grave. I saw how your body returned to earth, dust to dust.

And today I held a white dove in my hand, released it into the sky, together with the doves held by each close family member. I felt with ecstasy how the doves took flight, coming together in a joyful dance of the sky - the sky dance of the white doves. And I felt my spirit being set free, free into that which is beyond, beyond form, and yet so magnificently expressed in form. This butterfly now takes wings. She surrenders to existence as such.

My father's death, and my experience of it, mirrors for me so beautifully some of the main tasks that I feel we are facing at this potent moment in history. My father was a feminist, and he died at the time when I see the end of patriarchy very close, giving its last resisting convulsions. The release of the old patterns requires us to do the work of clearing what no longer serves in our ancestral lineage, and to honor and embrace what does. Also, it is time to face the love we have for our parents, and to feel it without any withholding, with totality. Whatever we are feeling about our parents is just a masking of our deepest feeling: Passionate, unbounded love. There is such support for us to do this work at the moment.

When my father spoke of death, he always said that he wanted us to celebrate his passing with a feast. Just before his death, my father prepared such a feast for those who were close to him - his own Babette's Feast. And in honor or his death, this past Saturday, I danced for him again, witnessed by friends. I danced on Celine Dion's song "Because you loved me" - the song I danced for him when he turned sixty (six years ago). By the end of the dance, my body collapsed with overflow of energy, and I called, loudly: "My father! I love you! I want to devour you!" First man of my life, you have left. And perhaps in some way you were my communion bread, as I step into this surrender to Existence. As I step into the arms of the Beloved, the new possibility that awaits me of how we can be with each other, man and woman beloved and lover, becoming one.

Russia, are you ready?

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:13:00 +0000

Moscow receives a Shakti

How did I find myself in Moscow? Last year October, I met an extraordinary breathwork teacher called Dan Brule. I found a deep resonance with who he is and how he works, and the feeling was mutual. And so we began to teach together - first in South Africa earlier this year, and then in the area where he spends a lot of his breathing life: the USSR. While I spent time with him in October, I had a vision of Dan and I together on a train, and so I asked him where that could be. He said Russia for sure, and likely Moscow. Following this vision, Dan invited me to come teach with him in Moscow, the great capital of the former Soviet Union.

And a magnificent city it is. Its population bursts at the seams - locals tell me there are 20 million people living here. It is almost impossible to drive anywhere - even from the countryside back into town on a Sunday afternoon - without standing in long traffic lines that hardly move. This matter is exacerbated by the large scale reconstruction of roads and buildings (which, I am told, may be influenced by the Minister's wife who owns a construction materials company). Since the end of communism, sky scrapers have risen everywhere - they are flashy and impressive in glass and chrome, and they have fascinating shapes and angles. Shops stay open into the night, and many through the night.

Driving into Moscow on the night of my arrival, I was astounded by the quality of boutiques and other luxury shops everywhere. In taking a walk through a few malls myself later, I found that the number of cosmetic and handbag stores far outweighs the number of supermarkets and pharmacies (which made it somewhat difficult for me to get basic supplies). This city is clearly where Russia's wealth is concentrated. And there is a lot of it.

So it was with some surprise (having grown up to believe that Russia still had an anti-capitalist feel) that I found one of the main themes in my sessions with women to be how to break out of the capitalist go-getter framework and to get in touch with their feminine again. The business women of Moscow are impressive, and they know the male game better than any man. Then on the other hand, they live in a society which is still strongly influenced by patriarchal values when it comes to the woman's role in relationship. The contradiction is confusing and sometimes excruciating for these women.

Dan has been teaching in the Russian States for 20 years and lived here some of that time. He is a great guide, together with Luba, Dan's central organizer and our translator. Luba, a former lawyer, has the fine features and ways of a ballet dancer. She lives on raw food - only one food at a time (so this afternoon that may be tomatoes, and this evening marrows). She tells me that there was a raw food convention in Moscow some months back and that the interest in this way of living is growing in Russia.

Site seeing in Moscow

On Saturday, our little party trundles off to Red Square of a day of site seeing. Apart from Luba, Dan and myself, we have in our company Caroline (Dan's organizer in Paris) and Leera (his beautiful 19 year old companion). The Kremlin, which is the larger complex that includes Red Square, is an impressive and fantastical complex of bright golden towered and domed churches. Looking at these roofs in the sunlight, one could certainly believe that they are made of pure gold. Inside the churches are subdued with painted murals everywhere on the walls. I love the colors - deep cores, greens and blues, and also the simplicity of the iconic style.I wonder at the pathways of consciousness that these images depict for worshippers. At the top of an ascending tryptic, I see an image of Adam and Eve in paradise, and to my delight, find the snake (image of the goddess) given her glorious place in the center. The way these ascending images are designed is that they start at the bottom with hell and rise up to the highest realm. I am fascinating that this patronymic religious culture could have included the snake in heaven.

Apart from the churches, there are several towers which each have at their top, a bright red star.

And then Red Square, the place where lovers meet to take endless photographs. This is also where Stalin's Maloseum is. Dan tells us that he once watched a man throw a bottle of red ink towards the maloseum, and within seconds, police vehicles drove up to take him away. Don't underestimate the ever watchful eye in this country. The highlight of Red Square for me is St Basels - that faerielike round domed multicolored cathedral, brightly magical like now cathedral I have seen anywhere else.

The Moscow underground

In this city with more than 10 million citizens, it is rather a nightmare to get anywhere by car. The city's roadworks are artistically arranged as concentric circles (I love all the circles in this city) but the overpopulation and continuous roadworks together result in constant traffic congestion, even in the middle of the night. But then Moscow has an underground metro that is arguably as effective as the London underground. And the Moscow underground is not only functional, it is a work of art in its own somber way. Many stations are fitted out with different colors of marble and there are works of art everywhere - glass encaged porcelain treasures from the orient, fine mosaics of communist leaders and other revered figures, and massive bronze sculptures depicting the people of Russia from soldier to peasant. Some of these bronze sculptures are within reach, so that pieces that can be touched - a loyal dog's head, the barrel of a gun - have become golden from all the hands that have reverently or curiously touched them.

The trains themselves are remarkably spacious, with much room between the isles. Initially it seemed an impossibility for me to get anywhere on my own in the Russian underground - not understanding the cerilic alphabet or the Russian language, and finding it difficult to translate the pronunciation of words into something that I could relate even to the names written in Latin alphabet. But eventually, and with much clear guidance from Luba, Dan and Olga, our organizer for the Moscow events, I made my way around "like a true Moscowvite", said Dan.

One late night on the way back from teaching in town I heard a very sharp and aggressive announcement on the Red Line train I was on. Not understanding a word of what was being said, I just observed. I saw people get off at the next station - when everybody left, I pondered whether I should too, and my doubts ceased the moment a very aggressive looking woman in police gear glared at me and pointed to the door. Police descended on the train and sent it off empty. Within a few minutes the next train arrived and I was taken safely home. The incident did make me wonder how it must have felt to live in Communist Russia and to be constantly afraid of what officers and soldiers may do.

A Tea Ceremony

Russia has inherited the love for tea from China. I am told that the tea houses of Russia are unique in the world; you won't find quite the same thing in China. After what seemed like a wake though a maze, we get to the humble building that houses the tea house. We get taken to a cloak room where we take off shoes and cloaks, and then we are seated in a private corner of the tea room, on pillows around a low table. The young tea master, dressed in traditional Chinese tea master outfit, introduces us to the tea ceremony with a peaceful, hushed voice. Every movement of his arms and body is graceful, like a tea-tai chi. In a special leaf shaped cup, he pours leaves from various teas. Each cup is passed separately through the whole group. We breathe out into the tea bowl, and then breathe in the fragrance of the leaves. After we have all smelt all the teas in this way, we choose a tea. The tea master comes back some time later.

First, he pours hot water out over the tea pot and the cups. The water collects in a special underground shelf of the tea table. This is to make sure that the tea stays really hot in the implements being used. The tea master has a set of tools that he uses to touch and move various pieces. Now he pours hot water over tiny tea pot which is almost full with tea leaves, and then he pours the water out immediately. The next round of hot water produces the first cups of tea that are poured in the tiny oblong cups - these are said to present the masculine principle. The oblong cups are cupped by rounder, fuller cups that represent the female principle. Now the cups are tipped over and the oblong cup removed. We smell the fragrance of the tea in this cup and then slowly sip the tea from the other.

This process of sipping tea continues for hours, while in the background a beautiful Tabla ensemble is playing peaceful music for us. What a delightful meditation.

Teaching in a White Cloud

One thing that I find fascinating in my travels is that, no matter which city I am in, it is always possible to find a little corner of India and Tibet somewhere. In Moscow, this place is called the White Cloud - a fascinating shop with many rooms and two levels, filled with spiritual books and artifacts from all religious, spiritual and new age traditions imaginable. It is fascinating to look at these books, that have all been translated into Russian, and many in Coptic script as well. The shop is clearly a haven for many seekers. In the middle of the ground floor area there is a little ground pagoda with chairs where Dan and I present our first talk together in Russia. Luba recorded this talk (and all our future events) and put this one up on the www: ( ). I enjoy the play of conversation between Dan and Im, and the fascinating experience of being translated. Everything I say is being pronounced twice. We talk about awakening. There are many questions, and I start to get to know the beautiful people that Dan has been teaching for years in Moscow. Many come to greet him - and through him, me, before and after the talk.

The next night Dan and I run a workshop at the White Cloud. We are taken into a beautiful wood-paneled space with bamboo paper blinds on all sides. I love the lightness of this space. Guzelle, our Russian translator for the night, reminds me of a gazelle - as nimble, as sensitive and as alive with her golden head of hair. She takes the experience in with a quiveringly delighted body. I love playing with the breath and Tantra combination. One exercise that went beautifully here was asking people to stand up, and go deeper into the breath until the breath started to move them, to dance them. Then to find a partner, with one partner continuing to be danced by their breath, and the other being the support person, starting behind them with hands lightly supporting the dancer's movements (this is a variation of the classic Latihan meditation).

The following night, after our delightful day of siteseeing and then the tea ceremony, Luba and I go off to White Clouds one more time, and this time to go dance. The wood paneled space has been enlarged and the room is filled with beautiful dancing bodies. I enjoy playing with the different rhythms in the room. Though difficult to identify, I notice a distinctly different way of interpreting the music here than in the UK or the US. I love the freedom of expression and the way people give themselves to the music. There are certainly sexual dynamics to the dance, and I watch these with fascination - the subtle mating games happening, mostly with the men being out on the prey and the women either responding or not. At the end of the dance I fall into deep silence on the dance floor. A man slowly embraces me from behind, with great sensitivity, and then his body starts shaking. This continues until I politely thank him and exit to find Luba and the underground. Walking back, my body feels alive under the starry night.

Moscow is hot

Definitely a key feature of how I experienced Moscow in summer is that it can get insufferably hot. For a few days during my trip here, I stayed indoors, partly because my body needed a rest, and partly because I found the heat (one day it was 42 degrees C) unbearable, especially with little breeze and of course no ocean nearby.

And everyone in Moscow smokes. Everywhere. It is the national pastime. Coffee shops and restaurants are definitely a place to smoke. Like a few people told me, nobody in the USSR has had time to worry about health for the last few decades - there have been more important things to think about

Into an Open World

I have never been to Russia before, but I understand from what I have heard of Communist Russia that the changes from then to now are dramatic (not dissimilar, I imagine, from the Old and the New South Africa). On a spiritual level this is reflected for me through the presence of Open World, a large center for spiritual practices and teachings in Moscow. The center is beautifully done and the finishings are just the finest. Olga, our events organizer, works here and spends much of her time on projects in this building. It is holiday time, and she has her delightful son with her. Initially he doesn't know what to do with me as I don't speak Russian, but soon he works out that I understand the language of touch, and so he approaches me at every opportunity for a hug. I have never seen such a kinesthetically happy young man before. Olga's partner Alan gives me a powerful healing session one day. He lives most of his time in the Arizona desert and comes to Russia to teach the Gurdjieff practices to a group of students.

One evening at Open World I present a Skydancing workshop for women. This even was probably the surprise and delight of my visit to Moscow, and a reminder to me of how deep my passion goes for women's work. We are expecting a small group of 15 people - but the numbers keep growing, and the circle keeps expanding to at least twice that number. Beautiful spirits, this new generation of Russian women who have grown up with a quality I find quite unique in the world. As I describe the bowl of the pelvis and how our bodies want to move in this liquid freedom, the women tune into the state of my body and drop right down into their bodies. By the time I am doing a skydancing demo for them, they are totally open and ready to receive the transmission. To be in the middle of a room full of women dropping so deeply into the feminine mysteries within three hours - what ecstasy for me. And then our blissdance. All I have to say is: One of the qualities of the deep feminine is that She Is Wild and off the women go, into wild, uninhibited dance. My soul sings, and many - if not all - the women come to thank me afterward. Several of them decide to join in the weekend that Dan and I present.

Tantra and Breathwork Retreat

Our time in Moscow ends with Dan and I presenting a 4 day retreat at a center outside Moscow. Before we depart, we finally get our visa at the Kazakh embassy - I feel like shouting out loud for joy! Several hours later we drive into the forest next to the road where this event is being held, and it is raining! Haleluya. The staff conveniently have umbrellas for us all, and I have a luxurious suite to myself.

What can I say about this retreat? It leaves me with feelings rather than thoughts. I feel close to me all those lovely bodies with whom I breathed and moved over those days… I remember the soulful, passionate, painful, beautiful processes that individuals went through.. I remember feeling the energy of the group shift and open up as the days go by.. they have done much breathing but the level of interpersonal intimacy I am introducing is new. So it was with some delight and amusement that Dan and I watched people in the last breathing session getting entangled with each other… the pendulum has swung to the other side,and I am sure it will come to rest in the middle somewhere again.

I am moved by the passion and intuition of the women, and when the men finally start to break through the shell of 'how a man should be', their vulnerability is beautiful to touch. There are difficult moments during the retreat, moments that touch on collective unconscious here. During one morning, Dan takes the men off to the river for a process in which the men are guided to enter a cold river very slowly, with full awareness, while doing circular breathing. The men come back with a beautiful new tenderness and presence in their energy. I had bee working with the women. This time, the skydancing intro takes the women into fear and contraction - past life memories of being killed for being sexual, current memories of sexual abuse and many fears about their sexual dynamics with Russian men. As it always is, this touching of the old wounds gives opportunity, over the next days, for a slow and beautiful unraveling of what no longer serves.

Dan and I work together effortlessly and smoothly. Breath energy, sexual energy, seamlessly flowing together to support people's awakening. It feels like this was a short and intense event, enough to definitely open interest in more. I know of at least one woman who is thinking of coming to South Africa to come do more work with Dan and I and also with the Advait Tantraschool. And Luba is talking about translating some of my writings into Russian! Let's see what the future brings. Russia is a fascinating place - in some ways a bridge between East and West potentially, and certainly an area where the awakening of consciousness could have powerful global effect. I see and honor the work that Dan has consistently and patiently been doing here over the last two decades.

A Shakti escapes from Kazakhstan

It's Monday night and I'm looking out over the golden domes of a mosque while smelling red sausages being boilt in a flat below. Underneath is a shantytown much like what I know at home. On the other side of the apartment I am in for the night, is a display of high rises and hotels, lit up in purples, greens and blues (the colours keep changing). I have forked out the horse meat that the Kazakhs have cleverly hidden in the salad I bought for dinner. I feel immensely grateful and relieved - for the processing and realization that this country has brought me - and that I finally seem to be able to leave.

Entering into Kazakhstan was a prohibitively time- and money consuming activity. The ministry seems to change their rules all the time, and for some reason being South African makes things extra hard. After having bought a letter of invitation from the ministry of Kazakhstan at great cost, I finally was ready to start the days of visa processing. But in retrospect, getting in was nothing compared to getting out. This morning 3am I arrive at the airport, dutifully go through all the procedures, arrive at passport control and get told after grave silences by several intimidating police officers, that I lack a stamp on my immigration card. All visitors apparently are to report to the immigration police within five days of arriving, and this I had not done.

The consequences were rather dire. I got taken off the plane and told to go sort myself out. In the middle some potentially high anxiety (not being able to speak Russian, not having a soul to contact in this country, not knowing where to stay or how to get this stamp) I feel the perspective of the witness descending on me, and I observe this spectacle with curiosity and interest. From that perspective I find the intuition to go downstairs and look for an English speaking taxi driver.

And so I encounter one of the angels that got sent along my way to help me survive this country. He comes in the shape of a slightly built Korean looking taxi driver helper who speaks good English and is working at night to pay for his dentistry studies. He ends up spending the next 24 hours of is life sorting out this legal predicament and taking exceptionally good care of me. It is clear from what he says (and the taxi driver confirms) that going to the immigration police to get a stamp now would be a bad idea - the chances are good that I will be imprisoned, it will cost me about $800 of fines and I would have to wait another 4 days before I get approval. All this feels like the last thing on earth I want now.

But fortunately there is the expert system of corruption and bribery that we can draw on. It takes us the whole day - driving around for at least 5 hours to find the right chain of people to bribe - and me paying $500 for the services, and having to leave my passport with strangers hoping that it will be back with me before I have to leave for the airport at 2.30 am. The stamp looks like the real deal, so I am hopeful that I will soon be on a beach in Turkey rather than a jail in Istanbul.

This visit has certainly been the most challenging of my international journey - and I suspect that, in looking back at this time, it may stand out as one of the most moving. But a place of paradoxes and contrasts this is, for sure.

The people of Kazakshan are exceptionally friendly and hospitable. Ella, our host here and the organizer of the event, got up to collect us at 6am last Monday, and at 2am this morning to take me to the airport. The sweet lady at the hotel where we stayed would absolutely not let me do anything myself, not even boil a cup of tea. Half an hour after I asked for hot water, she would knock on my door with a very hot silver teapot. Our translator Sergei, who comes from the tourist industry in neighboring Kyrgikstan, is ready at every turn to inform me about local culture and nature. When we have a toilet stop, members of the group pay for my entrance - they won't have it any other way, as I am their guest in this country.

Nothing is too much trouble. This becomes quite a thing when it comes to my diet (no meat and gluten). Endless amounts of discussions and arrangements go on amongst the organizers (sometimes a whole table full of them) to make sure I get something to eat. And everywhere I get apples, grapefruit and almonds as gifts. I suspect I'm going to be really complete with those three categories of food soon.

On the other hand, the immersion in local culture did not support rest or sleep for me. The dogs wake up at 5 - 6am in downtown Almaty where our hotel is. They wake up in resounding symphony. At that time of the morning, I still have fresh in my memory the guests who loudly burst into their rooms after midnight or the wedding ceremony that happened just underneath me. Interesting cultural experiences, all of this. From my one experience of a wedding of Kazakhstan (that I practically attended while trying to sleep) speeches are the main deal. Everyone - every uncle to every grandchild - gets to give a speech. The DJ doesn't stand much of a chance: He is just halfway into a song when he gets stopped for the next speech.

It is hot and there is no air-conditioning. The landlocked dryness of this city is symbolized for me by the empty swimming pools outside in the yard. The space that we have our workshop in has very little air supply. The environment outside looks like it's either being built or broken down. This is an urban forest with very little oxygen.

Having formed an impression of Almaty as a rather dire place, I was really surprised when we got taken to a restaurant near the end of our stay. The rest of Almaty, it seems, is - well - opulent - filled with beautiful fountains, parks, and grand hotels of a scale that I have seldom seen. There is money here, I am told by Roger, the American husband of one of the workshop organizers. He is in the freight industry and has been living in Russian states for more than 15 years. He prefers Almaty to Florida, his hometown. Why? Because of the cosmopolitan community, the clearly defined seasons (in winter it really snows here - the Oriental Winter Olympics took place in Almaty recently - and now it is boiling hot), and good income. Roger says Almaty has the highest density of 4X4's he has seen in any city in the world. Kazakhstan has oil and a lush variety of minerals. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the people of Kazakhstan now have direct access to their wealth, and they are making good use of it.

Then another contrast: The people with whom I spend time in Almaty are hospitable, yes, but I can't remember ever having taught a group that was so distracted and apparently resistant to the work. It took most of the week to train them to keep their cellphones off during sessions - and not to answer them when they ring. We spoke much about habits of distraction. It was a fascinating play actually, watching just all the ways we have as human beings of convincing ourselves that there is something more important than being right here right now.

Dan, who has infinite patience, explains to me that people are probably stretched to capacity in doing this work with us. Social conditioning here is intense and layered. Apart from Kazakh tribal and cultural ways, there is also the collective unconscious of Russia - years of quite intense patriarchy (Kazakhstan has a strong Muslim influence which amplifies this) and the after-effects of communist rule. Certainly spirituality and sexuality have been touchy subjects for a long time.

The part of the training that was most profound for me was the water work. One early morning we drove off into the semi-desert landscape of rural Kazakhstan to an area that has hot springs. There is nothing aesthetic about the environment - flat lands, and functional brick structures, but the pools themselves are very hot and rich with life.

Dan did two days of water rebirthing with this group. Their desire to distract themselves went even higher than in the room when we got to the water, and it was clear that many of them were had high levels of fear going into this process. The process itself is beautiful, and something that I would love for Dan to come do in South Africa: going through the four trimesters of birth - floating free in the womb, pressing up against the cervix, then being constricted in the birth canal, and finally breaking free. The level of regression that took place as people were being quietly floated while doing circular breathing was remarkable. It broke through the hard protection of this group, and people were transformed. Only afterward did we realize that most of them can't swim. I ended the two days with a delightful waterbliss that went down extremely well.

At the end of the week we were teaching in Kazakhstan it is very clear that some people benefited remarkably from this work. One woman who had clearly during the week not only discovered her kundalini flow but had moved into large scale skydancing entertained us all by talking about the contrasts in her life; she is firmly planted in this new reality of awakening and feeling tongue in cheek about the general who is her boss - she is an army officer. Many of the women thanked me profusely for opening for them the real of what sexuality could be, its connection to spirituality, and the expression thereof in the feminine. I know it was definitely worth it to come this time for these beautiful jewels. And I know that existence will continue to support their awakening. As for myself, I am saying good-bye to Kazakhstan with a smile.

Monogamy and Polyamory: Gifts and Shadows

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 01:31:00 +0000

Monogamy's gifts for women

Having one partner focus all his/her attention, love and devotion on a woman beckons her to accept that she is the full embodiment of the goddess for her partner. She becomes all faces of the beloved. By surrendering totally to her partner's devotion and love, she steps fully into her own power. This power is more than personal power. It is opening to the power of the universe that moves through us, that we are channels for. It is opening to the wisdom of existence, that we become muses for.

The masculine principle in the partner becomes one pointed focus. He directs all his energy/attention to her, the feminine principle, and she guides his arrow. She does this the way the yoni (vagina) guides the penis (lingam) through opening to fully receive him.

Saraha was a great sage and learned Brahmin who knew and understood all the holy scriptures. One day he went to the market and met there a simple woman who had no education. She was an arrowsmith woman. The arrowsmith woman looked him directly in the eye, pointed an arrow at him and said: "Your knowledge means nothing. To find the truth, you have to leave all your books behind, and follow me."

Saraha left everything behind and followed the arrowsmith woman. She taught him the ways of wisdom outside Varanasi, the city in India where bodies get cremated. Saraha and the arrowsmith women set up a tent here and became the greatest Tantric masters of India. People came from far and wide to be with them. The king got concerned about the ways of this learned Brahmin, and sent a servant to persuade Saraha to return to his path of learning. The servant entered the tent, and never returned. The king sent his son, the prince, on the same mission. The son never returned. Then the king sent his wife, the queen. She also did not come back. Eventually the king could not resist; he went himself. There in the tent he found his whole kingdom, dancing in the ecstasy of true union. The king himself became a disciple of Saraha and the arrowsmith woman.

The question for you, woman, is: Are you willing to be the arrowsmith woman? Are you willing to lead your partner to the truth beyond knowledge? Are you willing to embrace the power that moves through you, and be the full embodiment of that for him/her?

The shadow of monogamy for women

For all the gifts that monogamy has for women, it also has a huge shadow. Monogamy is a patriarchal institution. Marriage - the ritual that symbolizes monogamy - is an institution of religion/culture/state. Patriarchal society has turned monogamy into the norm because it makes people easier to manage and control. There is a fundamental suppression of feminine power inherent in the old patriarchal institution of marriage. Marriage vows until recently said that woman was created out of man's rib cage and should therefore cling to man and obey him in all things. Think also of the concept of husbandry. In feudal times, the patriarch would 'husband' the village; he would benevolently take care of them, and in return they would surrender all their power (including their possessions) to him. Most women in monogamous relationships find themselves having the same expectations of their husbands/partners: He should provide and take care of them, and they surrender their power, and their desire, to him.

This is a misunderstanding of the concept of surrender. Yes, the feminine principle surrenders, but she surrenders to the divine/essence/the tao - the power of the universe that moves through her. She does not surrender to the ego control of man. If she were to do so, she traps both herself and the man in the endless play of maya/illusion/ ego power play.

The gifts of polyamory for women

If you and/or your partner have more than one lover, this gives you an opportunity to do a lot of emotional processing quickly. This is why Osho encouraged his sanyassins to have many lovers - so they could get through the lessons of relationship quickly. Having more than one lover, or, more likely, seeing your partner with more than one lover, can evoke all your jealousy and envy. Underneath these states there are others - feeling unworthy, rejected, abandoned, betrayed, not chosen, not special.

The way of the Tantrika is to feel all feelings that arise, fully, while maintaining a witness. Maintaining a witness means remembering at all times that you are not your emotions, and you are not your story. The feelings that you are feeling, are old. They may be evoked by your current love affair, but their origin is much further in the past. Simply being born can feel like an abandonment. Before we leave the womb, we are floating in perfect unity, without any sense of separation. Imagine what it must be like to move from the womb into this world, being dragged out, turned upside down under bright neon lights. Imagine how painful that first breath of air can feel. When we were little, we could not cope with these intense feelings, and so we suppressed them, put them away for later. Now is later. Whatever feelings your relationship is evoking, they are yours to feel, all the way through. Most likely, your relationship/s is just a messenger for feelings that are much older than this moment.

In receiving more than one lover and/or in your partner having more than one lover, you can learn that your love is infinite - that the more you love, the more love you have to give. Love does not come from being loved by your partner. Love already is. You are swimming in an ocean of love. All you have to do is open to it. When your partner is free to love others, chances are you will feel his/her love coming back to you more freely, and more abundantly. Love multiplies as we set it free.

When you see your partner with other women, you have the chance to see that all women embody the goddess. As your partner worships the goddess in another woman, he is worshipping the goddess that also is in you. Honor the sisterhood of woman, and move beyond competition and comparison.

The shadow of polyamory for women

The temptation of polyamory for women is that we start searching for validation, approval and recognition from many men if we can't find it with one. This feeds into what the Buddhists call the Hungry Ghost syndrome - there is never enough, and it never feels quite real. Avoiding the challenges of one relationship by having many is never going to feel fulfilling.

Another dynamic that women get into with multiple partners is sexual aggressiveness and a disconnect between heart and sex. Successful women in the patriarchal world have become as good as men, if not better, at much of male behavior, including being sexual predators. Like the pray mantis, we can find a male to mate with and then demolish him after the sex. While this lifestyle can provide a lot of sexual kicks, it creates a disconnect between sex and heart, and a consequent dulling or hardening of the heart.

Careful also of compromise. If you agree to polyamorist relating because your partner insists on it and not because that is what you want, you are treading on thin ice. Look at your motivation. If your agreement was based on a fear - such as the fear that you may lose the man if you don't submit to his demands - then you are still operating in the patriarchal model of male control and female submission. In stead of being in the archetype of the monogamous wife, you place yourself in the role of one of the wives in the harem.

Monogamy's gifts for men

The arrowsmith woman teaches Saraha how to be an arrow with impeccable, one-pointed focus. This is the gift of having only one lover. By focusing all your attention on one partner, you learn to concentrate your energies and drop into deep stillness and presence.

The great Tantra teacher Barry Long said that the challenge for man is to learn how to love woman, deeply, fully and completely. The practice that he taught was for man to put all his attention and love into his linage (penis) so that when he penetrates woman, this is a deep and intense act of love.

The element of the masculine is the rock. The rock is unmoving. It stays present, no matter what. If a man decides to be with one partner only, keeping to this decision can build his capacity to focus his attention, no matter what temptations or distractions come along. This quality of centered attention is what Shiva, the great male God of hindu tantra, embodies, as he sits in deep meditation on Mount Khailash. A man wants to be able to bring that same focused attention into lovemaking.

As seekers, we have to develop our commitment to the truth. If we have not developed a capacity to commit to one focus, then we will never have what it takes to wake up. Being with just one partner is an excellent opportunity to strengthen our commitment muscles.

The shadow of monogamy for men

For men, monogamy also comes with the burden of patriarchal belief structures. Loving one woman becomes an obligation rather than a choice. Monogamy can invite a false perception of what it means to be masculine. That is why so many men believe they should show muscle and not display any feeling. Men are raised to believe that they are the stronger sex and that women are somehow weak and to be taken care of. The concept "husbandry" reflects that. The owner of the sheep or the lord of the village in feudal times took control of the lives of his sheep or his villagers. He did this in a benevolent way, keeping their best interests at heart, but in the process also taking their power and choice away. In today's world, this model looks like the husband/male partner financially taking care of the woman, having the ultimate say over decisions and generally being seen as the one who knows best. He becomes God's representative on earth. This is a heavy burden for man to carry, especially since the patriarchal model of man discourages intuitive wisdom.

This model can also result in sexual entitlement and frustration for men. Men are led to believe that they can and should expect sex from their partners or wives and that is it women's obligation to meet man's sexual needs. Many women just 'service' their men for this reason, and this can leave men feeling empty and unsatisfied. Eventually, women may withdraw from sex completely, which can result in even greater sexual frustration for men.

Monogamy can also be very habit forming. Partners work out how to do things in the easiest, most comfortable way, and they fall into a pattern of doing it this way. Comfortable habits can take away our aliveness, responsiveness and awareness, and it can be challenging to change these habits. Men and women are prone to habit forming, but it is particularly the masculine in us that likes to get into a pattern of doing things the same way over and over again.

In monogamous relating, having more than one partner is not an option, and so any such relating that occurs, happens in secret. We all know just how common affairs are in monogamous relationship. By affair I mean intimate, and most often sexual, relating with another or others than one's official partner. In fact, in many cultures it is almost expected that men in monogamous relationship have undisclosed affairs. The dishonesty of secret affairs weakens our spiritual power.

Polyamory's gifts for men

Having more than one lover can force a man to feel. Women tend to be more expressive of their emotions, and thus having more than one women in his life is likely to as such confront man more with his emotional life. On top of this, as we have seen, open relationship is likely to raise all our most vulnerable emotions. If we don't have a safely closed container for relating, then the sharing of love, sex and intimacy can expose us to feeling abandonment, rejection, betrayal and many other states that we have tried our whole life long not to feel. The opportunity to finally be so overwhelmed by these states that man can no longer avoid feeling them can be one of the greatest gifts for him.

Polyamory can bring change and unpredictability. Having multiple partners makes it so much more difficult to fall into comfortable habits of relating. The feminine principle in her essence is like wind and water - constantly bringing change and surprise. So having more than one woman in his life will bring more of this quality into a man's life. This is excellent for shaking up his awareness.

Polyamory can encourage a man to become impeccable. One of the reasons why men fear having more than one lover is because they are scared of the reactions they will get from one lover if they have been with another lover. Men are terrified of women's rage. On the one hand, this rage can be based on women's own unresolved emotional life. But on the other hand, when a woman has developed deep integrity in her own emotional life, she becomes very good at calling a man out when he is not being impeccable. Some years back, I let the wrath of the goddess descend on a lover of mine for this reason. I made it very clear to him that I celebrated the lovemaking that he had shared with another woman. What I didn't appreciate, was the sense of entitlement that I picked up in him. I saw him approach this woman with the air that all women are his for the picking, and this outraged me. He heard me and thanked me deeply for my seeing and for calling him to impeccability.

Polyamory's shadow for men

When men don't have the constraints of monogamy, they can become like kids in a candy store, wanting everyone. Here is another variation of the hungry ghost syndrome. The more women a man has, the more he wants. Note the language of possession and objectification that creeps in. It is possible for men to transfer the same possessive, objectifying attitude they felt towards one woman on to many women. In this way, polyamory can contribute to the continuing dishonoring of women by men by giving men a new justifying framework for avoiding deeply loving women.

This in turn results in relating with women becoming very shallow and only focused on pleasure and sexual gratification. As soon as the relating gets challenging, the man can be off somewhere else.

Having more than one woman in his life can result in men becoming unfocused and not practicing their capacity for commitment and seeing things through. This results in an essential weakening of the masculine.

Is polyamory the answer to monogamy's malcontents (or vice versa)?

It is tempting to think that we can resolve the shadow of one system (be it monogamy or polyamory) by switching to the opposite system. But doing this is just shifting focus from one side of a polarity to the other side of it, or focusing on one side of a coin to the other side of the coin. A coin is still a coin. The answer does not lie in your choice of relationship paradigm. The answer is in the awareness you bring to your relating.

Relationship versus relating. Osho distinguished between relationships - which implies that there is a 'you' and a 'me', that we are separate and can only be together through the ties of relationship - and relating, which is a movement of energy in space, with no fixed patterns forming. I like this distinction. The trouble with relationship forms - all relationship forms - is that they support the concept of separation, of the 'I' and the 'other' being separate and that our path to wholeness or oneness is through the temporary experience of uniting.

In monogamy, we try to make this uniting with one other a continuous, eternal experience. Some people succeed in having one partner for life. While this is a beautiful thing it can also keep people from the deeper truth, that they could be one with everything, not just the one beloved. Yes, (s)he represents that unity with existence as the beloved, but we can easily confuse the representation for the real thing, especially if it works. In polyamory, the temptation is to create this sense of unity by making sure that there is always someone to unite with without being restricted in our choice.

Follow your desire. It is essential in our relating, especially for women (because we are so used to not doing this) to follow our deepest desire. As you enter into this desire, you may find that there is a deeper desire hidden inside this one. And you may also encounter your greatest fears. Your desire will direct the shape of your relating, and that shape may change as you go deeper. So for instance, a man presented to me his desire to love me with total devotion. As I said yes to him, he found his devotion wanting to extend to other women. I felt into this and my desire was strongly supportive of him doing so.

And here comes the next lesson. Entering fully into our desires confronts us with our greatest fears. As this man opened his devotion to other women, strong fears came up that he would be demolished by women for letting his love flow to more than one of us. In facing me, he found this fear to be unfounded, and so he dropped deeper into the quality of the fear. This took him all the way to the ego's greatest fear - the fear that it will lose its separate identity. The more he feels what comes up when this fear arises, the more he moves through, and the more awake he becomes - in his being, and in his loving.

Back to yourself. The first principle to understand in relating is that our first and primary relationship is with ourselves. Everything that happens to us - every person we meet, every circumstance - is an opportunity to meet ourselves, feel everything we have denied, suppressed or judged in ourselves, and to return back home.

The gift of celibacy. I think it is healthy to adopt, to at least some degree, the attitude of celibacy. By dropping any attempt at fulfilling our desire for relationship outside, we are brought back to ourselves. If celibacy is a free choice and not a rule or a hard discipline we put onto ourselves, then it can help us come home. In my own life as a Tantrika, I have had significant periods without a lover, and these have served me well. Even as lovers enter my life, I find that the attitude of celibacy still pervades in me - not at all as a rejection of desire or of the other, but as a contentment and a gratitude for the fulfillment which I am already feeling in myself.

Masculine-feminine merging. The relationship practice that is central to my work and that of the Advait Tantraschool is deepening the relationship between your inner masculine and feminine. This principle applies no matter what your relationship or sexual orientation. In our essence, we are both masculine and feminine. Because we come into the world in male or female bodies, we tend to identify ourselves as male or female. Our opposite other we experience through the men in our lives (for women) or the women in our lives (for men). They hold for us the mirror of the other, and our task is to pull back the projection of the other that we have on them and clearly see the other as an aspect of ourselves. By developing the dialogue between our inner masculine and feminine, we can deepen the inner relationship. The ultimate goal is the merging of masculine and feminine in us, but that cannot happen until both our masculine and feminine, and the relationship between them, is strongly developed.

Back to the Self. When the masculine and feminine merge in us, we return to the one Self. We no longer identify ourselves as separate beings. And existence as such becomes the Beloved. We find the beloved everywhere. This is the state that Rumi talks about. It is one thing talking about this state, and it is another to fully embody the reality of it, the way Rumi did. Our relationships are reminder or the big love affair that there is to be had with Existence as such. When we give ourselves fully to this love, then the separate I disappear, and love is all that remains - without needing any definitions, structures or frameworks.

Reflections of a Scottish Student

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 08:35:00 +0000

What a treasure Shakti Malan’s visit to Scotland has been. As many can attest to, Scotland is a hardcore place ~ the climate, the history and the land provide the perfect training ground for kamikaze and renegade seekers. There is so much cultural, religious and historical conditioning to push through here, that it really calls forth the craziest, toughest and wildest of us to be fully visible in tantric practice whilst opening to the perpetual risk of getting mobbed. And even then, most of us are still terrified in one way or another… it’s a truth that witch-hunts still happen although they aren’t actually allowed to stake us anymore, which is some consolation I suppose.

Like other places around the world, there is currently a process of Dakini-activation taking place here, and it’s akin to the explosive timing mechanism kicking off in a sleeper cell. Lifetimes of acquired training and intensive initiation have led to the inevitable moment when our skillful means and capacity to facilitate profound transformation is activated as our true offering to the world. But it’s not an easy or pleasant process. For many of us, opening to Dakini practice is in alignment with our deepest core calling and purpose, yet it is also the moment that many of us have been in denial and avoidance of throughout most of our adult life. And this is partially because of the above…

Basically, I’m sharing these sentiments because it takes courage and awareness to call forth courage and awareness… And this is why we needed Shakti Malan in Scotland.

It’s been clear to me for some time that the work of the Advait Tantra School in South Africa and Totality Practice is really some of the most profound tantric transformation work being offered right now. Worldwide, there is an exotic array of schools, teachers, practices and approaches available within the tantric field but my experience of some of these has been that they either work bottom up, i.e. saturated in the pleasure body and sexual exploration and play, or top down, i.e. awareness cultivation and pure consciousness development through lineage-alignment, guru-yoga and deep meditative ritual and retreat. Totality Practice would appear to bite the heads of both to consume one big, fat juicy mouthful. So, for a gritty Scottish seeker that basically shares the motto ~ ‘this life or bust’, Shakti’s visit was pure manna.

I participated in both of Shakti’s workshops, although my initial interest was in the work connected to releasing sexual trauma. But it became clear very quickly that I needed to say yes to all the transmissions Shakti could offer, so I participated in her Beloved workshop also.

I have worked a lot with my polarities over the years and have (or so I thought) a strong, healthy, defined relationship with my inner male and female as the Beloved and didn’t feel a particular light towards the content of this workshop.
So, what a surprise it was for me to experience ultra-expanded, full-being, multi~orgasms with in the first hour. Huh! I cracked open to the Divine so profoundly that the experience completely blew the lid of what I previously knew as Bliss. This maybe the norm for some tantric adepts but it’s not in my world. Like many people coming from a rich spiritual background, I am actually only just embodying for the first time in this life. I’ve spent most of my years disincarnate through intense esoteric spiritual practice and a good dose of body-shock trauma. Like a lot of Tantrikas, my sexual history has been challenging to say the least, including experience of rape, abuse, violent and wounded lovemaking and emotional incest. Of course, I’ve done a lot of work with this material and I’m eventually learning that the locale of wound is actually where the treasure resides, and that the process of claiming treasure is not about healing, but rather reintegration of the pained body-mind into Awareness.

Throughout the day, this initial process led me deep into complexities playing out between my male and female energies, mirrored shockingly accurately through out my life and outer relationships. These revelations enabled transformation to literally insert itself through the connect to the Beloved within.

But for me, the second day was where I really went off the map. Shakti specializes in work related to the release of sexual trauma but in truth it is actually centered on our centre. In other words, this is serious solar plexus work with it’s innate connect to our sexual centre. At least, that was the emphasis for our group and perfectly so. And the journey I embarked on with this work has exemplified it to be one of the most profound, courageous and powerful modalities I have encountered.

For me, this involved deep stimulation within the sexual-psyche and the related cataclysmic imprints created within the body-mind. However, what makes this work so effective is that Awareness is activated and brought the whole way through into the physical, rather than stunting within the realms of subtle body and mental processing: the elegance of which is that there are no allowances or short cuts for spiritual bypassing when the body is fully engaged and present. I would add here though that this process of stimulating and reliving deep trauma through the body is extreme work, and it is advisable to care appropriately for one’s self in the days following such an experience. I needed gentleness, grounding and support for over a week before I was able to come up from my depths for air. But everyone is different…

My experience of Shakti is that she is strongly rooted in her corporeal and sexual centre. Yet, she also embodies deep, authentic conscious Awareness. And this is what makes this caliber of work possible, and provides the container for others to travel far within the wounded body-mind and access body-shock and emotional trauma so that reintegration can begin to take place. These dark places of pain are akin to opening Pandora’s Box and can often be terrifying. But the skilled practice of inserting and anchoring pure awareness transforms wounds into the true treasure that they are. Through this process, the medicine available from the wound is fully ingested and is able to finally nourish the entirety of the being.

In many ways it is difficult to articulate this level of work. It is clear that Shakti draws from the immense richness of her own life experience, and that she has spent years in intense self-enquiry and deep exploration within her own totality practice. But this work is also beyond training. This is authentic Dakini medicine. It is part of her incarnate purpose and her core offering. And that’s not something that can be taught. It is literally inherent, and Shakti is basically coded to offer this practice. Simultaneously, you will also encounter a very human, compassionate woman who is ready in each moment to surrender to deeper truth, to greater awareness and to simple humility.

For me, working with Shakti is the wonder of opening to a moment that changes everything! I feel graced because I approached Shakti in my ripeness. I was ready ~ ready to get naked, ready to enter my treasure chest of pain, ready to follow my eroticism into my deepest wounds, ready to blow the lid of my known bliss-body, and ready to bring all this back into myself, into totality and anchor it with expanded Awareness. Thank you Sister. Thank you.

With Love… Annu Tara

17/06/11

Travel blog California June-July 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 07:48:00 +0000

California, my California

This skydancing dakini is writing to you from a gloriously spacious Air France boeing, with three seats free next to me holding the promise of a much needed mid-air nap a while later. I'm taking off from San Francisco International - so far the friendliest, most no-fuss airport I have passed through on this never-ending journey. Tomorrow night, having crossed twelve time zones, I will land in Moscow for the next venture in to the unknown. Moscow - I am landing in a country where people are locked up for not having the correct passport details, and all I know is that a lady in black wearing a purple flower will pick me up at the airport. I have tried my best to copy my address in Moscow in Russian script and hope I won't be thrown in jail because I didn't get it right! I'm teaching in Moscow the next couple of weeks with Dan Brule and then the two of us, with our fabulous organizer and translator Luba, will be off to Almaty Kazakhstan, for an 8 day Tantra and Breathwork training there. That is, of course, if I manage to get a visa in. First preparations done, having bought, at great expense, a letter of invitation to Kazakhstan from the Ministry. I am so excited to meet the people of the USSR. Looking at the texture of my life, it feels like of God/dess was embodied, (s)he must have a huge sense of mirth and fun.

So you can hear that I am joyful and excited. My time in California has been exquisite - and I can do with about a month's catching up on sleep. But before I got there, a most delicious interlude: 10 days in my own kingsize bed on Hawaii Big Island, spending my days communing with sea turtles, spinner dolphins and manta rays in the most magnificently clear blue water. It's a fascinating experience, climbing over the molten lava rock, which is what most of the island consists of, and then diving into this tranquil expanse of wild aquatic delight, right off my hotel room. I drank in the sun and the ocean, and slowly started unwinding from a terrific and immensely hard working time in the UK. I'm glad I planned the break, I absolutely needed this time of emptiness and enjoyment, surrounded by frangipanis and filled with gentleness, before heading off to California.

California, where a slightly strange feathered creature like me can feel right at home. California, where I get invited to do a talk on Conscious BDSM in a beautiful dungeon parlor, and the room is so packed that most people have to stand while listening to me. California, where being queer is the norm and gay men are keen to get taught tantra by a woman. California where you can eat gourmet raw food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, almost from the corner shop. California, where the redwood trees become adolescents when they are 500 years old. California, where hot tubs on ocean cliffs and nudist natural springs are just part of the rhythm of constant creation. But I get ahead of myself. Back to the beginning.

Last year June/July on my visit to the West Coast of the USA I met three beautiful people: Claire Rumore, Laurel and Soullove/Stephen Feig. Claire and Laurel took on the adventure of coming to Africa for the December Sexuality and Consciousness Conference as well as the trainings that followed. We shared deeply in the rocky hills of the Cederberg, and the two of them took it upon themselves to organize an extensive event schedule for my visit to California this year July. Soullove, an experienced organizer, added his advise and expertise. Finally, after months of planning, the days arrived. So much delight happened for me in this time. I'll pick up some themes to share with you here.

(Ah, the waitress has just come around with a glass of French champagne for me. How can I resist?)

Exploring Eros

My first talk in Oakland (which would be my home for most of the stay here) was on the Subtle Energetic of Eros. The talk is focused on a theme that my South African students will by now be quite familiar with, namely that a conscious exploration of our eroticism (sexual fantasies) can be a potent way of integrating suppressed material from our unconscious. After a month of exploring this theme in various forums with many participants, it is clear to me that this aspect of working with sexuality is not much understood or addressed in the wide-ranging Tantra teachings that can be found in California. The more I facilitate such explorations, the more I realize that it requires great skill and awareness of the facilitator to guide participants through this murky but immensely potent terrain. I am met with enthusiasm by a group of beautiful people, and my being smiles in anticipation.

The next day - Sunday afternoon - I present a talk on Conscious BDSM. This turns out to be one of the most delightful events of my stay. I had suggested this theme to Claire after receiving an intuitive message to do talk on this theme. So here I am, all dressed in tight black with the red leather boots my graceful mom gave me, walking into the most elegant dungeon I have seen so far. The potential of this place (the attachments to the steel bed hidden behind drapes, the tools that can come out of the dentist chair, the ropes and whips) to be a temple of pain is subtly disguised under tasteful elegance. We eat delightful snacks while waiting for the masses to flood in. The gorgeous female owners of the dungeon (thelookinglass.com) tell me afterward that my talk far exceeded in numbers the interest that any previous speakers (even some of the biggest names in the California BDSM scene) has drawn. I watch in fascination. I am deeply aware that I know nothing of the life of a dominatrix the way it is practiced by most professionals, and yet I know that I have found a way to use this modality as a gateway to consciousness, and that I have something to share.

And as I open my mouth, what I am to say starts revealing itself. I describe how I use petitions to solicit the true desire behind the client's fantasy. I show how I identify the polarities acting out in their psyches, and how I utilize psychological interrogation to get the client right into the dark and hidden corners of their psyches that their fantasy is calling them to feel deeply. I share case studies of how working in this way, with minimal tools and maximum emotional effect, my BDSM sessions have resulted in a radical unwinding of clients' polarized ego structures (including complete curing of deep survival fears and premature ejaculation problems). The audience participates with wisdom, dexterity and interest while challenging me on the edges my talk presents: What about people who just enjoy the lifestyle of BDSM? In my talk I had made it clear that I guide people into their fantasies to get them through it. I am very aware of my audacity in walking into a dungeon and suggesting that this genre of fantasy may be a temporary delight, a gateway rather than a destination. As I share my concern in the debrief with my team afterward, Soullove looks at me and says: Shakti, the Audacity of you! This starts off a months of me beginning to delight in the freedom of being Audacious and challenging in California, in the friendliest way possible. My answer to the question: Once the obsession has been resolved in the unconscious, any genre of eroticism become just simply pat of our range.

Despite my Audacity, the crowds line up after the talk to thank me and to book sessions. I get interesting emails from some who want to know just how enlightened I am, and from others who want to talk about their journey into enlightenment through kink. A short while later, the Dark Eros conference happened on the East Coast. I didn't go, but heard from a dom who had been at my talk and then at the conference, where the extreme explorations of that conference had taken her in her consciousness.

I am remembering now a gondola ride that Claire initiated for us on Lake Merrit in Oakland. The delightful gondolier tells us that his question to customers often is: What has been the most fascinating experience of your career? Once he asked this question, he said, to a woman who turned out to be a sex worker. She insisted on giving him graphic details about some of the strangest experiences she has had with clients. The rest of us in the gondolier, who are all working with sexuality in some unusual way, are silently giggling as we wait for him to ask what we do. As if by agreement, we ask him in stead to tell us what his strangest experience was, and he recounts a gondola ride in which his passengers were two 13 year olds. As he was ready to start sharing with them the history of the lake, on3 13 year old told him in no uncertain terms to shut up, and then they ducked out and started 'making out' in front of him on the gondolier. By the end of the ride, the gondolier, had received four simple steps from me on the journey towards Tantric lovemaking (yes, he did manage to ascertain our professions): 1. Relax your bum (and everything else). 2.) Make a buddha belly (yes this is sexy!) and breathe into it. 3) Feel and 4) try your best to Enjoy! The gondolier was furiously memorizing the steps as we said goodbye.

The Rippling Blue Flame

Having explored the deep dark delicious of eros, I invite participants at various events to explore with me the subtle energetics of our sexuality. My basic teaching here is that our sexuality naturally wants to be a force for awakening, lighting and opening up our chakras (energy centers) as it moves up from the genitals all the way to the crown of the head. Why is this not most people's experience? Because our sexual response is governed by the unintegrated unconscious, and because we tighten into our sexual energy in stead of relaxing into its awakening potency. in Fairfax, Marin county, amidst the redwoods of Northern California, a take a group of people (mostly young and very willing men) onto a journey of experiencing this Tantric orgasmic energy as it wakes up in us. Over dinner later (in a delightful rawfood restaurant) one of the participants shares his awed experience of feeling this deep, awakening flow of sexual energy taking on a life of its own in his relationship with his best beloved partner.

The orgasmic energy that Tantra works with is what I call the Rippling Blue Flame. It is different from the hot fire of eroticism, in that it is not fueled by excitement. It is deep and permeating, like a smoldering fire that can burn for a long, long time. It savors every moment, it hisses deeper into pleasure, and it ripples over the skin, permeating every fiber of our beings. It is deeply silent and yet potently awakening. I talk about his topic in Santa Cruz with a group of beautiful yogis watching me in perfect lotus position. I notice a slight stirring in the composure when I demonstrate, fully clothed but in yub yum (a Tantric position where the woman sits in the man's lap), how this rippling blue flame can be awakened simply through conscious breathing. There is nothing like a public display of orgasmic energy to bring the message home.

Beloved

Very close to my heart is the work of meeting and developing a relationship with this inner beloved - that is, the dance of masculine feminine integration in us. We have a whole day, 10 am to 8pm, in San Rafael Marin County to dive deeply into this topic. Open Bookstore, the fabulous venue, gives us a room packed with buddhas, Marias, winged dragons, mandalas, stone lingams and other sacred objects to do our work for the day. As the day continues, we immerse more and more deeply into each person's journey of seeing how their outer relationship mirror their inner relationships, and deepening the latter. This is intense work, but the realizations can be profound and life changing. For me, all work on relationship begins here.

Awakening Female Sexual Energy

Many years ago when I received the clear message that my task to is to be dakini, I also was told that the question my work will explore is "what it means to be a woman". This topic has become a great passion of mine, and I am in the final stages of editing my book "Sexual Awakening for Women: A Tantric Workbook". I love exploring the essence of female sexuality with women, so it is with great delight that I take on this journey with a beautiful group of women one Monday in Oakland. I would say the essence of what reveals here is how just letting to of outcome and performance is required, and just how much is to be dropped for us to become aware again of the subtle, exquisite flower of our female sexuality. Some weeks later I am invited to present a talk for the women of the Oneness university in San Francisco. What a beautiful gathering of bright eyed beauties of all ages and walks of life. I walk in half dazed from a massive process that was still waking its way through my body: Without any warning a few days earlier, a process from the collective made its way through my body. I developed high fever and then felt as if hundreds of men were kicking me in the guts for being a woman, being sexual and having desire. It was as if I was feeling all the degradation and humiliation of patriarchy bestowed on female sexuality, all at once. Medically, my body was showing the symptoms of heavy food poisoning, but I had only eaten vegetables the previous day, and the process took a week to clear from my body. So I walked in to the gathering, and felt the spirit of the moment fill me with energy, to talk clearly about the journey of patriarchy through which we have come, and to encourage the women strongly to take seriously the message, that it is time for our female sexuality to wake up again, and for us to find the courage to embrace and trust our desire once more. Nobody wants to leave after the talk, and it is clear that the women are awaiting my return next year, to go deeper with the women's work. I am planning to come with copies of my book, and to run a longer workshop that will introduce women to ways of starting women's circles supporting this work. I am also already sponsored to do a women's workshop in Santa Barbara next year.

The sweet mystery of private sessions

I feel so graced and blessed by the vulnerable and intimate sharings that people brought to me in the many sessions I have done in California. When people enter into sessions, they share with me things about themselves that they have never shared with others. It is like diving in under the skin, to where the heart beats like the tender strings of a violin. The themes are many and varied: angelic young women desperately trapped in sexual remoteness that is caused by unresolved relationships with their dads, men who were emotionally abandoned by their parents and left to fend for themselves, couples working through the tricky terrains of illusions that develop in our habits of relating, older women finally waking up to the wonder of their bodies. I work with Californians who grew up with rules against anything that is not hip and alternative, Midwesterners coming from rather severely fundamentalist social paradigms (where God will come down and punish those who transgress the subtlest of social rules), Orientals who are finding their way in a new country while traversing the rigid social mores that they were raised with.

I am enjoying the unraveling of my own work. The more I surrender to this work, the more I become aware of the power of subtlety, of slowing down, of doing less, of listening more, of giving space for what is there, rather than imposing or even presenting methods or tools that impress the mind but do not respond deeply to the being who is presenting him/herself to me.

I work with many women who are occupied in the many genres of sex work that the Bay area offers. One session moves me particularly strongly. The client has been a sex worker most of her life, and her motivation is that she loves sex, and feels that she can deeply serve the men who visit her through her loving of them. She tells me tales about some of her clients, and I feel as I listen to her how Mother Theresa sometimes comes dressed up in gaiters rather than nun's robes. She loves with her body men who have been shattered through the killing they have done in service of the US marines. She takes into her home women who have been drugged, serially raped for weeks and almost left for dead as they got conned into the wrong side of the sexwork world. She councils sex workers who have seen and experienced horrible things. And all she needs from me, really, is to be able to talk to someone who can listen to the stories of her life without being traumatized or sink into deep judgment. I hold her in my arms and cover her with sistery love. Listening to what she has experienced, I am grateful that I have developed a strong witness and that I have explored so many of the edges of my own emotional life. There is grace and ease in being able to take it all in and let it move through.

I wonder about the term sex worker. In the sex positive communities of the Bay area, people claim the term sex worker as a way of celebrating that they work directly with people's sexual selves. I like this, and I can see how in this sense I am also a sex worker. In the unraveling of patriarchy, which seems to be a theme that moves through my tracking the feminine today, I feel into where we are holding onto the shadow archetype of the sex worker: The belief that as women, our worth in the world is dependent on what we can offer to men, mainly sexually. And I see that one of the ways through this age old belief is to shift the tables, and realize, like the sacred sexual priestesses of patriarchy, that our sexuality is a gateway to the divine, and to the mysterious essence of love.

Going Total with Totality Therapy

This past weekend I did the virgin cruise of teaching Totality Therapy to others. Totality Therapy (totalitytherapy.com) is the modern-idiom name that I have given to the way we have interpreted Tantra in our school (tantraschool.co.za). Totality for me means being 100% committed to living your life to the full, feeling everything, avoiding nothing, and ultimately, waking up to the truth of who we really are. Throughout our lives, we learn to suppress and avoid emotions and sensations that are shocking, overwhelming or disagreeable. The unfortunate consequence is that we shut our hearts down to half of life's experiences (and thus our love becomes very conditioned and our hearts divided) and that we keep a lot of energy trapped in the unconscious. The purpose of Totality Therapy is to a) catalyze and activate the experience of what we have avoided and suppressed, b) facilitate the integration and processing of the emotions and processes that reveal as we open pandora's box and c) deepen our capacity for bliss, or pure presence in the body. Read the website for a full description.

So here we are in Claire's beautifully feng sue'd house in Oakland, a circle of 18 men and women (neatly gender balanced in our numbers), ready to dive in. Having been put on a 3 day sexual fast, the participants now get given champagne and encouraged to come out with their deepest darkest most delicious erotic fantasies. It takes us a full, and riveting, day to hear everyone's fantasies. Even just in the sharing of them, the articulating of what is there, powerful processes get catalyzed. As one person shares a fantasy that involves violence, a woman in the group spontaneously starts going into a trauma response in her body. I guide her into the experience and find her resistance: She wants to present herself as composed, and is mortified to be seen shaking like this. As I guide her through this, it becomes clear to me that she needs to be held down by the men in the room. So I call all those who had some desire to dominate women in their fantasies, and ask them first to just hold her down firmly, and then (once she starts to move into the resistance, and clearly starts accessing the eros in this) to let themselves also enjoy the contact with her. Almost miraculously, we watch as a scene that started off as an enactment of victimhood turn into a scene of pleasure. Two themes emerge here: One is the process of identifying and moving through our identification with the victim triangle, and another is that, underneath the men's fantasies to overwhelm women with force, is actually a deep desire to penetrate woman with deep devotion and total dedication, with all of their masculinity.

In the course of the three days, many exquisite processes unfold in the room. While I was in California a friend sent me a link to his most precious erotica find so far: Alice in Wonderland - the ex-rated version. Watch it, it is delightful. And so in summary I can say, all of us on the course took what was in the bottle that said "drink this", entered through the door into the Wonderland of our sexuality, and discovered magical, strange and wonderful things about the real and the unreal. By facing our resistance to being total with experience in the area of the sexual, we freed up so much energy in our lives. Though the doorway may have appeared sexual, it was clear that the liberation that followed went deep into all areas of consciousness.
I found myself deeply inspired and at times channeling discourses that the participants asked me to write down (I will attempt to do this, and also plan to get myself a dictaphone). It feels like this work wants to grow in the world. And thus I announce: Totality Therapy is going www, and worldwide. This September, I will be presenting the 3 day Totality Therapy Intro training in London, and then, aiming to go live 2 February 2012, a dedicated group of students will launch into a 14 month Totality Therapy Training program with me. This training will be internet based (weekly lessons with homework explorations, chat forums to share experiences, teleconferences, video course material and Skype sessions with me) and include a 10 day residential in California next year June/July. I am so excited, and delighted to have Claire behind me encouraging and directing me to make this training happen. If I could wave a magic wand, I would turn her into my PA and have her travel to world to me to organize everything from my email lists to being able to have phone conversations through my car speakers. I never cease to be awed by her practical suss. She also took me to meet Moses of OneTantra.com - a wonderman on the internet and patron of all things Tantric. Between him and other friends who know this field, I am confident that my non- techie self will have the advice and support I need to make this project happen. I do realize that there is one key ingredient to this project that needs attention: Finding the time to write up the course. Some plans for such time to manifest is being pondered as I write.

Personal and professional delights

One of the professional delights of my time in California is that much of what I did here got professionally filmed and/or audio recorded. Some of this material will make its way on to youtube as clips on topics such as masculine-feminine integration and working with eros, and some of it will become part of course material for the internet based training program that I am developing. Then also delightful was being filmed and interviewed by Priscilla whose multi-continent internet-based film project Ssexbox is an exploration of sexuality in all its varied forms. Priscilla got me, deeply, she felt the way sexual energy runs through me, encouraged and applauded my tracking of how social and cultural collectives have manipulated our perceptions of sex, and got me to to share quite intimate personal views on sexuality, relationships and being dakini. I am looking forward to this program going live next year, and will also find ways to get the footage she gave me go selectively and appropriately onto my own www channels.

In my time in California I presented two BlissDances, and found the experience funkily fabulously delightful. Walking into a room with serene dreadlocked muscled African American men striding amidst long-haired, feather decked women stretching into their bodies in all their creative possibilities, my body gives a sigh of delight, and I feel the dance begin of its own accord. I watch the surprise in the dancers as the dance gradually alters from high-energy movement to contact that challenges our body armoring and associations about connecting with the body of the other. And I delight, of course, in feeling the sweet melting during the water dance. It works, every time. In Oakland, the bodies descend into a pile of delight, floating in the soft silence of the moment for a long, meditative breath of bliss. A long, long timeless silently delightful breath.

And I get to have my own dance kicks exploring what is out there. Next time I want more time for me to go out and play, as most of my time was occupied so I didn't get to go to the 10 day dance camp, the 5 day Contact Improvisation Conference and the ongoing Tango Milongas that were all happening right on my doorstep. But I did get to go to two Ecstatic Dance classes, and ah! What a delight. The setup is simple in some ways. The organizers hold a ritual sacred space with a big altar, spaces on the side for massage, stretching and meditation, and close the dance with an honoring chant. The DJ in front spins the disks into a deeper and deeper journey of ecstatic dance. The rules of ecstatic dance are, move however you will, and be mindful of those you dance with. In the first dance, I find myself in a multidimensional entanglement with a small chinese man who clearly knows the ways of slow delicious martial arts, and so can roll under and through my body with graceful ease, picking me up and placing me down in another wonderland journey of delight. This is like going to a large church on Sunday morning - the church of ecstasy and love shared in unconditional dance.

Ah, the rawfood. One of the best treats of California, is Cafe Gratitude. Imagine a restaurant where you can walk in and pick up ready-made gourmet raw-food gluten-free sandwiches made with coconut, veggies, sprouted seeds, hut cheeses, raw hummus and guacamole. I more or less lived off this food until my graceful hostess Claire would suggest I perhaps explore a bit wider what San Francisco has to offer. The delight of Cafe Gratitude is also in the Attitude. I remember a dinner with friends in San Rafael's Cafe Gratitude, where we end up having a long soulful conversation with the beautiful waitress who brought us the question of the day: What do you want to be acknowledged for today? Another night at this restaurant, while eating raw pizza, I initiated a detailed conversation about people's experiences of threesomes. To be able to have such conversations in a small intimate restaurant, and all is perfectly accepted and welcome - what delight.

The men in California are beautiful. I have felt so deeply met by them, and acknowledged. It feels good to be seen, felt, enjoyed and honored. I miss and love the beautiful men who dance in my world in South Africa, and it feels somehow deeply nourishing to be met more and more by the masculine in all his fullness. I feel that the world is changing, and that soon, maybe very soon, our world will be ready to do the dance of male female relating in a whole new way: Women standing proud in the full glow of their sexuality, ready to lead through their blissful surrender, and men in one pointed focus devoted to the feminine, skillfully acting from the greater wisdom that arises thus. I recall a mystically beautiful moment on a beach in Northern California where a man met me with the love and devotion that I imagine Christ felt for Mary Magdalene. To live in a world where such gestures are known and encouraged, that makes my cells zing with wonder.

And then, beloveds, as I started my story about the USA in the ocean, I think I will end it with my visits to natural waters in California. Esalen, ah Esalen. Those rocks of California jutting into the wild ocean rise the passion in me. I want to open up that spirit of the wild in people, and I feel how this environment can catalyze that. And then in blissful contrast, there are the hot tubs on the cliffs where you can float for hours (in hot natural sulphur water) gazing over the ocean and, if you wish, floating with other naked bodies. And there is Esalen massage on the deck, overlooking the ocean, naked in the sun if you want, and an umbrella ready to bring the shade whenever you are ready for coolness. Esalen is a proud establishment where many of the world's best teachers have taught and developed their practices. My dream is to teach here one day, and I look forward to presenting a proposal to the management there, perhaps next year on my visit to California. More water: Floating in a hot tub with friends in Santa Cruz, drinking tea out of tiny cups while looking out over the bamboo fields beyond. Dipping in the wild oceans of Esalen, Santa Cruz and Marin. Soaking all night long in the Hot Springs of Harbin, the home of my beloved Quantum Light Breath meditation.

And so over the oceans I fly, ready to meet another continent on this continuing magical journey. My gratitude to all of you who are supporting me through your thoughts and your love. I feel deeply called to do this work and to take this journey, wherever it may lead, and I feel the powerful rightness of it. I am, as you can hear, excited about what is unfolding in the world, and I am much looking forward to my return to California, which feels like it will become a beautiful second home for me.

Scotland: Tantric witches and dancing merlins

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:23:00 +0000

Scotland, what a surprise you are. I am sitting in a gorgeous stone church in Glasgow, having Scottish salmon for dinner. Downstairs, men are enjoying a pint. A gold bicycle is tied to the railing of the church building. And the roof of this temple-restaurant is gold.

I am talking to a priest from the Church of Scotland who believes that Merlin was the heralder, the bard of the goddess in Scotland. He finds it his mission to introduce the wild wisdom of this ancient druid back into the spirit loins of Scotland - through movement and sound. A dancing priest with silver hair, participating fully and with glee in my workshop on Releasing Sexual Trauma. In my introduction to this workshop, I mention that often our cultural and religious conditioning contributes to the suppression and distortion of our sexual energy. Each participant introduces themselves, and the priest says: "I am a cleric from the church, and therefore one of those who cause sexual abuse in this country." What delightful frank - and slightly disconcerting - honesty.

I am surprised, honestly surprised, by the depth to which the group work in Scotland went. A few nights ago, Glasgow had its first taste of BlissDance. After two hours of dancing, I close the circle and put on a piece of funky Latin music just for fun. And finally, the group wakes up and begins to jive. A tall skinny farmer in black long-johns and with long black hair falling over his well-wrinkled face explains this to me: "This is Scotland, my dear. We are on the same latitude as the North Pole. We take long to thaw".

But boy oh boy, do the Scots thaw when you give them the opportunity.

Saturday's workshop is called Beloved. It's an exploration of the relationship between our inner masculine and feminine, as mirrored by our outer relationships. In the build-up to this event, Gillian, my gorgeous hostess, speculates that people feel some resistance to the topic. Who wants to believe that there is a beloved within if in stead we could hold on to the dream of finding the perfect beloved outside? And yet, as the day comes closer, more and more people submit to the call of truth. We have a lovely group in the thick carpeted cozy yoga room for the day.

By the end of the day, the group looks very wide-eyed. A young German man finds is still incredulous at how is outer relationship dynamics present a direct mirror of his inner tendencies. Three young women are elated and astounded about by the discoveries they have made about their relationship with the inner beloved. One lovely woman from South America is crying with joy; she has found her father, at last - inside herself. When I see her a couple of days later, she shares with me how this discovery has radically transformed her relationship with her partner, as she now no longer need to project father on to him.

Sunday, I facilitate Scotland's releasing sexual trauma workshop. The cultural dynamics here are similar to those in England, but perhaps just more heavy and directly connected to ancestral patterns. The country is strongly influenced by religion, and there is much shame about sexuality. Here too, various versions of incest seem to be common, and also neglect of children by parents who struggled to keep food on the table or for whom alcohol became a lifestyle.

What surprises me is the depth to which the groups take the work. There are some really committed seekers here, and some of them have been traveling the world in search of new perspectives on the truth. The other factor is that there is a strong sense of community here. Gillian is the organizer of Sacred Heart Tantra Meet-up in Glasgow (see wee.meetup.com/Sacred-Heart/Tantra. Also present is James who orchestrates Awaken Scotland, an innovative project involving a bi-monthly 'conscious nightclub for the senses that happens, can you believe it, in a church hall in Edinburgh. Check out www.awakeningscotland.com.

But apart from these specific initiatives that create a social context for me to step in to with my work, there is also a general sense of friendship and sharing. Gillian was an astounding hostess. I hardly had time to think about a need I may have - from fixing a piece of clothing to tea in bed when I wake up - and she was there to provide. The warmth and generosity with which she gave to me was telling of the Scottish way.

The flair for social networking has gone 21st century for Amy Palko, who prides herself on having 5000 twitter followers, and being greeted in awe by fellow twitterers and monthly twitterer gatherings in Edinburgh. Never before have I had as many facebook mentions by people who attended my events as in Scotland. Thank you for the support, you rock Scotland!

And then there are the witches and the Merlins. They are powerful women and men who have inherited the spirit power of their Celtic mystical ancestry. Many years ago, I had an intense journey with my own witch heritage, that led me to Scotland, where I felt the pain of the witch hunt most intensely, and also the power of those women who were so accused. So they are not difficult for me to recognize. Red-headed Gillian and goddesswoman Amy run Reclaiming Delphi, which includes priestess gatherings and women's ceremonies at the equinoxes and the solstices. Also check out Gillian's private practice. And there are other women too - they are young, but they recognize the truth with fiery eyes, and they will scream into the face of what opposes the essence of love. Their consciousness is piercing and their love is fierce. They remember death and loss and betrayal. And they remember what they stood up for lifetime after lifetime. They are the women - and men - who will transform the world, when they become fully embodied again. This work I share with them, I know, is part of what will help them find their way back into fully trusting their embodied spirituality - their sexuality, and the truth of their desire, again.

So Scotland. Slow to start, but an exhiliratingly powerful yes once that fire is lit. At Glasgow airport on my way out of Scotland I find a magical massage chair. Feed it a pound and it starts to vibrate your perineum. Fellow travelers can't help but smile as they walk past. I put in another pound and have another three minutes of celebrating heaven on earth. This fire is lit, for sure.

Releasing Sexual Trauma

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 20:47:00 +0000

Releasing sexual trauma through Tantric practice

This article appeared in the Natural Medicine of June 2011.

It is remarkable how many people have had some traumatic experience around their sexuality. Typically such experiences leave the deepest imprint when they happened in childhood, but even more recent events can be so traumatic that they get suppressed into the subconscious. For us humans, this is most often what happens with our traumatic experiences: At the moment when the incident occurs, it feels like too much to process, and so we block or suppress the emotions and sensations felt. Very often, we even suppress the memory that such an event occurred, or lose our conscious memory of what the event meant for us.

What causes sexual trauma?

Our nervous systems can register sexual trauma from a wide range of experiences. Here are some:

Direct sexual invasions

This happens when a person’s genitals or anus get penetrated without his or her conscious consent. Such incidents can occur with strangers, such as a man luring a girl to him in a park. They can also occur with familiars such as family members or friends of family.

Sexual touch

Sexual touch, such as feeling the breasts of a woman, can be very traumatic if unwanted.

Non-sexual invasive touch

At any age, the body can register invasive experiences such as enemas or gynecological examinations as a sexual invasion and remember it as such.

Sexual innuendo

Sexual suggestions and associations can have a profound impact on a person’s psyche. An example is where a parent projects his unfulfilled sexual desires on to the child, and the child unconsciously takes responsibility for these feelings.

Emotional incest

When emotional relationships become inappropriately entangled, this can register in the body as sexual invasion. In energetic language, we talk about an invasion of the etheric or emotional body. Since this experience is so intimate, the body can remember it as sexual intimacy.

Response to sexual experience

Very often, the trauma is caused by someone else’s response to the person’s sexual experience. An example is when parents severely reprimand children for sexual exploration that happened quite innocently.

Signs of sexual wounding or trauma

As stated before, the memory of sexual trauma often goes unconscious in us; we forget that the event ever happened. What signs are there in our lives that may hint at a suppressed sexual memory? Here are some patterns associated with unconscious sexual trauma memory (please bear in mind though that these patterns are not definite indications of sexual trauma):

• Premature ejaculation for men

• Tight or dry vagina for women

• Extreme sensitivity or nervousness about intimacy (emotional, physical or sexual)

• Withdrawal from life

• Extreme shyness

• Compulsion to please, impress and perform

• Over-achievement, perfectionism and drivenness

• No sexual boundaries

• Intense projection on to partners

How unconscious experience becomes conscious

Our body-mind has ingenious ways to remind us of experiences that have been suppressed in us, or put away for later.

Body/ cellular memory

Whatever we have not fully experienced or integrated remains in our bodies as cellular memory. The body will remind us of what has not been properly felt. This can happen through body symptoms such as a tightening or over sensitivity of sexual organs. The body can also hold traumatic memory is through freezing, numbness, lack of sensitivity and coldness.

Associations in sexual life

Much of our sexual experience in relationship is associative. We come to associate one experience with another. For instance, many women experience any tenderness from their partners as a potential sexual approach, and so they freeze up immediately. Associations run deep and can be very primal.

Fantasies and taboos

Consciously working with erotic fantasies, especially those that involve taboos, can offer a gateway to releasing what is in the unconscious.

The wise body: trusting the nervous system

Our nervous system, as that of any animal, is structured in such a way that it can release trauma rapidly. When an animal runs away from danger or gets caught, the sympathetic nervous system get activated. This is our body’s “fight and flight” mechanism; it brings the organism to maximum alertness and focus. It the buck escapes, the animal will involuntarily start shaking. This is the parasympathetic nervous system taking over - the body’s system for relaxation and release.

We humans are the same as animals, except that we have conscious reasoning faculties. In a moment of crisis, our reasoning faculties will try to control, solve, change or suppress the experience rather than letting it pass through us. Consequently, we stay stuck in the “fight and flight” mode of contraction, tightening, freeze, over activity and over alertness. Especially “civilized” humans will hardly allow their bodies just to shake. Indigenous cultures like the San have shaking as a ritualized part of their dancing, since they intuitively sense how it frees the body-mind from its constrictions.

In a healthy nervous system, energy moves in a figure of eight from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system. The body is continuously moving between focus and relaxation, attention and release. It is possible to release sexual trauma from the body by supporting this natural flow in the body. This method has been developed in great refinement by Peter Levine, and is called Somatic Experiencing[1].

When trauma surfaces in a client’s body during a session, I support and guide the person to fully allow both the contraction and the shaking-release phase of the nervous system response. It is remarkable how rapidly the trauma memory releases from the body in this way. What it takes from the client is a deep commitment to awareness and willingness for energetic transformation.

Feeling your emotions

When trauma memories come up, either consciously or through the movements of the nervous system, this may open a flood of emotions. It is very necessary and healing to let yourself feel any emotions that surface.

Finding your NO

It is very important to find your “no” – to learn when something doesn’t feel good to you, and to say “no” to it. Practice saying “no” in a way that can be felt by others, and that sends out a clear signal. Be clear on where your “no” lies.

Finding your YES: Becoming embodied

People who have experienced sexual trauma often resist being fully embodied. Staying unaware of your body is a way of remaining in the “fight and flight”/freeze mode. It may feel familiar and therefore comfortable, but it doesn’t help you in the long run. Notice what happens if you start to move – stretch your body – dance – feel. Take time to gently explore new realms of experience for the body. The psychologist Wilhelm Reich[2] said that we try to protect ourselves from the outside world by creating body armoring. This armoring is a tactile and movement defensiveness that keeps us rigid and separate. Through gentle, loving, conscious movement you can move through these stuck energetic patterns and start to enjoy the bliss of being in a body again.

When you say yes to your body, you may find that unnecessary protection in the form of fat drops off. If you are too skinny, you are likely to gain weight and feel more vitality.

[1] Levine, Peter and Frederick, Anne. 1997. Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma : The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences. North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA

[2] Reich, Wilhelm. 1986. The function of the orgasm. Macmillan

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Tue, 31 May 2011 14:58:00 +0000

Shakti goes Cross-country England
31 May 2011

I am writing this first blog on my teaching travels for 2011 in the cross-country train between Salisbury and Glasgow. For the next seven hours, I will be watching the green fields and clearly lined hedges of the English-Scottish countryside go by. For the next three months, I will be experiencing the world and traversing great distances, from the UK to Hawaii, California and Portland, and then to Russia and Kazakhstan.

Right now in front of me, at this little table where I am writing, sits a traveler whose eyes look just like that of the floppy long-eared dog at this feet (the dog is a bit more friendly).

A countryside visit with my mom

My time in the UK started with a visit to my mother in Sydenham village, Northhamptonshire There is just nothing on earth like mother love - the best place to land. We traveled up to Norfolk on the East coast where the ocean is filled with crabs and the wetlands teeming with birds. My mom loves this place dearly and it is delightful to share it with her - long ocean walks on a sunny but cuttingly cold coastline. During this weekend visit, two dear friends and fellow tantrikas, Caronne Harford and Dave Eadie, passed away. I was stricken with grief and opened to deeper surrender. Eros and Tanatos - love and death - they touch us so profoundly.

Brighton - deep healing and digital dharma

Then off to Brighton, the brightest seaside town of England, known as the little San Francisco of this county. If I had to choose a place in England to live, this would be it. Daytime, the parks are filled with students in funky colourful short-suits and boots having picnics between visits to the Brighton music, dance and drama festival that was on during my visit. At night, the streets fill up with handsome gay couples in tight black gear and groups of girls with skimpy dresses and black horns. I am astounded by the British relationship with summer: As soon as the first bright days appear, women start to wear thin sleeveless dresses, even if the temperatures outside are closer to 10 degrees celsius. The idea of summer seems to be enough to keep them warm.

My work in Brighton started at 120 miles an hour. Saraha, my graceful hostess, picked me up at the bus station and ushered me into the meditation room in her house just in time for the first session she had booked for me. During the four days I spent in Brighton, I did 20 hours of sessions - 7 hours on Saturday, and 8 hours on Sunday. Marathon! The work was deeply moving. I did a tremendous amount of trauma release work, here and in London. This focus was probably because of my youtube clip on sexual trauma, and also because this was the topic of my talks and one workshop.

It feels like such a privilege these sessions - people from another country sharing with me their most intimate, most vulnerable experiences. Often, they had never shared with anyone before the way they did with me.

For many if not most of those I worked with, that which later became sexual trauma started with parents who were incapable of providing the emotional support and/or physical affection that a child needs. Yearning for this physical-emotional expression of love, the children sometimes find something like it in sexual encounters - sometimes encounters with siblings, often with men or women whose age or manner promise something of the mother or father they are yearning after.

Sometimes our sessions go to direct trauma release work - emotions start the contraction-release cycle between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. I encourage the completion of these trauma-release cycles by keeping the client's attention on their body responses and by vigilantly checking thoughts that habitually take them into dis-incarnating or suppressing this releasing response.

Another category of work that I do a lot on this journey is masculine-feminine dialogue, helping clients to see how unhealthy parental role models have become internalized and are resulting in a very unhappy marriage between their inner masculine and feminine. Sometimes clients feel pure hate towards their parents. This hate is usually a cover-up for a deep love and desperate longing for that parent who never was there for the child. When the client can acknowledge that love that the child felt, and the internalized parent can accept it and return that love, deep healing happens.

The man in front of me on the coach just left, to the great distress of the dog. Here he comes back with a noonday bottle of red wine. The British and South Africans seem to have a shared attachment to the happy liquor. I hear that John Hawken, one of Britain's foremost Tantra teachers, calls it the shame-shameless paradigm. People live with much suppressed (and I would say, inherited) shame, and they find an escape into the 'shameless state (where anything goes) through alcohol. It has been very sad for me to witness how these tendencies get transferred from generation to generation.

Back to John Hawken, I look forward to meeting the man at the European Sexuality and Consciousness Conference in Prague early October. Hawken comes from Margot Anand's Skydancing Tantra school, and seems to have peppered British Tantra with a juicy dose of BDSM. I like the title of his book - Dark Eros. From students of his in Brighton, I gather that much of Hawkens' work on Dark Eros is to help people see that they are not as bad as they though they were. And to bring the fun back into fantasies that have seemed quite evil to many.

Thursday night in Brighton, I present my first ever BlissDance class outside of Africa. We are in the basement of the Anahata clinic - a tiny space, and the event is very popular. It is a delight to find ways of entering the full bliss of the dance amongst semi-medical looking equipment and with limited space. The Brightoners are delightful dance - they trow themselves at the dance with full enthusiasm, and in the last dance, a song burst forth that becomes way louder than the music. Nobody seems to want to leave afterward, they all look slightly astounded at the joy they are feeling rushing through their veins. And they want to know when I come back.

It was good to pass the spirit of Africa on to England. Thank you, Cape Town BlissDancers, you were with me in spirit.

I get met in Brighton with an astounding level of awareness and sensitivity. It is such a pleasure to work with people who have directed the course of their lives clearly to waking up, on every level.

Australian sex coach Andrew Barnes, whom I met at last year's Africa Sexuality and Consciousness Conference, imprompto takes the train out to Brighton to come join in the BlissDance. He admits to me that he is not much of a dancer - but by the end of the dance, he was fully immersed. We meet for dinner and again for lunch the next day to talk about the Body De-Armoring course we will be co-presenting in Cape Town this November. This exciting conversation in the end spans over three meals: A delicious Thai dinner, then a lunch in gorgeous organic cafe in the lanes of Brigthton city (Andrew excited about the vegetarian shoes he just bought across the road, and me peeving a large false-mink wrap hanging in the window next door). The final dinner was in London at SAF - which must be one of London's most elite raw food restaurants (cashew nut cheese with raw food crackers and the best all-raw ceasar salad I have ever had, complete with nut-based 'parmesan' sauce). Going by the meals we consumed along the way, Andrew and I should be able to cook up something delicious togehter.

Back in Brighton. Friday night I do a talk in the Friends' Meeting Place in Brighton - a Quaker meeting space, from what I understand. I love the peace that pervades here. I attempt my first filming of a talk I give - the idea is to eventually get these up on to Youtube. Afterward. I get escorted to dinner by Mark, a Brightoner now but born in Russia. He is a devoted and experienced meditator, and also an internet animator. We talk about digital dharma - his idea of using animated graphics to illustrate spiritual principles. He is working on a dakini animation that I am excited to share with him.

Unexpectedly in Brighton I receive a beautiful channeling by Ja'been in which Archangels Raphael and Michael come to commend my work and urge me to be more available for healing and awakening across the planet. The archangels are practical - they suggest more traveling and networking, and importantly also internet based teaching. I am dreaming into the latter, and intrigued how the digital dharma crosses my path on the journey already.

Sunday, after 8 hours of sessions, I rush to the train with the help of Saraha, and manage to loose my credit card in the process of getting on. So be it Existence, I surrender to this trust walk, and to the ever mysterious dharma of my life!

London, crazy hub of the world's peoples

The archangels' encouragement ended up being much needed in the next ten days I spend in London. This city must be the hub of the world in some ways. That underground, packed minute to minute with people from every continent living here now, is like the vein that mixes this crazy unlikely diversity into one orderly machine. I cannot help but think of the movie the Matrix, and spend many moments pondering its uncanny usefulness. Between buses, trains and the underground, I spend on average 4 hours a day in public transport here. This is much to ask of a girl who avoids shopping centers at all costs. But it is also a beautifully moving opportunity to encounter humanity - mommies with babies, hassled businessmen in pin suits, young lovers, old lovers, lonely men with spiked jackets, African mamas who have somehow made their home in this unlikely city.

There is an eerie mixture between alienation and intimacy on the underground. We all pretend not to see each other, and yet men can't help themselves from staring at me as I eat my breakfast-apple, and women regularly do their whole make-up routine on the tube. I am puzzled by this, as it seems to be a more acceptable act than eating the apple. And then I realize that doing make-up is like putting on your armoring for the day. That direction of intimacy, I guess, is more acceptable.

I loved my time spent with Uta Demonsis, my colleague and friend in London. Uta teaches the Taoist Tantric practices in London and across the UK and Europe, and she is doing beautiful skype-based sessions work as a sex-coach. Uta and I share a love for Tango. She arranges me a private tango lesson with Renee, her teacher.

He does basic work with me on posture - how to hold myself high while staying grounded, how to breathe into the back of my chest in stead of pushing forward with my diaphragm. I go to two tango classes followed by practicas arranged by his school - so fabulous to be whirling around in a large hall with close to a hundred eager dancers around.

Knowing that I love good bodywork, Uta books a session for me with her colleague Carlos. What an awesome surprise Carlos is. He is a cross between a highly skilled and intuitive bodyworker and an Amazonian shaman who will draw poison out of you with his teeth if needs be.

Uta helped organized my events in London - and referred me to Meera of www.onlyforart.com. Nowhere on the planet have I had such smooth support with organizing events so far. Meera wants me to come again, so I'll be back, London!

BlissDance happened in a most gorgeous sun-filled light-wooded floor (the shadow of a boxer on the next floor dancing above us). The room was filled with delightful dancing enthusiasts coming from London's vibrant dance (5 rhythms and biodanza) culture. I find it a beautifully tender challenge to traverse intimacy in this city - the doors are wide open, and people come in from all levels of emotional and physical readiness, need and wounding. But the dance was beautifully creative, like a raw, exuberant cry of our aliveness as human beings reaching through illusion, knowing beyond it all that our deepest desire is to wake up. I watch eyes slowly, tenderly opening to that awakeness in the dance.

Sessions in London - what an adventure! again with the loving support of Uta who knows that people can get loud in my country, she finds me a sessions space in a semi-industrial area where we can get as loud as we want to. London Faerie, my host, is something between a sadhu-born-as-cheeky-elf this lifetime and a soft-natured Dom and initiator of intrepid explorers into the world of kink. Enter into his temple with awareness of doors softly closing - and inside, on the soft checkered floor, the tie-me-up table (which he covered up so as not to distress those clients who are not expecting such fascinating innuendo). In the kitchen, a gorgeous picture of Claire, his colleague, tied up in beautiful rope work. The massive buddha-bag served as a multi-purpose vessel during sessions for clients to wallow in, to beat, to fuck, to scream into or to lounge in. Me too.

Faerie is a busy boy - he organizes various sex-positive events, and has opened the door of The Pot, the sessions space, to all who want to work in a sex-positive environment. Through him I get to hear about Jason who runs Tantra4GayMen. We make an enthusiastic attempt to meet for dinner in Soho, but after a full weekend of teaching for us both, the wires get crossed and we miss each other. He seems keen to visit South Africa, so the conversation will continue. I really think it's time that gay men in Cape Town get some good teaching in Tantra, so I will pursue this agenda.

Back to sessions: I also get to work in the Boudoir - a red draped, red lighted room with a massive bed, condoms, lube and masses of towels. Very gently and tenderly I venture in there with clients.

So this is how my typical day in London looks: I grab a raw-food breakfast and lunch at Planet Organic on the way to the bus around 8am, get to Faerie's (after multiple cat-calls and whistles from worker-men in the area) just before 10am (phew, made it on time!) let in the first client and, 8 hours later at 6pm, say good bye to the last one. Then off to tango or some evening arrangement. The last night that I did sessions in London, it rained. I managed to do the walk to the station without getting soaping wet, but decided not to put on my red dress. I am wearing red satin pants though, good enough for our plan for the night: Uta and I go tango on the plaza in Leichester square. I get off the underground into a lush world of glass and opulents. . Cleverly, Renee has arranged an undercover dance for us, thus saving the dance. I put on my silver shoes, and a suave elderly man with a tipped black hat comes to ask me for the dance. He sweeps me over the dancefloor Buenos Aeres style - hardly any space to move, but the turns are happening inside, so deliciously. And off we go again, on the undergound, to catch some sleep before I leave the next morning.

But I'm not quite there yet - first some more about London. the sessions here are also deeply moving. Some clients come from homes that are so very loving, and yet something, somewhere results in a trauma that goes deep into the body and the unconscious. Sometimes that trauma is directly sexual - a rape, incest, genital mutilation. Bringing love, tenderness and awareness back to our sexual organs that have suffered so much - that is a task I undertake with awe and deep respect.

In between, dinner with Elizabeth and David, dear friends I met in India in January, an excellent solo yoga class with Isaac Mullins and a superb dinner cooked by funky musician Max, with entertainment by her partner. psychotherapist and kilt-seller Richard.

This time, I have two days for the Releasing Sexual Trauma workshop at Neil's Yard. We are underground in a soundproof venue, so anything and everything can be expressed. Just the exercise of roaring, saying "Yes" and saying "No" brings up enough material for a full day of processing. On day two we have a good look at the ways in which our internalized male-female relationships support us in maintaining victim consciousness when the threat is no longer there. Some beautiful healing happens. Two men get up and challenge each other. We watch in awe as they both get totally into their roar, expressing pent up anger at father, life, and all that has come before. And from this expression - deep compassion, and the opening of the floodgates into genuine open-hearted vulnerability. I have a strong, beautiful man lying in my arms weeping his heart open. We are all moved by each other's journeys, and get to see that we are not as alone, not as separate, as we think we are.

On the workshop is Katinka Soetens, priestess of the goddess who does beautiful sacred intimate work. She encourages me to come do some facilitator's training in London next year, and I consider this - it is starting in California this year, and I shall pay attention to the archangels ;) Faerie and I agree I will be back for three days of sessions in London end of September, and it looks like I might be getting booked up already.

Salisbury, land of magic, the hot tub and a Tantra temple

So it's Friday after that last tango in London. I'm on the train to Salisbury, accompanied by Martin of Tantra Transcendence. I am glad to get so spend some time with him - he is a compassionate, knowledgeable and very experienced psychotherapist who understands the world of Tantra well. He introduces me to concepts that explain some of what I intuitively do - bioenergetics, for instance. Sometimes I think it's embarrassing how little I know, and sometimes I think it's better so.

Sahaja, Hanna and Martin's retreat home, is a countryside-goblin-delight. Go find a hole to crawl into amongst velvets and silks and mirrors, and there is your bed. Beds and partners are interchangeable, there are compost toilets and best of all, that hot tub in the wild garden. Lie there below the green at night - long slow simmering nights that are reluctant to go dark in summer - and drink up the springy freshness of the British countryside. The circular temple that we work in is a womb, with a red-draped yoni entrance that takes some awareness and skill to open.

The weekend's workshop is gentle yet also deep.. sitting with many tears and wounds that come present themselves for healing... bodies shaking, emotions unexpectedly bursting forth, and all the time in the background the slow rhythm of tantric breathing, or the tender-wild-boisterous-inward meeting in the dance.

Hanna is excited about her Tantric Massage video's which are in the final stages of production now - for more on this and Transcendence Tantra events see ...

Now I'm traveling through the Scottish countryside with sheep and stonewalls and miles and miles of green. I know that my time with enthusiastic host Gillian will be beautiful and we have a full programme ahead.

Then, I take a sneaky little break just for me, in Hawaii, who-hoo! before I hit California where Claire, Laurel and Soullove have put together a stupendous programme for me, have a look.

I feel filled with gratitude, well used, as available as I can be to the world, cleansed, tired, rejuvenated, like a snake shedding more skin, and with sparking eyes of love, waiting to see what next existence bring.

And sending you all so much love.

Shakti

PS the man with dog had a lovely chat with me as we changed trains - he is on his way home after visiting his daughter.
PPS I go to the loo on the train to find a lady waiting there with two boxes with holes in - their occupants: Chickens. I thought it's only in Africa that we travel with chickens on public transport

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:32:00 +0000

An erotic ecology
Tantra and ecological wisdom

The following article by me was published in Biophile magazine issue 20. I thought you might enjoy reading it.

I was dancing on an ancient silver rock. All around me, lovers were finding each other, coyly, boldly, laughingly. A force coiled up through my body from that dancing rock, and it was unmistakably sexual. This was one of those moments that set me wondering about the mysteries of the erotic.

Today, I am a practicing Tantrika. When I discovered Tantra, my whole being went: Yes! So that is what it was. Tantra teaches practices that helps us to return to the natural: the realization that sexual energy is life force that flows through all things, and that, if refined, leads us to an experience of unconditional love. An erotic ecology is one in which all things, all beings, are in a constant love play with each other.

Why do we not live in this play of love on the planet all the time? Advait Tantra says that it is because we get controlled by unconscious desires and fears – patterns of polarity, of resistance and need that start forming from very early on in our lives, and that we are mostly hardly aware of. They leave imprints on our bodies and affect everything: from our lovemaking to our choices in the boardroom – often in surprisingly similar ways.

As a Tantrika, my task is twofold:
a) To help make conscious the unconscious patterns in our body – mind – emotional systems. Plato said that Eros leads to Logos – if you follow a person’s erotic energy, you soon find out what the knowledge is they are hiding from themselves.
b) To bring people to the power of the present moment. The ancient Taoists believed that sexual energy is potent life force – the only regenerable energy in the human being, and a source of longevity. Tantra works with prana (breath energy ), activation of organs and energy flows and meditation to open us to the fullness that the moment holds.

The great 20th century mystic Osho said: Sex is the seed. Love is the flower. Compassion is the fragrance. What a perfect metaphor the seed is for an ecology bursting with potential. An undoubtably sexual metaphor it is, too.

What do we do to our children when we deny them a conscious exploration of their sexuality? Adolescents who have learnt to suppress all signs of sexual impulse become suppressed adults. Suppression builds anger and frustration that, if not released, can become some of the most dangerous anti-ecological forces on the planet. When the seed is denied, love cannot flower.

This I have discovered well and properly in my work as a Social Ecologist. I have a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology and have been monitoring and evaluating the social impact of developments for many years. When developments get big, the anger-forces become intense. In my own assessments on big developments, I have had to spend as much time in personal processing of the desires and fears that the projects awoke in me as on project research. This has provided excellent opportunity for me to work through my own anger about the neediness and greediness of project participants, and as I had less volatile anger left, I became more able to be present with what is. Once in a meeting with a group of environmentalists, I was listening carefully to the discourse and the tone that was prevalent. I told the environmentalists that, if I ignored the specific content of what they were saying, I might as well have been in a meeting with developers. The language was the same language of war and opposition, and all effort was focused on who had the biggest guns.

This is not to say that there is no place for strong action in the world. But strong action that is clear – without being backed by a lifetime of unlived, repressed anger and frustration – is so much more powerful and efficient.

Tantra is a force of totality. It encourages us to be fully present in our lives, not to deny anything that we are experiencing. If we can be 100% present in our anger, own it responsibly, sit in the fire of the emotions, if we can be 100% present with the touch of a lover – and all that it evokes, all the tender and volatile memories and emotions – then our lives start to integrate and become simple.

My teacher, Rahasya, often talks about Pavlov’s dogs. As human beings, we have as many if not more layers of association as those dogs. For a man, the approach of a woman – even the thought of her approach – can send his whole psycho-physical system into the anticipation/exhilaration/terror response that comes from his first secret experiences of masturbation. And deeper than that, they may evoke memories of first touch – or lack of touch – by mother. For a woman, the approach of a man may be loaded with memories of father, first experiences of invasion or inappropriate sexual contact with boys or men, and a range of body memories from previous experiences. For most humans, sexual meeting is loaded with the genetic imperatives of the species: the excitement of the hunt, of seducing and being seduced, of finding the mate with highest genetic potential.

As we become conscious of these basic survival impulses in our bodies, they start to integrate and resolve. Then we move to the next ecological development: Finding a mate that meets the requirement of the tribe, of with whom we feel some sense of belonging. When we are no more bound by “what the people will think” about our partners and our rating as sexual partners in the culture, we move up the ecological ladder to where we choose out of pure fondness, “because I like”. Beyond our personal likes resides the realm of the heart. When our sexual impulses are infused with unconditional love, a different kind of orgasm becomes possible – an orgasm of life, an erotic ecology. A planet on which all things – rocks and trees and people – dance together in a seamless flow of love. And yes, the Taosts are right: There is longevity there – love unconditional becomes life rejuvenated.

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 10:40:00 +0000

BlissDance starts again
This Wednesday 27 January
7.15 - 9pm
The Forge, Kalk Bay
Cost R80

Theme: The Beloved is Everywhere

Hello beloveds,

And so the dance of this new year begins in full glory. Tomorrow evening! Remember to pre-book your dinner at Olympia Cafe. And remember NOT to park in Windsor Rd AT ALL.

Directions to the venue: Coming along Muizenberg Main Road, turn right at the Boyes Drive robots and immediately right again into the Olympia Cafe parking lot. Park, and walk back along main road to Olympia cafe where you book your meal, and then immediately turn left up into Windsor Road. Walk halfway up the road. The Forge is on the right hand side, nr 12. The dance starts at 7.15pm - you are welcome to start arriving at 7pm.

You are welcome to just arrive, and also to bring friends.

Regular BlissDance classes are now on for at least the next three months, so you can expect there to be a class every Wednesday. I will mail you if there is any change in the plans.

Love, and dancing blessings
Shakti

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 12:56:00 +0000

Darkly delicious: The Tantric use of Shadow States
Paper presented at the second annual African Conference for Sexuality and Consciousness Practitioners, Kalk Bay, 3 - 5 December 2011.

I, Shakti

I, Shakti, come into this work of Tantra having first immersed myself in academia, and then having been drawn, by existence, into the deep wisdom of the earth. By the age of 30, I had a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology, a discipline that taught me to listen. To understand that what people say, is influenced by their perception of what this moment requries. And thus to listen to the silences between words. To that which is not said. To the way an arm is draped over a body. To the side look. To the way that space is organized. To paradoxical identities co-existing: tonight's gangster becoming tomorrow morning's elder in the church. I spent many years working in the townships of South Africa. Those I listened to, have been some of my first teachers in life.

Then one day I got drawn into the rustling earth of the Little Karoo, an arid, wild area inland in South Africa. The farm where I came to is called n!au 'ma - a San name meaning Source of Life or Water. My hair stood on end as I felt the energy of the earth rise up from thre. The earth was alive! From there started a series of discoveries - visceral, sensory realizations - that life is more than what meets the ordinary eye. The gateway to this healing madness had been years of meditation, yoga and tai chi that preceded this moment.

At age 33, the age that Jesus died, my life got thrown into turmoil after swimming with dolphins in Mozambique. Contact with these beings had changed the frequency of my structure internally, and I no longer fit into the outer structure of my life. I went to see a sangoma, or African shaman, who threw the divination bones for me. The bones said that I have the calling - to become a shaman - but that my way would not be the traditional African way. I had to go find out what my real purpose was, that is what my ancestors said - and for that, I had to go spend a month in the wilderness, praying for vision and guidance.

Meeting the Kundalini snake

So I did, under the wise guidance of a man called Lance. This was the beginning of being visited by snakes. Snakes in the pool where I swam, snakes under the fig tree. Snakes in my visions. I remembered, earlier in the year, having brought a friend to this place, a friend who had the signs of having the calling too. One day, her body went into such intense convulsions that it took four of us to hold down her tiny frame. Later I heard that she had been taken by the snake spirit, the one called the Mondao. The Mondao is the snake of abundance and vitality that comes up through the waters. When I told the shaman about my visitations by snakes, and about the message I had received during the time in the wilderness that my real name was Shakti (Tantric name for female sexual energy), and my work the path of Tantra, he said: Yes, this is your path. The same spirit, but coming through other traditions. The African snake spirit is the same one as the Kundalini, the same spirit who traveled all the way down the Nile from Egypt, taking here in Africa the form of the Mondao.

As my path into Tantra deepened, the Kundalini, that snake spirit of life force that resides at the base of the spine, started uncoiling in me, and rising up. As she rose up through my body, she would take me into a spontaneous, orgasmic dance - flinging my arms out wide above my head as the energy pulsed through my heart, making my head move around in circles as the throat chacra opened up. I remembered then an image of a Mondao initiation ceremony I had been priveleged to witness earlier: The women initiates sitting bare-breasted half-body in the water, and as the Mondao moved through their bodies, that same rippling, ecstatic dance throwing their bodies wide open.

Ego death

So you could say that I entered the age of madness. The dismemberment of my previous identity as an academic with a sound, logical mind and a respectable profession. This was the beginning of my years in the wilderness. My death years. I learnt to honor and appreciate the signs: A sudden, inexplicable sense of things falling apart around me and within me. Nothing to hold on to. Panic. Until the witness would preside and remind me: Hush, my child. This ego will die too. And you will remain alive. Every time the old skin drops off, something in me would become more present, more expanded, more innocent. My skin would touch the world as for the first time. Time and time again.

Advaita, the path of non-duality

Throughout this time, and intensified by my meetings with teachers Leslie Temple Thurston, Rahasya and Isaak Shapiro, my love affair with Advaita grew. Advaita is an ancient tradition that recognizes the ego's dance with polarities. We get attracted to certain states that we identify with, and repulsed by their opposites. The dance of polarities remains mainly unconscious in us, and it forms of the structure of our egos, or our limited sense of self. The method of Advaita is focused on the integration of polarities, and living in a non-dual state.

Shadow

There are many approaches to Advaita work. The approach that we take in the Advait Tantraschool, which is based on ancient Tantric methods, is that polarities get integrated through the full exploration of each opposite. An example of polarity is the 'light' and 'shadow' aspecting of our experience. The light side of our reality is that which we are ready to present to the world and acknowledge to ourselves. Most of us are happy to tell the world that our eroticism is guided by deep and undying love for one other, as this approach to sexuality is seen as light and good by our culture. The shadow side of our experience is that which is shunned, suppressed and most often not even fully conscious in us - such as our erotic fantasies that contain elements of taboo.

Shadow work

I have noticed in my work as a Tantrika over the last year that much of my work consists in helping people access shadow states. I guide people to develop a witness to the suppressed, shunned, denied aspects of their experience. I also guide them to touch the real of this experience, fully enough that whatever energy this polarity holds for them, can be integrated back into the whole.

When entering into the dark side of dualities, I find the following kinds of states surfacing in people's experience:

shame
anger
emptiness
contraction
desire that is taboo
suppressed power

Often, people have spent a lifetime doing everything they can to avoid feeling these deep body sensations or emotional states that have lived with them for most of their lives. Paradoxically, the resolution and integration of these states may involve acknowledging the contradictory experiences that are coupled with these shadow states. So for instance, it is possible that desire can be coupled with shame or anger. It is possible that contraction can be a gateway to release. It is possible that taboo desire can have strong associations with feeling deeply loved. Liberation requires the willingness to feel it all.

Doing shadow work requires a willingness to experience the shadow archetypes or disavowed aspects of self. Shadow archetypes are those archetypal persona's that our society judges and suppresses. Examples of these archetypes are:

predator
whore
mad woman/man
trickster

As facilitator, I often bring consciousness to these archetypes by embodying them myself, but also by facilitating enactment of them for the client.

What it takes of the practitioner to do shadow work

I have stated that as dakini, much of my intervention with clients involves shadow work. I want to emphasize here that the practitioner's readiness to facilitate such work for another, is dependent on the depth of work that has happened in you.

When I was working in the academic world, I distinguished anthropological research from quantitative, statistical survey based research in the following way. The success of statistical research is dependent on the efficiency of the research tools used - the questionnaires and data analysis methods. In anthropological research, the researcher herself is the main tool. As all qualitative research is filtered through personal, subjective experience, the value of the research comes from the researcher's ability to be a witness to their own experience as well as that of the field. The same applies in depth Tantra work. To be able to track the shadow of others, you need to be adept at doing so yourself.

Here are some aspects of the work that I regularly practice myself:

• Deep committed ongoing journey of embracing my own shadow states and experiences
• Feeling emotions, entering deeply into them
• Heart and death meditation (for details on these, see tantraschool.co.za
• Polarity processing; examples can be found on Corelight.org and thework.org
• Exploring own eroticism

Teaching another to do this work, requires apprenticeship over many years. It is not something that can be taught or acquired on a once-off course.

Darkly delicious: Faces of shadow work

The following are aspects of shadow work that I encounter and explore in my work as a dakini.

1. Bringing sexual energy down

Our culture has a habit of transposing Western religious dogma on to New Age spirituality. Thus I find that many clients who have become very devoted in their spiritual practice, get stuck in deep inner dualities. The one is the division between heart and sex. In my travels across the Western world, I have found the tendency to spiritualize sex, especially in Tantric circles. Much emphasis is placed on transmuting all sexual energy into heart energy. While the raising of sexual energy to the heart is certainly an important practice in Tantra, there is no duality involved here. As powerfully as sexual energy is to be felt in the heart, so powerfully is it to be embraced in the base chakra or sexual region. In fact, if there is no full willingness for the raw unrefined sexual energy that gets generated at the base of the body, there will not be enough energy and vitality to raise. It can be dangerous to deny or suppress sexual energy in the lower chakras.

I will give a case study here to elucidate how I work with bringing sexual energy down. There was a beautiful young man on a workshop who had spent his life raising his sexual energy to his heart. As he presented as all heart and no sex, women (not surprizingly) found it disconcerting if he started to express sexual energy. In the workshop, I asked him to feel into his darkest sexual desire. In his case, it was to take a woman against her will.

This is where I use my discernment and fine reading of energy to make a judgment call. I drew a woman into the circle, and without asking her permission, got this young man to start chasing her around, in an animal predator sexual way. As the enactment got more sexual, something fascinating happened with the woman: She started to glow. Afterward, she confessed that this experience was one she had waited for her whole life long, and that it made her feel invigorated like nothing she had experienced before. Understandably, the young man was astounded and a bit baffled. In his case, it was going to take a few more experiences like this for him to start valuing, and deeply living into, the power of base chakra sexual energy.

2. Exploring eroticism

Eroticism is a gateway to the unconscious. The fantasies, erotic dreams and patterns people find themselves in in their choice of partners all present clues that can lead to the re-integration of aspects of self that have been denied or repressed. The reason why we bother with this re-integration is that it is a potent pathway to self-realization, the meeting yourself as who you truly are: all that is.

Erotic work is about embracing the desire that is there. Sexual desire becomes loaded when it touches taboo, or that which is deemed as not permissible or evil. Our patterning as to what is taboo is influenced by the collective, but tends to also be very personal and influenced by our individual journeys.

So arrives in my consulting room one day a young woman who attract the following pattern in her erotic life. She meets a man with whom she feels a strong attraction. As soon as the relationship gets underway, he acknowledges a desire to see her as a girl sexually. She finds herself responding to that every time with like and equal desire. Thus begins another relationship where their erotic life evolves around her enacting the girl child. At some point, she realizes what she is doing and becomes so disgusted with herself and with men, that she ends the relationship and enters another long period of celibacy. All this suppression was starting to drain her life force, and by the time she got to me, she was desperate.

The enactment we arranged was as follows. I brought in my colleague Stephen, who played the male part. We took the woman back to a happy scene of connecting with men in her childhood, namely playing in the bath with her brother. We turned the futon into an imaginary bath and had the two of them throwing each other with plastic toys, having great fun. Then she said: "What next?" I guided them into a scenario where she was now a bit older and the boys too. Immediately, her body started to contract and she said: "I want to go home!" I asked: "Would you like your daddy to hold you?" She whimpered a "Yes". Stephen became the father and held her with great love, saying to her :"It is beautiful to see you growing into a young woman." This opened the floodgates for her.

From this enactment, the following revealed: When this young woman reached the age of puberty, her father noticed that she was developing breasts. When the father became aware of her developing sexuality, he started avoiding her, especially when she was not fully dressed. From his perspective, he was being prudent and respecting her development. From her perspective, a clear association formed: Her sexual development was the reason why her father withdrew his signs of affection towards her. This was so traumatic in her childhood psyche that it became the driving force of her eroticism.

As can be seen from this case study, our eroticism draws us back to unfinished business - especially that business that we have judgments about. Revisiting the original scenario, which one often stumbles upon in conscious erotic enactment, can create an opportunity to undo the associations that were formed then. There are three keys to this practice:
a) Entering the experience. It is not enough to just theorize or understand. Something is to be felt in the body. Feeling can be evoked through the slightest gesture or symbol, and even through conscious fantasizing, but often some experience is needed to help bring eroticism out of the frozen zone where it repeats and repeats without any insight.
b) Totality. Totality means following the clues of eroticism all the way to their resolution. When I act as a dominatrix, I use my power to psychologically probe and interrogate until the polarities that hold up the ego structure, fuse. Often these polarities have been held so separately that the fusion can feel like a fuzing of the brain. An example is when shame has been associated with pleasure or love. When the client is guided to reclaim the pleasure that was felt in a shameful situation, the impact can be enormous on the ego structure. Sudden ego death happens, and a vastly expanded self appears.
c) Witnessing. At all times, the practitioner remains a witness and does not get lost in her personal experience. She also cultivates witnessing of experience for the client. Witnessing is different from dissociation. Witnessing is an embodied state that occurs in the midst of felt, owned experience.

3. Victim-rescuer-predator enactment

The victim-rescuer-predator triangle is a central malaise of our culture - understandably, as humanity has managed to enact incomprehensible violence in the last couple of centuries in the name of loyalty, morality and honor. But as long as our psyches stay identified with one position in this triangle, our ego structures will stay rigid and awareness will not penetrate. I write more fully about this topic elsewhere in this blog.

One of the most effective ways I have found to facilitate breakthrough from this stuck position, is conscious enactment of the triangle - particularly of the predator dimension.

Sometimes I encourage the client to find their inner predator - this is the most disavowed aspect of self. A case study illustrates. I worked with a large body builder who confessed a deep attraction to violence in erotic enactment. I sensed that this desire covered a great fear of violence. In our session, I started provoking him - pushing him, mocking him, antagonizing him. He stood firm and froze on the spot, unable to react with any violence in return. I continued (this is where totality comes in) until he was so infuriated that he picked me up and started flinging me around.

Thus the predator (me) became the victim. And the victim (him) became the predator. I stayed totally in the witness during the enactment, and at no time felt myself unconsciously slipping into victim mode. I did however feel that my back was getting tight from being manhandled. So I told him to stretch me backwards over his body, presenting this as yet another torture I was demanding of him to enact on me. In reality, I was putting him in the role of the rescuer/healer - the one who stretches my body to realign me after this vigorous piece of work.

At some point, the tears came. He shared with me that he had been challenged to a fight by a boy when he was still very young. When he arrived at the appointed place on time, he found the whole school waiting for him to witness this event. He froze up, unable to respond to the challenge at all. This event had been so traumatic in his childhood psyche that it formed a strong association between manliness/virility and violence in his being. Through the enactment, he came to experience those frozen aspects of self. The anti-climax of the enactment was the discovery that he in truth was not attracted to violence at all. He was a sensitive, intelligent man who had grown from the boy who was intuitively repulsed by the idea of mob support for violence.

4. Polarity enactment

As is evident from what I have said before, the polarized states of our ego structure are keys to what keeps us stuck. One of the techniques I use to help people move through polarities is the following enactment. Identify two imaginary circles. When standing in one circle, enter fully into the body gestures of this side of the polarity. If it is shame, let your body become contracted into the shame. Then enter into the other circle, representing the opposite state. If it is pride, let your body express what pride feels like for you. Start the process of slowly and gradually speed it up, moving from one circle to the next. In time, you will notice something else happening: An integration between the two states, a third position arising.

Once, in such an enactment, I saw a woman enter fully into the inherited shame of being a woman. She curled up into a little whimpering ball. When stepping into the opposite, she became the one who judges this shameful one. Great aggressive power started pulsing through her blood. She was astounded at how familiar this position felt that she had never consciously occupied before. It was an internalized state that had dominated her consciousness, but which she had never fully owned like this before. In moving between the two polarities, she found a third spontaneously arising: A wild, powerful, free woman whose dance was expansive, yet exquisitely sensitive. At the end of the enactment, she was glowing, and felt totally transformed.

5. Being the lover

As dakini, I sometimes embody the lover, as this intimate act can be a powerful gateway to touching what has been held. Once in exploring with a client who was overly intellectual and rigid what his deepest fantasies were, the one that came up strongest was being with his first childhood sweetheart - the one whom he didn't have the courage to approach in any sexual way. So I became the sweetheart, walking coyly up to him, standing there in all my naked (though clothed) vulnerability, and slowly, shyly, entering into touch and the most innocent of kisses. This experience broke him down completely. Tears of joy were flowing, and the creative, spontaneous aspect of his being revealed - at last.

6. Releasing sexual trauma

A potent aspect of my work involves releasing sexual trauma. I recommend that you read the section I wrote on this theme elsewhere in this blog.

Sexual trauma can be anything from rape to inherited beliefs that have lodged in the body. In summary, the process I use to work with sexual trauma is allowing the protective contraction that the body has when trauma is touched, and even encouraging it. Then when the body spontaneously, of her own accord, flows into release, encourage this process too. Thus the suppressed cycles of sympathetic-parasympathetic flow in the nervous system can be completed, and all traces of trauma released on a cellular level.

In essence, I am making space for the client's experience - that experience which was felt in a moment of trauma, and has been suppressed and held in the body for all those years. Doing this work means being willing to hold, and stay witness, to the client's experience - even if the experience in the body looks extreme. Large emotional expressions can occur, as well as body stupor and vigorous shaking.

As with all the other work I have described here, this way of working with sexual trauma requires great skill from the facilitator. This skill is developed through deep and ongoing inner work.

The return to darkly delicious

In this paper, I have explored the ways in which I work with shadow states to facilitate the reintegration of suppressed and denied aspects of self. This means entering into the dark side of people's experiences - that which they themselves have denied, and that which society shuns or frowns upon. It requires of the practitioner to live in a state of non-duality, and to look however she is going to look to the client and to the outside world. This may be one of the reasons why dakini's have traditionally practiced high up in the mountains, far out of reach of the mass of society. While we live more accessibly now, the tests of awareness are still in place, and only those who are ready, get to work with us.

The gift for the client of being willing to enter into the dark side of their psyche is a precious reclaiming of lost aspects of self. The expansion of the sense of self that arises, and the breaking through duality that occurs, starts one of the most delicious love affairs this world has to offer: the love affair with the self, as such, beyond association and conditioning.

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 03:54:00 +0000

The journey back down

Crossing over the border from Canada to the USA this time we don't get pulled aside by the men in black with their excellent sniffer dogs. Dez explains that we have managed to eat all the apples we had in the car and have only one left, which he is welcome to have if he feels like an apple. The officer is not wanting to be humored: Ok, now go! He says.

Back in Seattle, we stay at the home of Brad, Dez' sister and brother in law. We have a few days to rest and recuperate before teaching again. Brad is an excellent listener; he coaches the nuances of my work out of me, and shows much appreciation for it. Janet asks an interesting question: If this work is about awakening, why such a strong focus on sexuality? And indeed, sex is often the lure with which Tantra is presented in America. Brad's comment from a separate conversation with me is: Fascinating, that your work seems to be about so much more than sexuality.

A conversation that I find particularly useful myself is exploring how my years of working in the townships as an anthropologist has given me a sensitivity to people's lived realities - to what they feel in all the nuances of their being, beyond what they overtly express. There is a big focus in American Tantra on the expression of boundaries and desires. I see the value and need for this kind of overt communication, and I also feel where my work goes.

Then off to Robyn Lynn's home and temple, where Dez and I present our last talk and workshop together. Spending time here is an experience. The house is beautiful and spacious, built on a hill with a magnificent view over the city below. The lounge has been converted into a welcoming temple, and downstairs there is a huge sessions room. There are at least three practitioners living and working in this home and traversing complimentary spaces.

Tom practices a form of transformational breathwork that is related to holotrophic breathwork. He started this after a time in Africa, during which the suffering of the poor awakened a deep compassion in him. For more on him, see evendeeper.com. Tom and Robyn do a monthly breathwork group event at their home. David does work with heart centered sexuality; his work seems to relate to lovetribe.org which is popular all along the West Coast.

David Cates is an older, deeply compassionate, present and sensual man who has designed an ingenious working format: the pod. Pods are small groups of people (of uneven numbers) who get together regularly to do deep work on sexuality and intimacy. I was fortunate to be in the house for a day while David was doing pod work, and the sounds that came from the room spoke of deep release, permission and delight.

David is also a Daka coach. Quoted from http://sedonatemple.com/practitioners.php#davidcates: "David Cates is completely devoted to the art of Presence. When you are ready to bring your tantric practice all the way into this naked moment - stripping off the roles and rituals we often hide behind - he holds a profoundly safe space for you to fully embody the love that you are." And from his own website dakacoach.com: "Are you on the front lines of the sexual healing revolution? Thank you! This is a very sacred and potentially dangerous calling. It takes courage and wisdom to handle these fires without getting burned. I'm here to help you with the unique challenges that come with this life – both professional and personal."

And then, of course, there is Robyn. She is a beautiful woman with a kind, centered presence. Her website, thepresentsense.com, states:
The Erotic
Is nature herself
is innocent, natural and amazingly diverse
is calling you to align with her

She has developed a really strong practice and her clients clearly love her. She charges the same as a psychologist, and takes her clients to a gradual, successive process in which they go deeper and deeper in councilling. There are several carefully planned stages to work with Robyn, which I think is part of the reason why her clients so adore her. She reads them well, and makes sure they are ready to go where she takes them.

Robyn is standing at the beginning of a big adventure: She has been invited to bring new life into an eco-community close by, and to come live there. She is dreaming into how best she can do this, with cob and clay and beauty, and is planning to move to the land after a month in Hawaii. She is the coordinator of Body Electric, thebodyelectricschool.net, a weekend women's event that takes women into a powerful collective encounter with their sexuality.

Our talk is received really well, and there is a lot of interest in sessions. I am also noticing that the recession has hit America, and few people seem to be able to pay the rates that Dez gave. So we work with what they can give, and it is such a pleasure.

Of particular delight to me in Seattle is working with younger people who have grown up with great enthusiasm for the exploration of consciousness, as well as a sense of freedom and permission around the exploration of sexuality. I mention some influences that have shaped the sense of sexual freedom and space to explore.

Polyamory is a really common and acceptable paradigm amongst the new age communities of the west coast. I see how this framework gives young people and even older people a break to explore outside of conventional paradigms.

All across the conscious communities of North America there are cuddle parties (see cuddleparty.com). Cuddle parties is a trademarked concept that teaches people to create boundaries and say no while creating space for people to touch each other in non-sexual ways. As I understand, the music is soothing and non-sexual and people are encouraged to wear pajamas (well-covering ones). Only accredited facilitators are allowed to host cuddleparties, and they are really popular.

Then there is Lovetribe, which is big in Seattle and in several places in America. I quote from LoveTribe.org. " LoveTribe recognizes that we are all connected on a spiritual or energetic level, and is helping create more heart-conscious, touch-positive communities that nurture our whole selves by creating gatherings where we can learn and practice skills for getting our needs for authentic connection, affection and play met in healthy, caring ways."

In Seattle, there is a space called the Wet Spot that is the center of what is called sex positive culture; see sexpositiveculture.org. I quote from the website:
"As proponents of sex positive culture, we believe that the appropriate uses of sex extend beyond reproduction. They include creating personal pleasure, bonding interpersonal relationships, promoting spiritual growth, and enhancing emotional and physical health. In a sex positive world, everyone has the freedom and resources to pursue a fulfilling and empowering sex life."

Back to sessions. Some strong themes that come up with the people I work with are:
• finding ways to get men to embrace masculine sexuality and women to embrace female sexuality
• honoring the feminine principle in us that opens us the unknown/what lies beyond the ego's self-definition
• noticing how excess weight can be a source of emotional protection, or can keep you from being attractive of desirable
• noticing how Judeo-Christian beliefs get transferred onto buddhist and new-age practices
• working with the boundary between cuddling and sexual intimacy.

On the latter point: I notice an interesting phenomenon here. There has been such a strong emphasis on developing heart-centeredness and consent around touch in this community, that some people have developed great fear about the crossing of the line from friendliness to being sexual. Also, in some there is such concern about not wanting to be needy or predatorish that they cannot allow themselves to be fed, and to deeply drink from, the intimacy that is presented to them.

I loved working with people in Seattle, and I feel that there is so much openness, willingness and potential here. If I come back to the States, I would like to spend some time working in this city. I would love to see more of the natural beauty around the city, which sounds very exciting and delightful. And I would love to go to ecstatic dance, and all the other wonderful dance opportunities that abound here. Robyn really enjoyed my visit and has invited me to come again.

We leave Seattle on the 4th of July after an early dinner with Dez' family at the lake. 4th of July is like Christmas in Summer here - it's a major celebration day. It was so fabulous to be dancing and skipping around on the deck with Dez' 80 year old uncle and singing with his mother, all around tables full of delicious salmon and sangria made of well matured wine from the cellar.

The evening journey to Portland is spectacular. Fireworks shoot up out of the forests everywhere like faeries having star-orgies. Fireworks is the thing on 4th of July here. It is good to be driving with Natasha in her sexy truck. Just the two of us girls on the road now. "We are free. Going to Harbin" says Natasha. The two of us have been dreaming into going to Harbin Hot Springs later this week, and it looks like that's where we'll be this weekend.

As we enter Portland, traffic almost comes to a standstill where the highway goes onto the bridge. The most beautiful bouquet of fireworks shoots of a boat in the middle of the river - one bouquet after another.

Monday morning, the day after, is a public holiday in America. I am using the day to present a workshop on releasing sexual trauma in Portland. There is a group of us gathered in the basement of Erin's house. Quite suitably, the room is painted black. As we get into roaring, energy starts moving, and some strong expressions come forth: sexual desire, predator instinct, fantasies being touched, opened into or rejected. This work is edgy, and it feels good to be able to hold a space where what is uncomfortable and unresolved can be welcomed as it is.

Coming home, we spend more time with our delightful host, Anna Marti (annamarti.com) We talk about our shared desire to support people into their awakening, the impulse to do this work as a service and not driven by capitalist agendas, we talk about being women, aging, and nature of beauty and wisdom. Anna also tells me about her ex husband and good friend Vin Martin, a professional dancer who developed his own dance system called Soulmotion. It sounds similar to BlissDance; see http://www.soulmotion.com

I am loving traveling with Natasha. The Siberian tigress in her is here. She is becoming more and more ferocious in owning her desire, honoring her feminine and speaking her truth. Natasha has been attending sessions with me, picking up the nuances of what I am doing with great dexterity, and contributing to the sessions with breathtaking presence. I feel her celebrating whatever she is experiencing, not running away from any state she is or anyone else is in, no longer wanting to modulate her presence to feel or present spiritual, light or acceptable. And she touches people deeply wherever she goes. She has somehow found a deep connection with South Africa and the capacity we have developed in this country (and specifically in the Advait Tantraschool) to go into the shadow, feel deeply, and acknowledge what is. It seems she may come stay for a while. Simon and I are both delighted.

The next morning, we visit Galen (dakadom.com), a fascinating man who is using fetish and BDSM as a daka. I have not yet found a Dom (apart from myself) who approaches his task with as much care, wisdom and compassion as Galen does. He has been brought into deep submission through the events of his life, and has learnt a lot from his dedicated work with the Mankind Project and jungian analysis. Galen believes in the value of Dark Eros: Eros Descending into embracing desire, rather than Eros Ascending beyond the physical body.

We have a beautiful lunch in Eugene with the lovely Jennifer; it seems she is getting ready to come to South Africa at the end of the year! I am delighted by the steadily growing number of solid, powerful people who are wanting to come visit for the Africa conference. My teacher Rahasya has just put up a website for the conference; go see http://sexualityconsciousness.com/ and we are still working on getting all relevant information up there. It is going to be an awesome event.

Next stop: Ashland. He meet up with Simon, who is hosting us in the student digs where he has been living. Simon looks transformed; he has had, he says, the most intense time of his life around meeting the crazy alchemist Josh combined with Natasha leaving him behind to travel with us. He looks transformed, seasoned, deepened. It is lovely to hang out with a daka from my school and from my country. We walk around in the luscious parks of Ashland, eat raw at Grilla Food and catch up on life.

Wednesday night I presented a talk on the Energetics of Female Sexuality. Robert, my gracious host, has me seated in a red chair in front of the participants who are all lined up in blue backjacks. The room is full of beautiful people. I have a conversation with a video producer who has been making DVD's for authors like Neal Donald Walsch and Gary Zukov. These and many other exceptional new age authors find their home in Ashland. In fact, Robert tells me, the only way for healers in this town to do sessions, is to swop sessions with other healers.

The group receives my workshop with some awe, especially when I gather them around to feel how female sexual energy moves through my body. They are intrigued by the fact that kundalini can move through me so erotically without penetration or even clitoral stimulation. I talk about the feminine holding the bigger picture, opening to the unknown, taking our experience beyond the ego's familiar structure. And the get to feel through my body what that means. I talk about the ways in which both men and women have shied away from embracing the power of the feminine, and that it is time to do so. Opening to the feminine is what allows the masculine to also move deeply into the full expression of masculinity - being the rock, holding space, being present.

Now Natasha and I are off to Harbin Hot Springs for the weekend. I just can't wait to take off my clothes and spend the weekend naked in the hot springs. First we will visit Anusha, rawfood expert and Natasha's partner for long. On Sunday, we are off to Santa Fe where I will be talking on Triambika's dakini mentorship programme. We spend the night with Natasha's parents and then head off to San Francisco for the last few days of my time in America. Thursday morning, I fly off to Ireland. And so the journey continues.

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:23:00 +0000

Vancouver Tantra Adventures

Last night, I got taken for a surprise late night ride in a taxi through the streets of Vancouver. What an enchanting city this is. I love the deep slopes and magnificent bridges. After the Olympics, this city is decorated with artwork everywhere. In the middle of summer still, trees are lit up in magnificent display. There are walkways everywhere along the sea, and parks. And the night... it was delicious.

We arrived in Vancouver Thursday past. It was hot. And all the mountains surrounding the city were snow-capped. I love this contrast in North America. We lived in Vancouver for five nights and stayed in three different places with fascinating people. Norma and Robert run a health company called Omega. The two of them have been pioneers in the processing and packaging of omega oils. Dez met them when he was actively running his spirolina business. He has known them for twenty years, and they have become like family to him.

Next we stay with Freya in her beautiful apartment overlooking the ocean. I stay in her lounge/session area, decorated with drapes, golden pillars and beautiful paintings. She is a fascinating woman who has spent many years living reclusively on a Vancouver island, and now is practicing as a Sacred Intimate (see http://freyasanctuary.com). Her partner Hudson is a beautiful Jamaican musician who has been exploring the realms Freya is traversing. We spend late night after our talk and workshop sitting around a fire on my bed in the lounge, drinking red wine and playing songs.

Our third host was Taylore, an intimacy coach who is writing a book on deepening relationship for couples who are in business together. I spend our last afternoon in Vancouver with her and Olyvia, the host of our talks, cruising through the endlessly delicious Banyan Bookshop, and then having Aphrodite Chai and gluten-free rhubarb pie at the organic coffee shop next door. Taylore has fascinating stories to tell about her life, like the time she rented a six bedroom mansion because it had a lounge that was big enough for her to do suspension dance in. Suspension dance is done from silk scarfs hanging from the ceiling. Taylore loves dancing; we spend a fabulous half hour doing deep trance dance in her studio on Professor Trance's music - her favorite, and now one of mine too.

We did two talks and sex magic workshops and one practitioner's workshop in Vancouver. The take-up was slow, but the people were beautiful and the practitioner's workshop in particular went really deep. Participants are a mixture of practitioners (tantric massage practitioners, sacred intimates, dakas and dakinis and people working in related healing arts, as well as professionals and seekers from other walks of life. Vancouver is noticeably multicultural and it is good to this reflected in the participants. There is a huge Asian population in this city, so I am happy to have some oriental participants in the group.

Dez and I work together processing what comes up for a for a few of the participants. One pattern that comes up strongly is the polarity of abandonment and suffocation. We do an enactment where we first all descent on the participant with all our overextended love and judgment and opinions, and then leave her alone in the corner for a long time while continuing with the process. In reflection later, the participant reflected on all the emotions she moved through in quick succession. In sitting with all these experiences, something shifted in her, and her eyes came alight. I teach the group death/loneliness meditation, which is a meditation in which you move your attention from the outer to the inner to the outer breath by breath. Thus doing, eventually the perception that there is an 'inner' and an 'outer' starts to dissolve.

We have a viewing of Dez's Sex Magic movie in Taylore's studio. This is the first time I see the whole film. Dez takes questions and gives some reflections on the film afterwards. The film is clearly controversial, it stirs up emotions and arguments that Dez fields eloquently. In my summary, I would say that the movie is about sacred sexual work happening around Dez' Sedona Temple, as well as Dez' personal relationship life and his journey with Polyamory. Dez is on stage in the movie in many ways, and he is comfortable there. The movie also is about Dez' use of sex magic with other lovers to call back Maya, the woman that he chose to be with. She did come back to him for a few months in his life, enough time for him to realize that they were not meant to be together.

I spend much of Sunday with Linda Jervis, who attended my retreats in Knysna before she immigrated to Vancouver with her family. It is lovely seeing her and listening to her life story. Linda was a professional ballet dancer for a while and then had an accident that has restricted her movement ability. She has recently done a soul coaching course of Denise Lynn, and has now registered her own practice called Soulflow (see soulflow.shaw.ca) After a lovely seafood lunch looking out over the bay filled with yachts, we take a drive along the sea to the forested part of town - the trees, again, are breathtaking.

My perception of Vancouver is that practitioners of sexual arts here have thus far mostly been doing their own thing with not much networking and limited support from teachers; that may be about to change. Also, there are interesting events coming to Vancouver, like the women's squirtshop (female ejaculation workshop) that Tulula presented here on Sunday. Dez went to the squirtshop after-party while I went to catch up on sleep.

Dez, Natasha and I are traveling together harmoniously, and also at times have some intense conversations about topics on which we have different positions or areas where we choose to present differently. Some of our differences are cultural and influenced by the contextual differences between growing up in Africa and in North America. Natasha grew up in Russia, so she brings in yet another perspective. For me, this road trip is a valuable opportunity to become clearer on my own perspective, to see where I can be of use in the world. My motivation to publish the books I have been working on is getting stronger.

Natasha is attending sessions with me and bringing a deeply compassionate presence with her. She also asks incisive, valuable questions. She is exploring her own approach to sacred sexual healing work. I am valuing her realness and her willingness to go deep while staying light and grounded. She is a very accomplished and popular massage therapist, but has packed up everything for now to be on the road with Dez for the next six months or so (and me for the time that I am here).

We hear from Simon every now and again, it is beautiful to witness his growth and deepening is he is finding his way in North America.

Now, off to Seattle. Dez and I are having our last talk and workshop together this Thursday evening in Seattle; see http://sedonatemple.com/2010-north-america.php. It looks like I may be doing a few short notice workshops for women and/or practitioners here, and definitely also sessions. Contact me on shakti@shakti.co.za if you want to hear more. And there is a chance I'll be doing more workshops and sessions on the way to San Francisco - I will keep you posted!

Tantra travel journal Oregan to Seattle

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:05:00 +0000

Oregon

This country is beautiful. Trees form a lush green coat around us as we drive down the highway in Natasha's sexy's truck. I am traveling with two very beautiful people. Between the trees, Mount Shasta lake sleeps impressively. Off in the distance we see the peaks of snow-covered Mount Shasta. It is almost summer solstice, and Dez and Natasha tell me people were skiing up there a few weeks ago still. Mount Shasta is serious new-age hippy country where the legendary Anastasia has her home. I think she may find some Tantric love really grounding.

Ashland

Ashland is a town that hosts a Shakespeare festival all summer long. I can see why. The city feels a bit like a cross between Stellenbosch and Franschhoek with a touch of the Garden Route - Franschhoek goes Organic may describe it. We sit in the late afternoon sun eating an awesome rawfood dinner while watching the snow capped mountains in the distance. Then off to our host Roger, a student of the Muirs - see his lovely website sacreddesire.com.

The venue fills up with the sweetest people. There is a warm sense of community here, lots of embraces and meaningful glances going amongst participants. And what a range of people: Beautiful nature-nymphs and homesprung little dakini's, gnome-like smiling men with lots of hair, a priest who has studied all manner of mystery traditions and brought the together in his own temple, a large man with Tourette's whose body shakes and splutters in response to the emotions he feels during the sessions. He receives my touch with gratitude.

Our talk tonight is flowing in an interesting direction. There is a debate about whether we really need to feel the feelings that come up when the unconscious is touched, or whether the solution is not just simply to meditate. The questioner's argument is, since emotions are created by the mind, we may as well just still the mind and then the problem is solved.

Dez has an unusual perspective. He says people get addicted to meditation as an avoidance of feeling and experience. I affirm the value of meditation as a way of building a capacity for presence, but emphasize that the mind is very good at convincing us that we are being still when actually our meditation is going not very deep at all. Your depth is your depth. When you are not willing to feel deeply what is there, that's it - that's how deep your meditation will go too.

Three women approach me afterwards with gratitude. One is a taoist dakini who appreciated the affirmation to let herself feel deeply into the feelings that she was sitting on. Another teaches a form of tantric dance that works with the undulations in the body. The third is a yogini who has had some experience of kundalini rising from her body while she was doing waterdance and watsu - two disciplines that are popular here. She said it made her feel sane to hear me talking about the mondao, and my experience of how kundalini has risen up in me while sitting in the water, as this experience is not understood in that tradition. I had given some input on my experience of the experience between kundalini and the african mondao waterspirit.

Eugene

Eugene is a significantly bigger town than Ashland. Our host, Jennifer Glanville, is a petite but extraordinary woman who had a spontaneous kundalini awakening three years ago. She greets us with platters of delicious raw food and takes us to the venue, where a small but delightful group of people meet us for a discussion that goes wide and deep. We have time to work with a few individuals in the group, and this has a powerful impact on everyone. The tool I use is the male-female dialogue from my soulmate within course; Dez uses a similar tool that he calls Aspecting.

This is the third time we do the sex magic ritual, and I am starting to enjoy the process of clarifying and setting intention. My desire is to be available and present wherever existence can use me most powerfully for the awakening of those who are ready. After the talk, one of the participants encourages me to present at Ken Wilbur's Integral Spiritual Experience conference over New Year (http://integrallife.com/group/integral-spiritual-experience. I will write to them and see.

Drifting in a hot tub with leaves dappling overhead. I feel so grateful for this moment.

Portland

This is a city I could live in. It is beautiful. Living in this city is like living in a forest on the water's edge. The bridges across the waters are astounding in their design and extent. There is a tango milonga every night, and there is a huge Tantra meet-up. (A meet-up is a concept that is popular in America and is similar to a club.) Walking down the street towards the venue where we are talking tonight is like walking down a Paris cafe street.

We are meeting in the Massage in Motion room. It is covered in soft foam, I am intrigued as to what happens here during the day. People start flooding in, more and more of them. The event is sold out. Initially, I feel a bit intimidated by the volume of people facing me, but soon Dez and I are on a roll. The talk is getting recorded, I hope to get a copy of it. I can feel the energy building up and cooking in the room. At some point, I am talking about the rising of sexual energy in a woman's body, and I find my body spontaneously going into skydancing. A awe-filled silence comes over the room.

Dez and I share a lot in the content and style of our teaching. He talks about the healthy development of the nervous system from conception to adulthood, and how the nervous system can go into contraction when we experience shock or trauma in our development I talk about how the flow between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system can be supported back into naturally releasing trauma. I do some exercises with the group to get them to experience this contraction and release.

We both talk about the importance of feeling your feelings. Dez sees feeling as a feminine quality, associated with the belly, which is also the seat of our power. By becoming willing to feel, we return to our power. He talks about the right relationship between belly, heart, body and mind, and I talk about the flow of energy up the chakras.

At the end of the talk, a woman with a thousand multi-colored plats comes to sit next to me and asks: May I touch you? She puts her hand on my heart, looks me in the eyes and says: I thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Another woman, a beautiful spychic called Noelani, comes to thank me. She has made millions as an e-book writer (http://bit.ly/8Bwsg9), and has been in the Tantric scene for a couple of decades. "It is an honor to meet a real dakini," she says.

On request, I am running a women's workshop the next evening. The event is hosted with a lot of warmth by Erin, rawfoodist and yogini. Amongst the ten women gathered in the womb space of her cellar, are quite a few practitioners. One has done the training of the Source School of Tantra Yoga founded in 1978 by Charles Muir; see http://www.sourcetantra.com and another the Ipsalu Tantra (krya yoga) training http://ipsalutantra.org/. Both these training systems seem to be popular in America and fairly large volumes of people go from this training to teaching Tantra.

It is powerful to sit in this circle of women, to listen to the choir or our yonis singing together. As I guide the women into feeling into the flow of sexual energy through their womanly bodies, some strong openings happen. I so get why women are scared of their own sexual energy - this stuff is powerful! And as the kundalini starts moving, it will move whatever emotions and energetic expressions are ready to be integrated from the subconscious.

Our host for the time in Portland is Anna Marti (http://www.annamarti.com/). Anna has been working in the fields of sexuality and consciousness for decades. She reminds me of the daka/"the sexologist practicing at the edge of the law" main character in the movie Bliss, except she is the female version. Her home is a temple of style and finesse. Everywhere on the walls and tables are rare images of sensuality, the goddess and transcendence. Her bookshelf is a cordon bleu candy store for someone like me. Anna is a yoga teacher, a superb intimacy coach, a tango dancer, a grandmother, and in her free time, she does community service like classes on jealousy in the prisons. Her partner Scott, and internet creative, is a huge amount of fun.

In the morning, Anna calls me into her office to listen in to an internet radio show she is attending. The main speaker is Esther Perel (www.estherperel.com), the author of Mating in Captivity. She is talking about jealousy and infidelity. She is a psychologist with a passion and sensitivity that reminds me of Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

Stopover in Seattle, Washington

Yesterday, we arrived at the house of Dez' sister and brother-in-law in Seattle. Their names, delightfully, are Brad and Janet (alias Rocky Horror Picture Show) and they are as delightful as they are named. Brad is an exceptional listener, and Janet is an extraordinary young looking grandmother.

The house is built on an awesome river. I get in the water, which is superbly clean, and swim right across the lake area. My body is in bliss. Natasha, Dez and I laze about in the sun, and Dez dives out two pairs of glasses dropped by our host! (they get washed in the dishwasher and come out functional again.)

Brad and Janet are wonderful hosts. We get fed on Alaskan wild salmon outside in the late sunset. The house is equipped with everything you could imagine, including constant hot water on tap, excellent recycling facilities, a rain forest mist chamber, and a huge multimedia room. We get good sleep, another delicious swim in the river, a green spirulina smoothie with breakfast (It's great traveling and eating with Dez and Natasha) and now we're off to Vancouver, Canada - yay! In five days or so, we will be back in Seattle to do some talks and sessions.

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 07:56:00 +0000

San Francisco to Oregon

I am traveling north on the West Coast of America with three musketeers: Simon, South African daka on his way to go learn alchemy and Chinese, Natasha, Russian rawfoodist and lovely tantrika, and Dez, American Tantric networker extroadinaire. We are on the big road out of San Fancisco to Ashland, Oregon. I spent the last few days living in a loft in an semi-industrial area, looking out over the bay. Aemonn, my host, is an Irish-American lawyer who also happens to be a superb astrologer. America, he says, is the land of opportunity. Just print the business card, and that's what you'll be. I can see that. Tantrikas grow like poppy flowers here - a weekend course and some imagination is enough to get you going in your practice.

Having said that, things work really well here. The household appliances and finishings are just exquisite in their design and efficiency. You can get wi-fi almost anywhere if you are stable for a while, even just to grab a coffee. San Francisco is a classy city. Combine a spirit of everything-goes freedom with large dollops of creativity and big vision, and you have this city. I love the curves of the road, and the massive Gaugin-like wall paintings. Food is really good in any restaurant here, and the wholefood shops are out of this world in their choices.

The Tantra and polyamory culture in California is fascinating. You can find both categories of people on any block. People take initiative and create intriguing enterprizes. Zeerak Kahn, whom we meet in the hotel where she is staying, is completing a book on how she integrated the teachings of India's main Advaita and Tantra teachers with some of the funkiest teachings from the West. One that I find particularly intriguing, is her application of Wilhelm Reich's work. She puts students on massive vibrator pads and puts vibrators up their anuses while taking them through breath and yoga routines that shake them out of any remaining thought patterns they may be stuck in. Pull out the big guns, little lady!

Zeerak is a minute Indian beauty with a huge spirit. We are on our way to meet her long-time gay friend Juju, and she is dressing up in a snake skin dress and high high heels. "Juju is as much of a queen as I am", she explains - "I have to look the part!" Tomorrow, she will be posing as Lakshmi for Penny Slinger, author of Sexual Secrets. She shows me the jewellery that will be draped over her naked skin - exquisite.

We go to meet Juju at the reteat center which he helped to dream up and create. The drive up is though the redwood forests - My awe increases with the size of these trees. And then we turn into Stillheart, the retreat center (stillheart.org). In my life, i have never seen a retreat centre of this scale. It is enormously spacious, and all just with the finest design. There is a spring floor yoga room, an art room, a huge heated pool, sauna and jacuzzi, and an outrageously spacious workshop lounge.

The artwork is out of this world. There is an almost life size white jade quan yin statue in a corner, a massive lit up crystal in the entrance room, a painting of buddha's life that took some monks five years to paint, and then the highlight: two massive chandeliers from hand blown glass in the form of thick, voluptious, ocean-like flowers.

Accommodation is provided in tree houses. When you step out the houses, you get captured by the spirit of the massive redwood trees. It is hard to describe the scale of these trees. Their silent presence tower up overhead, green and timelessly joyous. We meet Juju, whose artwork is all over the centre. He is a lovely man, a deep spirit, with a delightful aversion to all things flakey. Having dreamt up and manifested this beauty, he wonders what will come next for him.

Triambika arrives to take Zeerak to Santa Cruz. She has a large head of curly hair, and a beautiful, solid gaze. Soon, she will be starting to teach her dakini mentorship programme. I hope to get to spend a bit more time with her in future. Then Dez arrives with Uta from London. Uta has just landed at San Francisco to attend a clinical sexology course. It is lovely to see this new dear friend again after my visit with her in London a week or so ago. Uta is organizing the European Sexuality and Consciousness conference, of which I am arranging the African counterpart. We talk business, ideas and networking while basking in tree-speckled sun.

Ah, and then, a walk through those awesome trees. There are strategically parked benches, each with a brush tied to them so you can wipe off the leaves. All attention to detail. We get to a waterfall watched over by a buddha statue. Simon and I, the wild Africans, cannot resist: We rip off our clothes and get in under the icy water. Then a proper, delicious mud bath-rub for me. I am landed on American soil.

America impresses. This is a place where anything seems to be possible. There are just so many people here, and the mind boggles at the amount of disposable cash. In a culture that is mostly middle class, people can afford to pay $3000 for a weekend retreat. it is lovely to be in a place where people value consciousness and will pay for teaching.

I do my first session in America in San Francisco. I feel the rightness of me being here right now. This session was needed, and was able to provide the guidance that was required.

Now, off to Ashland. We are on the fast track: Three cities in three days, and every night a talk and a workshop.

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:56:00 +0000

Travel notes Salisbury and San Fransisco

14 June 2010

I am met in Salisbury by the delightful Divya Lynette of the long silver hair. She arrives slightly flustered as her car engine had blown up the previous day after some drunken adolescent had poured cool drink in the petrol tank and a wig up the exhaust. The English, it seems, are not all politeness.

Over lunch in a patisserie she tells me about all the exciting activities she has recently participated in. Between dress-up parties at Osho Leela, sound healing sessions by visiting musicians, Five Rhythms, Biodanza, consciousness festivals, catharting meditations, tantric massage workshops and trance dance, it seems there is hardly chance to integrate one experience in England before the next arrives. I see the gift that this has brought her though. She talks about intensely transformational experiences with both awe and detachment. I like that.

Salisbury of course is a very special place. Although I don't have time to visit the stone circles, cathedral and other world famous sites, I can feel their presence. Lynette tells me that sunrises at Stonehenge can be quite overwhelming, as all the ritualist groups - light and dark to very dark - vie for the best spaces on this much hallowed ground.

Half an hour's drive out into the tree lined countryside, we reach Hanna and Martin's Tantra temple. They have invited me to present a retreat here this weekend. Saraja temple is both their home and the space from which they teach. I had met Hanna and Martin during the week in a private hotel lounge where I had had a chance to hear about their teaching. Hanna had spent three years in a Tibetan monastery and Martin had trained as a psychotherapist before they met and started a Tantric partnership that became a marriage. Their tradition is that of Kriya Tantra, in which specific yogic practices and rituals are observed. All practices are infused with mantra. Hanna and Martin have infused their practice with what they have learnt from other traditions as well.

The participants start arriving. Meeting people I will be working with for the first time feels for me a bit like meeting a lover for the first time. There is just such delight in meeting any of those rare souls who have the courage to do Tantric practice. And they are gathered here today from all over the world. Though all the participants now live in England, they come from all over - Italy, Greece, Holland, France, Poland - there are even two Afrikaners in the mix. There are councilors, osteopaths, a nurse, business owners, students, teachers and a priestess of Avalon in the mix. Many of the participants are students of Hanna and Martin, and they have a deep fondness and loyalty towards their teachers.

How does one describe what happens on a retreat like this? The experience is so internal and wordless, that one can hardly do justice. I will see that I can say that is of use. The theme for this weekend is welcoming dragon energy - our fiery passionate life force - and refining this energy up through the chakras. We start with the awakening of the passions, of which the first step is lifting the lid on suppressed emotions. the Europeans, it seems, do not like Dynamic meditation. They know it and they will do it because they know it's good for them, but it is like drinking bitter medicine. What gets their juices going though, is moving into animal expression. I gradually lure them into feeling their mammalian, territorial, sexual bodilly selves, until we have a mass of bodies rolling over each other on the floor, big cats play wrestling and delighting in the warmth of bodies pressed close by. Suddenly, we are alive, alert, and ready for pleasure.

Now that the willingness to feel passion and desire has arisen, it is time to face our stuff about love. I lead the participants into a very personal exploration of how our outer loves reflect our inner male-female relationships. Really coming to meet the beloved inside is a rocky journey that is often met with much resistance. We are so insistent in believing that the soulmate must be outside, and that doing the inner work is really only valuable if it leads us to the soulmate out there. But the shifts are happening. The inner conversations are deepening. And a few participants have exquisite encounters with the inner beloved.

Gradually, the atmosphere softens. By the evening, we are ready to enter a space of deep sensuality. In preparation, and to make sure everyone smells good after the day's sweaty practice, I get everyone into the hot tub outside after dinner. It is 8.30pm, and I am floating in the middle of a tightly packed mass of bodies, gazing up at the predators flying overhead. There is something magical about these late night bright skies in England. I feel contented and my belly is grateful for the delicious, wholesome food that we keep being supplied from Hanna's warm hospitality.

About the evening, I will not say much, except that it was very beautiful and moving. When human beings meet like this, in naked vulnerability, to give love in presence and touch, there can only be beauty. The temple holds us so comfortably with all the velvet pillows, quirky sheep skin and sparkling hearts that Hanna has adorned the floors with. Outside, the night is laughing at us as we pay no attention to the hour.

I get told in the early hours of the morning that I am expected to rev it up some more tomorrow - the participants have no desire to drop down from the level of ecstasy that they are already feeling in their bodies. "Are you sure?" I ask. We had already established by then that opening up to ecstasy also means opening up to everything else that is there to be felt. But they are ready, they want the ride, and so I say: "fasten your seat belts."

Not that what I offer them the next day is very dramatic or necessarily different from what they have done before. It is just that, when we make the intention to surrender deeply into presence, we go, softly, gently, without even having noticed, way beyond the comfort zones of our familiar ego structures. My style is light touch: I create opportunity, and each individual feels how deeply they want to enter there. Later on that night I hear Martin saying that insisting on being open can also be an escape from the real. I agree. Sometimes really allowing the closing and the contracting is the most profound opportunity. I hope that during this weekend, participants have had ample opportunity for both.

Hanna has invited me back to teach either at their delightful temple, or, she suggests, a bigger venue that can hold up to 50 participants. I feel honored, and will wait to hear what existence decides.

Sleep has not been a strong feature of my time in England. Between teaching, doing sessions, attending a talk by tantrika Luba from Boston, going to a Tango milonga in London (delicious) and catching up with fellow dakini Uta, the hours left for sleep have not been many. This morning I got up at 5am, and now I am in the coach to Heathrow, ready to take off to San Fransisco where I will be met by BabaDez, Zeerak Kahn, Simon Tzu, Natasha, and later Uta. A gathering of Tantrikas on the next continent, what fun. Tomorrow night is our fist talk, in San Fransisco. We we will be there until Saturday, available for sessions. In between, I shall be frolicking in the ocean. Dez tells me the sea at SF is cold (16 - 17 degrees); he clearly does not live in Cape Town. And then, I wish to sleep - lots, and deep, like a baby cradled in the lap of this beautiful planet we live on.

17 June 2010

LIfe gets more fascinating by the minute. The lovely Natasha picked me up at San Francisco airport and took me to her friend Kelly's house where I had a lovely but jetlagged sleep. We go out for breakfast late next morning to celebrate Kelly's 40th birthday and my first ever day in America. The sun is baking down on us at the side street cafe where we perch, and yet the cold wind confirms Mark Twain's words that I heard quoted often yesterday: "The coldest winter I have ever had is a summer in San Francisco." Kelly is a teacher at a private school here; she is doing a beautiful job teaching the leaders of the future how to live in loving relationship with humanity and the earth. Her good friend Rutherford comes to meet us. He is a fascinating man; a Watsu teacher who has spend a lot of his time at Harbon Hot Springs. We have a conversation about water dancing, which he also does, and about our beloved Quantum Light Breath which hails from there. I'm hoping to get a massage from him sometime, and have been invited to come visit again as I will be flying out from San Fancisco on the 14th of July.

Dez and Simon come to fetch me and take me over the awesome Bay Bridge to Oakland, where we have a long, leasurely lunch looking out over the lake. Our host for the night is Claire, who practices as a bondage tantric masseur. How is this for innovation: She ties you up, covers your ears with cordless headphones and takes you into a massage in which you get to feel delightfully out of control. The people start arriving: Tantrikas, polyamorists, authors, Shivaists, Shamans, sacred courtesans - you name it, San Fancisco's got it.

Dez and I present a talk on Sexual Shamanism which Dez sends in the direction of an intriguing discussion on power. One central tenet of the talk is that the collusion of state and religion is what has caused the contracting and binding of our personal power. I talk about the duality split between sacred and sexual and male-female power that happened with the takeover of matriarchal traditions by patriarchy. This took not only violence, but also a re-engineering of people's belief systems through the story of the Garden of Eden. Now the symbol of the Goddess, the snake, has become the symbol of the devil. And the split between the sacred and the sexual, the virgin and the whore, became clearly signified in the archetypes of Eve and Lilith. This has been our choice, and now it is time to choose again, as humanity moves up into the heart chakra.

What is very sweet and delightful is all the appreciation I receive from participants after the talk. I am invited to visit several people, and told that my feminine wisdom is much valued.

I sit by as Dez runs his Sex Magic workshop, which is actually a lovely exercise in getting clear about intention. He uses this thing called Puja that I have heard about so much; two circles, one male, one female, rotating, so that male and female partners keep circulating. What is quite sweet is the way in which people stare into each other's eyes. I wonder where they go.

This morning, off we are to Cafe Gratitude. Tonight a party called something like Dressing up and Taking it Off for Mother Gaya. Then we get to stay with Zeerak Kahn in her hotel room. Saturday morning we are off to Eugene, then Ashland, Oregan, then Portland, one day after the other, doing this same evening programme in each area. Right now, Claire is back home and we are off to Cafe Gratitude for a raw lunch.

To keep updated on our travel schedule, check out http://sedonatemple.com/2010-north-america.php.

We will be available for sessions wherever we go.

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:38:00 +0000

Releasing sexual trauma workshop at Neil's yard, Covent Gardens London

6 June 2010

This morning, London is still outrageously, sunnily happy. Uta and I have tea in her beautiful temple room while I admire images on her walls: a Mary Magdalene in tones of deep sanyas red, two large Tibetan dakini paintings and an exquisite oriental watercolor of a couple in Tantric love.

Uta, my fabulous guide, takes us through the maze of the underground in a jiffy while we discuss Tango milongas in London; we have discovered that we share this passion too. Our other shared passion, we discussed in some detail last night. It is so lovely to spend time with a woman who takes as much delight as I do in sessions work, and fascinating to hear how she goes about sharing the energy of the taoist tantric practices.

Here we are, at Neil's Yard in Covent Gardens. Outside, it looks like we may have been in Goa, Kalk Bay or any other spot where bright and professional modern-day hippies hang out. We descend down to the basement room where Uta has booked us a sound-proof venue. How delightful to meet a room full of people for the first time, all of them here with a shared desire to move deeper into the present moment, and through whatever keeps them from that presence. In the group are some men and women who are sacred sexual healers in London and surrounds, there are people from all nationalities and cultures, widowers, housewives and people from seriously mainstream professions.

Our theme for the day is releasing sexual trauma. As we go around in the circle and share what brings us here, a tapestry unfolds of lives lived and felt deeply, with desire, terror, vulnerability, insecurity, optimism,and everything in between. We are all moved by the bredth of experience that human beings are capable of.

London is a place of extremes. People come to London to party, to let out their wild side. I suspect that this after-hours wildness is an attempt to balance the social constraints of daily life. The results are interesting. One participant talks about his difficulty in feeling any arousal without the help of a cocktail of drugs. In public spaces that hold the volumes of people you find here, it is rather important that people behave considerately. Culturally, this habit of being considerate can in its extreme of course contribute to suppression of feeling. The first step in this work is to find some way to lift the lid on what is there to be felt. Sound it seems, is an issue in London. Making sound I gather, especially while making love, is largely taboo. This, of course, is one of the reasons why I get workshop participants to start roaring at each other. Purposefully, with intent, and with eyes wide open. My one big demonstration roar was enough to initiate processes in the room. Trying to find their own roar added the extra touch that started the process of participants feeling the emotions and sensations that had been suppressed in us.

This began a beautiful and moving process of sitting with the feelings that had been touched. In the process, I provide presence, tenderness and holding while the person in process has intense nervous system movement happening through their bodies: contraction, fast, almost hyperventilating breathing, heat and cold, numbness and tingles - all of this as the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems work through the trauma memories that are now being released from the cells.

It takes patience, presence and faith to do this work. It takes all of this from the rest of the workshop participants to witness this process, which can seem scary and quite out of hand. And yet the energy chances that occur when someone is allowed to feel things in their entirety is visceral and transformative for all that are present.

In the afternoon, after tomato soup and a coconut wheat-free muffin in the square, I guide the group into looking at the erotic. Our fantasies and our erotic attractions are such accurate guides to the unconscious. There are fantasies around in the room, for sure, and they are potently to the point. We do one simulation of the energy contained in someone's fantasy. I feel the rest of the participants go through everything from fear, apprehension and deep empathy to flushes of heat and arousal. The lid has been lifted for sure.

I know that several people walked away from today's experience feeling very surprised, and hopefully excited, about things they have discovered about themselves today. There is that particular light that comes on in a person's eyes when they see themselves in a way that they never could have imagined before, and suddenly they are delightfully home in their own skins.

Here is an example. There is a man in the group who has found much joy in being taken by his lover to meet and potentially seduce unknown other women. He got that this was hot for him. What he hadn't gotten yet, was that what made it really hot, was the fact that it was so 'bad' of him to do this. The secret for him, then, was that he lets himself in on how bad he is being when he explores this fantasy again. I listen with empathy as the psychiatrist in the group gives case studies to explain why such work could be dangerous with his patience. Yes, this work is only for the pinacle of seekers, for those few who have done enough inner work, who are clear and strong enough to go all the way, to even move beyond and through the dualities of good and evil that keep us trapped.

My experience of the English to far: diverse, complex, but certainly with shared suppressions not dissimilar from those of middle class South Africans, and trauma experiences not necessarily less so than South Africans have either. As with us, there certainly are some deep wounds and distortions running through family relationships. I am left with an awareness of how easily adults can conspire to keep shut the mouths of children who have been sexually victimized. I am left also with another impression: That often those who have been through severe sexual trauma, develop exquisite sensitivity that is a rare and valuable gift if used with enough care and presence.

Now I am on the train back to Wellingborough where my lovely mother is picking me up for a few days with her in the countryside. Everything is endlessly green and beautiful. The trees grow and breathe around me.

7 June 2010

Oh, what a delight to come home to mother! I got home cooked food and a special berry compote for dinner. Today, I am entering the day with slow delight. Tomorrow I will be off to London to go do sessions, attend a dinner with Tantra teachers in London, a talk by a visiting Tantra teacher from Boston on Thursday night, and then off to Salisbury to present the weekend's retreat: http://www.tantra.uk.com/shaktim.html. The focus here is on building sexual energy or vital life force, and then powerfully directing this energy into the heart. The result of course is that one has to ask yourself this question: How much bliss can you stand?

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:56:00 +0000

What it Tantric Orgasm?

In conventional sexual encounter, orgasm tends to be the goal. For many men, achieving ejaculatory orgasm is their only goal. For many women, pleasing the man by making him 'come' is the only purpose of sex. When the man becomes a little more conscious, he gets focused on the woman's orgasm. The flipside is that the woman's orgasm can very easily now become the goal.

In both cases - man's ejaculatory orgasm, and woman's vaginal or clitoral orgasm, the emphasis is on genital release. In order for this release to happen, a huge amount of tension is built up in the body through accelerated movement and breath, and through body tension. Genital orgasm can make you feel like you touch God - just for a second.

That second is a premonition of the real thing.

What is happening in genital orgasm is a stirring of the base chakra, the first point where our sexual energy gets awakened. In Tantra, our sexual energy is called Kundalini. Kundalini is our vital life force, or sexual energy, which lies coiled up at the base of the spine like a snake. This snake stays asleep, perhaps our whole lives long, until one day the process of our awakening begins.

This awakening happens when we start to ask the big questions in life: What is my life really about? Who am I? How do I find the divine in everything? How to live unconditionally? These questions become intentions that start to direct your life force.

In the body, the direction that our life force wants to go, is up. When the kundalini energy awakens at the base of the spine, it slowly starts to uncoil and rise up in front of the spine, through energy centers called Chakras.

A big part of the work of Tantra is assisting you with unblocking the chakras, which are the gateways through which this energy - our sexual energy - moves. When the gateways are blocked, the energy doesn't move up any higher. The opening of the chakras requires the willingness to feel everything that we have suppressed so far.

When the sexual energy moves up the chakras, it does so through a central channel that in Sanskrit is called the shushumna. In Tantra we affectionately call this channel the hollow flute, because when it opens, the song of spirit starts to play through us. The movement of our sexual energy becomes a dance of the divine. As our sexual energy moves up, it radically opens our hearts, and eventually moves through the crown of the head so that we experience our infinite oneness with all that is. This can happen as you work with your own sexual energy, and also during lovemaking with a partner.

The awakening of sexual energy as a spiritual force in the body is what we call Tantric of kundalini orgasm. It is a subtle - and sometimes huge - rippling of electromagnetic energy up the body, from the perineum at the base of the body all the way out through the crown of the head. When kundalini moves through us, we surrender completely to what is. Emotions may move through - we welcome them and don't identify with them. The body may be still or thrown around in wild abandon. We can never predict. In the middle of the orgasm, is infinite silence. We come to meet ourselves as who we really are. There is no greater peace than this. No greater bliss. The question, of course, is: (as you know by now if you have been following my postings) How much bliss can you stand? Are you willing to let the ecstatic truth of who you really are shatter all the hard treasured perceptions you have been holding on to? Think about it. Because this is what will happen.

With love
Shakti

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:02:00 +0000

One partner or many partners? My view on relationship

There is a collective perception that Tantrikas support multiple partnership. In this blog article, I quote an eloquently phrased question on this theme that has recently come my way, and share with you my response.

The Question

"I have a question that came up; your group is emphasizing as it were having several partners...I'm curious about how woman deals with it, (having more than one partner at the same time) from my understanding is that woman can only give herself "fully" (& even this is rare...) to the "One" (in or via a male-body), when she has more than one lover she becomes divided & often confused - She is already the "Many" that's why she's looking for the One! ... can I ask you how was your process, development in this? & how do you see it now?"

My response

The number of partners a person has is not at all key to Tantric practice. As Tantrikas, we do not advocate or reject monogamy, polyamory, celibacy or any other form of relationship. In fact, our focus is not on relationship as such. Our focus is on awareness. We support whatever assists you in moving through illusion and closer to a true knowing of who you really are. Along the way, we support you in the gradual opening of the heart into unconditional love.This often means being taken into experiences where your heart contracts and has not been able to stay open.

Tantra is a practice of non-duality; Advaita. This means that we recognize the dualities or polarities that form and sustain our ego identities, and we find ways to help people break the gridlock that these fixed positions can create. I say "we" but more accurately my experience is that existence decides what experiences sincere seekers of truth will have. What makes us unique perhaps, is that we don't take sides in the game of "good" and "evil" in people's minds. We are as happy to guide people into the mud as into the stars. We smell the scent of truth and follow that in you.

Now on my personal experience. As my desire to live in truth grew, life presented me with potent opportunities to feel what I had suppressed in the areas of love, intimacy and sexuality. I have had to sit in the fire of my own ego's polarity patterns, which were deeply felt and embedded in the body. Some of these were:
trust - betrayal
acceptance - rejection
being special - being invisible
belonging - abandonment.

This is the theory. The practice looked like years of intense processing, crying, screaming, feeling physical and emotional pain beyond what I thought humanly possible, and often staying away from other people because I knew they would feel overwhelmed by the intensity of my experience. What was happening, in essence, was that the states that I had been suppressing all my life - trying not to feel - like the feelings associated with betrayal - had a chance to be deeply felt through my nervous system and emotional body.

As I allowed the feeling and processed the dualities, patterns would start to fall away of their own accord. It took hard work and commitment in the face of what appeared like total madness at times. But the patterns changed, and keep changing. The effect is that I am less trapped in webs of unconscious patterning, and more available to see and feel the real of what is here.

As a Tantrika, I understand (in my nervous system and in my bones) that my sexuality belongs to the Divine - existence - all that is. If there is going to be any possession or belonging involved in my sexuality, it is this: My sexuality belongs to the Tao, presence, the Self. It is a gateway to the Divine. It does not ring true for me to think of partnership with another person in possession terms. I know this statement gets read as a rejection of monogamy and marriage; it is not. It is perhaps an embracing of the core dream held in monogamy: Pure presence, commitment to what is, right now, total devotion to the One as embodied by the person I am with right now.

Yes, the feminine in me (and for sure in women I have worked with) delights in the one-pointed focus of Shiva lingam - the masculine principle - rising up in us. Yes we are looking for presence in the masculine. We feel in the masculine the potential to be the rock of pure presence, and we support that movement in the men in our lives. But in Tantric practice, this encounter with the masculine principle happens strongly within us as well.

Do I get confused when men in my world get interested in every woman who walks past? I do not get confused, because my sense of myself is not dependent on the feedback I get from men. If I see this pattern externally and I feel an emotional response, I will look in the mirror and ask: What is happening in my inner relationship that encourages my inner masculine to be flighty and lacking deep presence?

Having said that, there have been profound moments in my life where I have seen lovers move in attraction towards another woman or women. I have experienced partners move into a relating with someone else that I could feel was going to go very deep. I have felt all the feelings that have come up for me in the moment as this reality arose - strong sensations in the body, rapidly moving emotions. And I have experienced extraordinary turn-arounds in my experience, to where I could deeply share in and support the ecstasy that was now flowing between these two people. Isn't it strange how, in our conditioned idea of love and relationship, we vehemently resist other relatings that are clearly bringing our partners great joy and experience that will deepen their awareness?

If there is going to be presence between two people, it will be there because it is there - not because they are following external rules or guidelines to keep them with each other.

The deepest commitment that I can offer you is to be totally present, right here, right now, with the fullness of who I am. Relationship is a space in which we can practice presence and all the challenges that that brings. If my attention is flitting about all over the show while I am with you, this is a sign that there is something happening in my inner life that is calling for attention - and I have been resisting. I would like to sit with this and become quiet with myself, giving myself time to feel and perceive what is being covered up by endless distractions.

You ask me how it is for me as a woman to have more than one partner, and what my experience has been around that. My honest response is that it is not important to me whether I have one, many or no sexual partners at any given time. What I am following all the time, is presence and truth. Remember that my sexuality belongs to the Divine. I follow the Divine as s/he manifests in this moment, as an energy formation that is receptive to presence, depth of presence. Often that means sitting in silence. I am single a lot of the time. Sometimes I have one partner, and sometimes several. I do not particularly keep track of the numbers and configurations; for me this would feel like the ocean counting the waves and measuring its reality by how many there are.

As I write this, I realize that my experience has perhaps got not so much to do with being a woman. I am man and woman, living with great delight in a female body. The processing I have done through relationship has been invaluable in supporting this inner marriage and in clearing layers of collective female unconscious patterning that would otherwise have directed my experience of this moment.

If you would like to join us in a workshopping of this theme, please join Stephen and myself next Monday night 22 February 7 - 10pm; cost R350. Bookings at shakti@shakti.co.za by Friday latest.

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:22:00 +0000

Personal love up the Chakras

This article is an exploration of personal love-attraction as it moves up the chakras. My focus here will be on the healthy impulse of attraction in each chakra.

First chakra (perineum/root of the body): Your relationship is infused with vitality. The procreative impulse is strong. There is heated passion between you, fiery attraction. You feel grounded in this relationship.

Second chakra (just under navel): The relationship gives you a sense of belonging, comfort, loyalty to yourself, and gentleness.

Third chakra (solar plexus): You are in this relationship out of pure delight and personal attraction, rather than out of a sense that society or your tribe will approve. You feel expansive, strong in your sense of self and a flow of healthy personal power in your relating.

Fourth chakra (heart): Your loving is an expression of unconditional love; you both have the capacity to hold your hearts that open. Your love for all that is expands through your loving of each other. You are gateways for each other towards the awakening of the heart. The sensation in your lovemaking is that your heart expands tremendously.

Fifth chakra (throat): Your loving is a co-creating with the divine. Your desire is beyond personal will, and at the same time you are willing to become tremendous forces of awakening in the world.

Sixth chakra (third eye): Your relating becomes a psychic sharing involving sense perception beyond ordinary everyday awareness. You listen into the sound of silence and smell states of consciousness. Your energetic form becomes fluid and attachment to your manifest shape drops away.

Seventh chakra (crown): Your lovemaking becomes a melting with the divine - all that is. Sexual energy begins in the base of the body, and moves all the way up through the crown of your head. In this the 'self' disappears; you know for sure, experientally, that you are one with all that is.

With love, as with all good things, it is good to start at the bottom and work your way up. Aspiring to a seventh chakra relationship when you don't have your rooting in the world strong, is asking for disaster and mega-illusion. Life will naturally move through you in this way; just let your ego get out the way of the process.

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:41:00 +0000

The kiss - why not to, and how to

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news: Tantra doesn't like kissing - or at least not kissing as it is generally done. Here I shall explain to you why, and then bring the good news: There are some potent alternatives.

The problem with kissing

Boy meets girl (or girl meets girl/boy meets boy): If there is sexual alchemy, two things tend to happen. The masculine (in men or women) goes into sexual excitement and starts to work out a plan to get to base 1. Kissing has, in his experience, good direction to aim in. Why so? Because as the masculine experiences sexual excitement as first response, so the first response of the feminine (in men or women) when she feels attraction, is to enter romantic fantasy.

Kissing supports romantic fantasy. It happens close to the brain, and puts you into a light - or sometimes heavy - trance - that supports the building of ideas and fantasies. Check for yourself. Does that feel true? You are literally stimulating the brain as the main organ of sex. This is a wonderful idea of building sexual illusion. A deep kiss is likely to make the feminine feel that she is loved. Unfortunately this feeling is the result of chemicals released in the brain only. Fortunately for the masculine, however, this illusion of love that the woman now feels is going to make her willing to enter base 1. The sexual excitement builds.

It is important at this point to distinguish between love, excitement and romantic fantasy. Love, the way Tantra understands it, is pure presence - no story, no expectation, no projection. Kissing early on in sexual connection, is a pretty full-proof way to trigger the brain's projective mechanisms. The result is so much less of a chance to connect with the real of this moment.

How then to go about the kiss?

Save the kiss for later. First get the whole body involved. Love all of her/him. Meet in presence. Breathe together. Explore each other in conscious touch. Try a full-body melting hug. That will communicate something of the real of embodied love.

Kiss the body. The mouth can be a wonderful lover, for sure. You can use your lips and your tongue to love his/her whole body - starting with the big toe (unbearably delicious) and moving all the way up to the nape of the neck.

Kiss on the mouth - later. Kiss lightly, preferably not french kissing. French kissing is an imitation of penetration. Don't substitute - go for the real thing. Once you have really made love, engage the kiss by all means.

Tongue on upper palate. Keep your tongue on your upper palate while making love. This encourages sexual energy to rise, from the genitals, all the way up the spine, through the brain and the mid brow-point and coming to rest on the palate. The upper palate is the point where the upward and downward flow of sexual energy connect. From here the sexual energy flows down the back of the throat, through the heart and comes to rest in the belly as life force or vitality. If you cycle your sexual energy like this, you are more likely to experience full body orgasm, and the man is less likely to ejaculate (and thus lose his sexual energy.)

Tip pushing up on palate. If you like the penetrative feeling of french kissing, here is a potent alternative. When your sexual energy is high, arch your tongue backwards, and push it up against the upper palate, as though you want to penetrate the palate. Look into the third eye. Squeeze your PC muscles, and pull up the sexual energy.

Bite the upper lip. The upper lip in a woman is directly connected to her clitoris. In love play, experiment with lightly biting/chewing her upper lip. Wait for the woman to be very relaxed and receptive before trying this. Personally, I prefer this move to direct clitoral finger stimulation, which tends to be too harsh on the highly sensitive nerve endings of the clitoris.

Curling tongues. Ok, if you have to do the French kiss thing, then put it to good use. The Taoist way is thus: Curl your tongues around each other, and hold them like this while you cycle your sexual energy in the microcosmic orbit (see tongue on upper palate.)

Let the sounds come out. Kissing is engaging the throat and mouth area. Perhaps this part of your body wants to be more expressive in lovemaking. Let the sounds come out!

Sucking nipples or penis. French kissing has a sucking quality which draws on our earliest, infant memories of belonging and nurturing. It can be really healing and integrating for a man to take time - a good half hour a day - to suck his lover's nipples, almost the way a baby does it. Women, you can suck the penis. Take all your attention and presence into this act. Make it an act of pure devotion.

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 11:34:00 +0000

The victim-rescuer-predator triangle

Much of the work of Tantra is about uncovering and integrating what has been lying hidden in the unconscious. The unconscious is where we store all suppressed experience, which includes all experiences that were too much for us to feel to their depths at the time of their happening. This can be anything from rape to the first time our mothers decided not to breast feed us any more. If the feelings that came up as a consequence of the incident were too much for you to deal with at the time, they would have been stored in the unconscious. Feelings only move through once they have been felt.

Why are we interested in integrating matter from the subconscious? Tantra is about your awakening - waking up to the truth of who you really are. On the way there, we get to face all illusions we have been holding on to. Repressed experience that is held in the unconscious becomes like a grid or a filter through which all of our life experiences get perceived - without us consciously knowing about this. We might see the signs - for instance, that we keep repeating the same patterns in relationship. But the cause is not visible to us. Unconscious patterns shape our sense of who we are from a place where we do not see this happening.

Much of Tantric technique is focused on enabling what has been hidden from you to become accessible and integrated. For more on this, see my article on sexual healing. A significant pattern that gets revealed when the unconscious gets integrated is that, somewhere along the line, we have felt like we were victims. It is about this that I want to write here.

Victim, rescuer, tyrant

A victim is someone who feels, or perceives themselves to be, helpless or having no control over the experiences which s/he is 'forced' to have. We have all felt like victims at some point in our lives. Here are some key principles for understanding how victimhood works.

If you have felt like a victim somewhere in your life, you have most likely also identified yourself with the rescuer role. In fact, 'victims' can become intensely identified with the rescuer role. Here is an example. If your experience of relationship has been that women get attracted to you because you can 'rescue' them in some way, then chances are that somewhere in your life, you have probably been feeling like a victim. We project the victim role out on to others, because we find it too difficult to deal with in ourselves.

Where there is a victim, there is also a tyrant or a perpetrator - the one or the collective that makes the victim a victim through their actions. This one we tend to project out strongest. So guess what that says about the tyrant? If you regard yourself as a victim, somewhere in your psyche there lurks a tyrant/abuser. The stronger you identify with the victim, the stronger the abuser in you could potentially be.

If your strongest identification is with the rescuer - often also called the healer - then have a good look too to see where the victim and the abuser in you are hiding away.

The victim, the rescuer and the abuser form a triangle. If you identify with one of those roles, the other two will be strong archetypes in your living as well. Most likely, unconsciously so.

Power in the victim triangle

I know about all of this from personal experience of course. For much of the first half of my adulthood I was in the rescuer role. My uncovering of how this process played off in me took place over many years. An incident that shattered the illusions I were still holding on to was the following. For a good four years in my life, I was put in a situation where I had to assess the impact of proposed golf estate developments on vulnerable local communities who lived in the areas where the estates would be built.

Initially, I identified two clear polarities in the roles. There were the greedy go-getters - the developers who would do anything to get their multi millon rand developments approved - and the needy children - the vulnerable communities whom the developers tried to bribe by promising them houses. Leslie Temple-Thurston (see corelight.org) was guiding her students through processing these polarities at the same time that I was in the thick of it.

I discovered through my processing that the needy child and the greedy go-getter both exist very much in me as well. I started to own the anger that that the oppressor-oppressed relationship evoked in me as my own anger and vented the anger in my car and in my home. I took responsibility for what I was seeing happening out there. I owned both sides of the polarities in myself. I also saw that I was putting myself in the third position - that of the rescuer. In taking responsibility and facing my own internal reality, I got in touch with my authentic power.

I also started seeing very clearly how the power dynamic between victim, rescuer and predator works. The biggest shock for me was to realize how the vulnerable communities were using their victimhood to manipulate everyone around them. One particular community I worked in made this abundantly clear to me. Every leader amongst them had developed his/her own strategy for maximizing the leverage they could get out of their historical victimhood. As a result, a fierce competition developed between them all that became a terrifying maze for anyone wanting to engage with them.

The question I want to ask you is: how do you use your victimhood to gain power and control?

Identifying your type

Let's unpack that question step by step. First, the question is: what kind of victim are you? What kind of predator? And what type of rescuer? To find the answers to these questions, we have to stalk ourselves a little - get into the blind spots of how we perceive ourselves. Why bother? Because in seeing honestly how we have manipulated power, we get to our authentic power. What helps me to stalk myself is to be playful about it. I identify the characters/caricatures inside me. Here are a few examples of types. Do any of these fit you? Any others you can add?

The predator/tyrant

The greedy go-getter
The judge
The manipulator
The righteous one
The sadist
The rapist
The stalker
The bureaucrat
The avenger
The critic

The victim

The needy child
The damsel in distress
The disenfranchised one
The slighted one
The abandoned child
The betrayed lover
The slave
The martyr
The sacrificed one
The masochist
The retarded one
The rescuer

The rescuer role deserves some more elaboration. Some sub-archetypes of the rescuer are:

The healer
The mediator
The community worker
The campaigner
The donor
The problem solver
The mother/father
The teacher
The soldier/guard/policeman

You can see that many occupations and social roles relate to the rescuer archetype and its sub-archetypes. Examples are doctors, nurses, social workers, community workers, councilors, social workers, development workers, parents, housekeepers, conflict resolution specialists, human rights and environmental activists, soldiers, guards and policemen, and of course teachers.

When in balance, each of these healing/giving roles are a beautiful expression of our creativity. However, the rescuer role is the one in which we most easily hide our embeddedness in victim triangle. Being a rescuer looks like a noble role to have, and it is one in which we can maintain our dignity and moral high ground. However, the rescuer role easily turns sour, and then the experience becomes something like the following:

The exhausted healer
The anxious mediator
The self-sacrificing community worker
The angry campaigner
The resentful donor
The hyperactive problem solver
The drained mother/father
The over-extended teacher
The wounded guard, soldier or policeman

Do any of these feel familiar? Then it is time to have a good look at what you are doing, and more specifically, why you choose to play your role in a way that it gets out of balance for you.

How the one becomes the other

By now I am sure you have noticed how any position in the victim triangle - victim, rescuer and tyrant - relates to the other two. Here are some examples. It is well known that people who abuse their children or wives, or who abuse alcohol, have often grown up in homes with abusive or substance abusing parents. A man who grew up with abusive parents may have coped as a child by adopting a rescuing position in relation to this sister. If he doesn't resolve the unconscious victim triangle in him self, his rescuing of his sister may become an insistent habit towards woman which could become highly manipulative and disempowering towards women around him. He may be so determined to find the victim in women that he would unconsciously turn them into victims.

The social/environmental activist can end up using the same strategies - the same weapons - as the developers whom they regard as the enemy. They become predators just as much as rescuers. The drained mother/father can keep her/his children emotionally codependent by holding them responsible for the lack of energy that s/he feels.
Breaking the cycle

The first step in breaking the cycle is to do some honest self reflection. Stalk yourself. Discover what you have been hiding from yourself. The role you are most likely to be aware of in yourself is that of the rescuer. The key question for the rescuer is:

1. What is in it for you?

Look at the emotional benefits you get from playing the rescuer. Perhaps being the rescuer is your attempt to avoid being in a position where you may feel rejected, abandoned or betrayed. More importantly, and more difficult to acknowledge to ourselves: The rescuer position comes with power and status. Rescuers are esteemed and given special privileges. They get access where others won't be allowed in.

The same question of course applies to the other roles.

What is in it for you?

If you were orphaned or raped or abused and your identity has become attached to this experience, ask yourself: What is in it for me? Why am I holding on to this experience and this role? Why do I choose to stay identified with it? Begin by identifying how as victim you also play the tyrant and the rescuer. Then have a good look at what the victim role gives you. Being a victim implies that you have no choice, no power and no control over your experience. Where and why are you choosing to hide your personal power from yourself? Is it more comfortable for you to be pitied by others than to stand on your own two feet? Are you attached to the manipulative privileges of the victim?

If your main identification is with a position in which you have all the power - the tyrant role - you probably feel repulsed by or irritated with anyone who is identified with the victim role. You may even feel that they deserve what they get. The question again is: What is in it for you? Are you perhaps hiding some traces of the victim in you by projecting the victim out there? This brings me to the second step in breaking the victim cycle:
2. Watch your projections

A projection is an experience or trait that we see in others but which actually resides in us. By their nature, projections are often external reflections or aspects of our own psyches that are unconscious to us. We are not consciously aware of those facets of our beings, or we are in denial about them. The projections you really need to look at will be in your face. You will notice them as patterns in the people who are in your life, or they will be unavoidably visible to you in your relationships with significant others. Begin with your parents: Which qualities do they have that really annoy you? Have a good look where you are hiding those qualities in yourself.

If you tend to see victims, rescuers or predators/tyrants out there, have a look to see where they reside in you. If you need to see healers all the time or need to have a teacher for everything, the same may apply.
3. Dreams and fantasies

Your dreams and your erotic fantasies can help you become conscious of the victim/rescuer/predator types that you unconsciously or consciously identify with.

4. Act them out

A wonderful way of bringing consciousness to your victim-predator-rescuer roles is to act them out in a playful way. The best way to do this is with partners who also want to explore and play. During the four years that I was in the thick of exploring this material, I wanted to experience my killer instinct. I had a friend who wanted to feel her prey character. We got together and each made a mask - she made a prey mask, and I made a victim masks. As soon as we put on our masks, the fun began. I started chasing her about the house with a huge, roaring voice. She hid under the tables and chairs and her voice became queeky and pleading. The secret of course is to stay in the play-acting. The exercise is about exploring and experiencing your own dynamics, not about harming another. Which brings me to the next important step.

5. Feel your emotions

Emotions will come up when the victim triangle in your becomes conscious - most likely feelings you have been trying to avoid all your life. The most painful aspect of our feelings (as with anything) is our attempt at avoiding them. Make a practice of noticing when an emotion comes up for you, and allowing yourself to feel the emotion. When emotions are deeply felt, you own them. When anger comes up, go to your room or get in your car and vent the anger. DON'T vent the anger at other people. Doing that doesn't help you to integrate the old emotion. It just makes more.
6. Accept your power

Find where you are hiding your personal power from yourself. Accept your power. Live it consciously. And live your gratitude for the gifts that you got from the experience that made you feel like a victim.

7. Who would I be without my story?

Next, consider this question of Byron Katie's: Who would you be without your story? Could you think of your past differently? Could you imagine an authentic identity for yourself that is not woven around your victimhood, not even in the subtlest ways? Could you even just creatively, playfully, explore different possibilities? Having said this, I do believe that it is important to feel the emotions to their depth first - imagining yourself without your story should be the result of deep integration, not mental avoidance strategies for what has to be felt.

8. 100% responsibility and no control whatsoever

Finally, consider the truth of this: Life happens to you, from moment to moment. Your ego structure can do everything in its capacity to help you maintain control and to get to experience life as you will it. But this is never possible. The reason is that the ego is an illusion. And you are not separate from the flow of existence. What is going to happen, will happen.

What you do have though, is 100% responsibility - the ability to respond. Your experience of life will be determined by how you choose to respond to what happens to you. Isn't that beautiful?

noreply@blogger.com (Shakti) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:03:00 +0000

Inner and outer heat in Tantra
Copyright Shakti Malan

In Tantric lovemaking, an extraordinary movement of inner and outer heat occurs. This heat and what accompanies it, is what I call dragon's nectar - the theme of my upcoming retreat in the Drakensberg. I will attempt to give you a sense of the experience of this heat here, as well as some information on how this energy has been perceived in Tantric mystery traditions.

Building a bonfire

In ordinary/unconscous lovemaking, what effectively happens is that suppressed energies build up to an involuntary crescendo of contraction and drivenness. The heart rate increases rapidly, as do body movements and organ pulsation. We race towards peak orgasm. And then we collapse in exhaustion. This is like building a huge bonfire - putting all the logs on at the same time - and enjoying the short ecstasy of heat before the logs burn out.

Physiologically what happens here is that the sympathetic nervous system - our fight and flight response - goes into overdrive. This can be very exilirating, a bit like the adrenalin rush we get from extreme sports.

But that fire burns out pretty quickly. It is like one big fiery roar from our inner dragon - impressive, volumous, short lived, and it leaves a trail of destruction in its passing. You may get tired or suspicious of this kind of sexual expression at some point. Good. Now it is important to realize that the trouble is not the fire. The fire is needed. Without the dragon there is no dragons nectar. What needs to change is the way we build the fire.

Stay at the beginning

In the Vigyam Bhairav Tantra, Shiva says: "At the start of sexual union, keep attentive to the fire in the beginning, and, so continuing, avoid the embers at the end."(verse 42)

The art is to learn to build that fire slowly, consciously, with full awareness and clear intent.

Inner heat and the feminine

"In order to allow for the birth of the [ultimate dakini, the wisdom that realizes emptiness], one must eliminate the gross forms of consciousness
by means of the inner heat (tummo) practice that is a particular form of bliss.
This bliss is the means of eliminating coarse consciousness:
therefore, the inner heat represents a meaning of dakini"

- HIS HOLINESS THE FOURTEENTH DALAI LAMA

This quote comes from a beautiful book by Judith Simmer-brown called Dakini's Warm breath. She describes that in Tibetan Tantric practice, it is understood that the subtle body has three main channels: the non-dual central channel (called the shushumna in Sanskrit) and the two flanking channels. One of these channels is regarded as feminine and is governed by the fire element and the sun. The vital breath of the feminine is warm. The other is regarded as masculine and is governed by the moon and the water element. The vital breath of the masculine is cool.

The focal center of the cool masculine breath is the head, and the center of the warm feminine breath is the navel. Tibetan Tantric practice brings the energy of the icy father down to the navel to be melted by the fiery mother. In that way, the energy of the flanking channels gets united in the central channel. From this comes a great centered stillness and inner heat.

The inner heat is associated with the quality of bodhichitta. Bodhichitta refers to the awakened mind that aspires to liberate all sentient beings. When the vital breaths get united in the center, we live in unity consciousness. There is a quality of bliss associated with this state. But even greater bliss is that of the bodhichitta, who desires to share her bliss with others. This is an essential quality of the dakini.

The inner fire in the belly burns up all states and experiences that keep us from living in pure presence. Therefore, the dakini takes great delight in pulling the practitioner into this fire, even if the burning feels to the recipient like a cruel and heartless act. Dakini knows that true love can burn, to the core.

Outer heat and the masculine

In his fascinating book The Hero: Manhood and Power, John Nash writes about the cultivation of heat by the masculine. Nash is of the opinion that men have also encountered this heat in a very masculine activity - "its awesome power arising within himself, spontaneously, time and time again, through dangerous and exhilirating exertions of another kind - the perils of the hunt."

He also writes that, since ancient times, humanity has understood the sacredness of the feminine because of her ability to birth, without any attempt to 'make' this happen. The masculine, on the other hand, has had to prove his virility by conquering and mastering powers in nature far exceeding his own.

He talks specifically about practices to cultivate the mystic heat. One example is sweat lodges, a heat ceremony from the South American Shamanic tradition designed specifically to help men access the altered states of consciousness that women naturally have access to, especially during menstruation. Nash also refers to certain forms of yoga that raise the metabolic heat of male practitioners to excessive, unnatural degrees. He refers to the Tibetan practice of 'tummo', "'heat-yoga so intense that the monk with his naked body dries blanket after blanket that has been soaked in an icy mountain torrent."

Tummo is the practice that the Dalai Lama referred to in the above quote as a core expression of the dakini in a seeker. The extreme yoga Nash refers to here is a practice using determination, discipline and will power to invoke this fire in celibate practice. But then the Dalai Lama's quote refers to dual cultivation - in this case specifically with the dakini or feminine as embodiment of the wisdom principle. In Tibetan Tantric practice, the monk would deepen his meditation and strengthen his tummo practice until he reached a certain level of realization or awakening. Then his master would introduce him to the dakini who would take him through the final stages.

Ultimately, it is the merging of the feminine (dakini) and masculine energies that take the seeker into the central channel where the inner heat is experienced, and we live in unity consciousness. We all have both masculine and feminine principles inside us. The ultimate merging happens when masculine and feminine merges inside us. In that sense, Tantric practice supports a seeker, no matter what your sexual orientation is. When two men or two women come together in Tantric practice, one will adopt the feminine and one the masculine principle.

The rippling fire of Tantra - my experience

I have had the rare privilege in my lifetime to experience what happens when the masculine and feminine come together in pure presence in Tantric lovemaking. It has left me with a clear realization as to why the Hindu gods are always depicted as being blue. There is a fire that starts to ripple over a person's skin when s/he practices Tantric lovemaking - and takes time about it. This fire is cool, it is spread out all over the body, and for me, its colour is distinctly blue.

Building the slow fire

Tantric lovemaking builds a slow, shimmering, delicious fire. At times, yes, we welcome and build the hot fire of the dragon's breath, of wild passion and roaring delight. But the quality of the meeting is guided mostly by the feminine - receptivity, relaxation, openness to the moment, to the greater flow of what is. The feminine moves like wind and water, dissolving, flowing, folding. The masculine, enveloped by the caress of the feminine, holds one pointed focus. He is the rock. He holds stillness, but without contraction or force. He surrenders into pure presence.

In this space of pure presence, time and space lose their usual hold on us. The moment becomes eternity. Eight hours pass in one timeless flow of the moment. Slowly, deeply, your energy builds, and so too the levels of bliss you can stand. Bodies lose their familiar appearance. You come to experience, beyond doubt, that we are not as solid and fixed a we are. And that, in fact, there is no separation at all. It is this state of subtle, seamless bliss which I call the dragon's nectar.

To be available to this quality of lovemaking takes some preparation, some unlearning of old conditioning, and some sharpening of presence. It takes the willingness to face, and embrace, the erotic impulses you have suppressed. It takes the laying aside of body armoring that keeps you from being fully responsive in your body. It takes deep presence in breath and sensation. It takes a bump-up in your level of openness to sensory impulses. It takes huge expansion of your heart capacity.

Dragon's Nectar, my Tantra retreat in the Drakensberg 20 - 25 November, is designed to support you in exactly this journey. For details, see http://totalitytherapy.com/events/2009/07/dragons-nectar-tantra-intensive-retreat.html. It's time to step into the fire - and say yes!

"Some day, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love; and then for the second time in the history of the world, men will have discovered fire!" – Theilard de Chardin