It seems I do. So… bare with me (no pun intended… or is it?… Lord).
Because, after the last blog about sex and how it has been squashed and trampled upon and turned upside down and inside out and shrouded with shame and charged with guilt, after that last blog – which I think is my ‘most viewed’ blog yet – it seems sex ain’t going away. If I thought I was done with that one quick dip in the pool, I’ve been proven wrong.
It might have something to do with that Lovers card that happened to fall on the floor in answer to my question to the Universe, “What do I need to learn to evolve?”, or it might have something to do with the fact that I realized that, until I can begin to know what the ‘change’ around sex looks like, how can I really teach it? How can I be any good to my daughter Adea or anyone else for that matter? I’ll just be stuck in all the ways I know it doesn’t work and my ideas about how it should be honored and kept sacred will remain just that… ideas.
Within twenty four hours of said blog and realization, the Hub’s newsletter informed me that Tantric teacher Charu was going to be leading a puja… an Evening of Awakening. (see her website at embodytantra.com!)
I know people who practice and even teach Tantra. I’ve heard many a story about wrapping your legs around someone else…. someone male and someone who is a complete stranger… stories about throats meeting throats and sharing sound vibration… stories that have had me cringe and wonder how in the Hell they can do it? Who ARE these people? Where is their sense of morality? Of what’s right? How can they go get intimate in a roomful of people with a bunch of strangers who are surely just looking for a quick, sordid turn-on? Tantra is SO NOT MY CUP OF TEA. For those friends of mine who I know indulge, I have given them lots of leeway and kept my thoughts… and judgments… to myself. Mostly.
As soon as I saw the newsletter I knew I should go. I knew and I really didn’t want to. I wanted an ‘out’. I especially wanted an out when the couple of people I mentioned it to were quick to give their apologies and say they couldn’t come. So I asked my friend Rachel who is Tantra Queen and oh-so-picky about ‘lineage’ and what is ‘clean’ and what isn’t. I sent her an email and within minutes she called me… not emailed, but called saying how she knew this Charu and how she wished she could go and how jealous she was. Damn. I had been so sure she would tell me it was no good.
Anyway, resistance aside, tonight I went to a Tantric Sex workshop.
It’s almost 7 o’clock and I’m sitting in the lobby with the other people who will be participating and I’m thinking, “What in the Hell am I doing here? I could leave now. It would be so easy. I cannot imagine having some kind of sexual energetic experience with THESE people. There is NO WAY.”
A few minutes later I have my blanket and a bolster and I’m sitting in a circle still thinking about leaving. Because this is going against everything I have ever been taught or thought about sex. It is pushing me in a really BIG way. Can I really be in this roomful of people and willingly energize my second chakra?!
And then we do some movement… which is fine… and then we partner up with a same sex partner, which is fine… And I relax some… and then I realize, this is all a ploy to get us to relax… shit… and then the women are in an inside circle and the men are on the outside and I am sitting opposite a man I don’t know and I’m thinking – it’s OK – you can always say no. Charu said we can say ‘no’ if anything ever feels like it is not safe, and I am so relieved. The thing is, it never gets to a point where I have to say it.
With each exercise, with each easing into new levels of comfort, with each time the men rotate one space to the right and I sit face to face with a new partner, with each falling away of my preconceptions and prejudices, I begin to realize what this is all about. Not in a thinking way… but in an experiencing way. It is a union of the essence of the feminine and masculine. It is not about me or who I am partnered with or what they look like or I look like or whether there is attraction or not or whether we are doing the exercise right or wrong or whatever, it is about who we are in essence as women and men. What it is to be seen by a man, to be looked upon by a woman, to be held, to be rocked, to hold and to rock… The light gently shines on where I hold back, on what I yearn for, on how things could be without the ego or armor that so often gets in the way. It is a space where I consciously ‘meet myself’ in a way I never have before.
Tonight I saw that we were all – men and women together – looking for that same, safe heart connection. What transpired was a gentle easing to be fully present in each and every moment. To be fully embodied. And this is what I take away with me. This is the difference between Tantric / ‘sacred’ sex and ‘regular’ sex; it is fully embodied, fully present.
And it’s not to say that Tantra has all the answers. It’s not to say that it doesn’t. It’s not to say I’ll be running back to go again… it’s not to say I won’t; it’s just to say that I’ve had the gift of experiencing something in a whole new way.
Last week I titled my blog, “What do I know about sex…?”
Tonight I am proud to say… a little bit more than I did a few days ago.
Yes.
yes!
YES!!
No pun intended.
I’m the Brit who spoke to you before the puja. The Brit who said that every time I do this, I spend the first ten minutes wishing I hadn’t come and looking at the door. The Brit who loves these things and keeps coming back for more of the energy/heart connection and understanding and freeing of myself. I am delighted you felt a connection too and that it was good. Welcome to the beauty that is Tantra!