Thursday, July 14, 2011

Notes on the Introduction to Tantra Workshop

I haven’t written a blog here in a while because it is hard to know what to write.  Part of me wants to write anything but then I realize that anyone could be reading my secret thoughts and I hesitate.  I’ve been suffering from some writer’s block lately.  Or am I just too busy juggling the various aspects of my life to sit still and write?  I have to be so many people all at once.

My latest novella is a work of erotica that is pretty exhausting to read.  The sex scenes are very bold and they consist of descriptive climaxes that are comparatively more intense than the average orgasm.  I have to say that in marketing this novella, I have separated myself a bit from my own sexual nature.  It’s as if I’m afraid that thinking too much about sex will interfere with my other roles.  I suppose this is why the subject of sex has not been addressed in this blog as much as I initially thought it would be.

The other day, I attended an introduction to tantra lecture and I was forced to re-connect to my own sexual energies, the energies I have written happily about in the past.  The teacher, Shama Helena, had a very intuitive sense about why people hit blockages in their relationships and in themselves.  She said that as children, we are energetic and lively.  We are like walking orgasms.  Then we are told to sit still and be quiet.  We are taught that pleasure is naughty and we have to hide our excitement.  In the workshop, Shama encouraged us to go into our bodies and breathe and be aware of the various parts that we have cut off because we are told that to acknowledge them would be “naughty”.  This was my first public tantra session but Shama made me fill at ease by having us all close our eyes.  She ensured us that no one was looking and she had us breathe deeply into our lungs and imagine the energy inside us reaching those “special places”.  Once again, I felt that very important and significant part of me waking up. 

As I got to know her, Shama told me that she has approached the seminary and asked them if she could train the priests in tantra so they could deal with their celibacy better.  She was turned down.  She is looking into teaching it to teenage boys so they would feel less powerless over their erections. I find Shama to be a very freeing and interesting person.  She made me ask myself if we are trapping each other with our need to cut off or control our sexual natures.  Shama said that our sexuality is beautiful and spiritual and blissful, yet there are people out there who think that it is gross and evil.  Is it really healthy to cut off a very strong part of ourselves, a part of ourselves that is such a huge source of energy and love?

Shama said that when we cut ourselves off from our sexual feelings we do not enjoy the sensual pleasures that make the exploration of love so blissful.  Men just want to stick it in and women are left unsatisfied or they are so cut off from their sexuality that they are afraid of experiencing the penetration of love.  Yet, if we take the time to explore every different sensation, we experience more connection, more bliss, and greater climaxes.  We feel things we that we would have never felt had we not taken the time to explore and get to know ourselves.  We learn things about our bodies that it had been trying to tell us and we take better care of ourselves.  

One of the students at the workshop said that everything he learned will make him more spiritual.  He said that he was Buddhist and he practiced meditation and he realized how much his sexuality was a part of that.  What if we were all allowed to show love and affection without the fear of sex?  I am reminded of how different we perceive things when we tear down the labels that society has given them.  All life is a grand and awesome experience.