A Tale of Tantric Initiation

Bast

He came to me trembling, with precious offerings and a wide open heart. His trembling was so beautiful because it was involuntarily honest, revealing his humanity and vulnerability. He was 19 and fresh out of high school, a rather dashing young man; tall and broad-shouldered, with a peach face and ken-doll features.

Outwardly, he was the picture of the idyllic teenage experience. He'd been on the football team, a girl-magnet and a social alpha, he tells me. Yet, he confessed to being absolutely terrified and intimidated in regards to women. He has "performance anxiety." He has a feeling of being "in the dark" and of not knowing what he is doing. He was clueless, essentially, and genuinely trying to learn and grow.

I am, in a conceptual nutshell, a tantric priestess, a.k.a. a dakini. I offer very personalized shamanic tantric healing and guidance through direct experience of the sadhanas within a sanctified ritual space. Verbal philosophy is dispensed, along with continuing homework. I am a truly holistic practitioner, working with every aspect and every chakra of a person's mind-body-spirit. Within my practice of tantra yoga and in my dakini work, kundalini, best translated into English as "the energy of passion," is a sacred fuel for creativity, energy, catharsis, healing, and the internal yoga. Sometimes I'm a bit of a muse, sometimes a bit of an oracle.

I marvel that this young man found me. I'm certainly not in the yellow pages. Most young people his age do not have an inkling that I exist, nor do they possess the paradigms or consciousness necessary to digest an experience with me, nor the resourcefulness or patience needed to make their way through the labyrinth to my underground temple. I am pleasantly surprised and impressed with this young one.

What was even more astounding was that this young man found me despite the complete lack of cultural context for a visit to the neighborhood priestess. Something in him hungered, and he became awake to the true nature of his hunger.

I asked what drew him to me and why he wanted to learn. "I want to love," he said, with an innocent expression that said "is there any other reason?" As I once said to an apprentice, I only teach powers of seduction that equal an acolyte's wisdom, ethics, and character. I could sense that this young man had the correct motivation.

I won't say exactly how...but I touched him. I calmed and nourished him. I blessed him - body and soul, and infused him with passionate Shakti (divine, dynamic, activating, conscious, feminine energy). I taught him not only exquisite technical skills, but the wisdom to know when they are potent or useless, and the secret yogas that allow him to be masterful of his own body's fire and which bring him into a state of heightened awareness and sensitivity. I taught him how to be so intuitive that he is quite nearly telepathic in his art-of-loving.

The exact details are best left to mystery, for one must have a personal visit to the temple, as knowledge and experience are perfectly catered to someone's individual needs and spiritual-mental-physical level of development. In other words, I don't want to short-circuit anyone.

I was inspired to write this after reading Daniel Pinchbeck's article on initiation, to address that the mainstream is virtually bankrupt in terms of quality sexual/ tantric initiation. There have been, in other cultures and in other times, various sexual-yogic traditions, temples of sacred-sexual mysticism, and priestesses and priests dedicated to honoring the body as well as the mind. I find that our modern world is sorely lacking in these resources and experiences. Perhaps our social consciousness is just now becoming ripe.

For those just emerging into the first, delicate stages of sexual exploration and maturation, there are few or zero resources readily available for quality teachings, healing, and rites of passage. Youth are, at best, handed condoms and told not to get diseases or to get pregnant. Any templates for sexual behavior are generally learned from locker-room talk, shame-doused gossip, or run-of-the-mill commercial porn, which, for the most part, completely lacks authentic female ecstasy and orgasm. It's about as exciting as a puppet-show to me, and quite damaging as a sole resource for learning.

Parents generally don't speak directly to their children about sex, unless it's to scare them about the dangers, and by and large they don't verse them in any art of love.

A dear girlfriend of mine was actually initiated into her womanhood with a slap in the face by her mother as she was discovered investigating tampon instructions upon her first menses.

And as for sexual yoga and sacred-sexual ritual and magic... these concepts are obscure and relatively unknown to most of the Western world, except in fetishized or demonized fantasy versions of indigenous and pagan practices.

Granted, sometimes people stumble upon great and high holistic sensual experiences, but it is still not yogic or intentional in nature.

I was fortunate to have had several strong priestesses and teachers that blessed my life. I also have a magical mother who is a great yogini and priestess in her own right, and passed on wonderful views, philosophy, ritual arts, and knowledge to me. She was always very positive about sexuality. She celebrated my first moon-cycle with a special ceremony, and participated in a rite-of-passage ceremony with my first mentor as I emerged in womanhood.

Recently I heard of a mother sending her 18-year old son to a fellow tantric priestess for an initiation as a high school graduation present. My mother told me a story of a friend of hers who arranged for her young-adult son to have his first sexual initiation with a friend of hers who would act as a priestess, in a sacred role of service to provide healing and compassionate experiential teaching. These instances are all too rare.

Sexual or tantric intiation most likely does not mean sex. In many different lineages and traditions of tantric yoga and practice, sexual energy and sexuality is but one small element in a vast and dynamic practice of awakened being. Tantra has a much greater scope than just sexuality, though sexual energy can be integrated and celebrated.

True tantric initiation activates the whole being: body, heart, mind, spirit, and kundalini. It can mean many things, including nourishing touch, energy-work, verbal guidance, breath-work, visualization, internal yoga, or simply instructions for home practice, as well as an infinite number of creative possibilities depending what's perfect for the unique individual. The dakini or daka is the creatrix of the prescription.

I have a deep respect for the power of bodily fluids, and as a practitioner, I find ways of giving tantric initiation that are appropriate and suited to one's well-being, health, safety, and personal comfort.

If the opportunity to visit the temple hasn't been given to you on a silver platter, go and get it! I encourage you to find your own healthy tantric initiation and to learn forms of sexual yoga for general well-being and relationship enrichment. I urge parents and elders to speak openly and positively about sexuality. Wonderful, enriching information is beginning to become more available, and quality practitioners can be found through a little resourcefulness, patience, and serendipity. A good priest or priestess, daka or dakini, can be quite deliberately hard to find, and in such a mercurial sea of mysticism, I encourage you to do personal research, ask a lot of questions, and above all, to go with your divine intuition.


Explore:
WWW.TANTRICTEMPLE.ORG
WWW.UNDERCOVERPRIESTESS.COM
WWW.TALLULAHSULIS.COM
WWW.SACREDINTIMATES.COM
WWW.TANTRA.COM
WWW.GODDESSTEMPLE.COM

Recommended Reading:

Jewel in the Lotus: the Sexual Path to Higher Consciousness, Sunyata Saraswati and Bodhi Avinasha

Journey of the Heart: Path of Conscious Love, John Welwood

Tantric Quest, Daniel Odier

Kundalini Yoga for the West, Swami Sivananda Radha

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpche

Introduction to Tantra, Lama Yeshe

The Art of Sexual Ecstasy, Margo Anand

The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine, Nancy Qualls-Corbett

Transfigurations, Alex Grey

Sacred Sex, Jwala

Meditation as Medicine, Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D. and Cameron Stauth

Spiritual Sex, Nik Douglas

Dr. Sprinkle's Spectacular Sex, Annie Sprinkle Ph.D.

Passionate Enlightenment; Women in Tantric Buddhism, Miranda Shaw

Dakini's Warm Breath, Judith Simmer-Brown

Sexual Secrets; The Alchemy of Ecstasy, Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger

The Tibetan Book of the Dead

A General Theory of Love, Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon