School Journal
10th March 2007 - Workshops Review
Review of the school workshops that have taken place so far
To date the Durga Tantra school has held 4 short workshops in Cape Town and Johannesburg:
- 4-hour practical introductory workshop in Cape Town with Leandra
- 1-day intermediate level practical tantric touch workshop in Johannesburg with Leandra and Ron Solo, an international tantric touch specialist who is based in Australia
- 3-hour introductory informative Tantra-Open-Talk in Johannesburg with Leandra and Nikhil
- 4-hour practical introductory workshop on tantric touch in Johannesburg with Leandra
Introductory Durga Tantra workshop in Cape Town
We had a lovely room opening to a large back garden at a yoga school in Claremont. It was a small group which allowed the atmosphere to be quite intimate. This workshop was an introduction to Tantra and included breathing exercises, processing work as well as some fun stuff to everyone’s enjoyment. The theme was about the balance of inner male and female energy, Shiva and Shakti, Yin and Yang, and so the exercises were geared to this.
One exercise was about going a little into the other role the females into the male and the males into the female role. I’m not going to tell you exactly how we did this - that would spoil the fun for future participants, but what I can say is that it involved a pair of shoes and although it was gentle and soft, it did go deep. The feed from the participants showed that the exercise gave quite a good impression of some aspects of the partner in the exercise. One of the features of the workshop was Shiva and Shakti’s dance which closed off the workshop. I like to do this in a non-serious way and so the music chosen was geared to laughter. While taking the mikki out of the typical male and typical female attributes and ways of thinking much to everyone’s delight - it did show us some of the ways our ego’s function to make us feel good about being a guy or a girl in this human experience of our different energies and how we project this onto the other. I hope in future to be able to use the same room at the yoga school for further workshops.
One day intermediate tantric touch workshop late December in Johannesburg
This workshop was held at the Marquee on 30th December and facilitated by myself and Ron Solo, an international tantric touch specialist based in Australia. Rick and Mariaan of the Marquee had offered to deal with all the logistics (meals etc) for the workshop, Ron and I worked free of charge as it was our first workshop together and the facilitators paid the normal entrance fee for the evening party for the day and had access to the party afterwards. The rooms were not ideal for this gentle work but we made the best of it. The group was larger, 16 people, about half of the group were swingers and knew the Marquee well, the other half was made up of people who were not swingers. This was an interesting mix for us to work with. Interestingly, no one chose to unclothe completely although nakedness was on the schedule. Tantra is always about accepting and respecting boundaries - it is never about crashing through them, so somehow, as some participants chose to remain clothed for the touch circle, the others who were willing to undress seemed to want to contain their hesitancy and also remained clothed. There were a number of exercises including a lovely guided meditation which was interrupted by loud rain drops on the roof when a downpour occurred and Ron was hardly heard. There was a short period of taste meditation when participants fed each other various goodies - blindfolded so as to enhance the taste buds, some tantric breathing and two forms of touching - one comforting, the other sensual. For the sensual touching we formed two circles, the women on the inside, and the men on the outside and rotated. Everyone was blindfolded - closing the eyes is always a way of going more within and into the other senses. Open eyes seem to take over our senses as all the other senses are overridden by what we see. Everyone enjoyed the touching. We, the facilitators oversaw this process and at least one of us had our eyes open at all times watching the process and coming in to assist whenever this was necessary or wanted. This exercise is not as simple as it sounds - the fact that we touch a number of people one after the other, gives us a wonderful sense of the different energies and responses of different people.
Tantra-Open-Talk evening in Johannesburg (Feb. 07)
I held this introductory talk on Tantra at my venue in Melville with my friend Swami Bodhi Nikhil. He spoke about the history of Tantra and my theme was and always is, about orgasm in its relation to the Divine. We were asked a lot of questions, also of a personal nature - how we had come to Tantra and about our lives. We answered these openly - as is the way of tantrikers - there is nothing to hide. The evening ended with a didgeridoo meditation with Nikhil playing the didge. It was beautiful and so relaxing. I enjoyed the evening very much and the feedback at the end was positive. Most of the participants had also booked the Tantric Touch workshop held a few days later - so we all looked forward to that!
Introductory Tantric Touch workshop in Johannesburg (Feb. 07)
There were some last minute cancellations due to unforeseen circumstances as well as some last minute registrations - so again a lovely small group with some of the participants from the Tantra-Open-Talk. We started with a feet washing ceremony, did some meditation with a special technique to make it easier to go within (all participants were pretty new at meditating), also some tantric breathing exercises with a difference which was a lot of fun and a tantric touch circle. Nudity was not part of the program, but everyone had brought light clothing, boxer shorts or a sarong to wear and the touching was divine. The general feeling afterwards was that we need to install a private Tantric Touch Circle to practice regularly - which I have subsequently done.
That is it for now. The next workshops take place next week in Johannesburg - I look forward to that a lot - it is wonderful work and I continue meeting wonderful people. Last but not least, a big thank you to all the participants for their willingness to begin this path and their trust in my work.
Namaste, Leandra