On tantric touch, the tantric touch workshop with Ron Solo...and of course festive greetings!
The countdown to the Tantric Touch Workshop on 31st December has started! Bookings are coming in and it looks like a number of very interesting people will be there. I am so looking forward to it for a number of reasons. Ron Solo and I will be working together for the first time, it is the first time I will be working in the lovely new Marquee space and it is the first time that a tantric touch workshop like this is being held at the Marquee and in fact, in SA! So, a lot of firsts to end off the year as you can see!
Touch is so important. Read the article below written by Klaus Smedts, my Tantra massage trainer in Germany. It's about the relationship between the lack of touch and rising aggression in the American culture. We touch too little. Today children are touched less, particularly in the USA where there is so much stress about issues around child misuse. Understandable, but when parents become over careful, children get too little touching love.
Just think of it: our skin is our largest organ. It is the barrier between us and the outside world. It is our protection, but also our source of connecting to others. If we really mean the hugs we give our family and friends, the quality of this connecting would be very different to what we usually experience.
In our workshop we will be working with this – different kinds of touching, tantric touching, simply connecting to others through touch. Touch should always be totally loving. It can become sensual in the right situations and ultimately it can become sexual with our chosen partners.
In Tantra massage I often work with feathers and silk cloth as well as my hands and body. It gives the skin different sensations and a general sensitizing. I also use the cloth to “blow” the energy over the body, creating a soft, flowing breeze over the skin. Clients, who have experienced this, describe it as something very wonderful. Many have visions of waves or being in nature, it connects our selves to our inner being in a special, sensual way. It is extremely relaxing.
I remember my mom doing this with us on hot, humid Durban summer nights when we could not sleep. She would come into our room and then give alternatively give my sister and I some of this soft wind with the sheet. It was beautiful, comforting, cooling, gentle and loving.
We will endeavour to teach this soft, loving and very tantric touch in our workshop. If we could all learn to touch in this way, we will all become better people. It is a touching of the skin, the body and the heart. When we touch someone’s heart we open them to transformation. My Tantra massage training did that for me and my life has blossomed into being blissful all day, every day, and all the time. Klaus's touch, his total acceptance of who I was at the time, his love opened my heart. In the first instance, it opened my heart for myself - I began to experience who I was in a new way and was surprised to find that I liked what I found. Then it opened my heart for others. I stopped expecting the other to be as I wanted them to be and began to accept who they were. Again, I was surprised to find who easy this was once I had accepted myself. This acceptance then grew into this blissful feeling about life in general. I began to see the little things around me, things I had not noticed in such a deep way before.
Just a few days ago in my village now filled with Christmas holiday makers from Mpumalanga and Gauteng, a bakkie of young people drove down my street with loud throbbing music emanating from inside. Outside the youngsters were standing up, allowing the wind to blow directly into their faces filled with smiles and laughter. Tears popped into my eyes. I was joyful about their happiness, about the fun they were having. I smiled softly as I remembered how it would have been before I came to Tantra: I would have felt aggravated about the noise. I would have thought how irresponsible this is - someone could fall off if the bakkie had to stop suddenly. Now, I had a sense of their joy and it made me feel joyful. What a difference loving myself makes to how I perceive others.
I wish you all a wonderful festive season – enjoy the gatherings, the chatting and the fun, and please do not forget to impart love to all of those that you meet.
I look forward to next year and all the new things that Tantra Sacred Massage and The School of Durga Tantra South Africa has in stall – and there is much to come.
I send you all my love,
Namaste
Leandra
A school journal message from Klaus on The Failing Sense of Touch and the rise of Aggression.
"....today something completely different. Some days ago I read an article, which made me think. In this article, Martin Grunewald, a researcher of the sense of touch and director of the haptic laboratory of the University of Leipzig, Germany says: "Humans can be born blind or deaf into this world, but if their sense of touch is not available and does not function, they are not able to physically exist.”
If science knows such facts why do so many humans resist touch? We have all experienced this resistance to touch: someone approaches you, your neighbour, your college, someone you know who does not belong to your immediate circle of close friends…attempt to embrace this person, it would be considered totally inappropriate. Even simple "handshaking" has already almost become almost extinct. One nods briefly with head, muttering some kind of quick greeting, instead of honestly and clearly wishing the person a good day.
In the USA this is extreme - all form of physical contact being avoided for fear of accusations of sexual harassment.
Charles Spencer, psychologist at the Oxford University, wrote about this in 2005, after his research into the deterioration of the sense of touch. The result of this research and his summery was: increasing aggressiveness and physical force results directly to the deterioration of the sense of tough. This can be noticed by anyone occasionally watching the news or reading a newspaper.
To this, I say NO, and will rather continue to embrace, touch, caress and experience other human individuals on all sensory levels…and time and time again experience the miracle of how simple it is to make a stranger happy.
It is so simple!
All love - Love all
Klaus"
Friday, December 22, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Tantric Touch workshop and other news
Yesterday a friend said to me "you haven't updated your journal...." and she was right- I had not. It has become a whirlwind life since starting to offer Tantra Sacred Massage in JHB and now also in CT - this takes getting used to for me. When I think of all the busy business people flying around the country, I begin to get a hint of what it really must be like. I am presently working in Cape Town and so it is a new venue, new people, a new place to stay, a new climate and lots of bookings. Again, I have met lovely people.
Interestingly, here in CT, I seem to be getting the most couples booking either the full day or the four hour workshop. It has, as it always is, been intensive work with great people, some with difficulties, some just pretty curious, others already on the path of meditation and in the process of finding a new spirituality in life. As always, Tantra has much to offer on all levels. I still have the rest of this week to go, a one day workshop on Sunday and then on Monday, I fly back home. I won’t be there for long though because….and this is my really big news: only one day after parting from my first Tantra teacher, a new Tantra mentor, as he likes to see himself, came into my life: Ron Solo, all the way from Australia. Here is the story….
We had been "set-up" by Rick of the Marquee in JHB. Ron has been offering Tanta massage and tantric touch at the Marquee for about 6 years on his regular visits to SA. I had been invited by Rick to visit the Marquee, to see if I would consider using the Marquee for workshops, so we had recently met. Then the day after I had made the decision to start my own school of Tantra, I got this phone call from Ron all the way from Australia, and that was the start of an almost daily journey into different aspects of Tantra, tantric touch and Tantra Massage.
The old saying goes: one door closes and another opens!
Ron Solo is extremely experienced – he has been offering Tantra workshops around the globe for over 25 years. He specializes in tantric touch and Tantra Massage and so we have much in common and much to talk about. It has been and is wonderful for me to be able to share and learn, ask questions and question answers in this way. It was then Ron's suggestion that we offer a workshop together, which we are doing: "Keep the Fire Burning - a one day workshop devoted to sensual tantric touch - for men, women and couples" in JHB on 30th December. (See WORKSHOP page for details) I am, needless to say, extremely excited about this and hope to meet some of you there. In the days prior to the workshop, Ron and I will be working together and be learning from each other.
I have been thinking about this: how do we learn? Often it is a case of having the teacher and the learner, the one who knows all and the one who knows little. My original teaching on my tantric path here in SA was like that. In Germany, this dissolved into a general sharing and learning with my Tantra massage trainer, Klaus and his wife Barbara. It was glorious to learn like that. It did not diminish my respect for my trainer, on the contrary, it boosted it. I could be me, I was encouraged to bring in what ever I already knew and at the same time I could learn a whole lot of new stuff with ease. The sign of a good teacher in most forms of adult education, should be like that.
This is what impressed me so about Ron Solo. When I asked, "do you mean we should facilitate this workshop together?", his answer was, "of course, I want to also learn from you!" Was I excited! One of the world's best and most renowned Tantra coaches wants to learn from me.....this was too good to be true! But it is true - and thus began a journey of sharing via email and phone calls and, yes, it is exactly like that: we learn from each other. It is a dialogue of learning, teaching, sharing. It requires great openness - there is no space for arrogance or fear. You just have to go into it head on in order to learn like this, and unfortunately, a lot of teachers are not willing to expose themselves so far.
Tantra has no hierarchy!
Tantra is no longer a secret path!
Tantra today is an open teaching that grows and benefits the most from genuine sharing.
Tantra is for everyone - you do not need to have a problem to start this path.
Tantra is simple to understand and easy to begin putting into practice in your life.
Tantra is physical - it is about changing conditioning of the mind, but you cannot do that without changing the body memory. The work has to be on both levels.
Any contradiction to this, any suggesting that Tanta is a complicated, secret teaching, any suggestion of false and binding devotion to teachers, any suggestion that you can go on working with a paid Tantra teacher for 6 months and more, without addressing the physical, the sensual, the sexual, the body memory or your deteriorated marriage etc., is not Tantra - it is manipulation and money-making.
I feel strongly about this. Tantra does not want to manipulate in any way
In it's purest form it is simply about opening the heart to a deeper love for and a greater celebration of life, while simultaneously opening the body to a free flowing of sexual energy which is our life's force. The very nature of our being is sexual. Removing the taboos around this subject does not make perverts or sex maniacs out of us! Repression however can and far too often does. One usage of our sexual energy is actually sexual. Most of it is for the pure joy of everything we do in life. What healing the heart and healing the body result in is simply, happy human beings, people expressing their creativity in every aspect of life, including in their sexuality.
Sexuality is a celebration - a celebration of love for one's self, love for others, love for life and for the whole of creation.
Namaste
Leandra
Interestingly, here in CT, I seem to be getting the most couples booking either the full day or the four hour workshop. It has, as it always is, been intensive work with great people, some with difficulties, some just pretty curious, others already on the path of meditation and in the process of finding a new spirituality in life. As always, Tantra has much to offer on all levels. I still have the rest of this week to go, a one day workshop on Sunday and then on Monday, I fly back home. I won’t be there for long though because….and this is my really big news: only one day after parting from my first Tantra teacher, a new Tantra mentor, as he likes to see himself, came into my life: Ron Solo, all the way from Australia. Here is the story….
We had been "set-up" by Rick of the Marquee in JHB. Ron has been offering Tanta massage and tantric touch at the Marquee for about 6 years on his regular visits to SA. I had been invited by Rick to visit the Marquee, to see if I would consider using the Marquee for workshops, so we had recently met. Then the day after I had made the decision to start my own school of Tantra, I got this phone call from Ron all the way from Australia, and that was the start of an almost daily journey into different aspects of Tantra, tantric touch and Tantra Massage.
The old saying goes: one door closes and another opens!
Ron Solo is extremely experienced – he has been offering Tantra workshops around the globe for over 25 years. He specializes in tantric touch and Tantra Massage and so we have much in common and much to talk about. It has been and is wonderful for me to be able to share and learn, ask questions and question answers in this way. It was then Ron's suggestion that we offer a workshop together, which we are doing: "Keep the Fire Burning - a one day workshop devoted to sensual tantric touch - for men, women and couples" in JHB on 30th December. (See WORKSHOP page for details) I am, needless to say, extremely excited about this and hope to meet some of you there. In the days prior to the workshop, Ron and I will be working together and be learning from each other.
I have been thinking about this: how do we learn? Often it is a case of having the teacher and the learner, the one who knows all and the one who knows little. My original teaching on my tantric path here in SA was like that. In Germany, this dissolved into a general sharing and learning with my Tantra massage trainer, Klaus and his wife Barbara. It was glorious to learn like that. It did not diminish my respect for my trainer, on the contrary, it boosted it. I could be me, I was encouraged to bring in what ever I already knew and at the same time I could learn a whole lot of new stuff with ease. The sign of a good teacher in most forms of adult education, should be like that.
This is what impressed me so about Ron Solo. When I asked, "do you mean we should facilitate this workshop together?", his answer was, "of course, I want to also learn from you!" Was I excited! One of the world's best and most renowned Tantra coaches wants to learn from me.....this was too good to be true! But it is true - and thus began a journey of sharing via email and phone calls and, yes, it is exactly like that: we learn from each other. It is a dialogue of learning, teaching, sharing. It requires great openness - there is no space for arrogance or fear. You just have to go into it head on in order to learn like this, and unfortunately, a lot of teachers are not willing to expose themselves so far.
Tantra has no hierarchy!
Tantra is no longer a secret path!
Tantra today is an open teaching that grows and benefits the most from genuine sharing.
Tantra is for everyone - you do not need to have a problem to start this path.
Tantra is simple to understand and easy to begin putting into practice in your life.
Tantra is physical - it is about changing conditioning of the mind, but you cannot do that without changing the body memory. The work has to be on both levels.
Any contradiction to this, any suggesting that Tanta is a complicated, secret teaching, any suggestion of false and binding devotion to teachers, any suggestion that you can go on working with a paid Tantra teacher for 6 months and more, without addressing the physical, the sensual, the sexual, the body memory or your deteriorated marriage etc., is not Tantra - it is manipulation and money-making.
I feel strongly about this. Tantra does not want to manipulate in any way
In it's purest form it is simply about opening the heart to a deeper love for and a greater celebration of life, while simultaneously opening the body to a free flowing of sexual energy which is our life's force. The very nature of our being is sexual. Removing the taboos around this subject does not make perverts or sex maniacs out of us! Repression however can and far too often does. One usage of our sexual energy is actually sexual. Most of it is for the pure joy of everything we do in life. What healing the heart and healing the body result in is simply, happy human beings, people expressing their creativity in every aspect of life, including in their sexuality.
Sexuality is a celebration - a celebration of love for one's self, love for others, love for life and for the whole of creation.
Namaste
Leandra
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