Conferences, qualifications and more...

I have been asked why I am not participating in the sacred sexual healers conference taking place in Johannesburg this weekend. Not wanting to undermine the efforts of the organisers, I have waited until now to answer this. Having come from a background of many years of professional, International and European conferences in the field of Psychotherapy and particularly Art Therapy, and being an organiser of some of these events, I do claim to know something about what such conferences can do and what they can't accomplish.

When I was contacted by the initiator of the conference, an American who has made it his purpose to come into our country which he has never visited in order to heal and bring sacred sexual healers together. He made contact with people here in South Africa via Facebook to find and motivate people to assist him in organising the conference. I had reason to question him at length, especially as his travels started after his first book had been published. I openly told him that it appeared to me to be more of a promotion for himself and his book than anything else. This particularly as all the money from the bookings to attend went to his account and the fact that he reserved the rights to record and film all of the talks for his use. I also found it strange that we, here in South Africa were supposed to host him and his crew along his journey through South Africa, setting up talks and workshops along the way without knowing him personally or his work, simply from his American website. As always with such conferences, the speakers pay the registration fee (which was quite high) in order to hold their talks, usual procedure in conference organising. The South African organiser in Johannesburg was to get a percentage of the intake after costs, but as no one knew just how many people would attend, I found this to be a tricky situation. He had tons of work to do marketing the conference, organising a venue and the catering as well as helpers during the actual conference.

In addition, the conference was aimed at professionals working in the field of sacred sexuality, Tantra etc. but at the same time was open to the general public. My personal thoughts on this are that the two do not combine. Wanting to raise consciousness among professionals and bring them together on the one hand and to inform the public on the other are two different things - the approach is or should be different and so should the content. I did suggest that he offer training through the already founded National Institute of Tantra South Africa (NITSA) if his aim was to raise consciousness among professionals especially as there is no training (other than what I have been offering on an individual basis) in South Africa by qualified trainers. Interestingly enough, he declined. His aim was to create a new African organisation that would in future continue holding these conferences on a yearly basis as he already does in Australia.

Now one of the difficulties is that those who practicing Tantra professionally in South Africa, some of whom are also training practitioners for this work, are either from the sex industry, from other massage modules, or have trained themselves through books and DVDs which are abundantly available on the web. All of these are not suitable as training in order to work with the public on such an intimate level. One teacher, who claims to be enlightened, has the particular form of teaching whereby he becomes the lover of the women he trains and the relationship is then their "training". That is if they appeal to him. Those that do not, well they don't have the "privilege" of having a sexual relationship with him! I have heard reports from some of the individuals concerned like "we had lots of sex" and jealousy amongst the women he trained as well the necessity to get over jealousy and the conditioning of monogamy. These are facts that I know from personal experience, not from hearsay. No where around the globe do tantric schools of note practice this. It is in fact highly questionable.

My motivation is to get a professional training program going here in South Africa, something I have been working on for a number of years - rather unsuccessfully I must say, owing to the challenges that our country brings with it. Our community is strongly conditioned by a very conservative upbringing, staunch Christianity and quite a large amount of fear about actually going into this work. This is no comparison to the situation in Europe, particularly Germany where I lived for 28 years, where training is lengthy, mostly over a period of years and with trainers who themselves have undergone such a teaching and process with their own teachers. This is still my aim and I hope to be able to materialise this later in 2010. Watch the website for information which should be available on the website early next year.

In order to do this work with a high standard of practice and also ethics, training needs to be intense, lengthy and given by a trained and experienced trainer. One of the most important aspects of this is the professional relationship with the trainer who often becomes a mentor, as is the case with my own trainers and those of Nidhana, Lisa and Flora as well as Nils (my visitors from U.K. and Germany this year) who all have had considerable training and mentoring over a period of many years, in order to become the professionals they have become. My own training is vast and covers many disciplines in the field of psychotherapy and artistic creativity before coming to Tantra. All these professional trainings play a role in how I work today.

I personally feel that in order to work with the public so emotionally and physically intimately, one needs a very high standard of ethics and a certain amount of psychotherapeutic training. This is necessary because it is so easy to be manipulative, transferring your personal beliefs, issues and feelings onto the client.

I have experienced this first hand with a number of those individuals who claim to be teachers of Tantra, and these experiences have not been good. On the contrary, I have had my boundaries ignored and found that I was I was labelled and neatly put away into judgmental drawers when I protested. If I didn't feel I had an issue to overcome with a certain theme (for example monogamy) I would be labelled as being defensive. I generally found the way women in training were treated to be undignified and abusive. I also know this first hand from my experience with South African trainers/facilitators. One example is the fact that personal details from the sessions was openly discussed amongst others involved with the same trainer. These individuals then knew details about me before they had met me. Now, I don't have anything to hide, but I do expect personal details to be respected. I want to choose what I share with others and not have this done for me without me knowing. Does that make me "conditioned", un-open, afraid, nervous or hung-up or stressful? No it does not. It should be common practice to protect the individual in a respectful way.

I cannot claim to know that this has all led to no good for the others who are convinced that it is all part of the process. Some of the women mentioned seem to have thrived. Some men too. I do however claim to know that it did not work for me. I have a background of high standards of professionalism and ethics and I will keep these for the simple reason that they have served me personally as well as my work well. I feel that individuals coming to sessions are owed proper training and an ethical attitude without manipulation, without rejection, without labels. I also noticed that many of these practitioners spin some form of “spiritual jargon", the meaning of which, for the most part, remains illusive to most of us. All this does, is serve an affected hierarchy between practitioner or teacher and the individual or client. Spirituality need not be taught in strange terms!

What does it mean, for example, to be there for someone "in my totality"? Do you know what is meant? I don't! I can imagine what is meant but until I experience it I cannot know how this feels or what it does to me. So why not say for example, "I will go as far as to have sex with you if necessary" instead rather than talking in vague terms that can result if confusion in the minds of those seeking help?

Getting back to answering the question as to why I did not participate in the conference, I also recall very much the atmosphere of the many conferences I had participated in professionally a number of years before. Most of the time, these conferences had nothing to do with bridging gaps bringing the professionals from different schools together. Far more they were about show casing your own work and criticising the work of others. I had had my fair share of that already and did not feel called to be a part of a conference which to me appeared to be confusing in a number of ways: who is it really aimed for and what are the goals?

I did not want my name, the name of my practice (Tantra Sacred Massage) and the name of my school (The School of Durga Tantra) to be associated with a lack of professionalism and misleading concepts. Strong attitude? Yes, but not to the exclusion of what I would like to call real practitioners and real teachers as well as honest down to earth teachings. I have shown my openness towards other teachings and other practices with the four professionals I invited to join me in the work here in South Africa this last year. I embraced their way of working, we shared with each other and it has been a fruitful journey for all concerned.

Of course there are other ways of teaching Tantra to the way I teach it. Wonderful other ways. Ways that are professional, where people's yearning for Truth, for a better life, for touch, love and care is not misused.

Tantra is an ever evolving and non-dogmatic teaching and will always be open to misuse as a result, thus a word of advice to those seeking a teacher or wanting tantric sessions:

Always look on the website whether there is any mention of their own teachers. I often find that on these websites there is often mention of many teachers without names - as in the case of the American who organised the conference - or of book authors being named as teachers, and participation in a seminar or two leads to the claim to have undergone training with facilitating professional. Ask yourself, where does the teaching come from and what background do these teachers have? Attending workshops, and even more, attending many workshops by many teachers is certainly not training. We live in a day and age of workshop junkies assimilating a variety of stuff as they go along. That is fine if the individual wants to do that. It may or may not be beneficial to them personally. I do not see it as fine if this is used as a "qualification" to become a practitioner or teacher with the aim of serving others. I wrote this somewhere before and I say it again: just because we all eat and enjoy food does not make us all five star cooks! All those coming from a good qualifying background for tantric work are proud to mention their teachers and give them credit. So look for names, schools etc., and check up on these.

Another thing to look for when it comes to Tantra is some mention of love. Unconditional Love is the core of Tantra, which means you are welcomed and accepted as you are in a totally non-judgmental way. It does not mean that you have to go through feelings of rejection. It does not mean that you have to have sex to time and time again in the name of teaching, or that you are abused and hurt in pretty much usual relationship games in the name of training. Sexuality is easy to misuse. We all have sex, but having sex (and perhaps even being good at it) does not make us all teachers of Sacred Sexuality. There is much more to becoming a professional in the field of Tantra than that.

You can also check to see if teaching "the spiritual truth" is claimed. What is that, spiritual truth? Indeed, how do they claim to know it? In other words, be alert when seeing guidance in matters of sexuality and/or Tantra and do not be blinded by false claims.

I hope you find this helpful. My aim is not to be derogatory but to inform and protect the public from having similar experiences to mine and also others who have taken me into their confidence about their own abuse in the name of teaching. If you feel strongly about this either way, I would be happy to hear from you. I am always ready for new input and also correction if you find my attitude inappropriate.

Warm greetings
Leandra

Early resume` of this year

It is a bit early to start a resume of the year, but with Flora's return to Germany the year does feel like it is coming to a close. Starting early in the year, I have had four professional tantric practitioners from Europe visiting and working with me. Each one travelled to all my venues, saw students either individually or in 4-handed sessions with me. I know that the students who benefited from this were enthralled, emotionally and/or spiritually touched, were deeply moved, while I found myself to be on a deep journey of self-exploration, stretching, sharing and learning. When Flora and I said good bye, it was like coming out of months of an intensive "magical mystery tour" to an even deeper understanding of what Tantra is and how it transforms and uplifts one to higher levels of clarity and knowing, to higher levels of awareness. The gratefulness I feel towards Nidhana, Lisa, Nils and Flora for their trust in my plans, for their sharing with me, for they way they each embraced the people they worked with, for their giving from the heart. There is no other way I could have experienced this all - and all this in one year!

Some time ago I wrote something about the best teaching being when the teacher is also a learner, and the best learning is when the learner is also a teacher. It was giving and taking, teaching and learning, personal and professional sharing all the way.

What comes out of this for my practice here in South Africa? More clarity about where I want to go, about what I want to do and about how to do it, and even more clarity about what Tantra is and what it is not. And inspiration to continue this path professionally as well as in my life.

It has been an extraordinary year for me. I worked with more women than before during this last year, with more couples and at some stage I think I should add up just how many people I and my guests have had the privilege of touching in one way or another.

There will be some good positive changes in 2010. In fact - these have started already! As it always is with things that are right, these changes came easily, just flowing into my life. What a difference to my experiences towards the end of 2008! Obviously and thank goodness, I learnt the lessons from all the difficulties I encountered last year!

So here is the news.......

CAPE TOWN
The lovely little house I was renting in Harfield Village, Claremont is now mine! When I was looking for a new place to work from on the last day of my Cape Town visit in October 2008, and for the first time ever, I went onto the Gumtree website to see what was on offer, this little house came up. One phone call, a viewing before my flight the next day and it was settled - this is where I wanted to work from. BUT, the landlord could only offer me a one-year lease because the house had been on the market and not been sold and he would be putting it on the market again at the end of the lease. I thought - oh no! I want something permanent in Cape Town. I have moved around so much already and this could not go on. So, without money readily available and no idea at the time just how I would do it, I asked him to give me an option to buy in the lease, and I set about materialising my plan. I did not realise at the time, just how much this plan would change the way I saw my life!

Eight months later I had the cash, paid for the house and the transfer went through 2 months before my lease expired. My joy is huge - a definitely permanent home for my work in Cape Town, wow! The big change for me however was something else.

I still had one foot in Germany. Many personal possessions were still in the house in Hamburg that I jointly owned with my husband bringing up our daughter. Somewhere deep inside me, there had been this fear of letting go of the idea that I may return to my "old" life of being a wife and mother (granted to a now grown up daughter) and all the family attachments I had over there. When I began speaking to my husband and daughter about releasing my part ownership of our house in which we had lived in for so long, I had no idea of the fears I would encounter when they agreed. It was a series of deep "downs" and very high "up's" until finally all was signed and my money came through. It was a deep letting go of a very important past and while it was hard, the release I now feel is equally great. All I have to do now is go back to my old home, collect the personal possessions I still want - I will do this during 2010 - and this past is truly past. Amazing, is it not...? For me it is.

So with some heart break, with many discussions and a lot of pondering if this was in fact the right thing to do, this little house in Harfield Village - all who have been there have endorsed how lovely it is - is now my Cape Town home. And the home of future fellow practioners either visiting or growing out of the work in South Africa. More about that later.

JOHANNESBURG
I have been extremely happy in my flat in Auckland Park in Johannesburg. One thing I always wanted was a balcony, a patio or a small garden. At times I thought of finding a garden cottage and once did take a look at a place I found on Gumtree. But with no time to intensively look for a new venue, it simply remained a message in my heart sent out to Existence. Then one day, friends mentioned that the garden cottage of family member would become free as she was relocating to Cape Town. I had a look at it in October and am moving there at the end of November. Suddenly I had let go of a space that I had worked from for over 3 years. One more trip to do some work in the old flat and pack up at the end of this month and move into the new venue and from about 8th December I will be working from my new space in Linden/Greenside.

It is a lovely garden cottage, the lounge looking onto a blanket of green, a little patio, a pool that I can use and a space to work from that will have many advantages over the "old" flat. One thing that really pleases me is that the working room will be able to take the futon and the massage table, leaving the lounge free to be my living space. The bathroom is larger, light and quite lovely and what is more, although it is en-suite, it is also accessible from the lounge - making having visitors in Johannesburg much easier. The cottage is private, has secure parking. and will probably be quite cold in winter, being on the ground floor as opposed to being on the first floor. However the cold can be over come....and I have surplus furniture at my home in KZN that will fit in there perfectly. It is also a more residential area where I can go for walks and generally I think this cottage will become a real home from home for when I am in Johannesburg.

MASSAGE SESSIONS
After the many 4-handed massages given during with the visiting practitioners, this is going to become a general feature of the work in 2010. I had a vision about how this massage should develop and it has. We all found that it went even deeper and in a different way to the individual massage on the massage table and the futon and felt that it had to be incorporated as a permanent offer on the massage menu. I will be writing about this and posting info about it on the DATES, RATES & BOOKING INFO page just as soon as I can. Of course, I need practitioners to assist me with this - although the Goddess Durga (the Hindu Goddess who rides a lion and whose stories inspire me) has many arms, I only have two! So I need practitioners and without revealing too much now, this will emerge early in 2010 when I will write more!

Another addition will be that I will be adding 2-hour full body sessions. I have found that many students do not have the time for the 3-hour sessions and while the shorter follow-up lingam massage is an option, not many students have made use of this. So in addition to the 3-hour sessions, there will be 2-hour full body sessions available from early 2010.
RETREATS
The weekend retreats which I facilitated together with Nils will be a main focus for me next year. They were so successful, so enjoyable that there has to be more taking place in 2010 - and there will be.

VISITING PRACTITIONERS
They will be back. I am not sure who and when exactly yet, but there are plans on all sides to realise this during the next year. I'll post information as soon as plans are clear.

All in all, I am happy with all these developments. More than happy. Very happy. Over joyed. And excited. I look forward to 2010. I really look forward to what the next year is going to bring.

Sending you, my students, all my love. And a huge thank you, once again, for your trust, your faith in my work, for your support and the inspiration you all are to me and my life. Without you all, this all could not be. With you all, it is my reality, my life and what a life it is!

Namaste
Leandra