Awareness of the obvious things in life - the weather!



After the Rain (Tempera),  Ma Anand Leandra 1985

I was back in my house in Pennington last month and fortunate to experience some the warmest days this spring right up to 30 degrees! Then I returned to a Cape Town burdened with immense rain, wind and a heavy cold front. What polarities!

The photo I chose for this a post is of a painting I did many years ago called "After The Rain". The inspiration for this painting was a trip to a retreat venue outside of Hamburg, Germany (where I lived at the time). It was a Friday evening and the road was very busy. In the pouring rain, the street lights reflected in the wet tar of the road, and the car lights created interesting effects distorting everything. My husband was driving and I had time to take in the reflections. Once the retreat started (it was a creative art retreat in which we were participating), we were asked to create a painting of our impressions of our journey to the retreat venue with simple wall (tempera) paints.

I still love this painting, when I look at it, it brings up a vivid memory of that road journey that Friday night.

After being back in South Africa for quite some years, I notice that, although entirely different to the weather of Germany, we have a wonderful diversity of weather and vegetation here at home!
I experience the different shades of weather that our vibrant Geographic's offer us quite intensely; on the one hand it is physically tangible through the senses, on the other hand our impression of it is emotionally induced atmospherically. What is more, I enjoy all of it alike - hot and dry, cold and wet, bleak and colourful, still and windy, quiet and thundery. I love the changes evoked within me, how I am taken to different parts of my soul, to differences experiences within my spirit.

I have always loved nature and felt a particularly close affinity with the wind and the early evenings as the day recedes. Experiencing all that the colours of the sky, the quality of the seasons, the heat and the storms, always brings me back to my spiritual nature.

In Tantra we use the senses for meditation purposes, to learn and experience absolute presence in the now, using the physical as a gateway to the spiritual.

Inner depth is not about collecting knowledge of spiritual things, it is not accessing a certain vocabulary, reading particular books or aligning one's self with a modern-day guru. It is about the individual experience of many now's. It is about being fully in your life as you live it day by day, hour by hour and even minute by minute, elevating so called mundane things to higher and higher levels of perception.

Weather, being something central to our lives that we experience on a daily basis, is a beautiful way to tune into and connect with our senses. However, so often, we take weather for granted...or more frequently, we are irritated by it, complaining in summer that it's too hot, or in winter that it's too cold... or when it rains, wishing it would stop.

The question is: are we able to use these obvious things in life as sensory experiences that bring us into the now? I believe that if we cultivate using our senses, with regards to all of our repetitive every day life events, we learn to be authentic. The physical senses do not know how to lie, our mind so often does.

What a pity it would be, to let all this pass by unnoticed of the chance it offers us. Amidst all the problems facing our country we should never forget just how blessed we are with the vast canvas of nature and weather surrounding us at all times, throughout the year.

With love,
Leandra

ZEGG, Center for Experimental Culture Design...

The Campus at ZEGG, Bad Belzig, Germany

 “Love is the home of the divine on earth and the quality that makes us human beings. We want to create ways of living that integrate these sources in a conscious and positive way. Consciousness in Love’ is in this sense, an all-encompassing cultural work to heal these sources of our life. A peaceful culture is rooted in solidarity among men and women.”

This is how the ZEGG community introduce themselves on their website. I had the privilege of holding my first tantric weekend retreat in Germany at ZEGG last month. It was my first visit to ZEGG, a community that fascinated me from the moment I first heard about them some years ago. A number of my German friends have attended seminars there or been on their annual Summer Camp. Some had even spent time there on extended working retreats.

Situated on 15 hectares of light woodland in in the Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse in Bad Belzig, a beautiful country town about a 2 hour drive south-west of Berlin, ZEGG - Centre for Experimental Culture Design, been going for 20 years now, so one could say that the original vision has been tried and tested. They understand themselves as an international community and conference centre whose aim it is to develop and implement practical models for a socially and ecologically sustainable way of living.

Today ZEGG is an 100 strong tantric community committed to developing new ways of harmonious living in a community. The process of finding this harmonious living in a community, necessitates the individual members being on a journey with each other. It takes dedicated individuals to make this work and am not surprised that men and women who are drawn to drawn to Tantra, who are willing to confront their conditioning about relationships, sexuality and life in general, are the ones who have the dedication it takes to do this.

“Our community is a living organism, 
constantly changing according to the needs of its members.

 Our visitors too are a part of this organism.”

Over the years, ZEGG has experimented with different ways of organisation and management, today the community is organised into independent working areas: the kitchen, conference business, children's house, garden and site crew. For financial decisions with a wider impact, there is a management circle embedded within a sociocratic structure. The management circle is made up of two representatives from each of the working areas who meet regularly to reflect on current developments and prepare for strategic decisions.

The project has been developed into a totally self-sufficient ecological system. One hectare of farmland has been dedicated to an organic garden from which almost all the food including fruit and herbs for dining room is grown. For heating and hot water needs, they have environmentally friendly wood chip- and log-fired heating plants and several co-generation (CHP) plants. Electricity is produced by a photovoltaic system on the roofs different buildings and waste water is treated in their own constructed wetland sewage treatment plant.

For me, the most interesting part is their tantric understanding of sexuality and relationships. They also experiment with and develop different ways of relating on a personal level. Thus different forms of relationships are being lived in the community, with various interest groups supporting individuals in the process.

“Many people see the issues of love and sexuality as exclusively personal affairs and try to solve them in private or within the framework of therapy. We see love as a political issue because social and cultural changes are needed for love to grow.”

Needless to say, many of the seminars held there are based on or around tantric and spiritual themes.  There is even a dedicated oil room, consisting of a very large square 60 cm high oil bath for the special hot oil ritual that certain schools offer. In fact, while I was facilitating there, I was delighted to meet the lovely Mara Fricke-Wirth of the Secret of Tantra school, who was facilitating a woman's retreat for this ritual.  

Before I tell you what my favourite discovery was, I’d like to share with you the extent of this community which is essentially a village.


The ZEGG village layout

Centrally situated is a large round paved area called the Campus, used for gatherings of all kinds as well as being the gathering place in case of a fire.  There is also a fire pond which can be swam in, a volleyball court, an almost Olympic sized swimming pool which has been turned into a huge eco pool and there are wonderful walks in the wood where there is also a stream.

The three storied guesthouse, called the Hotel, houses the dining hall and kitchen as well as accommodation for seminar participants and visitors. Further accommodation is available for campers or in two dormitories connected to a couple of the seminar rooms.

An extremely large central building called the Uni (short for university) houses a variety of seminar rooms and the Aula, a beautiful hall with a semi-circle stage for concerts and other large indoor events. The Children’s House is a separate building close by. Businesses in the ZEGG village, include an internet shop, a bicycle rental shop and a gift shop selling self-made ceramics, textiles, jewellery and other gifts. A variety of workshops and various commercial premises, a media and office centre and two art studios are also situated in various buildings.

Of course there are a variety of small and larger houses for the community members, most are in the form of collectives or communes with a number of people sharing a house.
 

The Village Square

One of the sweetest places is the village square with its quaint village pup, open till late, where I enjoyed a drink and a chat at the end of my working day which was usually around 11pm. Of course it being summer, I was able to sit outside sharing the space with a community of mosquitoes. Thank goodness for mosquito repellent!


Being a spiritual tantric community, there are also special outdoor places for rituals: a beautiful Place of Gratefulness with a “ceiling” of colourful ribbons tied from tree to tree, and a special space in the woods for women and another for men.

So you may now ask, is there still more? Yes, my favourite discovery, making this community really special to me, is the fact that they have three separate and individual “love houses” for the sole purpose of love-making. There is a notice on the door saying discussions need to stay outside, the space is solely for lovemaking. Sexuality is an integral part of life. That is the way it should be. And because it is sacred, it requires a dedicated space. Something I teach the couples I work with. The bedroom is for going to sleep. If you don't have the space, you need to transform your bedroom into a sacred space for your lovemaking is what I preach! It does make a difference. 

Mulched fields

The aims of these people are high. They still have many plans, for example to extend the Uni building, creating more living space for community members for example. Will they achieve it all? Probably, going by what they have achieved already. So far 3million EUROS has been put into the project. They have a very large support community from all over the world who come on working visits, helping to keep the grounds in shape, or supporting the harvesting and cooking, cleaning and other practical things.

The entry process for those wanting to become community members, is quite stringent. One has to show dedication and commitment over quite a period of time in order to be taken in as a permanent member. It starts off with working visits to get to know the community and ends with a 6-week course on community living and organisation. I have a number of friends who would consider joining, but the logistics of organising the time away from work to do all that is quite daunting. As for me, I really like having my own place and navigating my life on my own, but I can't deny that it does attract and inspire me and I certainly will go back and I hope to be able to facilitate there again. It is such a wonderful place to be.

 “Community is a lifestyle in which the healing of love can take place in a stable surrounding.”

On paper things sound so much easier that they really are. I do not doubt for a minute that this takes very hard on the part of the individuals that make up this community. It requires a huge portion of willingness to be on such an intensive journey with each other. It takes dedicated individuals to carry through such a vision. I don’t wonder for one moment that this would be the result of people on the path of Tantra.

Zen garden at the Uni

I was only there for not quite three days and really busy facilitating my Tantric Fire Couple’s Retreat, however the special atmosphere and energy of the place is impossible to avoid. Just spending time
in the atmosphere of these people who have worked so hard at creating a sustainable version of their collective and individual dreams, is rewarding…and healing. It just goes to show what we
humans are capable of when we try, when we give our best trying to create something new and different.

I will be writing more about  my time and the facilitating I did last month in Berlin. I met such interesting people and had wonderful experiences with some of the fabulous tantric community there. Watch this space.

I close this article with one of the most beautiful pieces of text I found on the ZEGG website. Take it to heart, it is true, it does work exactly like that. This is how I transformed after being initiated into Tantra. I underline every word below...and add to that: 

Not only will we have more to give, we will also have more joy to experience and share.

Namaste
Leandra

"If communication about love is cultivated, love can
become free of the fear of abandonment, lies and pretence.
The bigger the social and mental/spiritual context for love is,
the more we are able to handle difficulties in a playful and unattached way,
the less we depend on this one moment of fulfilment,
the less we tend to accusations,
the more truth we will risk, and
the more power and love we have to give to the world.”

ZEGG Website: http://www.zegg.de/en/ (English & German)
Secret of Tantra  - School of Integral Tantra: http://www.secret-of-tantra.de/ (German only)

Letting go

Letting go - what exactly does that mean? When do we need to let go? What happens when we don't? How do I let go?

There are many things in life that we need to learn to let go of. It is a never ending process throughout our lives - needing to let go of situations, memories, things and people. Sometimes we even need to let go of ourselves, let go of who we planned to be, or who we think we are, in order to accommodate change and inner growth. We all seem to experience quite a bit of this in our lives and know how hard it sometimes can be. 

Letting go in its self implies that we are holding onto something. We are holding on, it's not holding us, not sticking to us, not glued to us. Letting go IS the solution, we’d be rid of whatever uncomfortable feelings we’re experiencing... yet we linger longer in the "holding onto".  Why?

Holding onto something already known appears safer. At least I know it already; at least this horrible feeling I am having is nothing new, I know it. The known, no matter how difficult or uncomfortable, offers a safety net, whereas letting go....no idea where that will take me. What happens then, when I’ve let go? The space left over is empty; there is nothing there automatically filling it when the letting go has taken place. This seems to be extremely threatening to us.

Empty space. Free energy. Spare time. This should excite us, but it seldom does. It implies becoming active, it is I who needs to fill it. And so, I feel, we have the crux of the matter. The fear is to be active, creatively forming who and where we are in our lives. It boils down to have the “creator power”, the realisation that we are both created and creator, at the same time. What we create is what we experience.

It’s a lot easier to just leave it all up to circumstances, bad luck, out of my power. In that we hold no responsibility. To become active is also to take responsibility. And thus by learning to let go, we learn to be responsible for filling all the gaps, all the open spaces, all the undirected energy. It means we become creator of what is.

How to let go? This is difficult to describe. What works for one person, does not necessarily work for another. I personally may go through a tense period of almost letting go but still holding on, walking on the edge so to say. It is excruciating, a horrible space to be in. I feel like I sway from one side to the other; from letting go to holding on; from open expectation of something unknown to the trustful known; from insecurity to security.

This in itself is a very tantric process. Experiencing the polarities of your inner experience and swaying from one side to the other in full awareness of exactly where you are energetically. For me it is like the swaying becomes faster and faster as my awareness reduces the distance between the two opposite poles, faster and faster until it is a simple vibration. Zizzzzzzzzz....and then that nothing; the space appears to simply be there. Looking back to what I was holding onto now appears weird perhaps. I was holding on to THAT? Strange, it feels so different now. And life continues. If our awareness was totally spot on, we will now fill the space with something else, with creativeness, with the energy of who we really are.

Unfortunately, many of us don’t go through this process. We end up imagining we’ve let go when all we’ve done is immediately picked up something else to hold on to it inexactly the same way. It takes courage to move across the edge, to take sides with the openness, with the space. I encourage you all, who are holding on to something you know you need to let go of, to take that step. And then, start creating in the void, in the space that has been left. Become the creator of the created. It is actually wonderful!

Julia Butterfly Hill puts it beautifully:
“As I started to picture the trees in the storm, the answer began to dawn on me. The trees in the storm don't try to stand up straight and tall and erect. They allow themselves to bend and be blown with the wind. They understand the power of letting go. Those trees and those branches that try too hard to stand up strong and straight are the ones that break.”

And in the words of Anaïs Nin:
“And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

I wish all of us a blossoming of self, an opening and blooming of many buds in our lives. I wish us all the courage to become what we are, what we have been all the time. As a result of holding on so tight, we have not noticed that it is all already there! Our fear is unwarranted. Whatever it is we need to let go of, the new is already there. All we need is the space to feel it, to experience it, to become it.


Namaste
Leandra

Ups & downs, back & forth, to & fro!

 

Heinbuche in the Snow - Ma Anand Leandra
(taken in Germany many years ago)

 
 
There has been a lot of upheaval in the last months but also a great deal of development. While this was on the go, I did not really know how to write, or what to write about. I was so full of dealing with the events being catapulted into my professional life, that I felt totally uninspired to put word to paper.

For me, writing is a process that orders the mind, putting thoughts into meaningful place more so than verbalising thoughts can. Writing only happens when I am ready to put it all together, when I am ready to structure a jungle of thoughts, feelings and ideas into a few sentences. In fact, for me writing can happen when some form of order is already there. I have learnt, that if I wait it out, allowing my thoughts free reign to come and go, back and forth, to and fro, the clarity begins to emerge. This is, of course, greatly helped by a friends listening to chaos in my head for hours on end. Thank you friends!
 
Structures I had put in place to accommodate new practitioners seemed to be crumbling after only a few wonderful  months of running smoothly. As these structures crumbled, new doors were opening wide and I was not sure how to respond. I went into a kind of spiritual incubator, a warm waiting, an evolving space within me, at the same time trying to keep outwardly warm as the wet, windy winter hit Cape Town. I was re-thinking the structures that had at first seemed so good. Existence appeared to be telling me: "the way things are simply has no substance".
 
As process intensified, Hari pointed out it was exactly the 9 days of Navariti, a Hindu religious festival devoted to the Divine Mother Durga in all her 9 forms. Durga represents the furious powers of all the male gods and is the ferocious protector of the righteous and the destroyer of all evil. Durga is the great Mother, the epitome of the Divine Feminine and it felt very relevant that which was not good, was being destroyed.

The timing was perfect: the structures I had so believed in were crashing, this and my subsequent process reflected exactly what the festival is about. Out of the rubble at my feet, newness would emerge, and it would be clearer than before.
 
I cannot say that the process has been completed, but it has evolved enough for me to be able to write about it. What I have learnt is that I need to put more emphasis on the quality of the training of Tantra Sacred Massage practitioners in order to get the quality of work I am wanting for the practice. Simply put: the training was too short. I had compromised my better knowledge of what it takes to do this work in order to accommodate what I called "South African circumstances", namely that many individuals who wanted to come into Tantra Sacred Massage practice did not appear have the money to pay for a lengthy training, nor the time to take off work. While these circumstances have not changed, a slightly different way of facilitating the training is emerging. It will certainly entail a longer and more detailed mentoring period than in the past.
 
So while a number of practitioners left the affiliate program, some new tantra practitioners walked into the space left behind, bringing fresh energy and new ideas. You will hear more about this in the next few months as it all emerges.
 
This is what I can say now:

• Tantra Sacred Massage(TM) has become a registered trademark. Only certified practitioners will be able to use the name and offer our massages, which those of you who have been for sessions will know, are very specific and authentic Ayurveda based tantric massages, making our work quite unique, not only here in South Africa, but from what I hear from visiting clients/students, world wide. More info: Tantra Sacred Massage Website...
• We have now formally started the gay branch of tantric work and have joined forces with Tantra4GayMen UK, an established school of Tantra run by Jason. Hari and Leon will be the force behind Tantra4GayMen SA and have great ideas of what they want to do. It will take time to emerge and during the next few months you'll hear more. For the time being, for those who wish to know more, please join our Facebook group: Tantra4GayMen SA

There is more being conceived at the moment but I'm not ready to birth the new plans yet - they will come into being next year and include bringing out international facilitators with some really interesting trainings.

I have written about my process because this is what happens to all of us. Life brings ups and downs all the time. I get asked what has changed since becoming tantric? The ups and downs have not changed - they certainly continue. I have changed, that is what is different. I understand drawbacks, failure, difficulties as opportunities to grow. I understand that Existence pushes you to see things you have not yet seen and the circumstances created force you to understand it all in a different, positive way. I am  not afraid of self-criticism, I want to recognise where I have gone wrong and have no desire to uphold a construct of who I am in order not to feel disappointment and pain. I now like to take the hint and change my ways again and again. Nothing has to be perfect or final, and indeed it cannot. There is no finality to the process of living our lives. While our humanity dictates a beginning and an end, it is just the beginning and end to a particular journey. And what a journey it is, as difficult as it seems at times, it's enthralling, wondrous and vibrant!
 
Much love to you all,
Leandra
 
If you would like regular info of events etc., please join our newsletter: Tantra Sacred Massage/Durga Tantra School Newsletter....

And visit: the Durga Tantra School website....

What role does sexuality play in Tantra?

 

Have you noticed the Easter products in the shops already? We are hardly over the festive season and our drive to consummate products is being fueled by the marketing strategies of stores getting us to buy, buy and buy.

Celebrations are no longer season driven rituals filled with meaningfulness and the question is: how do we bring Spirit-filled meaningfulness back into our lives? There are certainly many ways to approach this, however Tantra is the most holistic path I know of. It is a path filled with rituals that not only fit into, but become part of our daily lives. It includes everything, right down to the most fundamental ritual of human life - sexuality.

Unfortunately, in a similar way that life's celebrations are marketed to become something they were not orininally meant to be, the ritual of personal sexual expression is marketed for a community whose new word is "pro-sexual". On the background of a repressed sexuality, this is meant to be positive. The yearning for a sexuality free of shame and guilt however, has resulted in an on-going sexualisation not only of Tantra but of most aspects of human life. Tantra is thus reduced to only one aspect of what it is actually meant to be.

So what role does sexuality then really play in authentic Tantra? It plays an important role - but no more important than anything else that plays an important role in Tantra!

I was fortunate to participate in one of Daniel Odier's* seminars while I was in Europe earlier this year. He spoke of 4 practices of Tantra, and interestingly, sex was not one of them! So what is Tantra really?

Tantra is the Yoga of Presence - of being in the moment, the "now" of whatever is in any given moment. If the "now" happens to be during sexual expression, then it is about presence in that - and this applies to all of the further practices.

Tantra is the Yoga of Creativity - of being aware of our ability to create actively in all aspects of our life, giving us power to never have to be a victim or have someone to blame.

Tantra is the Yoga of Breath - of recognising breath as the life giving substance that feeds not only our bodies but also souls, leading us to cultivate a practice of breath work on a daily basis.

Tantra is the Yoga of Touch - of touching all of Existence deeply and profoundly, of being in conscious contact with all things, "without mental commotion" as Odier puts it.

Put these 4 practices together and you have the most holistic practice available to us today. It is also one of  the oldest practices, recorded in the most ancient of holy books; a practice that has come through time and religion to us today. Giving us the full potential of our sexuality, bringing back sacredness to our personal sexual expression, is only one aspect of what the path of Tantra gives us. Far more, Tantra gives us our full potential - period.

In this sense, we continue our work with gratitude and in awe of the process within not only our clients, but also within ourselves.

Ma Anand Leandra

(A slightly shorter version of this article was written for my February 2013 newsletter Tantra Talk. If you would like to register for the newsletter, go to one of my websites to register: http://www.tantra-massage.co.za; http://www.durgatantraschool.co.za.)
* Daniel Odier is the author of Tantric Quest: An Encounter with Absolute Love, Desire, the Tantric Path to Awakening, Yoga Spandakarika