i would describe it both as an interpersonal/relational practice, in the context both of sexual relationships and in terms of how one approaches/thinks about other relationships, and as a relation-to-self/philosophical practice. the second informs the first, of course. but i learned it as a set of approaches to social and erotic/sexual practice and it is tied to that context for me.
i have described eros as the energy of the big bang, the energy that takes a tiny bean the size of your fingernail and turns it into a 7' tall vine covered in flowers in under a month, the energy of expansion and creation in all ways and all beings. it is in dynamic harmony/balance with thanatos, the energy of death & decay; the bean falls & enriches the soil & grows again. this is as true in human bodies & sexual encounters as it is in the garden (i can't entirely untie those - i think you get it.) eros is also the energy of sexual desire, though it is useful to separate the concepts sometimes; othertimes they are the same thing.
Tantra's reputation is entirely sexual, and that's not incorrect, merely incomplete. the people i study with say, "We understand the body as a laboratory for transformation and erotic energy as a source of power and healing. We believe that somatic teachings, nonjudgmental sexual exploration and play, and radical erotic acceptance in inclusive community will heal the planet. We create and nurture this community through art, literature, workshops, gatherings, deep dives, and more."
and that feels like an accurate way to put it into language. body as laboratory; pleasure as laboratory for healing, transformation & release.
yeah, nobody wants human energy characterized as male/female so we were trying to find alternative ways to describe polarities that we experience in our bodies. dumping the m/f duality entirely; i would not say that male energy was described as penetrative etc, at all, but rather, that penetrative & receptive are energies all of us were able to feel in our bodies and play with. we worked with electric/magnetic as a playground one time, too.
keeping the safe space is a LOT of things. the coordinators go through intensive trainings in Sacred Intimacy before they begin leading these things. and there are usually 4-5 coordinators for a group of 12-18 students (18 is a lot, that's a huge class; and it happens sometimes). so the ratio and workload balance for them can be spread out among the 4-5 people. there's generally somebody whose job it is to handle external-world logistics, like shuttle scheudles and is the laundry done and are the right supplies in the temple for the next exercise, so that everybody else doesn't have to think about that stuff. then the teaching is divided up among usually two leaders with a third and maybe fourth person as instructional support. that group holds some very clear norms around treatment of other people, complete but safe expression of feelings & energies. and the first thing we do, always, is a bunch of consent exercises. finding your yes, finding your no, exercising those things, and exercising the "listening to and respecting someone else's no" muscle. there's one exercise where you're in pairs and you suggest something to the other person and they have to say no and you have to hear that, and you go back and forth like that for a while. then the same exercise but instead of saying no, you modify the ask. and another where you accept it. nobody's actually going to do whatever is being suggested; the suggestion & hearing the no, or hearing the modification, or hearing the yes, is the exercise. there are probably two dozen similar sorts of exercises we do, building that "rejection is not about me" muscle, and the practice of listening internally and respecting what we hear from our bodies and from what other people tell us, so that we can all trust each other's yes & no in Temple.
before anybody even gets to Temple, a lot of safe-space keeping has already happened. they do a written questionnaire, and then a phone intake interview with anyone who expresses interest, and this includes a "vibes check" that helps ensure potential participants are well-aligned in terms of consent and what they want to get out of the experience (ie, personal exploration & healing & education, rather than sexytimes in a way that is exploitative of others). there's a core community who participates in a lot of workshops together in various formations, and referrals of new people from members of that core community are taken seriously because presumably the referring person has had signficant experience with the new person suggesting the will behave safely and respectfully in the space. but people come in without such referrals, too, from the facebook page or from the website or word of mouth that extends further out, and so on.
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Date: 2022-04-26 05:21 pm (UTC)i have described eros as the energy of the big bang, the energy that takes a tiny bean the size of your fingernail and turns it into a 7' tall vine covered in flowers in under a month, the energy of expansion and creation in all ways and all beings. it is in dynamic harmony/balance with thanatos, the energy of death & decay; the bean falls & enriches the soil & grows again. this is as true in human bodies & sexual encounters as it is in the garden (i can't entirely untie those - i think you get it.) eros is also the energy of sexual desire, though it is useful to separate the concepts sometimes; othertimes they are the same thing.
Tantra's reputation is entirely sexual, and that's not incorrect, merely incomplete. the people i study with say, "We understand the body as a laboratory for transformation and erotic energy as a source of power and healing. We believe that somatic teachings, nonjudgmental sexual exploration and play, and radical erotic acceptance in inclusive community will heal the planet. We create and nurture this community through art, literature, workshops, gatherings, deep dives, and more."
and that feels like an accurate way to put it into language. body as laboratory; pleasure as laboratory for healing, transformation & release.
yeah, nobody wants human energy characterized as male/female so we were trying to find alternative ways to describe polarities that we experience in our bodies. dumping the m/f duality entirely; i would not say that male energy was described as penetrative etc, at all, but rather, that penetrative & receptive are energies all of us were able to feel in our bodies and play with. we worked with electric/magnetic as a playground one time, too.
keeping the safe space is a LOT of things. the coordinators go through intensive trainings in Sacred Intimacy before they begin leading these things. and there are usually 4-5 coordinators for a group of 12-18 students (18 is a lot, that's a huge class; and it happens sometimes). so the ratio and workload balance for them can be spread out among the 4-5 people.
there's generally somebody whose job it is to handle external-world logistics, like shuttle scheudles and is the laundry done and are the right supplies in the temple for the next exercise, so that everybody else doesn't have to think about that stuff. then the teaching is divided up among usually two leaders with a third and maybe fourth person as instructional support. that group holds some very clear norms around treatment of other people, complete but safe expression of feelings & energies. and the first thing we do, always, is a bunch of consent exercises. finding your yes, finding your no, exercising those things, and exercising the "listening to and respecting someone else's no" muscle. there's one exercise where you're in pairs and you suggest something to the other person and they have to say no and you have to hear that, and you go back and forth like that for a while. then the same exercise but instead of saying no, you modify the ask. and another where you accept it. nobody's actually going to do whatever is being suggested; the suggestion & hearing the no, or hearing the modification, or hearing the yes, is the exercise. there are probably two dozen similar sorts of exercises we do, building that "rejection is not about me" muscle, and the practice of listening internally and respecting what we hear from our bodies and from what other people tell us, so that we can all trust each other's yes & no in Temple.
before anybody even gets to Temple, a lot of safe-space keeping has already happened. they do a written questionnaire, and then a phone intake interview with anyone who expresses interest, and this includes a "vibes check" that helps ensure potential participants are well-aligned in terms of consent and what they want to get out of the experience (ie, personal exploration & healing & education, rather than sexytimes in a way that is exploitative of others). there's a core community who participates in a lot of workshops together in various formations, and referrals of new people from members of that core community are taken seriously because presumably the referring person has had signficant experience with the new person suggesting the will behave safely and respectfully in the space. but people come in without such referrals, too, from the facebook page or from the website or word of mouth that extends further out, and so on.