Tantric Thoughts Under a Waxing Moon

Dear Lovers,
Here is the web address for all five of the articles taken from William Dalrymple’s book Nine Lives:

http://killingthebuddha.com/author/williamdalrymple/

Reading them reminded me of why I usually do not use the words Tantra, dakini or yogini to describe my work or the members of my communities. Although I do joke about my “Adventures in Dakini Land” I am ever mindful that there are people in India, Tibet and elsewhere who are true Tantric practitioners.

I feel a deep affinity for Tantra and Tantric practices when I read the following portions of Dalrymple’s text, (bold emphasis is mine):

“In this frightening aspect, Tara is not alone, but instead part of a sisterhood who encompass the divine feminine at its most terrible: a brood of dark-skinned untameable Tantric divinities who are worshiped in Bengal, and who here take precedence in popular piety over the more familiar male gods: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. These goddesses, known as the Ten Mahavidyas, are attended by jackals, furies and ghosts. They cut off their own heads, and are offered blood sacrifices by their devotees. In the miniatures that illustrate the Tantric texts, they prefer to have sex with corpses than living men or gods, straddling them on a burning cremation pyre and bringing the dead to life through the power of their shakti. Such goddesses—embodying all that would normally be considered outrageous or even repulsive—lie at the shifting threshold between the divine and demonic, violating approved social values and customs. They are “going up the down-current,” as one Bengali Tantric once put it to me.”

and

Though Tantrism only became well defined at the end of the first millennium AD, some of its constituent elements such as its goddess cults, shamanism, and sexual yoga may date back to pre-Aryan and pre-Vedic religious currents, and in many ways are fundamentally opposed to the ideas and structures of the Vedas, which emphasise the social and religious hierarchy. Tantrics, in contrast, oppose convention and hierarchy, and encourage individuals from every background to develop a mystical relationship with the deity. It is kama—desire in every sense of the word—that is to be used to achieve liberation in this life. While Tantric texts can represent an elevated philosophical tradition, popular Tantric practice is often oral and spontaneous. It aims at ritually gaining access to the energy of the godhead that created and controls the universe, then concentrating and internalizing that power in the body of the devotee. This turns the world and the body into channels of salvation, and a powerful means of merging with the Absolute, but also grants tangible magical powers to the devotee in the present.

These definitions of Tantra resonate with me and with the kinds of ritual magicks and invocatory work I love to do. I truly enjoy the liminal spaces The “thresholds between the divine and demonic” where I am able to “violate approved social values and customs”. Admittedly the only “Tangible magical power” I want as a devotee is to love beyond my ego/personality’s limited understandings of desire and preferences. Lately,my particular magick seems to be consistently taking the form of holding workshops that explore the mysteries of Love and Intimacy Building. My abilities to channel and “gain access to the energy of the godhead that created and controls the universe” remains rather limited to my rather tame Western European/Greek glimpses of Aphrodite as a Golden Wave of Love and Desire and perhaps that is as it should be.

I love that the name Tara originates in the word for “Star” and shares this with Stella Maris, & Astarte. I love knowing that Aphrodite in her origins is, as all these goddesses a Goddess of War and blood sacrifice as well as Love and desire. I believe that Aphrodite, the Peacock God and other Divine beings associated with the Star/Planet we know astronomically as Venus; is the same archetypal being seen through the different cultural lenses of humanity throughout time. It pleases me to over and over again feel the deep tidal pulls of desire and yearning and to sacrifice them to her; knowing she/he is the one true source and origin for all love and lust for me in this lifetime.

When ever I move my heartbreak from a personal sense of despair toward the universal ache of desire located in all of humanity my weeping becomes the cry for the beloved and I am no longer lost and pitiable. I am simply a devotee calling out to the godhead in one of her many forms. Then my despair and aching heart are full of wisdom and reconciliation. Then my meditation is self-recognition and integration for I am the Goddess and she is my deepest self. I am so relieved to have found a way out of despair by simply feeling it fully and allowing these waves of sensation to move out of me in radiance and magnetism.

My have a dear and devoted friend who is fond of reminding me that if I want a love life that has permanence and stability I am worshipping the wrong Goddess (Aphrodite). I adore her for being willing to listen to my endless stories of love, loss, passion, desire, heartbreak and infatuation. I pray she never becomes unwilling to lend me her compassionate ear. Thank you dear sister for all of your compassion and generosity.

Lately, however, I have been getting glimpses of something that is True for me with a capital “T”. It may be possible that I am not meant to have a male partner in a static monogamous relationship in this lifetime ( no really? what was my first clue??). Now I want to be careful not to create a “curse” or limitation for myself. It is clear to me at this point that when I am infatuated with a human being I get very fixated and stuck, things stop flowing. I want to have partners that share my experience of the Divine as central and human relationships as ephemeral. Devotion to Divinity above devotion to specific humans is what I had in common with my two young male yoga teacher housemates for 11 months and was, I believe the unifying field of our ability to live together in such a small space rather peacefully, (I mean really when you think about it we got on rather well all things considered).

I have an amazing capacity to fall in love with, and then also to persistently love, other human beings. My relationships with each of you reading this is a clear testimonial/evidence of that capacity. As long as I do not get confused and think that love = people will do what I want I am fine. My experiences this past week at Beloved Festival, and my ongoing relatedness with my lovers and close intmate friends, with all of you is evidence to me that my way of loving is to be as intimate as possible and take all of us right up to the edge of social limits and customs. I know I push all of you. My love of you makes you uncomfortable sometimes doesn’t it? My love for you makes me question everything I’ve ever been taught to believe about socially appropriate boundaries, about what it means to be straight, queer, gay, pansexual. About what it means to be married, monogamous, poly. While I actually enjoy transgressing these boundaries, I do not Love you in order to transgress. It seems to me rather that my loving, when I express it without reserve, crosses the boundaries of polite society. Perhaps this is love’s nature.

Let me know your thoughts