Salt With A Pinch Of Tantra
“It’s like opening a Pandora’s box” – is how one participant described her experience at our retreat TANTRA WITH A PINCH OF SALT. The things that come to the surface once one refuses to take things for granted. Like when I participated in my first Tantra workshops I just took for granted what the teachers told me… For example that we are dealing with authentic tantric practices by doing massages. And then at our retreat on the first evening we learn in Eva Hanson’s lecture that those massages actually never were a part of tantric philosophy and spiritual practice.
They are basically the invention by some white dudes in the 1970s who were riding the Hippi-New-Age wave like so many of their peers. And while some of them actually studied Sanskrit texts, what I took for granted as something traditional was just a fusion of those Western people’s approaches: their fascination with sexuality, the “orient” and their very own inventions of gestures and rituals around touch. We also learn that many Tantra massage institutes actually grapple with the word “Tantra” since it has nothing to do with actual Tantra. But calling it “erotic massage” or “sensual massage” (in our discussion group we even come up with “occult massage”) brings up different associations. And many massage institutes wish to distance themselves from the more strict prostitution laws. So the word Tantra gives them an air of something else. Something healing. Something therapeutic. Something to be respected. The lecture gives us some insights into the cultural history and the geopolitical-imperialistic backgrounds of Tantra massage by also explaining how it is tied to the invention of psychoanalysis and with that the invention of a new subjectivity which is quite invested in navel-gazing self-development. After the lecture one participant rightly so explains that this all feels quite disappointing. She thought she would learn something proper. And now it is all a farce. “Tantra – The path to disappointment” we jokingly rename our retreat. The German word for disappointment – Enttäuschung – actually holds a comforting promise. Ent_Täuschung basically means that an illusion or deception gets undone. What happens after this? After not holding anymore to the illusion? Or, as Eva asks us by pointing to the first sentence of our retreat-description (“It’s time to declutter tantramassages”): “What is left after the decluttering? If the whole thing actually is built on the clutter?” A good question. Our retreat is not built on answers. It is more an invitation into a work in progress in which we facilitators started to do things differently because we were simply frustrated and fed up – by the workshops we attended, in which there was a disbalance between male and female participants for example, so the facilitators invited more women to come for a lower price basically to serve as resources for the men.
By doing our retreat we don’t wish to appear as Gurus with fixed new answers. But whoever wishes to enter into a process of wondering, experimenting and deconstructing is welcome. Once this collective attempt in deconstruction started though we realized how big the project actually is that we try to hold space for then. It is more then just stopping to cling to the insignias of Tantra massage when using Lunghis with Elephant print, Patchouli incence sticks or smelling like Monoi de Tahiti. More themes need to be addressed. Can we talk about sex work and how doing this for money influences the “ritual” we learned in tantra retreats that were built for couples? Can we talk about unique approaches and creativity and freedom, because we wish to spare others the experiences we had when going way over our boundaries, because we didn’t have an alternative to starting a massage with eyegazing or letting somebody sit on our lap in a so-called Lotus seat. Can we talk about gender politics? That not every man has a “Lingam” and every woman a “Yoni” and that whatever they have they might wish to call and approach it differently? And while most Tantra workshops say both men and women embody masculine and feminine energy they use stereotypical differences: masculine as the active, logical, goal-setting part and feminine as the passive, intuitive, nurturing one. With Queer Theorist Paul B. Preciado it could also be possible to approach Tantra massage as embodying and balancing both the “semiotechnical codes of white heterosexual femininity belonging to the postwar pharmacopornographic political ecology” as well as the “semiotechnical codes of white heterosexual masculinity belonging to the postwar pharmacopornographic political ecology” within oneself. And that would mean to align the inner “Shakti” which could then be the archetype for
“Little Women, a mother’s courage, the Pill, the hyperloaded cocktail of estrogens and progesterone, the honor of virgins, Sleeping Beauty, bulimia, the desire for a child, the shame of deflowering, The Little Mermaid, silence in the face of rape, Cinderella, the ultimate immorality of abortion, cakes and cookies, knowing how to give a good blowjob, bromazepam, the shame about not having done it yet, Gone with the Wind, saying no when you want to say yes, not leaving home, having small hands, Audrey Hepburn’s ballet shoes, codeine, taking care of your hair, fashion, saying yes when you want to say no, anorexia, knowing in secret that the one you’re really attracted to is your best friend, fear of growing old, the need to be on a diet constantly, the beauty imperative, kleptomania, compassion, cooking, the desperate sensuality of Marilyn Monroe, the manicure, not making any noise when you walk, not making any noise when you eat, not making any noise, the immaculate and carcinogenic cotton of Tampax, the certainty that maternity is a natural bond, not knowing how to cry, not knowing how to fight, not knowing how to kill, not knowing much or knowing a lot but not being able to say it, knowing how to wait, the subdued elegance of Lady Di, Prozac, fear of being a bitch in heat, Valium, the necessity of the G-string, knowing how to restrain yourself, letting yourself be fucked in the ass when it’s necessary, being resigned, accurate waxing of the pubes, depression, thirst, little lavender balls that smell good, the smile, the living mummification of the smooth face of youth, love before sex, breast cancer, being a kept woman, being left by your husband for a younger woman …” ¹
- to align this with your inner modern urban western “Shiva” which would then be an archetype for:
“James Bond, soccer, wearing pants, knowing how to raise your voice, Platoon, knowing how to kill, knowing how to smash somebody’s face, mass media, stomach ulcers, the precariousness of paternity as a natural bond, overalls, sweat, war (including the television version), Bruce Willis, Operation Desert Storm, speed, terrorism, sex for sex’s sake, getting hard like Ron Jeremy, knowing how to drink, earning money, Rocky, Prilosec, the city, bars, hookers, boxing, the garage, the shame of not getting hard like Ron Jeremy, Viagra, prostate cancer, broken noses, philosophy, gastronomy, Scarface, having dirty hands, Bruce Lee, paying alimony to your ex-wife, conjugal violence, horror films, porn, gambling, bets, the government, the state, the corporation, cold cuts, hunting and fishing, boots, the tie, the three-day growth of beard, alcohol, coronaries, balding, the Grand Prix, journey to the Moon, getting plastered, hanging yourself, big watches, callused hands, keeping your anus squeezed shut, camaraderie, bursts of laughter, intelligence, encyclopedic knowledge, sexual obsessions, Don Juanism, misogyny, being a skinhead, serial killers, heavy metal, leaving your wife for a younger woman, fear of getting fucked in the ass, not seeing your children after the divorce, the desire to get fucked in the ass …” ²
That was one idea for workshop exercises in which we work with the whole honest complexity of gender and archetypes, discarding what is not serving us, crafting our own approaches, staying with paradoxes and trouble.
Furthemore, the Pandora’s box of Tantra massage has more to offer. Can we talk about differently abled bodies? Can we talk about abuse in spiritual communities and how to grieve it – and how to hold people accountable, be it by the power of the law or with restorative justice? What about toxic spirituality? And if satire, parody, humor, comedy and laughter (an approach that is typical for luhmen d’arc) could serve as bringing fresh air into those overly serious approaches or if they can even be tools to immunize people so they are not as easily tricked by narcissistic manipulative leaders? Or if humor and satire is then in the way of actually dropping deeper and seeing how important and serious bodywork and spirituality can be? Oversalting the actually warm nourishing soup of sublime oneness... As cultural theorists Lauren Berlant and Sianne Ngai describe it: “Comedy’s pleasure comes in part from its ability to dispel anxiety, [...] but it doesn’t simply do that [...], its action just as likely produces anxiety: risking transgression, flirting with displeasure, or just confusing things in a way that both intensifies and impedes the pleasure. Comedy has issues.” ³ So is it taking a piss when we need to laugh during a demo because there is always not only something transgressive but also something aggressive in laughter? (S)laughter… What needs to be slaughtered in Tantra massages?
And then we still want to teach techniques on top of it all! We show how to elegantly move a body around and how to touch somebody by trusting your intuition. We present the typical clutter – Matís demonstrating how back then he was starting massages by holding the other persons’s hands, letting them lean backwards and breath heavily, then suddenly clasping his hands over their head to somehow “hypnotize” them or something and weaving an invisible thread from their head to their toes… and me not being able to stop laughing as his demonstration-guinea pig because it is just so very creepy!
And we want to have group experiences… both fun and challenging… and maybe at times therapeutic… The unveiling processes of bringing people into duos or trios for the exercises… And we want to make ourselves nonessential. At least that is one ethical pillar for us as facilitators: to enable and empower the group to self-regulate and being true to their own interests, needs and experiences more and more, without needing our permission or without sticking to a plan for the sake of the plan. Education as a practice that has the aim of making itself/the educator dissolve after all, while the person who has been educated becomes independent. Or even a better teacher. Knowing that what is alive in this unique moment is more important than a recipe of some kind of workshop 101. Which means that sometimes the uncomfortable stuff is more important and potent than the fun wellness stuff. To get there this needs to not turn away from vulnerability and transparency when it is necessary: in order to understand the current group dynamics, and the relations between peers as well as between facilitators and participants. In order to deal with certain patterns, projections, unclear expectations that nobody consented to, unresolved stuff that leads to unnecessary overthinking. It’s a bit like in a relationship when you go to couples therapy and become more aware of the way one tries to micro-manage the other so they will change and fit more into something more comfortable. How there is people-pleasing going and how this might feel nice at first, but then one realizes the causes behind it and the price it has - like disrespecting boundaries. And boundaries aren’t nice. How there are dependencies and projections of parent-figures onto facilitators they can – and should – never live up to. How can we rather cooperate? And in what ways can we show up for each other and ourselves then? (But this topic of the ambivalent role of facilitation should be discussed further in another blog post...)
And all of that is a lot. Especially in a heterogenous group where what is heaven for one is hell for the other. But it also holds the potential for magic. When suddenly some participants create a beautiful ritual of honoring the catress (not goddess) of squirting in between workshop slots, gracefully guiding the chosen ones into the swimming pool decorated with flowers, letting the liminal beings float and then scream in a choir with the peacocks surrounding us…
Maybe trying to declutter Tantric massage finally led to more clutter. If our workshop wasn’t something then it for sure wasn’t minimalistic. Looking back it felt more like a caleidoscope in which with every turn a new pattern arises. New clutter. We must admit: our relationship to clutter is ambivalent. We are not as refined in order to be able to give you a decluttered tantra massage retreat after all, because for that we are too messy, too much in love with surplus, too flawed and too little of asceticists ourselves. When in good shape we can offer something else – hopefully something like a “distinctive blend of excess and precision.” ⁴ Those words are from a review describing the work of author Dodie Bellamy and somehow I to me this review is a rolemodel I am looking up to and hope our workshops could be described in this way, too:
“Rather than simply disavowing or ridiculing cult belief, however, Bellamy tenderly explores this longing for meaning and community, asking, ‘Dare I reclaim what’s considered vulgar in spirituality?’ Reclaiming vulgarity has always been at the core of Bellamy’s project: reclaiming the vulgarity of the body, in all its discomforts and desires, and reclaiming the vulgarity of unregulated emotions — needy desire, obsessive fixation, corrosive heartbreak”
And I think: “Yes! Exactly! That is what I want when doing those workshops!”. And finally, when rereading the review I also find an approach to clutter that fascinates me. The reviewer describes how Bellamy’s “writing feels more proximate and tender in its cultivated messiness, as if we were accompanying Bellamy through the undomesticated landscape of feeling in all its lush wilderness.” Cultivated messiness! Yes! And then it pays tribute to how Bellamy describes relationships and I bow deeply: “How bloodless and transactional it would be to have friendships or marriages in which we offered one another only our best lines, rather than all the fumbling between them. It’s consoling, even consolidating, to be witnessed in our uncertainty, our banality, our clutter.”
Namaste.
_____________________
¹ Paul B. Preciado: Testo Junkie. Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era, The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2013 [2008], p. 120 f.
² Ibd., p. 121.
³ Lauren Berlant and Sianne Ngai: Comedy Has Issues. In: Critical Inquiry Vol. 43, No. 2, The University of Chicago 2017, Comedy, an Issue.
⁴ Leslie Jamison: A Fearless Experimentalist’s Stealth Reputation. Revered among better-known New Narrative writers, Dodie Bellamy has made uncompromising excess her artistic credo. In: The New Yorker, Books, November 8, 2021.
