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My mother thinks that I have joined a cult. First is was the
Bhakti Yoga; singing and dancing in praise of the divine. Seeing me pick up my
drum and chant the Hare Krishna Mantra drove her to the darkest depths of questioning.
Somehow when we were singing George Harrison's “my sweet lord” back at guitar mass it didn’t quit
hit her in the same way. I said, “Don’t
worry mom, Jesus is still my Guru”.
The real challenge is my Mary Magdalene complex. This is
what has ultimately brought me to the “cult” of Tantra. See, I have always been
in love with Jesus; the sandals, the long brown hair, soft blue eyes always
looking deeply inward towards you. When I was growing up in the 70’s, he
was everywhere. Then he disappeared for several decades... and now he’s back! He
appears in yoga studios, dance clubs and in line at the whole foods, just in
time for my midlife awakening. I only wish he would cut his toenails more
often. The raggedy feet syndrome unconsciously beckons my desire to let down my
hair, kneel in devotion and tend to the homage of pedicure in the most lurid,
naked, coconut oil inspired kind of way.
There is something so titillating about a man in the
conscious embodiment of God. Sex and Spirituality married in the ultimate potential
for ecstatic life. This is the premise
for Tantra, to hold everything sacred. But mostly what I am referring to is the sacred
sexuality branch of yogic philosophy that dates back to the ancients of some
5000 years. If there is one thing that I have learned from Tantra, it is that
you do not choose it, it chooses you. How deep you go is entirely dependent
upon your ability to surrender; to walk the courageous path of inward truth on
your journey to divine bliss and wholeness.
It all became unleashed for me in the summer of 2009, appropriately
at an Aphrodite event at the Annie Besant lodge in the Hollywood Hills. That is
when I first met Dak Cal. He sat down next to me. I felt a gust of
wind, turned my head and smiled with my eyes. Jesus again. His long brown hair
tucked behind an ear. There was the welcoming scent of lavender and patchouli
in the stagnant hot air of the room. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from him
or me as bead of sweat ran down my armpit sticking Indian silk to my skin.
Dak is short for "Daka" (a Sanskrit or Tibetan word loosely meaning sacred sexual healer). Dak Cal was giving a talk on spiritual sexual shamanism. I was resistant at
first. I was quite certain that I had the whole relationship/sex/god thing down. What could this California hippie guy possibly know that I already didn't? But you don't know what you don't know. Perhaps it was my ego that stopped the feeling in my belly from allowing him in right then
and there. But I wasn't ready to trust the intuition that the mind could not validate. Oddly, it wasn't a romantic or sexual feeling towards him, but there was something. Something ancient, something strong, familiar. I remember looking down at his flip flopper clad feet. I heard a voice inside me say, " I think you are going to know those feet very well". "What?! I'm really not that attracted to him, he's kind of weird", I said back. That voice, I hear it a lot. It knows truths so long before anyone else does, including myself. I tend to meet everyone where they are, but I wasn’t ready to meet
him. I felt the draw, the mystery, the like vibration but it would have to
wait.
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Unlike traditional women, gathering sensibilities and dreams for
their hope chest, I had been born with the gift of an open lid on Pandora’s
Box. The dark knowledge was out, I saw it right away and it was up to me to
cultivate it back into the ever shape shifting box of my path.
