apteryxWarm
I attended a tantra puja for beginners in San Diego. No sexual touching, just affectionate touch, caresses, looking into each other’s eyes, honoring each other and giving each other comfort.
Each woman brought a blanket and a couple pillows to serve as her “nest”. The women stood in a big circle around the room, each in front of her nest. The men stood in a big circle just inside the women’s circle, paired off and facing the women.
The puja consisted of “exercises”: the leader gave a little instruction and then played soft music for the next five minutes or so. After each exercise, the circle of men rotated clockwise so everyone got a new partner.
The first exercise was for the man to stand while the woman started by caressing his head and working her way down to his toes—to “make him feel wonderful from head to toe”. In the second exercise, the roles were reversed. In one exercise, you invented a slow dance together. In one exercise, the woman sat behind the man and let him lean back onto her, and cradled and caressed him as “his ideal mother”. In the next, the roles were reverse, the man serving as the woman’s “ideal father”.
After each exercise, the man and the woman thanked each other and said what they most enjoyed about it.
The puja left me feeling a lot of warmth. People who would never touch each other for five minutes straight in ordinary life gave each other affection and expressed gratitude for it. This is not a way that we normally connect with people, but it’s something we all love: to be comforted and cared for, and to comfort and care for others. The clear structure and defined boundaries made it very easy to open up, feel safe, and just enjoy the connection. 5 years ago
