{"id":23614,"date":"2010-03-19T16:05:15","date_gmt":"2010-03-19T21:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=23614"},"modified":"2010-03-19T20:33:28","modified_gmt":"2010-03-20T01:33:28","slug":"tantra-is-western-in-origin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/tantra-is-western-in-origin\/","title":{"rendered":"Left-Right-Left, Advancing in Retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mysti Easterwood<\/strong><\/p>\n

Human potential and self-awareness are something we could do with a lot more of right now. I keep hearing people ask when everyone is going to wake up; this aspect looks a lot like an awakening. I would be more optimistic if I heard people ask about when <\/em>they are going to wake up.<\/em> — Eric Francis, Cosmic Equinox<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Tomb of Sauro-Sarmatian priestess from Prokhorovskaya culture (east of the Black Sea, near the Turkish-Iranian border, in approx, 4th - 2th century B.C. (probably much older). Excavated by Jeanne Davis-Kimball. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This week has seen the opening of a 10-day international music festival called South-by-SouthWest <\/a><\/strong>here in Austin. It’s the very essence of Vernal\/Aries\/Creative energy is roaring through the city. Since my health club sits at ground zero (well, on the 8th floor) of the festivities, even without the $500 pass, I am marinating in its ambiance.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, with Dawes, John Hiatt and Carolina Chocolate Drops playing downstairs in the lobby of the Hilton (off the schedule), I met with longtime Hindu Tantrika Paul Garza. We met to discuss what a Tantra-101 class taught in the West might look like. My background in Tantra is Buddha-flavored, so we\u2019re cooking up a view from both sides of the tradition.<\/p>\n

One common ground we quickly reached is what Tantra is not. For example, it is not — per Robinson Jeffers — the \u201cIndian recession.\u201d In this context, recession<\/em>, referred to in a poem by Jeffers, means a way to escape reality.<\/p>\n

While its Asian expression has been shaped into a passive, quietus-seeking, transcendentalist appearance, Tantric practices were first the province of Scythian warrior priestesses, whose Awakening was part of a very active life, one lived mostly on horseback. Scythians were a culture located in what is now western Iran, before the Persians, contemporaneous with the Hellenistic Greeks, who called them ‘Amazons’.<\/p>\n

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16th Century Nepali Vajrayogini. (Note the direction of the gaze.) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Paul Garza\u2019s Catholic background includes a hefty social justice component, so while he has great respect for the contemplatives — the rishis and swamis who have informed his path — the question of how to activate the practice in the world <\/em>has never left him. He is concerned with how we practice Tantra as an active way of reshaping the world, and to influence events.<\/p>\n

Now, ironically, I am in the middle of developing a workshop on a particular kind of retreat. Not just a nice few days near the lake with a good massage and a cup of tea, but what is called in Tantra-lingo \u2018close intensive retreat’.<\/p>\n

Initially, this is a solitary practice that allows the retreatant to a) determine what they want to get done, b) find a sadhana (spiritual practice) that addresses that goal, c) request the assistance of the guardians of that practice, d) set the thing up, and e) do it.<\/p>\n

Oh, and f)inally…dedicate the Merit. This business of dedicating the merit is generally viewed as a scattershot event, disseminating the virtue collected during the retreat for the Awakening of every creature in the universe. In my workshop I recommend focusing a little more tightly, and I show why and how this is accomplished.<\/p>\n

Does this seem too Western? Why, we\u2019re setting intention, looking for techniques, targeting goals.<\/p>\n

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Vajra-Dakini Hum (Goins-Easterwood composite).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Does this sound \u2018spiritual\u2019? From a South Asian perspective, maybe not. From the Western perspective, absolutely. And since Tantra originated in what is now Western Iran, we are seeing it evolve toward its original function: keeping the goddamned Greeks away from our men and horses.<\/p>\n

As we can see from our upcoming Jupiter\/Uranus conjunction, things are getting ready to go all rodeo on us. Time to find that horsie and saddle up.<\/p>\n

Mysti Easterwood writes for Examiner.com<\/strong><\/a> organizes Tantra in Texas and writes Tantra for Bobos! under the pen name Eleusis D. She has practiced close intensive retreat since 1993.<\/em><\/p>\n

First image – Tomb of Sauro-Sarmatian priestess from Prokhorovskaya culture (east of the Black Sea, near the Turkish-Iranian border, in approx, 4th – 2th century B.C. (probably much older). Excavated by Jeanne Davis-Kimball.<\/p>\n

Second image – 16th Century Nepali Vajrayogini. (Note the direction of the gaze.)<\/p>\n

Third image\u00a0 – Vajra-Dakini Hum (Goins-Easterwood composite)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mysti Easterwood Human potential and self-awareness are something we could do with a lot more of right now. I keep hearing people ask when everyone is going to wake up; this aspect looks a lot like an awakening. I would be more optimistic if I heard people ask about when they are going to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23614"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23614\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}