CROWDFUNDING LAUNCH
19 October 2014
A Tantric Evening with Venus & Her Lover took place on Sunday, 19 October 2014, to launch the crowdfunding campaign to publish the book, Venus and Her Lover – Transforming Myth, Sexuality, and Ourselves. Nearly 100 people gathered to energetically send the messages of Venus and Her Lover out into the world from Vilcabamba, Ecuador.
At this event, I proclaimed A TANTRIC MANIFESTO for the benefit of sovereign beings living in these times. The text of the speech folows.
**** Please pardon the disarray. This blog post is under construction. *****
A TANTRIC MANIFESTO
by Becca Tzigany
We are all children of the Dominator Culture. We were all born into a system in which we are asked to surrender our authentic selves in order to play the game. One of the possibilities we have this evening is to get in touch with our Authentic Self, and invite it to come out to play.
The Dominator Culture has a power structure based on a pyramid:
God the Father
Priest
King / President
Father
Wife –> Children –> Burro –> Dog –> Cat
It is a structure that directs power to flow from the top to the bottom. The Dominator Culture model for relationship is
Master – Slave
Leader – Follower
King – Subject
Predator – Prey
BUT it also can suck energy from the bottom to the top, as we will see in a minute.
Many of us are borrowing from the Tribal meme the power structure of a circle, where equal members direct their energy to a central goal or vision. That is an important step toward reclaiming our participation in decision-making.
It is also a step in reclaiming our life-force energy.
Everything in the Universe is energy. And energy, by its nature, flows.
The Dominator Culture is set up to take your energy and direct it to the ones at the top, who try to control it all. The most efficient way to accomplish this is to trick you into giving it up. This clever plan is carried out
from the moment we are born . . . .
(with a managed BIRTH that disempowers the mother … and with a smack on the bottom “Welcome to a violent world!”)
to a FAMILY structure that squelches our exuberance for life
to a RELIGIOUS system that convinces us we are shameful sinners unworthy of love
to an EDUCATIONAL system that beats the creativity out of us
to GOVERNMENTAL and ECONOMIC systems that corral the worker bees to produce for them.
I would venture to say that all of us in this room are aware of an unfair power structure. We speak of the secret workings of the Illuminati, of the 1% that lords over the 99%.
But wait a minute . . . how could 1% of the people – apparently sick people, too: psychopaths – how could they wrest control away from 99% of the people? Wouldn’t the majority – the people at the base of the pyramid – determine if the pyramid stands or falls?
The answer is YES. We are key to the survival or disintegration of the Dominator Culture. So each of us has to decide where we stand. It is through us that change will come. If we want to change the world into a sustainable, harmonious place, we must get ahold of our own energy, and stop feeding it to the Controllers.
What does this have to do with sex, with the erotic, with Tantra?
Sexual energy, especially when it is kept hidden in the Shadows of shame, guilt, and the commerce of objectification, is ripe for manipulation.
Tantra is, among other things, a spiritual path that gets you familiar with your own life-force energy and how to use it. Life-force energy, in various aspects, is known as chi, prana, or kundalini. The practice of Tantra includes breathing exercises (pranayam), physical exercises, and spiritual exercises, such as visualization and meditation.
Anodea Judith calls human beings the Rainbow Bridge between Heaven and Earth, between the etheric realm of ideas and the 3D world of manifestation. We are each a mix of the Masculine and the Feminine, Father Sky God and Mother Earth Goddess. As you entered tonight, you might have had the chance to identify yourself as Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine. This was just a reminder of who you are!
As most of you know, we have different places in the Rainbow Bridge of our bodies where energy intensifies as it flows. We call these the chakras. Tantric science has been working with the flow of energy through the chakras for millennia.
Why? Because these are the sites where your energy can be stolen from you. If you are not working with your own energy, somebody else will. And when you are working with your own energy, you blossom into an awe-inspiring manifestation of the Divine Creation.
Let’s take a look at what happens when the life force energy gets diverted from free-flowing.
CHAKRA | ISSUE |
---|---|
ROOT – base of the spine | survival, security / trust |
SACRUM | sexuality, creativity / guilt |
SOLAR PLEXUS | ego, power / shame |
HEART | love, relationship / fear |
THROAT | self-expression / lies |
3rd EYE | discernment, archetypal vision /illusion |
CROWN | kosmic transcendence /attachment |
It is natural in the Tantric process that we encounter blocks, wounds, guilt, shame, trauma, and pain in these places. Since this can be difficult, we often avoid a showdown by sliding off into unconscious behavior, such as addiction. For example, how many of us, when nervous about a sexual encounter, have chosen to get drunk or loaded or numbed out in some way? When we go unconscious with our energy, that is when we surrender it to someone else.
It seems that the heart chakra is particularly important. If what scientist Nassim Haramein says is true – that there is ablack hole at the center of our hearts – then the heart chakra is our portal to other dimensions. Through this energy vortex, we have access to the knowledge and power of the Universe. Exercising our heart chakras, and knowing how to open our hearts in ways that are safe, allows us to express our unique magnificence with love.
The chakras are where the war for our Authentic Self is being waged. That is why the Goddess Kali is a prominent Goddess in the Hindu Tantric tradition. She wields a sword – for discernment, for piercing illusion, and for cutting out the blocks. She is like a Divine Surgeon who fearlessly enters our Shadows to do this work. She is like a compassionate Mother who loves us, and will tend to all our wounded places.
Of course, Kali is that aspect of ourselves who handles that particular job. This is a central message of Venus and Her Lover – that the archetypal forces – whether they be gods and goddesses, animal totems, forces of Nature – they are within us. We are them. We transcend the form to be the essence. When we express our essence, that is when we are the sexiest.
To the extent that it can be helpful to visualize them as a particular god or goddess, we can personalize them in that way. But make no mistake: the god or goddess you invoke doesn’t have far to travel to answer you. The God is you. The Goddess is you.
Tonight James and I hope that you will play with what if feels like to be who YOU are. Who are you? The Authentic You? The one who was born with your particular physical shape and condition, your particular talents, your particular perspective?
We also invite you to let your energy flow. Without any numbing out or overdosing of alcohol, just following your breathing . . . when you watch a seductive dance, breathe it in. When you listen to an erotic poem, breathe it in. When you savor a chocolate, breathe it in. Tantra celebrates the 5 senses.
When you follow a Tantric spiritual path, you have to do the heavy-lifting to explore your Shadow and discipline your unconscious impulses, and along the way, you claim more and more of yourself. This is me! I claim my personal power, and I revel in the pleasures of having chosen to incarnate this spirit into this body at this most momentous time on Planet Earth.
What you’ve just heard is who we are. James and I stand before you naked, in our truth. What you are going to experience tonight, through our art, is how we have chosen to express it.
When you live your own personal Declaration of Independence, you step out of the Dominator Culture. As more and more of us do this, we can create a culture of sustainable relationship with our inner selves, with each other, and with our planet.
It may not always be easy, but it is so satisfying,
it is pleasurable,
and it is fun!
Who’s in?
A TANTRIC MANIFESTO