From India and Back to Her People … Tantra Returns

By Caroline Muir

Incense fills the air in my home as I await the new clients coming in an hour. The curt and brief email indicated ‘my husband and me’ would like to see you. Arrangements were made and the time was set for Saturday morning.

I gazed at two faces I had never seen, but whose names I had become familiar with through emails and the phone calls that Shanti and I exchanged, discussing the details of their visit. She has been with her husband (the marriage arranged in India) for 22 years, and their two teen-age children asked curiously, “Where are you going, Mama?”

The faces gazing at me as I opened the front door were classic to the Indian culture… big almond eyes, beautiful smiles, small stature, well dressed, eager and open. I welcomed them into my office, where we sat on fuchsia silk cushions to discuss the upcoming session, bowing easily in Namaste, as is their custom (and mine also, by the way).

Shanti expressed in her lovely, accented voice that she has always ‘known’ about Tantra Yoga, but never felt she had found the right teacher … not in her native India, nor in the U.S. where they had lived for thirty years.

“I have combed the internet looking for Tantra teachers, but when I Googled and found Divine Feminine Awakening, Caroline, I knew immediately that my teacher would be you.” It always amazes me how women, especially, know from their feeling-place what or who is next. Her search was for an initiation into and with Divine Mother, and I was close enough to her vision that she chose me to bring this union to her.

Shanti has never been with anyone except for her family and her husband, a gentle, intelligent and lovely man. He stood close by her as I left the room for her to undress and put on one of my silk ceremonial robes.  When I returned she was under the sheets on my warm and cozy massage table. All I could see were huge deep eyes, full beautiful lips, and a head flowing with dark silky hair. Her eyes looked up at me in anticipation of this … her long-awaited Initiation into the sisterhood of the divine feminine.

I gazed long and easily with Shanti, my hands softly resting on her heart and belly through the covers that protected her privacy. I moved my upper hand to her brow center, and guided her into her breath, her chakra centers, the sounds of OM and AH, all familiar to her from the Indian culture. Her beloved stood respectfully apart, yet near.  Instinct told me to explain that I would now join her on the table and drape her legs over my lap so that my hands could contact her pubic mound and her heart. She trembled slightly, though her eyes told me she was ready to step through her fear and into the enlightened space of having arrived at her desired destination.

In the fullness of time and with her permission, I slowly entered her and rested my fingers softly onto her sacred spot. Almost immediately she went into process as her lovely face drew up into the pre-tears that would soon fall from her eyes. Many moments passed as she recalled, felt, and accessed what she had longed for her whole life. She wailed “my sisters in India all need this so badly … they are all subservient and afraid to stand tall in their power.”

“Blessings to you Shanti and to all of your sisters in India. The old ways are dying and the power of your passion is here to stay!” I exclaimed.  She nodded but could not speak, and through our gaze I felt the transmission to all women who have been kept small because their culture said “This is how it is!”

I gazed over at her beloved, and his teary eyes gazed back at me as he nodded his support for his wife. We later moved back to sit again on our silk cushions and joined hands. Silence is natural to those who meditate and we lowered our eyes for a long period of integration.

As we bowed in Namaste, Shanti asked if they could stop by on Sunday before driving home so that “…you would please bless our children, Caroline.” “Of course, Shanti, that would be my pleasure”… and it surely was.

Reflecting on the session in the altered state that followed, I realized that the magic of this experience was that a blue-eyed Kansas girl was the messenger of the essence of Tantra Yoga to these beautiful Indian people, a gift to so many of us from their culture.

Om Shanti… Shanti… Shanti…

I welcome your comments below … how do you feel after reading this true story?