Thursday, 01 April 2010 15:54 Moses Ma

TantricNews.com

What would it have been like to live under the roof of Paris in the 1920s, during the period known as les AnnĂf©es Folles (the Crazy Years) âe" surrounded by the likes of Henry Miller, James Joyce, Hemingway, Picasso, Satie, Chagall, Brancusi, Modigliani and Degas? And I mean surrounded literallyâe¦ it was entirely possible to be at a dinner table with many of these bohemians simultaneously. What would it have been like to have frequented the Montparnasse district when it was the living beating heart of intellectual and artistic life in Paris? To have been at the dinner table at La Coupole when the author Emile Zola first shouted out, âeceIf you asked me what I came into this world to do, I will tell you that I am an artist. I came into this world to live life out loud.âeďż˝

Between 1921 and 1924, the number of Americans living in Paris swelled from 6,000 to over 30,000. But it wasnâeTMt just Americansâe¦ painters, sculptors, writers, poets and composers âe" most of whom penniless âe" came from all over the world to thrive in an amazing creative atmosphereâe¦ as well as for the cheap rent available at artist communes like La Ruche. These bohemians would live without running water, in damp unheated attic garretts advertised as "studios", usually infested by rats. Those lucky enough to sell a painting or two could barely manage a few francs, barely enough to buy food. The novelist Jean Cocteau once said that poverty was a luxury in Montparnasse.

While most of the artistic community gathered here were hopelessly broke, well-heeled American socialites like Peggy Guggenheim and Edith Wharton tagged along to finance the parties and fuel the fever of creativity. The cafĂf©s and bars of Montparnasse âe" Le DĂf´me, La Closerie des Lilas, La Rotonde, Le Select, La Coupole âe" were ground zero for this critical mass of creativity, sin and living life out loud. It was the Burning Man and Woodstock of its times.

Marc Chagall summed it up differently when he explained why he had gone to Montparnasse: "I aspired to see with my own eyes what I had heard of from so far away: this revolution of the eye, this rotation of colors, which spontaneously and astutely merge with one another in a flow of conceived lines. That could not be seen in my town. The sun of Art then shone only on Paris."

The roots of Bohemianism

The term bohemian was first used in the English language to describe the non-traditional lifestyles of artists, writers, journalists, musicians, and actors in major European cities. Bohemians were associated with unorthodox and sometimes anti-establishment political or social viewpoints, which were often expressed through free love, simplicity, and radical creativity. Sound familiar?

The American writer and original Bohemian Club member Gelett Burgess, who coined the word "blurb" among other things, described this state of mind called Bohemia: âeceTo take the world as one finds it, the bad with the good, making the best of the present momentâe"to laugh at Fortune alike whether she be generous or unkindâe"to spend freely when one has money, and to hope gaily when one has noneâe"to fleet the time carelessly, living for love and artâe"this is the temper and spirit of the modern Bohemian in his outward and visible aspect. In Bohemia one may find almost every sin save that of Hypocrisy.âe�

Laren Stover, the author of Bohemian Manifesto: a Field Guide to Living on the Edge, breaks down the Bohemian lifestyle into five species, like birds:

* Nouveau: bohemians with money who attempt to join traditional bohemianism with contemporary culture
* Gypsy: drifters, neo-hippies, and others with nostalgia for previous, romanticized eras
* Beat: also drifters, but non-materialist and art-focused
* Zen: "post-beat," focus on spirituality rather than art
* Dandy: those who try to acquire it by purchasing expensive items - such as brands of alcohol or clothing

To these, IâeTMd like add to add a sixth variety of bohemian, the tantra bohemian. These brave souls attack respectable society at its very roots âe" family values and sexual hypocrisy. A variation of the Zen bohemian, their focus is on a blend of spirituality and sexuality, rather than art. But quite a few of them are artists too, but ones who realize that they can earn a better wage doing handjobs and tantric healings, than painting and sculpting and making music. Many live polyamorous lifestyles and espouse free love in practice rather than theory. Wielding a formidable blend of psychological and meditative techniques, their goal is to change the world by performing a collective global âecesecond chakrahealingâe� sometime around 2012. These are truly New Bohemians.

The Tantrica as New Bohemian

LetâeTMs start with a fellow named Dez Nichols, who named himself Baba Dez. My introduction to DezâeTMs world of tantric bohemianism was at his conference, The Sedona Conference for Sexual Healers and Educators. ItâeTMs a pretty involved story, so let me start at the seminal moment when I realized I was in over my headâe¦

Now picture this âe" here I am, naked as a jaybird, in a crowd of 150 equally naked sexual healers. Naked sexual healers. This is not something youâeTMd normally find in a travel guide to Sedona. This moment is truly an exceptional experience, like the first time you see the Grand Canyon or experience an earthquake in California. One of those moments you want to file away in your golden box of memories, to cherish during your golden years. An experience that says, âeceMan, I have lived! This is living life out loud!"

How the hell had this happened? How the hell did I end up butt-naked with 150 strangers? Well, the short answer is that I signed up for this sacred sexuality conference, and next thing you know, IâeTMm caught up in the flow of things, and the next thing I know, I was taking my clothes off along with everyone else for this experimental sexual energy âeceplay partyâe�. Something like this is only possible because of Baba Dez, whoâeTMs sort of a tantric celebrity and the founder of the Sedona Temple. I consider him to be a modern day Paul Gauguin. But instead of sailing to Tahiti, he built a sexual utopia right at home. And instead of painting, DezâeTMs art is the tapestry of life, sexuality, healing, awareness and tantra.

Anyway, after the tantric orgy, everyone is chilling in the pools. And the Sedona Temple pool, is, and I kid you not, built in the shape of a penis. One testicle is a watsu pool, filled with warm salt water. The other is a hot tub, filled with hot water treated with hydrogen peroxide. And the long shaft that runs into the yoniof his home is a cold salt water pool. And again weâeTMre all naked as the day we were born. But I have to admit that this is not your regular run of the mill garden variety group of people, but the happy shiny kindâe¦ all smiling, sensual, juicy, fully present in a meditative senseâe¦

Actually, these people are so happy that itâeTMs kind of embarrassing.

HereâeTMs a typical exampleâe¦ when these tantric types meet, they usually end up hugging a long time. I mean, really, a long ass time, like maybe five minutes in a clinch. Not little hugs with air kisses that weâeTMre used to in polite company. I mean long luscious full body hugging with genitals in full contact. And these huganauts dig in for the long haul. After about three minutes, they start shivering and spasming as energy gets exchanged, and it all looks like maybe one level of intimacy away from communal dry humping. I mean, this is insane. And by insane, I mean insanely fun. And maybe even insanely transformational, if you consider zen madness transformational.

The Sedona Conference brings together a critical mass of these happy shiny people, and the trigger that makes the love energy go boom is Baba Dez.

So, who is this Baba Dez? Recently, I ran into him and so we did a quick interview. I asked him about growing up. How did he become who he is? Dez tells me his story:

âeceI grew up in West LA. Like everyone else in L.A., I learned how to function in dichotomy: good and bad, right and wrong, all that is sweet, and all that is bitter. Even growing up, I could feel myself and others disconnected from the Earth and each other. Even as a child, I wanted to believe that the world could be healed, that people could get along and this world of ours could be a really beautiful and loving place. But everyone kept telling me: If youâeTMre going to survive in this world, youâeTMve got to get real.

âeceI remember when I tried to communicate my frustration, I was shamed. How can you be right and everyone else around you be wrong? And since my dreams were not acceptable or in alignment with mass consciousness, I let go of my dream. In a world of so much disconnection and dysfunction how can heaven happen? In fact, when I was young I was given prescription drugs to calm me down so I was not âe"so sensitiveâeTM.

âeceFortunately, I had an âe"uncleâeTM who was half Native American. He took me out to the desert where I had my first spiritual awakening, which brought back to life my connection to the Earth. This is how I got my nickname Desert, or Dez for short.

âeceI began to drink deeper in the sweetness and the bitterness of feeling. And now, today, I can feel into my deepest visions and desires that my little boy had. I am now reclaiming my emotional body from when I was seven or eight. Now, I can feel into my deepest visions and desires and know that they are possible. I am holding space for myself to dream again, meeting myself like never before.âe�

Whoa, thatâeTMs deep. All of a sudden, Dez doesnâeTMt feel like a modern Paul Gauguin anymore. He feels a bit like the 15th century mad monk of Zen, Ikkyu Sojun, who shocked the Buddhist community by resigning as the abbot of a temple, and then proceeded to openly celebrate the pleasures whoring around. They called him Crazy Cloud in Japan. HeâeTMs famous for his sexually unrestrained koans:

ten fussy days running this temple all red tape
look me up if you want to in the bar whorehouse fish market

A woman is enlightenment when you're with her
and the red thread of both your passions flare inside and then you see

why is it all so beautiful this fake dream
this craziness why?

all koans just lead you on
but not the delicious pussy of the girls I go down on

a crazy lecher shuttling back and forth between whorehouse and bar
this master paints south north east west with his cock

ten years of whorehouse joy I'm alone now in the mountains
the pines are like a jail the wind scratches my skin

After the hot tub with so many strangers, I'm lying in a room watching a documentary Dez made about tantra. I'm lying down on a lushly carpeted room with huge cushions, and a cute hippie acupuncturist I barely know plops down next to me, asking, "Can I cuddle with you?" Next thing I know, we're making out. Then we stop and watch the movie for a bit. In this documentary, titled Releasing Maya - which is a rough cut and honestly a train wreck of confusing muddled plot lines, it recounts how Dez falls for a woman named Maya, an ex-stripper from Phoenix, and even he agrees to become monogamous for her. But once the great polyamorous Baba Dez goes monogamous, she dumps him. His ego is so bruised that he simply isn't able to let her go. Her reason for leaving him? "It wasn't the polyamory, it was just that he was so promiscuous, sleeping with anyone and everyone he can."

I'm remembering that Gauguin was vilified by all of Paris, and was considered to be emotionally abusive - his wife openly complained about the pain he caused her by sleeping with mistresses so cavalierly. Since Dez made the film, Maya feels like a bit like Gauguin's wife Mette, a Scandinavian beauty, but who could be cold as ice at times. The saddes thing about this film is that never captures the beauty of who Dez really is âe" this truly unique sexual shaman, so driven by evolutionary instincts and psychosexual complexity, yet so imbued with compassion and the desire to heal.

Anyway, thereâeTMs definitely a similarity between this conference and the wild parties Gauguin threw with the  artists who comprised the Ăf%cole de Pont-Aven art movement in Brittany. Everyone's fucking everyone else, to the background murmur of people discussing philosophy and art and spirituality. But in the twenty first century, nobody's an artist anymore, everybody's a sexual healer. Or a web entrepreneur. Or ideally, both. Anyway, the cute acupuncturist gets up and chirps, "I have to go pee." Within ten seconds, another sweetheart who does watsu swoops down to replace her at my side, and we start kissing and before you knowit, I'm licking and sucking on her luscious nipples. Eventually, the first gal returns, peeved for just a moment, and then she defends her claim by nestling on the other side of me, and now I'm kissing and fondling BOTH of them. Hey, we're living up to the legacy of hard-partying post Impressionists, like Emile Bernard and Charles Laval. We're all broke, but man, do we sure do like to have sex while bullshitting about spirituality and consciousness.

ThereâeTMs something happening here

Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah. How I ended up buck naked with 150 strangers. Let me get back to the conference itself.

During the day, at this event, people sit in the lectures by leading authorities in this emerging field of tantric sexual healing, relating tricks of the trade and case histories. As the procession of speakers give their speeches, it suddenly hits me. ThereâeTMs actually something here. Somethingâe¦ important. Something vital for the world to know about. I watch a presentation by Dr. Sasha and Janet Lessin. Sasha used to be a psychotherapist, but once he discovered tantra, he found a tool for deep and powerful psychosexual healing. I watch another presentation by Freddy Weaver and Elsbeth Meuth, who show a video of a client who has undergone a profound transformation. A delightful pair of tantric healers, Shawn Roop and Ariel White, charm the pants off the crowd.

Slowly, it hits meâe¦ damn, this is not airy fairy feel good stuff. ThereâeTMs something happening here. Something powerful. IâeTMm talking case histories that report real and significant psychological transformation through the application of techniques found in sacred sexuality work. An aha! begins to form.

On day two, the lectures continue. An amazing woman named Anna Marti talks about getting real. Next, a lithe and svelte Kamala Devi and Dez talk about their new book on sacred sexual healing. And finally, Deborah Taj Anapol, who is literally the godmother of this entire movement, she talks about boundaries and ethical challenges in sexual healing. IâeTMm becoming a believer.

On day three, the speaker from day one, Freddy Zental Weaver, puts on a short one man show about his life and the impact tantra has had on him. ItâeTMs an amazing, funny, witty performance and the audience is spellbound. Afterwards, I watch a brilliant and wise woman named Mare Simone weave a living artwork she calls Body Mandalas. An intoxicating woman named Bast teaches the 64 temple arts.

I wish I had time to write about everyone. Patrick Russell is warm and funny and full of wisdom. Fabuliz shows me her tantric puppet collection. (I'd never seen Pinocchio jerk off before...) Ariel sings and her heart shines. Reid is hilarious and deep and loving and has such grace on screen. Mare is beautiful and wise. Mukee is like a spirtual powderkeg, ready to blow up your reality. David Cates is amazing. So much love and wisdom and commitment to spirituality. And such willingness to be vulnerable and human and admit their flaws. I think a great topic for the next conference would be "My Greatest Mistakes in Sexual Healing"... everyone is eager to share the truth here, or what they call "their shadow". IâeTMm getting it, and feeling a deep respect and reverence for the participants and the work they do.

The final closing ceremony comes far too soon, as if the three days are over in a blur. And the day wraps up in the aforementioned tantric play party.

I should provide a few more details about this play party experience, so you donâeTMt get the idea that itâeTMs all sex sex sex. Words cannot capture the totality of it, so let me paint you a picture for your mindâeTMs eye to relish âe"

Imagine a large room completely packed with aforementioned happy shiny people, except sans clothing. Couples are fucking and sucking each other in the periphery, absolutely abandoned to bliss, and in the center of the roomâe¦ Mare Simone, the conductor for the evening is creating living art out of orgasmic energy, weaving body mandalas with dozens of naked bodies. For some reason, I have this image of salmon in my mind. ItâeTMs like all of us, swimming against the stream, have ended up here in this communal gathering to celebrate the rites of spring.

A particularly lovely creature, Triambika, comes up to me and we cuddle up, as we watch the body mandalapulsate, and the energy wave emanating from the mandala is so powerful that my fingers are actually tingling. I ask her âeceWhat are you feeling?âe� She replies, âeceActually, terrified!âe�

SheâeTMs right, the sexual energy is like a firehose. The funny thing is that during the first thirty minutes, I was plagued by thoughts of not being lean enough, young enough, or attractive enough. But soon all of that fell away and I was able to experience the complete reality of the moment. Now, I could feel this throbbing, pulsatingâe¦ energy. The tantric types here call it âece shaktiâe�. All I can say is that it wasnâeTMt even sexual anymoreâe¦ it wasâe¦ absolutely a spiritual experience. Getting into the swing of things, I ask a perfect stranger to yabyum with me âe" thatâeTMs a tantric term for conjoining chakric energy centers, like you see in sculptures of Shakti and Shiva.

So the next thing I know, weâeTMre in yabyum position and we tap into this energy field. Damn, itâeTMs powerful and the energy forces kriyas through my body. A kriyais a spasm that happens when spiritual energy erupts. WeâeTMre kriya-ing. WeâeTMre definitely spasming. Suddenly, I realize that this stupid tantric energy stuffâe¦ itâeTMs actually for real! I can feel it as clear as anything. All the doubt I had when I saw people shivering during a hug dissipates. IâeTMm now a believer. IâeTMm now a convert.

The Morning After');

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