​​Such an impactful death, and the loss of her support in my life, spun me into a deep depression back in 2014. The year after loosing her, we also *almost* lost our oldest son to a severe brain infection. I did not know how to cope with that much intense emotions and I was diagnosed with burn-out. I wasn't able to connect to loved ones like before and I couldn't see the point in being happy. Luckily a dear friend of mine decided to take me to a week long retreat with an impactful tantra teacher and shakti conduit, Igor Kufayev.

 

The meditation sessions were long sits of agony for me, during which I was tormented by all my unprocessed feelings. Until the third day of the retreat, when the teacher came over to me and made a seemingly minor gesture in my direction, which brought on a form of powerful burning healing I had never experienced before. For a split second, which felt like an eternity, I saw all the horrors play out again in front of me, the force of which knocked me to the ground. But this time it felt like the burning had a purpose. The heat forced itself through my body, burning all remnants of sadness to ashes. I temporarily couldn't move my body but the agony had left me and slow simple content flooded my body. That evening I couldn't talk much, only giggle, when I tried to speak, and I had the strange sensation of blowing bubbles out of my mouth every time I tried to talk.

That was the start of my training in trusting the magic.

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​The rest of that week, and the following years I have been on this path of integrating tantric philosophies and their magical healing potential. I was very lucky to study with my friend, fellow community member and local tantra teacher, Swami Ravi Rudra Bharati, who taught me the practice, embodiment and spiritual lineage of the Himalayan traditions.​

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Tantra; where spiritual practices are embodied and applicable, this path (based in a Vedic Tantric cosmology) offers a life's philosophy and larger cosmology to play in. It doesn't solely focus on solitude, stillness and personal contemplation. It also includes an embodied, human, useful, applicable, daily path that embraces big emotions, volatile transformations, miracles, magic, multiple realities, intense joy, ecstatic rapture and all human experiences, including the dishes.

Not only does Tantra embrace human feelings, but it finds clear guidance in the wisdom of emotions and desires. All this in combination with meditative practices of the one-pointed mind, focus on inner wisdom, an acceptance of death, and an experimental and playful approach to life’s challenges amongst many other aspects.

And yes...eros is welcome too.