TANTRA ON TV

This month a Televsion company found me on Tantralink.com and asked if they could record a session involving me teaching tantra to a couple, which they would televise as part of a programme helping people to improve their sex lives. How does tantra translate to the box I wondered? Personally I haven't owned a TV for 15 years and have a rather vague idea of what goes on in the big bad world out there. The decision to throw TV out of my life was a conscious one, to avoid my brain being bombarded and brainwashed by unecessary nonsense. It was a decision that has served me well. I have no regrets (except for missing Jools Holland) and I certainly get a lot more done, like writing this blog.
I was called in as a tantric expert. It was a title that filled me with apprehension......I feel like I'm in tantric kindergarten most of the time, tantra being a life-long study and a science that is constantly unfolding and expanding. Tantra is the Great Experiment. One never really knows what's going to happen when one moves into the tantric space. My sessions with clients are full of powerful alchemy that changes peoples' lives, but I must admit to being somewhat daunted at the thought that this TV company were expecting me to pull some magic tricks out of my hat in front of a camera!
I had two days to prepare, and the first job was to find the right gear to wear. A trip to the local mall was vital, as I tend to sport a sarong for work. Or nothing. I didn't think that a naked tantric expert would go down too well with the couple who apparently had never even heard the word 'tantra' before. The crew would no doubt have been well amused.
The second job was to find a suitable teapot for the tantric tea ceremony which I was planning on opening the session with, as mine had fallen apart that week. I spent a frantic few hours, parting with a small fortune to enhance my tantric wardrobe, buying an insanely overpriced teapot and widly purchasing fancy teaspoons and strainers. One whiff of possible fame and fortune and control over my wallet vanished out of sight.
The day arrived and with it a rather scruffy looking crew, complete with the usual habit of compulsively checking in every five minutes with the answering services on their mobile phones. I imagine that this tic is due to a constant, low grade anxiety around whether or not they're going to get a job the following week, or an ever-present, neurotic expectation that their girlfriend/wife/lover is about to leave them after the last three month contract shooting some BBC drama across the other side of the planet.........For a fascinating insight into the strange life of a TV film crew read the intimate and riveting 'Sharpe Cut' by Linda Blandford.
I'm familiar with the unique behaviour of film crews as I was married to a film maker for years and spent many a jolly hour 'on set' with coffee-guzzling, bagel-devouring, chain-smoking creatures, some of whom, amazingly, live past forty..........
The couple, who I was meeting for the first time, looked like a pair of rabbits caught in the headlights as they were led into the room. I'll call them John and Jane for the sake of preserving their dignity. It was clear from the raised eyebrows that John and Jane hadn't come across a tantric altar before, complete with incense, singing bowls, a carved wooden lingam (this is the tantric word for penis, and means 'wand of light' for anyone interested) and a shiva/shakti yab yum sculpture. I asked the man if he would be prepared to take his top off for a 'sensorial awakening' meditation later in the session and he looked at me with horror. I realised, with a sinking feeling, that I had my work cut out for me if I was going to turn this couple on to the joys of tantra.
After the producer, camera man, lighting man, sound man and general-getting-in-the-way man had set up, we positioned ourselves in a suitable triangle for the tea ceremony. The cameras started rolling and the first problem reared its head. The teapot didn't pour. No matter how daintily Jane tipped the pot, it splashed puddles of tea onto the tray. A tip for budding TV Tantric Goddesses - always check your props before the shoot.
"Cut!" called the producer, and we proceeded to shoot the arm pouring but not the teapot leaking. Basically we were winging it, and not for the last time that day. Jane meditated on John's tea before handing it to him. Poor John had never drunk herb tea in his life before, and spat it out, looking like he'd been poisoned.
"Cut", said the patient producer, and we substituted tea for water after John declared it tasted like pickled gherkins.
The producer wanted to shoot the things he liked over and over a few times, to get different angles. Well, when you're doing a tantric meditation under normal circumstances you say things once or twice. When you've been asked to repeat 'Let the divine feminine essence mix and merge with the divine masculine principle within you' five times, quite honestly it begins to sound like gobbledygook. I got the giggles. The crew were sniggering. It was obvious they were loving every minute. It wasn't tantra, but it was good TV..............
The Sensorial Awakening meditation was good for a laugh too. John got blindfolded while Jane and I wafted bits of tissue perfumed with aromatherapy oils under his nose. Then we fed the poor man bits of fruit and chocolate to awaken the sense of taste. The mango didn't go down too well.
"Cut!", called the producer, and "Tea break", which meant the crew running outside to roll cigarettes and fire up their mobile phones.
After tea break I got the room ready for Jane to perform a Goddess Dance to awaken John's visual sense. (I think by this point John was wishing to switch off all senses and leave) only Jane didn't feel like it. I could understand her general resistance - the mood just wasn't quite right for dancing. Fortunately it seemed she couldn't resist a bit of James Brown though, and eventually she began to bop, embodying the Goddess in quite a sassy way I have to say, waving her feather boa enthusiastically in John's face. I was relieved, and I'm sure the producer was too.
For the finale I balanced Jane's chakras with my pendulum. This is a wonderful healing technique which involves a hand-held pendulum picking up the natural spin of each chakra (For anyone interested in the scientific explanation, a chakra is an energy vortex that lies within both the body and the aura surrounding the body. We work with seven main chakras in tantra)
I hope they show the bit where John, with his own bare hands, healed Jane's heart chakra. It was actually (yes, really) a poignant and beautiful moment.
I won't forget the interview John and Jane gave at the end. One sentence stuck out for me. It was Jane, declaring "The session was brilliant! My mind's eye was on fire!"
What is a mind's eye, you ask? I don't know. But Jane knew what she meant and that's all that matters.
Don't hold your breath for me to appear on national TV. If the session doesn't hit the edit room floor it'll be a miracle....................