Tantric practice for Women
Virgin, whore and women's union - debunking the old archetypes

This Saturday 8 May 10 am - 1pm
54 Peak Rd Fish Hoek

The myths of patriarchy have brought a big divide in women's sexuality. Within most women today, there is a split between the virgin and the whore - the desire to be the one, the fear to be the other. Since the story was told that Eve bit the apple, we have struggled to believe as women that the sacred and the sexual can co-exist in us, that we can live and express the full power of our sexuality without losing our innocence, our purity. By bringing awareness to this dynamic in us, an a playful way, we can undo the split that has kept us back for so long, and change our relationship with each other from being critical to being supportive.

Come join me for three hours of fun enactment, role play and dancing.

This course is the first in a series exploring the second or sacral chakra, home of our sexuality and our sense of belonging.

Cost: R350

Bookings:Please book with Ahrian: ahrian@shakti.co.za at the latest the Wednesday before the workshop. Please pay the full course fee into the following account, and email us proof of payment:

Dr. S. Malan
Standard Bank current account
Merriman Square branch (02-11-09-00)
Account number: 073152811



This workshop forms part of a larger series; see details below

Tantric Practice for Women
Sacral Chakra Courses

Tantric Practice for Women

Tantra, the art of conscious sexuality, is a practice that has since ancient times been led by women. What has been a secret and mystical practice has now become accessible to seekers who are on a committed path of awareness. It is a special calling in my life to support women into the full flowering of where our sexuality can take us. The main elements of this work are:
• Understanding the unique qualities of female sexuality
• Opening to the flow of sexual energy/ kundalini through meditation, dance and breath work
• Unleashing blocks or integrating what has prevented this full flow through the chakras.

Working with the chakras

Tantra is a practice that cultivates awareness of our oneness with existence through sexual awakening. This happens through the opening of the chakras. Chakras are energy centers in the body where consciousness collects around particular patterns. Typically in sexual encounter, we send our sexual energy outwards. We may experience deep bliss for a while, but generally this does not last. With Tantric awareness, our sexual vitality starts to move up our bodies like a snake that uncoils, from the root or base of the body all the way up through the crown. Sexual energy moves from the first chakra up. This process is often known at the Uncoiling of the Snake (sexual energy or kundalini). For more on the unique qualities of each chakra, see http://shakti.co.za/blog/2008/04/tantra-and-chakras_14.html

Many women have negative body memories from sexual experience. These can be from a range of sources, including direct invasion, inappropriate contact, painful or insensitive sex and judgments about the realm of the sexual. While engaging your personal healing journey in this realm will be intensified by private sessions with me, the continuous course will create a space for us to collectively and individually release and integrate past inhibiting memories. For more on my approach to this work, see http://totalitytherapy.com/blog/2009/02/sexual-healing-copyright-shakti-malan.html

A continuous course

From Februaryl this year, I have been running an ongoing course on Tantra for women. The course consists of regular mini workshops in which we will systematically work through the chakras. There will be three or four workshops per chakra. Each workshop will be an exploration of a specific element of women’s sexuality related to that chakra.

You will benefit most from the mini workshops if you attend them consistently. However, the workshops are structured in such a way that you can attend any workshop at any stage (that is, you can enter and exit the process as it suits you.)

Growing with other women

This continuous course will create a space for fluid community and support amongst women. We learn from each other and share in our experiences. The unfolding of our personal awareness can be deepened significantly through regular practice in a conscious group context.

Method

The kinds of methods I use are:
Breath work
Guided meditations
Group discussions and sharing
Shamanic journeywork
Body tracking
Collaging, journaling and other creative expressions
Movement and dance

The methods will be an encouragement of the subtlety in women’s sexuality. The focus is on the movement of sexual energy in your own body; on getting to know your own body, and becoming attuned to how energy moves through you.

The Sacral Chakra

The second chakra is often called the sacral chakra. It is the home of our sexuality and our sense of belonging with other people. When the sacral chakra is open, healthy and luminous in us, we find a deep belonging in ourselves and in the world, without the neediness and co-dependency that often accompanies belonging. As we come to fully embrace, to treasure and to cultivate, the flowering beauty of our sexuality, then we have this flowering to share with others.


To find out more about me, see shakti.co.za and totalitytherapy.com. The website of the Advait Tantraschool, of which I am a member, is tantraschool.co.za.


Love
Shakti

Tantra for Women
Celebrating Female Sensuality
Saturday 13 February 10am - 4pm

Good Vibrations Rivonia

Tantra, the art of sacred sexuality, regards women's sexuality as a gateway to bliss and awakening. However, in 2000 year of patriarchy we have forgotten the true power and beauty of our sexuality as women. This workshop is an opportunity to encounter and move through what is in the way of the full celebration of your sexuality as a woman. It is also an opportunity to explore how sexual energy, kundalini, moves thorugh a woman. Our bodies are designed differently from those of men. Because men are often our first sexual teachers, many women have come to believe that our bodies should move like men in love making. Also, modern living has conditioned us into living more in our masculine and regarding the feminine as weak and impotent. No wonder so few women get to touch the depths of delight available to the feminine. Through breath work, movement and role play, I will guide you into the delicious flow of female sexual energy - the pure power of creative life force - through your body.

A lovely sensual lunch is included
Cost: R800pp

The facilitator, Dr Shakti Malan

Shakti has a well established practice as Tantrika in Cape Town and teaches all around the country. She has a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology. For details on her background, the nature and extent of her work as well as upcoming events, see shakti.co.za and totalitytherapy.com.


Bookings: Book with Shakti at shakti@shakti.co.za or 0833010399. The venue is intimate and space is limited.

Venue:

Good Vibrations Health Sanctuary is at 9A, Eleventh Avenue
corner Homestead Road
Rivonia

The venue at Good Vibrations that we will be using is Synchronicity


Please tell friends who might be interested!

3 October: Choosing from Pure Delight
10am - 1pm The Outer Robe Long Street

Love and sexual attraction as experienced in the third chakra goes beyond our tribal impulse. If we respond from the third chakra, our romantic and sexual decisions are no longer dominated by the need to find acceptance or approval from the social collectives we move in. We choose from our own affinity and liking. This is an essential step on the spiritual journey. Jung calls it Individuation.

In this workshop, we will work on your ability and willingness to choose from pure enjoyment and to trust your liking. Doing so, requires of you to take full responsibility for the choices you make - and paradoxically, also, to not take yourself so very seriously.

We will do a shamanic drum journey on this workshop and also use breath and dance to help open up to the flow of our personal liking.

Cost R350. Please book at least 24 hours in advance to ensure you get the necessary information.

Women's Tantra Retreat images and reflections

Images and reflections from participants in last year's Uncoiling the Snake Women's Retreat at nau ma

" Still words of gratitude and deep thanks come oozing out... the
weekend with you and the other goddesses in N"auma has truly been a
transformative one, in deep still untold ways. "


This year:

Uncoiling the Snake Women's Tantra Retreat
22 - 26 October 2009
Nau Ma, Little Karoo

Uncoiling the snake

A women's retreat by Shakti Malan

22 - 26 October 2009
n!au ma farm, Little Karoo

On female sexual energy

Sexual energy is a tremendous source of vitality and life force. When we own and live our sexual energy, we incarnate – we come to embody the goddess within. We wake up to the moment. Through our sexual flow as women, the worlds are birthed. And yet this potential lies dormant in so many of us. The snake, the kundalini, the origin of our embodied vitality, is there, at the base of the spine, but it slumbers, and it rarely gets touched.Until the wild woman in us wakes up to who she really is.

Uncoiling the snake

In my work with Tantra, an ancient eastern tradition that follows sexual energy as a doorway to consciousness, I have learnt that sexual awakening is linked to the opening of the chakras or "energy wheels" (represented by the spirals on the front page image). When the opening of the chakras happens in the body, it literally feels like an energy snake that uncoils at the base of the body and rises up through the crown of the head. For me personally, this rising brings a soft ecstasy that ripples onto the farthest shores of my life… It also brings a deep contentment with existence.

Sexual energy becomes illuminated when the repressions that block us at each of the chakras or energy points in the body are lifted. These repressions are the result of our conditioning, our patterning and the scars that are left by our life experiences. I believe that it is possible to bring our repressions to awareness and release them by working in a sacred circle of women.



What happens on the retreat

My focus is on the awakening of consciousness, not on teaching technique or improving performance (though these things follow of their own accord). I use the following methods to evoke awareness:

• We process body memories through acting and embodiment.
• We deepen awareness of female sexuality through breath work and other Tantric techniques.
• We reflect on our stories and vision our "this-here-now" realities through creating with the earth and writing.
• We meditate and do guided visualizations to deepen our awareness of essence flowing through us.
• We use sound, chanting, movements and dancing focused on a particular expression of our sexual energy to awaken the body to its inherent knowing.
• We have strong interactions with nature and the elements to reconnect us to our being-of-the-earth, the origin of our sexual energy.

The facilitator, Shakti Malan

I have been running retreats and courses on the Sacred Feminine for many years. I have a Ph.D. (UCT) in social anthropology. For more on me, see shakti.co.za and totalitytherapy.com

The venue

The farm n'au !ma, which is run in deep respect for nature as a place of retreat and ceremony, is situated between Montague and Ladysmith, at the foot of the Anysberg. Accommodation is provided in beautiful Karoo style houses with broad verandas, fireplaces, gas stoves and fridges. There is an exquisite kloof on the farm, and some delicious dams. The night sky of the Karoo is something to experience. The farm is about 4 – 5 hours from Cape Town, and 3 hours from George.

Bookings, costs and times


My facilitation fee is R1 600pp. Accommodation fees are by donation; the suggested fee is R160 per night. A deposit of R1 000 is required to secure your place and full payment is due by 14 October. The retreat will be limited to 12 women. Banking details:

Dr S.Malan
Standard Bank current account
Merriman Square branch (02-11-09-00)
Account number: 073152811

Meals will be arranged amongst us.
I will assist with coordinating travel where possible.
For enquiries contact Shakti at 0833010399 or Shakti@shakti.co.za

The retreat will start Thursday 6pm and end Monday lunchtime.


"Some day, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love; and then for the second time in the history of the world, humanity will have discovered fire!" – Theilard de Chardin

Third chakra women's workshops

Tantric Practice for Women
A Continuous Course


Third/ solar plexus chakra

The continuous course

I am running a series of courses for women on themes related to the main chakras or energy centers in the body along which sexual energy travels. Each theme is covered in a three hour workshop; you are welcome to attend any individual workshop as they are presented as loose standing experiences.

Third/solar plexus chakra

The third or solar plexus chakra is the center of our personal power. It is from here that we radiate our unique energy into the world. This center is dominated by the masculine energy flow through the chakras. It is the chakra that has been developing in the world over the last 2000 years - our individuation from the tribal mind, the development of reason, intellectual discernment, definition and duality. All women who have achieved in their own right have had to develop this center strongly - in many, if not most cases, to the detriment of our femininity. Often this development in us has been forced and not authentic; we have tried to be like men, and so deep down still struggle to embrace who we are and let our light shine powerfully in the world. It is essential for our evolution and our awakening that this chakra gets strong and alive in us as women. Sexually, a strong solar plexus chakra gives us the ability to choose our partners from a place of personal affinity rather than social conditioning or unconscious programming.

Workshops

29 August: Personal power, and what blocks it
1 - 4pm Jing An Studio De Smit St Green Point

In this workshop, we will use breathwork, sound, movement and visualization to connect with our personal power located in the third chakra. We will explore ways of engaging anger and frustration that can block the flow of energy in the third chakra. Our discussion will focus on sexual and relationship power dynamics, and ways of bringing more awareness into these.

19 September: Men
10am - 1pm The Outer Robe Long Street

A central direction of Tantra is the integration of masculine and feminine in each of us. The third chakra is masculine dominant, and thus a good place to explore our relationship as women with men and the masculine inside ourselves. This morning will be an exploration of

• men, male sexuality and relationships with men and
• ways of meeting and developing a relationship with our inner masculine.

My colleague Stephen Tredrea (see stephentredrea.com) will join us for this workshop.

3 October: Love and Affinity
10am - 1pm The Outer Robe Long Street

Love and sexual attraction as experienced in the third chakra goes beyond our tribal impulse. If we respond from the third chakra, our romantic and sexual decisions are no longer dominated by the need to find acceptance. We choose from our own affinity and liking. This is an essential step on the spiritual journey. In this workshop, we wil work on your ability and willingness to choose pure enjoyment and to trust your liking.

17 October: Sexuality, discernment and duality
10am - 1pm The Outer Robe Long Street

The third chakra is the home of our analytical, defining and discerning abilities. While the world tends to place too much emphasis on these abilities, it is paradoxically also true that these skills are not clearly developed in most of us. The reason is that our discernment is clouded by unconscious processes and dualities. In this workshop, I will teach you techniques for developing crystal clear discernment and ways of integrating unconscious dualities.

Venue:
Please note that only the first workshop is held in Jing An Studio - from September we are back in the lovely Outer Robe venue in Long Street.

Times:
Please note that only the first workshop is from 1pm to 4pm; from September workshops will be from 10am - 1pm again.

Bookings:
Please contact me on this address to book for a workshop and to receive directions.

Cost:
The cost of each workshop is R350.

Sacral Chakra Women's Tantra WorkshopsSafe to feel SexualSaturday 25 July 1 - 4pm

Sacral Chakra Women's Tantra Workshops
Safe to feel Sexual
Saturday 25 July 1 - 4pm

The second chacra which is in our sacral region, is where we feel our sense of safety in the world. It is the nest from whence we venture into relating. If we feel unsafe, we sense this as a contraction in the pits of our stomachs. As part of my ongoing series for women on the chakras, I am focusing our next women's workshop on sexuality and safety. I have been very aware recently that our ability as women to feel sexual - to allow ourselves to express our sensuality, and for that to be seen - is strongly influenced by whether we feel safe or not. For some women, feeling unsafe has become an unconscious habit that keeps us permanently closed. Some of us have had sexual experiences in the past that felt unsafe. Even if you generally feel safe, it is good to know that you will be able to respond appropriately if ever you did not feel safe.

In this workshop, we will focus on how we perceive men in our world, and how that gets reflected in the relationship between our inner masculine and feminine. Our inner masculine is the one who knows how to keep us safe; if we are in right relationship to him, we can walk through the world feeling safe, open and free in our sexuality.

Cost: R350

Bookings: First, let me know if you wish to come to this event. Please pay the full course fee into the following account, and email me proof of payment:

Dr. S. Malan
Standard Bank current account
Merriman Square branch (02-11-09-00)
Account number: 073152811

Place: Jing-an Studio, 1st Floor,Satbel centre ,2 De Smidt st (corner Main Road, just after Boardmans on the left),Green-Point

Namaste
Shakti