Tantrika Read Online Free Page B

light on the water like sparkle dust cast from the skies. Robert breathed in deep and then left. The crickets chirped. A cloud floated over a star.
    Frederic and I studied the white flashes in the woods to figure out if they could be lightning bugs. It was quiet except for the sound of chirping and our breathing.
    â€œMay I?” Frederic asked, reaching for my hand.
    I was silent as he took my hand. I wondered what was coming next.
    â€œImmerse yourself in the sound,” he whispered dreamily.
    A smile crept over me in the darkness. Never heard that line before. I waited a polite moment. I withdrew my hand from his. He walked me back to my cabin.
    I went in alone.
    My next stop was Santa Cruz, California, the birthplace of many a New Age fad.
    I stepped into the dimly lit ballroom of the Best Western Seacliff and, scanning the fresh faces and eager smiles, felt as if I’d walked into an Amway convention. But we weren’t there to learn how to sell soap. We were there to learn how to create ecstasy. With fifty-six couples and thirty singles, I settled into one of the small circles as we bowed heads toward each other and gazed into each other’s eyes.
    â€œFeel the circuitry of love. Breathe love to your organs,” encouraged a middle-aged man, Charles Muir, sitting in the front of the ballroom in tight blue silk pants, floral Hawaiian shirt, and bare feet.
    His partner, Caroline, looked like Olivia Newton-John. She welcomed us in a singsong voice. Together, they sat yoga style with hands on their knees, facing palm up.
    â€œJoy is part of your inner nature,” Charles pronounced. “Tantric lovemaking is the sweetest of meditation. I am loving. I am lovable. You all are. This isn’t just about sex. It’s about loving sex.”
    Like the other women at the workshop, I was a goddess, here to be worshiped like Shiva worshiped Shakti. It’s her powerful energy that runs through women, and it’s this energy we’re supposed to harness to create “the divine feminine.” I pressed the palms of my hands together, fingers upward against my chest, in the Hindu ritual of greeting, more foreign to me as a Muslim than it was to some of these northern Californians who had learned the gesture in yoga classes.
    â€œ Namaste, ” I said, not even knowing what it meant. Charles explained, “It means, ‘I bless the divine within you.’”
    Charles continued with his instructions. “Be the little girl. Now, men, be cute. Be the little boy. Show her your Doberman eyes.” I felt a kinshipwith the man across from me. I hurt for his hurts. I thought of the boys in the men that I’ve known. And I thought of the little girl in me.
    â€œHey, beautiful!” The shout came from the yellow school bus that had just dropped me off near my home in Piscataway, New Jersey, when I was about eight.
    I turned around.
    â€œNot you! The tree!” The shout turned into snickers as the bus drove away.
    I let go of this memory as Charles instructed us to draw closer to each other. I stepped toward the man across from me. Following directions, I pressed my right hand onto his chest and my left on his back, to create “a circuitry of love.” The stranger was Harrison, a California native, thirty-seven, single, seeking his soul mate. Drenched in sweat, he started weeping.
    â€œThis is kindergarten Tantra,” said Charles, a Bronx native.
    â€œWe all have the ability to release unlimited sexual energy, to have wave after wave of glorious, easy release,” Charles cooed.
    â€œInside every woman’s vagina is a sacred spot. If a man is willing to take the time, he can learn to touch this spot in a way that will pleasure and heal his woman,” Caroline purred.
    Charles took over. “In the yoni is stored a conglomerate of mixed energies. It may feel bruised. It may feel burning. There may be emotional tensions as layers of fear and guilt come up.