I first discovered sacred sexuality while visiting a bookstore in Los Angeles in 1995. When my friend saw the book, Healing Love Through the Tao: Cultivating Female Sexual Energy1, she mentioned that the techniques presented within could lead to a three-hour orgasm. Upon hearing the syllables: Tan-tra, my quest for the embodied ecstatic began. This is an ethnographic account of my BodyMind journey for my own endless orgasm, and how my background as a dancer and Dynamic Embodiment — Somatic Movement Educator led me to discover Oxum. She is the West African goddess of love, who resides in rivers, that ushered my entry into the Love Journey Temple in Sebastopol, California, where I learned skills to transmute past trauma and negative cultural programming to restore my self-worth. This awakening convinced me to become a NeoTantra Educator, a mix of modern day psychology and ancient energy practices. Embedded within this essay are examples of embodied somatic movement exercises and Tantric practices with which readers may wish to engage. One of my mentors – Dr. Martha Eddy, founder of Dynamic Embodiment Somatic Movement Education and Therapy has woven her expertise throughout this article.
The first time I witnessed two people making love I was nearly four years old and living in Bronx, New York. As I looked through the keyhole, I discovered my mother experiencing bliss with my sister’s father. When I was twelve years old she discovered my fingers sleepwalking into my underpants, during one of her late night “check-up on the kids” visits. The following morning, I received a lecture from my Pentecostal mother, who shouted, “Touching yourself is sinful!” Then, she used a word I had never heard before 一 masturbation. The shame of touching my yoni (a Tantric word for vagina), persisted with me for decades.
As a child who grew up in an environment riddled with physical and emotional abuse, dance was my outlet to wholeness. Choreography was a shelter for this angry teen with low self-esteem. I would lose myself in music to discover joy and beauty through movement. As is typical of trauma survivors, I developed defense mechanisms to help me cope with life. I wanted to be invisible, so I camouflaged myself with baggy clothing and built a wall of protection around my heart. I didn’t believe I was worthy of being loved.
In Tantra, we acknowledge that all humans consist of masculine and feminine polarities, also known in the Chinese tradition as yang and yin.2 From a Tantric perspective, I was out of balance; because I lived mostly in the masculine yang, associated with doing (versus yin, which relates to being). This was yet another form of self-protection. I had my first orgasm at the age of twenty, and I recall it being effortful due to my shallow breathing and muscular strain. Yet again, I brought my yang to the event, since I chased after the experience, rather than letting it unfold organically.
What drew me to crave an ecstatic experience that lasted three hours was a desire for profound intimacy with a lover. Since I find water sensual, my vision included a warm bath with essential oils that perfume the air and candles to create a romantic ambiance. My lover and I would stimulate one another’s skin with a range of textures with the support of a relaxing playlist. Next, we would exchange massages and proceed with our passionate marathon that becomes increasingly sweaty and climactic.
I arrived in San Francisco, California in 1994, upon completing my undergraduate studies in dance and drama at Wesleyan University. In 1998, my dancing turned inward when I began training to become a Dynamic Embodiment Practitioner under the guidance of Dr. Martha Eddy.3 My spine took root in my back as I increased my awareness of my skeleton. Concurrently, I began to study Brazilian samba with Mestre Carlos Aceituno. This furious, tail-shaking dance helped awaken my pelvis after being shut down from shame. In Tantra, we refer to this region of the body as the second chakra. Carlos also taught the ceremonial dances of the Orixas, the Yoruba pantheon of deities, including Oxum’s. Her dances are sensuous and learning them was part of the process to balance my yin and yang.
As my studies in Dynamic Embodiment Somatic Movement continued, we also explored breathing and vocal practices to assist organs in recuperating their full capacity and functionality. These exercises helped me to develop proprioception, which is “the sense that lets us know where our different body parts are, how they move and how much strength our muscles need to use.”4 Each embodied anatomy and hands-on technique with which I engaged was a somatic journey that brought me home to myself – like bees returning nightly to their hive and queen. Releasing fear and anger helped me to feel safer being present with my body and emotions. The motto of our Swedish massage instructor was, “Make them feel it” and I transferred that ideology and those techniques into love-making.
A requirement of the DE – SME training was to complete sessions with professional somatics practitioners. Hence, I received an Alexander technique session from Carol Swann, the Co-Director of the Moving On Center where I first met Martha Eddy. When our session was complete, my whole body was vibrating, humming with blasts of electricity. I felt limitless, and my feet seemed to float above the ground. I was experiencing what we call a “full-body orgasm” in Tantra. The session was very yin, in stark contrast to my first orgasm, since I had no expectations, I was simply present with my body. This somatic experience lasted nearly thirty minutes, a sure sign that my journey was still unfolding. It was also during this period that I discovered that my yoni has a special capacity. When a lover proclaimed in sheer surprise, “you came like a man!” it became apparent to me that female ejaculation might not be very common. Below is some helpful information on the subject:
What ancient texts refer to as amrita comes from the same hole that urine does. This causes a lot of people, assuming some who should know better (like doctors) to assume it’s pee. It’s not. For one thing, the smell is different: female ejaculate smells lightly musky, like fresh sea water…. When women ejaculate, it often but not always accompanies their orgasm…. Since the source of the fluid is blood serum and the process of fluid diffusion is almost instantaneous, women can make large amounts of amrita and keep on doing so.5
As my DE-SME training continued, I remember Martha stating, “the glandular / endocrine system is the most mysterious and the least understood system in Western medicine.” Martha also informed us that neurologist Candice Pert, known as the “Mother of Psychoneuroimmunology” developed this relatively new scientific field that opened the doors to many others. Psychoneuroimmunology connects the functioning of the nervous system with that of the immune system together with the psychological states of being. Dr. Pert also helped to unleash the world of neuro-endocrinology by discovering neuropeptides, the healing power of emotions, and supporting the concept of the BodyMind. She and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen became fast friends. Bainbridge Cohen had been moving, dancing, and sounding with the glands and the undiscovered neuroendocrine bodies (also seen as chakra centers) for decades. In developing Body-Mind Centering(r) (BMC), Bainbridge Cohen felt that there was an endocrine nature to some of the bodies along the spine that were not known to excrete hormones in the 1970s. She included the pineal body and the heart bodies in our study of the endocrine system. Of course, now we know the pineal secretes Melatonin and it is a full-fledged gland. By the 1980s, scientists began discovering hormone secretions from the heart region as well. As of yet two other bodies that we in BMC include as part of the chakral and neuroendocrine system are the thoraco body and the coccygeal bodies. Embodiment practices reveal that some bodies, not known to have hormonal action, also resonate like glands and have “endocrine glandular energy.”6
The endocrine system is a set of physical structures that affect behavior, usually in rhythmic ways, by releasing hormones. These hormones course through the bloodstream and change our moods. Sheri Winston provides a comprehensive definition of the chakras, the Sanskrit word for wheel:
The chakra system helps us understand where energy concentrates in our bodies, and for what purpose. The chakras operate like pumps or valves, regulating our flow of energy and key aspects of our consciousness. They primarily interact with the physical body through the endocrine and nervous systems. Each has a physical location, emotional and energetic aspects, and is also associated with a color, a sound, a sense, an element, an endocrine gland, a specific group of nerves, body parts, functions and systems.7
Martha also taught us a protocol to stimulate glands by gathering our fingertips with lightness and placing them over a gland directing clear energy into them. Remembering her own fainting experiences when exploring endocrine activation, she advised us to avoid approaching a target gland immediately. Instead, we were instructed to commence this protocol by activating the glands below first (for grounding) and then above (for opening the energy channel) the focal gland. Our intention is to awaken the glands within the system’s “circuitry.” For example, if you are interested in working with the pituitary (the master gland which is referred to in yogic practices as “the third eye”) begin the protocol directed towards the parathyroid and thyroid (2 glands below, which are nestled together). Note: you could choose to work with the carotid bodies which are felt by the BMC Community to have glandular energy are more directly below – at the level of the hyoid at the bifurcation of the carotid artery. Then open the channel above – the mammillary bodies or the pineal gland (crown chakra). Afterward, apply the glandular touch directed at the target, which, in this case, is the pituitary gland.” [More detailed information on this process of “Working in Threes” in general and with special health issues, can be found in the book – Dynamic Embodiment of the Sun Salutation.]
In 2011, I met Evalena Rose, the founder of Love Journey: Tantra of the Heart. Evalena taught me that Tantra means to weave. Tantra teaches us how to energetically fuse our sound, breath, and movement. Evalena shared a diagram of our central channel, the shushumna nadi,8 which encompasses seven primary chakras. She explained the significance of the ancient symbol known as the caduceus, two interlaced snakes with two wings at the top that represent the creative life-force energy called kundalini.9 We can activate kundalini with breath and movement practices. Since Tantra is energy work, we were taught the importance of grounding. Next, we created a safe container by honoring boundaries and consent. When I heard Evalena say, “some of us have lost our “no” due to past traumas, and it takes some people longer to check-in with their inner guidance,” my heart cracked open. Evalena went on to state, “saying ‘no’ opens the door to other options.” These concepts were revolutionary to me, and I was certain that I’d found my spiritual home!
The way for Tantric practitioners…comes by connecting themselves to a power that flows through the world, including their own bodies, a power usually visualized as female. Tantrins identify the power, locate it, activate it, and use it for their own desires.10
When Evalena models the Tantric breath practice, she sits in front of an altar decorated with flowers, candles, and a statue of the Hindu goddess Shakti, straddling her male counterpart, Shiva, in a position known as yab-yam. Evalena explains that in Tantra we breathe with our mouths open and exhale with an “Ah” sound while simultaneously adding spinal undulations which are initiated at the sacrum. Next, we pump the pubococcygeus (PC) muscle of the pelvic floor which is identical to doing Kegels.11 In Tantra, the location of the PC muscle is considered to be at the second chakra where kundalini resides.12 Evalena’s voice fluctuates whilst she plays the notes of her “inner flute,” her spinal motion and sounds intensify, signs that her kundalini is rising. The group of students watch in awe at the beauty of Evalena’s kriyas, orgasmic waves.13
I returned regularly to the Love Journey temple to continue embracing eros as my birthright. As a student in her six-month group, Evalena introduced us to the bija mantra14 which uses the chanting of specific sounds to activate and align each chakra: LAM — root, VAM — sacral, RAM — solar plexus, YAM — heart, HAM — throat, AUM — third eye, and silence — crown. It was here that I first experienced a “heart-gasm,” an explosion in my heart chakra that created ecstatic waves which rippled throughout my body for several minutes. This was yet another delightful surprise on my journey of discovering conscious sexuality.
In 2017, I graduated from the Sarasa Tantra Teacher training program under the direction of Caroline Carrington and Julia Tindall. At my initiation, I received the name Dania De Marseille. I had been wondering how to be of service to the world after the outbreak of Covid-19 and a response arrived when I heard my Guides say, “Chakra Danse.”15 Subsequently in 2021, I developed and launched an online series that incorporated DE-SME, freestyle dance, NeoTantra, and shamanic practices. What I value most about this class is that the Divine masculine and Divine feminine are invited to be collaborators in our somatic ritual. Furthermore, our movement explorations are offerings to amplify the energy directed towards a chosen intention and also opportunities to release that which no longer serves us.
Upon my return to teaching somatics, I reconnected with my Dynamic Embodiment mentor, Martha Eddy. I was excited to discuss various somatics concepts that had arisen for me while teaching Chakra Danse. For example, while I am teaching about the third chakra, also known as the power center, I find it essential to incorporate our voice. Similar to the “PMS Chant” that I presented in Martha’s Dynamic Embodiment class in 1998, today in Chakra Danse, we added improvised vocalization as we moved. We were a group of women, stomping our feet with increasing intensity. Our voices began as a whisper, “PMS, PMS, PM, PMS, PS”16 and swelled into a roar. To this, I add what Martha taught us about stimulating the lymphatic system with martial arts-like movements and sounds that are strong, quick, and direct extensions into space. Within the context of trauma survivors, we can access the lymphatic system to help people set boundaries, which consequently can embolden our capacity to say “no” thereby empowering a healthy more honest “yes.”
In Tantra, we celebrate the entire body and view all of our being as Divine. We transmute guilt into joy, and there is no shame in touching ourselves – in fact, self-love is encouraged. As I was preparing the root chakra lesson for Chakra Danse, I heard my Guides say, “lesser trochanter,” and so I wove this advice into the lesson plan. DE-SME teaches us to use certain bones as a sort of body compass which could assist us to locate muscle attachments or organs. We refer to this as a “bony landmark.” In this case, the lesser trochanter is a bony landmark of the inner groin which is why exploration of this region aligned perfectly with teaching about the root chakra. What my students and I discovered through weight shifting, and palpation is that touch awareness of our lesser trochanter can facilitate our capacity to create a grounding cord, our energetic discharge mechanism. This root chakra practice relates to feeling safe and secure.
When I asked Martha, whether she had any additional insights on the lesser trochanter that might benefit the NeoTantra community, she replied:
Yes, the lesser trochanter is an under-resourced part of the body — a hidden gem. It is where the psoas muscle has its distal attachment, close to the groin. The muscle tendon can be thought of as a slip deep into the inner thigh. It’s movement speaks to our root chakra. Somatic Movement, especially Bartenieff Fundamentals and Dynamic Embodiment has been teaching for fifty years that the “hidden 6 inches” of the lower pelvis are a potent resource.
When trauma is strong we typically experience fight, flight, or freeze. What do we freeze? The psoas. It gets locked. Weight shifts are how we locomote through space. Weight transfer from one leg to another involves movement from one greater trochanter (outside of thigh bone) to the lesser trochanter (inside of the inner thigh) moving through the pelvic floor and also activating the psoas on each side. The psoas is our largest and deepest core muscle, connecting our legs to our spine.
More and more often the psoas is being recognized as a holder of trauma. Trends in trauma recovery say that we must release the psoas through massage and also soaking in a warm bath with epsom salts, and/or by engaging in deep psoas stretching, or shaking of the legs and core. While many focus on releasing the belly of the muscle housed in front of the lower back region, with the kidneys and adrenals nestled in them, we know the attachments are important too. Important attachments in this region are the crura of the thoracic diaphragm (the most central muscle for breathing) and the iliacus and the psoas attaching deep along the bone of the inner thigh, at the lesser trochanter. These attachments provide a spacious and yet direct relationship to the core of the body, the pelvic bowl — the home of our sexual energy. In Dynamic Embodiment, we take time to reinhabit the mobility and stability of the entire psoas muscle from under the back of the rib cage forward and down into the leg, reconnecting with the ability to step out, kick or run, thereby finding the freedom to protect ourselves. This strength and assuredness of protection also allows us to relax into pleasure.”
The final update of my ecstatic journey is that I have not yet experienced a 180 minute orgasm. However, I continue studying on this Tantric path with the knowledge that one day said gift will arrive and it may be best when I don’t try to force it.
Discovering the dances of Oxum assisted me to embrace my femininity. The year 2012 marked a shift in my life when I made the choice to participate in the San Francisco Carnaval parade. I danced within an elite group of women, known as passistas, who wear feathered headdresses and glittering bikinis. The presence of the goddess Oxum and her love for dance and celebration, is palpable at Carnaval. With her guidance, I took the risk of publicly displaying my feminine curves within the context of this massive cultural event. Today, Oxum continues to inspire me to explore the realm of female sensuality through Egyptian belly dance. I am discovering new somatic possibilities of the hips and pelvis through this sensual dance form which expands my amplitude to own my pleasure. In conclusion, taking time to understand how embodied anatomy principles (meaning the experience of moving from different anatomical areas with awareness) can enhance NeoTantric practices by activating the glands and chakras. Dynamic Embodiment Practitioners trained in yoga/tantra do this through touch, as well as by using sound vibration, such as the chanted bija mantra. Tantric practices can facilitate change in the chakra system when we set clear intentions and direct our energy towards releasing and/or receiving. Similarly, one can arouse the lymphatic fluid with strong or bound direct vocal choices or movements to support our boundary-setting capacity in our own defense. Bringing awareness to the lesser trochanters and the hidden six inches through touch and movement releases tension and brings attention to this center of weight and power, thus a robust healing channel for trauma survivors and health for all. Touch and movement of the lower aspect of the pelvis is also liberatory for anyone interested in the activation of their sacred orgasmic energy.
Footnotes
1Mantuk Chia and Maneewan Chia. Healing Love Through the Tao: Cultivating Female Sexual Energy. Merrimac, MA: Destiny Publishers (2005).
2The terms Shakti and Shiva are used in Tantra to refer to the Divine feminine and Divine masculine energetic polarities.
3Dr. Martha Eddy is weaving her experience into parts of this article, too.
4From https://occupationaltherapy.com.au/proprioception/.
5Sheri Winston. Women’s Anatomy of Arousal: Secret Maps to Buried Treasure. Mango Garden Press, Kingston (2010: 230-231).
6Martha Eddy and Shakti Andrea Smith. Dynamic Embodiment of the Sun Salutation — Pathways to Balancing the Chakras and the Neuroendocrine System. St Andrews, Scotland: Handspring Press (2021).
7Sheri Winston. Women’s Anatomy of Arousal: Secret Maps to Buried Treasure. Mango Garden Press, Kingston (2010: 220).
8Ibid, 219.
9Ibid, 196.
10Edited by Katherine Anne Harper and Robert L. Brown, The Roots of Tantra. State University of New York Press, Albany (2002: 3).
11Winston (2010: 130).
12Ibid, 221.
13Ibid, 16.
14Bija is a Sanskrit word for seed. For the mantra, see, MC Yogi. “Chakra Beatbox.”
15My Guides instructed me to use the French spelling for this word to distinguish the curriculum I had developed from Chakra Dance which is a technique that also exists.
16Say the letters out loud to find the rhythmic pattern of the PMS Chant.