Tantric Energy

Painting by Francine Hart

When my analyst first used the word "Tantric" in my recent Archetypal Dreamwork session, I could feel a curiosity rising in me. What was this? I had only a passing western understanding of the word and, I have to say, more than a few judgments about it.

I recently had a reaction to my teacher Marc Bregman's suggestion at one of our retreats that there was work that couples could do to support each other around the healing of sexual trauma through the holding of space for each other in the most intimate moments. He used the word Tantric and I didn't like the idea of sexual healing being associated with my spiritual community.

So now here it was in my own work. And, it's not like it's the first time it's come up.

In this most recent dream, I see a boy, 16, who is in an intense state of arousal. A man is with him. Then we are together and I am touching him. I feel what he feels. It is like seeing and feeling a mirror image of myself,  only with all the feeling and energy of a 16 year old boy. The opening that I feel in my own body is a deeply intense need that is held inside me. The need is so great that it writhes in my body like it wants to be released. It is powerful and in the dream when I press into the boy, he arches back in ecstasy. I feel this ecstasy in me. It is not about ejaculation or release, that's not what happens in the dream. It is about how the energy is moving in me, and what it is like to experience the energy of this 16 year old boy who is me. It is contained and so I am contained, yet powerful in my desire and need.


What is new for me here is there is no projected trauma. There is no trauma projection onto the man who is with the boy, no projection onto the sexual energy of the boy or sexual energy in me and no projection of trauma into the place of this incredible desire and need.

So this is how healing may occur around sexuality. When I am not in the projected trauma, I can be open to learning so many other things. I can be open to the intense need in me. And I can hold all this Tantric energy as a felt experience in my body and it feels good. It is ecstatic, joyful, and yet painful in its intensity. It is not a bad thing. I am not bad that I have this need in me.


I believe this deep need is the energetic attraction to the Divine creative energy that we are all connected to. I think of it at the Soul seeking its source. It is the Kundalini energy that writhes as it moves, seeking ascendance. There is great desire and attraction in the the way this primordial energy flows from and to the Source, perhaps in the way the soul knows it is not singular but arises and returns to the Source.


Perhaps in this dream, this is where the masculine and the feminine are joined in me. A healing that is the return home to a more natural state of non-duality, the power of the masculine combine with the creative energy of the feminine. It carries all the electrical, sexual energy of the Root and the Sacral Chakra, held in the body. Not released. Perhaps because it is held in the place where the energy moves to combine the creative/relational energy of the Sacral Chakra with the will and fire of the third, Solar Chakra. The energy is held instead of being released. Not held back, but supported in the process of moving.

Ok, the truth is, I don't have much book learning about all this. I only have my experience. So if I sound naive, or you don't agree with me, seek this experience for yourself. It is all truly a mystery and yet I feel there are no real secrets. Anyone can access it. It doesn't require an aesthetic commitment, there are no special chants or mantras. It is a Gnostic path of spiritual seeking. I follow the dream, but there are many ways. I have found that the dreams prepared me, they offered purification, and they initiated me  to this energy. There is no way to will it to happen, wish it or believe it into existence. No book, nor any teacher, can unlock this energy in you.

Faith alone cannot bring it since faith without works is dead. Faith can give us a motivation for seeking (although some would say pain is a better motivator!), but it cannot deliver us. We think of works as good deeds, but what if the works are our own commitment to finding the kingdom of God which lies within us. What if the "works" are the warrior way, the seeker's journey to enlightenment. Through this journey, and what we learn from it, others are inspired and will follow and lead. They will see in you the kingdom that awaits them and other will see the Kingdom in them and so it goes. Perhaps this is what it means to be in service to others. To truly do our "work" to find our way back to the Divine energy that lives in us all. Perhaps this is the way of the peaceful warrior.

We must bring this energy into the world in a way that is aligned with God's will for us. When I release the sacred energy that flows through me in a way that does not come from my higher self, I am distracted from my connection. As I have cleared many of the blockages, the dreams are showing how I am still captured by my worldly fears and machinations. Contained in these seemingly simple dreams are important lessons on how I am in the world that blocks me from my own divinity:

Dream: I am walking a fence line with Vanessa. It is a barbed wire fence and it feels like we are way in the wilderness. The terrain is way too rough for the fence like there was some kind of storm. I feel like we are in a fight about what to do. I feel angst, like we need to figure something out or something bad will happen.

Here I am in the fight with my partner. But what are we really fighting about? We are in the wilderness, there are no animals on the loose and nothing bad is even happening! Isn't it true that we often fight about nothing? As crazy as that sounds, I think about our fights, when we are in the blaming, explaining, trying to be "understood". Isn't it true that it's really about nothing? One of us must step out of the spin and say, "Yes, you are right. I was a jerk." or "Yes, I did this thing. I was unconscious and it is not who I really am or want to be".

Dream: I have been traveling and am at some kind of rest area that reminds of CT where I used to live. I have been trying to get somewhere and I am telling someone, maybe my partner, about how much traffic there has been in my way. I say how there were lines and lines of cars at the pumps and I look out and see like 8-10 pumps but they are all empty now, but it's like I carry the memory of seeing lines and lines of cars. I say how there were throngs of people all trying to get somewhere and I couldn't get past them or find my way. It feels like many obstacles blocking me and I feel like there is someplace I need to get to. It is like I can hear myself talking and I am just talking and talking, sounding desperate.

Oy...talking, talking...there is nothing happening NOW. In the dream, I only have the memory of what has happened and I am reacting to that. It is not happening now. Isn't this true if we think about it? When we complain, isn't it true that what we are complaining about is often no longer happening or isn't relevant to us, or this moment we are in? Isn't much of our talking, talking, talking just a release, a way to avoid any deeper feelings?

The dreams are showing me how I release my own sacred energy. Hyper focused on time, responsibility, needing to fix things, care take or in the violence of anger and distrust.

When I am speaking from my mind, I am not in my body. The felt experience carried in the dreams is the key to learning what it is like to be in the body and to speak from this Gnostic place. This is why I do this work, to experience the incredible feelings that we as human beings are capable of feeling, including the ecstatic joy of this 16 year old boy in me.