While I may not be a beginner, I am still shocked at the request made on the first evening of the mixed tantra workshop: remove your clothes. There’s no touching or intimate exercises, but my hands are trembling as I disrobe in front of a group of men and women I’ve not met before today. I feel like I’ve barely made the transition between my work life and the tantra realm and, if this is how we start, what will we be doing by day three?
Unremarkable nudity
What happens next? We sing, dance, meditate. We look at each other with kindness. That’s it. The workshop I’m on is about discovering the ‘ecstatic body’, but I soon realise it’s about me discovering my ecstatic body, not someone else’s. The exercises the following day focus on releasing tension from our bodies, opening our joints and breathing more deeply. What is both diferent and interesting about the day is that we spend it naked, in fact, we spend the whole four days completely starkers!