For intermediate and advanced practitioners
Tantra CoHort 2024
An 8 Month Transformational Experiment
Training. Laboratory. Mentorship.
February through September 2024.
Asheville, NC. Invite only. In-person.
You’re being invited to participate in a playground–a container in which to play, learn, embody, and expand into sacred transformational practices, intimacy with self and others, and radical community building.
Our 2023 Cohort was life-changing for us. We are building on that structure to make an even better offering. The invitation is for a tantric community of folks to share presence, wisdom, learning, and embodied eroticism through this eight month journey together. The core components of the container include (but are not limited to) Tantra teachings (from various instructors), community building, mentoring and peer support, collaborative offerings, and ongoing experimentation.
Update from Co-creators on 12/27/23:
We’ve decided to put the 8 month Cohort on hold for now and build the community more slowly and steadily in 2024. Stay tuned for more details on upcoming programs.
“The Next Buddha will be a Sangha.”
Sangha means sacred spiritual community.
The Invitation
If you’re on this page you’ve likely been invited directly by our team by email. We invite you to read all the sections thoroughly to get a sense of the invitation.
Attendees:
The potency of these teachings and practices in a group context is very high. It really matters who is in the room.
We are calling in folks who have skills, interest, experience, and Tantric interest who want to pursue a deeper path of embodied intimacy with self and others.
The group will likely include tantrikas, healers, teachers, sacred intimates, cultural creatives, artists, and more.
If there’s someone you’d like to invite, please be sure they have some or all of the prerequisites and send them this webpage.
Folks of every gender, orientation, and relationship style are welcomed and celebrated.
Joining this event requires a combination of self-selecting (you decide upon reviewing this material if the event is right for you) as well as a team vetting component (see next steps).
The size of the group is likely around 25.
New to us?
If you received an email from us then you’re on our email list and are being actively invited to the Fall 2023 Tasters. If you found yourself here another way or if you’d like to refer a friend, please give us the contact information so we can reach out to them. Due to the invite only nature of this cohort, we will speak to them first before extending an invitation to the Taster.
Pre-requisites:
These are some of the criteria we’re using to assess the folks stepping in. We are looking out for some or all of the following…..
Experience with:
- Embodiment practice: (dance, yoga, qi gong or others) or (farming, building, athletics, parenting),
- Seeing through the veil and deconstructing cultural narratives,
- Therapy: Ideally years of some kind of inner work or therapy,
- Tantra: Some tantra training or studies,
- Collaboration in life and work and play,
- Cultivation of sacred curiosity and comfort with the mystery.
Folks who possess:
- A strong sense of self,
- An ability to self regulate in the face of discomfort, triggers, and emotions as well as with group dynamics (must play well with others),
- Emotional and communication literacy,
- An ability to recognize (at least sometimes) projection in self and others,
- A strong support system,
- An abiding interest in expansion, change, and dynamic aliveness,
- A generous spirit.
An innate desire for:
- Erotic community,
- Co-play and experimentation,
- Growing heart/body/mind/spirit connections,
- Conscious personal mastery,
- A cohort of beloveds,
- To share one’s own wisdom,
- Surfing the unknown.
We’re looking for folks who are comfortable stretching, both internally and externally. There’s no need to meet all these requirements. We need to feel an affinity to ride the wave of both Eros and shadow.
Wild Ride Warning
The serpent we learn to ride in Tantra holds untold benefits. As she teaches us to expand and engage our Eros, she also touches all of our shadows – to be revealed and healed.
Therefore…..this cohort is a wild ride.
The reason she is dangerous is that she takes us to the underworld in equal measure as she takes us to ecstasy.
We don’t get one without the other.
Be prepared to face your edges and sit in the fire of your own transformation. Because of this group you will likely go through profound changes, internally and externally. Not all of it will be easy.
And also, because of this group, you will have significant support – in the form of community, deep friendships, mentorship, and shared reality. Everyone, including the facilitators, will be transforming!
Erotic Eldering: In addition to facing your edges, we request that each participant contribute to the safety, resilience, flexibility, and integrity of the container. We are calling for the Elders in all of us – regardless of age – moving towards refinement.
Disclaimer: It’s worth overstating the point here. This is not a “therapeutic” environment. It is spiritual community. It is trauma informed and held by folks with lots of experience. To be clear, this is not a guaranteed safe environment. We’re playing with these energies in order to be safe and not safe.
Outcomes
Potential Personal Outcomes include:
- To deepen, expand, and become more of who we really are,
- To expand capacity to sit with the shadow.
- To cultivate a more ecstatic life,
- To develop a deep trust for the creative, ecstatic, evolutionary, and divine erotic patterns that run through us and all things,
- To enhance, enrich, and develop our own capacity to use tantra as a resource for all aspects of our lives,
- To come face to face with our limitations and gain practices to uplevel our consciousness,
- To receive, embody, and integrate Tantra teachings and deep transformation..
Potential Group Outcomes include:
- To become a core circle of tantrikas that grow with one another over time and, if desired, evolve as teachers of the next generation circle,
- To deepen with each other as like-hearted playmates, practice-mates, co-creators, and chosen family support system as living initiates,
- To co-create a cauldron for expanding our range as leaders and as Tantrikas.
Potential Transpersonal Outcomes include:
- To experience the unified field and emerge as priests/priestesses that use sovereignty, aliveness, and eroticism to usher in this new epoch of change.
Schedule & Timing
TASTERS | Fall 2023 | One-day intro events. happening |
REGISTRATION | January 12, 2024 | Registration deadline and deposit required. |
WINTER GATHERING | Mid February | Date TBD by group. 1 Day of Cohort connection (potluck dinner). |
OPENING RETREAT | March 1-3, 2024 | Starts Friday at 11am to Sunday at 5pm. Our beginning retreat is designed as a spacious time to sink in together, structure our time together, and learn the practices and processes that will hold us for this container. |
IMMERSIONS | 2nd Saturdays | Monthly: April, May, July, August from 11am to 10pm. Our Saturdays together are the heartbeat of our time together. Please clear your schedule in 2024 on these days. The structure looks like:
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MONTHLY LABS | 4th Fridays | March through September (we take the month of June off) on the 4th Friday of each month from 6:30 to 9:30pm as an opportunity to practice what we’re learning. |
MENTORING | Monthly | A combination of mentoring from the leadership team and peer mentoring within a subgroup will be happening monthly throughout the 8 month journey. |
CLOSING RETREAT | September 13-15, 2024 | Starts Friday at 11am to Sunday at 5pm. Our ending retreat will include integration, harvests, and teaching modules as well as a celebration of transformation for each attendee. |
Facilitators
“I am not the guru. The teachings are the guru.”
~Swami Satchidananda
Teachings
The teachings come from a long lineage of bowing to the mystery within and without. They also come from the wisdom and brilliance inside each one of us. And the transformational field that is formed when all of us come together.
Participants
It matters who is in the room. The neural network we create is in part dependent on the artful guidance of the leaders. Leadership is important. Ultimately the group becomes it’s own being and we are all humble explorers along for the ride.
Guides
We are honored and humbled to host. We hold the intention, and structure, and logistics. We guide the process until the process takes over. As the months go on leadership from within the group will emerge. It will emerge wholly different over time.
Lee Warren
Lee Warren is devoted to personal and collective liberation through reclaiming the wisdom woven into every cell of our beings. Her approach to this liberation is to romance the brilliance inherent in each one of us through cultivating a profound intimacy with self, others, and the mystery. Her focus is on education in three main areas: Sex, Death, & Community. The synthesis of this is the study and practice of TANTRA and mysticism. Her mission is to offer her leadership, learning, and insight in pleasurable service to the whole. Her vision is where folks are co-creating sane, pleasurable, integrated, cohesive, connected, and blissful lives. Within and without.
David Salih
David’s tantric journey has taken him from leading transformational workshops for Landmark Education in 2005-2011, coaching private clients since 2008, being a master bodywork and energywork professional for 25 years, and studying Sri Vidya tantra with Swami Ravi, including a 3 year intensive tantra teachers training. David has facilitated tantra workshops in the US and Mexico. He loves integrating classic tantra with neo-tantra, exploring transformative community dynamics, and conjuring alchemy through music, theater, and eroticism. More at davidsalih.com
Damon Sean Dickinson
Damon Sean Dickinson a decades-long practitioner of breathwork, open-heart meditation, zen, shamanism, plant medicine, and 12 step recovery. As a 6/2 Projector in Human Design, he holds a specific and unique role as a mentor, guide, and support for others to embrace their authentic self and uncover their true essence. Damon Sean works with a variety of modalities such as Sedona Method, Flower Essences, NLP, Internal Family Systems, Tantra, and the simple yet profound art of letting go. Equally at home in the physical and metaphysical worlds, Damon Sean is a true Renaissance soul – weaving his life experience into his psycho spiritual integration coaching and his ongoing experimentation as a dad, partner, friend, and community member.
Robyn Lynn
Robyn Lynn is a Tantra educator, Somatic Coach, group facilitator, feminine mystic, and a guide for those who want to deepen their sense of intimacy, connection and presence in an embodied way. A lifelong student of the unified field, she sees this as the source of meaningful healing, renewal, and inspiration. She has over a decade of experience supporting men, women, couples, and groups. She’s a certified Sexological Bodyworker & Somatic Sexologist with the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, San Francisco and has done graduate Study in Mental Health Counseling at Antioch University, Seattle and has a B.A. in Psychology, Macalester College, St. Paul MN. More at: robynlynn.net
The transmission is in the co-creation.
More specifically we find ourselves moving away from the top down and out front teaching style. The days of the great guru’s are coming to an end. What’s emerging for us is a dynamic and more fluid container where we see ourselves as servant leaders, space holders, and guides. Everyone in the group has brilliance and we want it all to shine forth. In that vein we will be leaning towards group participatory structure of curriculum and a collaborative approach.
Potential Guest Presenters
Evalena Rose
Evalena has walked the path of Tantra for 35 years, founding “LoveJourney: Tantra of the Heart” in 1997. Her collaborative leadership often involved 1-3 facilitators and a trained assistant team of 3-7 for groups of 25-40. Being largely experiential and supported by this heart-centered village of practitioners, the work is more easily embodied. She brings a unique breadth to the work having been a MetaTherapist 44 years, a mystic who does multi-dimensional healing, and a channel of Ascended Masters, especially Babaji and his Tantra lineage. Her business coaching of entrepreneurs has spanned decades, she led visioning and business planning weekends for 27 years, and mentors people and groups in their soul’s work. Youtube channel.
Swami Ravi
Swami Ravi Rudra Bharati, formerly known as Dr. Rudolph Ballentine draws on more than 40 years of study, medical practice, and research, as he presents a comprehensive, practical system of dynamic healing that helps us expand our self-awareness and guides us toward transformation and radical healing. He is committed to the integration of Eastern thought, particularly yoga and tantra, and permaculture. In 2004, he moved to Earthaven Ecovillage and developed the Dancing Shiva Tantric Monastery.
We can guarantee this…..
You will be supported by us and each other.
You will be challenged by us and each other.
Site Details
Location & Food
Food & Venue details are still being worked out. The tasters will be held at the home of Evalena Rose. Weekend retreats are still up in the air. We will know more details by December.
Location of the Opening & Closing Retreats: These three day events that start and end our time together will be held at Dancing Shiva, a queer tantra monastery at Earthaven Ecovillage, about 50 minutes outside of Asheville, NC. It’s both rural and rustic. If you want to read up on Earthaven Ecovillage.
Lodging at Dancing Shiva: There is camping and indoor lodging at Dancing Shiva. Here’s the scoop:
- There are 10+ camping spots in this beautiful ecovillage neighborhood.
- Facilities: There are indoor and outdoor showers in 2 locations, as well as 2 outdoor and 1 indoor composting toilet.
- Indoor lodging is generally shared space with mattresses provided but you’ll need to bring your own bedding.
Location of the Saturday Immersions & Thursday Labs: These events will be held in North Asheville at the home of Evalena Rose. The Tasters will be held at this location so all participants will have a chance to experience the site. The address will be given to registrants in the confirmation email closer to the event.
Food: Food (Lunch & Dinner & Snacks on all the full days together as well as Breakfast the mornings of our overnights) will be prepared by Anne Knoflicek, a local nourishing foods chef. Having high quality and homemade food provided for us allows us to drop into the container more deeply and be nourished as part of our journey together. We use high quality ingredients, whole foods, and can accommodate most diets.
Money & Time
Money Ethics: It is really important to us that all the money for this course stays in our community. From the facilitators to the venues to the support staff to the food, our goal is to nourish and strengthen our people in our region. Unlike outside programs that come into town and take money out, we are long-term stewards of this place. Lee & Sean have both been living in and contributing to WNC for more than 25 years each. We all plan on being here for the long term.
Scholarships: We have allocated one full registration price $3,333 (as long as we meet our attendance requirement) to the scholarship fund. This allows six people to get a discount of $555.55 off their tuition. This may allow some folks to attend who might not be otherwise able.
Time Commitment: As with anything in life, you get out of this what you put into it. There will be life changes and illness and extenuating circumstances – that’s a certainty. Aside from that we request that you be present for as much of the program as possible.
Cohort Seva/Service Role: Each participant will have an opportunity for sacred service of the community. Roles will be defined and filled by the group and therefore everyone will have a voice and a choice. They will be carried out much like roles in a monastery, as part of the deepening and learning into the teachings. Some of the roles include: Temple Tending, Food Stewards, Music Maestros, Process Team, Content Team, Mentorship Assistants, Heart Tenders, Admin Support, and more.
Readings
for Context & Container
We have the following recommended readings:
Books We Love
Sean is on a long road to self love and healing. He recommends:
Lee is in love with the mystics. She recommends ANYTHING by these folks:
- Pema Chödrön
- John O’Donohue
- Rainer Maria Rilke
- Richard Rudd
- Clarissa Pinkola Estes
- Arnold Mindell
David’s Recommendations:
- Healing Mantras by Thomas Ashley-Farrand
- Om: The Eternal Witness by Swami Rama
- Science of Breath by Swami Rama
- by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait Ph.D.
Robyn’s Recommendations:
Content
The intention of the Cohort is to build a embodied erotic literacy with self and others. It is also about learning to integrate our dark and light, our Shiva and Shakti, and our yin and yang. It is also about building community. We do this through the study and practice of Tantra, which at it’s heart is truly indefinable but for a working definition means using breath, body, pleasure, creativity, and inquiry to explore our sacred incarnation.
What is Tantra?
Tantra is embodied intimacy.
Tantra is about being erotically alive in the midst of exactly what’s emerging in every moment.
Tantra is a study of the subtle energies.
Tantra is surrendering fully to the river of life.
Tantra is learning to trust pleasure.
Tantra is reclaiming sensuality and sexuality as our inherent, healthy, holistic, and beautiful birthright.
Tantra is a doorway to the divine inside of us and others.
Tantra teaches us to open our inner flutes to play the instrument of us as we were designed to be.
Tantra welcomes all of life. Tantra transforms all of life.
Likely Schedule~
The Cohort structure, on our full days together, will look roughly like this:
Mornings, 11-12:30: Either a teaching module or a “dropping in” which means a facilitated Zegg forum style process or another creative group process.
Lunch, 12:30-2:
Early Afternoons, 2-4: Teaching module, practice, or group process (depending on what was done in the morning.)
Late Afternoons, 4-6: Integration, rest, re-group, pods meet.
Dinner, 6-7:30
Early Evening, 7:45-9:30: Ritual
Late Evening, 9:30-11: Relax, Hot Tub, Cuddle, etc.
Possible Modules
- Meditation & Mindfulness
- Nervous System Self- & Co- Regulation
- Wheel of Consent
- Working with Trauma & Attachment Theory
- Conscious Kink
- Energetic Sex
- Breath: Fire Breath, Cobra Breath, Rainbow Breath, Cleansing Breath, etc.
- Shadow Work
- Pleasure Mapping & Touch Feedback
- The Drama Triangle
- Conscious Communication
- Grief & Eros
- We Space
- Erotic Maturity
There will be an opportunity for the group to decide on much of the content during the initial weekend.
Here is A Tantric Vision by Sam Keen, a simple, straightforward understanding of this ancient practice through the lens of depth psychology.
How Sexy Does it Get?
There’s a color-coded system often used in Neo-Tantric spaces that implies the kind of practices employed.
- White Tantra often refers to the breath, meditation, and mantra practices that focus mostly on the individual.
- Pink Tantra often refers to practices with self and others that involve an erotic flow of energy. Employing sensuality, pleasure, ecstasy, and breath/sound/movement, erotic lifeforce is expanded and explored. A core principle here is that eroticism allows us a glimpse of the divine in ourselves and others. This work can be done clothed or unclothed but is generally not engaging with the genitals.
- Red Tantra often refers to engaging with one’s sexuality, arousal, and genital contact, alone or with another and employing many of the same principles and practices of the White and Pink.
- Black Tantra often refers to the use of kink or BDSM or power/energy exchange to engage with the self, others, and the group.
Every participant is at choice about their level of participation at all times. Consent and personal responsibility are high values here. That being said, this Cohort will be focused on White and Pink Tantra and there will also be an opportunities for Red and Black options. The group will decide together on those content modules. Nudity is common and welcomed in this group.
COSTS
Tantra CoHort 2024 Costs:
- The cost for the 8 month Cohort is $3,333.
- This includes lodging for the opening and closing retreat at Dancing Shiva.
- This also includes hearty meals homemade by a local chef using high quality, local, organic ingredients.
- Discounts:
- There are no work exchange options for this cohort.
- If we arrive at our registration quota (20 people), there are six scholarship spots available for a discount of $555.55 each. When the time comes there will be a scholarship application form. Priority will be given to the most need.
- There are payment plan options including monthly payments. All payments must be complete by August.
- This is a closed container.
- In addition to tuition each participant will fulfill a service role, known as SEVA, in support of the group. Each person is an integral part of building this community.
1 Day Taster Costs:
- The cost for the day is between $180 and $90 sliding scale.
The reason sliding scale rate ranges are so broad is so that even within the nature of the sliding scale the budget numbers can be met. See more below for understanding the sliding scale model.
Day-long Embodied
Tantra Taster
Curious? Interested?
Want to know more about the 2024 Tantra Cohort?
Attending one or both of our Tasters in December 2023 is a requirement to be considered for the 2024 Tantra Cohort.
It’s where you get to assess us and we get to assess you!
These day-long Tasters to give folks the opportunity to experience the teachings, our facilitation styles, the process and format, the venue, and the other potential members of the cohort. They are an embodied glimpse to help inform participants whether the 8-month program is right for them.
And the leadership team gets to assess your fit for the Cohort.
Who: Lee Warren, Sean Dickinson, David Salih, and Robyn Lynn will facilitate and we’ll be joined by a group of invite-only friends. Each of these daylong Tasters will be a closed container. Please come only if you can come on time and stay until at least 7:45pm.
When: Happening twice. Come to 1 or both
- Saturday, December 9, 12:30pm to 9:30pm (option to stay until 11pm)THIS TASTER IS FULL
- Sunday, December 31, 12:30pm to 11pm (option to stay until 1am)
Location: North Asheville at the home of Evalena Rose.
Important Notes:
- These Tasters are drug and alcohol free events.
- Sensuality and nudity are welcome and likely at these events.
- We request that you have experience in erotic community events (in addition to the other pre-requisites)
- We request that you take full responsibility for yourself at this event including self-regulation, empowered decisions, and care for the whole.
Outcome: These practices prepare us for more full embodiment in a pleasure-based life where we are guided by the heart. Connection of this sort is oxytocin rich and builds community. A big part of our motivation is in co-creating a village of heart-centered practitioners who love energy play and ecstasy in Asheville. We imagine it becomes a cauldron from which many teachings can emerge over the years.
Cost & RSVP: Cost for the day is between $180 and $90 including dinner.
Schedule:
- 12:30 Arrival (Please eat lunch before you come)
- 1-1:30 Welcome, Check-in, Embodied Grounding
- 1:30-3 Tantra Breath and/or Movement Practice.
- 3-3:30 Break (Please bring snacks for self and/or to share)
- 3:30 to 5 Somatic Movement, Energetic Body Exploration, Energetic Touch, Small Groups.
- 5-5:30 Quiet time for rest and integration.
- 5:30 to 6:45 Dinner (Catered, healthy, delicious, organic, homemade meal provided)
- 6:45 to 7:45 Discussion of the Tantra cohort.
- 8 to 9:30 Celebratory Puja
- 9:30 to 11 Optional Cuddle, Hot Tub, Hanging Out.
Next Steps
Interested in this journey? Desire to explore more? Here are the next steps……
- Read through this webpage thoroughly.
- Plan to come to one or both tasters to get more information and a feel for the team and the cohort.
- Register for a taster (December 31) below.
- If you attend the 12/9 taster you will hear from us soon after if you are invited to register for the Cohort.
- If you attend the 12/31 taster you will hear from us soon after if you are invited to register for the Cohort.
- Decide by January 12th (at the latest) if you’d like to join and give us a $500 deposit.
- Begin to read the books assigned for the Cohort.
- Schedule out all the Cohort dates for 2024.
- Buckle your seatbelt for transformation.
Taster Registration
How do I determine what to pay?
What is Sliding Scale?
This workshop is offered with the spirit of community in mind. The minimum donation is $90.
You will be asked to choose a price to pay on a sliding scale.
Sliding Scale is a type of fee structure where people with fewer resources can pay a lower price and people with more resources can pay a higher price. In this system the participant determines the rate, no questions asked. There is an inherent trust, allowance, and collaboration in this system that honors both the time and experience of the facilitators as well as intuition, income, and ability of the participant.
That being said, PLEASE choose the highest level on the sliding scale that you can. A good rule of thumb: Pay at a price point that is a stretch but not a strain. Grassroots educators are akin to artists and farmers. We rely on receiving a livable wage to continue to offer high quality education at an affordable price. If all of our participants choose the lowest price point, these offerings become unsustainable.
There are no refunds or transfers for this event. Both Tasters will fill up and we don’t have wiggle room to move folks around. If you can’t make it please let us know so we can invite someone from the waitlist.