How to Practice Planetary Tantra

Orientation to Interactive Magic With Gaia

This essay explains the six elementary practices of Planetary Tantra and covers some predictable questions in a FAQ (frequently asked question) or Q & A format. For a deeper view of the practice, see Foundations of Planetary Tantra.
- jll 8 December 2009

Some Definitions

Q: What exactly is Planetary Tantra?

A: It is a visionary practice that aligns and bonds the practitioner with the entire sentient field of the planet—that is, a grounding technique for interactivity with Gaia.

Q: What is grounded, and where is it grounded? And how is the grounding established?

A: The three geodynamic functions of each human being—life-force or vitality, imagination, and the power of attention—are grounded in the actual, physically detectable dynamics of the bioelectromagnetic field of Gaia, the living planet. The grounding is established consciously and intentionally through calling the attention of Gaia to you by the use of her secret dakini name. Technically, the grounding of Gaia's dynamic field into the human body occurs at three points, or nodes: in the eyes or glance, in the thymus or mid-chest region where an eighteen-petalled chakra is developing, and in the sacral chakra, the svadhisthana of traditional yoga. Hence, the geodynamic nodes are upper (brow), central (chest), and lower (pelvis).

The notion that we can engage the attention of Gaia by calling Her name, as we would call a huge wild animal like a lion or giraffe, is a unique feature of Planetary Tantra.

Engagement of the three nodes can be achieved by various kinds of practices invented and spontaneously discovered by those who make the initial connection, getting Gaia's attention. Planetary Tantra does not impose a body of prescribed teachings or practices. It does not come with an elaborate agenda. The entire process is open, innovative, playful, subject to novelty, chance and change, and neither prescribed nor circumscribed by dogma or elaborate terminology or demanding exercises. There are no leaders in this path, and no hierarchy of attainment. It is a free-form experiment in open source spirituality focussed on the presence of the goddess or planetary divinity who may be called Gaia-Sophia, "earth-wisdom."

Planetary Tantra might be called the yoga of discovery, a rite of union in which joy and wonder play a decisive part. There is no school or tradition for this practice, no guru and no set of rules apart from loose guidelines. It is a voluntary and self-directed program of psychonautic training or experimental mysticism, but it is ideally practiced in the "tantric buddy system" -- put in plain English, two people pairing in a single goal or process.

Tantric yogic positions (asanas), performed by a single individual or by two persons in sexual embrace, are not prescribed in Planetary Tantra, but may arise spontaneously. Such postures can be pleasant and effective, but they are almost never performed with a conscious intent to bond to the earth. The postures displayed on this website are said to illustrate Anusara, "a heart-based practice rooted in Tantric philosophy." I do not doubt the sincerity and authenticity of such practices, but this is not Planetary Tantra, even though the asanas are performed in a natural setting in direct contact to the earth. The exercises are taught with no reference to how such yogic practices can bond us to the earth. This is the failing or omission of traditional Tantric yoga.

Q: Aren't we all as sentient and self-conscious beings already connected to Gaia through the three nodes, and in other ways as well?

A: We certainly are. But PT does not just re-invent the wheel, putting a new spin on what is already there, already happening. It adds a novel component that has so far been missing or overlooked: how the attention of Gaia comes selectively and discretely toward each indvidual. We can feel all kinds of connections to the sentient earth, sense the divinity of the planet (Sophia embodied, in one expression), and even explore the supernatural aspects of our bond to mother earth, but relating to the planet becomes truly interactive, i.e., two-way, when you call or invoke the attention of Gaia to yourself.

Other features of PT heighten and enhance the interaction and so may be considered hallmark aspects of this practice which does not claim to be superior to all others, although it does offer a particularly intimate bond with Gaia, the planetary manifestation of the Divine Feminine. In this respect, PT is a upscaling and extrapolation of Shaktism or goddess worship identified in southern Indian tradition (Dravidian) and reflected in some respects in the Tibetan Tantricism of Dakinis and Female Buddhas. Such allusions only refer to the husk of Planetary Tantra, however, not its core and essence which is futuristic, novel, and emergent.

Q: What is so special about Planetary Tantra, that might distinguish it from numerous other paths and practices emerging now as ways to connect with the living presence of the earth?

A: Planetary Tantra is one of many exciting discoveries that emerge at a key moment in the history of the human species, when survival depends upon magical and much as practical measures. By "magical" is meant "whatever enhances or amplifies what is already there." The derivation is from mag-, as in magnify, magnetic, and so on. The magic proposed in PT is a life-practice discovered one moment at a time in ways that can be tested, not a delusional form of wishful thinking or vague nature mysticism. PT is distinguished by its rigorous focus on deepening conscious alignment with the vital dynamics of the earth.

Tantra means "continuity." Planetary Tantra is action in total and ongoing continuity with the life-process of the earth. In this practice, everything one does in day-to-day life is referred to the planetary dynamic, the ground. Other practices, even when they propose or involve dynamic interactivity with the earth, do not describe how it actually occurs and can be explored and developed in an intentional way in the rigorous and specific manner you will encounter in Planetary Tantra.

Q: How did Planetary Tantra originate? What are the claims of its originator? Who are its teachers and masters, etc?

A: For this and other questions on the background of Planetary Tantra and its relevance in the timing of Kali Yuga, see Gaia Awakining: An Open Source Serial Terma (forthcoming in Terma).

Q: What are the requirements for participation in Planetary Tantra?

A: The main requirement is an ardent wish to experience love for the earth as deeply as you love your own body. This condition implies, of course, a high degree of self-love and profound respect or even reverence for your own body, and others' bodies, as precious flowerings that express the wild and expansive wonders of cosmic life.

Such an attitude of loving regard toward yourself bodily and not just as "a person" or human subject is quite a challenge, isn't it? You may realize that you do not have that regard yet in full development, but if you would like to have it,

Cultivate a reciprocal or complementary attitude toward the earth, coming to love your body in a profound way as you deepen and refine your love for the earth. Earth-body equivalence is the essential requirement for orientation to PT. The tanric principle of equivalence acts as a teaching point: respect and reverence for your own body is not narcissism only when it is balanced by equivalent feelings for the earth.

Narcissism of body and person divorced from the earth, on the other hand, is one of the greatest obstacles to the planetary bond, as well as to human bonding and interactivity. Those who "walk the talk" about loving the planet will love it as intimately as they love their own body and their partner's body, their children's and pet's body, and will demonstrate that equivalence in actions, attitudes, and intentions.

Planetary Tantra is an hedonic practice: that is, a path of heightened pleasure, enhanced sensuality, natural-born ecstasy, and playful, ever-refined esthetics. In this respect, it fits the definition of Tantra as sacralization of desire, a view unique to the close of Kali Yuga, the timeframe in which it emerges.

Put in other words, in user-friendly interactive language, the main requirement for this practice is the desire to engage with Gaia-Sophia in the same way one would engage with any sentient and intelligent creature, be it a snake, an insect, a whale, a cloud, a non-human animal such as a bear, or another human animal. Intimate engagement with the planetary divinity or "local embodiment" of Shakti, the Sacred Feminine, boosts or enhances our desires and capacities for enjoyment all across the spectrum of hedonic or pleasure-based experiences. PT makes this engagement specific and rigorous. Thus it takes the human capacity for pleasure to extreme states.

This essay is incomplete.

jll 2010 Andalucia