The ultimate AirBnb Experience: Red Tantra

I’ll describe our host as a slender blonde with wiry curls. She spent over a decade in the New York social scene but moved to the west coast to get back to nature and get away from traffic. As a sensuality coach, she was looking for a separate peace as well as a place for a new start after her recent divorce to a man with whom she’d hoped to raise a family. Initially she came off a bit cold and aloof to me, but over the course of our stay, she warmed up and became more cordial. After several conversations and some wine, she genuinely seemed excited to work with us. 

The next day we woke up pretty early and made a light breakfast since we wanted to take the medicine on an empty stomach. Our host made the necessary preparations, gathering blankets and a basket full of items for an altar, including Hindu figurines, talismans, gemstones, and phallic and yoni shaped trinkets. She also collected singing bowls, a drum, a Bluetooth speaker, feathers, a small case of essential oils, and other necessary materials that she asked us to help carry.

She took us bare foot out to a small flat patch of forest ground about 8 minutes away down a leaf-strewn stoney path. There was a foam mattress already laid out and covered with a crimson velvet blanket which we covered with additional blankets and pillows. I was in baggy yoga pants and a robe and my partner had on a lingerie set beneath a fine new black kimono. It was overcast and chillier than the day before. Given the temperature, we wondered whether we’d chosen the wrong day.

We took a seat and our host spread out a few items including a tiny caldron and lit some sage. Our first activity would be to build our nest — with particular focus on constructing an altar to memorialize our intentions for the day (which we’d discussed the day before). We wanted to commemorate our first anniversary together and invite in more mutual pleasure — specifically in my partner’s ability to take pleasure in giving pleasure. We also wanted to cast out some of the negative or hurtful experiences we’d had in the past year, and continue to build our mutual trust and confidence. To that end, we assembled a shrine with a number of symbolic items as well as some polaroids we’d brought, and nestled my salt box against an avocado (representing nourishment and abundance), and placed one each of my partner’s yoni eggs and glass pleasure wands on the adjacent side. As we chose from the items in our host’s bag of goodies, she went back to prepare peach smoothies with coconut milk for us with an initial dose of 2g of medicine. 

She returned and the three of us sat facing the altar, reviewing each item and clarifying its significance for our intentions and hopes for the day as we drank the potion. We lit various types of incense and dried leaves (pine, sage, cedar, etc) in the tiny caldron as we explained each item and its importance to each of us. Our host then took out a deck of [Sacred Rebels cards](https://alanafairchild.com/oracle/), and each of us chose three from the shuffled splay, and she arranged them in a sequence. The leftmost card indicated where we’ve been, the center where we are currently, and the rightmost providing insight into the future and where we’re going next.

My spread: 

• Past: Trust yourself (#31)

• Present: In the world, not of the world (#34)

• Future: Conscious connections (#35)

My partner’s:

• Past: Be the hunter, not the hunted (#8)

• Present: Come to life (#43)

• Future: What is already with you (#17)

We spent some time interpreting what these cards meant to us before moving on to the next activity: hand-on-heart breathing.

In this activity, we put our right hands on the other’s chest and then covered their hand with our left. We gazed into each other’s eyes and took deep breaths in sets of three until we were in sync. It wasn’t long before I started to feel the effects of the medicine and my head started to lift. The trees and foliage became more vibrant and deeply saturated. There weren’t so much visual hallucinations as an opening of my heart and mind and in increasing intensity to my sensory input. The high hit me first and more aggressively and since my partner hadn’t risen to the same level, we decided to double our dose before moving on to the next set of activities, as we’d previously planned with our host. 

Before she retrieved more smoothie mix, she produced two raw eggs and instructed us in a traditional “egg cleansing” ceremony called la limpia in which we each used an egg as kind of energy-luffa, carefully rubbing our skin with the egg to capture dark or evil energies. Once we felt cleaned, we each buried our eggs in the forest floor, using a stick and digging three clockwise and counter-clockwise rotations, sealing the darkness into the ground.

Our host returned with more potion and we downed it. This time it was slightly less fruity and more pungent. She suggested that we relocate down and away from our cool shaded altar to a pocket of redwoods being warmed by the sun. 

The next activity was called, “In the arms of my Love”. We spread a blanket and my partner leaned back on two pillows propped against a thick redwood. I went first, leaning back into her as she cradled me, her right hand on my heart, her left arm around my waist; my head tilted back on her chest. As the “receiver”, I closed my eyes and as I settled in, she bowed towards my ear and quietly recited: “You are safe. I love you. I accept you completely.” Under the medicine, this mantra took on an enhanced veracity and importance — like being welcomed into the womb of the universe. With the bright sun washing over us and burning off the foggy chill, I felt cleansed and relieved: reborn. We traded places and I repeated the experience for her. 

Once I finished, we were instructed to change positions so that she was facing me, legs spread apart with my back against the pillows against the tree. She was to put one hand on my heart and the other on my sacral chakra (genitals), but something was wrong. Suddenly I became very aware of our context and surroundings — and the conspicuousness of this new arrangement (i.e. the first sexual touching in front of our host). A barrage of legacy feelings of guilt and shame overwhelmed my thoughts. Thanks to the amplifying effects of the medicine, I became fixated on the fact that the road was not more than 50 yards from where we were, and bikers, hikers, and cars were passing by every 30 minutes or so... I couldn’t shake awareness of this fact. I did my best to speak up for my concern and to identify it as a perception rising up in my suddenly hyper-vigilant mind. Our host identified this as codependency: essentially my mind was racing ahead anticipating how the passersby might react or feel if they saw this strange group of people up in the forest, touching each other’s genitals and generally acting peculiarly and I automatically I was taking on responsibility for their reaction. She told me that by assuming that they wouldn’t be able to be “grown up enough” to deal with our scene, I was making them small. I needed to cut it out. Of course, she said this knowingly as she admitted that she’s dealt with her own history of codependence. 

I coaxed myself out of this regression and returned to the present, and gradually set aside my concerns about theoretical reactions by theoretical passersby.

I returned to my reclined position and my partner repositioned her hand on my heart and sacral chakra and we slowed down to breathe in time. After we’d slid back into the present for a short spell, we traded positions and lingered in this exchange. Our host then invited us to share any insights or feelings that came up in either of the reclined experiences. It was hard to quantify or put into words how I felt, especially with the potency of the medicine interrupting my verbal faculties, but the purity and strength of the love between us was evident. We had deeply aligned and connected — anchored within ourselves and into each other.

For the next activity, we moved to face each other sitting in an overlapping crossed-legged position called “yab-yum”. Having woken up our hearts and root chakras — we were about to “awaken our senses”. 

At this point, the medicine was working both of us over. A mystical confusion and fantasticality made colors and scents shimmer, caused voices to appear both far off and within our heads, and, as I was to discover — lead to a profound suggestibility. It was time for the next activity and I closed my eyes on command as my partner placed a supple morsel of peach in my mouth and ordered: “I awaken your sense of taste”. 

It’s hard to put into words, but my mind seemed to stutter and travel back in time, desaturating the previous 30 seconds into a bland grayscale. Upon her command, my mind repainted the present in an instant — like taking your first breath after you’ve been rendered unconscious by drowning. It started outwards from my mouth and expanded in all directions simultaneously — in vibrant hues, drenching all of my senses with a voluptuous volcanic red-orange sweet tangy nectar flavor like I’ve never seen, tasted, smelled or heard before. The sunlight on the backs of my eyelids tasted like a syrupy boysenberry jam on a white hot oven toasted biscuit.

After the peach, I kept my eyes closed and my partner fed me pieces of nectarine and chocolate. She finished with a grape, as though it were a delicious period to the end of a mouth-watering sentence. I of course reciprocated the experience. 

We then followed by awakening the senses of touch and smell. 

For touch, we closed our eyes and caressed each other’s skin with a giant blanched ostrich feather. As I caressed my partner’s warming skin, she quivered and her lips parted with a gasp and arched her back forward as though she were being gently massaged by a thousand tiny hands. For smell, we broke open our host’s small wooden treasure chest full of vials of essential oils and custom blends that we wafted one at a time in front of our partner’s nose — among others including jasmine, peppermint, fresh marijuana, rosemary, white sage, and peppermint. The smells were strong, pure, and arousing. My mind leapt to identify what seemed like familiar yet obscure scents as my face scrunched up, my host reminded me to stay in the present and not rationalize the experience.

Then our guide paused us, gathered the vials, and took our hands. It was time to get more intimate. For that experience, she recommended that we return to our nest by the altar. 

I took the transition as an opportunity to go pee and when I returned my partner had partially disrobed. Up until now, even with the touch and holding exercises, we’d remained pretty covered up in a comfortable robe and lingerie, but now it was time to do something I’ve never done before: get naked in front of my Airbnb host! Considering the build-up, I knew this was coming, but it was still novel, unusual, and a little unnerving. Especially with the medicine in effect, I struggled to let go of my self-consciousness and to drop into the present with my partner. Still, what we were about to do was the main attraction — and whether my mind was ready to receive pleasure or not, my body would willingly participate. 

Naked, I laid down on the mattress and blankets, with my head on a pillow. I closed my eyes. My partner kneeled between my legs, applied a generous amount of scented body oil, and received instruction from our host. 

The specifics of the next part of the experience are less relevant to share in detail because the techniques are commonly known and better covered in these two resources: 

• [Lingam Massage](https://beducated.com/mag/lingam-massage)
• [Yoni Massage](https://beducated.com/mag/yoni-massage-practice-for-pleasure-healing-connection/)

What is presented therein does a better job than I could do at this point at articulating how you might use similar techniques or practices yourself. What I will say is that these practices are not orgasm or outcome focused. Everything leading up to the massage is designed to bring each person into alignment with themselves and their partner and to get you into a grounded, open state where — most importantly — you’re feeling yourself, your partner is feeling his or herself, and you’re able to communicate or commune through your bodies-as-instruments. Spoken consent and guidance is still paramount but everything leading up to this point has been like taking a tuning fork to your energies and getting them in sync.

For what it’s worth, it’s still possible that challenges may arise. Personally, I struggled to quiet my mind while I was in the position of the receiver (on my back). This kind of phenomenon is not unusual, but it was surprising to me — but it exposed trauma that I intend to explore in subsequent work. It turns out that I have much more power and confidence in getting pleasure through giving. When it’s time to receive, I still have some several hangups to work through. 

By 6pm we had finished and were famished. The medicine had all but worn off, leaving but a shimmery patina on the foliage lit by the hazy declining sun along with a general open-heartedness and extroversion towards the worlds. As we reflected on our experience, our host went off to fetch an amazing coconut curry fish stew that she’d prepared for us the night before (so grounding and delicious!). She returned and we tore up fresh cilantro and I took out my salt box to enhance the flavor just so. We discussed what was hard and how the different activities affected us, and where our heads were at, respectively. We ate appreciatively, feeling both satisfied and accomplished. It’s like we’d braved some new territory and made it through, not without some scratches, but at least with evidence of growth and triumph. By this point I’d become accustomed to my nudity; it had just become a body-instrument that I happened to inhabit. We lay in the warming sunlight and wrapped up our day, reviewing our initial intentions and revisiting the significance of each of the items on the altar. There was a fullness between my partner and I, which extended to our host. Something revelatory had shifted or awoken within each of us. 

We started to pack up our things and don our clothes. We looked around the space where so much magic had occurred and noticed its apparent plainness: a forest of quiet redwoods towered over a dragged foam mattress, which sat atop the underbrush where so much vibrant intimacy had just been explored. But it was clear that it had existed within us, before we began. All we needed was the knowing coaxing of a helpful guide with her magic potion to reveal this ancient hidden spirit within us. ✨