Temple Tales—Edifying Stories from ErotiCamp

The Puja That Wasn’t

The Temple of Orgasm is different, and even veterans of sacred sexuality and expanded Eros get confused. At the first Temple, during the first ErotiCamp in May, 2006, the seeming lack of experiential structure was causing some anxiety in my confidant, T, a woman who had previously led a dozen tantra weekends.

There’s got to be an opening ceremony, said T. As Temple visionary, I was very reluctant to allow this apparent structure into the otherwise formless experience of the Temple. I knew that it would be a distraction from the pure energies of orgasm. But, ceeding to experienced wise woman, I okayed opening the Temple Friday night with a puja. The theory was that everyone would become more comfortable with each other and so would be freer celebrating for the rest of the weekend.

So, Friday at dinner, as we dozen first focused on each other and the weekend experience, T said she’d be leading a puja to open the Temple. But one couple was tremendously lost and late, so the group decided to postpone the puja until Saturday morning after breakfast. We just all went over to the Temple after dinner and unofficially immediately immersed into erotic lovemaking and bliss with our existing partners. A great time was had by all and we retired for the night.

Saturday morning arrived and we met at breakfast. Someone hadn’t slept well and wanted to take a nap after breakfast and before the puja. Once again, the puja was postponed, this time until 3 p.m. that afternoon. We had a wonderful breakfast and most of us wandered over to the Temple. Once there, we all just entered directly into ecstatic loving and sexing, orgasming easily and often.

Finally, the big moment arrived! The official ErotiCamp Puja was to begin! Mid-afternoon, rested and festive, we gathered in the Temple and formed a circle. Opening ceremonies, confidentiality, brief check-ins, and then we took our original partner and went to our prepared prayer mattresses. As we were very familiar with these partners, it was easy to get very turned on and expressive. Orgasms were happening and the Temple was cooking.

T was in charge, though somewhat preoccupied, and managed to call the shift to the next station after half an hour, men moving around the circle to their right. So now we were with partners we didn’t know all that well, and the pitch went down. But this is the Temple of Orgasm, and some folks were able to rise to the occasion and hit the high notes. We all got higher and higher. T was now seriously job-impared, but after maybe three-quarters of an hour, called another station shift. We were all majorly high and turned on, but still some diffidence through lack of experience with each other. Nonetheless, this station also lasted a long time. [Puja stations usually last ten-fifteen minutes.]

By the fourth station, T abandoned the structure of the puja. We all went back to our original partners and immediately the energy rocketed in the Temple. We stayed in that energy until dinner. After dinner, we came back to the Temple and simply worshipped with our original partner and the place rocked. It was very satisfying to just stay with one’s orignal partner and build the energy, bathed in the hot juicy vibes from the other celebrants.

Later discussion found that the puja had actually caused some people distress, either in being partnered with someone they didn’t feel inclinded to be orgasmic with, or because someone with whom they would like to be orgasmic is moving on, or even some jealousy. The artificial lockstep ritual is just too rigid for the delicate Temple vibration. Also, it was clearly shown that a puja was not essential to getting the Temple ignited--we were self-starting. The puja actually got in the way when it finally did happen, nearly half-way through the weekend. Because of this incident, we have added the notions of staying with your orgasmates and letting go of ritual forms.