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Who or What is Umaa Tantra?

Umaa Tantra is merely a name for our teaching school…In the Himalayas, Umaa (Uma) is the anthropomorphized principle of enlightened wisdom energy; Tantra is expansion of the human personality and consciousness into “divine” personality and universal consciousness.


Tantra Salon in August: Shodashi/Lalita Tripura Sundari in the Dasa Mahavidyas (10 Great Wisdoms Goddesses or Cosmic Powers)

August Theme: Shodashi/Lalita Tripura Sundari as the Third of the Dasa (10) Mahavidyas (Great Wisdom Goddesses)

  • Saturday August 10th Tantra Salon: Sodashi Sadhana led by Tao Semko, 3-5pm, $20, and Sodashi/Lalita Tripura Sundari Puja led by Esly Caldwell III, A.P., 5-7:30pm, $20

August 2013’s Tantra Salons work with the archetypal wisdom called Sodashi (the 16-year-old version of Lalita Tripura Sundari, Goddess of the Three Worlds) as mantra, yantra, and anthropomorphized archetype (devata), using external ceremony (puja), and internal yogic practice (sadhana).

Sodashi is the Mahavidya and Devi representing the Divine Splendor, Wonder, and Plenitude experienced through an awakened Crown Chakra, and the permeation of sublime experience into the mundane world. Her sadhana reorganizes cognition so that problem solving and logical analysis are made the servant of wholistic intuition and big-picture thinking… overcoming paralysis of analysis, without diminishing analytical power…

A practitioner who has achieved the fruit of Sodashi sadhana can remain in bliss while recognizing the wholistic state of the forest and the details of the trees, and come up with both intuitive and rational approaches to navigating and sustaining loving acceptance while creating real and harmonious change, both in one’s own emotional state, and in external physical and social situations…

In particular the need to label, control, and the futile desire to “solve” emotional problems and spiritual quandries using logic and the frontal cortex, rather than directly percieving their nature by skillfully using the emotional and spiritual centers of the brain (amygdala, hypothalamus, pons, pineal…) is overcome without resistance… Sodashi Sadhana is one of the fastest and most direct practices for developing personal connection to Universal intuition…

–Tao Semko


Tantra Salon in July: Tara in the Dasa Mahavidyas (10 Great Wisdoms Goddesses or Cosmic Powers)

July Theme: Tara as the Second of the Dasa (10) Mahavidyas (Great Wisdom Goddesses)

  • Friday July 5th Tantra Salon: Dasa Mahavidyas: Tara Laya Meditation and Inner Tantric Yoga Sadhana led by Tao Semko, 7-9pm, $20
  • Friday July 12th Tantra Salon: Tara Puja led by Esly Caldwell III, A.P., 7-9pm, $20
  • Friday July 19 Tantra Salon: Dasa Mahavidyas: Tara Laya Meditation and Inner Tantric Yoga Sadhana led by Tao Semko, 7-9pm, $20

June 2013’s Tantra Salons work with the second archetype of the Ten MahaVidyas, the Devi Tara, who is the Great Sound uttered forth from the Void before the Space-Time continuum existed, that permeates all manifestation, and through which we can trace back to the ineffable unmanifest.

Tara, the Mahavidya and Devi representing the Primordial Word/Sound (Shabda or the Taraka Mantra OM), which fills both Manifested timespace and leads us back to the primordial Great Time (MahaKali) out of which the time-space continuum is born, and into which it returns…

This month’s practices are particularly useful for:

1. overcoming despondency and loss of universal connection, isolation from divinity, overcoming feelings of stuckness in habit or social norms and expectations, overcoming fear of loss of life or human connection, and overcoming fear of expression

2. for resolving fear of inner and outer darkness into non-dual experience of clear-light emptiness

3. for releasing kundalini as sound (shabda shakti), to transcend the limits of the ego-personality (ahamkara)

4. persons with Jupiter or the Moon aspected strongly (whether positive or negative) in their natal charts

–Tao Semko


June Theme: Kali as the First of the Dasa (10) Mahavidyas (Great Wisdom Goddesses)

  • Saturday June 8 Tantra Salon: MahaKali Puja led by Esly Caldwell III, A.P., 7-9pm, $20
  • Friday June 14 Tantra Salon: Dasa Mahavidyas: Kali Laya Meditation and Inner Tantric Yoga Sadhana led by Tao Semko, 7-9pm, $20
  • Monday June 17- Thursday June 20: Kali Inner Tantric Yoga Sadhana led by Tao Semko, free to attendees of the Friday 14th Tantra Salon, location given at that event, 10pm, outdoors, Miami Beach. (more info)
  • Friday June 21 Tantra Salon: Dasa Mahavidyas: Kali Laya Meditation and Inner Tantric Yoga Sadhana led by Tao Semko, 7-9pm, $20