More on Leandra...
Teachings, influences, experience and teachers along my life journey
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken Poet (1874 - 1963)
There is so much that has influenced my life, both professionally and personally. My formative teenage years were during the heart of the hippy movement in the sixties and one of the worst periods of Apartheid. Needless to say I became an up-market hippy and an anti-apartheid activist, until finally, after completing University, I left for Europe to find my personal freedom.
I was 22 years old and alone. My possessions consisted of a rucksack of clothes, a pair of tackies, a portable mini typewriter, and R1000. I left to find freedom, thinking Europe was free, and thus my journey really began. Europe was in the heart of the Woman's Movement at that time. I became intensively involved and huge changes took place in my inner world. It was also the time of the Osho Sanyassins returning home from India, starting active meditation evenings and Tantra groups. This however, was still all very foreign to me, leaving me on the perimeter. The movement was however so gigantic, that it never the less, formed much of what I was to become.
I tried different spiritual paths at different times while I was living in Germany, always seeking something I could call “Truth”, and an inner place from which I could feel joy. I’ve known total despondence, aloneness, despair, fear, and utter depression. Somehow, I always had a spirit which moved me on, no matter in what condition I was in. I used to think this was birth given, something in my genes. Today I believe it is the heritage of my past life, of which I have had a number of “clues” starting from a very early age. It was however only after coming to Tantra that all of this began to make sense to me.
Finally a series of severe illnesses, numerous operations resulting in, on one occasion, my being close to dying, and I was ready, on the foothold to the path of Tantra. Recovering from yet a further physical crisis in the way of an accident in which I severley broke my right arm, and after three operations for this, I finally sought and found my first Tantra teacher. I was desperate to find a gentleness in my life, I wanted the recalling inner pain I had always felt in one way or another, to stop. I was still seeking my freedom. By now, I knew it was an inner freedom that I wanted, and I was grateful when I was taken on as a student.
My actual initiation into Tantra was immediately followed by a situation in which I was confronted by my worst fears. There, finally, I found a fearless, gentle and peaceful willingness to die. A deeply mystical experience for me, one in which I no longer felt any separation from the stone I was sitting on, the evening reflections on the lagoon in front of me, or the fading sky above me. In this space, finally, my seeking was completed and I was catapulted into Awareness, into Consciousness and a deep state of Satori, which lasted for months. The transformation in my being was total.
Thus began my second journey, embracing and learning to live this Truth and sharing it with others. Since then, I have been happy. Yes, simply happy. I master adversity - and there has been much of that, I always get to feel compassion for the other and not sorry for myself. I love my life. I love all of life, and I find great joy in assisting and accompanying men and women, to more fulfillment, to more passion and a positive transformation in their lives. Love is what is left
when you've let go
of all the things you love.
Swami Jnaneshvara
Tantra is powerful and it is wild. Tantra is also gentle and loving. It is full of rituals that have great meaning. It is, for me, the ultimate path, encompassing all aspects of life, including our humanness, including our sexuality. To me Tantra means a love-filled life. A full life. A joyous life. I am grateful to be in a position to live the way I do - traveling around the country of my birth and which I love so much, meeting and working with wonderful people from all walks of life, from all religions, all cultures. I give much... and receive much more. The gratitude I feel, to all who have given so abundantly to me, by allowing me to touch their lives...and their bodies…. is my motor and has become the motivation for each new day.
Leandra, March 2010
Personal Influences
My daughter and her partner of over 8 years influence me very much. She is a beautiful person in her own right and has taught me so much about the young women of today and how they are able to make excellent personal decisions for their lives if as parents we teach and allow them how to do this from an early age. Her partner teaches me how a young modern man can be loving, supportive and homely, without loosing any of his dignity as a man. During the last year of her high school, he cooked for her almost daily and watching the two of them is a gift to me. After I returned to South Africa in early 2002, they all lived in a happy commune of father and young people under one roof, until our daughter, now 23, and her partner moved to his home town Vienna, Austria to take up work.
My marriage has influenced me in many ways. I know the difficulties that can arise in a long-term marriage, I know the struggle personally, and I also know that it takes two genuinely compassionate human beings to have the arrangement we now have. We live in an open marriage on two different continents, leaving each other the greatest freedom possible to be the individuals that we are...and yet, we love each other and are best friends. Our bond is strong and he supports me in my work all the way.
I am a fully qualified psychoanalytical art therapist (German qualification) with 30 years of experience in the creative therapies field. I have thus also been touched and influenced by all the individuals and groups that I have worked with therapeutically over these years. of working with experiential creative therapies. I have learnt much, particularly through my mistakes!
In my work, I try to create an atmosphere of acceptance and a safe, secure and loving space in which massage guests and Tantra sessions clients can relax and open up into. I have been richly blessed with gifted Tantra teachers
Professional influences and teachers
Visual & Theatre Arts
I studies Fine Arts before turning to Speech & Drama. (University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg and Durban). My first years in Germany were spent working as a stage and costume designer in a large state theatre. Thereafter I opened a woman's art gallery during the hub of the Woman's Movement in Germany and began teaching experiential art. For a number of years I worked as a professional visual artist specialising in large scale painting and performance art. I always worked from within, so themes were: being a woman, being white in an African country, but as a white not recognisable as stemming from Africa in Europe, being an "Auslaender" (Our-lander) in Germany and a "non-black" from an african country - always the issue of "who am I really" running through all my work.
Body Therapy
Lomi Bodywork - I spent three years in a Lomi Bodywork group learning body awareness - something that plays a huge role in my work today.
Hakomi Therapy - I did some trainings and worked with Hakomi therapists facilitating therapeutic groups for a number of years
Breath Therapy - Experienced Breathing - Prof. Ilse Middendorf
Movement Therapy - Various movement therapy methods, expressive dance therapy, therapeutic mask therapy, belly dancing
Psychotherapeutic Training
Fully qualified in Psychoanalytic Art Therapy, Germany (Hanover). The institute where I trained, one of the oldest in Germany, was headed by Elizabeth Wellendorf, one of the founders of Art Therapy in Germany and a very influential figure in the art therapy scene there.
Influences in Psychotherapy
I had the privilege of participating in seminars and workshops of both these teachers, on their visits to in Germany and Austria. James F. Masterson opened my art therapy training institute in Hamburg with a supervision seminar for myself and colleagues. Both have inspired me deeply in my psychotherapeutic work. I feel deeply indebted to them. It is their influence that to this day guides me when I work with individuals in sessions and retreats.
- Prof. Dr. James F. Masterson M.D - Institute for Psychoanallytic Psychotherapy, New York.
His field is the psychotherapy of and research on the Personality Disorders of our day. He taught me how to deal with the most difficult cases and one of the most important things I learnt from him was: If my client/patient goes into defense mode, I had to realise that I had made a mistake. Instead of just seeing the pathology of the client/patient in play, I learnt to realise that I had moved forward to fast and that I needed to follow the client as oppsosed to running ahead of them. He also taught me to be clear in differentiating between what was me and what was the other. - Prof. Dr. Daniel N. Stern M.D - Professor of Psychology, University of Geneva; Professor of psychiatry, Cornell University, New York.
Whereas Masterson researched adolecents and adults, Stern researches children and babies, and revolutionised how psychotherapy perceived the relationship between baby and mother, child development and learning processes. His research showed that we are born creative, with an inborn multi-modular, sensual learning capacity which we loose as we grow up. This means that as babies, what we learn with one sense, we automatically know with another sense. Art Therapy taps into this original learning capacity, and is one reason why it functions so well. Hearing him lecture and reading his books, also helped me as a mother. His research showed me why I had not felt like I was supposed to feel and that there was nothing wrong with me!
Psychotherapy Trainings and Experience
Feminist Psychotherapy, Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy, Drama Therapy, Psychodrama, Family Therapy, Gestalt
Psychotherapeutic Bodywork Traiings and Experience
Movement Therapy, Hakomi Therapy, Dance Therapy, Therapeutic Mask Theatre (which became one of my favourite modules of working.)
Influences in Art Therapy
Bettina Egger, Jolanda Jokobi, Kasper Kiepenheuer, Gaetano Benedetti, Elizabeth Wellendorf , Ingrid Riedel
Their work , all under the banner of Art Therapy, is as diverse as life itself: Freudian, Jungian, holistic, spiritual, analytic, psychodynamic, experiential...each one with their own slant. Much as Tantra is today, each one added their input to this wonderful form of psychotherapy.
Influences in Psychoalanytical Psychotherapy
Freud, Jung, Fritz Riemann, Ilsabe von Veebahn, Wolf-Detlef Rost, Victor Frankl
All these authors were a big part of my psychoanalyic training. Freud's writings, if you actually read them, are beautifully written. He was magnificant in his day and most of modern psychotherapy is based on his findings, new understandings growing out of what he originally discovered.
Personal Spiritual Teachers
- Art Reade - Mexican/Apache spiritual teacher and Life Coach whose trainings I participated in, in Germany in the late eighties. In a room of 200 people, I felt as if I were the only one present. He taught my husband and I how to embrace each other in a new, more accepting way and he taught me a huge lesson: keep your agreements - always. If you want to change an agreement, no matter what it is, you have to speak to the person you have the agreement with and come to a new agreement together. This way there is no lying and it leaves out a lot of the hurt that takes place in relationships of all kinds.
Spiritual Influences
- Jesus - the teacher of unconditional Love and my all time favourite. His example, taken in it's true context is what we should all strive to be: non-judgemental and loving to the core.
- Buddha - the teacher of silence - silence of the mind, silence in being, silence in the now.
The two of these put together, unconditional (non-judgemental) love which starts with yourself and extends to all of life, and silencing the mind as well as the silence of being in the moment completely...and you have something really huge, really great. - Mary Baker Eddy - founder of the Christian Science church and in my opponion the first real spiritual Christian teaching available today. I grew up in this church and had an ardent practice of the teachings well into my young adulthood. This formed the basis for my spirituality today. Much of what she taught is today "standard" spiritual understanding and practice in the west, then it was new. I learnt from my earliest sunday school days, that God is Life, Love, Soul, Spirit, Principal, Mind and Intellegence - all these names were synnoms for God. My understanding to this day is that God, the Divine is all these things and that we are not seperate from this at any time or in any place in our lives.
- Kahlil Gibran - I read his work as a student in my late teens. He inspired me so much.
- Osho - I had never been particularly interested in his teachings but after my tantric initiation, he simply came into my mind and my heart in the form of an extremely clear picture, smiling at me and when it didn't go away, I followed the calling and took Sannyas with him. Thus my name Ma Anand Leandra. It was a coming together of many things already learnt, although I had not studied his teachings, I had learnt it all. And he was simply there.
- Louise. F. Hay - at a time in my life where I was despondant, her writings and affermations played a huge role to keep me going.
- Swami Rama - I love his writings. He is so family orientated, so caring, understanding - to me one of the best spiritual teachers.
- The Hindu Godess Durga - oh I love the story of Durga. It is a story for men and women alike, about the core of what women are: power, strength, understanding and highly intellegent and creative. She is also very, very cleaver in the way she goes about things. She is an inspiration for the life of any woman.
Namaste
Leandra