Love at Dancing Leaves

Madhuri, a Californian who had lived thirty years in India, was alone in Switzerland happily and in a leisurely manner recuperating from a near-death event…when she put an ad on a dating site. This is the story of what happened next.

It’s the journal of one woman’s exploration of the ancient science of Tantra. Tantra means many things: ‘technique’; bringing consciousness to love and sex; letting go into the river of life…It is a way of living, as well as of bringing consciousness to love. This book is not a how-to manual, but simply relates the author’s experience as she experiments along with her partner. It also describes a relationship in which culture differences loom large: she is a wild carefree gypsy, he a stolid Midwestern Republican. The book is rich with lively detail: recipes, poetry, clothes, childhood scenes, motorbikes, travel; as well as the intimate meditations which recur and develop throughout. Much of it takes place in a beautiful house in an oak grove. There are assays to India, Canada, Maui, Europe.

The book is funny, sad, searching, joyous. In it Madhuri employs techniques she learned in a meditation commune, for taking ultimate responsibility for oneself in a relationship: how to reclaim projections, how not to blame the other, how not to be a victim; how to grow through the inevitable difficulties. How, too, to celebrate the unknown…as well as the senses. What emptiness is for.

It is a book for women, and for men who would love them. It’s for the menopausal, the middle-aged, as well as the young who would seek a way for love beyond what is portrayed in popular culture. It’s for people who’d like creative ways to be intimate when there are physical limitations – and when there are not. It’s for poets, therapists, and therapees. It’s for amateur cooks, cat-lovers, and Indiophiles. It’s for dancers and channelers and artists and healers and wanderers, meditators and Human Design aficionados. It might even be for the guy who runs the hardware store. It’s sort of Kama Sutra meets Shopaholic meets Walt Whitman meets Prairie Home Companion. Really, it’s for anyone who would like to open up to possibilities beyond the usual.

Paperback on Amazon  E-book on Amazon

Some reviews

“Intriguing, full of zest and heart.”Diana Richardson, author of Tantric Orgasm for Women and The Heart of Tantric Sex

“Like sipping nectar from acorn cups.”Dalayna Williams

About Madhuri Z K Akin

Madhuri Z K Akin

Madhuri was born in California in 1952. She studied poetry and dance at UC Riverside, then in 1970 left hitchhiking on her travels, was invited into a film as a dancing extra, ending up in Europe for two years, where she wrote, published, and had unwise teenage misadventures. She returned to San Francisco, where she performed poetry and acted in dubious films. Her younger sister had meanwhile made it to India, where she met the mystic Osho, then called Bhagwan. She sent for her sister and mother to share in the revelation.

Madhuri then spent 30 years in Osho's communes, meditating, working, dancing, and eventually teaching psychic opening.

Her first book, Impassioned Cows by Moonlight, was published by Hanging Loose Press, New York, in 1974. She is the author of nine books, including the memoir Love at Dancing Leaves: a Tantra Memoir, and Mistakes on the Path.

She lives in Hebden Bridge, England.