Our Monastery & Healing Center
Nestled in the misty Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina just east of Asheville, Dancing Shiva Tantra Monastery and Healing Center is the home base for a community of students and practitioners of tantra. It grew out of the teachings of Swami Rama of the Himalayas, as received by Swami Ravi Rudra Bharati, (formerly Rudolph Ballentine, MD), and his experience of learning and teaching at the Body Electric School based in California. For over 20 years, those who have studied and trained with Swami Ravi have passed on this unique path to many others, and Dancing Shiva Tantra Monastery & Healing Center serves as a place for all those who tread this path to return and reconnect with each other, the tradition, the earth,
and find rest and serenity.
Dancing Shiva Tantra Monastery and Healing Center's focus is authentic classic tantra, emphasizing the inner marriage between each person’s inner Shiva (“masculine”) and Shakti (“feminine”). It is particularly dedicated to those of LGBTQ+ orientation, who have life experience with their “two spiritedness,” and are thus likely to be especially well suited to living and teaching this tradition.
Monastery Etiquette
Dancing Shiva Tantra Monastery and Healing Center is a wilderness oasis where students, teachers and seekers come to integrate and recharge spiritually and sexually, by experiencing, learning and practicing tantra.
We observe a number of "tapas," or containers, which support our focus on an integrative whole, based upon gratefulness and awareness.
For more specific information of our Monastery observations and practices, see the FAQ Section below.
Land Care
Dancing Shiva Tantra Monatsery and Healing Center is a part of Earthhaven Ecovillage, a 329-acre intentional community, founded on the principles of permaculture. We are dedicated to caring for people and the Earth by learning and demonstrating a holistic, sustainable culture. Being caretakers of and visitors on the land includes interacting mindfully with all living beings that inhabit it, as well as relating to the grounds, soil, rocks and water sources with awareness. We use the paths so as to disturb the ecosystem as little as possible. Our mission and relationship to the land is one of being as un-intrusive as possible.
Our Spaces & Buildings
Dancing Shiva Tantra Monastery and Healing Center's buildings are both event places, healing spaces, and our home.
When crossing the thresholds of the Temple and the Yogastan, we always demonstrate our gratefulness for the space and those who created it, by pausing, bowing our head, and placing our hands either together in front of us, or one hand to the heart.
As with the land, we interact within the built spaces as un-intrusively as possible, including the physical, metaphysical and all energy aspects of the environment we are interacting within.
Staying With Us
Dancing Shiva Tantra Monastery and Healing Center’s mission is to bring a version of tantra to the West that is both accessible to the Westerner and relevant to the present — yet still true to the authentic tradition of tantra taught and lived in India for millennia. It aims to do this by offering workshops, trainings, and other programs both at its home in the mountains and away. Even more importantly, however, is that Dancing Shiva Tantra Monastery & Healing Center is a place where the teachings are lived, and where one can absorb their essence by simply being present.
It is a place for healing, transformation, and celebration.
Whilst we strive to welcome all visitors, the terrain at Dancing Shiva Tantra Monastery & Healing Center is uneven and unpaved, and unfortunately we are not well-suited for wheelchair or other mobility device usage on the property.
Some physical limitations may be able to be accommodated, depending on individual circumstances.
Please contact us directly about your
personal mobility before you visit us or book an event,
to check whether it may, or may not, be suited to you.
