Dear, dear Eric
My thanks and appreciation for your thoughtful, inspiring piece.
What to do in a society where so many women are so injured…broken…angry at sex? Your words about guilt, shame and fear evoke sadness. Blame is crippling, but as men do penance, flagellating themselves for the alleged crime of lust, women do not heal.
As a 68-year-old Taurean woman, my sense in regard to healing the wounds is that yes — the feminine power must be returned: it’s not just personal, but societal, spiritual, sexual, cultural and political. The feminine principle is also our planetary mother, her all-inclusive, all-accommodating, nature/Nature has been raped indeed, predated, exploited, ravaged…
The feminine isn’t a concept, and as you know it is not exclusive to a gender. In our human experience, her fundamental quality is in fact reflected in our openness, our ability to open fully and relish wholly, with primordial, pleasure-bathed yesness, the all-embracing nature of being, at its moist and glorious core.
The world isn’t currently rousing us to open. The culture of fear (particularly and very much 9/11 onward) is eating into our flesh, tensing our tendons, our buttocks, our shoulders, that tight little place at the small of the back that says NO — No, don’t harm me!
While in Pacific Island villages men and women sashay like Marilyn, our bodies are getting more rigid. Our kids don’t leap bareback onto ponies any more, race and tangle in the wild, roll around getting bruised to learn about their bodies any more. Who leaps, does acrobatics, relishes that wildborn strength? Whoever even gets DIRTY now in our antibacterial fortress lives?
When there is no access to the rippling, shimmering sensations of the body, when the mind can’t explore the body, adore the body, devour and caress and merge with space inside us and each other, then how can sexual intimacy happen? What happened to long, voluptuous bodies luxuriating against other long, warm bodies of skin-covered physicality?
Are we just going to specify some contract of planned mutual exchange, substitute a strictly controlled ingredients list and impose penalties, instead of simply devouring the whole cake? To create transactional sexual contracts through lawyers, like pre-nuptial agreements? Commodify sexual connection? Make a balance sheet out of this interchange, based on the principle of withhold and conditionality?
Feeling that the only way to be safe is to protect ourselves from unscheduled experience (!), our whole society has gone litigious. Violence per se has in fact only been seen as a specific crime during the past 200 years of our history in the West — you could be hanged for stealing a loaf, but bashing the owner on the head wasn’t seen as material.
Yet nowadays, touching anyone anywhere but on the arms is seen as molestation. This is an insane polarisation. (BTW — What is this meticulous armouring against each other in the West while there has never been so much unbridled carnage and brutality carried out with impunity by the State?)
There can be no sexual intimacy, no wild dance, in the presence of such a lot of fear. Somehow the prohibitions must soften; the sense of injury, of ‘transactional injustice’, of being harmed, used, invaded, or even being physically wounded, must dissolve. When we say, ‘you can touch this, but not that, you can go here, but not there…’, we’ve placed a limit on being willing to simply bathe in another being and allow them to bathe in us; for real connection, there has to be trust in each other, and — assuming we apply certain basics of risk management — to trust is a voluntary endeavour.
As the great guru Chogyam Trungpa said (somewhere): When are we going to open, really?Defining safety in terms of security guards, rather than in terms of our own resilient power, or in fundamental trust for life’s due process, it’s as though we’ve created an edict against opening, with opening unconditionally as the ultimate social faux-pas.
And of course, you can’t say it, Mr. Francis — as one of those beings with a dick, strictly governed by protocols of correctness, it’s not appropriate for you to say that actually women must heal by opening again…and again…and again.
That actually it’s about all women and all men working with our fear of openness, nakedness and authentic connection, working kindly with the monsters we’ve constructed to prove how hurt we’ve been; to give up on wanting our pain recognised and revered; to give up revenge, to drop the karmic debt — just drop it, flat on the ground, and leave it there. To do this, is probably the most important part of our spiritual path, and to do this, at this time, is almost certainly the most nourishing thing we could do for this planet right now.
Yes, let’s start with the body. Get the hell away from the keyboard and virtual world. If we stay in the virtual world too long, we will look around and find that the planet has left.
Stand on good earth with naked feet, feel and bask in the energy that we were born with, enjoy our body moving, swim naked whenever we can, and find that deep pelvic space, its massive reservoir of strength, its deep organic power. For women, understand that this is yours, no man gave it to you just because he goes in there, or because he desires you. This place is not a marketplace, it’s part of the ground of our being.
Let’s love men. When a man finds his feminine side, he can find yours. Bless the servants of the Goddess — adore their wrinkly balls and their unsanitized trainers! Don’t close down. If the only way we can all save this unholy mess is to revert to our authentic natures as individuals and as the full potential of our species, then the feminine must be repossessed, along with the oozing, pulsating reality of our teeming world.
And then, I think something magic can occur. Gentil parfait knights have always served the grail. When there is no powerful feminine, the warriors have no Madonna, no Kwan Yin, no primordial principles to serve. When she is present, maybe the raw, Klingon ‘blindly bomb them to bits’ aggression can flip into Protector Principle mode, draw the sword of justice, defend the weak and bring the proactive, decisive vision that we so urgently and direly need here right now.
This masculine force that creates the content (which of course women have in very good measure themselves) must always refer for its map and inspiration to the container, the ‘vessel’, the context, the relevance, the profound truths of connection and inter-being that frame and constitute the actual space in which we live. This is wisdom — the feminine principle. This ground of earth, society, ocean and microbiome, is the nourishing, life-enabling container of our existence — the womb of the feminine. Serving her, we serve everyone’s survival.
Politician, president, warrior, policeperson, adjudicator as Earth-Protectors; People-Protectors; Guardians of Sacred Space?
Oh yes indeed.
Let’s make it so!
With love,
Susanne Vincent
Planet Waves Weekly Horoscope for May 19, 2016, #1101 | By Len Wallick
Aries (March 20-April 19) — Most of us have a so-called ‘element’. That is to say, an environment in which you are most comfortable and proficient. An actor’s element, for example, might be on the stage. To be out of your element is often referred to as being ‘a fish out of water’. It is possible, however, to discover a separate or alternative element that is just as suitable as the one you now think of as your own (if not more so). Such might very well be the case for you soon. Whether as result of your own personal evolution, or by sheer serendipity, you could come across something or someplace new that feels like home. Be alert for that sensation. If you do feel it, remember to take enough time to make sure that what you are feeling is real before deciding to move in. — by Len Wallick.
Taurus (April 19-May 20) — It’s amazing how most of us can get through a day without being hyper-vigilant about every detail. It’s also probably a very good thing. That way, you can be selective, choosing how and where to focus your attentions and energy based on what your priorities are in the moment. To the extent that you may comfortably do so, however, the next few weeks might be a good time to look more closely at what you have filtered out or passed by. Reliably for you, a good place to start is to quite literally stop and smell the flowers along your way — provided you can do so safely and without doing anything inappropriate (such as trespassing). Then, go on from flowers to other observations less often taken in. This is not about seeking distraction; quite the opposite. It’s about expanding your mind without losing any focus at all. — by Len Wallick.
Gemini (May 20-June 21) — That which is delayed is not necessarily deferred. There is a difference. You are better at discerning that difference than most people are, and it is precisely that native skill which will allow you to navigate through the period of time you are now entering. Trust your judgment about whether simply being patient will pay off, and endeavor to make forbearance look easy. Conversely, if you sense you are being put off by others, consider not letting such actions simply pass. There are ways to keep your issues and negotiations alive and moving towards results that give everybody a chance to win. Find those ways, and others will see how it is in their best interest to compromise with you — without any requirement that you compromise anything that’s important to, or about, you. — by Len Wallick.
Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Do not underrate how versatile you truly are. Inside you, there’s a vast array of personal resources you might appropriately call tools. The tricks you are now being faced with performing may very well come down to simply and (above all) consciously choosing the right tool for any given situation. In other words, you will want to be more careful than ever about reacting without thinking in any circumstance that gives you even a little time to think. You will also want to be very aware of all your habits, even the very best ones. That’s because you are entering a period of at least two weeks when you are likely to encounter exceptional situations in which your best interests would be served by making an exception to what you usually do. Eschew the necessity of defaults now, so as not to find yourself in fault later. — by Len Wallick.
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — You may have had good reason to go it alone in some ways during your life — especially for the last four or five years. Perhaps it was to protect yourself somehow. Maybe it was because you found that you could rely on yourself when others occasionally proved to be unreliable. It’s good to be able to protect yourself. It’s also good to be self-reliant. There is no avoiding the fact, however, that you are a human being. There is also no denying that our species has survived because of, and defined itself by, a capacity for cooperation and forming communities. Therefore, as you move forward from this auspicious point into the rest of your life, be open to joining with the auspices of individuals or groups with whom you could form a more perfect union. — by Len Wallick.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — There is a through-line. If anybody is connected to it (or even a living manifestation of it), it’s you. The through-line is not necessarily a straight line, but it does reliably pass through what seems to be impassable. It connects everything, even that which seems impossibly remote or even irrevocably severed. For most people, this through-line is expressed by the phrase “life goes on.” For you it is more than a phrase. That’s how you have always been so adaptable when others struggle with change. It’s the reason you have always been so quick to learn new things and even better at mastering them. Remember all this now, and you will see that outward appearances do not do justice to the truth: that your situation at this time is nothing less than a threshold to being you at your very best. — by Len Wallick.
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — For every little thing you figure out how to do better — even the seemingly insignificant — the result will improve the quality of your life. Therefore, pursue perfection, but not as an end in itself. After all, perfection is only an ideal. The purpose of ideals is to serve as a guide, not as a master. For that reason you should be careful not to become a slave to the unattainable. Making yourself and everything you do more and more excellent should be a process. You will know you are engaging with that process successfully if you get a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment from even the most mundane tasks. That sense will, in turn, bring you joy. By any measure, enjoying yourself more is an indication that the quality of your life has indeed improved. — by Len Wallick.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Peggy Noonan wrote that, “Part of courage is simple consistency.” True, consistency can have its shadow side just like anything else; stubbornness for its own sake would be one form. Yet consistency has its place and benefits, too. There is reason to think that your practicing at least one or two forms of consistency could very well contribute to the best possible outcomes for you and everybody you are associated with at this time. Foremost among those consistencies to consider undertaking is being kind to all. That, by the way, would necessarily include being kind to yourself. Another way you might want to practice consistency — more optional but, paradoxically, also more optimal — is by presenting the same face to every person you encounter. For only in that way can you consistently be, and feel like, your very own self. — by Len Wallick.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — In spite of what an old Internet hoax may tell you, Mars will never appear to be as large as the Moon from your perspective of the sky here on Earth. For the remainder of this year, however, the things that Mars represents on Earth (among them: desire) could very well appear for you to be as large as some of the things symbolized by the Moon (among them: emotional needs). That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It may be useful for you to know the difference, however. Under some circumstances at least, pursuing a desire could entail a different strategy and require different tactics from seeking to get your needs met. Therefore, to have the best results in both attaining your desires and fulfilling your emotional needs, seek to know the difference — and yourself — better. — by Len Wallick.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Anybody who thinks you need fixing is probably wrong. Anybody who tries to fix you is almost certainly not doing you a good turn. Your very best friends will distinguish themselves by accepting you and being happy with you as you are. Another attribute of good friends, however, is that they want you to be happy in, and with, your life. For that reason (and for the sake of your friends, as well as for yourself) make it your business to figure out, to the extent that you can, all that makes you happy and all that does not. Once so figured, do your level best to live in ways that support, rather than sabotage, your happiness. If you can do simply that, you will have become more than just your own best friend. You will also have given your friends the best gift possible: your good example. — by Len Wallick.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Children who play well, either with others or by themselves, possess a great wisdom: that being human and alive on Earth includes places and times when it is appropriate to have fun. Regardless of what you are now dealing with or living through, indications from the sky above imply that you are being accorded the right time, and enough time and space, in which to have some fun of your own (or you will be soon). But first you must remember what you knew as a child. Play does not have to be anything in particular. It’s about what you feel. If what you are doing when you play feels fun enough to keep you doing it for its own sake; and if you lose track of time, concerns, or even the weight of responsibilities in the process; you will know that you have remembered very well indeed. — by Len Wallick.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — Itemizing how your current abode does (and does not) differ from whatever home or homes were provided for you as a child is an excellent way to begin getting clear about what, if any, changes you want to make in your personal surroundings. The same principle and protocol would almost certainly allow you to take an inventory of the intangibles that constitute your inner life. That way you can get a better idea of both who and what you now are (or are not), as well as what you might (or might not) want to become. Finally, and most importantly, remember that even if there are constraints regarding the extent to which you can change the physical world, the power you have to make changes on the inside are truly unlimited — even if you might need some guidance from the outside in making them. — by Len Wallick.