Friends, Romans, Pagans,
Before I head for Northampton, MA in a few minutes, I’m here to send my Beltane greetings. Today is the day that the Sun crossed over the midpoint of Taurus, which is one measure of this cross-quarter holiday — the backbone of the Pagan calendar. Beltane (in Taurus time) celebrates birth and sexuality; Lammas (in Leo time) celebrates the harvest; Imbolc (in Aquarius time) celebrates survival, gestation and introspection; and Sahwen (in Scorpio time) celebrates the ancestors, death and rebirth. Together the cross quarter days represent points in a natural, Earth-based religion. They work together as part of a four-way balance that honors two aspects of the masculine and two of the feminine.
Somewhere in the dreamtime this morning I had the idea to write a brief post expressing why it is that Planet Waves and many of my other projects over the years focus on sex and various forms of eroticism; that is to say, the mission behind the message. On another world or in another time I might not need to explain that, or even do this work; and because we live in a culture where false sexuality and in particular fraudulent sexual imagery is basically forced on us, it may to some seem like more of the same.
If you’ve come to Planet Waves seeking or expecting to find an astrology website, you might find this focus surprising. Jonathan Cainer once said to me that there is no place for a discussion of sex on a proper astrology website, so I will take that as a mark of distinction. I believe that humanity is in yet another dark night of the soul where our sexuality is concerned, though some would say it’s the same dark night we’ve been in since Constantine’s day.
Collectively, we suffer from ignorance and being unfree. Both of these are cultivated like fields of wheat. A few individuals have risen above this, but most have not and our major cultural institutions have not and there are relatively few places to either find information to dispel ignorance, or to encourage freedom. I am here to do both. I view this calling less about the work of the Bodhisattva and more about something that is simply human — though I am gradually, though my art and writing about sexuality, deducing some of the basic concepts of Buddhism, and of Tantra. (I am not trained in either of these disciplines, or at least not any time recently.)
I don’t have an ‘ideal’ sex life and my emphasis on sexuality in words and images is not an accurate reflection of my actual experience. I mean this as a proportion; that is, I write from experience; I would just like more of it. In the context of a very long struggle, I have created an interesting experience of sex and sexuality. I share unusual intimacies with some amazing women and I’ve taken the freedom to explore men as well. But I’ve often found myself reaching for simple comforts without much success. Lately I am noticing, however, that I’ve created an experience of life that is unique and beautiful despite any difficulties in my past.
In my natal chart I have Mars conjunct Chiron (in Pisces), and I have Venus in the degree of Taurus where Chiron was discovered in 1977; so in effect I have Chiron conjunct both Venus and Mars. With that arrangement, I am deeply sensitive to both the pain and the pleasure of eroticism, and of gender identity. And I experience sexuality on a cosmic level that translates easily to spiritual awareness.
I take the whole experience as a healing journey; and finally I have grown to a space where my most organic response to eroticism of any kind is compassion, in the form known to some as compersion. That is to say that the pleasure of other people, particularly the women in my life, is as important to me as anything that I might get to experience personally. I’ve reached a point whether someone I love gets to experience pleasure and love with me or with someone else are about the same thing.
Partly with the help of therapy, and partly through experiencing the work of other artists and writers, I figured out how trapped by cultural demands I was: from compulsory heterosexuality to compulsory monogamy to compulsory use of sex as a bargaining chip, tether, game or basis of deception. And in acquiring that information, I embarked on the mission of setting myself free, and by that I mean free to love and embrace humanity on my own terms. I want to love the way I love, not the way someone tells me that I have to — in particular someone who is themselves struggling with (for example) what their Catholic upbringing did to them.
From there it was a short step to focusing what I was learning, on the presumption or intuition that there might be something universal about my experience. I learned that the vast sources of the damage and misinformation and inhumane values I was finding were affecting nearly everyone.
So in that true Chirotic style, my personal quest or struggle became a path of healing and invention that could be expressed and shared in a way that might benefit someone besides myself. I am blessed to have ease of putting words to thoughts and feelings, I am difficult to embarrass (in the negative sense of the word) and I’m an elegant enough writer to be able to express myself in a way that doesn’t offend too many people, and actually might reach a few others. So as someone who has the ability to reach people, to reach a segment of the public, I am committed to holding open a space for an honest conversation about our erotic and relational experiences; I wish there was a word that didn’t split up those two concepts, since to me they are the same thing.
We need one another; we need to share and give and receive. We need one another as witnesses to our process. We need to offer pleasure as no big deal for no reason other than kindness. We need people with healing gifts to focus those gifts on healing the many, many sexual wounds that we seem to carry. We need to make the sexual conversation safe to have, by having it. We need to think of sexuality not as a thing that affects minorities (gay people, or swingers, or whoever) but as the one thing among a few that all of humanity has in common — and that belongs to us exclusively.
We can be free, and by free I mean that with the full implication of loving responsibility. Yet to be free we need one another. We need one another’s affirmation, and commitment to protecting those who dare. Today, this Beltane, the sabbat of the Goddess, I would call on you to grant yourself more freedom: the freedom to share, to bestow pleasure and to get your own desires fulfilled. At the same time, take a breath and rise above your jealousy and help the people around you be free. Say yes to what they want, and to what you want. Insist on honesty and be willing to give up whatever you need to give up (generally, anything rooted in deception) in order to have that honesty.
How you feel about sex is how you feel about life. Life is what we came here for, though I know that sometimes we forget. So as long as I get a place to express myself, I’m going to remind both of us.
All in all I think we need to find more reasons not to be afraid than all the ones we give ourselves to be afraid.
In the words of Valentine Michael Smith, drink deeply.
Love and lovingly,
Somewhere in New Hapmshire
sex is not just sex, it’s sooooo many other “things” too. for me it is intrinsically tied to
life & death-for obviuos reasons, hence as life forms there’s the connection to everything else, sex could therefore be synonomous with life urge, impulse to live, enthusiasm, next thought–What is Spirit? sex is only the guise under which many non-
physical concepts are explored. and some individuals may never be able to equate
any sexual urge or impulse to the topic of Spirit [sprite] i feel we are renegotiating our relationship with myriad layers of self/selves now, and as this happens we’re seeing shedding as never before. some prefer a gentle journey and do not struggle-even fully
participate [it is a party if you conjure it in that way], still others will choose to have these layers forcibly ripped away from them, choice is always available as long as you are aware that there is Choice. death is another one of those complex concepts, it seems if it’s addressed head-on [i happen to have Scorpio Moon conjunct Scorpio
Neptune in natal 1st house], many people get all kinds of uncomfortable. interestingly Johnny Cash[Pisces w/ Scorpio Moon] is singing a song on my stereo about death and courage, right now, and i like that direction, which i interpret as, if something stirs you or Forces you to feel something, explore it, really explore that something–be it through
thought, action, complete immersion or whatever. i find that to be the way to find one’s connection to the mysteries… Great discussion!
It is quiet. It is still night before the day. I write to correct my words.
Remain close to the great spirit.
And after meeting with she I called the warrior princess, I realized I had melded two worlds together. That of the real and that of the blog. I delete the word princess from my earlier entry of princess warrior. She is no princess.
There is no difference in the powers I named. They are all the same. There is no division. The great spirit is one.
You were right, musicman, when you talked of the rolling stones concert. It is the split. It’s kinduv like the thing about meeting the budha in the road. You know what they say about Mars retrograde and mine’s swimming with the fishes.
I walk in the balance. And take the new for a spin.
Side note: Understandable in the coming light of full moon, I guess. The scorpion or the eagle.
Now I can fully imagine why Eric keeps thinking about you Mystes, your waking up story got me prepared as no comment, dream or forecast ever to the coming full moon. I immediately LOVED the challenge and I hope I will be busy as never before!
I woke up with the weirdest elbow in my ribs this morning — belonging to Kali-the-TimeQueen, who was practically sitting on me (whoa Bitch ~I thought~ do I *look* like Shiva? get offa me!)
She was saying: You’re still mine.
We’ll see about that, I replied.
You’re *all* still mine, she smiled. Tick-tock.
Hmmm, I said, you may be right, but on the other hand, who do *you* belong to?
Whereupon she climbed off of my chest and began preening, I kid you not, like a cat that has fallen off of the bookshelf.
Stay loose, my honeys… this Full is going to rock the house.
M
Hi Eric,
Enjoy Northampton and those roads. Perhaps a visit to Shelburne Falls? It’s not far from Brattleboro on your way towards Northampton…
In Northampton there’s the Haymarket Cafe where “attitude is on the house” and the coffee strong, the Pleasant Street Movie theater, and about 10 minutes up Route 9, in Florence, you’ll find the Evolution Cafe. It’s run by Star Drooker who used to run the special Fire and Water Cafe in NoHo. I haven’t been to the new place but if it’s anything like the former, it’s worth visiting for interesting visiting, communal conversation, most likely live local music (no cover) and vegetarian fare.
I lived out there from ’97-2000.
Enjoy your travels and experiences:)
S
Me you too, Panicman. . . I rode home today with a Pisces friend who lives with a wrascally 33-year-old Aries lover. He’uz a bit beside hisself, and the little astrodvice I was able to convey was directly from Thou and my listenings herein.
I.e., some advising of patience until Venus pops loose from Aries; the Uranus/Mercury resonance being a bit louder for him than non-Pescaderians (Merc being ultraaudible in Gemini already, thanks), and the Pisces-12th House/Aries-1st House sitch and how that do freaky-freaky things when your relatives will not stay dead and in the closet where they belong. A closet which keeps turning into Ocean, ho!
Very earnest of us, might I add. When all I wanted to say was :: oh Lord, just fuck her silly, then disappear for a few weeks.
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Yo Mystes! I’ve been thinking of you all day. Well, while I was back in my room in NH where I spent the few days up to Beltane, and driving on the secondary roads in New Hampshire and Vermont. Then I got onto 91 south and after days of travel on small roads, I suddenly understood in one moment what Robert Pirsig was talking about in his particular Zen book – about how highways feel. I haven’t been up in this part of the country since I covered a swath of the region by bicycle in circa ’81 to 83. I can drive for miles and miles on these small roads, all day, and it’s just interesting every town, every juncture. I plan to make my first pilgrimage to Northampton tomorrow, but who knows. I’ve wanted to re-explore Vermont for a long time. So, I’m here and – thinking of you.
From my favorite physicist/poet, Nick Herbert… (quantum tantra)
LIFTING THE VEIL
OF A NEW SENSUAL SCIENCE
Why waste so much of our money on weapons?
Why are we counting our kills?
Where is our liquid yohimbe?
Where are our new hard-on pills?
Where are our sentient dildos?
Where are our pussies that talk?
Our college of tantric mathematics?
Our computerized orgasm parks?
Where are the sexual executives
Lining up to please MY private parts?
Where are the sensual professionals?
The kingdom and queendom of hearts?
Could physicists be our priests and rabbis?
And mathematicians be our seraphim?
Can we find hot new ways to praise Her Mystery
As we lift the veils from Nature’s Quim?
If physics is our new religion
Our mosques the science institutes
Then where’s our wild-eyed wanton groupies?
Where’s our sacred prostitutes?
What are our physicists doing
With their Geiger counters and Lead?
What has our science discovered
That I can use in my bed?
Where are the new radiations
That can thrill us like X-Rays can’t do?
And new forms of material entanglement
That could stick us together like glue?
If we can spend billions on bombers
Why can’t we spend millions on drugs
That make us ALL better lovers?
Our arms, were they not made for hugs?
And our cocks for blissful coitus?
And our cunts for mysterious ends?
Our minds for devising new pleasures?
For our spirits unspeakable blends
With goddesses, gods, elementals
With creatures that barely exist
With ravenous extraterrestrials
With virgins that no one has kissed?
We want to wallow like piglets in tantra
Remold our broad swords into plows
Don’t promise us cum in the future
I want my full-body Orgasm NOW.
i grok e, and with much love as eye cannot separate my sex/spirit, so blissings baby, bliss-yin!
My indian is older than the indian here. There is an older indian than the indian pictured here. He does not show himself easily and is often misinterpretted. My indian he salutes all life. So when the child runs, I feel the power and salute. When the warrior princess hikes her breasts and I feel the power, I salute. When the artist feels the power and creates, I salute. My indian he sees it all, it is life. He does not say do not, (he does not use negatives, but he accepts that too) but in that there is power too.
He says Stay Close To The Great Spirit, one of his commandments. That great spirit is not above or beyond or over there, it flows through all.
How to work this process, I don’t know. Take a pick.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1PTdorEFTY
“You have every reason to stand up for your highest ideals, but it would be far better use of the current planetary setup to live those ideals more fully than ever. Put them to work. Take inspiration from yourself. You are in near-perfect alignment with qualities of yourself that are both rare and often very difficult to access when they do exist. You know what is right and what is true. Once this ceases to be a matter of theory and enters the world of tangible reality, you will feel the enormous confidence that you have worked for, and that you deserve. And when Mercury stations retrograde on the 20th, I suspect you will begin to see the benefits of your current actions.”
I find it genuinely counter-productive to do this….but this Beltane post is just ….well ……..the justifications of an ego that quite simply has lost the plot…..!
1. “We all”….. can be deduced from one persons experience….I think not….!!
2. Jonathan Cainer has a point……..to continually push for a connection between sex and spirituality….is what we call “sex magic”….it only works for the less well endowed of the cerebral grey matter….!! The assumption is that we are not “juiced”…well I am…thankyou very much….! And the appeal to be free …by needing one another…. is simply naive……a cheap marketing ploy…….”get your rocks off here….and join the crowd………..!!”
3. My instincts tell me that your ego is out of control……surrounded by that Piscean …”I’m your martyr baby……..” you manage to come across as a voice of the people…….but your ego is justifying the behaviour of someone who is seriously afraid………..it leaps off of the page……while advocating….”cool sex” Who…if you dont mind me asking ….holds you accountable for this diatribe….??
4. Fake is what I keep getting…….and Cainer is right……how about working with your therapist on the sex issues…….carrying on posting great intuitive astrology from that Pisces font….let the Aries initiate do the initiating……and leaving the Chiron pain to your left and right to heal in private…….?
5. The public nature of your distress is not really what Astrologers had in mind! You can edit, censor and generally behave like a fascist all day….but it wont cover up your tracks……!! ” I dont like asking twice”……!!
6. I do not collectively suffer from ignorance…or being unfree………..assumptions that are deeply offensive……………but you are simply dumbing down your writing for the less well endowed…! Kerching….Kerching…!!
7. “And I experience sexuality on a cosmic level that translates easily to spiritual awareness.” Do you now……!! You never stop complaining….but that no doubt is on “our behalf”…. So you martyr yourself once again by championing the collective….!!
8. “I take the whole experience as a healing journey; and finally I have grown to a space where my most organic response to eroticism of any kind is compassion, in the form known to some as compersion. That is to say that the pleasure of other people, particularly the women in my life, is as important to me as anything that I might get to experience personally” ….This is just bollocks….your response to eroticism should be full on sexual communion…both parties “lost in france”….your intellectualisation is just that….poncing about in front of a mirror……!!
9. “We need one another; we need to share and give and receive. We need one another as witnesses to our process.”………… You are using your new found status as a published astrologer….to work out your very personal sexual hang-ups……. and an army of sex-magic wannabees infest your blog at a time when a discussion of global politics and core Aquarian issues would seem to be the priorities.
Watched a great movie last night…..”Endgame”….how the peace in South Africa was finally negotiated…..the ANC also acted as consultants for the IRA….and latterley Hammas…..
A great global website needs global issues….not the prattlings of a fear ridden astrologer who is temporarily void of course. Criticism is better than sycophancy……..so where will you go from here ……..chin up…..
PH
I join Christine in her thanking you (and comment) Eric. Reading about sexuality and eroticism the way you write about it makes me feel very connected, with myself. At least there is one other relating being (to quote Christine) who is trying to expres the spirit of sex I often think. Sex always is about relating, with myself and with the other, and therefore so very important to be understood in that way for everyone. The way I treat myself sexually is the very same way I love myself. (I am still learning, I don’t mind!)
I wonder if the very reason why religion is denying sex lies in its autonomy. There is no way religion can cope with autonomy, since every religion only survives in giving away this autonomy. Just a thought.
I love your sensitivity and I love your courage to make people aware of what sex really means. And I really like looking in your mirror.
Wishing you all a celebration in freedom
h.
…I feel priveliged to be a witness of you expressing yourself as I feel priveliged to be a witness of many people whose existence I feel eroticly, profoundly, and in relation to… its so hard when everyone is afraid, I mean so am I..but your words make me feel like its ok …thank you
Thank you, Eric, for a very beautiful and honest post. Somewhere recently I came across a created-word for that sameness of eros/relationship; if I find it I’ll let you know. It reminds me of the philosphical concept that defines human beings as essentailly openness– Open to the earth, sky, oneself, and others; and hence, as essentially relational. This is not an add-on that comes after the fact of being individuals. Rather, relationship is fundamental. We should call ourselves relational beings rather than human beings. And when we allow this, rather than cover it over, eros flows naturally. Our openness, relationality, eros are all one and the same. I expereinced that openness- and therefore arousal- deeply, when reading your post. So, thank you for that. Wishing you, and all, a joyous Beltane.
C