Someone pointed out yesterday that they've noticed I've been sprinkling a lot of ‘tantric sex' references around my website lately, and she's right. Why? Because two months ago I was compelled to start writing/researching/channelling a book covering everything from sex goddesses, sacred sex, tantric sex, spiritual sex, Kama Sutra, Mystery schools, fertility cults, moon worship, living goddesses, Ancient World priestess temples, initiation, mind-altering drugs and hermaphrodites (phew!). In other words, my mind has been off with the (sex) fairies... In fact I'm feeling a strong compulsion to hold a two hour sex seminar in the next few months, but more on that later. Flicking through a brochure for the Fringe Festival, a performance jumped off at the page at me:
TEMPLE OF VENUS
Through the eye of Venus emerges a mystical enchanted world where exotic ancient temple dances draped in jewels and bathed in light unite in a beautiful, sensual, sacred, erotic dance - connecting feminine instinct with masculine principals. A enchanting mix of Ancient Temple Dance, Middle Eastern dance, Indian dance, Serpent dance, Bollywood and modern Gypsy - Oriental fusion with a psychedelic twist. These exquisite performers dance secret stories of magic, mystery and enchantment from this world to the next.Oh my god, I thought, this sounds like the contents of my book - on stage! I rushed off and purchased tickets.
Something very big is happening on the world stage with regard to masculine and feminine energies. The old sun/moon, yin/yang, god/goddess balance is tumbling. I'm not going to turn all Germaine Greer on you, but for those of you who haven't taken Gender Studies, here's some background. In the Ancient World, a much stronger feminine appreciation pervaded cultures and belief systems. Mother Earth (Gaia), nature and the watery (female) moon were worshipped and respected (Druidry, Shintoism, pagans, Eleusian Mysteries, the Whore of Babylon).
Then the world flipped and patriarchy dominated for many centuries - men made the rules, owned the land, started the wars, traded women like chattel and deeply ingrained systems into our culture which remain to this day. (Did you adopt your husband's surname when you married? Are most of the ‘top dogs' in corporations and politics male or female?)
But in the past 100 years, something interesting has happened. In the early 1900s, the Suffragettes appeared, arguing for women's right to vote. A few decades after, Elizabeth II ascended the British throne, where she has sat for almost 58 years. In the post-apocalyptic rebirth of the 1960s, the feminist movement and the Pill appeared, changing the entire face of the Western World. And in June 2004, the planet Venus occulted (overshadowed) the sun - a sort of eclipse - and with that rare event, a flood of new Goddess energies returned to earth, principally feminine power and female sexuality.
In the years since then, some interesting things have unfolded. Practically every second person in the Western World read or seen The Da Vinci Code, which heralds the return of the Sacred Feminine. The USA had its first female presidential candidate (Hillary Clinton), and Australia has its first potential woman for Prime Minister (Julia Gillard). And the environmental movement has positively exploded in the past 40 years as humans realise we are killing our own mother, Earth, and are learning to love and appreciate softer, life-giving energies once more.
Life coach Anna Macolino has even pointed out that the movie Avatar can be viewed entirely through a masculine-feminine lens: Masculine = cold space metal, killing robots, environmental destruction, the GI Joe-like Colonel Miles Quaritch, and Feminine = the Na'vi people, their sacred tree and rich natural world. Jake Scully, the ‘everyman/woman' character who bridges the gap between the two worlds, or between the masculine and the feminine, can be seen as a metaphor for exactly what the human race is doing as I type.