By The Way...

Remains of an ancient cult to the goddess of love have come to light in the southern Golan Heights site of Susita

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Sacred Sexuality

I have been pondering the idea of sacred sexuality, and I have had some stumbling blocks set in my own mind by the prudish culture I live in. After all, Christian dominated culture, like so many other cultures, sex is a base, dirty, and sometimes even evil thing that so many Christians (saying Christian here because America is a Christian dominated culture, but this would apply to Judaism, Islam, and even Hinduism too) seem to almost fear. It is a strange and dichotomous thing, of course, because in the same cultures where sex is so prudishly handled, it is also a strong underground economic power house. If you think there isn’t a great deal of illicit sexual behavior going on in Islamic countries, for example, then you are fooling yourself.

The ancients also had their hang ups about sexuality itself, but sex itself does not seem to have been one of them, at least not among the Greeks and Romans. To them sex was a natural thing that everyone had, but there were matter of status, social standing, and the perception of “masculinity” that had to be considered when having sex. This could be, to those who were caught up in the wrong classes (the very high end and the slaves), a horror because for slaves, sex could be something that was constantly forced on them while for the very high levels of society, men and women were trapped in rather strict proscriptions of what was or was not proper sexual behavior. In the middle, somewhere, there was a sort of free for all where people could engage prostitutes, have homosexual affairs, and essentially fuck whatever moved without much fear of reprisal, except perhaps from a jealous lover or wife.

The concepts of “Gay” and “Straight” were not really defined forms then. People were not categorized, in general, by their sexualities as people were mostly free to partake of whatever sexuality they wished, the higher classes having the need for extreme caution and discretion. There were no gay communities. People did not identify as homo or hetero, they just did what they felt like doing.

One of the concepts that has come down to us through the filter of study, and no doubt partially tainted by Christian bias on the subject, is the concept of sacred sexuality. The field is not often studied, mostly because of the bias of our culture on the subject, but we do know that sex could often be part of a festival experience. That when our ancient forefathers practiced the honoring or celebration of the Gods it could become what we call an orgy of partying and sexual liberation.

But what is sacred about sexuality and how can we, as moderns, apply it to our lives, our worship, and our ideas about love, life, and the divine?

Allow me to say that there is a clear distinction between sex being itself a ritual and ritual evolving into an orgy-like experience. And to that add the fact that the word we get orgy from, orgia, was not seen in the same way, not defined the same way, as we do today.

When we think of the term “Orgy” in our modern parlance, we think of a sex party. People get together, they eat, drink, they have sex in a group which dynamically shifts and changes while it is alive with the sexual energy of the participants. In ancient times, however, the orgia was a religious activity which was expected not to be a sexual event, but an ecstatic event. When Pentecostals worship and go into their Dionysian talking in tongues, they are worshipping in a form of orgia. When celebrants of tribal religions in Africa, the Carribean, Brasil, and other areas heavily influenced by ancient African religion undergo what is called possession, they are worshipping in the form of an orgia. It is an ecstatic experience in which the human mind is elevated (some might say lowered) to a different state of being. In this state, the man or woman is lost in his worship. One can say that they are possessed in a way, moved by the spirit, the god, or the ghost that is being called.

In a group setting, in cultus, this kind of ecstatic unleashing of the primal aspects of our minds and bodies can easily lead to unbridled sexuality. The unleashing of the mind from the normal societal restraints leads participants into activities, not just sex, that they might not otherwise partake of, and here is where sacred sexuality comes in.

To me, simply setting up an sacred orgia because one wants to get laid is just an orgy, and if you want to do that, do it, it is fun, exciting, and an experience worth having, but don’t lie to yourself and say you are doing it for the god. If sexuality happens within the context of a religious experience, a spontaneous event, then that is truly sacred. That is truly inspired by the gods.

I admit to having often been carried away with myself in sex and once or twice lost myself in a kind of spiritual haze when I am with a man, or men, who touch me on a deeper level than just the physical, and that too is a kind of sacred acknowledgment of the bonds of sex, so sometimes it just happens to us without seeking it out, when we are falling in love as we make love, and that, my friends, is the greatest gift Aphrodite gives us all in the act of worship. The ability, if we are open to it, to get lost in one of the most basic of the activities of life and raise it to the heights of the sacred.

Quick Note

One of the things I really love is the comics medium. The superhero is our modern form of mythology, and in many ways I see it that way, expressing ideas about the world, human nature, and even the divine that are more subconscious than most of us would imagine.

So I started a Comics blog over at blogger: http://metahumanism.blogspot.com/

It’s mostly ramblings about different comic books concepts and my opinions of different series, but maybe you might like it.

Walk Along

Walk along.
On the pathway that leads to places you can't imagine.
In darkness not absolute.
Where sound and sight become one.

Walk along.
On the pathway that twists and turns unto itself.
In darkness and fear.
Where all your fears are made manifest and conquered.

Walk along.
On the pathways of the Earth.
In darkness of the soul.
Where you find yourself and rejoice.

Walk along.
On the pathways of the Lady of the Dead.
In darkness and hope.
Where the Persephone's labyrinth leads.

Walk along.
On the pathways that go full circle.
In darkness destroyed.
Where light is reborn to light the way.

Back to Aphrodite...

One of the things I am having to deal with is this economy. A person like me can sometimes be almost immune to these economic downturns because, to be honest, I have no money anyway, but I have also had to deal with illness, and bills from hospitals that I cannot pay and government programs that are supposed to help people like saying no to me.

I am not going to take up this space to talk about universal health care or anything, but I do want to take this chance to talk about my mental health during these times when everything seems to have collapsed around me. In the online Hellenistic (we need a different adjective to differentiate between us and the Greeks, who are traditionally Hellenes) community, many people have seen me go through some rather whacky behavior. I have suffered from depression and mild bi-polarism since I was in my teens, and it often showed in the way I dealt with people.

Even after finding the Gods, I was a mess, but then I discovered the hindu and buddhist tradition of meditation and prayer as meditation (rather than simply speaking for the Gods to hear) and have learned to create within me a level of peace that is very different from anything I have felt before.

I don’t spend a lot of time in meditation, I don’t practice it the way a Hindu or Buddhist might, but I have learned to use what I have learned of it to force myself to focus and think, often by invoking a God to guide me in the process, and over these last five years I have become a much more peaceful person. I have learned to be outspoken, yet more considerate (still honest though, because I try not to be too much of a fake) and at the same time how to control the rampant emotions that have caused me so much pain in the past.



As I try to focus my attention on Aphrodite during this time when I am on her point on the star, I am reminded that there is one thing I need to meditate on that I have neglected. Self love. No, not masturbation, but actual love of myself. Exploring the things that I find are worth loving about myself and why. I am not sure how to do this yet, but I have to explore it, because I am being pushed to discover myself, and if I can’t discover what it is about that is worth loving, then what exactly is the point of all this?

Blessings!

Shame!

The Gods are walking.
They are walking away.
We are not calling to them anymore.
Shame!

The Gods are staring down.
Staring down in disbelief.
We are killing each other over words.
Shame!

The Gods are listening.
Listening in horror.
We spew our hatred couched in words of concern.
Shame!

The Gods are hating.
Hating what we have become.
Bathing in the mud of a false religion.
Shame!

The Gods feel.
Feel our pain and anguish.
Feel we are lying to them with every breath.
Shame!

The Gods are.
They live and watch.
Perhaps ready to turn their backs on us for good.
Shame!

Plato...

Just a little interlude to share this.

Open publication - Free publishing - More belle waring

The Gods in Myth: Malicious?

Since I brought up the subject of seeking guidance from the Gods, opening oneself up to whatever guidance from them one might glean in the world, I have to ask a question here.

Do you perceive the Gods the way they are often portrayed in myth, as often malicious, short tempered, and violent beings who play with the lives of man for sport?

I do not, you see, and I tend to see Myth as interpretations of the nature of the Gods in a way that the ancient Greeks were capable of doing.

I see the Gods as a fairly neutral force in the lives of human beings. We have free will, so we are capable of choosing, and with choice comes consequence, consequence we must be willing to accept if we are to accept our free will and all the responsibilities that come from it.

But when it comes to myth, we are often faced with a view of the Gods that is a bit unsavory. All religions face this. YHWH, or El, is not really a very pleasant God in the old testament, Egyptian Gods are often odd in their behavior toward mankind, and the Hindu Gods are, like the Greek Gods, very mischievous. But i think most religions realize that the stories of the Gods are interpretations of a divine reality that we do not really have full access to. This means that the nature of the Gods, whether you see them in Judaeo/Christian, Hindu, Egyptian, Aztec, etc. terms, is one that is different from what we see in myth. That they act not out of maliciousness, or even beneficence, but out of necessity, which the Greeks called “ananke”.

This leaves me with a bit of a problem. I, like most, do ask the Gods for guidance, help, the occasional lottery numbers, etc. But believing as I do means that I know they will not directly grant these things. That is not their function. That is not what the Gods do, so I believe that we open ourselves up to guidance by seeing what the Gods do do in our world, and hope that i learn good lessons and how to behave in such a way that I will be led in the right direction.

Finding Guidance

You ever have things happen to you and rather than just have them be things that happen you choose to use them as signs from the Gods?

I don’t do that often, too often it seems like superstition, but after writing the previous post and having a nut tell me I am stalking him when clearly he is projecting something on to me (He even contacted a friend of mine and talked about me as if I were someone else, someone in his own mind, and he does not know my friend anymore than he really knows me) I decided that Aphrodite was telling me to open my eyes and notice all the frickin nut cases that are out there and how I really need to take the idea of meeting people with a grain of salt and with some clear precautions.

The Gods, it is said, use the world around us as a way to tell us things. I prefer to think that they force us to see the world in new ways, not that they manipulate the world for my benefit. Just force me to actually see it rather than see it through my rose colored shades. And I guess Aphrodite has forced me to take a good look at some of the people I have had come into my life in the last few years and be a little afraid.

Changes

I have made a few changes to the blog, which include a change in how the comments work. I am being harassed by someone, not sure why, but he has it in his head that I somehow owe him my friendship and attention, and I am unwilling to give it so he follows me and comments on me, changing his name or using anonymous comment posts. I can detect his writing style, so I almost always know it is him, so I have made it so no more anonymous posts can be made to the comments section.

I don’t get a lot of people commenting here, so I don’t think I am inconveniencing many people at all, but if I do inconvenience you, I apologize. Reading the blog will not change, and anyone can do it.

A Video Interlude