"Luckily for me, I have already died. I am essentially simply a shell of someone I
use to know and recognize. She has not visited me for some time now. She says that she likes it better over there on that other side. That place between ancient desire and mythical
defeats. My Persephone is fine floating in the underbelly of life's currents. She has long ago abandoned the hope of ever being rescued." ---FNA The sacred philosophies
of sensuality, contained in the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu Vedas, teaches that every soul contains both masculine and feminine energy, reflecting the dual nature of the Creator. During the
recent movie backlash of the DaVinci Code, film critics battled religious critics who sought to squash the notion that anything outside of the masculine divinity existed. The notion that Mary
Magdalene was simply painted out to be a prostitute to serve the Pope's intention of lessening female leadership in the church at that time can easily be provable, but the notion that Man and
Woman were created as true equals, true collaborators in the story of life and the equal bearers of their own downfall was unthinkable. Many people can argue back and forth the details of
Jesus's story, the DaVinci code's authenticity and the meaning of whether or not we are indeed 'whole' without our other half, but if it is one thing that is NOT in question, it is whether or
not Man and Woman have grown further apart in their understanding of each other as sacred sensual equals.
In Tantra, there is an emphasis on embracing both your sacred
divine feminine side and your sacred masculine side. In our culture today, there is an increased need to separate the sexes more than ever before. There are entire television networks that
are created for one particular sex, marketing campaigns focused on narrowing in on a particular gender, an online pornography industry that caters to one sex over another (Capitalism has what
has caught men in the balls directly as they squashed out the entire male's ability to sensually arouse oneself in any other means than visually thus filling their own pockets with money and
greed and prescribing Viagra like its candy.) The genders are at war with the other side, each planning attacks at various stages in life, yet completely baffled and confused as to why they
are no longer able to understand, love or be loved in return fully by the opposite sex. They have lost what was rightfully theirs from the very beginning and have severed their opposite half
no differently than two conjoined twins at birth that desperately needed one another in order to survive. They have in essence, lost their twin-soul.
In Symposium, Aristophanes taught lessons of love and told a story about how Zeus struck the soul in two opposite halves, each to wander the earth in search for the other:
And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out
of the other's sight even for a moment. These are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which
each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she
has only a dark and doubtful presentiment. --There is not a man or woman of them who, when they heard the proposal, would not acknowledge that this melting into one another, this becoming one
instead of two, was the very expression of their ancient need.
I am always amazed that I hear completely different sides of stories between Men vs. Women in my daily
practice. Each sex is consciously separating themselves from their partner or their relationships to the opposite sex as if this is completely natural and acceptable. Statements like,
"Well aren't all men like that?" or "I don't want to be all girly-girl" or "All women like ......." The trap is a Westernized way of thinking about sexuality is that
you must separate yourself from the opposite sex in order to better understand your own. Men and women think that if they cross over to the other side of "understanding" each other,
that they have been defeated or dethroned when in all actuality, it is absolutely necessary to give in to "the other side" in order to reach all plateaus of your sexual blueprint
and your true path of fulfillment in sexual ecstasy.
Recently I was talking to a male friend of mine and I asked him what he thought his definition of a good lover was. He
replied with a variety of moves or techniques that he thought were sure to make a woman go wild and forever capture her attention. He then turned to me and asked, "So what is yours?"
I replied, "Someone who can look me in the eyes and say "You own me."
What?! His face twitching and turning in various contortions as if I
was trying to exert my goddess power in a bunch of whipperskirt-like mumbo over on him. I had to later explain to him that in order to reach a certain plateau in Tantra, one must be
comfortable "going to the other side" and that includes visiting the opposite gender's domain and thinking, in order to better understand your own role and soul. It is easy to
perform a bunch of moves, but the true giving of one's entire soul is less evident, and yet how else can TWO become ONE unless both surrender their separate selves and merge into one?
I would argue that many people are not comfortable with the idea of being "owned." Men are often given slack by other men that if a woman gets you to do something,
you are "whipped." If a woman goes out with her girlfriends, she may spend more time apologizing for being away from her beau. There are society differences that can come into play
here as well, thus further severing the true understanding each gender must perfect in order to truly have the capacity of understanding one another. You cannot achieve "twin-soul"
status until you accept that indeed you must be co-joined, in order to be whole.
Tantra is a gift. First to yourself in understanding that you possess a certain energy that
can be very powerful, very intense when beamed correctly in the right direction. I say that finding your Tantric soul mate is like hosting a theater audition. However, I have the impression
that many people today simply ran off with the first person that showed up for the audition and ran their lines. There was no auditioning process to see two souls coming together on the stage
each night to make the show interesting and soulful, night after night. Two people CAN indeed show up and make a scene; however even the best "actors" need to have a little thing
known as chemistry in order to make sparks fly. You feel more compelled to watch lovers who are in essence, owned.
