After taking in the fast-paced anthropology lesson of this engaging
six-part series produced for British television in 1999, it would seem
that for most of civilization, pornography hasn't been such a secret
after all.
The six lively episodes take playful account of that
which is on more people's minds than will easily admit, and which has
been an important, if often vilified part of world culture since humans
could think about such things. This documentary is a stylish and tidy
chronological account of erotic imagery that the episodes categorize
from earliest recorded history to the latest (as of the end of the 20th
century) prospects afforded by the Internet and virtual technology.
An
array of interview subjects from scholars to porn stars talk about
everything from the graphic images discovered amongst the ruins of
Pompeii and the one-of-a-kind erotica traded among high-class Europeans,
to what it's like for individuals to make and distribute their own
adult encounters through the facility of their own bedroom camcorders.
Before
it was demonized and censored when the printing press brought porn to
the masses, it seems erotic drawings were a lot of jolly good fun that
was not at all stigmatized. (One of the most amusing sequences is an
interview with a prestigious, septuagenarian and erotic art historian
who is interviewed about his specialty while reclining nude under the
gaze of a woman sketching his portrait.)
Once the church became
involved, deeming the depictions of man, woman, and beast doing what
came naturally as obscene--a relatively modern classification - it moved
into the shadows of sociological study. The episodes on photography,
including still and moving pictures and the impact modern
technology had in creating a porn industry are interesting, but not
entirely enlightening for most people who have even a passing knowledge
of the development of erotica from French postcards to adult home video.
Documentary analyzes the
hypersexualization of our environment and its noxious effects on young
people. Psychologists, teachers and school nurses criticize the
unhealthy culture surrounding our children, where marketing and
advertising are targeting younger and younger audiences and bombarding
them with sexual and sexist images. Sexy
Inc. suggests various ways of countering hypersexualization and the
eroticization of childhood and invites us to rally against this worrying
phenomenon.
John Cameron Mitchell, who created a cult
sensation as writer and director of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, blazes a
brave new trail with this comedy-drama which combines the stories of a
handful of emotionally unsatisfied New Yorkers with some of the most
explicit sexual material to ever appear in a mainstream motion picture.
Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee) is a couples' therapist who has a major
relationship problem of her own -- she's never had an orgasm, and her
husband Rob (Raphael Barker) doesn't seem capable
of giving her one. Sophia's clients include James and Jamie (Paul
Dawson and PJ DeBoy), a gay couple who have been together for five years
and are beginning to grow tired of one another. As James and Jamie
discuss the possibility of bringing another man into the bedroom, Sophia
accidentally mentions her problem, and they tell her of an upcoming
"Shortbus Party," a sexual free-for-all in which straight, gay, and
lesbian couples are all welcome to either talk about sex or take a more
active role in the main ballroom. As James and Jamie hook up with Ceth
(Jay Brannan) for some mutually satisfying action at the bash, Sophia
experiments with Sapphic diversions, and begins to truly find herself
when she encounters Severin (Lindsay Beamish), a professional
dominatrix. However, while Sophia begins to find what she needs with
Severin, she discovers that while Severin is able to casually enter into
a sexual relationship, she's never been able to emotionally commit
herself to someone else. Shortbus was screened in competition at the
2006 Toronto Film Festival.
Most male orgasms include both orgasm (a
feeling of sexual release and pleasure) and ejaculation (the forceful
discharge of semen from the penis). This is not always true however.
A dry orgasm is one that does not include ejaculation. Yes, this is possible!
With a DO you experience the feelings of orgasm, but do not ejaculate
and thus do not lose your erection, allowing you to last longer at sex.
To understand how DOs and MMO work, you first need to be familiar with these terms:
DO (dry orgasm): is when a male is able to experience the feelings
of orgasm, but does not ejaculate and thus not losing his erection,
allowing to last longer in bed.
MMO (male multiple orgasm): is the ability to achieve more than one orgasm from a single erection.
Reverse kegel: a forceful relaxation of the PC/BC muscles accomplished by contracting other abdominal muscles.
Point of No Return (PONR): The point in sexual stimulation where ejaculation becomes inevitable.
Edging edging is masturbating and stopping right before you
ejaculate. Once your urge to ejaculate has subsided, you repeat the
process as many times as you’d like.
EQ: Erection quality; generally judged by oneself based on a 1-10
scale, with 1 being the poorest erection quality and 10 being a
completely hard penis and raging erection.
Partial Ejaculation: An ejaculation that is partly suppressed by a
hard kegel contraction with the result that only a portion of the normal
amount of ejaculate (semen) is actually expelled.
Retrograde Ejaculation: An ejaculation event in which the ejaculate ends up in the bladder
BEGINNING DRY ORGASMS
Now you are ready to try to separate
orgasm and ejaculation. Try this: while edging, focus on what you feel
as you approach the point of no return, or the PONR. As you get closer,
stop stroking and immediately kegel very hard and hold it.
As you feel yourself moving away from the
PONR, relax the kegel exercises and resume stroking. Repeat the
process, each time getting a bit closer to the PONR. Keep doing this.
Eventually, one of the following will occur
a) You will get reach the PONR and orgasm and ejaculate. This is not a problem. Enjoy the experience and try again later.
b) You will balance on the edge of the
PONR, you may or may not orgasm, and you will likely experience a
Partial Ejaculation (some semen will come out, but not your usual
amount). You will then feel your erection begin to subside. Try to bring
your erection back and see if you can make yourself cum. If you cannot,
don’t worry, you will be able to do this later.
c) You will ejaculate into your bladder.
This is known as Retrograde Ejaculation. It is not harmful but because
you actually ejaculated, you will probably lose your erection
immediately as with a normal ejaculation.
d) You will experience an orgasm without
ejaculating. This is the fabled Dry Orgasm or DO! You may or may not
experience ejaculation contractions. The first few times you DO, the
orgasm experience may be much less intense than that of a regular wet
orgasm (with ejaculation). With practice your dry orgasm ability will
increase in intensity until they are like those you experience with wet
orgasms.
The timing can be a bit tricky so don’t
get discouraged if it takes you make many attempts before you achieve a
DO. Also keep in mind that significant PC/BC muscle strength is
required.
Focus on what you feel as you approach
PONR, and practice using kegel and reverse kegel exercises to get closer
to the PONR and back off from it. Knowing where you are in the process
is key. The more you learn about your body and the more you practice,
the easier this will become.
At first your dry orgasm ability will
likely be inconsistent and may also routinely be followed by a loss of
EQ. You will not entirely lose your erection, but you will lose some
penis size hardness at first as you get used to the process.
Keep in mind that a DO will be a very new experience for your body and that years of training have taught your body that sex ends with orgasm and that orgasm means ejaculation.
You need to retrain your body to
recognize orgasm and ejaculation as distinct events and to treat them as
such. With practice, you will be able to achieve DO more regularly and
also maintain your erection after and through the dry orgasm.
Once you can achieve a DO, practice resuming stimulation sooner and sooner afterward.
This may be a bit uncomfortable at first. Motivation may also be a
problem, as the afterglow from your orgasm may make maintaining an
erection seem like a low priority.
However, if you want to become capable of
MMOs, you will want to work to regain a complete erection as soon as
possible, or to not lose EQ at all. Don’t worry if you cannot dry orgasm
a second time or maintain your second erection for long. Those will
come with practice.
TRANSITION TO MULTIPLE MALE ORGASMS
Moving from DOs to becoming MMO requires
both practice and motivation. Most men find that it is much easier to
achieve these solo – without a partner – because it is easier to control
stimulation levels. It can be much harder to stop ejaculation when
engaged in active sex with a partner.
Once you can DO solo and maintain an
erection, try reaching a second orgasm. Attempt another DO if you wish,
or just have a regular wet orgasm. Once you can do this, you are
experiencing a full on MMO (multiple male orgasm) session!
As your control and skills improve, you
may find that you are able to string several DOs together and have as
many Multiple Male Orgasms as you wish, all without losing your
erection. This is hard to achieve but is possible with extended
practice…. and it can be a great deal of fun!
According to the Journal of Clinical
Endocrinology and Metabolism, testosterone is declining in American men
at the alarming rate of one percent a year. But why? That’s what Casey
Neistat and Oscar Boyson sought to uncover in their film An Emasculating Truth.
Ultimately, the short
film goes beyond this question to further the current dialogue about
today’s definition of masculinity in light of changing gender roles.
Boyson, the film’s producer and on camera emcee, came to some very
personal conclusions about what it means to be a man today, turning the
camera on himself and asking the question ‘what does it mean to be a
man?’
“Masculinity isn’t
something people think about often,” said Boyson. “Our goal was to find a
cross-section of people and ask them, what does being a man mean to
you? This is an issue where there isn’t much middle ground and we wanted
to find out why.”
The facts speak for
themselves. Men suffered more than their fair share of lay-offs in the
past year (80 percent to be exact), so much so that women now outnumber
men in the work force for the first time in history. Women also
outnumber men in higher education at the undergraduate and graduate
levels, with nearly 60 percent of grad school enrollees being women.
Boys – our future men –
are failing out of high school at alarming rates, 4.9 percent versus 3.8
percent of girls, and are being diagnosed with ADHD at rates three
times higher than that of their female counterparts. In short, manhood
is in peril … or at least going through a pretty significant
transformation on its way to the new future state.
Marilyn Monroe is often held up as the
antidote to the idea that only thin can be beautiful. “Marilyn was a
size 10/12/14,” goes a common refrain (though sizing basically means
nothing these days, so what does that even prove?). There have been a
couple Marilyn Monroe memes floating around Facebook in the past couple
months, and both are troubling. The focus is on Marilyn’s curves, and
how her swimsuit clad body is different from what movie stars look like
today (oh, the tyranny of the “Best Beach Bodies!” issue). What’s
supposed to be an empowering message to women – you don’t have to be a
Victoria’s Secret model to be beautiful – is completely undermined by
two much older memes: divide and conquer and the male gaze.
In the first photo, Marilyn is compared
to another woman in a bikini, who is much thinner. The text reads: “This
[pointing to Monroe] is more attractive than this [pointing to the
other woman].” While I can totally get behind the title “fuck society,”
and add “and its stupid expectations” for good measure, there’s nothing
anti-establishment about what’s being done here. This
is a common tactic, in which women are pitted against each other, so
that we lose sight of the real problem: namely, society. If women are
fighting amongst ourselves about who is more “beautiful,” if we compare
ourselves to other women endlessly, we don’t have time to notice that
we’re trapped in a hamster-wheel of low self-esteem. Society hopes that
you’ll buy things, to try and make yourself feel better. In the
meantime, it’s hoped that we as women won’t critically examine what
beauty is, what’s being sold to us, and most importantly, who profits
from all this. Fuck Society, sure, because society tells you that if
you’re not extremely thin, you’re worthless. However, extremely thin
women? They’re still people. Further, bodies are just bodies. They have
no intrinsic worth, no moral value, other than what we assign them. The
thought behind this comparison photo is to turn the dominant paradigm on
its head, but what it really does is reinforce that for one woman to be
good, another must be bad. And that kind of thinking isn’t going to get
us anywhere.
The second is the same photo of Marilyn,
this time alone in the Motivational Poster style. The text reads:
“PROOF: That you can be adored by thousands of men, even when your
thighs touch.” From the start this would seem like a better message. No
comparison photo, no pitting women against each other. For some reason,
though, this photo troubles and angers me more than the first one does.
Because here’s the thing: you are worth more than what men think of you.
Marilyn Monroe was, to put it mildly, very sad, very often. She was a
sex symbol, and thus, stopped existing as human being, a regular girl.
Almost everything that fucked up Marilyn’s later life had to do with
being “adored” by men. Men used her, or deified her (and that’s a hard
come-down for those dudes when they found a human being in their bed the
morning after). Political brothers purportedly passed her around like a
toy. Conventional wisdom, political conspiracy aside, has it that
Monroe killed herself. Being “adored by thousands of men” didn’t stop
her demons from consuming her. It angers me to no end that, again, in
the name of self-esteem we’re going to make a poster girl (literally)
out of a woman who was notoriously down on herself.
I want very much for us to stop thinking
that there is only one body type that is acceptable. I would prefer the
focus be on health, rather than appearance. The Monroe Meme seems about
the furthest thing from healthy. This is a woman who abused alcohol and
sleeping pills later in her life, this is a woman who (probably) died
due to depression. But, hey, as long as someone thinks she looks good, I
guess that’s what matters.
by Blogger Heather Cromarty, Jan 25, 2012, at 12:45 pm
From the earliest human cultures, the mysterious magic of creation
was thought to reside in the blood women gave forth in apparent
harmony with the moon, and which was sometimes retained in the
womb to "coagulate" into a baby. Men regarded this blood with holy
dread, as the life-essence, inexplicably shed without pain, wholly
foreign to male experience.
Most words for menstruation also meant such things as incomprehensible,
supernatural, sacred, spirit, deity. Like the Latin sacer, old
Arabian words for "pure" and "impure" both applied to menstrual
blood and to that only. The Maoris stated explicitly that human souls
are made of menstrual blood, which when retained in the womb
"assumes human form and grows into a man." 1 Africans said
menstrual blood is "congealed to fashion a man." 2 Aristotle said the
same: human life is made of a "coagulum" of menstrual blood. Pliny
called menstrual blood "the material substance of generation," capable
of forming "a curd, which afterwards in process of time quickeneth
and groweth to the form of a body." This primitive notion of the
prenatal function of menstrual blood was still taught in European
medical schools up to the 18th century.3
Basic ideas about menstrual blood came from the Hindu theory
that as the Great Mother creates, her substance becomes thickened
and forms a curd or clot; solid matter is produced as a "crust." 4 This was
the way she gave birth to the cosmos, and women employ the same
method on a smaller scale. According to Daustenius, "The fruit in the
womb is nourished only by the mother's blood .... [T]he menstruum
does not fail the fruit for nourishment, till it at the proper time comes to
the light of day." 5
Indians of South America said all mankind was made of "moon
blood" in the beginning.6 The same idea prevailed in ancient
Mesopotamia, where the Great Goddess Ninhursag made mankind out
of clay and infused it with her "blood of life." Under her alternate
names ofMammetun or Aruru the Great, the Potter, she taught
women to form clay dolls and smear them with menstrual blood as a
conception-charm, a piece of magic that underlay the name of Adam,
from the feminine adamah, meaning "bloody clay," though scholars
more delicately translate it "red earth." 7
The Bible's story of Adam was lifted from an older female-oriented
creation myth recounting the creation of man from clay and moonblood.
So was the Koran's creation story, which said Allah "made man
out of flowing blood"; but in pre-Islamic Arabia, Allah was the
Goddess of creation, Al-Lat.8 The Romans also had traces of the
original creation myth. Plutarch said man was made of earth, but the
power that made a human body grow was the moon, source of
menstrual blood.9
The lives of the very gods were dependent on the miraculous
power of menstrual blood. In Greece it was euphemistically called
the "supernatural red wine" given to the gods by Mother Hera in her
virgin form, as Hebe.10 The root myths of Hinduism reveal the
nature of this "wine." At one time all gods recognized the supremacy of
the Great Mother, manifesting herself as the spirit of creation (KaliMaya).
She "invited them to bathe in the bloody flow of her womb and
to drink of it; and the gods, in holy communion, drank of the fountain
oflife-(hic est sanguis meus!)-and bathed in it, and rose blessed to
the heavens." 11 To this day, cloths allegedly stained with the Goddess's
menstrual blood are greatly prized as healing charms. 12
WR. Smith reported that the value of the gum acacia as an amulet "is
connected with the idea that it is a clot of menstrous blood, i.e., that
the tree is a woman." For religious ceremonies, Australian aborigines
painted their sacred stones, churingas, and themselves with red ochre,
declaring that it was really women's menstrual blood.B
The esoteric secret of the gods was that their mystical powers of
longevity, authority, and creativity came from the same female
essence. The Norse god Thor for example reached the magic land of
enlightenment and eternal life by bathing in a river filled with the
menstrual blood of "giantesses" -that is, of the Primal Matriarchs,
"Powerful Ones" who governed the elder gods before Odin brought
his "Asians" (Aesir) out of the east. 14 Odin acquired supremacy by
stealing and drinking the "wise blood" from the triple cauldron in the
womb of Mother-Earth, the same Triple Goddess known as Kali-Maya
in southeast Asia.
Odin's theft of menstrual magic paralleled that oflndra, who stole
the ambrosia of immortality in the same way. Indian myth called the
sacred fluid Soma-in Greek, "the body," because the word's eastern
root referred to a mystical substance of the body. Soma was the object
of so much holy dread that its interpretations were many.
Soma was produced by the churning of the primal sea (Kali' s
"ocean of blood" or sometimes "sea of milk"). Or Soma was secreted
by the Moon-Cow. Or Soma was carried in the "white pot" (belly) of
Mohini the Enchantress. Or the source of Soma was the moon. Or
from Soma all the gods were born. Or Soma was a secret name of the
Mother Goddess and the active part of the "soul of the world." 15
Soma was drunk by priests at sacrificial ceremonies and mixed with
milk as a healing charm; therefore it was not milk. Soma was
especially revered on somvara, Monday, the day of the moon. In an
ancient ceremony called Soma-vati, women of Maharashtra circumambulated
the sacred female-symbolic fig tree whenever the new moon
fell on a Monday.l6
Some myths claimed the Goddess under her name of Lakshmi,
"Fortune" or "Sovereignty," gave Soma to lndra to make him king
of the gods. His wisdom, power, and curiously feminine capacity for
pregnancy, came from Lakshmi's mystic drink, "of which none tastes
who dwells on earth." 17 On drinking it straight from the Goddess, lndra
became like her, the Mount of Paradise with its four rivers, "manyhued"
like the Goddess's rainbow veils, rich in cattle and fruiting
vegetation.18 The Goddess's blood became his wisdom. Similarly,
Greeks believed the wisdom of man or god was centered in his blood,
the soul-stuff given by his mother. 19
Egyptian pharaohs became divine by ingesting "the blood of Isis,"
a soma-like ambrosia called sa.20 Its hieroglyphic sign was the same as
the sign of the vulva, a yonic loop like the one on the ankh or Cross of
Life.21 Painted red, this loop signified the female genital and the Gate
of Heaven. 22 Amulets buried with the dead specifically prayed Isis to
deify the deceased with her magic blood. 23 A special amulet called
the Tjet represented Isis's vulva and was formed of red substance -
jasper, carnelian, red porcelain, red glass, or red wood. This amulet
was said to carry the redeeming power of the blood of Isis. 24
The same elixir of immortality received the name of am rita in
Persia. Sometimes it was called the milk of a mother Goddess,
sometimes a fermented drink, sometimes sacred blood. Always it was
associated with the moon. "Dew and rain becoming vegetable sap,
sap becoming the milk of the cow, and the milk then becoming
converted into blood:-Amrita, water, sap, milk, and blood represent
but differing states of the one elixir. The vessel or cup of this immortal
fluid is the moon." 25
Celtic kings became gods by drinking the "red mead" dispensed by
the Fairy Queen, Mab, whose name was formerly Medhbh or
"mead." 26 Thus she gave a drink of herself, like Lakshmi. A Celtic
name of this fluid was dergflaith, meaning either "red ale" or "red
sovereignty." In Celtic Britain, to be stained with red meant to be
chosen by the Goddess as a king.27 Celtic ruadh meant both "red"
and "royal." 28
The same blood color implied apotheosis after death. The pagan
paradise or Fairyland was at the uterine center of the earth, site of the
magic Fountain of Life. An old manuscript in the British Museum said
the dying-and-resurrected Phoenix lives there forever. The central
Holy Mountain or mons veneris contains both male and female symbols:
the Tree of Life and the Fountain of Eternal Youth, the latter
obviously menstrual, as it was said to overflow once every lunar
month.29
Medieval churchmen insisted that the communion wine drunk by
witches was menstrual blood, and they may have been right. The
famous wizard Thomas Rhymer joined a witch cult under the tutelage
of the Fairy Queen, who told him she had "a bottle of claret wine ...
here in my lap," and invited him to lay his head in her lap.3° Claret
was the traditional drink of kings and also a synonym for blood; its name
meant literally "enlightenment." There was a saying, "The man in
the moon drinks claret," connected with the idea that the wine represented
lunar blood.3I
Medieval romance and the courtly-love movement, later related to
witch cults, were strongly influenced by the Tantric tradition, in
which menstrual blood was indeed the wine of poets and sages. It is still
specified in the Left Hand Rite ofTantra that the priestess impersonating
the Goddess must be menstruating, and after contact with her a
man may perform rites that will make him "a great poet, a Lord of
the World" who travels on elephant-back like a rajah. 32
In ancient societies both east and west, menstrual blood carried the
spirit of sovereign authority because it was the medium of transmission
of the life of clan or tribe. Among the Ashanti, girl children are still
more prized than boys because a girl is the carrier of "blood"
(mogya). 33 The concept is also clearly defined in India, where menstrual
blood is known as the Kula flower or Kula nectar, which has an
intimate connection with the life of the family. When a girl first
menstruates, she is said to have "borne the Flower." 34 The corresponding
English word flower has the significant literal meaning of
"that which flows."
The British Goddess of flowers was Blodeuwedd, a form of the
Triple Goddess associated with sacrifices of ancient kings. Welsh
legend said her whole body was made of flowers-as any body was,
according to the ancient theory of body formation from the blood
"flower." Her name suggests the Blood Wedding, and myth made her
the spouse of several murdered heroes, recalling the old idea that the
Goddess's divine blood had to be periodically refreshed by human
sacrifice. 35
The Bible also calls menstrual blood the flower (Leviticus
15:24), precursor of the "fruit" of the womb (a child). As any flower
mysteriously contained its future fruit, so uterine blood was the
moon-flower supposed to contain the soul of future generations. This
was a central idea in the matrilineal concept of the clan. 36
The Chinese religion of Tao, "the Way," taught Tantric doctrines
later supplanted by patriarchal-ascetic Confucianism. Taoists said a
man could become immortal (or at least long-lived) by absorbing
menstrual blood, called red yin juice, from a woman's Mysterious
Gateway, otherwise known as the Grotto of the White Tiger, symbol of
life-giving female energy. Chinese sages called this red juice the
essence of Mother Earth, the yin principle that gives life to all things.
They claimed the Yellow Emperor became a god by absorbing the
yin juice of twelve hundred women.40
A Chinese myth said the Moon-goddess Chang-O, who controlled
menstruation, was offended by male jealousy of her powers. She left
her husband, who quarreled with her because she had all the elixir of
immortality, and he had none, and was resentful. She turned her back
on him and went to live in the moon forever, in much the same way
that Lilith left Adam to live by herself at the "Red Sea." Chang-O
forbade men to attend Chinese moon festivals, which were afterward
celebrated by women only, at the full moon of the autumnal
equinox.41
Taoist China considered red a sacred color associated with women,
blood, sexual potency, and creative power. White was the color of
men, semen, negative influences, passivity, and death.42 This was the
basic Tantric idea of male and female essences: the male principle
was seen as "passive" and "quiescent"; the female principle as "active"
and "creative," the reverse oflater patriarchal views.43
Female blood color alone was often considered a potent magic
charm. The Maori rendered anything sacred by coloring it red,
and calling the red color menstrual blood. 44 Andaman Islanders thought
blood-red paint a powerful medicine, and painted sick people red all
over in an effort to cure them.45 Hottentots addressed their Mother
Goddess as one "who has painted thy body red"; she was divine
because she never dropped or wasted menstrual blood.46 Some African
tribes believed that menstrual blood alone, kept in a covered pot for
nine months, had the power to turn itself into a baby.47
Easter eggs, classic womb-symbols of the Goddess Eostre, were
traditionally colored red and laid on graves to strengthen the dead.
This habit, common in Greece and southern Russia, might be traced all
the way back to Paleolithic graves and funeral furnishings reddened
with ochre, for a closer resemblance to the Earth Mother's womb from
which the dead could be "born again." Ancient tombs everywhere
have shown the bones of the dead covered with red ochre. Sometimes
everything in the tomb, including the walls, had the red color.
J.D. Evans described a well tomb on Malta filled with reddened bones,
which struck fear into the workmen who insisted the bones were
covered with "fresh blood."48
A born-again ceremony from Australia showed that the Aborigines
linked rebirth with the blood of the womb. The chant performed at
Ankota, the "vulva of the earth," emphasized the redness surrounding
the worshipper: "A straight track is gaping open before me. An
underground hollow is gaping before me. A cavernous pathway is
gaping before me. An underground pathway is gaping before me.
Red I am like the heart of a flame of fire. Red, too, is the hollow in
which I am resting."49 Images like these help explain why some of
the oldest images of the Goddess, like Kurukulla in the east and her
counterpart Cybele in the west, were associated with both caverns
and redness. 5°
Greek mystics were "born again" out of the river Styx, otherwise
known as Alpha, "the Beginning." This river wound seven times
through the earth's interior and emerged at a yonic shrine near the city
of Clitor (Greek kleitoris) sacred to the Great Mother. 51 Styx was the
blood-stream from the earth's vagina; its waters were credited with the
same dread powers as menstrual blood. Olympian gods swore their
absolutely binding oaths by the waters of Styx, as men on earth swore by
the blood of their mothers. Symbolic death and rebirth were linked
with baptism in the waters of Styx, as in many other sacred rivers the
world over. Jesus himself was baptized in Palestine's version of the
Styx, the river Jordan. When a man bathed seven times in this river,
"his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child" (2 Kings
5: 14). In Greek tradition the journey to the land of death meant
crossing the Styx; in Judeo-Christian tradition it was crossing the
Jordan. This was the same "river of blood" crossed by Thomas Rhymer
on his way to Fairyland.
Tantric worship of menstrual blood penetrated the Greco-Roman
world before the Christian era and was well established in the Gnostic
period. This worship provided the agape-"love-feast" or "spiritual
marriage" -practiced by Gnostic Christians like the Ophites. Another
name for the agape was synesaktism, "the Way of Shaktism,"
meaning Tantric yoni-worship. 52 Synesaktism was declared a heresy
before the 7th century A.o. 53 Subsequently the "love-feast" disappeared,
and women were forbidden direct participation in Christian worship,
according to St Paul's rule (l Timothy 2:11-12).
Epiphanius described the agape practiced by Ophite Christians,
while making it clear that these heretical sexual activities filled him
with horror:
Their women they share in common; and when anyone arrives who
might be alien to their doctrine, the men and women have a sign by
which they make themselves known to each other. When they extend
their hands, apparently in greeting, they tickle the other's palm in a
certain way and so discover whether the new arrival belongs to their cult .
. . . Husbands separate from their wives, and a man will say to his own
spouse, "Arise and celebrate the love feast (agape) with thy brother."
And the wretches mingle with each other . .. after they have consorted
together in a passionate debauch. ... The woman and the man take
the man's ejaculation into their hands, stand up . .. offering to the Father,
the Primal Being of All Nature, what is on their hands, with the words,
"We bring to Thee this oblation, which is the very Body of Christ."
... They consume it, take house] of their shame and say: ''This is the
Body of Christ, the Paschal Sacrifice through which our bodies suffer
and are forced to confess to the sufferings of Christ." And when the
woman is in her period, they do likewise with her menstruation. The
unclean flow of blood, which they gamer, they take up in the same way
and eat together. And that, they say, is Christ's Blood. For when they
read in Revelation, "/saw the tree oflife with its twelve kinds of fruit,
yielding its fruit each month" (Rev. 22:2), they interpret this as an
allusion to the monthly incidence of the female period. 54
The meaning of this Ophite sacrament to its practitioners is
easily recovered from Tantric parallels. Eating the living substances of
reproduction was considered more "spiritual" than eating the dead
body of the god, even in the transmuted form of bread and wine,
though the color symbolism was the same:
When the semen, made molten by the fire of great passion, falls into the
lotus of the "mother" and mixes with her red element, he achieves
"the conventional mandala of the thought of enlightenment." The
resultant mixture is tasted by the united "father-mother" [Yab- Yum},
and when it reaches the throat they can generate concretely a special bliss
. .. the bodhicitta-the drop resulting from union of semen and
menstrual blood-is transferred to the yogi . . .. This empowers his
corresponding mystic veins and centers to accomplish the Buddha's
function of speech. The term "secret initiation" comes from the tasting of
the secret substance. 55
In the occult language of the Tantras, two ingredients of the
Great Rite were sukra, semen, and rakta, menstrual blood. The officiating
priestess had to be menstruous so her lunar energies were at flood
tide. 56 She embodied the power of rakta, sometimes rendered rukh or
ruq, cognate with the Hebrew ruach, "spirit," anJ the Arabic ruh,
which meant both "spirit" and "red color." Throughout all Tantric and
related faiths, the merging of female red and male white was "a
profoundly important symbolic conjunction."57
The Sufis, who practiced their own brand ofTantrism, said ruh
was female and red. Its male counterpart sirr, "consciousness," was
white. Red and white colors alternated in the Sufi halka or magic circle,
corresponding to the Tantric chakra and called "the basic unit and
very heart of active Sufism." The Arab rosary of alternating red and
white beads had the same meaning: men and women coupled around
the circle, as in most European folk dances. 58
Red and white were the colors worn by alternating female-andmale
dancers in the witches' "fairy ring" of pagan Ireland, where the
Goddess was worshipped under the same name as the Tantric earth
mother, Tara. 59 With men and women alternating as in a Tantric
chakra, the dance moved counterclockwise or moonwise, as nearly all
circle dances still do. Red and white colors "represented the fairy
world." 60
The rites were often governed by old women, due to the ancient
belief that post-menopausal women were the wisest of mortals because
they permanently retained their "wise blood." In the 17th century
A.D., Christian writers still insisted that old women were filled with
magic power because their menstrual blood remained in their veins.61
This was the real reason why old women were constantly persecuted
for witchcraft. The same "magic blood" that made them leaders in the
ancient clan system made them objects of fear under the new
patriarchal faith.
Because menstrual blood occupied a central position in matriarchal
theologies, and was already sacer--holy-dreadfulpatriarchal-
ascetic thinkers showed almost hysterical fear of it. The
Laws of Manu said if a man even approached a menstruating woman he
would lose his wisdom, energy, sight, strength, and vitality. The
Talmud said if a menstruating woman walked between two men, one of
the men would surely die. 62 Brahmans ruled that a man who lay with
a menstruating woman must suffer a punishment one-quarter as severe
as the punishment for Brahmanicide, which was the worst crime a
Brahman could imagine. Vedic myths were designed to support the law,
such as the myth that Vishnu dared copulate with the Goddess Earth
while she was menstruating, which caused her to give birth to monsters
who nearly destroyed the world.6
This was patriarchal propaganda against the Tantric Maharutti
("Great Rite"), in which menstrual blood was the essential ingredient.
In Kali' s cave-temple, her image spouted the blood of sacrifices
from its vaginal orifice to bathe Shiva' s holy phallus while the two
deities formed the lingam-yoni, and worshippers followed suit, in an
orgy designed to support the cosmic life-force generated by union of
male and female, white and red.64 In this Great Rite, Shiva became the
Anointed One, as were his many Middle-Eastern counterparts. The
Greek translation of Anointed One was Christos.
Persian patriarchs followed the Brahman lead in maintaining that
menstruous women must be avoided like poison. They belonged to
the devil; they were forbidden to look at the sun, to sit in water, to speak
to a man, or to behold an altar fire.65 The glance of a menstruous
woman was feared like the glance of the Gorgon. Zoroastrians held that
any man who lay with a menstruating woman would beget a demon,
and would be punished in hell by having filth poured into his mouth.66
Persian religion incorporated the common primitive belief that the
first onset of menses must be caused by copulation with a supernatural
snake. People not yet aware of fatherhood have supposed the same
snake renders each woman fertile and helps her conceive children.67
Some such belief prevailed in Minoan Crete, where women and snakes
were sacred, but men were not. Tube-shaped Cretan vessels for
pouring oblations represented a vagina, with a serpent crawling inside.68
Ancient languages gave the serpent the same name as Eve, a name
meaning "Life"; and the most ancient myths made the primal couple
not a Goddess and a God, but a Goddess and a Serpent.69 The
Goddess's womb was a garden of paradise in which the serpent lived.
Phrygian Ophiogeneis, "Snake-born People," said their first male
ancestor was the Great Serpent who dwelt in the garden of paradise.
70 Paradise was a name of the Goddess-as-Virgin, identified with
Mother Hera (Earth), whose virgin form was Hebe, a Greek spelling
of Eve. Virgin Hera parthenogenetically conceived the oracular serpent
Python, of the "Womb-temple," Delphi. 71 Snakes living in the
womb of Mother Earth were supposed to possess all wisdom, being in
contact with the "wise blood" of the world.
One of the secrets shared by the primordial woman and her
serpent was the secret of menstruation. Persians claimed menstruation
was brought into the world by the first mother, whom they called
Jahi the Whore, a Lilith-like defier of the Heavenly Father. She
began to menstruate for the first time after coupling with Ahriman, the
Great Serpent. Afterward she seduced "the first righteous man," who
had previously lived alone in the garden of paradise with only the divine
sacrificial bull for company. He knew nothing of sex until Jahi taught
him_?Z
The Jews borrowed many details from these Persian myths.
Rabbinical tradition said Eve began to menstruate only after she had
copulated with the serpent in Eden, and Adam was ignorant of sex until
Eve taught him.73 It was widely believed that Eve's firstborn son Cain
was not begotten by Adam but by the serpent.74 Beliefs connecting
serpents with pregnancy and menstruation appeared throughout
Europe for many centuries. Up to modern times, German peasants still
held that women could be impregnated by snakes.75
Whether initiated by a serpent or not, menstrual bleeding inspired
deadly fear among both Persian and Jewish patriarchs (Leviticus 15).
Rachel successfully stole her father's teraphim (household gods) by
hiding them under a camel saddle and sitting on it, telling her father
she was menstruating so he dared not approach her (Genesis 31). To
this day, orthodox Jews refuse to shake hands with a woman because
she might be menstruating. Jews also adopted a rule apparently laid
down by Hesiod, that a man must never wash in the same water
previously used by a woman, lest it might contain a trace of menstrual
blood.76 '
There were many similar taboos. The ancient world's most dreaded
poison was the "moon-dew" collected by Thessalian witches, said
to be a girl's first menstrual blood shed during an eclipse of the moon.77
Pliny said a menstruous woman's touch could blast the fruits of the
field, sour wine, cloud mirrors, rust iron, and blunt the edges ofknives.78
If a menstruous woman so much as laid a finger on a beehive, the
bees would fly away and never return.79 If a man lay with a menstruous
woman during an eclipse, he would soon fall sick and die.80
Christians inherited all the ancient patriarchs' superstitious horrors.
St. Jerome wrote: "Nothing is so unclean as a woman in her periods;
what she touches she causes to become unclean." Penitential regulations
laid down in the 7th century by Theodore, Bishop of
Canterbury, forbade menstruating women to take communion or even
enter a church. At the French Synod of Meaux, menstruous women
were specifically forbidden to come to church. From the 8th to the ll th
centuries, many church laws denied menstruating women any access
to church buildings. As late as 1684 it was still ordered that women in
their "fluxes" must remain outside the church door.81 In 1298 the
Synod of Wiirzburg commanded men not to approach a menstruating
woman.82 The superstition came down to the 20th century, when a
Scottish medical text quoted an old rhyme to the effect that menstrual
blood could destroy the entire world:
Oh! Menstruating woman, thou'rt a fiend
From which all nature should be closely screened. 83
Christian women were commanded to despise the "uncleanness"
of their own bodies, as in the Rule for Anchoresses: "Art thou not
formed of foul slime? Art thou not always full of uncleanness?" 84
Medical authorities of the 16th century were still repeating the old belief
that "demons were produced from menstrual flux." 85 One of the
"demons" born of menstrual blood was the legendary basilisk with its
poisonous glance.86 The legend evidently arose from the classic myth
of the Gorgon with her serpent-hair and wise blood, petrifying men
with her glance. The Gorgon and the red cross of menstrual blood
once marked the most potent taboos.87 The very word taboo, from
Polynesian tupua, "sacred, magical," applied specifically to menstrual
blood.88
Just as primitives attributed beneficial powers to menstrual blood
along with its fearfulness, so medieval peasants thought it could heal,
nourish, and fertilize.89 Some believed a menstruating woman could
protect a crop by walking around the field, or exposing her genitals in
it.90 Peasant women carried seed to the fields in rags stained with their
menstrual blood: a continuation of the custom of Eleusinian fertilitypriestesses.
91 Even doctors thought menstrual blood could cure leprosy,
or act as a powerful aphrodisiac. Madame de Montespan used it to encourage
the ardor of her royal lover, Louis XIV92 Gypsies said a woman
could win any man's love with a potion of her own menstrual blood.93
As the former medium of reincarnation, menstrual blood was
sometimes called a remedy for death itself. In the tale of Childe Roland,
the elven-king roused men from the magic sleep of,.death with a "bright
red liquor." 94 Early romances associated this universal heal-all with "the
blood of a noble virgin," as a wise-woman revealed to Galahad.95 The
same belief impelled Louis XI to try to stave off death by drinking
young girls' blood.
Victorian superstition taught that a child conceived during a
menstrual period would be born with a caul, and would have occult
powers.96 Nineteenth-century doctors inherited their predecessors' notions
of witchcraft and evil, and so maintained that menstruating
women are not healthy; copulation with them could infect a man with
urethritis or gonorrhea. Dr. Augustus Gardner said venereal diseases
were usually communicated from women to men, not vice versa.97
Speaking of savages' menstrual taboos, anthropologists described the
women as "out of order," "suffering from monthly illness," or "stricken
with the malady common to their sex." 98 A doctor wrote even in the
present century: "We cannot too emphatically urge the importance of
regarding these monthly returns as periods of ill health, as days when
the ordinary occupations are to be suspended or modified." 99
At the present time just as in the Middle Ages, the Catholic church
still considers itself on firm theological ground by advancing, as an
argument against ordination of women, the notion that a menstruating
priestess would "pollute" the altar. This would not preclude ordination
of post-menopausal women, but different excuses are found for those.
The holy "blood of life" used to be feminine and real; now it is
masculine and symbolic.
Sidenote:
The Hebrew word
for blood, dam, means
"mother" or
"woman" in other
Indo-European
languages (e.g. dam,
damsel, madam, fa
dama, dame) and also
"the curse" (damn).
The Sumerian Great
Mother represented
maternal blood and
bore names like
Dam-kina,
Damgalnunna.
From her belly flowed
the Four Rivers of
Paradise, sometimes
called rivers of blood
which is the "life" of all
flesh. Her firstborn
child, the Savior, was
Damu, a "child of
the blood."37 Damas or
"mother-blood" was
the word for "the
people" in
matriarchal Mycenae.lB
Another common
ancient symbol of the
blood-river oflife was
the red carpet,
traditionally trod by
sacred kings, heroes,
and brides.l9
From Barbara Walker's Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets
Gnostic Christians used to call their
religion Synesaktism – another word for Agape – which means ‘The Way of
Shaktism’, referring to Tantric Yoni-Worship.
One of the most important rituals was
preparing a ‘drink of immortality’ made from menstrual blood, which is
full of healing stem cells, which can actually activate our cellular
capacity to regenerate and transport us to endocrine states of rapture.
Or in a spiritual sense open us to the Frequency of Love and Eternal
Life, transporting us to another Dimension – called Heaven, Paradise,
Nirvana etc.
This ‘Love Feast’ or ‘Sacred Marriage’ – a
core part of the Menstrual Mysteries – was eventually declared a heresy
and women were barred from participating in Christian rites.
However the ‘Power of Renewal, Rebirth,
and Resurrection’ previously associated with the Holy Womb and Menstrual
Blood of the Divine Mother was transferred to the story of Jesus and
his ritual of Eucharist – ‘hic est sanguis meus – this is the Chalice of
my Blood’ – where worshippers ‘drank his blood’ to gain the power of
Rebirth through him.
In most ancient myths and religions,
throughout the world dating back hundreds of thousands of years, the
power of rebirth had always been a blessing of the Feminine Womb –
embodied and gifted by Sacred Womb Priestesses across many cultures. It
had never been held by a man. Although there are many legends about the
‘menstrual powers of female shamans’ being stolen by male gods.
The Holy Grail, in its true original essence, is the Womb.
Women born many, many thousands of years
ago in what we might called ‘Original Innocence’ – before many of our
genetic capabilities went offline, held this power naturally, as a
birthright, shared with their tribes in renewal rituals.
Since those times, once the birthright
was lost, women across many lineages and cultures – Womb Priestesses –
have practiced many varied ways to heal, clear and open the Womb, so it
can once again embody the frequency of Love, of Original Innocence, so
that the energetic and physical stem cell capacity can activate purer
states of consciousness and activate incredible regenerative healing.
This knowledge has been almost lost over the last thousand years, as it
has been fragmented, scattered and deliberately destroyed.
Now it is desiring to return, to ‘renew our lands’ as the myths go.
Earlier this year Fountain of Life
met with a top international research scientist working with menstrual
blood stem cells. His research indicated they had the capacity to work
‘miracles’. He described how the first time he used Menstrual Blood Stem
Cells he felt like he had been ‘reborn’ – an unfit man in his late
fifties, he’d had to run around the block because he had so much energy.
Another research scientist in his sixties
working with stem cells had experienced his hair change from grey to
the black of his youth in a matter of months. Throughout the world, in
secret, these experiments are happening – in China, Russia, India, and
more.
Whilst women are giving their power away
to patriarchal ideologies, taking drugs to stop their menstrual cycle,
using cancer-causing chemical bleached tampons to stem the flow, seeing
their Menses as an inconvenient ‘curse’ they are ashamed of, male
scientists around the world are using the power to experience states of
physical and spiritual high.
Isn’t it time we reclaimed our Feminine power? Honoring the sacred regenerative properties of the ‘Flowering’ of our Wombs.
Evidence of the Sacredness of
Menstruation throughout all cultures before the rise of the
male-dominated patriarchy is well documented….
Kali, the embodiment of three-aspected
cosmic act, which reveals in creation, preservation and annihilation, is
the most mysterious divinity of Indian religious order, Vaishnava,
Shaiva, Buddhist, Jain or any. She assures 'abhaya' – fearlessness, by
her one hand and 'varada' – benevolence, by the other, both defining in
perpetuity the ultimate disposition of her mind, but in contrast, the
feeling that the goddess inspires by her appearance, plundering death
with the naked sword carried in one of her other hands and feeding on
blood gushing from the bodies of her kills, is of awe and terror.
Instruments of destruction are her means of preservation, and from
across the cremation ground, lit by burning pyres and echoing with
shrieks of moaning jackals and goblins, and from over dismembered dead
bodies – her chosen abode, routes her passage to life. The most sacred,
Kali shares her habitation with vile wicked flesh-eating 'pishachas' –
monsters, and rides a dead body. She is enamoured with Shiva but unites
with Shiva's 'shava' – the passive, enactive dead body, herself being
its active agent. She delights in destruction and laughs but only to
shake with terror all four directions, and the earth and the sky. A
woman, Kali seeks to adorn herself but her ornaments are a garland or
necklace of severed human heads, girdle of severed human arms, ear-rings
of infants' corpses, bracelets of snakes – all loathsome and
horrible-looking. Such fusion of contradictions is the essence of Kali's
being, a mysticism which no other divinity is endowed with.
All here is a mystery of contraries,
Darkness, a magic of self-hidden light,
Suffering, some secret rapture's tragic mask,
And death, an instrument of perpetual life.
Fusion of contraries – not just as two
co-existents but as two essential aspects of the same, is what defines
Kali, as also the cosmos which she manifests. As from the womb – darker
than the ocean's deepest recesses where even a ray of light does not
reach, emerges life, so from the darkness is born the luminous light,
and deeper the darkness, more lustrous the light. A realisation in
contrast to suffering, delight is suffering's glowing face – her child
born by contrast. The tree is born when the seed explodes and its form
is destroyed, that is, the life is death's re-birth, and form, all its
beauty and vigour, the deformation incarnate. This inter-related unity
of contraries defines both, cosmos and Kali. The dark-hued Kali, who
represents in her being darkness, suffering, death, deformation and
ugly, is the most potent source of life, light, happiness and beauty –
the positive aspect of the creation. She destroys to re-create, inflicts
suffering so that the delight better reveals, and in her fearful form
one has the means of overcoming all fears, not by escaping but by
befriending them.
Light's invocation is
common to all religious orders and all divinities; in Kali's invocation,
the devotee stands face to face with darkness which aggregates death,
destruction, suffering, fear and all negative aspects of the universe.
Not its prey but a valiant warrior, the devotee seeks to overcome
darkness and uncover all that it conceals – light, life, delight, even
liberation from the cycle of birth and death. Kali assists him in his
battle. She allows her devotee to win her grace and command thereby the
total cosmic darkness – accessible or inaccessible, known or unknown, or
unknowable, that she condenses into her being. Otherwise than thus
condensed, the devotee could not apprehend and command its cosmic
enormity. Kali is Tantrikas' supreme deity, for in her they discover the
instrument which enables them command diverse cosmic forces in one
stroke. Kali's ages-long popularity among ignorant primitive tribes is
inspired, perhaps, by her power to reveal light out of darkness,
something that they have within and without and in great abundance.
Other way also, Kali assures light in perpetuity. Cyclically, a journey
that takes off from the light terminates into darkness but that which
takes off from the darkness is bound to land into the valleys of endless
light. Invoking and befriending the awful – the negative aspect of the
creation, and warding off thereby evils and their influence, is a
primitive cult still prevalent in world's several ethnic groups and even
classical traditions such as Buddhism that has a number of Kali-like
awe-inspiring deities, or Athenian tradition of Nemeses, the wrathful
maidens inflicting retribution for a wrong and effecting purgation by
way of wreaking ill-fate. Not with such cosmic width as has Kali, or for
the attainment of such wide objectives as commanding cosmic elements,
motifs like the Chinese dragon, memento mori, a skeleton form considered
very auspicious by certain sections of Russian society, Islamic world's
semurga, grotesque and dreaded animal forms, ghost-masks… venerated
world-over, all reveal man's endeavour to befriend, or mitigate the
influence of some or the other wrathful aspect of nature – the manifest
cosmos.
Origin of Kali
Not
merely her form, mysticism enshrouds Kali's origin also. Among lines on
which her origin has been traced three are more significant, though she
transcends even those. She is sometimes seen as a transformation, or a
form developed out of some of the Vedic deities alluded to in Brahmins
and Upanishadas, mainly Ratridevi, the goddess of dark night, also named
Maha-ratri, the Transcendental Night, and Nirtti, the cosmic dancer.
Kali's darker aspect is claimed to have developed out of Ratridevi's
darkness, and her dance, which she performed to destroy, to have its
origin in the cosmic dance of Nirtti who too trampled over whatever fell
under her feet. Mundaka Upanishada talks of seven tongues of Agni, the
Fire-god, one of them operating in cremation ground and devouring the
dead. Over-emphasising the factum of association of Kali and this tongue
of Agni with cremation ground a few scholars have sought in Agni's
tongue the origin of Kali's form.
Whatever variations in
their versions, the Puranas perceive Kali as an aspect of Devi –
Goddess, a divinity now almost completely merged with Durga. However,
considering Kali's status as a goddess within her own right, as well as
her wide-spread worship-cult prevalent amongst various tribes and ethnic
groups scattered far and wide in remote rural areas Kali seems to be an
indigenous, and perhaps, pre-Vedic divinity. As suggests the term Kali,
she appears to be the feminine aspect of Kala – Time, that being
invincible, immeasurable and endless has been venerated as Mahakala –
the Transcendental Time, represented in Indian metaphysical and
religious tradition by Shiva. In Hindu religious terminology Mahakala is
Shiva's just another name. Like Shiva, some Indus terracotta icons seem
to represent a ferocious female divinity that might be Kali or a form
preceding her, and in all probabilities, Shiva's feminine counterpart.
Buddhism, a thought that opposed Vedic perception in most matters,
inducted into its pantheon Mahakala and a ferocious female divinity in
her various manifest forms, as Mahakala's feminine counterpart.
Obviously, Buddhism must have inducted her from a source other than the
Vedic, as the Vedic it vehemently opposed. Invoked with great fervour on
many occasions in the Mahabharata, more especially in Bhishma-Parva,
just before Lord Krishna delivers his Gita sermon, Kali seems to be a
well established divinity during the Epic days, that is, centuries
before the Puranic era began. Though invoked as 'Arya', a term
denotative of great reverence, Arjuna lauds her as tenebrous maiden
garlanded with skulls, tawny, bronze-dark… and with epithets such as
Mahakali, Bhadrakali, Chandi, Kapali …, the features yet relevant in
Kali's imagery. A number of literary texts : Kalidasa's Kumarasambhava,
Subandhu's Vasavadatta, Banabhatta's Kadambari, Bhavabhuti's
Malitimadhava, Somadeva's Yashatilaka…, of the period from 2nd to 9th
century, also allude to Kali, a fact denotative of her great popularity
in realms other than religion. This Kali essentially transcends Vedic
Ratridevi, Maharatri, Nritti or one of Agni's seven tongues or a divine
form grown out of any of them.
However, Kali cannot be
attributed this or that mode of origin. Even if a goddess of indigenous
origin and one of primitive tribes, she has far greater width and
operativeness than the non-operative boon-giving primitive deities
usually had. Unless her absolute 'at homeness' in the traditional Hindu
line and her status in it are sacrificed she can not be treated as a
mere tribal deity with indigenous origin. Alike, the tradition can not
owe her as absolutely her own creation unless her status of being a
goddess in her own right is compromised and she is reduced to what she
is not. Whatever her origin, perhaps indigenous, Kali emerges in the
tradition as its own with far greater thrust and reverence than it
attributed to others. Not a mere epithet or aspect of another goddess,
Kali has been conceived as the Shakti – Power of Kala - Time. Like Kala
she pervades all things, manifest or unmanifest. Puranas perceive Kali
as Durga's personified wrath – her embodied fury, but in every case she
is her real Shakti. Even her own fury, Durga summons Kali to accomplish
what she herself fails to do. After Durga separates Kali from her being
and Kali emerges with a form of her own – an independent being, she
reigns supreme in entire Hindu pantheon as regards the power to destroy
and defeat enemies.
Not merely Durga's
Shakti, Kali has been conceived also as Lord Shiva's dynamic aspect. In a
delightful equation, 'a', the main component of 'Shava' and 'Kala',
negates what 'i', the main component of 'Shiva' and 'Kali',
accomplishes. Shava is the lifeless body, whatever is left of the
manifest universe when the Power of Time takes it under its control, and
Kala is what reveals only in the manifest aspect of the universe, and
thus, both are 'timed'. When 'i', symbolic of the feminine energy which
manifests as Kali, unites into their beings transforming Shava into
Shiva and Kala into Kali, both emerge as 'timeless'. In Shiva this
universe is contained, and hence, in him, the transition from the
'timed' to the 'timeless' takes place. Kali, being the Power of Time,
does not undergo this transition.
KALI : APPEARANCE AND PERSONALITY
Numerous are Kali's
manifestations; however, her external appearance, both in texts as well
as art, basic nature and overall personality do not vary much. In her
usual form the black-hued Kali is a terrible awe-inspiring divinity
frightening all by her appearance. Except that some of her body parts
are covered by her ornaments, she is invariably naked. An emaciated
figure with long disheveled hair and gruesome face, Kali has been
conceived with any number of arms from two to eighteen, and sometimes
even twenty or more, though her more usual form being four-armed. The
four arms are interpreted as symbolising her ability to operate into and
command all four directions, that is, the cosmos in aggregate. She has
long sharp fangs, alike long ugly nails, a fire-emitting third eye on
her forehead, a lolling tongue and blood-smeared mouth, which, when
expanded, not only swallows hordes of demons but its lower part extends
to ocean's depth and upper, beyond the sky. When required to lick blood
falling from a fleeing demon's body she extends her tongue to any length
and turns it faster than the wind in whichever direction the blood
falls.
In her more usual
iconography Kali carries in one of her four hands an unsheathed sword –
her instrument to overcome enemies and command evils, in another, a
severed demon head, and other two are held in postures denotative of
abhaya and varada – fearlessness and benevolence. Sometimes, the severed
head is replaced with a skull-bowl filled with blood.
Abhaya is the essence
of Kali's entire being. One of the permanent dispositions of her mind,
'abhaya' is her assurance against all fears which, embodied in her, are
rendered inoperative or to operate only as commanded. Denotative of her
boundless power to destroy, Kali's frightening aspect is her power to
dispel evil and wicked, and in this the freedom from fear is re-assured.
Kali's usual place is a battlefield where all around lay scattered
pools of blood, headless torsos, severed heads, arms and other
body-parts. When not in battlefield, Kali roams around cremation ground
where reigns death's silence except when yelling winds, groans of
wailing jackals or sound of fluttering wings of vultures tearing corpses
lying around break it. Its abyssal darkness, which flames of pyres
occasionally lit, is what suits Kali most. In battlefield or otherwise,
she walks on foot. Except rarely when she borrows or forcibly takes
Durga's lion or Shiva's Nandi, Kali does not use a mount, an animal or
whatever, either to ride or to assist her in her battle. She dances to
destroy and under her dancing feet lay the corpse of destruction.
Standing or seated, she has under her a sprawling ithyphallic corpse,
not lotuses, the favourite seat of most other deities. She stands upon
nonexistence – the corpse of the ruined universe, but which nonetheless
contains the seed of new birth.
In her imagery while
the corpse represents non-existence or ruined universe, Kali's figure
engaged in union either with Shiva or his Shava symbolise continuum of
creative process. The manifest universe is what veils Time but when
Kali, the Power of Time, has destroyed the manifest universe, that veil
is lifted and Time, and correspondingly Kali, the Power of Time, is
rendered naked, a phenomenon that Kali's naked form denotes.
By nature, Kali is
always hungry and never sated. She laughs so loud that all three worlds
shake with terror. She dances madly not merely trampling upon corpses
but also on the live cosmos reducing it to non-existence. She crushes,
breaks, tramples upon and burns her enemies or those of her devotees.
Kali is not only a deity of independent nature but is also indomitable,
or rather all dominating. She is Shiva-like powerful, unconventional and
more at home when dwelling on society's margins. Aspects of nobility or
elite life-mode are not her style of life. She is Shiva's consort or
companion but not Parvati-like meek and humble. Herself wild and
destructive, she incites Shiva to resort to wild, dangerous and
destructive behaviour threatening stability of cosmos. Every moment a
warrior
KALI'S FORMS
Far more than in texts, a huge body of
Kali's mythology has evolved in Kali-related tradition. Apart that a
rough-cut crude image of Kali painted in black, and the tongue, in
blood-red, occupies a corner in every hamlet, even with a dozen
hutments, it also abounds in tales of her mysterious powers, both
inflicting damage and protecting from harm. More significant is her
presence in Indian art where she underlines many important Hindu themes.
What sometimes occur in texts as mere epithets of Kali are in Indian
arts her well established forms. Mahakali, Bhadrakali, Dakshina Kali,
Guhyakali, Shmashana Kali, Bhairavi, Tripura-Bhairavi, Chamunda… are
some of her more popular forms in texts as well as art.
In her Mahakali form, an equivalent to
Mahakala, the all-powerful aspect of Shiva, who devours time and effects
dissolution, Kali is Mahakala's feminine transform. In her form as
Mahakali she presides over the Great Dissolution which Shiva in the form
of Shava symbolises. In art, Kali invariably enshrines it. Initially,
as Mahakali her role was confined to demon-slaying. In Puranas, while
still representing dissolution, destruction, death and decay, she more
emphatically personified in her being horror, awe and loathsomeness. She
still slew demons but mostly when summoned and in subordination. In her
form as Chamunda – the slayer of Chanda and Munda, she was most
ferocious multi-armed demon-killer. She carried in her hands most deadly
weapons and in her eyes a lustre that burnt her enemies.
As Shmashana Kali, a form more popular in
Tantrism, Kali haunts cremation ground amidst burning pyres – the
interim domain in between this and the next world and where death and
dissolution reign.
As Tripura-Bhairavi,
consort of death, Kali is conceived with a form wearing a large necklace
of human bodies, a shorter one of skulls, a girdle of severed hands,
and ear-rings of the corpses of infants. Around her lie a greater number
of corpses and feed on them wily jackals and vile vultures. Sometimes
in loincloth, Tripura-Bhairavi is more often covered in elephant skin
and carries other Shaivite attributes.
Elaborately jeweled
Dakshina Kali also wears a long necklace of severed heads, a girdle of
unusually small severed arms and a couple of corpses as ear-rings, but
instead of being gruesome her figure comprises smooth perfectly
proportioned fully exposed youthful limbs. She stands on the body of a
supine ithyphallic Shiva stretched out on an already burning pyre in
cremation ground where scavenging birds hover and jackals roam. Dakshina
Kali carries in one of her hands a sword, in another, a human head, and
other two are held in abhaya and varada. Bhadra Kali, the auspicious
one, Kali's majestic, benign, benevolent and mild form, has been
conceived with arms varying in number usually two to four. She often
carries two bowls, one for wine and other for blood. Kali's form that
gods, even Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma, worship is invariably her Bhadra
Kali form. The delightful one, she joyously drinks, dances and sings.
Guhyakali, literally meaning 'Secret Kali', is Kali's esoteric aspect, which only those well versed in the Kali tradition know.
In the related 'Dhyana' – the form that
reveals when meditating on her, snakes constitute a significant part of
her attire and adornment. Her necklace, sacred thread, girdle, all are
made of serpents, and the thousand hooded serpent Ananta makes her
umbrella. Apart, her form assimilates other Shaivite attributes to
include crescent on her forehead. In visual representation, instead of
snakes' pre-eminence, Guhyakali is identified by the Kali-yantra
invariably represented along with.
KALI IN YOGA AND TANTRA
Kali has quite significant place in Yoga
and Tantra, though in Yoga her status is not that high as in Tantra.
Kundalini-sadhana, kindling of Kundalini – dormant energy seen as black
serpent that lies coiled and asleep in the inner body, is the prevalent
practice in both but it is the very basis of Yoga. The Yoga perceives
Kali as Kundalini Shakti. Kali is thus the basis of Yoga, though beyond
such equation it does not involve Kali any further. Tantra seeks its
accomplishment in Ten Mahavidyas – the Great Wisdoms, Kali, being the
foremost among them, is the most significant deity of Tantra.
Kali's disruptive behaviour, unkempt
appearance, confronting activities and involvement with death and
defilement are what better suit Tantra, especially the Vamachara
Tantrism. Kali's form that contains in an unclean or even unholy
body-frame the highest spiritual sanctity helps Tantrika to overcome the
conventional notion of clean and unclean, sacred and profane and other
dualistic concepts that lead to incorrect nature of reality.
Yogini-Tantra, Kamakhya Tantra and Nirvana-Tantra venerate Kali as the
supreme divinity and Nirvana-Tantra perceives Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva
as arising from Kali as arise bubbles from the sea.
To the Tantrika, Kali's black is symbolic
of disintegration; as all colours disappear in black, so merge into her
all names and forms. Density of blackness – massive, compact and
unmixed, represents Pure Consciousness. Kali as Digambari, garbed in
space – in her nakedness, free from all covering of illusion, defines to
the Tantrika the journey from the unreal to the real. In full breasted
Kali, symbolic of her ceaseless motherhood, the Tantrika discovers her
power to preserve. Her disheveled hair – elokeshi, are symbolic of the
curtain of death which surrounds life with mystery. In her garland of
fifty-two human heads, each representing one of the fifty-two letters of
Sanskrit alphabets, the Tantrika perceives repository of power and
knowledge. The girdle of hands, the principal instrument to work,
reveals her power with which the cosmos operates and in her three eyes,
its three-aspected activity – creation, preservation and destruction.
Both Kali and Tantra are epitome of unity of apparent dualism. As her
terrifying image, the negative aspect of her being and thus of the
cosmos, is the creative life-force, the source of creation, so in
Tantra-sadhana, the journey takes off from the 'material' to the apex –
the ultimate.
SACRED RAGE
THE MYTH OF DURGA’S TRANSFORMATION INTO KALI HAS COME AROUND AGAIN, IT IS BEING RE-ENACTED ON EARTH RIGHT NOW WITH WOMEN PLAYING THE KEY ROLE OF THE GODDESS.
Many of us are feeling the rage of kali surfacing right now, I remember
feeling a huge dose of it over the avoidable oil spill in the Gulf and
the revelations of paedophilia in the priesthood, I feel unapologetic in
saying that at the time I was so angry, I was having fantasies of
torching the Vatican. This rage rises up out of our innate
protective mother instinct, especially when we witness and feel the
inhumanity that is taking place towards each other, all other conscious
life forms and Mother Earth, Humanity is still in the archaic
clutches of a misguided arrogant illusion of supremacy to the detriment
of ourselves, and the very Earth itself, we are destroying that which
sustains us through the blindness of greed, intolerance and the lust for
power. Now although men also have the mother instinct of their
Divine feminine self (and it becomes more pronounced when they get in
touch with their feminine), it is women who have the greater endowment
of it, it comes naturally with being female. So It’s no wonder that
we are experiencing the surfacing of tremendous rage, there is much to
stir up our protective instincts right now, we are awakening rapidly
and as our hearts are opening, we are feeling a consuming empathy that
comes with knowing on a very profound level that we are one with all of
life. This makes our frustration even more painful. So what do we do with this rage? How can we channel it?
It is said that Kali without Shiva is out of control, this is when our
rage takes the first form of Durga riding on her tiger fiercely
attacking the demons with her flaying sword, but she fails because every
piece that she chops springs up into a new demon. Her rage is out of
control and it’s creating more chaos, it’s not achieving what she
ultimately wants to achieve, this is because what we resist persists,
judging, blaming, attacking, punishing are all forms of resistance that
only create more separation in the world.
So Durga sees the light and she morphs into Kali,
Kali is depicted standing on top of Shiva because he has come alive in
form through the feminine and she has integrated his choice-less, pure
consciousness within her so now she is animated, she's in possession of
the ten powers of the Divine feminine, the Wisdom Goddesses known as the
Mahavidyas. These Goddesses include; A Goddess of compassion, A goddess of love and generosity, A creative, rebel non- conformist, A headless Goddess who’s transcended the ego, A sensual young maiden who can see beauty in all things, An all embracing receptive mother of the Universe, An old crone who has traversed through the dark night of the soul and emerged as a great teacher for humanity, A Goddess who upholds the impeccability of her word, A fierce warrior Goddess who cuts through the bull shit, And a Goddess who has conquered attachment…
With these ten wisdom Goddesses within her Kali has no need to attack
the demons, she slurps them up instead, consumes them and integrates
them, makes them whole within herself. For want of a direction,
this is what we need to do with our own rage, imbue it with
consciousness so that we can use it’s motivational power but rise above
the lower aspects of it, uplift our perspective out of fear and see the bigger picture, see the evolution that is taking place and the essential roles of all the players that are enabling it.
The (so called) darkness is bringing forth the light into its full
glory, without the contrast of the darkness, the light would never be
known. The (so called) outer demons are the reflection of the lower
aspects within ourselves and they are manifesting outwardly in the
world through individual choices and creating the mindless destruction
and suffering that we are witnessing right now on the planet, These
demons of the old myth are the parts of us that have not experienced
the awakening of the heart, they are stuck in the darkness of ego
illusion not realizing that their true identity is love, but they
have the longing for the bliss of that realization, so they attempt to
find it through power over others and greed for more stuff.
Compassion is not available to them because this is a quality of an
opened heart, so there is this unbridled selfishness, this “I come
first” mentality and with it a lack of empathy for others. There is
this illusion that believes that this selfishness will appease the
longing, but it never does instead it just becomes a perpetual power
game of pumping up a false self image.
This is the root of all
the challenges that humanity is experiencing, to such a degree now that
the survival of the planet is at stake, the legend of Durga has come
around once again, it is being re-enacted right now, the Gods are
desperate, the demons are destroying the earth, they have called in the
Divine feminine to conquer them, she’s the one with the keys to the
heart, she’s the only one now who can transform the situation, integrate
the darkness with the light of the heart.
Women of the world
we are the embodiment of the Divine Feminine and we are being called by
the Gods (the Divine masculine within) to rise up along side our like
minded brothers to bring in the light of love, healing, tolerance,
unification, equality, respect for our earth and balance into being,
but our main focus needs to be on addressing the cause of the
imbalances which is humanities separation from their higher
consciousness. For our strategy to be in alignment with this higher
consciousness we need to embody the qualities of the ten wisdom
goddesses, raising awareness within ourselves first, being an example of
fierce love in action, being courageous, determined, congruent,
compassionate, creative and wise, using our rage that is bursting
inside, shouting, “I’ve had enough of this shit!” as a dynamic energy
for action, but remaining composed, letting go of the temptation to hate
and separate, always remembering the intention for love and healing in
all that we do. Love is what links all of us, and when we activate
it in ourselves and extend it through our purpose, we are activating the
most powerful force in existence.
Every little contribution
that we make to bring more light into this world no matter how small, is
valuable, and when we unite with others with the same intention, we
become an even greater power.
So what can you do now? You’re
not necessarily called to be a social activist trail- blazer but you
want to make a difference none the less, So consider linking up with other women, forming sacred circles wherever you are, And focus on healing and transforming your own families and communities, This is where global transformation first starts, within ourselves and in our own back yard.
