On the topic of sexuality, our societal attitude can be SO unimaginative and literalistic! For example, when people encounter sexual organs depicted in isolation from the rest of the human body, they automatically jump to the conclusion that such images can only be considered pornographic, unless of course they find them situated within an obviously medical context. In other words, people seem unable to view the depictions as transparent to any sort of deeper meaning. Why, I wonder, do we allow ourselves to fall into this rut, over and over again? Here, grumpy second-wave feminists, finger-wagging fundamentalist preachers and sex magazine publishers depicting the same worn-out erotic scenarios for the gazillionth time are actually all in the same boat. All three have become mired in literalism, seemingly unable to find any deeper meaning within the realm of explicit erotic images.
However, the situation has not always been this short-sighted and unimaginative. Thomas Moore, in his book, "The Soul of Sex," reminds us that "Ancient religions often detach the phallus [and vulva] from the body, like the ritual lingam and yoni in India, and treat this separated part as a celebration of the organ and its rich religious symbolism and NOT as emotional castration" (pp. 127-128). Moore is referring here to the fact that - all over the landscapes and within the religious temples of India - the stylized lingam and yoni appear as vibrant symbols of SPIRITUAL realities: of Shiva and Shakti, of the sacred masculine and feminine.
Unfortunately, our culture has no such carvings - at least not within a religious context - but we can't escape the fact that our LANDSCAPES contain geologic formations that possess a definite resemblance to the lingam and yoni, especially within the deserts of the American Southwest. These forms, I would argue, contain a surplus of meaningful spiritual significance.
Thus, for example, whenever we see a lingam or phallus embodied in a rock formation while out exploring the natural world, we might think of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "principle of correspondence," according to which external physical realities are always symbolic of inner spiritual realities. Applying this principle to the realm of sexuality, we might say that the phallus or lingam represents the penetrative capacity of a disciplined meditative gaze to see clear THROUGH material forms into the sacred masculine spaciousness out of which all things arise. This gaze, directed VERTICALLY in an upward or downward direction, sees all forms - sexual ones included - as jewel-like crystallizations of the transparent and sky-like vastness of divine awareness, or of the the interior abyss of divine love that opens up within the human soul.
This sort of awareness offers us liberation from the tightness and claustraphobia that our usual constriction around the events of life - and around the seeming solidity of the ego - so often elicits. Here, our constriction is replaced instead by a vast and spacious (or endlessly deep) freedom.
In addition, this same penetrative gaze - directed HORIZONTALLY across the world - is also able to see through each individual being in order to understand how it is actually a variation on the reality of every other adjacent being. In other words, all things are transparent to one another when we view them from the perspective of the feminine web of life within which they are situated. This awareness in turn brings liberation from an obsession with individual objects of lust, and instead places all things within a wider and more spacious divine context.
Similarly, whenever I see a yoni or vulvic form within Nature - in a cave, a slot canyon or a tree crevice, for example - I think of the ability of all beautiful things to hold and "squeeze" us within their intimate embrace, making us realize that we are truly loved and appreciated.
Interpreting the lingam and yoni in this symbolic sort of way is NOT, I would argue, a case of mere sublimation, an attitude which makes the assumption that all spiritual energy is simply a variation on the realities present within the realm of sexuality. Instead, the spiritual traditions of the world help us realize that the true situation is actually the other way around; in other words, sexual energy is simply one variety of a more intense and general SPIRITUAL energy, one that is rooted in the masculinity of God, the Great Beyond, and in the femininity of Mother Earth, Gaia, Sophia.
In our culture, however, we are not accustomed to viewing particular things - such as the lingam or yoni, for example - as symbolic of more universal divine realities. As the great German theologian Paul Tillich often said, we moderns are all children of nominalism. That is, we have a tendency to remain agnostic about universal realities, and pretend that only particulars, or collections of particulars, are real. In this case, we act as though a person who believes otherwise is from another planet if they suggest, for example, that the phallus might be a symbol of the penetrative quality of meditative awareness, or that the vulva represents the all-embracing quality of the circle of life. Spiritual teacher David Deida is a clear exception to this tendency, and I wholeheartedly recommend his work.
We should know better, of course, since our own biblical book of the Song of Songs - filled as it is with elaborate poetic descriptions of the erotic features of the human body - was brought into the scripture because the compilers viewed it as a symbolic allegory which speaks of the love affair occurring between the feminine human soul and the masculine spirit of God. In fact, when I engaged in research for my Master's thesis, I had to read hundreds of sermons written by the Cistercian monks of medieval Europe, who - I discovered - viewed each body part described in the Song as symbolic of a specific INNER and spiritual reality. Unfortunately, however, most people are not even aware of such a rich and symbolic tradition.
We will never find liberation from the literalism of either the pornographic or moralistic realms of our society until we cease taking life so superficially and instead view each aspect of reality - erotic ones included - as symbolic of deep INNER and SPIRITUAL realities. Only in this way will we activate our own creative and imaginative capacities for symbolism and experience the sense of self-esteem that arises whenever we help bind together all of life's particulars into something much more Universal!
Photo: "The Phallus" occurs in the Dewey Bridge Member of Entrada sandstone, formed during the Jurassic period and carved by wind, water, freezing and thawing; Arches National Park, UT; November 26, 2012. The wood in the foreground is from an old Rocky Mountain Juniper. For more information about erotic forms that occur in Nature, you might want to check out http://thejetpacker.com/nature-porn-20-famous-penis-rocks-vagina-caves-and-breast-mountains/ ..
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