White Crane Journal #62, Healthy Spirituality

13/06/01 20:52

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Sacred Sexuality: Possibilities and Perils

Jay Michaelson

Also from this issue... #62 Healthy Spirituality

Updrafts, Letters to White Crane, Reprint of White Crane Newsletter Issue #1, Healthy Spirituality: What's It All About?, Bob Barzan Where to Begin,

Sacred sexuality lies at the heart of many mystical traditions, and is central to the emerging gay spirituality that is slowly finding its voice today. Notwithstanding the radically anti-sex rhetoric of fundamentalist Protestantism, which in America sets the tone for much public discourse on religion and sexuality, sacred eroticism in one form or another is central to the lives of many Christian mystics, Kabbalists, tantric practitioners, Sufis, pagans, and many others. How important it was, and how distorted it became, is exemplified in the Western religious tradition by the figures of the cherubs. In ancient Judaism, the cherubs were angelic creatures who resided at the holiest place in the world: above the ark, in the Holy of Holies, in the temple. They were in a permanent state of copulation the Talmud says all the walls of the inner sanctum were decorated with images of sex. The cherubs' erotic union and separation were an embodiment and metaphor for the Divine on earth, and, in their brazen sexuality, represent what some might deem 'paganism' enshrined in the most sacred place of Judaism. But say "cherubs" today, and you probably think of a fat, sexless baby. Not surprisingly, mystic pathfinders are rediscovering the old ways of sacred sexuality, and inventing new ones. I want to spend a short time articulating some of the opportunities presented by this renaissance of sacred sexuality, and a longer time presenting some of the dangers. I focus my attention in this way primarily to be a contrarian!a Devil's advocate, maybe!not with any prescription or proscription in mind. Certainly, for about 99% of the world's population, sacred sexuality needs cheerleaders, teachers, guides, and prophets. But if we third-gendered, in-between, two-spirited people are going to act in these roles ourselves, then we do well to consider carefully the perils. First, the good stuff. Union. Great, open awareness can exist in the silence of ecstasy. Our attention focused, our life-energy flowing, we are so intimately immersed in the cosmic play (lila) that we feel ourselves unified with it. Of course, our minds may know intellectually that union is always the case: we are not really waves, we're water. But our hearts feel duality; they feel separation and yearning, and they feel joy at union. So, in ecstasy, we feel the truth with our bodies more than we could know it on a solely intellectual level. We gain true knowledge (in Hebrew, daat), which involves union not just between the "self" and the One but among the different parts of the soul as well: body, mind, heart, and spirit. This knowledge can take place because thoughts have been driven out of the body by ecstasy, and because the energies of the body are so activated that we become hyper-aware of the great love that radiates throughout Being. 2. Realization. In addition to union with manifestation, sexuality also is a portal to Awareness of the great Emptiness (ayin) that lies beneath and conditions all that is. By knowing ourselves to be a mere pattern of the great flux of Being, we know that everything else is empty of separate substance also. We can directly perceive, with the right intention, that this moment, that this occasion of you reading these words, is but a dream in the mind of God. The moment, in its presence, is a phenomenon of Awareness, the Divine/Natural law which binds our atoms together, as every electron "knows" how to circle the nucleus. And the Tao is always changing. Sexuality helps us penetrate beyond appearance by, once more, thrusting us out of conceptualistic, dualistic thinking, and into a consciousness which mirrors the primordial emptiness that underlies all reality. It is not, by any means, the only way to attain such consciousness, but it is a powerful one. 3. Healing. Particularly for queers, whose sexuality has been especially demonized by religion, experiencing the body as holy brings great emotional healing. Even if you never have a mystical or realization experience during sacred sexuality, just knowing that your body is a temple instead of a shithouse is a precious liberation. And creating sacred sexuality in a community is healing on the community level: imagine what would happen if a stadium of 50,000 men did Body Electric. Erotic healing can mend body, mind, heart, and spirit. And it can address the wound that most gay men carry regarding their sexuality by utilizing precisely the site of woundedness as a site for transcendence. 4. Play. If the manifest universe is an expression of the Divine, playing with Itself, coming to know Itself, loving Itself, then the more we immerse ourselves in that cosmic drama, the more we ourselves are expressing God (or the Goddess, or the gods, or the One). It's okay that it's hot; it's great that it's hot. It's Divine that it's hot. For pagans and polytheists, this play is all there is-I will return to this point soonand invoking the energies of nature is holy. But even for monotheists and

Alfred DePew
Living in Beauty, Donald

L. Engstrom
Coffee House Spirituality,

Darrell Grizzle
That Lamp That Needs No Oil, Hafiz Review: The Tomcat Chronicles: Erotic Adventures of a Gay Liberation Pioneer by Jack Nichols, Toby Johnson Review: 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives by Joe Kort,

Toby Johnson
David Nimmons and His Vision of Manifest Love, Chip Krolik Review: The Conscious Awakening: Gamma Volume by Greg Kasperek,

Steven LaVigne
Review: Dress Your Family in Courduroy and Denim by David Sedaris,

Steven Lavigne
Sacred Sexuality: Possibilities and Perils,

Jay Michaelson
Going Our Own Way, Jesse Monteaguado Art Saved My Life, John Ollom Praxis, Andrew Ramer On Being a Lamp Unto Oneself: Cultivating Health Spirituality,

Peter Savastano
Three Poems: Consciousness, Presence & Repentence,

Alan Schonfield
A Vision Quest, John Stone Notes from the Field, Sunfire Review: Different and the Same, Out of the Loop, All That Matters, The Truth Is (Music) by Mark Weigle,

Dan Vera

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White Crane Journal #62, Healthy Spirituality

and invoking the energies of nature is holy. But even for monotheists and pantheists, the play of life is going on-will you contribute a verse? Becoming fully, electrically alive; growing exquisitely sensitive to eros-this is becoming and becoming aware of God Itself. There are more benefits to sacred sexuality on the individual and community levels, and one of the interesting facts about it is that different practitioners can be on totally different individual 'trips,' unified with their brothers more by acts than by intentions. However, I want to turn now to some of the perils I have encountered in sacred sexuality, which, interestingly, tend to flow directly from the benefits. Some of these issues only affect monotheists and monists (such as followers of Buddhism or Vedanta), and I'll try to be clear about my own JewishBuddhist bias. But here are some of the big ones, from my point of view: We hope you've enjoyed this excerpt from White Crane. We are a readersupported publication. To read more from this wonderful issue we invite you to SUBSCRIBE to WHITE CRANE. Thanks!

13/06/01 20:52

Walking a Fire Path Ritual, Gerard Wozeck Keeping Faith, Bo Young Review: Wild and Woolly: A Journal Keeper's Handbook by Alfred DePew, Bo Young Healthy Skepticism: Editor's Note, Bo Young

Jay Michaelson is the director of Nehirim: A Spiritual Initiative for GLBT Jews www.nehirim.org, and chief editor of Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture www.zeek.net. A teacher of Kabbalah, spirituality and Embodied Judaism, Jay was a finalist for the 2003 Koret Young Writer on Jewish Themes Award. He was recently published in Mentsh: On Being Jewish and Queer (Alyson, 2004). He lives in Brooklyn. His email is jay@metatronics.net

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