My brothers let me tell you, it is this easy, when SHE asks for tea, give the Black Woman in your life Tea, do not give HER terrible innuendo intended to bed HER. This will come about with gentleness, if I sent you to pick flowers for a woman I would not give you a bulldozer to do it. My expectation would be that you would approach the flower fields wet from the dew with kindness in your heart.
I come in the form of women of all classes and trades,
And I am mother, sister and wife,
Aunt and niece,
Great-aunt and mother-in-law,
And every other kind of female relation.
And I am every tantric practitioner and yogini,
And widow and ascetic.
I take the forms of all these women
Who now live to serve all sentient beings.
They say that it was the Great Mother in all of her forms that taught them how to be women and how create balance within their lives. They heard Her voice in the whisperings of the wind. They experienced Her purifying qualities by washing in the ocean. They felt Her grounding qualities as they enjoyed taking steps upon Her earth element.
In connecting with the Great Mother in Nature they were able to connect with the Great Mother, the Goddess, the Great Mother within themselves.
I'm not a big believer of the worship of statues, but there's a beautiful symbolism to what I saw there, because a woman's heart is just like that. At the essence of every woman's heart is the divine feminine. It contains everything that has ever been beautiful, or lovely, or inspiring, in any woman, anywhere, at any time. The very essence of every woman's heart is the peak of wisdom, the peak of inspiration, the peak of sexual desirability, the peak of soothing, healing love. The peak of everything. But it's protected, for good reason, by a series of concentric walls. To move inwardly from one wall to the next requires that you intensify your capacity to devotion, and as you do so, you are rewarded with Grace. This is not something you can negotiate verbally with a woman. She doesn't even know consciously how to open those gates herself. They are opened magically and invisibly by the keys of worship.
Ecstasy, insight, healing: 40 Days & 40 Nights is a six-week meditative journey into the heart of pussy and the transformative power of your orgasm.
If the conditions for a revolution do not exist, then it is the job of the revolutionary to create them.
-Unknown
Women, erotically empowered, are dangerous.
-Audre Lorde, The Uses of The Erotic: The Erotic as Power
Forty Days & Forty Nights, the initiation into SHEism: The Woman Worship Way, is an exercise, for women, in extreme pleasure and it requires a commitment to having at least one orgasm, every day, for 40 days.
WEEK ONE
An essential component of SHEism, is the cultivation of a tangible, body-centered point of self-reference. We employ the orgasm as this reference point, and after a time of ecstatic daily practice, begin to use it as the barometer against which we measure everything else in our lives. This internal point of self-induced ecstasy is used to determine the level of pure joy and bliss in any relationship, situation or experience. SHEism teaches that the closer a thing feels to your orgasm, the more right for you it is. Your orgasm becomes your joyometer, and as, with attention and cultivation, your orgasm expands and strengthens, so too, will your ability to wield your joy as a tool of practical earthly enlightenment.
How To Use Your Joyometer
The power of your joyometer is rooted in your bodily senses. Your joyometer is a phenomenon of the physical and feeling present. The ideologies of detachment from and transcendence of the physical body run absolutely counter to the use of this internal tool.
In order to become fluent in the use of your joyometer, you must also become fluent in the language of feelings, both physical and emotional. Your commitment to daily, meditative orgasms will help you to orient yourself, in your body, by the light of your ecstasy. You must then remain on the alert to identify both the physical and emotional feeling, or group of feelings, that constitute the opposite of your orgasm. This will make it easy for you to develop a scale of internal reference. My own internal scale lists an emotional range that flows from tragic to magic, with tragic being the antithesis of the rapturous state, and magic representing a complete alignment with my internal experience of bliss.
An example of how to use your joyometer is to ask yourself questions like: How does my relationship compare to my orgasm? How in tune with my orgasm is my job? How does this thing I want to purchase rate on my personal orgasmic scale? By asking questions like this, you will gradually begin to fine-tune your sense of what makes you truly happy. You will be less likely to succumb to outside influences regarding the choices you make for your life. It will be harder for anyone to sell you anything that doesn't sit well with your internal sense of ecstasy.
“Problematic” Orgasms
What if your orgasm doesn't fit into the “pure-bliss and fireworks” category? What if your orgasm is accompanied by feelings of guilt, disgust or shame? What if you are only able to orgasm to the tune of rape or incest fantasies? What if visions of being brutalized, spied on, beaten or betrayed are what turn you one? If any of these scenarios are the case for you, then here, within these pages, is right where you should be.
These emotionally, politically and spiritually complex ways of orgasim, are all common experiences that have, for a variety of reasons, embedded themselves into our understanding and experience of ecstasy. Your responsibility on this journey, is to simply BE with whatever occurs for you during your encounters with your orgasm, even when the feelings and sensations that come up feel shameful, uncomfortable or downright degrading.
For example, if you typically orgasm to the fantasy of being seduced by your father, allow yourself to be conscious of all the feelings that come up around this scenario. Stay away from orgasm-by-rote or, the unconscious and mechanical habit of detached orgasm.
Instead, connect with the excitement, pain, confusion or shame that may be a part of this experience. Connecting and feeling your feelings, even one’s you may judge, is an essential part of being.
What Being Also Looks Like
Being is the act of focusing and holding your attention in every part of your body at once and, in this state, recognizing and feeling your natural connection to your essential Self, the earth, and her inhabitants. It is complete physical and emotional presence and union, and it takes practice. Whole body being takes a persistent and conscious commitment to addressing the fragmentation that is the natural state of women in patriarchal culture. In “Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy,” feminist theologian and philosopher Mary Daly described this state of fragmentation:
Within the virulent state of phallocracy, women have been attacked and divided against our Selves. From the earliest times of the patriarchy, countless mothers have been broken, and the resulting broken daughters have carried on the chain of fragmentation. No longer have the broken daughters been able to listen unhindered to the “mysterious” telic centering principle within and become fully Self-actualizing women. Instead, they have been reduced to responding to the fettered/fathered urge to reproduce their altered-that is, patriarchally identified-selves in an endless circle of Self-destruction…
She goes on to say:
Yet the sources of wholeness are within women… (though) overcoming…the programmed separation of all living creatures from the telic centering principle of being, will involve facing the horror of (patriarchy’s) workings and effects.
Being Begins With Breath
For once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they fall in accordance with the joy which we know ourselves to be capable of. Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence…
-Audre Lorde, The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power
One of several techniques we will use on this journey of healing the fragmentation of the feminine self, is cultivating the ability to still the mind so that we might listen to and honor the experience of the body. Most of us spend our days using our bodies, to walk, eat, read, exercise, gossip, pray, work and have sex, without ever actually checking in to listen to her wisdom or see if there’s anything special that she needs. The female body houses the greatest untapped resource of wisdom, information and intuition, but we generally keep ourselves too busy to listen to her until we have some kind of a breakdown.
In the exercise that follow, you will be given instructions for how to harness the full power of your body and her intelligence in the service of your ecstasy, healing and evolution.
As you move through the work of 40 Days & 40 nights, please keep in mind the first principle of SHEism: The Woman Worship Way, which is: everything and every way you are is holy and all the ways you come are part of your sacred earthly journey.
40 Days & 40 nights is a vehicle to examine, heighten awareness of and transform your relationship to your coochie, your orgasm and your most powerful and creative self.
If you’d like to come on this journey (pun intended) you will need a hand mirror, a blank notebook, something to write and draw with, a vibrator and whatever else you need in order to have an orgasm (a quiet room, massage oils, music etc.) You will also need to think of the time you spend coaxing delicious orgasms from your body as a meditation. To that end, it's a good idea to set a consistent time that is long enough and private enough for you to relax into your bliss.
This week:
1. Give yourself an orgasm every day for the next seven days. This is an exercise that you will do alone. Prioritize and be persistent with this goal, commit to having your daily orgasm by any means necessary. Rearrange your schedule, cancel an appointment, pick the kids up late, hire a babysitter, rent a hotel room, take an extra long lunch break, lock the door to your bathroom. Do whatever you need to do, to fit in your daily orgasm.
2. Meditate on your breath for 10 minutes first thing in the morning, and right before you go to bed. The best way to do this exercise is to sit upright in a comfortable chair, with the soles of your feet on the floor, your back straight and supported, and your hands resting loosely on your thighs. If it is more comfortable for you to sit on the floor cross-legged, this is ok too. Close your eyes and bring all of your attention to your nose and the breath flowing in and out of your nostrils. As you settle into this exercise, be aware of when your mind begins to be agitated, starts daydreaming or generally starts to squirm as you focus on your breath. Gently and persistently bring your mind back to your breath every time your attention wanders. Sit for ten minutes.
3. Essentialized Orgasm: Write the autobiography of your orgasm in 24 words, no more and no less. Try to include everything that has ever happened to your orgasm, from her conception to the present.
4. When you have completed writing the autobiography of your orgasm in 24 words, below it, write the autobiography of your orgasm in 12 words. Feel free to use some or all of the same words from your 24-word autobiography, but you may also use completely different words. Perhaps there is something you forgot to say your first time around, or there’s a point that needs more attention. Go ahead and use these next 12 words to either repeat, expand or bring clarity to your orgasm’s life!
5. Beneath the 12 words, now write the autobiography of your orgasm in six words. Same instructions as above.
6. Beneath the six words, write the autobiography of your orgasm in three words.
7. Beneath the three-word autobiography, please tell the entire life story of your orgasm in one word! All the joy, all the sorrow, the ups and the downs. If you had to tell her whole story in only one word, what would that word be?
8. Now, go back to the top of the page and write, as your title, “In The Beginning: _________.” Fill in the blank with your one-word autobiography. Congratulations! You’ve just written your first SHEist scripture!
9. Read your scripture aloud to one, supportive witness who is kind and whom you trust. Try not to give too much explanation around the exercise. Notice the feelings that come up for you as you share this intimate experience.
10. Every day this week, with the help of your hand mirror, draw a picture of your coochie. Use this time to bring awareness to how you feel about your coochie from moment to moment. Notice when your attention drifts or when you become bored. Notice the feelings of discovery, revulsion or delight you may experience.
If you’ve never had an orgasm, or don’t know how to generate one on your own, read on, the next post is for you!
Copyright Christa Bell 2010
I am One Who has mastered mystery. I am One Who has no fear. I am One Who sees the truth, and waits. I am One Who has complete understanding. I am One Who begins from a point of total acceptance. I am One Who offers only what is needed. I am One Who feels no sense of struggle. I am One Whose aim is true. I am One Who tolerates all things. I am One Who does not hesitate in the face of uncertainty. I am One Whose judgment is sound. I am One Who dwells on the mountaintop.
Exceptionally valuable writings expressing intimate connections between early India, Egypt and Ethiopia have existed for more than two thousand years. In the first century B.C.E., for example, the famous Greek historian Diodorus Siculus penned that, "From Ethiopia he (Osiris) passed through Arabia, bordering upon the Red Sea as far as to India....He built many cities in India, one of which he called Nysa, willing to have remembrance of that (Nysa) in Egypt where he was brought up." Apollonius of Tyana, who is said to have visited India near the end of the first century C.E., was convinced that "The Ethiopians are colonists sent from India, who follow their forefathers in matters of wisdom." The Itinerarium Alexandri, a Latin work written about 345 C.E. for the Roman emperor Constantius, says that, "India, taken as a whole, beginning from the north and embracing what of it is subject to Persia, is a continuation of Egypt and the Ethiopians.
Shaktisangama Tantra*
Woman is the creator of the universe,
the universe is her form;
woman is the foundation of the world,
she is the true form of the body.
Whatever form she takes,
whether the form of a man or a woman,
is the superior form.
In woman is the form of all things,
of all that lives and moves in the world.
There is no jewel rarer than woman,
no condition superior to that of a woman.
There is not, nor has been, nor will be
any destiny equal to that of a woman;
there is no kingdom, no wealth,
to be compared with a woman.
There is not, nor has been, nor will be
any holy place like unto a woman.
There is no prayer equal to a woman.
There is not, nor has been, nor will be
any yoga to compare with a woman,
no mystical formula nor asceticism
to match a woman.
There is not, nor have been, nor will be
any riches more valuable than woman.
Page, whose later life was marked by depression, violent mood swings and several years in a state mental institution, died Thursday night at Kindred Hospital in Los Angeles, where she had been on life support since suffering a heart attack Dec. 2, according to her agent, Mark Roesler.
A cult figure, Page was most famous for the estimated 20,000 4-by-5-inch black-and-white glossy photographs taken by amateur shutterbugs from 1949 to 1957. The photos showed her in high heels and bikinis or negligees, bondage apparel -- or nothing at all.
Decades later, those images inspired biographies, comic books, fan clubs, websites, commercial products -- Bettie Page playing cards, dress-up magnet sets, action figures, Zippo lighters, shot glasses -- and, in 2005, a film about her life and times, "The Notorious Bettie Page."
Then there are the idealized portraits of her naughty personas -- Nurse Bettie, Jungle Bettie, Voodoo Bettie, Banned in Boston Bettie, Maid Bettie, Crackers in Bed Bettie -- memorialized by such artists as Olivia de Berardinis.
"I'll always paint Bettie Page," De Berardinis said Thursday night . "But truth be told, it took me years to understand what I was looking at in the old photographs of her. Now I get it. There was a passion play unfolding in her mind. What some see as a bad-girl image was in fact a certain sensual freedom and play-acting - it was part of the fun of being a woman."
"The origins of what captures the imagination and creates a particular celebrity are sometimes difficult to define," Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner said Thursday night. "Bettie Page was one of Playboy magazine's early Playmates, and she became an iconic figure, influencing notions of beauty and fashion. Then she disappeared. . . . Many years later, Bettie resurfaced and we became friends. Her passing is very sad."
In an interview 2 1/2 years ago, Hefner described Page's appeal as "a combination of wholesome innocence and fetish-oriented poses that is at once retro and very modern."
