Journeying Back to Elysium
A Cosmic Dance of Sex and Death, Light and Dark, Life and Rebirth
Hylas and the Nymphs, by John William Waterhouse, 1896
"There's something about these opposite forces of sex and death in all of our lives. They are inevitable and they are everywhere, and they war. They come to battle each other in gothic romance"- Tom Hiddleston (on Crimson Peak)
The waltz between sex and death is integrated into the great mystery of life and spirit. This has been a fascination of mine for years. the duality between sex, death, light, dark and I firmly believe these themes are deeply ingrained into our thoughts and dreams and so this essay was born on my walk home the other night as I bounced ideas off my husband, as the sun set and the sky glowed in a lovely transition from lavender to rose to turquoise, and the mist rolled down from the mountains and through the forests pooling on to the busy weaving rivers of roads with cars sweeping backwards and forth, their headlights on and the last traces of gold glinting off the back of their bumpers as the sun slowly disappeared, a mirroring netherworld not quite here, not quite there.
We are drawn towards those dark parts of subconscious where erotic thoughts are harboured alongside the awareness of our own mortality, the connection to our world and the fear of the horrors that may lurk in the darkness, or what we may experience once we pass on through the oceans of being to the other side. Cultures around the world venerate their ancestors, spirit guides, Gods and engage in sexual rites. The ancients found great magical powers in the source of flesh or magical properties in the essence of natural, life fluids such as menstruation from ancient priestesses who offered the cups in order to sustain life to men masturbating in public in Ancient Egypt for the festival of Min. Images of blood, semen, orgasms, a breathless couple, pumping hearts, not only invoke erotic, sexual feelings in our psyche but they serve to remind us that we are human, mortals, alive and therefore one day we will inevitably pass away, but the realm of spirit serves to remind us things are not fixed as they may seem in our third dimension. Ghostly apparitions, lucid dreams and out of body experience prove to us the mind is experiencing only a limited part of this crazy, wonderful thing we call reality and so our imaginations run rampant, stories of beautiful or horrifying creatures are witnessed. Sirens, mermaids, vampires succubi, beings linked to the same interweaving realms of consciousness, nature and magic where our desires, memories, and our souls are born.
Sex is one of the most controversial and prominent themes in modern, especially western, culture. Hypocritically both a taboo and a craze, sex is sultry, powerful, evocative, power, forbidden, controversial, a sensitive subject. The media has become a sex-centred reproduction machine churning out the same repetitive sexual images day after day, governing, defining, manipulating and shattering our paradigms, perceptions and sexual preferences. Our book's and film's bestsellers are decided by how raunchy they are, magazines are pumped with hyper muscular men, body builders, adverts on TV are full of electronic belts to increase abs, and for women fashion magazines are bestsellers with airbrushed glamorised models whom look so symmetrical, lean and flawless they are unnatural, almost otherworldly creatures that although we aspire to mirror this, it is impossible to attain. The same magazines have dedicated columns on sex life, how to attract a man, how to be great beneath the sheets, how to maintain an orgasm, how to improve your man's talents if you are bored. Food is presented in a sexual manner, colours enhanced, emphasis placed on flavor, the delight to our senses, everything is interlinked to sex, we cannot think of a cherry without comparing to the young virginal maiden and her fall into pleasure, we can not think of an apple without remembering man's fall from Eden into sexual sin. As a culture we are sex obsessed and sex focused.
Death is an almost equal taboo. The questions presented by death can not be expertly answered by anyone. Alchemists, dreamers and scientists alike strive for the fountain of youth, the key to eternal life, or even your local supermarket sells out of products in people's efforts to defy the inevitable symptoms of ageing. However death is greatly respected amongst religious circles. Some invoke death like states in order to pass beyond the border of our reality into a shamanic otherworld in order to commune with the dead or see the many levels of being on the otherside, whilst others hold frequent annual ceremonies where ancestors and heroes of the past are remembered and invited to join the living once again. Death can be accepted as just one part on a long journey the soul must venture past and reincarnation is a belief vastly believed in by people both of the past and today.
Although these two subjects may be imprisoned with in the walls of "shush" when it comes to whispered subjects best kept under the floorboards whilst in public or at the dinner tables they are still very prominent in our waking thoughts and in the books we are drawn to read, the films we love to watch, the art we are inspired to create and in every step we take in our daily lives.
The waltz between sex and death is integrated into the great mystery of life and spirit. This has been a fascination of mine for years. the duality between sex, death, light, dark and I firmly believe these themes are deeply ingrained into our thoughts and dreams and so this essay was born on my walk home the other night as I bounced ideas off my husband, as the sun set and the sky glowed in a lovely transition from lavender to rose to turquoise, and the mist rolled down from the mountains and through the forests pooling on to the busy weaving rivers of roads with cars sweeping backwards and forth, their headlights on and the last traces of gold glinting off the back of their bumpers as the sun slowly disappeared, a mirroring netherworld not quite here, not quite there.
We are drawn towards those dark parts of subconscious where erotic thoughts are harboured alongside the awareness of our own mortality, the connection to our world and the fear of the horrors that may lurk in the darkness, or what we may experience once we pass on through the oceans of being to the other side. Cultures around the world venerate their ancestors, spirit guides, Gods and engage in sexual rites. The ancients found great magical powers in the source of flesh or magical properties in the essence of natural, life fluids such as menstruation from ancient priestesses who offered the cups in order to sustain life to men masturbating in public in Ancient Egypt for the festival of Min. Images of blood, semen, orgasms, a breathless couple, pumping hearts, not only invoke erotic, sexual feelings in our psyche but they serve to remind us that we are human, mortals, alive and therefore one day we will inevitably pass away, but the realm of spirit serves to remind us things are not fixed as they may seem in our third dimension. Ghostly apparitions, lucid dreams and out of body experience prove to us the mind is experiencing only a limited part of this crazy, wonderful thing we call reality and so our imaginations run rampant, stories of beautiful or horrifying creatures are witnessed. Sirens, mermaids, vampires succubi, beings linked to the same interweaving realms of consciousness, nature and magic where our desires, memories, and our souls are born.
Sex is one of the most controversial and prominent themes in modern, especially western, culture. Hypocritically both a taboo and a craze, sex is sultry, powerful, evocative, power, forbidden, controversial, a sensitive subject. The media has become a sex-centred reproduction machine churning out the same repetitive sexual images day after day, governing, defining, manipulating and shattering our paradigms, perceptions and sexual preferences. Our book's and film's bestsellers are decided by how raunchy they are, magazines are pumped with hyper muscular men, body builders, adverts on TV are full of electronic belts to increase abs, and for women fashion magazines are bestsellers with airbrushed glamorised models whom look so symmetrical, lean and flawless they are unnatural, almost otherworldly creatures that although we aspire to mirror this, it is impossible to attain. The same magazines have dedicated columns on sex life, how to attract a man, how to be great beneath the sheets, how to maintain an orgasm, how to improve your man's talents if you are bored. Food is presented in a sexual manner, colours enhanced, emphasis placed on flavor, the delight to our senses, everything is interlinked to sex, we cannot think of a cherry without comparing to the young virginal maiden and her fall into pleasure, we can not think of an apple without remembering man's fall from Eden into sexual sin. As a culture we are sex obsessed and sex focused.
Death is an almost equal taboo. The questions presented by death can not be expertly answered by anyone. Alchemists, dreamers and scientists alike strive for the fountain of youth, the key to eternal life, or even your local supermarket sells out of products in people's efforts to defy the inevitable symptoms of ageing. However death is greatly respected amongst religious circles. Some invoke death like states in order to pass beyond the border of our reality into a shamanic otherworld in order to commune with the dead or see the many levels of being on the otherside, whilst others hold frequent annual ceremonies where ancestors and heroes of the past are remembered and invited to join the living once again. Death can be accepted as just one part on a long journey the soul must venture past and reincarnation is a belief vastly believed in by people both of the past and today.
Although these two subjects may be imprisoned with in the walls of "shush" when it comes to whispered subjects best kept under the floorboards whilst in public or at the dinner tables they are still very prominent in our waking thoughts and in the books we are drawn to read, the films we love to watch, the art we are inspired to create and in every step we take in our daily lives.
So where does our obsession with sex come from? The desire to reproduce, the strength of desire? Sex is an overtly spiritual experience. From an esoteric perspective to lose oneself in another, to traverse consciousness, to open the chakras through sex is to connect to source. Spiritual literature is full of references to twin flames, sex magick, tantra. Sex is linked to the return of the Divine Feminine and also linked to the Divine Masculine. Sacred sex is described as being conscious of one's self-empowerment or the energetic pleasures of our animal self. It seems both an earthly and a mystical experience, an activity between worlds, dimensions, as if it is located at the point betwixt and between, simultaneously existing between here and the fairy realm, the place of dreams, visions, gods and goddesses, accessed through doors, mirrors, waters, shamanic journeys, or perhaps most vividly death (or near death experiences).
Ophelia, by John Everett Millais, 1852
Religion and sex have a deep intrinsic link, there is not one without the other. Both creation myths and sacred texts record the exploits of the Gods and are entwined with erotic symbolism. The link between sex and creation could be described as unifying, they are inseparable, creation myths are bound to contain sexual references for the universe, the earth itself even mankind are "birthed" from the Gods, the act of birthing, reproducing, requires sex. The waters of life can be compared to either the seed of God or the amniotic fluid, or the menstruation of the Goddess. The earliest creation myth is that of Sumerian and the Goddess Nammu, she gave birth to both Heaven (An) and Earth (Ki), her name means Sea, and the abode of these Gods was the primordial Sea, Apsu, which lay between the earth and the underworld and whose power was lifegiving, simply, the waters of life. Enki is the lord of Waters and Lord of Semen. Apsu, ruled by Enki, is both a realm of the creating forces of life but a place where the soul passes on its journey to the underworlds. In one Egyptian creation story Atum was said to raise out of the waters of Chaos, he created Shu and Tefnut through references to bodily fluids including masturbation, sneezing, spitting and vomiting. Shu and Tefnut give birth to Geb and Nut (the earth and sky) They were fixed in a state of constant copulation until separated to maintain order (Maat), , much like Gaia and Uranus in Greek mythology or Donn and Danu in one variant of Celtic creation stories. and so Nut would rain upon Geb and he would grow things upon the earth. The sun would be birthed by Nut each morning then pass through the sky throughout the day until the sun was swallowed by Nut (sunset) and would be birthed through her vagina each morning, a constant cycle of life, death and rebirth.The Goddess Aphrodite was born from sea foam, invoking evocative images of a maiden and sperm and the creative waters of life from which we are born. The waters of life and birth, a sexual primal life force, are mirrored in human life through our reproductive acts and when we engage in sex we are uniting our consciousness to that of divinity and the God's that birthed us.
(For some more creation myths visit: bigmyth.com)
The story of Isis and Osiris is the ultimate journey of Sex, Death and Rebirth and the evocative bond between them. Osiris is murdered by his jealous brother Seth, whom traps him in a coffin made specifically for Osiris, it is nailed shut and sealed with molten lead before being cast into the Nile killing the God. Isis mourned for her husband and searched for his body, she found it and hid his coffin. Seth discovered the coffin and in rage cut Osiris into pieces before scattering them into the Nile. Isis and her sister Nephthys searched for the pieces. They could only find 13 however using magic they formed his likeness but there was one part missing, his penis. Isis fashioned his member then recreated Osiris. She made love to his body and became pregnant with the solar God Horus whom she birthed to avenge his father. The story contains the ultimate mystery of life for it portrays death, sex and birth, and how they are interconnected, a never ending cycle to which not just humans, but the divine forces of the universe are privy. In Greek mythology Gaia and Uranus copsulate, but Uranus is cruel, so Kronos, their son, slays his father. Kronos and Rhea copulate and birth Zeus, who again, in a great cosmic cycle, slays his cruel father Kronos.
Eros And Thanatos. The romance of maidens, vampires, valkyries and succubi. “They say there is no light without dark, no good
without evil, no male without female, no right without wrong. That
nothing can exist if it's direct opposite does not also exist.”- Laurell K. Hamilton, Incubus Dreams
Everybody knows of the libido, our horny state of mind and desires, even though we may shy away from the matter in public, we humans take great pleasure in becoming fimiliar with our sexual arousal however not many people know of their "death drive", a theory which Freud originally proposed. Thanatos (aptly named after the Greek God of Death) is a drive in our subconscious mind which seeks to hurt the organism, the person as a whole, and finds specific pleasure in activities which harm or put the person at risk. Thanatos is directly opposed to Eros (a drive named after the God of Love- i.e pleasure again illustrating the tumultuous relationship between what is essentially sex and death and therefore the two primary components of living) the drive connected with life, instinct and libido. This drive is concerned with our livelihood, our health, our pleasures and often acts through our sexual drive and instinct. Our mind is dualistic the two drives conflicting yet simultaneously working with, existing with, reacting to one another. The case is similar to that of the existince of life and dark, the cosmic and the natural Yin Yang. The two oppose and compliment one another, by acting with one in mind, the other is therefore prominent, a constant reminder of eachother.
"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction"(- Isaac Newton- The Third Law of Motion) for every conscious thought, for every conscious drive and engaging in said action creates the opposite drive, the two are interlinked and our mind is at the zero point, the balance, the space between these two ever present concepts, beings, experiences of life.
The sex and death, light and dark link is very prominent in literature and mythology, and the two are often rightfully placed side by side. A prominent story of the young Maiden Persephone. This is such a romantic vivid invoking story amongst people even of the modern age. Persephone represents everything that is good, pure, she is virginal, a maiden, she is light embodied, she represents the phase between birth and the experiencing of life. She is stolen and taken to the underworld by the God of the underworld, Hades. Hades in this instance represents the darkness, death, the unknown, the unconscious, the other world. Their sacred marraige, sexual union, the corruption of Persephone, lasting six months a year, is a symbol of the young soul venturing into the darkest depths of one's self where darkness, death, spirits, ghosts reside and emerging forth brightly again into the conscious mind empowered, vibrant, glorious radiant, shining with the knowledge gained from before, one big sexual spiritual metaphor. There are similar allegories of the Goddess descending into the depths of
the underworld to align either with oneself or the dark God, Inanna, Ishtar, descending as does the shining planet of Venus in the night sky into the dark depths below the horizon to emerge once again, reborn into a new cycle. Psyche is also a young beautiful maiden who comes into an otherworldly sexual union with Eros in the depths of darkness, forbidden from looking upon her lover as they explore their sacred sexuality with one another, she journeys into the realm of Elysium, the otherworld, the subconscious, the darkness. The allure of darkness and light emerging in sexual union has inspired authors, artists, poets for centuries. The same dualistic theme is similar in the love affair of Aphrodite and Ares, the entanglement of love and war, a goddess of things light, love and childbirth, a God of things dark, violence and rage and war, the female harbinger of sexuality, life and rebirth and the male harbinger of death, darkness, the violence of sexual libido, a dangerous irresistible love affair. This style of romance is so ingrained in our minds, so symbolic and we are so drawn to it because not only does it represent part of ourselves coming together but the different states, processes in our lives that everybody faces. This compulsion to engage in sex, to stare death in the face, to lose ourselves, our sense of time, of self, for but a moment is both natural and essential to fully understand oneself, to live, to experience the depths of our psyche.
The prominence of Thanatos, this death drive, the intrigue of death and darkness and its arousing close association with sexuality contributes to the eroticised experiences of creatures of the night, the dark denizens hidden within the shadows that we are mortally drawn to and whom are equally ensnared by us, like a moth to a candle flame, for we are the opposite to them. There are so many similar beings in different cultures and lore of a dark body that pries upon us sexually, that draws our life force and although we humans fear them we can't resist them either, terrifying and beautiful. There are the succubi who emerge through the door of the netherworld within our journeys to the otherside in our sleeping state. Nightmarish in their tellings, female demons who have sexual intercourse with sleeping men, equally the Incubus the male counterpart.Their goal is to reproduce, either by collecting semen or impregnating innocent women. Although frightening and demonic these beings are often portrayed in all forms of art in an erotic manner, as attractive, voluptuous or sexualised, or alternatively as a goblin like creature but still placed beside eroticised pictures of young female victims. This parallels the mysteries and old tale of the hapless maiden Persephone being wooed by Hades in the dark underworld where she births their offspring.
Vampires were also a horrible grim creature, defintely thought of as ugly, decaying human monsters arisen from beyond the grave. People used to go to desparate measures to prevent these creatures from rising, steaking them to the ground, weighing them with stones, there was an apparent paranoia, the idea that something could one day rise beyond the grave and yearn for a taste of the living, their life force and energies, was so real enough that that they took action against it, a public acceptance of a belief. But overtime the vampire has become another undead subject of romanticism. Bram Stoker's Dracula helped formulate the modern lore of vampirism we know today, Dracula craved a mortal maiden Mina and she eventually is hypnotised by his spell. It holds the symbolism of life and death craving to come together in sexual union, the same partnership eternal in our folklore.
Even though Dracula is described as far from attractive by anyone's ideals the allure of a vampire with unnatural qualities and abilities, who can turn us to lover or pray on its whim is desirable. Today's portrayals of vampires are ones of sexy, film star like people with an unearthly beauty and a thirst, for not just our blood but to copsulate with us, that can not be quenched.
More creatures arise from the dark waters of chaos and sexuality such as the mermaid, the siren, erotic, breathtaking women who would appeal to their male prey, seducing them before dragging them deep into their watery grave. The link between sex and death, light and dark, coming together in the waters of the otherworld, or the subconscious, and our desire to reach these planes of terrifying but blissful states, the Elysium we all strive for, is irresistible even at the cost of death.
Even nature spirits such as nymphs and dryads, beautiful feminine beings one can compare to the God's and Goddesses, caretakers of the realm, beings of both light and nature, the living, are sometimes savage and dangerous to encounter. Take Orpheus, his fate was to be torn apart by Maenad's, the female followers of the Nature God of wine, ecstasy and intoxication, Dionysis. The trials of Orpheus are even venturing the tenuous line of death and mortality by venturing to the underworld in order to unite with his fallen lover. The fate of Hylas, who encounters a nymph while fetching water from a pool, is not revealed but one can imagine it either ends in drowning less likely romantically, however the theme of seduction and the otherworld are still prominent subjects.
Another light being, closely meandering the road between sexuality and death, is that of the beautiful Valkyries from Norse mythology. The valkyries are a host of maidens who determine both whom dies and who lives in battle, their name meaning "chooser of the slain", who use their "malicious magic to ensure that their preferences in this regard are brought to fruition".
"In the religion of the Norsemen, swans were seen as Valkyries, shapeshifting female warriors, gathering around the God Odin and his wife Freya in Valhalla, where slain warriors are recieved into the afterlife. Indeed valkyries were the 'conductors of souls to the lands of shades'. Belief in their visitations to the physical world were widepread in he scandinavian countries, where ancient tradition speaks of maidens adorning themselves..."- Andrew Collins, The Cygnus Mysterey
Often compared too with swans, or horses, they are empowered, beautiful ladies who not only exist beyond the veil they hold the reigns on the livelihood of men, literally deciding who lives and who dies, sex and death embodied, whom sometimes fall in love with heroes and men alike.
"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. "- Carl Jung
Ultimately it is the attraction, the draw, the impulse we each have to explore, to lose oneself in sexual activity that beckons us towards connecting to the divine, walking the footsteps of Gods and fantastical beings alike, to enact the throes of heroes, of demons, of human beings, of particles alike, an intrinsic part of our very being, our very psyche which helps us understand ourselves and hand in hand come to terms with the aging of our being, the maturing of our soul, the demise of our simply physical, material selves, but an invitation to experience the floodgates of the world beyond the veil, to open our eyes to ecstatic realities full of beautiful maidens, of heroic knights, of dark sultry demons, incubi, succubi, vampires, of men and women so sexual, so irrestible every fibre of our being can not deny the impulse to align the light with the darkness, a journey of self discovery for "one does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious"- Carl Jung, a human experience from one to another, no matter how drunken, how debaucherous, how raunchy we are all learning, experiencing, living, creating, uniting our primal animal with our enlightened oneness, "To confront a person with his own shadow is to show him his own light"- Carl Jung.
Perhaps this urge to unite the darkness with the light, the sexual with the otherworld beyond, is where fetishes are born, people diving into the depths of their darkness, the Thanatos taking over, sado-masochism born by experiencing our own mortality literally as we experience the sense of self gained through sex, the release of a drive that governs our waking moment for it defines what it is to be alive.
Perhaps this merging, this willingness to submit, to perform this act aware of the barrier breaking, transcendental sense of being, is so frightening we fashion images of maidens corrupted by their desires, the whore is so self empowered, so awake in her divinity, her sexual awakening, we fear her, make her monstrous, paint her as the whore of Babylon. We are so scared of mortality, of living, we curse the primordial Eve, Lilith, for teaching us that we are mortal, that we are sexual beings, that we can die, experience more than this safe bubble of reality. We curse her and the serpent, the very symbol of knowledge, of the pineal, of the rising energy of the Kundalini which is risen by the very act of being, of existing, by reaching transcendental experiences in whatever medium YOU find fit for your purpose, INCLUDING sex. We have demonised the old, ancient, sacred, enlightened priestess who guided us, who sustained us with her living fluids, her sexual energies. Paint her as a whore:
So please, go forward, my fellow journey men, be conscious that you are alive, experience the wonders of nature, of material existence, the ecstasy in your sexual empowerment, the freedom to love and unite with another, there is nothing more divine than being truly in love with someone and exploring that relationship. Awaken the darkness and balance it with your light, travel to worlds beyong and love yourself and another. Be conscious of this bond, for "man is not truly one, but
truly two,”- Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde.Safe journey on your travels, and to you, Namaste.
Freya Rose
)O(
References/ Sources
Books:
Genesis of the Grail Kings- Laurence Gardner
Realm of The Ring Lords- Laurence Gardner
The Cygnus Mystery- Andrew Collins
The Secret Teachings of All Ages- Manly P Hall
Bram Stoker- Dracula
The Strange Case of Dr Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde- Robert Louis Stevenson
Websites:
Bigmyth.com
industry-couldnt-get-worse/
https://thoughtsfromthemiddleseat.com/2011/02/28/explaining-thanatos-the-death-drive/
http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/thecygnusmystery_knights.htm
http://www.bcliving.ca/health/5-surprising-ways-sexy-time-is-practiced-around-the-world
The prominence of Thanatos, this death drive, the intrigue of death and darkness and its arousing close association with sexuality contributes to the eroticised experiences of creatures of the night, the dark denizens hidden within the shadows that we are mortally drawn to and whom are equally ensnared by us, like a moth to a candle flame, for we are the opposite to them. There are so many similar beings in different cultures and lore of a dark body that pries upon us sexually, that draws our life force and although we humans fear them we can't resist them either, terrifying and beautiful. There are the succubi who emerge through the door of the netherworld within our journeys to the otherside in our sleeping state. Nightmarish in their tellings, female demons who have sexual intercourse with sleeping men, equally the Incubus the male counterpart.Their goal is to reproduce, either by collecting semen or impregnating innocent women. Although frightening and demonic these beings are often portrayed in all forms of art in an erotic manner, as attractive, voluptuous or sexualised, or alternatively as a goblin like creature but still placed beside eroticised pictures of young female victims. This parallels the mysteries and old tale of the hapless maiden Persephone being wooed by Hades in the dark underworld where she births their offspring.
Vampires were also a horrible grim creature, defintely thought of as ugly, decaying human monsters arisen from beyond the grave. People used to go to desparate measures to prevent these creatures from rising, steaking them to the ground, weighing them with stones, there was an apparent paranoia, the idea that something could one day rise beyond the grave and yearn for a taste of the living, their life force and energies, was so real enough that that they took action against it, a public acceptance of a belief. But overtime the vampire has become another undead subject of romanticism. Bram Stoker's Dracula helped formulate the modern lore of vampirism we know today, Dracula craved a mortal maiden Mina and she eventually is hypnotised by his spell. It holds the symbolism of life and death craving to come together in sexual union, the same partnership eternal in our folklore.
“His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth. These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed. The chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.
Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine. But seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse, broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal." - Bram Stoker, Dracula
Even though Dracula is described as far from attractive by anyone's ideals the allure of a vampire with unnatural qualities and abilities, who can turn us to lover or pray on its whim is desirable. Today's portrayals of vampires are ones of sexy, film star like people with an unearthly beauty and a thirst, for not just our blood but to copsulate with us, that can not be quenched.
More creatures arise from the dark waters of chaos and sexuality such as the mermaid, the siren, erotic, breathtaking women who would appeal to their male prey, seducing them before dragging them deep into their watery grave. The link between sex and death, light and dark, coming together in the waters of the otherworld, or the subconscious, and our desire to reach these planes of terrifying but blissful states, the Elysium we all strive for, is irresistible even at the cost of death.
The Fisherman and the Siren, by Frederic Leighton, 1856-1858
Death of Orpheus, by Émile Lévy, 1866
Similarly maidens of light, godliness, sexuality, purity and innocence are also erotic and invoke our sexual instinct and in tandem our urge to connect with spirit and the otherworld.
Swan maidens are prominent in Northern European folklore and mythology. The tale of Angus and the swan maiden tells us of a hero whom in his dream state envisions a beautiful maiden whom he falls in love with. However she is a shapeshifter who changes form between a swan and a woman. Angus has to distinguish her amongst other swans on a particular night, or else she would remain so for twelve months, and propose to her. The imagery is angelic, pure, beautiful and encourages us to travel beyond the realms of the norm and seek out blissful union in an otherwordly state. Swan maidens have guided male characters in folklore, the imagery so profound to our mortal selves.
"In fact, European folkore abounds in stories of fairy-like swan maidens who usually appear in group of three, or seven. Stories handed down across countless generations thell of them arriving at a lake where they remover their swan shift (or 'wings') and swan ring (that is, a necklace, like Caer's gold chain), which is left behind in the grass. A peasant then comes along and, on seeing the women, steals their belongings and watches from a safe distance. Once the maidens tire of their play, they approach the man and ask for return of what is theirs, at which he requests that if one one of them becomes his wife, then the others might also go free. This then occurs, enabling the peasant and swan-maiden to live as man and wife for seven years, until he shows her, or she finds, the shift and ring that he has concealed for all this time. On holding these she immediately makes her escape, causing her husband to die of heartbreak"- Andrew Collins, The Cygnus Mystery
These teasing, beautiful, pure, elusive maidens are so magical and tempting their tales aren't just bound to Europe.
In his book, The Cygnus Mystery, Andrew Collins presents an interesting, persuasive, thought provoking hypothesis that these maidens are likened to swans as they are a part of a neolithic global shamanic religion that see the swan as the guide to through the milkyway into the cosmic afterlife, a symbol of a ferryman of souls, a psychopomp, due to the constellation of Cygnus alligning in the milkyway, the waters of chaos, of rebirth, of life and death, and therefore these young fertile maidens symbolise beings from this cosmic, otherworld, they are beautiful and alluring as they represent our desire to travel, to experience beyond our dimension, and that experience, that worshipping of the otherworld and the afterlife is eternally linked to our drive to live, experience, reproduce, our sexual drive. Proof of the swan being a symbol of the after life, or the other world, is also described by Andrew Collins, I recommend reading his book, but here is but one example:"All over Europe, and across Asia alsom the tale is more or less the same".- Andrew Collins, The Cygnus Mystery
"Traditions of this sort hark back to an age when magical flight was thought to be attained by the male or female shaman through wearing either a cloak of swan feathers or other swan paraphernalia, evidence of which occurs in these same countries, and also in many parts of Asia and the Indian sub-continent, where swan veneration was prominent in the past. Moreover, in Denmark archaeologists have discovered a unique burial in a cemetery dating to the Mesolithic age, c. 4800 BC. A young woman was found beneath a small knoll, next to her dead child, who had been laid to rest on a swan's wing. Its striking presence has been seen by some archaeologists as evidence of a link between the swan and the transmigration of the soul. If correct it shows the antiquity of this cult, which preceded even the spread of Europe's megalithic culture, of which both Avebury and Newgrange are prime examples.
Yet the connection between swan-maidens and prehistoric tombs is not confined to Newgrange, for at the Wayland Smithy long barrow situated some 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Avebury, a legend connects the founder Wayland, or Weland, the Germanic and Norse divine smith, with the cult of the swan. It was written that he escaped from the labours imposed on him by the wicked king Niðuð by wearing a swan coat, enabling him to achieve magical flight. In some versions of the tale, this was given to him by his wife, who was a Valkyrie. They were female spirits, shape-shifting swan-maidens, who carried the souls of the dead to Valhalla, the Hall of the Heroes in Norse myth. Although Wayland's link with the monument that bears his name post-dates its construction by some 4,000 years, it cannot be coincidence that, quite separately, prehistorian Professor John North determined that Wayland Smithy is aligned to Deneb, suggesting that a swan cult existed here as early as c. 3700 BC, its accepted date of construction."- Andrew Collins, The Cygnus Mystery, article on his website: http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/thecygnusmystery_knights.htm
Another light being, closely meandering the road between sexuality and death, is that of the beautiful Valkyries from Norse mythology. The valkyries are a host of maidens who determine both whom dies and who lives in battle, their name meaning "chooser of the slain", who use their "malicious magic to ensure that their preferences in this regard are brought to fruition".
"In the religion of the Norsemen, swans were seen as Valkyries, shapeshifting female warriors, gathering around the God Odin and his wife Freya in Valhalla, where slain warriors are recieved into the afterlife. Indeed valkyries were the 'conductors of souls to the lands of shades'. Belief in their visitations to the physical world were widepread in he scandinavian countries, where ancient tradition speaks of maidens adorning themselves..."- Andrew Collins, The Cygnus Mysterey
Often compared too with swans, or horses, they are empowered, beautiful ladies who not only exist beyond the veil they hold the reigns on the livelihood of men, literally deciding who lives and who dies, sex and death embodied, whom sometimes fall in love with heroes and men alike.
"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. "- Carl Jung
Ultimately it is the attraction, the draw, the impulse we each have to explore, to lose oneself in sexual activity that beckons us towards connecting to the divine, walking the footsteps of Gods and fantastical beings alike, to enact the throes of heroes, of demons, of human beings, of particles alike, an intrinsic part of our very being, our very psyche which helps us understand ourselves and hand in hand come to terms with the aging of our being, the maturing of our soul, the demise of our simply physical, material selves, but an invitation to experience the floodgates of the world beyond the veil, to open our eyes to ecstatic realities full of beautiful maidens, of heroic knights, of dark sultry demons, incubi, succubi, vampires, of men and women so sexual, so irrestible every fibre of our being can not deny the impulse to align the light with the darkness, a journey of self discovery for "one does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious"- Carl Jung, a human experience from one to another, no matter how drunken, how debaucherous, how raunchy we are all learning, experiencing, living, creating, uniting our primal animal with our enlightened oneness, "To confront a person with his own shadow is to show him his own light"- Carl Jung.
Perhaps this urge to unite the darkness with the light, the sexual with the otherworld beyond, is where fetishes are born, people diving into the depths of their darkness, the Thanatos taking over, sado-masochism born by experiencing our own mortality literally as we experience the sense of self gained through sex, the release of a drive that governs our waking moment for it defines what it is to be alive.
Perhaps this merging, this willingness to submit, to perform this act aware of the barrier breaking, transcendental sense of being, is so frightening we fashion images of maidens corrupted by their desires, the whore is so self empowered, so awake in her divinity, her sexual awakening, we fear her, make her monstrous, paint her as the whore of Babylon. We are so scared of mortality, of living, we curse the primordial Eve, Lilith, for teaching us that we are mortal, that we are sexual beings, that we can die, experience more than this safe bubble of reality. We curse her and the serpent, the very symbol of knowledge, of the pineal, of the rising energy of the Kundalini which is risen by the very act of being, of existing, by reaching transcendental experiences in whatever medium YOU find fit for your purpose, INCLUDING sex. We have demonised the old, ancient, sacred, enlightened priestess who guided us, who sustained us with her living fluids, her sexual energies. Paint her as a whore:
"The ’Scarlet Women’ were so called because of their being a direct source of the priestly Star Fire. They were known in Greek as the Hierodulai (’Sacred Women’) - a word later transformed (via mediaeval French into English) to ’harlot’. In the early Germanic tongue, they were known as Horés - which was later Anglicised to ’whores’. However, the word originally meant, quite simply, ’Beloved Ones’. As pointed out in good etymological dictionaries, these words were descriptions of high veneration and were never interchangeable with such words as ’prostitute’ or ’adulteress’. Their now common association was, in fact, a wholly contrived strategy of the mediaeval Roman Church in its bid to denigrate the noble status of the sacred priestess."- Laurence Gardner
Lilith, by John Collier, 1892
To engage in the act of sex is a natural, empowering experience, we are programmed to do so, it is hardwired deep in our subconscious, whether that be with a loving partner where you can awaken the depths of eachother, experience romantic bliss, or even a stranger. Life is about experience, and sex is the ultimate link to living for it is spiritually and psychologically connected to dying, and the more prepared we are for our travels, our journey to the fields of Elysium, the less we have to live in fear, denying and imprisoning apart of ourselves into the tales of history, into the twisted mythology of monsters. Live, experience, love, make love, dream, go beyong the veil, walk on the shoulders of Giants.
"Through spiritual unfoldment and knowledge imparted by the Mysteries, however, the latent element in each nature is gradually brought into activity and ultimately the human being thus regains sexual equilibrium. By this theory woman is elevated from the position of being man's errant part to one of complete equality. From this point of view, marriage is regarded as a companionship in which two complete individualities manifesting opposite polarities are brought into association that each may thereby awaken the qualities latent in the other and thus assist in the attainment of individual completeness."- Manly P Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages
Freya Rose
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References/ Sources
Genesis of the Grail Kings- Laurence Gardner
Realm of The Ring Lords- Laurence Gardner
The Cygnus Mystery- Andrew Collins
The Secret Teachings of All Ages- Manly P Hall
Bram Stoker- Dracula
The Strange Case of Dr Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde- Robert Louis Stevenson
Websites:
Bigmyth.com
industry-couldnt-get-worse/
https://thoughtsfromthemiddleseat.com/2011/02/28/explaining-thanatos-the-death-drive/
http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/thecygnusmystery_knights.htm
http://www.bcliving.ca/health/5-surprising-ways-sexy-time-is-practiced-around-the-world
Great article! You present a compelling argument in favour of exploring the mysteries of sex, as well as present both sex and death in such a way as to be both frightening and divine. If anyone was stuffy about sex before, they shouldn't be now. Love your use of references; I will definitely follow these up in my spare time!
ReplyDeleteEnki Endymion. O(
Thanks again! ^_^ )O(
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