sacred prostitution

Can you get closer to God through selling your body? Is there such a thing as sacred prostitution? The sacrifice of one’s self and body for a divinity. Maria’s Ralf brought up an interesting point this morning. “The great historian, Herodotus wrote of Babylonia: ‘They have a strange custom here, by which every woman born in Sumeria is obliged, at least once in her lifetime, to go to the temple of the goddess Ishtar and give her body to a stranger, as a symbol of hospitality and for a symbolic price.’" Ralf goes on... "later on though during the Roman Empire, another goddess, Vesta demanded total virginity or total surrender” It follows suit then that eventually total surrender was dropped and total virginity was the way it went. It's strange that a concept that lasted not for centuries but millennia was replaced by a mentality that labels sexuality and religion as mutually exclusive. It's also interesting to me that various religions handle sexuality in different ways. The dominant world religions treat sexuality as (at best) a distraction from the spiritual path. On the other hand, some spiritual traditions integrate sexuality into their spiritual practice. Some regard sexuality as an integral part of life, a gift to be honored and enjoyed while other view it as an evil that must be avoided at all costs. And somewhere between the total enjoyment of sexuality and that of abstinence lies the middle ground of rules that govern sexual activity. I drew upon all I’ve encountered in the past and how they relate to this concept and realized that it is very much viewed in a different light depending on where you’re coming from. Whether it be Christianity and Islam’s vow of celibacy outside the context of a marriage, Socrates’ persistence that the body hinders the arrival at truth because of sexual desire, or a Jehovah’s witness I met on a bus once who proudly proclaimed he was dating 7 girls at the same time to fulfill his religion it slowly started to dawn on me that this definitely wasn’t a black and white issue.

Ma bookstore lacking on bullshit

The bookstore is out of “on bullshit” again and I’m starting to get the sense that acquiring and reading this little essay is going to prove to be extremely anti-climactic after all this “waitin…. and wishin… and hopin… and prayin” (sung to a tune of a musical or movie or something whose name eludes me now). I bought “Fear and Trembling” by Soren Kierkegaard instead who asks: “If there were no eternal consciousness in a (wo)man, if at the bottom of everything, there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?”. I’ve been toying with all sorts of basic philosophical ideas but am finding within them extreme complexity. On my last visit to the bookstore before today I picked up a little golden book that read “Truth”. I will admit that though any philosophy lover knows the topic has been done to death and the chances of reading anything “new” on the subject are slim to none, I couldn’t resist the urge to own the little cute thing. I wanted to own the golden “Truth”. Strange on its own everyone knows you can’t really own truth and if for arguments sake you could there wouldn’t be A golden truth, they’re subjective. Regardless, though pretty, as anticipated, the book delivered absolutely nothing new. Examining the reasons why we value truth and how the lack of it in our lives creates a disorder, a realm where nothing is verifiable, where outcome can not be predicted and trust is lacking. Giving credit where it’s due, I should say that the author did touch on ONE interesting point however. Is truth out there and waiting to be discovered or is it internalized relative to our reality? This made me question if anyone can really arrive at the truth or are we all constrained and controlled by our innate nature and belief system. Can anyone really find a truth they are unwilling to see when they do not have the belief system already in place for them to arrive at a conclusion extremely different from the one they were previously at? Or was Socrates completely right when he said that in order for us to attain the truth we must rid ourselves of the hindrance that is our body? …..

Purgitory

Call it extreme enlightenment or boredom, whichever suites your fancy depending on your personality's inclination towards the hole or the doughnut, it occurred to me that the Eagles' hotel California and U2's Stuck in a moment are both strokes of genius. Not because they've been played out to death and the melodies are resonate in your mind long after the song is done but because of their ability to capture the "in between". Its easy to write a song about your masochistic love affair and how u drilled a wire through your cheek (blue October), or about how you decided to teach your cheating boyfriend a lesson by digging your key into the side of his supped up 4 wheel drive, carving your name into his leather seats, taking a Louisville slugger to both headlights and slashing a hole in all 4 tires (Carrie Underwood), or how with every word, every smile, every glance, every caress you come closer to the water drinking your lovers kisses (Lhasa De Sela), or how when she kisses you everyone sighs and though u close your eyes you see la vie en rose (Louis Armstrong). BUT how many times do you hear a song, or read a book, or watch a movie about the calm between the storms, the dullness between the winter and spring, the uneventful mundane between amazing success and subzero failure? If you think about it you’ll be able to relate this idea of purgatory to different aspects of everything . You’ll soon see that we spend most of our lives neither here nor there. Toying with shades of grey. Not 100% happy nor a 100% dissatisfied. We linger between the photos we take capturing one memorable moment and the next. We reminisce about relationships that have long since left our lives. We hang out watching the tide roll away and in the midst of it all babies continue to cry over spilt milk. In the comfort of realizing that all things stall, idle, pause and linger I have discovered a new found affinity for the "in between".