The Sacred Erotic

I came across a poem yesterday by renowned Indian poetess and mystic, Mira. Born a princess in the area of Rajasthan in 1498, she was drawn to Krishna after a wandering ascetic gave her a tiny statue of the god. She remained deeply spiritual as a young woman and refused to be treated as chattel in her arranged marriage, which ended shortly because of her husband's death. Mira chose to dive  into a spiritual life, visiting temples only attended by the untouchables of India's devastating caste system. At these holy sites, she sang, danced and embraced the untouchables, all of which led to such anger on the part of her in-laws that they attempted to have her killed.

She fled, becoming a sadhu, a wandering ascetic, traveling much of Northern India on foot, and she remained a fierce advocate for the role of women in India. She wrote poems that were full of love and were often erotic, but they always related to the connection between humanity and God.

Here's the poem I came across:

The moon was perched like a golden hawk on

the mango tree.

 

I knew the moon was like me - in heat,

crazed and hunting.

 

So I climbed up there with that wild old gal-

thinking:

 

Two drunk beauties like us

will surely snag

Krishna

 

with our

eyes.

 

I adore poems that cast our relationship with deity as that of lovers. It makes an intuitive sense to me, partly because sensuality is such a vibrant way for us to connect to one another, so why not to God? If our creator(s) blessed us with a built-in expression of ecstasy, why wouldn't we be able to connect to Him/Her/Them with the same level of intensity and passion? It's a perfect embodied metaphor for yoga - union. In the best experiences of making love, we merge, our egos are obliterated, we worship, adore and, in a final moment of orgasm, connect with something cosmic. We're given a glimpse of that greater Mystery in those moments, and then we can begin to parcel them out into all the moments and interactions in our lives.

I was struck by this woman, living in a very traditional and at-the-time patriarchal culture, going to the mat for her beliefs around love and the transcendent mysteries of our cosmos. It gives me hope that if she can do it, then perhaps, so can I.

 

Thank you, Mira. Wherever you are, I'm sure you've snagged more than Krishna's eyes.

 

Posted on Fri, February 5, 2010 by Greg Marzullo

3 comments (Add your own)

1. mindy houri wrote:
MMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmm juicy ...warm....Words which travel up my spine,circle my heart and flow throughout the rest of my body! "we can do it!"

Fri, February 5, 2010 @ 7:48 PM

2. Miriam Wiederhorn wrote:
What a beautiful poem! I can entirely relate with the underlying sentiment of sensually embracing the divine. It reminds me of how I forged a relationship to Ixchel, a Mayan goddess of the moon, water and fertility.

It all began with my phobia about emercing myself in water, be it a pool or a bathtub, I was like a cat, I would toy with it, but hated getting my head wet and reviled at the way in which a body of water touched me everywhere all at at once. Jumping into a pool literally made me want to crawl out of my skin! Therefore, it was somewhat contradictory that three summers ago I decided to start swimming in an effort to improve my overall fitness and shed some excess weight.

My desire to start swimming also coincided with my new found interest in ancient Mayan culture and myth. I was fascinated primary because of the Mayan recognition of and often co-equal role women played in culture and religion. In line with this were the numerous temples, wall reliefs and ceramic vases dedicated to queens and goddesses. I fond many of these portrayals illuminating and inspiring, they infused me with a desire to consummate my relationship with the divine. This want transformed my perception of swimming and emercing myself in water. If I could conceive of this act as a sensual union with Ixchel herself then any phobia I had about being engulfed in an anonymous watery embrace vanished. Changing my mindset on swimming from the mundane to the divine enabled me to forge a union with Ixchel. Her sacredness became actual, tangible and transformative. Every time I dove into the water it was a transcendent experience. I now love swimming because it is so sensual, all encompassing and divine. Like a familiar lover the water surounds my flesh and caresses me from head to toe till I surrender,exhausted and float limply, cradled in her tender embrace.

Sat, February 6, 2010 @ 5:02 PM

3. Greg wrote:
Miriam, this is so beautiful! Thank you for sharing this, and what an amazing recognition and transformation!!!

Oceans freaked me out for the longest time because of their depth and unknown qualities, but after developing a relationship with the Ocean Mother and those goddesses who embody all things - life, death, sex, birth, desire and obliteration - I gained a deep love of that ocean power.

Wed, February 10, 2010 @ 10:13 AM

Add a New Comment

Enter the code you see below:
code
 

Comment Guidelines: No HTML is allowed. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Thanks.