Radical-Femme-ness

A friend of mine in Sebastepole California decided to do the Radical-Femme-ness thing to the extreme and support his beloved wife in becoming a "Tantrica" ( a spiritual-sexual healer). He gave his loyal devotion to her and paid lots of money so that she could receive her High priestess training. She wanted to help couples become more cosmic lovers and generally more sexually blissed out. During her training there were super benefits for him, such as weekly lingum massage and all chakrah scrotum and phallic and Yoni worship of all kinds. Sacred sessions happened out in nature with their full devotional surrender and simultaneous fiery passion awakening their love! Etc!Man did he luck out!

Now of course this is a very extreme example of a radical-femme-ness path. Yet the desire of the feminine spirit is different for each of us and is awakening all over the world in ever new forms. But for this couple it was the mystical sexual revolution they wanted to ignite ( or at least she was ready). For them the question :"What does it mean to love your partner unconditionally?" was the required preliminary course. They had no training in this and entered really deep waters too unprepared to make it all the way across to a new shore.

For some unconditional love means deep monogamy and the Tantrica path would be too difficult to integrate. For others unconditional love might start with choosing to claim each other by the depth of your loving connection and need to create together but not by owner ship of each others bodies or sexuality. I use this extreme example because when ever the call of the deep feminine voice is allowed to be heard it inevitably feels as earth shaking as one's wife wanting to share her blessings as a Tantrica.

The day finally came and my friends wife opened her practice. She wanted her husband to be there and hold sacred space with her as she worked with her client. She meant this to keep it clear that her sexual-romantic alliance was with her husband. However in her earnest focus to help her male client. Ummm…lets say every thing went really well……;

The sexy charisma of his wife stirred her husbands loins as he watched her do somebody els. In fact he felt a wave of unconditional Love for all man kind and as he enjoyed the show he realized he was actually gay….no wait that might be confusing for their marriage… naw, lets see, what is a better scenario? Oh! She trains her client in how to go down on woman kind by doing her real - real good. And her husband learns some new tricks by watching…yeah! And her client does not feel inadequate by admitting he wants help to become a better lover and understand women's bodies. He's an awesome client and now she falls in love with him….Oh no wait , that's bad for the husband…

.Any of those examples can happen. Tantrica work is delicate and volatile at best. It's most dangerous for her because women's sexuality is set up culturally on the premise of ownership.……
Well actually heres what happened;

Her husband witnessed something he wished he never saw. She was sharing her sensual energy fully with another man. He discovered her magical ability to connect with a stranger in a sexual way that was completely devotional and loving. What she did, and how she did it would open this strangers heart and body forever. When Her husband saw this exchange of energy he was shocked. Some how he imagined that he was the only one who would ever receive from her that deeply. And she did it so easily without even having sex! How could he trust her if she could just turn sacred energy on? He felt threatened and angry at himself for supporting her in this career path. What was he expecting? suddenly he could no longer get an erection with her. He was withholding his love, or it just wasn't there anymore.

His wife became desperate, how could she win his love back? Yet all along she thought her wild wide open heart was what turned him on to her. She loved him so much for supporting her to be a sexual revolutionary. who did he want her to be now? It seemed the only act of sacrifice he would understand would be for her to forsake her calling, and give up her life long wish to be a Tantrica. If she continued to do her work she could lose his love forever. And the would point was love! More more more Love!

If she lost him she would also lose her home, her safety net for survival, her protection for their three children, and their tantric practice together that gave her so much joy. So she did what women have done for hundreds of years. She gave up her dream, and kept her family together. All it meant was sacrificing her own soul dharma and personal happiness. Sublimating her voice would make her man "happy" and protect herself from living with no support.

How can we start to nourish Radical-Femme-ness, when we are faced with her unreasonable desire? Woman wants a change that often feels completely unreasonable to man. Man says "no" and threatens woman's survival if she goes that far. End of story?…. over and over again this is how women's values and message are stifled from being born and changing the world. My friends wife tried to replace her Tantrica calling by taking up a craft hobby. She would be a potter now, and he wouldn't be threatened by this. Yet by comparison, even though pottery is an ancient sacred art of Earth worship…she would not be changing the world.

She had to make herself smaller to prop him up as bigger. But in doing this she lost her real interest in him. What she had now was fixation on safety. Her passionate partnership was now simply a domestic partnership. She opted for physical and emotional dependance on him instead of going her own way and trusting herself.

But truly the Tantrica path is almost impossible for a woman to offer alone without it sliding into prostitution. She has to keep men in proper worshipful openness. A certain distance with strong boundaries make it possible for client men to really learn from her the sacred healing arts of Tantric sexuality. To do her work safely she really needs a life partner at her side to demonstrate with or hold space for others with her. But in this case since her whole life she had been sublimating her calling, and since it took all the way into her mid forties to have the courage to admit what she wanted to make possible for others….she was giving up her souls reason to be on Earth in exchange for ….what?

Now her knight in shinning body oil was just another guy with out trust in her. He was just another smaller minded man than her, who couldn't stretch beyond his ego to learn from her new and different way. What her man did not understand was that he could get through the discomfort. It was courageously a new path she was blazing for them together. This was his souls one major opportunity to open into a new much deeper level of joy. This new joy of following her bliss path would take them both to passionate partnership. Yet this would be play beyond the happiness he was attached to having stay the same.

I was so disappointed when I realized what happened for these two pioneers. I am so sad and mad that yet another woman gave up her dream. To me her expansion was new healing territory on behalf of us all. Her contraction into oblivion feels to me like the loss for all of us of curiosity and experimentation. I could never do that kind of work. I need her to do it on my behalf. It takes real guts and intense inner and outer sacrifice to be a Tantrica.

But as long as she would be punished for her wild desire (by having her physical and emotional security withdrawn by her man) her dream was no longer worth it to her or even possible for her to continue to manifest. A person trying out something new and radical needs a lot of support. Already its super human what they are doing by going against mainstream values.

Yet I could feel how the real reason she had bloomed into her calling was that her husband was so inspiring to her, he was such a sacred lover for her that she was spilling over with nectar! She wanted to share the garden of heaven they had entered with many others. She wants to show the way to a sexual bliss path to nourish the heart of life! She wanted to nourish the spirit heart of woman kind….our Lotus -Cunts''!

This week I failed my feminine heart deeply.
I hit a big turtle while driving a friend of mine to a doctors appointment. I could see the turtle in my rear view mirror kicking her feet rocking upside down on the pavement " the turtle is still alive!" I said to my friend " I have to go back and turn her over before another car hits her" but to my shock my friend replied desperately "no you can't" he said "I might miss my appointment and I'm in so much pain I dont think I could hanble that" but I cajolled " I think it will work out, you and the turtle will get your needs met! We must go back , it isnt right!" But my friend insisted " Hey look I am the priority here, I hired you to get me to an emergency appointment for my aching tooth. I really need your help.Pray for the turtle and do the right thing by me". 

I was caught between my friends pain, my own need for the money that day that would give me groceries for my daughter and my need to be responsible to the larger story of the heart of the world…my Mother….the little Turtle … and the mother of all of us ….the large Earth Turtle. He wanted me to pray when we could take action? This made me feel sick. I was disgusted by his suggestion. And let the turtle eat cake too! But the road was one lane with many curves and it had no shoulder to pull off or turn around. Going back was more than likely to make my friend late to his apt by the time I could turn around and double back. He might even miss his appointment since they had fit him into the schedule as an emergency case that day.

Could the relentless grind of a clock enslaved society be flexible enough to allow these precious ten minutes I needed to be responsible to the heart of life? No! This is America where we are not supposed to flow spontaneously and follow the deep intimate priorities of feminine values. My values have to do with relatedness to all things and care for all life. I felt that there was room for everyone to be taken care of, my friend and his tooth… the turtle were not in competition, its just that the turtle obviously came first by necessity. My friend was angry now that I wanted to take care of the turtle before him. And I was a coward working for money and acceptance. I left the turtle upside down on the windy road ready to be killed by the next car.

I dropped my friend to his appointment.  I raced back to save the turtle. As I wound through the forest lanes I became lost. I thought about how a linear mind sets up a world that is not flexible and then people act like police with no humanity. To keep our order we act like babies and throw tantrums to have everything go our own way or we may threaten and act like bullies every one placates to avoid. 

In my experience Men are more often the ones who generally play out this whole story. They think of this as providing safety for us women, but life is far less safe when there is no room to receive or respond. And when things are so "safe" life is steril and way less fun. And love can not be shared under duress. In such a blind grind often the help women want to give must be sneaked instead of openly handed to those in need. This often because men discourage women from giving with open hands recources they feel they earned without her help.

But this story is not about my friend being too self centered. And its not even about dynamics between men and women. Its about how all of us get side tracked from our truth. It's about having the courage to ruffel feathers and do the right thing by our own concience despite the fears of others.

Why didn't I just do the right thing and turn around and comfort my friend...
"Grace will take care of you both. But if we miss your appointment, I will stay with you through the pain tonight, But when another beings life is at stake our spirits too need to balance with the natural world...
Who is to say a turtles life is less important than ours?
You will be better off if you endure pain to save a life..." 
I wish I could have told myself " My money comes to me from the mother, so she comes first! I don't want money if I have to sell my mother Turtle down river to get it! I will go hungry for today so my daughter will eat and the turtle will too! "

But instead I acted like a slave to my survival frears, like many women do. There is a psychology we have to break out of. But the thing is I am actually willing to go hungry to stand up for my truth, but I am not willing to have my daughter go hungry. The threat of missing the appointment and not getting paid took the righteous thunder out of my sales. And so it is over and over again. What do we need to do to awaken feminine consciousness and stand by her and our children and stand up to men when they want to limit our genorosity?

I felt so sad about all the women all over the Earth doing the wrong thing against our hearts tender calling, because of being too afraid to stand up. Because of the fear of hurtful domination by men on so many different levels.

I remember a story Amachi told us as we eagerly awaited her blessed words and her life changing hugs. She said;

 
" You women are like the logg carrying elephant of the jungle. When the elephant was a baby she was chained to a stake hammered into the ground. As she grew she carried mighty loads for every one. Yet at the end of the day she always remained chained by the same little chain to the same little stake. At any time she could have lifted the stake right out of the ground and roamed free. 
But in her mind she was trapped. You women are like the mighty elephant. (said Amachi)
You have all the power you need to free your selves and simply pull up your chain. But you believe you are trapped. But the men dont trap you. you disempower yourself and act like helpless dutiful servants. Pull up the stake!"

at last I recognized the spot where I hit the turtle. But to my amazement and relief she was not there. I returned to my friend to pick him up from his appointment. When I got there he said they changed the apt to another day. And he wasn't in pain now that he had medication he was desperate for. He was hoped that his shamanic prayer might have helped the turtle. I saw how everything still would have worked out if I had protected my mother and my brother!