Of Spirit, Soul and Kamasutra
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 | arts, mythical, sex | No Comments
When I was really, really young, there was a whole Kamasutra trend among my friends, male and female alike. The mythical Art of Lovemaking was arousing everyone’s imagination. It sounded deep, mysterious and dirty, and it was all about an universe we were yet to discover. Our minds were tremendously fancying twisted positions and strange techniques, and nothing seemed as exciting as this naive surface-scratching.
Of course, it took me some years to get it right. Some life experiences and some reading, and most of all, some “giving up preconceptions” work, which, I have to admit it wasn’t easy.
Kamasutra was written around 150 B.C. by the Indian scholar Vatsyayana and it is composed of seven parts, 36 chapters, and a total amount of 1250 verses. It describes the practices and discipline of sensual pleasures and it is NOT a tantric text. It does not describe tantric rites, nor do its content have tantrical connotations as it is a book for the noble and the righteous, and it does not address the specific group of the Left Hand followers. On the contrary, it’s rather practical than mystical and it refers to the carnal, legitimate pleasures of day-to-day life.
One of Kamasutra’s more important concerns, however, it is the spirituality of its reader and its relationship to carnality. The book approaches matters of soul with wisdom and it raises important warnings for the young and inexperienced profane, unaware of sexuality’s hidden dangers. Seeking these pleasures for your senses is enriching you, but it can also enslave you to this world and its materiality, to your own desires and the karma they create. That is why Kamasutra is also emphasizing one’s relationship with the other: choosing, getting to know, getting close and getting intimate. Before talking of positions and penetration it talks of kissing and embracing, of beginning and ending, of arts and virtue. Of loving and committing yourself to giving pleasure to the loved one. Of understanding and practicing sensuality as a whole.
“Kama is the enjoyment of appropriate objects by the five senses of hearing, feeling, seeing, tasting and smelling, assisted by the mind together with the soul. The ingredient in this is a peculiar contact between the organ of sense and its object, and the consciousness of pleasure which arises from that contact is called Kama.” (Vatsyayana, Kamasutra).
If interested, you can find here the original translation from Sanskrit, as first printed in 1883.
Venus retrograde
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 | arts, mythical | No Comments
Astrology says Venus is retrograde in this period, starting from 6th of March to the 17th of April, which invites us to rethink and analyze our lives and relationships, to restructure and re-engineer our worlds, to rest, relax and gather our forces for the magnificent times ahead.
The backwards nude Venus picture I’m offering here is a famous Velasquez, and it represents the goddess of beauty and love while looking in the mirror, in a moment of solitude. ‘Cause mirroring, beloved readers, is essential.
To prove or not to prove
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 | analysis, life, people | No Comments
“Proving your love”
God, I’ve heard this phrase a million times or more. I’ve heard it from my family, I’ve heard it from my friends, I’ve heard it from close or distant relatives, and, of course, I’ve heard it from lovers up to a point where I had to say: “OK… now I’m feeling a little bit abused.”
What does it actually mean “proving it”, anyway? Of course I would gladly offer my support to my loved ones when they are in trouble, and of course I wouldn’t mind doing it, but I wouldn’t call this “proving my love”, because it’s actually something different, it’s like acting on an impulse: you want that person to be safe and sound, ’cause whatever it hurts her it would also hurt you. You just have to do it. It’s organic. It happens because, whatever it is that is bounding you to the other, is or has grown so strong that it somehow enlarged your self in that person’s direction, assimilating her. She is now contained in your extended self, enriching your life with things you wouldn’t know before. And making you feel each and every of her pains.
This is what they mean when they say: “You are a part of me”. It describes a wonderful, natural process that characterizes close human relationships. When it happens you would do anything that could legitimately help the other, out of impulse. And I guess this is prone to be interpreted as a proof of love.
However, when someone is asking you to “prove” your attachment… well, that brings me an emotional black-mailing flavour. Usually it won’t involve things that are absolutely necessary, things that you would instantly have done for him or her. Usually it’s all about caprices, extravagances, insecurities, lack of understanding that you do have a life beyond them, lack of respect for you as a person, as a free and free-willed individual, and, ultimately, lack of love. Because when you really love someone you would never ask them something that would go against their values, against their inner world or against their possibilities.
Therefore, love-proving? It’s in impulsive acts, in small gestures, in one’s eyes or in one’s kiss. It is never in one’s black-mail or one’s response to it.
Us, the world and its problems
Monday, March 9th, 2009 | analysis, life, people | No Comments
Ever wondered what’s wrong with the world? Lately?
“Oh, not the voices again!” I hear you crying. “Not another financial-crisis article, pleeease. Cool down, relax, and just give us a speech of sex, luxury and refinement, ’cause that’s the way we want it.”
Trouble is this crisis seems to be ruining our lives more than just economically. First, it is excessively mediatised, over discussed, and so goddamn annoying. Secondly, it is basically everywhere and it’s affecting us all. Its main evilness: does not only produce inflation, debt and unemployment, but it also produces a large amount of stress and anxiety. We can live with inflation: we’ll simply cut some of our expenses and limit spending our cash on basic items. We can live with debt. We can live with unemployment, too: there are various ways to earn money and with some smarts and some little bit of creativity one can always make a living. However, living with the stress and anxiety produced by this conjecture is the worse part of it.
Worrying kills, they say. Truth is worrying kills everything. The uncertainty of tomorrow is making us less open to life. We just don’t seem to enjoy things the way we used to, and we don’t get the same courage and energy out of our leisures and hobbies. We don’t love less but we less express it and, also, less savor it. Because we are not free to, we are too busy worrying and worry has already taken us for good. Our relationships grow colder because of it, when it is in times of trouble we should lay more on others and others on us. Our mind starts producing risk-free solutions and scenarios, working for safety and stability, when one should think and fight for his own, sacred, personal development. When risk-free actually means freedom-free, slave to the stronger ones, their mechanisms and their laws.
Lets keep ourselves out of this, dear friends, for the love and sake of all beautiful things out there, for the true marvels the world and the human spirit so genuinely contain. Let us hope for better us. Let us love and let us not forget our friends, our sweethearts, our spirit and our happiness. Let us not work for a safer future, but for one that is richer in good will and humanity. Let us allow ourselves to forget stocks and to never forget or underestimate intimacy, in its deepest, most fulfilling sense. Let us be free and human despite everything, ’cause if there is a reason we were born for, it is love.
Fishnet/Sheer Stockings …a feminine myth
Monday, October 27th, 2008 | sex-appeal, style | No Comments
I guess we’ll just leave this modern day sexual symbol’s analysis for some other day/post. Because, sometimes, pictures really are worth a thousand words.
Courtship… again
Sunday, October 26th, 2008 | analysis, people, style | No Comments
Here we are, back to the courtship theme and all its marvelous issues. Because, dear friends, there are some things we find unacceptable in our tiny little world, that may be lacking innocence, but not charm, not daydreaming, not elegance. So, let us share to you all the very phrase that arouse our indignation: Am I courting you?
Sans Innocence is not the kind of narcissistic freak committed to believe all men should be courting her, and she did not receive this rather ingrate response from some random friend/acquaintance/guy on the street or someone else’s man. No. Sans Innocence got the aforementioned phrase from her boyfriend, with whom she manages to share a one-year-pretty-nice-relationship. And, in his defense, one must say he is really charming, graceful, polite and truly loves our main character here.
Further developments of The Phrase: Oh, yes, indeed, I was courting you at the beginning, when we started dating. This translates to me as: Well, we’re only using that very pleasing romantic ritual at the beginning, when we don’t know the girl very well and want to impress her, but after we reach some intimacy level with that lovely creature we just don’t see the point of courting her anymore, ’cause the relationship would go on anyway. Really? I mean, most successful couples I know have reached a certain number of years together because they actually kept dating. (Note: of course, each other, not other people…). How can you keep your butterflies in your stomach for longer if you stop regarding your significant other as some fascinating, mysterious stranger? How can you avoid taking his/hers love for granted? How not to be slipping into a boring routine?
To cut a long story short, my point is this: one should never get to think of The Other as a private possession, a part of him/herself or anything else one might dare to neglect. The Other is a wonderful and desirable fortress which is never truly ours, and which must be conquered again, every dawn. Therefore courtship, as you may see, is a must.
PS: the photo above is our way of recommending www.michaelfairchild.com for those of you interested in wild life photography and not only.
Nude Photography
Thursday, October 9th, 2008 | arts, sex-appeal | No Comments
When the new born art of photography made its first steps into the wild world of the 19th century, it soon became clear it was going to change the world forever. The way reality it reflected reality was something no one had never seen: real, strong, precise. That precise that it claimed different aesthetics and a different view upon the morality of arts. A painted nude is a painting, one can recognize it as artwork and place it somewhere faraway from the immediate, from excitement. Because it is a painting and only a painting, and no matter how accurate it would be, it will never look really real. But a piece of nude photography is something different. The person in the picture is right there, just the way she is in real life. Unbelievably similar. You can almost thing of touching her. You can desire her, fall for her, because you can tell she is real. And that, my friends, is a scandal. Or at least it was considered this way in the late 19th – early 20th centuries period. In France a whole bunch of nude photographies were called postcards – although it was pretty obvious they weren’t meant to be sent by mail – and, although, actually because, many men truly appreciated them, they got banned in some more religious, conservative countries of the time, such as the Ottoman Empire.
Later on, however, the works of artists such as E. J. Bellocq, Julian Mandel, A.H. Nicholls or Edward Weston brought into people’s attention the iridescent beauty of human forms, male and female alike, when “indecently” exposed. When there is truth, purity of thought and strength of expression one cannot make up any accusation of pornography. Art is having something to say and showing it indirectly, instead of saying. It is when any primal, basic, unrefined material gets past his usual borders and becomes light.
Love, wine, sparks
Monday, October 6th, 2008 | gourmet, style | No Comments
It is hard for me to remember an out of routine intimate encounter that could be considered, you know, alcohol free… Of course, I’m skipping here the twice-a-week love-making people usually experience in committed relationships. It’s the affair, the romantic surprise or hot anniversary I’m pointing at. Those evenings when you put your stilettos on, wishing for something perfect. When it’s a first, or a very special night in.
White in the summer, red and even hot in autumn and winter, wine is the drink most associated with passion, carnality and all lust in the world. Ever since the ancient times of orgiastic Bacchic rituals, the wine had a very special power, or raising sensuality and unleash inner forces. People were surpassing inhibitions, role playing, lies, and, in vino veritas, nothing but the naked truth was aloud in th game.
Nowadays, drinking wine it is as well an erotic ritual as it is a social one. When drunk moderately, of course. It brings people together, it brings up honesty and warmth in their relationships. It makes them more open, more adventurous. Shy people find their way to witty flirts, overcoming their tremendous self-awareness. It has, maybe, turned into a modern cliche, but having a wine with your loved one is an ultimate delight, and a sure, smooth way to some uninhibited bedroom stories. ‘Cause, it’s a good moment to share your kinky, usually half-repressed fantasies, isn’t it? It’s the time for misbehaving, and, sincerely, I don’t know a better recipe for long burning flames than ever spicy misbehaving.
So, if you have a special night-in planned for this weekend, pick up some lovely Chardonnay, or Sauvignon Blanc, and prepare to play. Wanna go for red? Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir will give a special flavour to your memories, because, dear friends, we truly desire to turn the moment into a true festival of all senses, don’t we? My secret recommendation here? Portuguese green wine, light and sparkling. It’s my personal favourite.
Yin, Yang and the melting pot (part II)
Saturday, October 4th, 2008 | analysis, mythical, style | No Comments
If we go deep, really deep within ourselves, we come to the point where we can realize where our Anima or Animus is, how it reports to itself or to us, and, most of all, where in our behaviour does it show its trickiness. Being aware of one’s Anima or Animus may bring significant improvement in this person’s life.
For instance, when we fall in love out of the blue it happens because we have met someone close enough to our Anima/Animus for it to project itself upon him or her. And so, for us, that person suddenly becomes the very incarnation of Masculinity or Femininity, as we understand and desire it, because it is our own Anima or Animus we are identifying her/him with. That’s why, in those moments, we feel that we are irresistibly drawn towards that wonderful, promising creature, that seems to have locked inside the very secret of our happiness, our fate, our meaning. When, later on, we unfortunately fall out of love, the whole initial magic doesn’t make sense anymore, sometimes the attraction we once felt gets beyond any understanding and there are also many unpleasant things about our former lover we can’t explain not having seen before.
The Myth of the Androgyn has its roots here, although the other half we are so eagerly looking for during our lifetime actually lies inside us. Being together with one or another of its projections may bring us temporary relief, may bring us human warmth and long moments filled with love, but when until the spell breaks we’ll still be incomplete.
However, when we become truly aware of our Anima/Animus, when we manage to understand it and to integrate it into our self, then we’ll get strong, real, wise, complete. It’s that very moment when we find ourselves, that very moment that sees our greatness as a wonderful, luminescent whole. We obtain a peace that will clear away all pain and fear. We enlarge out conscience and rise ourselves beyond this world’s delusions. We reach our true self, and everything that will happen afterwards will be different, meaningful. The love we’ll get will be itself more complete, because we’ll be able to see our significant other not only as a reflection of our Anima or Animus but for what he or she really is, and adore it as a whole. Our compassion and understanding will enlarge and our world will be richer and much more colorful.
But in order to get there we need long hours of introspection, of self-awareness in which to understand, accept and integrate what is different, and hidden, and yet, still within ourselves.
The Erotics of Edvard Munch
Monday, September 22nd, 2008 | arts, people | No Comments
There is no such a thing as peace in Edvard Munch’s art. The Norwegian painter, well known as a precursor of the Expressionism, succeeded in establishing new aesthetic boundaries in a time when the 19th century was slowly dying, and the 20th was not even born. His passionate lines, his anxiety, his tortured, struggling characters mixed in order to create a deeply symbolical imagery, abstractive of fears, love, obsessions and mysticism alike. The woman, as Munch sees it, is either pure, angelical, high above all materialism, or the very embodiment of sin and decay. As the Madonna painting so strongly reveals us, sensuality and religious matters are forever entangled in artist’s vision, who won’t dissociate between mystical and sexual ecstasy: the beloved one is on love’s highest heights, and that gives her the very transfiguration of sacred suffering. The ultimate intensity is the path to ultimate truth. When lovers are lost in their union, love itself increases their delirious concupiscence, love itself becomes a devouring force, melting their individualities into one, center-absorbed spiral. And when love is gone, there’s nothing else left but despair and despair alone.