The Holy Erotic
THE HOLY EROTIC
This week, I bought a rose. A real rose bush. This might seem like small potatoes, but for a city girl who goes through about four basil plants every summer because she can’t keep a single one alive in her kitchen, having my own rose bush is a big deal. I feel a bit like a 13-year old who’s been given the assignment to carry around an egg for a week and pretend it’s my baby.
I bought the rose because lately I’ve been ruminating on just how articulately we see the dance of the erotic play out in the relationship between the rose and the sun. The sun seduces life into being, in the rose and in us. That warm, bright light wakes us up every morning and without question, we follow its lead. At twilight when the sun takes its final bow, our own internal cycles shift into the rhythm of rest. And as the sun descends behind the curtain of the horizon, a whole new show begins.
The star of that show of course, is the moon. Oh, the seduction of the moon, that literal force of nature. Did you know that the moon's irresistibly is the whole reason we have a high and low tide? Everything on earth that is not nailed down by the force of gravity yearns toward the pull of the moon. Her magnetism is literally strong enough to make the ocean leave the shore. And with those slow striptease cycles of wax to wane, who wouldn’t line up for that big burlesque in the sky? The moonlight nurtures my rose silently in the night. After a good moon bath I can wake up and find what was just a bud the night before, blooming full as a poodle skirt the next morning.
This rose is a deep, pulsing pink at the center of her bloom, but on the outside her petals fade to white, like a goddess in repose. Glimpsing into her center is like glimpsing into eternity. The name of her species is called “Sweet Surrender”. It’s a beautiful name, but a bit too petite for how I see her. So voluptuous and voluminous is she that after just one day, watering can in hand, I naturally nicknamed her “Mama Cass”.
When tending roses you must obey the energies at play, just like with seduction. For example, you can’t just cut a stem from the bush anytime you want. There is a specific moment in her growth cycle when she let’s you know she is ready. Act before that moment and she will teach you a lesson by taking eons to re-appear, if at all. Act too late and she will hang her head in disappointment at your lack of attention, leaving you both feeling heartbroken and a little embarrassed.
The rose and the elements play a chess game that teems with holy, erotic tension. Like master dancers, they transcend the experience of moving as two separate beings and meld into one ecstatic entity.
Tonight, when your sweet head descends toward the down feathers of your pillow, and your spirit descends into the realm of sleep, may you take this message…