Altar-native Sex
All the red deities and angels and glowing mystics know that making love on an Altar does a spirit, a body, and most definitely, a Church, good. In fact, in ancient times, in certain cultures (in Mesopotamia, India, Egypt, Greece, even Italy), altars were the best place to get your groove thang on, usually with a priestess or a priest who was a well-trained “stand in” for a goddess or god. In other words, if you were alive back then (and you probably were, once) you could (or did) visit a temple in order to directly experience the divine… through sex.
Now, that’s Holy Communion!
But when the monotheistic religious giants rolled into town, they were not so kind to these priestesses or priests. The One God was, well, frigid, and if he ever had sex, well, apparently it was just with himself. There was no Goddess around to help create the New. Sexuality became spirituality’s nemesis. But, here we are, a few thousand years later, and it seems like the sacred sex train has steamed back into town, modern priestesses are throwing back the covers, and even “ordinary” Jane and John have begun to actively seek out the spiritual within the sexual and the sexual within the spiritual and they will break into Churches and get all sorts of hot and messy to prove it.
Check out this recent news story that a Friend directed my way:
A couple in Florida were caught doing the dirty deed on the altar of a Baptist Church. The couple brought red candles to set the mood and the Deputies who arrested them complained that “there was splattered red wax all over the altar“! When asked why they did the horizontal tango in a Church, the young woman simply said “she wanted a spiritual and sexual experience”. To which, Isis and Mary Magdalene and Ishtar sung “Hallaluja, sista!”.
Now I’m not saying these two frisky kids are some sort of modern-day priest and priestess, and I’m not advocating that we disrespect someone else’s place of worship (well, maybe sometimes, if the spirit moves ya) but this story is a juicy little reminder of how this sexual spiritual energy is rising up in all the right places these days - and it’s important to inquire, pay attention, and investigate what this might mean.
A Red Point: You can’t suppress an innately horny Universe forever, no matter how many people you punish or how many deities you banish or how many bad clothing choices you make. Payback is a powerful bitch that likes to desecrate (or consecrate???) church altars with red candle wax.
So what can you do this week to help relieve the Universe? What can you do to sanctify your sexuality and sully your spirituality? There are only so many churches…(wink)
March 25th, 2008 at 2:36 am
one HELL YEAH from New Orleans and my very RED heart!!!
March 25th, 2008 at 5:43 am
I like the fact that this happened in the Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church.
Talk about getting back to the primitive. I love it!
March 25th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Yes, the “primitive” angle is quite interesting. Maybe the Spiritual Cowgirl can remind us about some of the wild and crazy practices of early Christianity. Sex and spirit weren’t so far apart for some of those sects. Maybe there are already lots of postings about that. I’m still new here. I’ll look around.
I also like that the poster on alternet unabashedly presents this as an example of depravity without the slightest inquiry into the significance. What does this mean? What are people looking for? What energy is trying to express itself? What are “healthier” ways for it to be channeled? Is there a genuinely vitalizing impulse here?
Great post. What a story! And, as usual, the Cowgirl commentary is fabulously wrought.
March 25th, 2008 at 10:19 am
you crack me up…and I love your writing…but I don’t have the guts! trying to get to Charleston in May!
March 25th, 2008 at 11:03 am
No matter how Red I get, I still think it’s pretty disrespectful to treat someone else’s place of worship in a way that the people who worship there find abhorent. If I want people to respect my growing, pulsating Red streak, I’d damn well better respect their right to be the misinformed, boxed-in, deprived darlings they are pre-Red-zinger.
But I do share your feelings on re-sexing the divine. The divine yowza will not be boxed in, even if some of her children let themselves be. Anyone who’s ever had transcendent, life-changing, weeping-and-laughing-out-loud nookie knows how much of a spiritual lightning bolt it can be.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Yes yes wonderful Gidget, I do agree with you. Almost completely. This is more of a “winking” ass-pinching post. I did not go into the depths of what is really going on here, because, well, it’s not that kind of post. Respect for someone else’s place of worship is always necessary, as is investigating the roots of these incidents, and questioning the attention or non attention they receive. Again, I’m an acute metaphorologist. Please do not take my writing too literally, or too seriously, always with a grain of salt from the Red Sea and perhaps a nice glass of Pinot.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:56 am
But of course! I do appreciate a good wink, although I’m way too stuck in literal-land for my own good this week. If anybody needs a zing of divine loosening up, it’s moi.
(I think the divine just zung me. I am getting visions of the church-folk there approaching the altar with the same reticence that the principal in “Porky’s” had when trying to say the word “penis.” Remember how hard a time he had getting the word “tallywhacker” out, while the coaches in the back of the scene were convulsing with laughter? Thanks for the zap, Sera!)
March 25th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
hillarious! you are too funny… and at the perfect time when I needed to laugh…just visualizing those two going at it….He-He…(not to be disrespectful) sometimes I think the whole world could use a big laugh and a hot piece of ass!!! besides a good orgasim is about as spiritual and close to whatever “higher power” you believe, in as you can get….rock on Red!