My initial inspiration for Emerging now came from a long period of gestation in the cocoon. 7 years of soul searching, underworld journeying, dying and dying some more and eventually arriving at the point of emergence.

What is emerging then? the butterfly or soul bird.. the blossom.. the nectar…the Dakini..

The Emerging Now. NOW, can you feel it?

My ancestral heritage is one of “perseverance”. This is literally the motto of the port of Leith where I was born and is a powerful stategy for a life based on survival; just getting by, doing away, can’t complain (but I will..) These survival patterns are passed from mother to daughter like the tale of the old recipe for a ham shank which begins with “first cut 2 inches from the end of the ham before it goes into the dish.” A recipe faithfully adhered to for generations before being finally questioned why, only to find that the original pot was just 2 inches smaller than the size of the cut of meat! Behaviour patterns which are not questioned become bone deep.

I applied my own ancestral recipe to my pursuit of spiritual seeking with total commitment. As if my very life depended on it, which it often did. And right now as I stand poised at the gateway of emergence and can already feel and see and smell the blossom which can no longer be “grown”, I am filled with a strange mix of wonder and confusion. Can it really be true that the ONLY thing left is to stop blocking the process by turning absolutely everything into hard work? Can I be just one more workshop, class, teacher away from my bliss, or can I finally just trust the rising desire to stop reaching. “There is nowhere to go but deeper into right here and now.” says the quiet persistent voice of truth in my heart.

I have no idea how I have ended up in the tantric community, except that it must have been guided by the wisest part which operates whilst I am distracted by something else.. Now I am here, I seem to be bumping into more and more beings who are in one way or another no longer standing in the way of their full aliveness. This influence has been like a massive dose of flower food for my souls ripening.

The last year has been one endless conversation about why sexuality has such a massive presence in the tantric field and as I finally start to release some of my own charge around it – the waters are clearing enough to see what is deeper. What holds true for me is that our sexual desire body is the gateway in to our primal YES response to being here, it is our roots. Our collective libido kept us reaching forward to a time beyond mere survival to a point in our evolution where we need to find the deeper YES to existence if we are to continue and actually begin to thrive.

“Flowers are the reproductive organs of plants. When pollinated, flowers develop into fruits containing seeds. However, producing flowers, fruits, and seeds is not easy. Plants devote lots of resources and energy to grow these specialized organs. Thus, plants tend to synchronize their efforts with a time of year when conditions are best for reproductive success and survival.”

This simple observation of the blossoming life of plants holds a wonderful mirror up to this unparallelled point in our awakening humanity where we have more opportunities to connect than ever before. If you look, you will find a sumptuously rich and diverse range of soulful, potent nutrients in the form of the flowers of one another. It is not only permitted to enjoy this life, this being, this planet but it may infact be the exact ingredient to sustain our participation in the entire game. As the poet Mary Oliver says ” You ONLY have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

The “conditions required for reproductive success and survival” are available now. The time to blossom is now. The Emerging Now.

There are so many ways we can become agents of beauty, pleasure and joy in this world. Lets get cross pollinating. <3

Testament (Homage to Walt Whitman)
By Erica Jong

I, Erica Jong, in the midst of my life,
having had two parents, two sisters,
two husbands, two books of poems
& three decades of pain,
having cried for those that did not love me
those who loved me- but not enough
& those whom I did not love-

declare myself now for joy

 
There is pain enough to nourish us everywhere;
it is joy that is scarce…

and tears to drown in, and bile enough to swallow all day long.

Righteous indignation is the religion of the dead, in the house of the dead
where the dead speak to eachother in creaking voices
each arguing a more unhappy childhood than the other.
Unhappiness is cheap,
Childhood is a universal affliction.
I say to hell with the analysts of minus & plus

the life-shrinkers, the diminishers of joy.
I say to hell with anyone
who would suck on misery
like a pacifier
in a toothless mouth.

I say to hell with doom…
Doom is cheap

If the apocalypse is coming,
let us wait for it in joy…

 
let us not gnash our teeth on the molars of corpses-
though the molars of corpses are plentiful enough.
let us not scorn laughter though scorn is plentiful enough.
Let us laugh and bring plenty to the scorners
for they scorn themselves.
I myself have been a scorner
and have chosen scornful men,
men to echo all that was narrow in myself, men to hurt me as I hurt myself.

In my stinginess my friends have been stingy,
In my narrowness my men have been mean.

 
I resolve Now for joy.

 
If that resolve means I must live alone,
I accept aloneness.

 
If the joy house I inhabit must be
a house of my own making,
I accept that making…

 
No joy-denyer can deny me now.
For what I have is undeniable.
I inhabit my own house,
the house of joy…

 
Dear Walt Whiman, horny old nurse to pain,
speaker of passwords primeval.
merit refuser, poet of body and soul..
You were hankering, gross, mystical, nude,
you astonished with the odour of your armpits,
You cocked your hat as you chose;
you cocked your cock,

but you knew “the me myself’.

 
You believed in your soul,
and believing made others believe in theirs.

 
The soul is contagious.
One man catches another’s
like the plague;
and we are all patient spiders
to each other.
If we can spin the joy thread
& also catch it-
If we can be sufficient to ourselves,
we need fear no entangling webs…

 
How to spin joy out of an empty heart?
The joy-egg germinates even in despair.
Orgasms of gloom convulse the world;

& and the joy-seekers huddle together.

 
We meet on the pages of books & by beachwood fires,
We meet scrawled blackly in many-folded letters.
We know each other by free & generous hands,
We swing like spiders on each other’s souls.