They told you to be holy you had to keep your thighs together They told you to be erotic you had to cut out your heart They told you to be sacred you have to hold your holy breath. Don’t make a sound. Straighten your spine and lock your hips. Keep it in neat and tidy lines. Hide your blood. Smile. Be nice for us. As through God bestowed his favor onto only the pure and good. Forgive me father for I have sinned. They told you to be powerful you had to sacrifice your vulnerability. They showed you how to burn yourself numb against the heat of your own wanting. Twisted you up into a half dead performance. Told you your greedy hunger was the real God to worship. As though the desecration of your innocence was your ticket to freedom. They sold you two cages of suppression. Each offering Liberation. Each slowing killing you with their brand of Feminine Poison. They told you to be like Eve. Mother Mary. Kuan Yin. The beloved saints of the Temple of the Good Girl. Up up up on her pedestal of holy perfection. The promise of true love beckoned you. They sewed your legs shut and flung open the doorway of your heart to reveal clear light inside. Your breasts became swollen with the milk of compassion. And you offered it to all your children with that gentle smile of the sublime. Or was it a grimace? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. You entered the gates of heaven and smiled down at your body. You sang prayers through clouds and whispered magic incantations into the far dirt down below. You marveled at how clean everything seemed from up here. You felt the tug of some unnamable wildness pulsing in the deep. But they named it “sin”. And told you not to look in its direction. Don’t look into its eyes. It is evil, they said. It is heavy and complex. Dense and aching wet. Dangerous, to be sure. Wash it up quick with the prayers of the pure. So you cut out your body in exchange for heaven. You yearned to be baptized into the land of the good. To belong. You remembered perfection as the clouds kissed your virgin cheeks. You rose above the wildness. You became She-Who-Is-Loved-By-All. Yet you yearned to feel your own blood coursing through your veins. You ached to allow something greater to unravel you from the inside out. But the prick of this spinning wheel threatened too much. Don't reach for that apple. Ripe and sweet and juicy as it may seem. No. Be good. Hush your longing now and turn towards service. Your breasts sucked dry. Haunted by the threat of banishment, You held tight to the safety of the prison bars. But then…. A Siren Call…. A different face of the Goddess appeared. They sold you the ticket to the Cult of the Bad Girl. Those bright flashy lights, that dripping wet Life… It just felt so right. Oppressed by the rigidity of perfection. You rejoiced at the relief of shimmying out of that tight corset. The promise of empowerment beckoned. Liberation. “Freedom” is what they called it. As they ushered you from one prison cell to another. The promise of power intoxicated. You descended into the wild. Licked your red smeared lips and moaned with the song of the taboo. You became She-Who Is-Despised. She-Who-Is-Feared. She who stirs up trouble and chaos with one slow thrust of her hips. And it felt so good to not care anymore. This is the REAL Goddess, they said. And it felt so good. To have your tongue pressed against the razors edge. You groaned and moaned hungry sounds into the sinking ground. Deeper and deeper you descended into a thing they called power. You gave birth to your own longing. It was bloody and visceral and true. It was up close and personal. You sank your teeth into life. You learned how to move in just the right way That would make the worlds open and spin. Whole universes forming and collapsing at your command. You made friends with Lilith. Eros. The Serpent. The Queens of the Underworld. You discovered sacred selfishness. The song of lust drowned out the sound of your crying heart. The crushing numbness of false pretense. Who needs God when you can have Desire? You felt some unnamable spark of innocence whispering over your shoulder. Don’t look over there they said. That’s evil. It's just the patriarchy they said. It’s just your shame. Don’t listen. Descend deeper. Keep milking your desires. Take what you want. You deserve it. You can have it all. Follow your turn on. It’s the only thing that exists. And so you did. And the path became a labyrinth stripped of sacred meaning. You wandered lost in the land of no souls. A hungry ghost, always wanting more. You made a deal with the devil. You learned all the tricks of manipulation. As though the art of seduction could heal your oceans of grief. You got all the goodies and you felt the pulse of power dripping down your thighs. All for the simple price of your dead heart locked in a box. This hard costume with spikes and edges feels much safer anyways. No one can touch you now. Not really. You'll never be touched by life again. Never be hurt again. You are the toucher of life, now. You are the one who grinds it down into pieces you create and destroy. You're the one in control. Yes that's right. And besides, who needs heaven when bad girls can go everywhere? And so, dear woman. You remain. Caught in a game you cannot win. Ushered back and forth between two prison cells. The rivals of two cults of the Goddess. The pure and the wild. The sacred and profane. The heart and the body. The subtle and the dense. Passion and Innocence. These two that were not always two, you see. At the root they are one. But the story of the Two is as old as modern time. The split in the collective psyche in its relationship to the Feminine. The wife and the mistress. The good girl and the bad girl. The Saint and the Slut. It is as fundamental to patriarchy as the split between Spirit and Matter. But the Goddess was always whole. And we remember in our bones. The True Deep Feminine is the Sacred Immanent. She is the wild pulsation of matter, dripping with the juices of life longing for life. Emanating with the innocent spark of the Unnamable One that also dwells inside the core of your own heart Endlessly erotic and untainted innocence at once. Woman..... It is you who are the carrier of this medicine. Your body is the location of the healing of this split. Your body and heart were made to make love to the moment. To pulse inside the holy soul of the Sacred Immanent. That core which is your own core and dwells inside the core of everything. To unify this split is to restore the soul of the world. Her Union is our return Home. This is Deep Feminine Sadhana. Making love to the moment. To turn your devouring attention, the totality of your lust towards the primal light within density. To suck the marrow of the sacred from the holy matter of creation. To eat it with the naked innocence of your own virginal presence and gush true love back into the barren wasteland of this world. Time is running out. We need you. The Unified Goddess She's waiting to be known. She's waiting to lick the light of the sacred into the holy darkness. It is time to give it up. To collapse the polarities and become the Sacred Erotic Heart. To consummate the rapturous surrender of your own soul. Penetrated by something greater than your own will. The fabric has been torn. The sacred and the immanent have been divorced for too long. This world is gasping for that sweet-dark-honey-laced-sacred-milk of the true SHE. It’s time to gather in holy circles. To take out the needles and fabrics of passion and devotion. And stitch these two worlds back together again.
-Maya Luna