Welcome to one of my SEX ARTICLES! Congratulations —
you will now be inundated with science porn! Seriously, though… sex is
central to Wicca and we’ll be discussing it regularly but hold off on lighting
up that cigarette for just a moment. Sex, as I’m referring to it, does
not equal kink or titillating nuance. While we might be one of the
species on this earth that has sex for pleasure, never forget that the act of
sex is geared for one function and one function alone — reproduction. In
the animal kingdom, this takes two (with few exceptions). However, I’m
getting a little ahead of myself…
Let me begin by stating that this article is not a statement against gay or
lesbian or bisexual persons in any way. Regardless of how you choose to
express your sexuality, there is still an active/passive, masculine/feminine
polarity that occurs naturally. Whether you’re “top” or “bottom”, you are
definitively male or female by birth and have a vibration specific to you, even
if it doesn’t necessarily correspond with your birth gender (sometimes the
paint color on the walls just doesn’t match the plumbing… and you know
what?? It doesn’t matter!). As humankind evolves and the practice
of changing one’s natal gender or expressing an alternate sexual energy becomes
more commonplace, we do begin to move beyond the physical manifestation of
sexuality and we start to understand polarity on other levels: energy,
expression, emotion. Therefore, read what follows from your core
vibration, whichever sex that might be, and enfold your own experiences of
sexual discovery into the words I’ve written. This will bring forth the
meaning for each person, regardless of the perceived barriers that society
would like us to create based on sexual orientation or natal gender. With
that said, allow me to continue.
While some might say that it is the presence of a Feminine Deity that
singles out Wicca and Paganism and makes them “special” among religions in the
Western world, I actually believe that what is unique about this path is the tandem
worship of both the Masculine and the Feminine simultaneously.
Not all Wiccan and Pagan groups work with both the God and the Goddess — please
do not be shocked if you find a coven who works only with the Goddess as there
are plenty of them out there. However, regardless of whether or not
groups revere the God and Goddess equally, it does not change the reality of
the interplay between Masculine and Feminine energy in the Universe. And
now, we’re back to sex — for preparation for the act of sex accounts for the
necessary differences in genders and why men are formed a certain way (with the
ultimate “outtie”) and why women are formed a certain way (with the ultimate
“innie”).
There are relatively few examples of asexual reproduction (not requiring
both sexes or some type of insemination) among animals. Some
species of frogs and lizards, less complex animals such as hydra and corals
that reproduce by “budding” and then the new growth breaking off from the
mother. The Komodo Dragon reproduces all on her own, carrying both the
genetic material for males and females in her DNA — eggs are laid and
unfertilized by the males of the species (this is called parthenogenesis,
or ‘virgin birth’). Wasps and honeybees undergo a special kind of
parthenogenesis as well with eggs being laid and those that are fertiled by
males in the apiary hive hatch as males and those left unfertilized hatch as
females.
So, basically what I’m saying is — “Sex… everybody’s doing it.”
Polarity, by definition, means ‘a relationship between two opposite
forces or tendencies‘. The obvious polarity that we
are discussing here is that between Female and Male. Slow your mind down
for a minute and let’s regress backwards to early human history. As our
cognitive abilities developed, we began to notice things beyond “this is good
to eat”, and “search for shelter when the black clouds come”. One of the
first and most obvious realizations of early man had to have been the
anatomical differences between male and female. Even if you have a child,
who is just a small human, that child still is either male or female. In
the instant of that awareness, the world becomes divided into halves.
These halves carry with them certain experiences, instincts, physical
differences. All of these unique identifiers color the perspectives of
those who identify themselves as either male or female.
Children themselves repeat this early human discovery again and again as
they explore their bodies and view the bodies of other children and realize
that boys are different from girls. Indeed, it is the first and most
personal mystery that we encounter cognitively in life. We might
encounter the mysteries of nurturance and the Mother Goddess from being
breastfed by our own mothers, but that’s not so much a cognitive development as
an instinctual one (ie, we KNOW that Momma has the good stuff and when our
tummy rumbles, we cry and the boob pops out… yay!!). But if you’ve ever
seen that moment on a young toddler’s face when they see the genitalia of the
opposite sex, you are actually witnessing a sacred moment. You are
witnessing the first realization of polarity, of opposites, of “me and the
Other”.
With this realization comes an amazing passing of power. For one, the
establishment of polarity births the potential for realizing most of the
universal truths regarding life as we know it. From it, we learn that
there is more than just our view and, perhaps more importantly, that for OUR
view to grow and become fertile, we require the opposing view to “arouse” us
into CREATION. Sometimes that creation is an action, and at other times
we are creating an object, a path, a new way of living or doing things.
From polarity, we also learn that we are interdependent upon each other for new
growth. From polarity, we learn the Mystery of correspondences and begin
to understand the overlying enigmas of our supremely ordered universe. We
begin to make the connections: male/female, day/night, hot/cold,
moving/still, above/below. The world begins to unfold with the
fractal-like discovery of sexuality.
While the polarity itself is an amazing thing all on its own — just knowing
that there is a male and a female polarity is a huge jump — that is still not
the whole of the Mystery. Beyond that separation lies a question: why
the difference? Well, look at the male body and the female body.
They are alike in nearly every way except one HUGE obvious difference, so
obvious that even a toddler who cannot name something can see it and is moved
by it so much that the child demands an answer. It is obvious that the
difference is related to a function, that function related to an act, that act
is sex, and sex leads to the creation of life and the passing on of genetic
information that leads again to the polarity as a child is born either
male or female and it all begins again.
Thus, the recognition of the differences in our bodies leads us to
cognitively understand the sexual act as being something of extremely great
importance. After all, it is where two opposites come together and unite
and from this act, life — LIFE! — is created anew. While there are some
Mysteries that are only Masculine in nature or only Feminine in nature, these
Mysteries, too, revolve around sex and our own personal gender’s experience of
our natal polarity assigned at birth.
In other words, it really does all come down to sex. The Mystery of
Sex and Polarity ushers in a certain progression of realizations about the
intrinsic wisdom of the natural world. And so, it is only natural that
earth-based spiritualities would revere and meditate upon it. Wiccans and
Pagans are not the only ones doing this — we don’t hold the copyright.
Most of the primitive cultures observed and saw this polarity and interaction
that brings forth life. We see this in their pantheons, their myths, and
their ritual observances. The Egyptians bore their sacred idols from one
temple to another temple that the “gods might be together”. Tantra is a
path of study that is wholly centered around the sexual conversation between
Shiva and Devi; Devi asks her questions as the receptive half of Shiva and
Shiva answers her. Tantra is not the sexual parlor game
and bedside table fodder that Western culture has tried to subvert it
into. It is actually ancient wisdom that vibrates on a core resonance
with the Craft and is greatly worth study as you advance along your path.
Even the Christians know this wisdom to be true: I invite you to look up
passages talking about Christ’s relationship with the Church as that between a
man and woman, a groom and his bride.
Sex as a central formulary principle for spirituality works, provided that
your definition of sex is about the Mysteries of the act, the differences
required in the participants that the act may be performed, and the
understanding that the act of sex on physical level is merely the activity
taken on Earth that mirrors the workings of the Universe both above and
below. Sex, as an activity, is fun and pleasurable and makes being alive
incredibly enjoyable. However, to say that pleasure is all that Sex is
for — in other words, to worship sex for the sake of sex — is not the purpose
of Wicca, the Craft, or any other viable spiritual path. Even the Charge
of the Goddess warns us that what we do must be for more than pleasure: All
acts of love and pleasure are my rituals. We are granted
the blessing of enjoying sex, but we are given the responsibility of ensuring
that it deepens our connections, enriches our commitments, and widens our
understandings. That puts sex, for Wiccans and Pagans, far beyond “just
fucking around”.
Wicca recognizes and honors the Mysteries that we learn through Sex.
Sex is one of the Two Great Doors. Death is the other. You will see
the balance of polarity again between Sex and Death on the Wheel of the
Year. Beltaine is our holy day where the Mysteries of Sex (the fertile
conjoining of Male and Female) is celebrated as the highest order of the
day. At Beltaine, we honor Life and that which creates it and the
manifestation of the Mysteries of Life. Conversely, at Samhaine — exactly
one-half the way through the year from Beltaine — we celebrate and honor the
Mystery of Death, that which puts an end to our bodily experience of Life in a
physical form.
Sex and Death, Beginning and End, are really not so different, just as man
and woman are really not so different. Just as Sex conjoins male to
female to open a doorway for life to begin again, Death also conjoins male to
female to open a doorway. In case of Death, the Feminine human soul,
receptive to the power of the All, the separated and Fallen Daughter Malkuth
(Google Malkuth, Tree of Life) is conjoined to the prime
generative force of the Universe again, and life — this time on the
non-physical side of the Veil — begins again in wholeness.
The reason the act of Sex makes us feel so heavenly, so enlightened, is
because it shows us Universal Truth. Asexual reproduction is possible,
however, we were not made for it. I, for one, am glad. Our
instincts, our hormones, our understanding of our physical differences and the
desire to mate — all of these things lead us to the experience of Sex. By
understanding the Mysteries in Sex, we can learn that there is something more
than being Male or being Female, being projective or receptive. We
understand that there is a THIRD reality where the two become one, and that
this third reality has the potential to create all life. If the
differences in our sexuality and gender lead us to understand that an Illusion
exists and that there is something more beyond merely our perspective, then it
is death that banishes that illusion and restores us to Unity with All
Things. When we die, we pass out of our limited perspective, we journey
“to the Light”, and there we stay until, like all things, we long to return to
the Illusion of separation and the Darkness of rebirth. And at that
moment, a man and woman come together and open a door, and we proceed from the
Darkness of the Womb into the light of the World so that, by living, we may
learn how much we don’t know and seek again the Light that we are assured to find
from the moment of our first breath. For to be born is to be given the
glorious promise that we shall one day die and again remember All.
As you walk this path, the Rose of this Mystery will continue to open for
you. Its scent will grow more intoxicating as the Sun’s light coaxes it
to full bloom. You will be amazed by the intricacy of the petaled
labyrinth. You may also experience the thorns that keep the Mysteries
from those who think to pluck the Sacred Rose for themselves. What I can
promise you is this:
The Rose of Truth never fades. The Rose never dies. Share it,
then, with someone you love. Know the pleasure — become the Mystery.
Sitara Haye is an author and songwriter, public speaker
and word-witch, creative muse and mother. Founder and HPS of the OldeForest
Craft Tradition, Sitara offers the perspective of over 20 years of Wicca/Craft
experience and training through her articles, essays, and poetry. She is
a regularly featured author on Witchvox, and her writings have been published
by and translated for other pagan periodicals in the US and abroad. She
is also a gifted musician and public speaker, conducting workshops at gatherings
and other pagan friendly events. She is founder of PAEAN (Pagan Authors,
Entertainers, and Artisans Now!), an activist group dedicated to raising
awareness of the circle of responsibility that exists between artists,
merchants, and the consumer who purchases these works of art, music and written
word. Sitara Haye maintains a blog called A Witch's Word in which
she writes about the Craft and modern magickal topics (including information
for new Witches/Pagans, those merely curious, as well as those in leadership
positions who are looking for comraderie, insight, and new skills for their own
groups). Sitara Haye conducts polls and research through this website and
maintains an online Question and Answer series where anyone can post a question
of a magickal or Craft-living nature for response. She lives with her
daughter and two cats in the beautiful "Scenic City" of Chattanooga,
TN. You can contact the author and read more of her work at her
website: http://www.sitarahaye.com.
