Holy Sh*t, Sacred Irreverence, and Artistic Innovators/Tantrikas
Maxine Kumin wrote an ode to excrement. She was not being cute. This farmer-poet is among many artists who challenge conventional notions of what is beautiful, superior, and sacred.
The publishers at YogaModern.com asked me to respond to their December theme of “the sacred.” I appreciate our sensibility for the sacred, but our constructions of the sacred are rife with problems that I think are of interest to writers, artists, and even entrepreneurs who seek to create something new and dynamic.
For if you tag or perceive something as “sacred” and its apparent opposite as profane, you risk forming an unchecked, dualistic prejudice. In the history of Yoga, Tantrikas have flipped notions of what’s sacred on their proverbial heads. I have written elsewhere [http://yogamodern.com/categories/writing/hatha-yogis-in-the-counter-current-by-jeff-davis-2/] of how classical Yoga maintains that the body is an “ill-smelling… conglomerate of bone, skin, sinew, muscle, marrow, flesh, semen, blood.” So-called “left-handed” Tantrikas have developed practices that involve physical intercourse and eating meat, challenges to purist notions that demarcate the sacred from the profane. Historically, several Tantrikas and Hatha Yogis also allowed women and people of varied classes to become practitioners, a challenge to Brahmin notions of who is and who is not a candidate for sacredness.
Some Western poets and painters, especially but not only during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are artistic Tantrikas.
At YogaModern.com, I take up this topic in more detail. Drop in, and leave some comments. Click here to join in.
And do me a favor if the post provokes, informs, or delights you: Share it on Facebook or Twitter.
See you in the woods,
Jeffrey
Where’s Jeffrey?
Tracking Wonder Blog at PsychologyToday
Get Out of the Way Blog at Tiferet Journal
The Journey from the Center to the Page: Yoga Philosophies and Practices as Muse for Authentic Writing (Monkfish, 2008, revised & updated)
Maxine Kumin wrote an ode to excrement. She was not being cute. This farmer-poet is among many artists who challenge conventional notions of what is beautiful, superior, and sacred.
Tag or perceive something as “sacred” and its apparent opposite as profane, and you risk forming an unchecked, dualistic prejudice. In the history of Yoga, Tantrikas have flipped notions of what’s sacred on their proverbial heads. I have written elsewhere [http://yogamodern.com/categories/writing/hatha-yogis-in-the-counter-current-by-jeff-davis-2/] of how classical Yoga maintains that the body is an “ill-smelling… conglomerate of bone, skin, sinew, muscle, marrow, flesh, semen, blood.” So-called “left-handed” Tantrikas have developed practices that involve physical intercourse and eating meat, challenges to purist notions that demarcate the sacred from the profane. Historically, several Tantrikas and Hatha Yogis also allowed women and people of varied classes to become practitioners, a challenge to Brahmin notions of who is and who is not a candidate for sacredness.
Some Western poets and painters, especially but not only during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are artistic Tantrikas.
In response to YogaModern.com’s December call to write about “the sacred,” I take up this topic in more detail. Drop in, and leave some comments. Click here to join in.
And do me a favor if the post provokes, informs, or delights you: Share it on Facebook or Twitter.
See you in the woods,
Jeffrey
Where’s Jeffrey?
Fiction Editor, Tiferet Journal: A Journal of Spiritual Literature
Tracking Wonder Blog at PsychologyToday
A Hut of Questions at trackingwonder.com
Get Out of the Way Blog at Tiferet Journal
The Journey from the Center to the Page: Yoga Philosophies and Practices as Muse for Authentic Writing
Sacred Geology
Rich earth
decomposing life
imbuing myriad layers
of sacred spirit
Memories upon memories
scarred into the land
making it holy
a bounty of beauty
irrigated by tears
and less voluntary bodily fluids
living loam
revitalizing
luscious fruits
giving back what was taken
Partaking of the feast
we are blessed
renewed in holy essence
in the fullness of time
the cycle reclaims
all that we are
that we may become
yet more richly
layered
(c) April 30, 2006 Laurie Corzett
Gorgeous. And so appropriate, Laurie.
Wondrous New Year,
Jeffrey