what of if sex is really sacred?
or rather,what do we really mean by the sacred?
is it a quality we ascribe to phenomena or a quality perceive in phenomena
how could we distingugh between thses destinctions
these questions,about a quality,the sacred,as intrinsic to phenomena and recognised by us or as a quality or category the human mind constructs in relation to phenomena
implies questions about the relationship between the mind and its ideas and between mind,ideas and the concerete particulars of the world.
perhaps we can fall back upon,or take a cue from our experince of our material acitivity,our physical acxtionms and the effects we obsrve in relation to them.
this might lead into issues of what uplifts thew self,and the chracter of this uplift.and the relatiuonship of this to what is descroibed as the sacred.
i have in mind yoga,which uses the manipulation of the body as a means of arriving at highre steates of conscuoisness.
yoga uses discplined breating in achieving its goals.i have also observed the influence of brathing on my sdtate of mind and i uses deep breathing to compose myself,to calm my emotions.
so the body clearly affects the mind,as can bew observed from inflicting pleasurable or painful effects on the body.is it not possible,then,to use the body to arrive at effcets that could relate to the sacred?
along these lines,

[The[concept of Emptiness or Void (shunyata) which is so central to the whole Mahayana system of belief.
The concept, often described in English as "nondualism", is extremely hard for the mind to grasp or visualize, sine the mind engages constantly in the making of distinctions and nondualism represents the rejection or transcendence of all distinctions. The world perceived through the senses, the phenomenal world as we know it, was described by early Buddhism as empty because it was thought that all such phenomena arise from causes and conditions, are in a constant state of flux, and are destined to change and pass away in time. They are also held to be "empty", in the sense that they have no inherent or permanent characteristics by which they can be described, changing as they do from instant to instant. But in Mahayana thought it became customary to emphasise not the negative but rather the positive aspects of or imports of Emptiness.If all phenomena are characterised by a quality of Emptiness, then Emptiness mush constitute the unchanging and abiding nature of existence, and therefore the absolute or unchanging nature world must be synonymous with the phenomenal one. Hence all mental and physical distinctions that we perceive or conceive with our minds must be part of a single underlying unity. It is this concept of Emptiness or nonduality that leads the Mahayana texts to assert that samsara, the ordinary world of suffering and cyclical birth and death, is in the end identical with the world of nirvana, and that earthly desires are enlightenment.

God is the end, agent and exemplar of creation, and the source of the activity called freedom.
E. Britt 1971 on Thomas Aquinas’ theology


Man's freedom, far from being destroyed by his relationship to God, finds its foundation in this very relationship. "To take something away from the perfection of the creature is to abstract from the perfection of the creative power itself." This metaphysical axiom, which is also a mystical principle, is the key to St. Thomas’ spirituality.
M.-D.Ch.
E.Britt 1992.vol.28."Thomas Aquinas ".636-39.p.638.


It should be said that man’s will is discordant with the will of God
insofar as man wills something God does not want it to will,
as when it wills to sin;
though God does not want the will to will this,
if it so wills God brings it about, for whatever it wills, the Lord does.
And though in this way man’s will is discordant with the will of God with respect to the movement of will,
it can never be discordant with respect to result or event,
for a man’s will always chooses that event because God always fulfills his will concerning man. But with respect to the manner of willing it is not necessary that man's will be conformed to God's,
because God will whatever He wills eternally and infinitely, but man does not.


St. Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions of Evil,6.
From Aquinas: Selected Writings. trans. Ralph McInerny.p.247.

Quoted in Porcupines; A Philosophical Anthology by Graham Higgin.London:Penguin,1999.66.

Hopefully this collection will help dispel some of the clichés that have attached themselves to the female body...There has been a shadow cast over that part of our beings, as if our sex dwelt in the cave-sucking underneath, relating to darkness and to death, the devouring dark side of nature. But all of these images are gradually changing, and this collection is part of a greater impulse to redeem the physicality of women, to bring the female body back into the light.

Why are certain disturbing or even humiliating scenes exciting to conjure? How can a woman fantasise about being overpowered by a group of men when she's a feminist? How does a sexual fantasy actually stand apart from a belief system or set of laws? What is it in the primal brain that hits the penny? A lot of this is still a mystery, but it is only through penetrating the darker aspects of the personal and archetypal self that "The Yield" will be made accessible, like the mature, golden harvest that it is. That is the reward we are already welcoming, in our lives and through new language.

"Introduction" by Laura Chester in Deep Down: Sensual New Writing by Women.ed Laura Chester. London: Faber and Faber,1988.1-4.2-3;4.

The Paradox of Opposites in the Tao te Ching

We cannot know the Tao itself,
nor see its qualities direct,
but only see by differentiation,
that which it manifests.


only when sound ceases is quietness known,


In comparison, the sage,
in harmony with the Tao,
needs no comparisons,
and when he makes them, knows
that comparisons are judgements,
and just as relative to he who makes them,
and to the situation,
as they are to that on which
the judgement has been made.

Future and past form a circle.
So there's nothing to do but remain in the emptiness
from which all these notions emerge and into which they are released.
The speech of the sage is silence; his silence, speech.
Things come and go, and he lets them.
He doesn't seize them, and so participates in their own spontaneity.
He does his job and lets go.
Because he does, he acts in eternity as he finds repose in time.

From Stan Rosenthal's and Crispin Sartwell's translations of the Tao te Ching

The sense of impish fun, suggested by the naughty grin and the carelessly cocked head, realized in the trespassing of taboos by revealing just a wee bit of shaved pubic flesh, is what strikes me in this picture. It evokes the sense of self exposure suggested in the story by the harmony of selves between the male narrator and Angela.

The lady in the picture, like all the contributors to Wicked Weasel’s competitions, are not posing as models but as ordinary users of Wicked Weasel’s women’s wear who send in their pictures to share their delight in the products and to participate in the firm’s competitions.

The pictures are, therefore, often taken by people intimate to the ladies who are photographed, often their boyfriends or husbands. This picture suggests the sharing of an intimate moment with a boyfriend- a moment transmitted to the world through the public presentation of the image on the Wicked Weasel site.

The bikini is allowed to slip only so far as to reveal the shaved pubis but to conceal the slit that is the entrance to the vagina. The image could thus be said to escape from pornography into simply being erotic.

Moving from the image to the science fiction text presented here, is the kind of unity of selves depicted in the story possible? Whether it is or not, it would seem to be the ideal people often look for in intimate relationships with those they are romantically engaged-a unity where their individuality remains distinct.

This image suggests an ease with one’s self and of the ease of the person whose gaze records the moment, with that self. Such ease between selves is likely to be the basis of intimacy of any depth. The story, however, also evokes, along with such intimacy, the paradox of the contradictions between intimacy, whether physical or psychological, or both, and the tensions between people who share that intimacy.

Truth is the "night of power"
Hidden among other nights,
In order to try the spirit of every night.
Not every night is that of power,O youth,
Nor is every night quite devoid of power.

Jalaluddin Rumi,"Mo'Avia and Iblis",The Mathnawi,trans.E.H.Whinfield.

This image suggests the counterpart in human biology of the architectonic grandeur that galvanises Lessard’s reflections on the interaction in her mind between architectural form and individual and family history.

The cave like shape constituted by the curves of the hips as they frame the prominent vaginal lips take the mind back to evocations of relationships between caves, as early dwelling places of the human race, from which we emerged to construct our own shelters, and the vagina as a biological cave, from where we emerge to begin the journey of this life, as well as with correlations between these images and the earth as cave of absorption, where the body enters into death, and, to look at it optimistically, perhaps leaving the spirit to ascend to other spheres or even to return to the world through the creative depths of the vagina.

In the cave of the womb we are nurtured, through the cave of the space between the legs are we conceived, and through that same uterine darkness, charged with energies, do we enter the world.

Watch over us,
you of the double caves!

THE END OF UNINTELLIGENT PORNOGRAPHY

Why must our minds and spirit be separate from our enjoyment of the glorious pleasures of the flesh?

Why must I leave my mind and education at the door when I want to enjoy the unbridled demonstration of that lust that makes the world go round?

Philosophers like St. Augustine, Buddha, Hegel, Nagarjuna, critics of the erotic as well as hard core sensualists, come together in this DVD.

A feast for the senses and the mind.

The great conflict of mind and body is here enacted in a canvas that spans all ages of time and all regions of the earth.

You are left to form your own conclusions.

An experience you will never forget. Erotica will never be the same again.

Stunning images that take you to the debauchery of ancient Rome, the glorious celebrations of the flesh in the modern West, the cornucopia of the flesh that emerges from Africa.

Explorations of the senses and the flesh as evil are contrasted with explorations of them as fundamental to our heritage as humans.

Hard core pornography from the mistresses and masters of the art, celebrations of the art of the body, words of poetic power and philosophical thought,

There is something here for everyone.

Ogle great pictures, read powerful text, challenge your mind, titillate yourself with uncompromising erotica.

Puzzle over what St. Augustine and Buddha are doing in a porn DVD.

The choice is yours.