HOME PAGE

Read This Month's New Articles!

Articles Archive

Do you want to be informed when we update our magazine or leave a message? Click here!

Looking for a specific author or subject in our magazine? Try our search page

Who are we?

Our Purpose

The Spirituality of Sex

by Burl B. Hall

Speaking the powerful language of the cultivated mystic, the author of the brilliant book Sophia's Web (click here to read our review) shows us that the artificial separation between sex and spirituality, which is so typical of our times, can be healed. To do so, he takes us to a quick journey through the sexual myths of other times and cultures, before revealing the true meaning of sexuality as a "quest for wholeness".

In modern times, our sexuality and spirituality have been divorced. Yet, this divorce is not true for all times, or for all people.

Throughout various cultures, the Gods are thought to generate the universe through acts such as masturbation, intercourse, or the arising of an impulse from the womb of the Unmanifest (Uncreated). Indeed, in many of these myths there is a linkage of the sexual to the cognitive.

Sexual Myths

For example, the Keres Pueblo believe the Goddess Thinking Woman, alias Spider Grandmother, thought the universe into existence. The conception of a thought, for the Keres, linked to the conception of a baby. What is in our heads mirrors what is between our legs. If one attends to this myth, it is found to be no different than the Bible’s account of the Word’s arising from the depths of Genesis: 1:2:

"And the Earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit moved out over the face of the Waters."

This verse is primarily written in the feminine gender. The Waters and the Deep refer to the feminine Tehom, while the original term for Spirit was the feminine Rauch and ultimately identified with the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding or Sophia.

The symbol for this Ruach became the dove, which is carried forth into modern days as the symbol for the Holy Spirit. This dove was also the symbolic representation of Goddess throughout the ancient world such as the Sumerian Inanna.

In Christianity, it was this Ruach that was identified as the Wisdom of God and personified as Christ (the Word made flesh as per John: 1:14). Indeed, in the original Greek translations of the Bible, Paul refers to Jesus as the Sophia of God. He is She. Who is this Wisdom if not the Keres Pueblo Thinking Woman?

Physicists like David Bohm say the universe is wholeness. Each part is a mirror image of the whole and, ultimately, is the whole.

So, in line with this theory, what if the various religions were but different angles on the same Reality? What if we found, once we got past the dogma, that all religions mirror one another in their basics? What if Christianity, Buddhism, and the Pagans were found to be from the same place? Could we begin finding our peace?

The Sacred, Feminine Act of Conception

This linkage of the Feminine Power to the act of generating Thought (the Word) is evident in our Western society when we make statements like, "I conceived this idea." The act of conception is a feminine function and is mirrored in the inwardly folding vulvas of human women.

Psychologically and spiritually, the Female points us inward just as the Masculine points us outward. Think about this for a moment. There is no doubt that we live in a society primarily dominated by patriarchal values. Where is our focus? Is it on inner realities or are we a nation that is primarily oriented in the external?

There is something in our cognition that speaks to us of sexuality. When I conceived this article, I was operating out of my "inner woman," i.e., my feminine power. As the Sufi mystic, Rumi, puts it, "Woman is not created, she is creative."

Gender is process not product. Woman is the Creative Principle of conception, birth, sustaining, and absorption. In any woman, I see something of myself. Gazing at a woman is akin to gazing into a mirror.

For example, I recently went to Myrtle Beach and shared an elevator with a woman in a two-piece bathing suit who was standing with her daughter. In the woman’s body and her relationship to her daughter, I saw something of my ability to generate ideas from the essence of myself. This article is my daughter.

Masculine Power and the Quest for Wholeness

I’ve talked a lot about women, now, what about men? I would maintain that Man is the Creative Principle of fertilization, initiation (of creation), and impregnation. Would the soils bring forth fruit without the loving rays of the Sun?

Just as I see the masculine power in the Sun’s rays, in any man, I see my power to erupt from myself and become a "fertilizer" for new ideas, thoughts, etc. This is why I’m writing now. I wish my thoughts to be "food" (i.e., fertilizer) for thought. My words are "seeds." I wish to spread my seed around and impregnate questing Souls. In this sense, the reader is my "woman."

Sexuality is a quest for wholeness. For example, listen to the words of Rumi:

"When a man feels in himself the innermost nature of a woman, he is drawn to her sexually. When a woman feels the masculine self of a man within her, she wants him physically in her."

I’m not into making dogmatic arguments, and only bring this up to get you to think about the wholeness of life. Whether we are into same sex, or complementary sex partnerships, who we are is mirrored in our Beloved.

Sexuality is a quest for wholeness. Who we are sexually mirrors who we are cognitively and spiritually. Genesis (1:27) says we mirror God and that we are created male and female in His image. This means that in our partner, we see something of God.

In every woman we can see God’s ability to conceive, give birth, and absorb. In every man we can see God’s power to fertilize, impregnate, and generate the impulse within the feminine to create (it is only after the union with the sperm that the egg divides. The Word arises from its own impulse. The male is the female’s Eros or Desire to create).

Sex as meditation

Sexuality is a meditative process and leads to an understanding of the Godhead. There does not have to be a divorce of your sexuality and your spirituality. These can be married as one. It’s all in your attitude. This does not mean you cannot be celibate. Indeed, the celibate can be some of the most sensual and passionate. Theirs is the path of yearning for the Beloved.

In my opinion, it is in this yearning that our spirituality can flourish. I am a lover of Sophia, and it is for Her body that I most yearn. When I feel myself united as one with the Divine Wisdom, I feel whole.

It is not in the dogmas that we find God. It is in the kiss of the Beloved. Loving God is a sensuous act and embraces all relationships. God is, at once, our Lover, Mother, Father, and Child. God embraces all. Should we not do the same in our quest for wholeness?

Copyright © 2000 Burl B. Hall