Redesign, part one: Juice

Part of the reason for the recent redesign of this site is the fact that I’m in the process of redesigning my sexual identity.

Or more correctly, my sexual identity is being radically re-choreographed by life itself and I’m just trying to learn to follow its lead.

I’ve felt largely in the dark about this process during the last year or so, just going from one odd symbol-laden dream to the next trying to fit the pieces together. Where am I on the way to? What do I need to do now? Who am I becoming? What/who do I love now. In the life I have left to me, what is sexually most important, not to accomplish, but to experience?

Well, I thought, who better to pose these questions to than myself? So I asked: “Redesign?”

And that’s when the voices began…

The young girl in me exclaimed: “Redesign? Oooo Yeah! I’ll help… I love to paint!” The mother in me pursed her lips and counseled, “Redesign? Well, if you have to, I suppose you have to… just don’t forget that you have responsibilities, obligations, other important practical things to do. Maybe you can do this in your spare time, on the weekends so it doesn’t take away from anything else you have to do. Remember to take your vitamins!”

The newly 50-year old woman in me whined: “Redesign? [groan] Again? When is this supposed to end? I’m 50 years old for Christ’s sake! [and again, dramatic and exasperated groan]”

The eternal mystic in me enigmatically pronounced: “Redesign? You have all the time in the world - and - every second counts.” The priestess in me said nothing… and everything in her smile.

The whirling Kali in me screamed: “Redesign? All shall die and be reborn through the Dark Fires of Me!” The voice that resides at the center of the earth of me hissed: “Redesign? There is no design. You are the transformation you seek.”

The Shakti in me sang, “Redesign? Life is wet and living green… creation and recreation… new swimming life… living light thrust inside My dark sea womb!”

The Beloved, who has a room in my heart and a voice inside my own answered: “Redesign? Do it for nothing other than my Pleasure, that name which is mine, but belongs to us all.”

I could go on. As Whitman said, “…I contain multitudes.” But though the answer came from several selves, it was really one single answer:

Redesign my sexuality, my sexual identity? Yes! It’s time to more consciously and intentionally surrender to what is already happening. However, I received no counsel on the exact way to do this.

On that, the voices in my head left me to my own devices… which they have always been wont to do, especially when it comes to sex.

Ok, fine.

So began the journal writing, the process writing. I know it’s early conditioning at work, but when something in me really really needs to be worked out, a keyboard won’t cut it. I resort to pen and paper - the tangibility of fast, furious scribbling.

So, blank paper before me, I asked my pen to tell me: What does this mean, to surrender to a change that is already in process, but to intentionally redesign a female sexual identity at 50?

And here’s what my trusty pen said:

For me, it means I need to become truer to myself and my desires - not only to the experiences of my past, but also to the reality of my life as it is now. It means I need to serve the needs of my desirebody, not with estrogen and hair dye, but soul truth and spirit food.

It means I no longer have the luxury to pursue that which will only serve to hide myself from myself. It means I have laid the groundwork of my earthly experiences, and now it’s time to see what masterpiece I can make from those raw materials; what essential spirit I can distill.

It means that I must learn to renew my sexuality with limited resources within a set boundary - I must gracefully accept physical diminishment while working to define a more refined sense my core sexual desires; I must expand and deepen my ability to receive pleasure and feel the light of sensual happiness even while my mortality inches closer along the shadowy streets of my old age.

It means I must refrain from engaging with people and activities (sexual and otherwise) that do not nourish me. It means I must forgo all that is frivolous, meaningless, and unhelpful (to me), even when that means that other people will feel pain or loss because of my decisions.

It means that it is no longer enough to have simply learned from my mistakes. I must now act on what I have learned from them.

It means I must build lightness into the new design of my sexuality, less density. I must fashion a sexual-spiritual form which encourages more spontaneous flow and less arbitrary structure. I must create a new type of psycho-spiritual acoustics so that my many-sexed (and multi-gendered) voices can speak, and be heard by each other, as clearly as possible.

But before I can accomplish any of this, I first need to make one initial change of purpose; one single change out of which all the other changes will spring forth. I must develop a keen ability to go straight for the rasa (divine nectar/juice) in everything I do.

Like the long-lived desert rose, if a woman at 50 wishes to bloom far into a venerable old age - literally and metaphorically - she must cultivate the art of finding, and using well, every drop of life-giving nectar her roots can suck up from the imperfect soil of her life.

And so, above all else, I must begin to develop the skill and subtle finesse of a Rasa Devi.* I must remake myself into a reflection of The Goddess of the Holy Juice; I must take the vows of the spiritually wet priestesses of that wily old VirginWhore, and recreate myself in Her own eternally succulent image.

To be continued…

* The Sanskrit word rasa has two meanings. Literally it means sap, juice, or fluid. The secondary meaning is extract. In Ayurveda rasa means the vital juice that the digestive system extracts from food to be converted into blood, flesh, bones, marrow, fat, and sperm. In other words, the extract that gives birth to our vital energies. In spiritual terms rasa means Divine Nectar - the taste of enlightenment. ~From Linda’s Yoga Journey

And Devi means goddess, hence Rasa Devi, saucily translated by me, means, Juice Goddess.

Image credit: Desert Rose, Ofelia Pagani