Houses of the Holy – it's the title of a great Led Zeppelin album that was banned in some parts of the Southern U.S. when it was released in 1973. The issue was the cover art which featured naked children.
It's also what we are. Our bodies are houses of the Holy. Our spirits are large & beautiful, & we reside in these physical temples for a time. When we honor the temple of the body, we allow our spirits to shine more brilliantly, providing an environment of wholeness & health.
As modern as we believe we are, our culture is still having difficulty dealing with the human body. Stories about art teachers being fired from schools when angry parents learn that their children have been exposed to statues or paintings of nudes still pop up in the news. Some religious leaders warn that the physical self is not a connection to the spiritual.
"Naked Prayers" & the Naked Vibes show are about connecting our physical, mental/emotional & spiritual selves – living authentically & whole-ly – in other words, holy. Heaven, the novel, is about turning over the ideas of sexuality & spirituality & examining what each of those facets of our humanity look like – instead of simply regurgitating the spirituality of someone else (parents, ministers, society). It's also about loving our sexuality & recognizing it as a spiritual gift in all of its mysteries – the multitude of shapes & sizes in which it comes! It's about feeling comfortable about claiming the freedom to be the sexual being you are without any religious or political faction defining it for you.
I believe we have real splintered images of sexuality in our culture that need to be healed. Lots of mixed messages. Tantra is a beautiful practice for deepening the art of sacred sexuality. It, like other spiritual disciplines is not meant to be taken lightly, however. It is not simply a way to achieve heightened orgasms (though that can be a BIG benefit!). It is a path for achieving awareness of the connection between our sexual selves & our spiritual selves.
Why are we still painting pleasure as a decadent thing or as something that is "less than" spiritual?
Art & music show us who we are.
We are Houses of the Holy.
Thanks to these artists for the use of their
beautiful artwork:
Bethany Webb, Creative Yogini -
"Hatha Sun & Moon"(above left)
Tammy K. Bond – "Naked Nun" (above right)
…and G3 (photo right).
