time & tantra

my friend danielle has recently become quite fascinated by the year 2012, the time at which the mayan calendar ends – and some claim it’s the end of time. i tend to be skeptical of such claims but on the other hand want to remain open-minded. so as usual, i looked around on the internet to see what i can find. the most interesting article was by steven taylor, aka gyrus. here is an excerpt, slightly edited and hyperlinked:


Time & Tantra

Is end-of-time thinking a gender issue? It's not really discussed, is it? I'd be interested to find out about any exceptions, but as far as I can see, all the cultures and religions that are big on apocalyptics are pretty patriarchal.

The idea of a point at the end of history, or the universe is the flip-side of everything exploding out from a singularity at the beginning. The Omega Point and the Big Bang are like bookends at either end of the flow of time. They can also be seen as Vast Ejaculations (now there's an album title). The Big Bang isn't really that far from Egyptian creation myths where gods bring things forth by beating off. And the Timewave [envisioned by Terrence McKenna of Year 2012 fame] is breakneck rush towards a crescendo of connectedness and barrier-dissolution — a Cosmic Climax.

This all sounds great, but I also wonder: where's the female orgasm? What about continuous waves of full-body, non-linear ecstasy, with no focal point and no singular 'explosion'? Such experiences of wave-orgasm are the focus of most sexual mysticism, for both sexes. There's no Point to this ecstasy, but it ain't 'pointless'! Would the concepts of the Omega Point, the Apocalypse, Judgement Day, Timewave Zero, etc. even exist if this experience was more common than the "sneeze in the genitals", as Alan Watts has called the average male orgasm?

Are we yearning for a quick and catastrophic explosion to relieve the tension — the tension of information overload, the tension of tightly measured time, the tension of too much undigested history? Dare we step back for a moment amidst this frantic rush towards the Climax, and question the assumptions behind linear, masculine end-of-time thinking? As Mogg Morgan says,

If you feel yourself approaching the point of 'no return', maybe ask your partner to pause, and make any adjustments necessary to prevent ejaculation or climax . . . . As the urge for ejaculation or release subsides, you may feel the warm sexual glow spreading throughout your whole pelvic region, opening out other energy centres sometimes called chakras. A strange thing happens: you become like an erotic landscape, a sea of sensation. Try to regard the time you have spent in this 'build up' to ejaculation as part of the orgasm. Viewed this way, perhaps you can see that an orgasm, for both men and women, is actually a lot more intense than those few moments of ejaculation or climax.

The aim of mysticism isn't always the total inhibition of coming — it's more to do with intensifying the orgasmic trance through diffusing the 'explosion' of coming throughout the body, and relaxing more fully into every nuance of psycho-physical sensation that arises. A key part of it is perhaps one of the great tenets in many mystic practices — avoiding Lust of Result, a.k.a. attachment, goal-oriented consciousness, striving, or 'pushing the river'. Paradox time again. Orgasmic trance is more intense if you don't try to intensify it, or even try to reach orgasm at all. This is the heart of Taoist philosophy: wu wei, 'not pushing'.

[…] Would the shamans who gave birth to Taoism have put a Full Stop or an Exclamation Mark at the end of their universe, and carefully knitted it into the structure of their sacred symbol system? How about a Comma, maybe — or a Question Mark?

This isn't to say I think that there definitely is not a stupendous hyperdimensional object hovering 14 [now 6] years ahead of us, inexorably drawing all matter and consciousness into its pulsating heart of light.

I jokingly told a friend that I had 'Cancelled the Apocalypse'. He told McKenna this when he met him, and the reply was, "That's a bit presumptuous!" And that it is. Well, I haven't really cancelled it. I've merely tried to stop pushing the river.

Let It Flow...

isabella mori
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www.moritherapy.com