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Around five years ago, as my health began a rapid decline, I found myself undergoing a gradual, almost imperceptible, shutting down to anything that meant something to me.
I lost the drive to want, to dream, to strive. It felt too disappointing to desire anything beyond simply feeling better.
Over time, chronic illness covered over all the possibilities for my life with a slimy film of apathy. My life force only able to channel into how to make money and figure out how to take of myself. Everything else was secondary to survival.
But I have been drowning ever since. Drowning in all the desires that felt impossible to allow into my psyche. Drowning in the grief of time gone by and my life standing still. I began to feel comfortable with the fog of lost yearning and fine to just keep things as they are/were.
I kept moving further and further away from anything that I wanted--or anyone. It felt easier to exist in avoidance and confusion of my desire than to see and acknowledge and feel the pain of impossibility.
Passivity and “failure to thrive” aren’t new to me, my entire life there has existed a part of me that is often overwhelmed just thinking about how much momentum one needs to operative effectively in business, relationships, etc.
I often find myself floating along innocently believing that I’m flowing with life when I end up somewhere I didn’t want to be and had no intention of going. I could have avoided the lost location if I had steered even slightly, but instead I drifted too far in the opposite direction and can’t seem to paddle fast enough backwards.
This part of me lets life happen without any directing on my part and then inertia and stuckness set in--along with apathy, depression, and a familiar friend existential dread. Before I know it, I feel content to keep floating in a sea of discontent and in a deep swampland, a watery underworld of my own making.
I often grieve the things I haven’t done or never accomplished, feeling hopeless against the waves crashing over me while I lose sight of shore. And recently for mysteries of the soul both known--astrological and health--and unknown, I got a glimpse of my old self. The one who used to yearn and crave and writhe with life force.
So I’m doing my best to give her the space to come up for air and see if her wayfaring sight can find the North Star she has been so desperately missing.
While I realize the passivity and inertia is most likely created by trauma, attachment dysregulation, or low self-esteem storm of both, I stopped caring why. (Um though of course keep going to therapy, duh.)
As in many ways it matters not anymore, only that I commit and continue to come back to my my desire.
DESIRE
Desire--the word that inspired my graduate school thesis--most likely evolved from Latin/Greek “from the stars” or “await what the stars bring.” A word that evokes the enchanted human connection to the cosmos, but also the self-intimacy rooted in soul and our unique life force that gives us the will to live.
Because to want something is to feed the sacred flame. To want something is to surrender to the divine spark. Because to know desire is to know Self (capital "s"). To hear it call to me from the erotic life force that fuels my body. Without it my center becomes externalized and at whim. I gravitate towards any orbit with a stronger gravitational pull than my own.
Desire is the wild, soul-making medicine for people-pleasing, passive, codependent types such as myself. Not in a Buddha-desire-is-suffering way, but a I’m-a-woman-that-the-Buddha-will-never-fully-understand way.
Few things feel as vulnerable than to want someone or something. So in the past I opted to let other people’s desires guide me. That way I could conserve my energy and vulnerability. Then over time, I found myself in friendships and romantic entanglements where I felt dominated and unable to find any semblance of power or equality. My desire shoved under layers of niceness and codependency.
Now I see my confusion as a clue. That when anxiety creeps in, it’s often a whisper of soul. A reminder that beyond the foggy mist lies a yearning and vision that I want to contact, but also fear. A place in me that wants something so much that I can’t be with it.
Desire has been my compass, guiding me towards telos--as an evolutionary fullest potential--that exists both as the universe and as individual. Without it, life becomes stagnant and unfulfilling. Desire can mean disappointment, or in some cases devastation. Or it can lead us back to ourselves and ecstatic state of existing within the whole.
But I had stuffed desire so deeply down inside of myself that it lay dormant. Activated only by a certain part of me who dared yearn. Because I am ravenous under the surface. At times when the inflammation subsides and I can feel myself clearly, it all rushes to the surface. The heat, the anger, the passion, the lover of live, and the whore.
WHORE
The word whore evolved from Proto-Germanic word khoraz, meaning “one who desires.” Khoraz evolved from kama meaning “love” and named after the Hindu god of love. (This is where the Kama Sutra came from.)
The word whore came from the Sanskrit word for love and yet we use it now for a woman who seems to love too much or indiscriminately. And have been her and hated her, and been haunted by her for as long as I can remember.
And while one part of me exists solely in passivity, another floods forth with desire. The holy whore, the sacred prostitute within me who knows. But she often resides in a deep slumber until someone or something tickles her fancy enough to awaken her from the dream state.
Often misunderstood, the whore isn’t necessarily sexual, but erotic--as in Eros, the life force feeding connection and creativity.
We can lose contact with her with age, illness, dark nights of the soul (or just the dark month of November), or anything where we lose our erotic force. Situations where all the disappointment and heartbreak and inner coldness begin to override our vitality. But she stays up and ask us burn in the heat rather than wilt.
I don’t want to grow older giving up on contacting the thing that connects me to soul--for me that is the erotic, life force of desire. So I have to invite in “the one who desires,” the nemesis of the nebulous--the whore. I have to keep inviting her in, like a vampire, even though I’m afraid she is too much.
I remember the times when she and I were intertwined, when I used to trust and honor my desire. The whore has my highest Self (capital “S”) in mind, she orbits herself as Sun, a solar feminine archetype of wholeness. An alchemist of sacred and profane, a lover of life, a muse for the mysteries.
I know desire led me to the Bay Area, to my years in OneTaste, it led me to be an astrologer, to soul mates--friends and lovers--and even my cats. Yet somewhere along the way, I became dubious and suspicious of its impact. But also too sick and tired to care.
Other times I may be afraid of just how powerful my desire actually is. Who could I be and become if I could constantly contact the yearning of my soul so easily. I’m not sure I would recognize myself or my life. Perhaps I would see more clearly all the things that don’t work, and don’t want that get in the way of my erotic process of evolving.
But Eros and desire can be terrifying because of their inherent vulnerability and authenticity. To risk caring and wanting and never having. To risk heart and soul for disappointment. To desire is both ecstatic and excruciating.
And yet I know this is my daily, spiritual practice, not just meditation or witchcraft. But a deep connection to the roots of my soul in the Earth and the branches above that channel desire downwards. That my soul is the meeting place between the two and the inner holy whore as my guru.
So, at the risk of giving it all away or before she goes back into hiding, here are some of what I desire and also noticing the parts that feel in contrast awaiting integration with the whore:
A mutual, monogamish partnership mutual in adoration, devotion and sweetness with someone who not only prioritizes our relationship but honors it with intention. Sensual and soul penetrating, where I can trust the other person in their process. We are equals in intelligence, self-awareness, and heart. We choose honesty, authenticity, and truth together--even when it is difficult. They are a stable home base filled with security and love and also we have plenty of space for individuality and time alone. We fight fairly and our rupture and repair cycles evolve our intimacy with each other and ourselves. We experience the highs of spiritual sex and the intensity of soul-penetrating f*cking. We both have close friendships and and we can lean on and gather in a community. Their female friendships are energetically clean and without romantic attraction or oozy sexual energy. They are consistent, available, reliable, and responsive majority of the time, but we don’t get bored because we are both committed to the relationship being a place of growth and healing (which is endless). We choose to love each other even when things are difficult because we know the relationship is a vehicle for our evolution and a spiritual practice. It’s easy for me to feel open and share my needs and vulnerability with them. We become more of ourselves together than we could apart and our individual life purposes thrive as we create a life together.
A business with a financially secure structure, where I can keep doing one-on-one client sessions and have other facets that I love and have a stable income.
A book deal--which would require me to complete my book proposal--with the intersection of desire, wildness, archetypes, and mythology.
A sweet community home life with enough space and enough connection to honor my ambivert self. With yummy food almost always on the stove and an ease in day-to-day chores and life. With easy access to nature and a garden.
Vibrant health filled with physical motion and slowness. Where it feels good to be in my body and experience all the pleasures of embodiment.
This is what I want, as one who desires and a capital “S” Self, not the passive parts or lost at sea self (lower case "s"). Whatever fog lifted in my body long enough to yearn, may it give me enough space to move towards the things I want long enough to feel the heat of the whore.
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