AS IF I AM THE HUSBANDMAN SHE CALLS FOR

• Note: These chapters will be interrupted as I take an intensive training with Kundalini Yoga School for much of the coming week, as well as teaching the online and IRL Yoga for Lovers class on February 11. FMI about KYS (recommended) see kundaliniyogaschool.org

• Today’s question: Have you considered that, deserving nothing, this life gives you everything you think you need, if only you would surrender, prepare the way for Her graces? Have you considered that all of your struggling & all of your grievance with this moment & what She brings you is all that stands in your way to receive?

• Today's suggested practice: Day 5 of this month's practice with Leroy Gordon (see video, below)

• My playlist while writing today's meditation: Teleman, Concerto in D for Trumpet… https://music.apple.com/ca/album/concerto-in-d-for-trumpet-strings-and-harpsichord-adagio/19669184?i=19669088

• Practice: 5am: 60 minutes of yogic practice, including Meditation for Purifying the Elements

• My vulnerability practice: To breathe and feel how much more I am than I am prepared for, and to let that discomfort rest in me instead of pushing it away…

Hans Peter Meyer

VIDEOMen, How long do you wait?

TODAY'S MEDITATION

The lesson of the husbandman is to prepare. Prepare the ground. Prepare the moment. Prepare to receive.

…

I was reading a short piece on the “sexual drought” being reported among young men (20s and 30s) in the United States. Relative to a previous generation, these men are reporting having less sex. The self-awareness of being “left out” is sparking concern among some psychologists about the possible long-term impact of this “intimacy chill.” Domestic security is even considering that the emerging sexual frustration of self-identified “incense” (involuntary celibates) may pose a domestic terror threat.

Meanwhile, women in the same demographic are not reporting any “sexual drought.” If anything, what I’m hearing and seeing —this is anecdotal, but consistent now for at least a decade— is a “worthy man deficit.”

I coach men to become worthy of the world’s beauty. Love, and sex, are some of the most beautiful treasures the world holds for us. We are raised to believe we are entitled to these fruits, without having to do any labour. Was it always so? Did we not, once upon a time, have to prove ourselves? To parents, to prospective brides, to our community —to ourselves? I know I didn’t. There was easy-to-reach low-hanging fruit readily available.

Today, that garden, like the old-growth forests that once marched from oceanside to mountain top in my part of the world, is bare. And so many of us —men who’ve been privileged to quite literally pillage, if not always rape, this cornucopia— are now submitting our grievances: someone must be responsible for our lack of access to the easy fruits. It is as if the trees closed ranks, one by one, not as a concerted coordinated effort, but finally realizing that what they hold is sacred and, as individuals, will not themselves be taken.

So I see women coaching “sexual fasts.” Coaching women to value themselves as more than the hormonal flush or the orgasmic rush. And, coaching them through their own drought, because the feminine in all of us wants to flow, wants to nourish, wants to know being known.

And so I coach my woman students —of sexual yoga as well as of tango— don’t be satisfied with anything less than what you are worth. Otherwise you are wasting yourself, and will be taken for granted. Will be used. Sometimes appreciated, yes. But, because our masculine-identified male impulse is to conquer and move on, rarely cherished for the treasure you are.

…

One of my teachers once famously told us that if we, as masculine-identified men, desired sex with our women, we should begin preparing the way a full 72 hours beforehand.

Seventy-two hours? Seriously? Who —and I am speaking to the masculine-identified men among us now— who among us has that kind of patience? Especially when we have a woman at hand who tells us she loves us (or at least has been inclined to share her body with us).

Foreplay, yes (whatever that word means; its meaning has changed for me in my years of sexual activity, becoming ever more complicated than it once was… ). But 72 hours of “preparation?” A younger man, a foolish man, a man still unaware of his and her sexual differences, would have dismissed this.

But now, as I listen to the men and women who talk to me about their sexuality, their sex lives, their apparent lack of sex lives, now I am less dismissive. Especially as I see, in my own life, but also in the many lives I am witness to, the inevitable decrescendo after the hormone-driven honeymoon sex of those first hours, days, weeks, months (sometimes even a year or two, if we’re lucky). Then no one is happy about their sex life anymore. And their eyes and hearts and genitals begin to wonder, and wander…

Maybe the culture has got it wrong. Maybe the hyper-sexuality of everyday commercialized life in today’s capitalist society isn’t how we are. Maybe there’s something about this “sex thing” that isn't just about biology, let alone sales and marketing.

That’s what I’ve been thinking. For some time now. Though I must say that the sharp edge of my thinking is dulled whenever the “sex thing” shows up in my life. I too am so much a product of this culture and this way of being a masculine-identified man.

So I look deeper and deeper into ancient teachings about this “sex thing.”

The yogic origin story of Shiva and Shakti is, as I understand it, a profoundly sexual story. I’m not alone in looking to the ancients. But what I think is missing from a lot of the contemporary revival of tantric telling is that the yoga —the union— of masculine and feminine (not “men” and “women,” note) is something sacred. It’s not a recreational rubbing of organs. Though there may be that too (the rubbing of organs, that is). And it may not even be about pro-creation. It is about the sacred, and it is about being a part of every breath and every movement and every stillness we may experience in this life.

…

We are, all of us, in this dance: Shiva copulating with the dancing Shakti. But most of us —certainly me, almost all of the time— unawares. Not bringing our awareness and reverence to even the noticing of who we are in this moment, where we are in this moment, the very moment of this moment.

Now, maybe, sitting with these notions, teaching these ideas, listening to men and women and their sexual travails… Now maybe I understand a little: She whom I would see blossom is so much more than I imagine; Her opening is, perhaps, a lifelong experience for me to bear witness to, to hold space for.

How lucky I am! That for whatever dim reason she chose me to be this witness! That she, in her unreasonable knowing of me, chose me to be the husbandman to her garden of delights, pleasures, nourishments —and tests. Seventy-two hours? Perhaps 72 years to watch this woman flourish.

And, all the while, feeling my impatience and my neediness. And also: hearing and seeing and feeling her radiance, moving through the seasons, ebbing and flowing.

…

Is there a “sexual drought?” If I limit my notions of what this “sex thing” is, then yes, perhaps there is.

But I am more concerned with helping myself and other men do the work of preparing for Her opening. What I see is a wilderness of feminine energy that desires attending, to be held and known as the garden of our lives. And so I help myself and other men prepare for the coming together of Shiva and Shakti that we all of seem to want so badly. Doing that by “acting as if” I am the husbandman she needs. “Acting as if,” that my nervous system becomes attuned to the seasons of the divine feminine, becoming the sacred masculine, so much than I imagine myself capable of. And yes, capable of so much more than 72 hours. Perhaps the 72 years this life may grant me for this flowering.

TODAY’S INSPIRATIONS

🌀You deserve nothing. (Kendra Cunov)

🌀All we do is confront limits and open them. (Deida)

🌀 You cannot convince a flower to open by arguing with it.When you care for a flower and consistently provide what it needs, it will blossom in time.The same is true of the human heart. (Justin Patrick Pierce)

🌀And you, you see me. You hear me. You know me. (My beloved, my Oracle, my Siren)

TODAY'S SUGGESTED PRACTICE

Day 5 of this month's practice, take about six minutes today to sit and join Sarah Anderson in a beautiful “Sacred Womb” meditation (because all of us, however we identify, can benefit from some loving attention to our “feminine” creative/generative capacities)

Please read through first, then ...

• Today, sit (or stand) in stillness as you listen to your heart, your belly, your sex, your root and let this question stir within you…. Have you considered that, deserving nothing, this life gives you everything you think you need, if only you would surrender, prepare the way for Her graces? Have you considered that all of your struggling & all of your grievance with this moment & what She brings you is all that stands in your way to receive?…Allow Leroy to help you soften and open your masculine “warrior,” whether you identify as masculine or feminine we all use this energy to strive, struggle, protect ourselves, etc. It can be a huge barrier for all of us, to receiving what is already here for us.

• Set your timer for 6 minutes or listen to or watch Leroy:

• As the timer signals or the video ends allow your eyes to slowly open. Take three, relaxed breath cycles, no pressing, no effort, and feel yourself full, without thoughts, open. Safe to receive. Then, step into your day, letting the mantra echo as a nourishing vibration whenever you become still. You don't need to DO anything. Let the world come to you with its demands, its complaints, and yes, its endless tide of gifts and blessings.

***Yoga for Lovers, a new online and IRL offering for Valentine’s date nights, and beyond. FMI see sacredbodies.ca/events