Venus and Her Lover

by Becca Tzigany

  When we were back home in Hawai’i, I often reflected on the vibrant green prayer for strength and liberation. So many women were stalled by inner demons spawned from sexual abuse, violence, denigration, guilt, and victimization. What would it take for our friend Molly to get free? I could never have guessed the price she was willing to pay. For now, she would have to gather her strength for what was to come.

  Photo Shoot: Mother of All Buddhas

  Tara, a female Buddha or bodhisattva, is kept out of the all-boys club of Theravada Buddhism, but in Mahayana and Vajrayana (Tibetan/Tantric) Buddhism, she is the focus of meditation used to experience emptiness and compassion.

  James and I had felt Tara’s influence for some years, but she did not make it into our project until we had left Thailand and returned to Hawai’i. We wanted her in, since we knew that in many Buddhist lands, girls prayed to be born male their next incarnation (so they would be one step closer to becoming a Buddha). We doubt that Gautama Buddha, as an enlightened being, would actually have decreed such a thing – unless, of course, he was also a man of his time... a patriarchal time.

  Born in India in the fifth century BCE, he not only established a spiritual – yet rational – system of self-realization, Siddhartha Gautama gave no countenance whatsoever to two mainstays of his culture: belief in gods and goddesses, and the caste system of ranking (and enslaving) humans. Truly he was a revolutionary! Nonetheless, Buddhist thought considered the very act of birth to be what set humans onto countless cycles of suffering, so it seemed to us that the Buddhist assessment of Woman, Mother, and the yoni – as the vehicle of birth – could do with some re-mything. How far we had come in our photo shoots! From not having a clue as to the characters our volunteer models were portraying nor the significance of their actions, we were now doing sessions with specific deities, poses, and meanings in mind.

  Arya Tara is known in Tibetan as Gyalwai Yum, “Mother of the Buddhas.” She is mother not in the sense that Mary is called “Mother of God” for birthing Jesus Christ, but more as a force or set of conditions that allows the devotee to attain enlightenment, or buddhahood. This, of course, is the case with all gods and goddesses; they are anthropomorphized representations of nonhuman forces or qualities. Venus and Her Lover, as a matter of course, pulled in a wise woman character for Tara, an older woman who could guide an adult Buddha into a more balanced view of Woman.

  Evelyn had shown up right away; she was the first person to welcome us to the Big Island, taking us home with her within minutes of meeting us. Though our long expedition from Italy to Hawai’i had us looking pretty road weary, Evelyn recognized who we were immediately, enough so that she offered her spare futon and the shelter of her cottage. From that first day, our friendship blossomed, and we shared many happy times together. Evie loves life; she is all sparkles and sudden cackling laughter, except for those times the straight-talking crone wants to get to the bottom of something and shoots you a comment like, “No bullshit now, tell me what you mean.” Her German heritage gave her stunning blonde hair and slightly slanted eyes that looked, well, Oriental. In spite of the pictures of Green Tara all over her house and numerous discussions about our Tantric art, the idea that Evelyn should portray Tara hit like a bolt out of the blue, after we had known each other for a year and a half. “What a good idea!” we all agreed.

  Our Buddha materialized immediately thereafter. We had known R.B., a member of the Dolphinville community, since our arrival, and he said “yes” as soon as we asked. What a perfect model for the Buddha – because his whole life was devoted to his spiritual path, which he honed through purity of diet and mind, and farm work on the Hawaiian ‘a-ina (land).

  Meeting in our house, James, Evelyn, R.B., and I began our opening circle. R.B. stoked a censer, so that little billows of frankincense smoke filled the room, as if it were a temple. With heartfelt communication, invocations, and chanting, our rite commenced. Setting R.B. on a pillow on the floor, James suggested that we goddesses dance for him. Bedecked with sheer, beaded scarves, Evie and I playfully taunted him with our bodies and words:

  “You don’t have to deny the body!”

  “Enlightenment through the body!”

  “Say ‘yes’ to the yoni!”

  “Tara, show him Venus’ yoni,” James instructed. “Buddha, lean forward and check it out!” R.B. sat in a semi-lotus position, grinning and – as instructed – gazing.

  With Evie’s assistance, I stretched into several yogic postures, ending with pada hasthasana (forward bend), where I peeked at him through my open legs. Sometimes our laughter threatened to bowl me over while we held the positions for James’ camera. As it turned out, the final pose was the winner. The image would become the painting, “The Enlightenment.”

  In this manner Tara had her photo shoot. Finally, the Mother of All Buddhas had found her place in Venus and Her Lover.

  THE PASSION OF PELE

  “Are you sure James is the man for you?”

  The question hung in the air with the salt spray, with Dionysian Dudaka’s intense brown eyes focused on it. The sun shone at his back, and illuminated his brown wavy hair with an auburn halo. He looked like a god. Dudaka and I sat under the fluttering shade of an almond tree, with the blue Pacific alternately hurling itself and withdrawing, right before our feet. Since James and I had returned from Thailand, Dudaka and I were getting together for walks, this one along the lava shoreline near Ho’okena.

  Is James the man for me? Why did this question keep coming up? Admittedly, I had heard it other times before, usually from well-meaning onlookers who felt I should be with a different kind of man: an incense-imbued yogi, an able-bodied wilderness guide, a rock star, a successful businessman who could provide for me in luxurious style, perhaps? What motivates Dudaka’s question? I thought. I could well guess.

  I stood up and continued walking. Dudaka leaped to his feet to join me. He said, “What’s up? Don’t want to look at that question?”

  “Look, Dudaka, believe me, I’ve been looking at that question for years, and especially lately,” I said.

  Dudaka’s eyes grabbed ahold of mine. We kissed. Desire weakened my joints, leaving me to fall into him. At the same time, invisible arms pulled me back.

  I turned away to resume walking. “I know, I know, I feel what’s between us, Dudaka! We could pursue it – why don’t we? It just has to be with James. He’s my partner, and that’s our agreement.” That’s our agreement regarding you, I could have said. While James and I were both free to pursue other lovers, it was only as long as we both agreed, and with Dudaka, James had noted there was something askew, despite his real affection for him. Plus, we needed to consolidate our energies, not disperse them.

  “No,” Dudaka said. “I want you.”

  “Listen, Dudaka,” I explained. “James and I are in a committed relationship. We have years of sharing the easy times and the hard times, we have created a bond that is very precious to me. While he may have a rough exterior, I love and respect who he is – a lot. Our relationship has created a space where we explore, and heal, and transform. That’s the power of intimacy.”

  “Intimacy,” Dudaka repeated. “Well, how about passion?”

  With that, Dudaka took off running, clambering up a rough ledge of lava overhanging the sea, a heaving sea that dashed itself on the black rocks below. With a sudden leap, Dudaka jumped off the ledge, screaming, “Pa-ssion!” as he plummeted down.

  My heart leaped. Was it deep enough right there? Had he dived here before? A thick roll of blue water received the wild man, and soon he surfaced, whooping and hollering. Swimming around to a safe place to get out, he was soon standing next to me, dripping and bristling with joy.

  We continued walking, holding hands, and exclaiming how vibrant was the sky, how enlivening the salty air, how exciting were the waves splattering their existence upon the jagged edges of the Volcano Goddess’ island.
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  God of Life and Death

  Come, God –

  Bromius [the Roarer], Bacchus, Dionysus –

  burst into life, burst into being,

  Be a mighty bull,

  a hundred-headed snake,

  a fire-breathing lion.

  Burst into smiling life, oh Bacchus!

  ~ Euripides

  Passion. When you turn toward archetypal guidance about passion, Dionysus blazes forth. He is God of Wine, of altered states, of Nature and fertility, of revelry. Inspiration for song and drama, he is God of the Theater, and the mask is his symbol. He embodies both desperate suffering as well as bliss. As the Dying and Resurrecting God, his worship induces mystical awareness with the goal of spiritual transcendence, as well as setting the stage, literally, for the sacred choral dance drama of Greek tragedy. He was revered by the Greeks as Dionysus and by the Romans as Bacchus, the mythical descendant of Osiris.

  One version of his story has him the son of Zeus (Sky Father) and Demeter (Earth Mother), another says his mother was Persephone (Underworld Maiden), and the later, most popular myth says he was born of the passion between Zeus and a mortal, Semele. They could all be right if Zeus coupled with the Triple Goddess, engaging her in three aspects: Demeter (Earth), Persephone (Underworld), and Semele (the Moon). The Divine Child, born with horns like a goat, was enchantingly appealing, especially to women.

  Zeus’ jealous wife, Hera, sent the Titans to destroy the baby Dionysus, and when they found him, they chopped him into seven pieces, which they then roasted over a fire. Zeus was able to salvage only his heart. Serving his lover Semele a potion made from the heart of his dead son, Zeus then impregnated her. Ever spiteful Hera, disguised as a nurse, goaded Semele to beg Zeus to reveal himself to her in his full divine glory. When he did so, Semele was struck dead by his brilliance and thunderbolts. Snatching the premature baby, Zeus gestated him in his thigh until the time of delivery. Thus, Dionysus was called Twice Born.

  A remarkably handsome boy, Dionysus was raised by nymphs in the gentleness of Nature. As a young man, he traveled to the east, spreading agricultural knowledge (the cultivation of the vine) through ecstatic rituals outdoors. It seems likely that psychoactive plants or mushrooms were part of the wine preparations.99 His followers – satyrs (man-goat-horse beings), nymphs, and maenads (maddened women revelers) – lured many law-abiding citizens into the forest for drinking, dancing to drum and flute, sexual orgies, and entheogenic/visionary trance journeying. Good Greek wives, in particular, were lured away from their confining home lives, to let loose under the spell of Dionysus.

  Naturally, ancient Greco-Roman rationality repudiated the passionate indulgence of Bacchanalian worship. Many tried to resist. When pirates refused to recognize his divinity, their ship was flooded with wine, encircled with grape vines, and the handsome young god turned into a lion right there on deck. Scared for their lives, the sailors jumped overboard, where they were turned into dolphins. Or so the story goes.

  In another myth, King Pentheus, in an attempt to protect his city from chaos, had the rabble-rousing god and his followers arrested. But the prison doors unbolted themselves, the ropes to bind the prisoners untied themselves, and the whole merry band escaped into the hills. Pentheus surreptitiously pursued them, climbing a tree to observe the rites. Under Bacchic delirium, the maenads mistook him for a panther, and savagely attacked him, tearing him limb from limb. His own mother ripped off his head.

  Madness was always an element of Dionysian worship, and there are many accounts of the god striking those who refused him with insanity. Walter F. Otto, German scholar, says in his book, Dionysus – Myth and Cult:100

  He is the suffering and dying god, the god of tragic contrast. And the inner force of this dual reality is so great that he appears among men like a storm, he staggers them, and he tames their opposition with the whip of madness. All tradition, all order must be shattered. Life becomes suddenly an ecstasy – an ecstasy of blessedness, but an ecstasy, no less, of terror.

  A God’s Heart

  Once I recognized the Dionysian influences in Dudaka, I could better understand his behavior and my attraction to him. I loved the passion and physicality of our dancing, the transcendence of our ecstasy, and our visioning a world full of exuberance for life. Yet, I had seen him snap at one of the volunteers one evening after the dance. “You did not respect the altar! This ritual is sacred! We must hold a strong container – how dare you disrespect it?” At first I thought he was being melodramatic, and tried to catch his attention to tell him to chill out. But his eyes showed no humor, only rage. That was the first time I began to understand why my internal alarm had sounded when I wanted to join sexually with him, and what James’ protective instincts had picked up.

  Still, I very much enjoyed my friendship with Dudaka. He revealed his different masks to me, and some were mirrors. Enticed by the danger of walking an edge, I engaged in the play of duality and paradox with him. Dionysus, in a combustible alliance with Pele, was forcing me to stare into the face of my relationship, my erotic desires, and the pull of opposites within me.

  I considered a modern society that refused the worship of Dionysus. Is that what drove us mad? When we denied his lessons, did we project our shadows outward, emotionally tearing others apart limb from limb while we defended our ego identities? Without deeply experiencing the depths of despair nor the liberating heights of ecstasy, had we constructed a theater of absurd madness, where we played out war, codependence with hero-tyrants, repeated bargains with the Devil, arousal through cruelty, and abdication of our dreams?

  One evening I sat on our lanai contemplating Dionysus. Alex was in his room doing homework, James lay in his carport studio watching a movie, Dudaka was camping on the beach. He lived out of his station wagon, preferring to sleep under the stars. Wild man. Alluring Trickster. I poured myself a glass of wine and watched the stars dancing in the night sky. I thought about my intoxication with these wild men – James, Dudaka, Nassim – ah, their inspired visions and primal rages! In Greek myth, Venus tangled lustily with Dionysus and bore him at least one child. In this instance, however, my inner Venus was choosing to experience his mysteries a different way. Zeus had salvaged his Divine Child’s heart, stealing it away in a basket. How could I carry it forward through Venus and Her Lover?

  James had painted Dionysus/Bacchus in two paintings, and my poem, “To Dionysus” did invoke the God of Rapture. And now, here he was, popping in through the cellar door of the transformational relationship that James and I had passionately built together. How could I explain to Dudaka the passion stoked in the purifying fires of intimacy?

  The God Who Comes, they called him. Come, Dionysus, come, I prayed. Strip my illusions down to naked. I accept the pain of my contradictions. Free me from the confines of duality. Free me into the passion of life.

  Swishing the wine over my tongue, I savored the flavors of a damp forest floor, black currants, bitter wood – my communion with the elementals, my embracing the God of Epiphany. I turned on the stereo and unhooked the hammock, clearing a space on the porch. As the music began, I downed the last of the wine and let the music move my body. “Let’s dance,” I whispered. “Come, Dionysus, come.”

  Muladhara Chakra of Hawai’i Island

  Our root chakra, at the base of our spines, is our spiritual foundation in the physical world. James and I, as well as our creative project, were now under Pele’s microscope; no matter how we tried to squirm or wish ourselves off the laboratory slide, we could not escape her scrutiny. What rooted us to the Earth? How were we manifesting our livelihood? Did we feel secure? How was our sexual energy flowing? Were we being authentic in our commitment to the relationship? This Goddess of the Volcano was passionate about the fires of creation and life on Earth.

  Pele had enrolled us in her intensive first chakra workshop, for which we had to continually come up with the price of admission
. “So you want to dwell in Paradise?” Pele grilled us. “Then let’s see what ya got!” Consequently, out it all tumbled: our fears and insecurities, wounds and torments, temptations and shames, talents and dreams. Flowing underneath it all, like glowing orange magma bubbling in an underground chamber, was her question: “What impassions you?” She was asking us to identify what motivated our actions... fear? love? habit? What we had simmering inside would certainly affect what our exterior reality looked like. What was the authentic expression of our desires, unshackled from cultural programming and control mechanisms?

  It was no use defying this formidable Earth Goddess. I could feel my ego yielding some of its claim on me, and the territory left behind its retreat felt like virgin land, ready to be seeded with my pure visions, and ready to be fertilized by my relationship. “In the presence of awakened intimacy, conflict is just shit auditioning to be compost.” So says Robert Augustus Masters in his book, Transformation Through Intimacy.

  One late afternoon, I felt my insides unraveling; as if in the presence of Dionysus, all the knots were untying themselves. Someone upwind was roasting their coffee harvest – the famous Kona coffee – and I heard a voice in my head say, “Wake up and smell the coffee!”

  I stepped out onto the lanai where James was lying in the hammock. Kneeling beside him, I looked into his eyes and saw a pained weariness. My eyes must have reflected my own distress because he leaned toward me with concern.

  “Becca...,” he said.

  “James, the sun is setting. I mean, the sun is setting in me... I feel like something is dying in me,” I sighed.

  James put his face in front of mine and said, “Let it die, Becca. Whatever you’re resisting. I see how hard you work to hold up our life. It’s not supposed to be so hard. I know we’re being tested. Embrace the pain. Let it break you open. I think you’re right: little Becca is dying.”