Venus and Her Lover

by Becca Tzigany

  After the spring-summer thaw was complete, we could float in inner tubes down the lazy Rio Grande, and I could hike into the alpine meadows high above Taos Ski Valley. In July, the annual Pow Wow brought Indian tribes from all over North America, and in addition to thrilling to the pageantry of their dances – twirling colorful feathers, beads, and rattles – I always joined in when they invited the public to dance in the central arena. Dancing barefoot to the huge booming drums and howling songs with the first Americans, what an honor!

  Autumn arrived early, or you could say, Indian summer stayed late. There was a bridge period between August and October that I came to call The Yellow Season. A riot of sunflowers erupted along the roadways, beaming optimism to all who passed.

  At the end of September, we enjoyed attending the Feast of San Gerónimo, a big holiday in Taos Pueblo. Kachares, the sacred clowns, their bodies painted black and white, kept the multitudes in line, and an unfortunate photographer (photographing the rituals was strictly prohibited) or other transgressor of custom, might find himself thrown into the river. We were usually invited by Indian friends who had a house right on the main plaza from which we could watch the festivities, which culminated in brave men competing to shimmy to the top of a towering pole – a tree felled just for the occasion – to retrieve a deer that had been killed. The winner descended the pole, acting not like the hero, but immediately presenting the deer carcass to the tribal elders. A competition for the good of the tribe – now that was a tribal idea, born of a partnership mentality.

  By the end of November, the skiers were checking weather reports hourly, praying for that all-important base layer of snowpack. Eventually it would arrive. The fury of the Rocky Mountains would bear down upon us, snowstorms burying us under snow and below-zero temperatures. Once the storm moved through, sunny blue skies illuminated soaring white peaks and layers of white mesa. Icicles hanging from piñon needles sparkled in the sunlight.

  New Mexico was called “the Land of Enchantment,” and testament to its bewitching spell, I dove into winter. Granted, I had to shed layers of my persona – for example: to my initial horror, I went from being a 20-year vegetarian to one who hungered after buffalo, venison, and elk meat (just like our Indian friends had said I would). Aside from cross-country skiing expeditions and cozy sessions in front of the kiva fireplace relishing tea and conversation with friends, I rode the inward energy of winter into my writer’s mind, and sat for hours working on Nassim’s book as well as our own. My drive to write this book charged through me. We had been learning so much on our Tantric adventure, and I wanted to share it.

  James, also, put in long hours in his studio, and he looked the worse for wear. His knees pained him constantly, in addition to his back, but he would not lessen the pace. “I’ve got to finish Venus and Her Lover before I die!” he would say, much to my alarm.

  We both persevered in our separate studios, and huddled under the covers together at the end of the day.

  The Holy Four

  Each form you see has its unseen archetype. If the form is transient, its essence is eternal.

  ~ Rumi

  As we went through the seasons, four by four, I got to thinking about what meaning four held around here, since it was the most wakan (sacred, possessing power) number. The four directions were evident on New Mexico’s state flag, its highway markers, license plates, and even the statehouse, which was constructed in a round shape with four entrances at each of the cardinal points. White Buffalo Woman, of Plains Indian mythology, lived in a cave and presided over the four winds. While I was used to thinking of the Triple Goddess, Paula Gunn Allen, a Native American author, spoke of the Fourfold Goddess:

  Bhuvaneshwari Yantra. The yantra, used in Hindu meditation, can include lotus petals (chakras), a bindu (Creation starting point), an upward-pointing triangle (Shiva, Masculine, fire) and downward-pointing triangle (Shakti, Feminine, water), circle, and square enclosure with 4 gates.

  Maiden

  Mother

  Crone

  Mystery 108

  In Tantra, the square (four sides) represented Earth, the most stable base for manifestation. In Tibetan Buddhist mandalas, as well as in Tantric yantras (sacred instruments, enclosures or symbols), the sides of the square each had a T-shaped gate, considered thresholds of initiation.109 Here in northern New Mexico, I unmistakably felt the Earth element – the energy of four – as James and I brought Venus and Her Lover into further manifestation.

  As a basis for society, according to the Okanagan (Pacific Northwest Native American and Canadian First Nation) culture, four elements needed to be present for the tribe to thrive:

  Balance of 4 societies within a healthy tribe.

  After Full Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice, quoting Jeanette Armstrong.110

  Being a Taurus, I felt the Earth under my hooves, and perhaps that was why I felt so at home in the Southwest, winters and all. Native American societies, which traditionally devoted as much as two-thirds of their time to ritual and ceremony in order to affect spiritual – that is, nonmaterial – energies, did so while squarely planted on the Earth. Such an engagement with life was in harmony with my own, and I hoped that I might establish a relationship with some of the spiritual leaders of Taos Pueblo, to learn further from them.

  Cicada’s Call

  In Santa Fe lives Deborah Sundahl, author of the book, Female Ejaculation and the G-Spot. We had met her over dinner with two friends who were in town for a Sex and Spirit conference: Kenneth Ray Stubbs, author of Erotic Massage and many other sexuality books and videos, and Suzie Heumann, founder of tantra.com. Over plates of tamales, enchiladas, and green chile, James and I happily bantered with Ray, Suzie, and Deborah, who had decades of experience as social pioneers in sexuality. Deborah was just as happy to meet us, exclaiming, “When I first saw The Pillow Deck, I said, ‘I just have to meet the people who did these cards!’” So spontaneously there we all were.

  In our subsequent meetings, Deborah told us about a place she knew where we could see images of Kokopelli etched into the rock. James was working on a painting venerating Kokopelli, entitled “The Harvest.” Deborah and I planned a hike, which I considered a pilgrimage to honor the mythological figure, and — Kokopelli being the trickster that he is — we had to persevere past several false starts. One evening a windstorm, with gusts of 40mph, kept us in, but the following morning dawned with crisp blue skies. By 8:00am Deborah was driving us out of Santa Fe into the desert. She talked about the petroglyphs. “You know when I saw the Kokopelli figure playing his flute next to squiggly lines, I figured he was coaxing the feminine waters. Wouldn’t that be cool if he was eliciting women to ejaculate?”

  Deborah’s wavy blond hair was tousled by the warm wind blowing in through her truck window, and she looked over her sunglasses at me to emphasize her point. You would never guess from her soft, dainty voice the powerful giant in her that had bucked the male-dominated pornography approach to sex; she co-founded On Our Backs magazine for a lesbian audience in the 80’s and championed a sex-education approach in the erotic videos she produced.

  Soon we arrived at the cliffs outside the village of Cienaguilla.

  “Is there a marsh around here?” I asked incredulously. Although we were clearly in desert, I knew the meaning of the Spanish name.

  Deborah pointed to a lowland the opposite direction from the cliffs. A cluster of green-topped trees belied moisture. Looking at the lay of the land, I figured that in centuries past, it really was a marsh, or perhaps a broad, lazy river. Such a water source would certainly have attracted the Anasazi Indians, making Cienaguilla a settlement or a prime destination between Pecos and Chaco Canyon. Anasazi means “ancient enemy” or “ancient stranger” in Diné, the language of the Navajo people, but the Hopi, who are probably the descendants of the Anasazi, call them Hisatsinom, which means “The Ones Who Came Before.” Unlike the nomadic Plains In
dians, they settled down in towns, from which they farmed and hunted. The architecture of their pueblos (Spanish for “towns”) is impressive, whether they built cliff dwellings in the side of rock faces or adobe structures. While history reads that the Anasazi civilization “disappeared,” perhaps due to drought, it seems possible that some moved into the Rio Grande Valley and became the Pueblo people.

  Kokopelli’s origins were cloaked in the obscurity of Anasazi/Hisatsinom history. As Deborah and I began the climb through the cactus and juniper, I thought of how Kokopelli had become a symbol of the Southwest. No matter what mysteries and theories surrounded the Anasazi people, the figure of Kokopelli was, in modern times, universally disseminated: via refrigerator magnets, lawn ornaments, key chains, t-shirts, jewelry... everywhere the hunched-over figure with wild hair was playing his flute. Carefully placing my hiking boot-clad feet on the volcanic rock strewn on the cliffside, I felt each step bring me closer to my meeting with Kokopelli. In a year of living here I had seen his image a thousand times, but beyond a vague feeling of promoting party time, this mythic figure had not yet spoken to me on his own turf.

  Soon we reached the cliff faces. Deborah picked her way along a narrow trail trying to find the petroglyphs. We were not disappointed. Once we found them, we had before us a library of information. Etched into the brownish-black desert patina of the rock were the sandy-colored spirals, handprints, human figures, snakes, frogs, deer, thunderbirds, and geometric shapes. We walked the trail just below the smooth cliff faces, admiring and trying to decipher what Indian artists had inscribed there many centuries before.

  Then we came upon our first flute-playing figure. About five inches high, he was either a little man with a big backpack, oversized headdress, and down-pointing flute, or an insect with waving antenna and proboscis. A round indentation, probably formed by a gas bubble in the volcanic rock, marked his eye. He stood facing vertical zigzag lines six times his height. Snakes? Lightning? Flowing water? Whatever their meaning, the artist had drawn them as overpoweringly larger than the creature that addressed them.

  As we hiked on, we found more and more Kokopelli petroglyphs, many of them sporting protruding lingams. As rough or primitive as the etchings may have seemed, I was entranced by their artistry. Deborah and I were laughing with delight before these characters that came in all sizes.

  “What do you feel from him, psychically?” Deborah asked. “Just impressions... don’t think about it.”

  “Masculine,” I said.

  “Proud,” she said, “and strong.” Thus we continued, back and forth, saying whatever came to us.

  “Celebration. Celebration of manhood... Responsibility of manhood, too.”

  “Joy. Dancing with joy. Movement.”

  “Not afraid, but humble before the powers of the Earth.”

  The feeling from these pictograms was so much more substantial than what I got off the Kokopelli design on my shower curtain. The fact of the matter was that the modern Kokopelli had been castrated. His party animal persona hinted at his erotic nature but, like pornography, it was hidden away in the Shadows of people’s minds. Our society had emasculated a potent symbol for Man, depriving him of his vigor. Present-day depictions of him without his lingam spoke volumes about the state of our society, just as the rock art now told me about the Anasazi/Hisatsinom culture.

  There was an indentation in the rock surface that held many petroglyphs, including seven prominent flute players. The feeling of the place stopped us both in our tracks. “Let’s do ritual here,” I said.

  Deborah seemed to welcome a rest from the sun beating down on us and sat in the shade of a large juniper bush just facing the cliff. On a rock ledge I placed a red and orange sarong, topping it with a phallic shaped stone I found on the ground. Above our makeshift altar was a remarkable scene carved into the dark, smooth rock: five Kokopelli figures marching in a line, seemingly led by their penises, playing their flutes. Above them hovered another dancing Kokopelli, and above them all a horned figure with legs spread and arms outstretched holding rattles or snakes or some other amulet. Could this be the Great Spirit? a shaman? the Sky God? The Kokopellis faced a cleft in the rock. On the other side of the cleft were elongated wavy lines that looked like lightning or enormous snakes. We speculated that the flute players were summoning rain... or moisture from the cleft, an Earth yoni?

  Deborah sat leaning against a boulder in the shade, and I stood before the Kokopelli altar. I cast cornmeal and tobacco, invoking and honoring the six directions (east, south, west, north, above, and below) as well as the center. I called upon the spirits of the land, of the rocks, of the waters, of the animals, and then the spirit of Kokopelli, and offered squash seeds in his honor. When I felt the assembly of this aetheric multitude, I began my prayer:

  “We are here to honor your life-giving powers, and to affirm them for our world. We call upon the flowing waters and the bursting seed to manifest abundantly. We ask for healing for the castrated man, the wounded man of our society. He suffers so much pain! He is so angry! Please, with your image of whole Man — the strong, proud, loving, responsible Man — guide us back to the path in harmony with Nature.

  “Please guide Deborah, James, and me in our work... to bring healing to the Feminine as well as the Masculine in our world. Please help give us the strength and vision to see it through. Please bless Deborah’s work of sexual healing and our efforts with Venus and Her Lover, so that we can bring them into the light of day and our society will smile upon them. May we all come into balance!

  “It is in gratitude for our abundant life that we humbly make these requests. We thank you for being. We thank you for this life. We honor the Anasazi, the Ancient Ones, who consecrated this land. Aho!”

  With that, I crouched in the shade and entered into meditation. Without delay I became still, overcome with the power of the place. A cicada began its strident song, immediately joined by another. Their loud chirring seemed to coax a relaxed exhale from the Earth, and I felt a warm breath across my body. The majestic presence of the rock cliffs seemed to tower higher and higher above me, and I felt myself drawn into the cool earth, sensing the life-giving waters rollicking below me. My awareness dove down, pulled by an unseen force. I felt myself enveloped by the cool, moist Earth; as rock hard as it was, it parted effortlessly before my downward trajectory. I traveled at breakneck speed, it seemed, for a long time.

  Then I sensed people. Their presence broke into my meditation. Reluctantly I separated from my downward journey and opened my eyes. There was no one there. Even so, I stood up and looked around. Deborah stirred, opening her eyes. Visibly moved, she said, “I got confirmation about trying to heal the male. I need to do a book on the male prostate.”

  Then I spotted a group of hikers around the bend. “Let’s conclude,” I said.

  Standing before our altar, we held hands, speaking our gratitude to the spirits of the place. In final affirmation, we cast rose petals onto the desert breeze, declaring, “May the spirit of passion and romance, of the healthy balance between the Masculine and Feminine, be restored! Please guide us through the shift of worlds. May the Golden Age manifest upon Earth! Aho!”

  I yanked the red sarong off the rock ledge just as the hikers came upon us. Deborah and I sat back in the shade of the juniper bush so the group of five people could stand in front of the petroglyphs.

  A man with graying whiskers, obviously the leader of the expedition, stood before them, notebook in hand. “Welcome to the Kokopelli capital of New Mexico!” he announced. “Here we see excellent examples of Kokopelli, all of them ithyphallic. The Hopis tell us that the cicada was his symbol, and the cicada god’s name was Maahu. Maahu held his power in the hump on his back. When the cicada plays its song, it elicits heat from the Earth, which brings about planting time. So you can see the connection to fertility. The dried husk of a cicada’s body curls up, giving the appearance of a hunchback, and its pr
oboscis looks like a flute. These figures here resemble cicadas.”

  I whispered to Deborah, “Did you hear the cicadas? They were so loud when we were meditating!” She shook her head no.

  The professor continued. “They are addressing several horned snakes, which might symbolize lightning. We can never say for sure what the petroglyphs mean; the Anasazi disappeared without leaving us a dictionary,” he chuckled.

  “Professor, look!” one of the women hikers said. “What’s scattered there?”

  Leaning over our altar, he explained. “Cornmeal and tobacco! Don’t touch! We should not disturb anything! This place is still in use. Native people consider the petroglyphs not simple drawings; they are the embodiment of the spirits and gods themselves. We must respect the fact that native people still practice their religion here.”

  “Thank heavens for native people,” I whispered, winking at Deborah. She grinned. Then speaking louder, I addressed the professor, “There’s seeds scattered, too,” wondering if he might make some connection between pumpkin seeds and semen.

  “I see,” he remarked, observing them on the ground. “We should move on,” he told his group. After exchanging a few comments with us about Kokopelli, he led his group forward.

  The sun was higher in the sky now, and we could feel the heat radiating off the desert and the black volcanic rock. Silently Deborah and I said farewell to the sacred spot and descended the slope back to her truck. As we headed into Santa Fe, I still bore the feeling of being pulled into the depths of the Earth. How strange that while honoring a phallic deity, I had gone so inward. Perhaps my devotion had permitted me the first step through a portal to a spiritual dimension that had been anchored there by the Ancient Ones. I could not argue with the professor about the petroglyphs: they were not just drawings; they held power. I had sought Kokopelli, or his ancestor Maahu, and the magical flute player had touched me. I would carry these feelings with me into the poem I would write to honor him.