Venus and Her Lover

by Becca Tzigany

  “We have been living these many years under the anger of the wounded Masculine,” I declared, and pointing to the curtained “Climax,” I explained that Osiris’s lingam had been restored. “I now proclaim a new age of the healed Masculine! I proclaim a new relationship between the Masculine and the Feminine. The balance is restored!”

  A cheer erupted from the throng. A middle-aged woman’s face shone with rapture; she told me later that declaring the end of the wounded Masculine lifted such a huge weight off her heart that she nearly cried with relief. No more castrated Sky Father Ouranos, no more emasculated Kokopelli.

  When the cheering died down, I continued. “Let us now invoke the archetypal power of Isis to come into our gathering. As I read the invocation, I invite each one of you to call in the healed Masculine and healed Feminine, to affirm balance and a golden age of peace and harmony.” I began the Isis invocation, just as I had at the original photo shoot with Dudaka, first in Egyptian, then in English. “Nehes, nehes, nehes / Nehes em hotep...” “Awake, awake, awake / Awake in peace / Lady of peace / Rise thou in peace / Rise thou in beauty...”

  When I completed the invocation, I said, “We shall now welcome this new vision into our world. Let ‘Climax – Create a More Pure Love’ be unveiled!”

  Our friend Rob pulled out the tack on the top of the painting while James and I loosened the sheet on each end. The white sheet dropped, revealing the 3-panel painting. Gasps, and then a round silence hung in the large room. Then gradually murmurs, which swelled to cries of delight. James and I stood at either end of the painting, smiling with immense satisfaction.

  I took the microphone again to speak. “We shall now charge this work of art to send its message out into the world. We will repeat Kali’s word, the force she used to engender Creation. Seven continuous oms. Everyone ready?”

  Taking a breath, I began the simple chant. With so many combined voices, the hall reverberated with the sound. One of our friends, a lawyer who was disinclined to spiritual practices, told us later that something happened during the chant: he felt a power much greater than he ever imagined. I watched the crowd, most of them earnestly intoning with eyes closed, some with open eyes wet with tears.

  The chant dissipated into a low hum and then only an echo of the many voices hanging in the air. A young man later told me that when he opened his eyes, the painting shimmered with life. It took him aback. With my nod to Cleo on the sound deck, the gallery filled with the haunting sounds of Egyptian music as Cindy the belly dancer stepped down the staircase onto the main floor. The crowd in the center of the large room parted as she advanced, as if a magical feminine Moses were dividing the Red Sea. As the rhythm strengthened and Cindy twirled her red and purple scarves around, casting them to the audience, people started clapping and hooting along with the music. Closing her eyes with emotional fervor, Cindy abandoned her body to the dance. Her belly shook and undulated. She knew and appreciated our work, but this dance was truly a prayer to the central message of Venus and Her Lover. I took a deep breath in to keep from crying and to fully taste the power of the moment.

  From then on, a “Let’s Party” sentiment rolled through the gallery. Our friends Nancy and Ana took the stage to play guitar and sing songs to James, I read a letter from Alex to James, and friend Jack brought in a huge carrot cake with candles as everyone exploded into a joyous rendition of “Happy Birthday to You!”

  Son Alex, who since high school graduation had been surfing in Mexico before embarking upon college, had emailed James a tender message for me to read at the event:

  How I was raised has taught me to have an open mind. There were so many great people around our house, and I felt nested in this group of friends, like a big, loving family. Now that I’m older, I realize that having an open mind is the one thing that has opened up doors for me. It makes so much more possible.

  But most of all, the Venus and Her Lover project is an amazing masterpiece of mythology, sexuality, and herstory to show how humanity can achieve a sustainable relationship with itself and nature. I thank you, JB and Mom, for working on such a noble mission.

  The beaming faces of several mothers in the crowd were faint reflections of the enormous pride I felt at that moment. While James and I had been treading the twisting road of our Tantric art project, so had son Alex. I remembered how we had used the paintings to illustrate our early sex talks in Puerto Rico when he was only 10 years old and how I had to recognize my own discomfort in order to do so. I recalled the three of us facing the original “Birth of Venus” by Botticelli in the Uffizi Museum in Florence. I thought of all the moving around we had done at the behest of Venus and Her Lover, and how Alex had to adapt throughout his teen years, how sad it was for him to leave Hawai’i. Alex’s letter, as well as many others that had come in during this time, took the opportunity to recognize our art project. Tonight was a crowning glory for James and me.

  Once James blew out the numerous candles on his cake, Cleo cranked the sound system up, and people jumped up to dance to the beat. Lowering the lights, we lit candles in a makeshift altar in front of “Climax.” Bathed in sexual positivity, the dancers gyrating their feelings of liberation. “Freedom!” “I feel so free!” we heard from many.

  I found myself dancing in front of several of the paintings, especially “Climax,” and then I noticed that others were, too. Dancers surged toward the painting and retreated, giving and receiving energy with their hands or whole bodies. What I was witnessing, it occurred to me, was a spontaneous tribal awareness of the power of iconic imagery and the ability to embody intention. This was magic!

  At the end of the night, many stayed to help us clean up. We had to ready the gallery for the public opening the next day, which was another successful – if more subdued – event.

  The following days we received calls and emails from guests at our party who had been touched by the Grand Unveiling:

  “It gave me so much hope – I felt we really were turning the corner into a time of peace.”

  “I felt in love with my partner, and I was in a place where it was OK to hug and kiss him.”

  “That was the party of the year! I wouldn’t have missed it for anything!”

  “Thank you for the gift you gave us all.”

  The Grand Unveiling brought people together. With our minimal budget, we could not hire people to do the work, so we had called for volunteers. Friends worked hard, pushing beyond their limitations... for the pure love of it. And then they thanked us for it! Somehow our event had allowed many of our friends to express themselves in accordance with their true natures, to align themselves with a grand idea and carry it forward. The art, for the open-minded, roused a liberating experience. It also allowed people to celebrate their passion.

  What we witnessed was a natural arising of community. It took little effort to all pull together, even though the process itself was full of hard work. James, the “Why Me?” artist who had been so curious about the final piece, “Climax,” that he was willing to mount the exhibition and party of the year, settled into the realization in the days that followed: “Venus and Her Lover has power!”

  A week later, when all our guests had left and the hubbub had died down, I sat kneeling before the triptych, which now commandeered the library room of our house. I was fired up to tackle the stack of books and research materials in preparation for writing the poem. More importantly, as the painting inclined toward me, it was wending its way into me. It had been charged up at the Grand Unveiling, and I could feel it vibrating. “Climax” would deliver its poem to me.

  I got bundled up and walked outside. It was so still. Moonlight on snow... it hypnotized me with the tiny blue sparkles I could spy there, much like my Caribbean fascination with moonlight on palm fronds. The blue sparkles glistened with the sound of coyotes singing their lament in the glacial light of the moon and with the smell of piñon resin from our kiva fireplace. In the f
rozen world, I sensed the thaw quickening, ice crystals melting into droplets, which would splash their way into freshets and creeks and rivers, surging forth with healing and balance. A deluge of love would wash clean our crippled, woeful world.

  WITHIN THE SILENCE OF CHACO

  The sun blazed in the New Mexican summer sky, roasting the reddish and golden brown boulders like lumps of pottery in a kiln. My son and I paused in our ascent up a cliff, wedging ourselves into the shadow to take a breather. Undoubtedly, August would be the least-advised time to visit Chaco Canyon, but Alex was with us only a short time between spending the summer with his father in Mexico and returning to college in Colorado. We both wanted to make a pilgrimage to the ancestral sacred site of the Puebloan people, and this was the time we had. So we were on a mother-son camping trip, in mid-August, in this low valley on a high desert mesa, under a relentless sun.

  The air was so dry, we both needed a break to drink and catch our breath, but in fact, I absolutely had to stop at that moment. The effects of some medicinal herbs I had taken were making my legs shake – not from the climbing, but from fear. After all, I had dedicated this trip as a pilgrimage, and the sacred plants I had ingested would naturally oblige in purifying me of my internal blockages.

  Pushing myself back from the edge, I steadied my quivering body against the smooth rock face. Primordial stone. Alex dangled his legs off the ledge, gazing at the buttes and tan desert that stretched to the horizon. “It’s so beautiful here – and so quiet!” he exclaimed.

  Sipping water, I beheld the arid landscape below and silently took stock of my emotional state. It was not like me to be immobilized by fear. On the other hand, here I was, living in the country leading the charge of the War on Terror, and who broadcast daily color-coded “threat alerts.” While James and I did not cower before the Age of Terrorism, this was nonetheless the media-immersion air we were breathing. Even so, what, in this moment, was I afraid of? Are the stone ruins haunted by Hisatsinom ghosts who might seek revenge for being called Anasazi (Navajo for “ancient enemy”)? Am I afraid I might fall into the dusty arroyo 300 feet below? (No, I simply had to place my steps carefully when I climbed.) On the other side of the canyon, rounded sections of the cuesta crouched like tabby cats defining an uneven horizontal line against a deep blue sky. Far in the distance thunderheads began to build. Do I fear getting caught in a thunderstorm? Why do I react as if I think life is scary?

  Drawing slow deep breaths and closing my eyes, I grabbed that question to bring with me into meditation. Perhaps in healing my fears, the panic of the country might be palliated.

  The prodigious quiet of Chaco Canyon catapulted me into a deep state of stillness. Nestling myself into the cool cleft in the rock, I felt the Earth embrace me. The more I leaned back, the more She enfolded me. Suddenly panic surged up to my throat and my inner voice cried, Mother, Mother, please give me shelter! I’ve been out there in the warrior world in the struggle, la lucha. It’s scary out there! In my mind’s eye cascaded images of the bombing of Baghdad, Somalian refugees starving to death, and shards of glaciers plunging violently into the warming seas.

  I understand, She replied. Remember, you wanted to go.

  Yes, yes, I admitted. I wanted to go with Father. He is such a shining star! We have traveled together, seen many places, accomplished so much, invented, created, destroyed, imagined! But He is relentless!

  That is the way the Sun is supposed to be, the Earth Mother said.

  Yes, but this Solar Father is too strong! He blazes and rages and makes the world a desert! He’s too much, too much!

  The Earth Mother now spoke gently to me. Relax, she said. It is OK for you to relax. Just lie back, and I will rock you.

  Mother, Mother, I murmured. Over and over again: Mother, Mother.

  The Earth held me and rocked me, literally, within her rocks. The quivering fears inside me unwound and flattened and then melted away. I felt my balance return. Many of us were inadequately mothered, so damaged were our families by the Dominator System. What a comfort to be held and healed by Pachamama.

  Fortified by her solid presence, I asked, What should I know before re-entering the Father’s world?

  There was silence for a long, uncurling moment, and then I heard her voice: Remember, my child, that Father Sky and I are divine partners. You were made from the love between us. If the Warrior gets too big for you, then the Mother in you must get bigger, to match him, to keep the balance. Amidst all the action of the Father’s sky full of ideas, you never leave the serenity of the Mother’s Earthly order. You sustain both within you, and the two of us sustain you in this life.

  And please, my child, remember to relax. Life is joy. When you forget that, you deny life. You deny your very essence.

  When I opened my eyes, Alex was on a nearby crag peering through the magnifying glass of his Swiss army knife at the grain of the ruddy sandstone. My patient son. His sinewy body and blond-tipped tousled brown hair belied the hours he had spent in the waves, surfing in Mexico. For all his youthful energy, he nonetheless exuded calm, like wild horses standing in a corral even though they could jump the fence if they wanted to. Watching my young man, a river of love arose from my womb, enrapturing my heart, and rippled toward him, enveloping him in an aura of shimmering light... the same quality of maternal love that had just encircled me. He had been born of my womb, just as humanity had been born from the womb of the Earth.

  Alex looked up. “Did you have a good meditation?”

  “I sure did. I’m ready to go on now. Are you?”

  He nodded, and we began picking our way up the stone cliff. I placed each step deliberately, without fear. When we reached the crest of the cuesta, a hot puff of wind hit us as it rolled across the expanse of mesa. All was tan or beige, and even the scrubby low bushes had the khaki green bleached out of them so they were but a dull grey. Below us we could see the string of excavated sites and some rubble mounds still unexplored by archaeologists.

  World Tree in the Desert

  Present-day Hopi clans call Chaco Canyon Yupköyvi, “the place beyond the horizon,” and consider it their ancestral gathering place. Beginning in the 800’s CE, the Chacoan people began laying stones to construct their Great Houses, which stood several stories high and contained hundreds of rooms. The wood beams (vigas and latillas) used in construction were from an estimated 200,000 trees carried (without pack animals!) from the Chuska Mountains 45 miles (72 kilometers) away. They also constructed smaller houses, roads, earthworks, and shrines. Pueblo Bonito, the largest Great House, is built in the shape of a half-circle, leading me to wonder where the other half of the circle might lie. It had up to 800 rooms and nearly 30 kivas! Evidence indicates that a lone Ponderosa pine had towered above the central plaza – even in this high desert stood the world tree! An axis mundi in Chaco Canyon? The previous day, when Alex and I were crawling around the site, it became obvious to me what archaeologists themselves had finally concluded: Yupköyvi was not a population center but a pilgrimage destination. The majority of the rooms lacked windows and fireboxes. In addition, many nonlocal items have been found there: turquoise (from south of Santa Fe but apparently worked into exquisite pieces at Chaco Canyon), copper bells (from western Mexico), and seashells and scarlet macaw feathers (from Yucatán). Given the arid soil conditions of Chaco Canyon (past wetter times notwithstanding), food staples – even corn – had to be imported into the canyon.

  The reluctance of researchers to accept that “primitive” people would go to such lengths for ceremonial purposes is understandable. Why situate a city in such a desolate stretch of desert? Why would ancient people walk great distances to visit a rather unremarkable landscape? Where did all the labor come from for the large structures? For me, comparable questions could be asked about the thousands of people that annually erected Black Rock City in the Nevada desert for the Burning Man gathering, or the modern polluted cities that spen
t billions building infrastructure to attract world athletes for the Olympic Games. These modern pilgrims came for something more than trade or tourism; they followed a basic human need for inner fulfillment.

  When I had sat above the presently roofless Great Kiva at Pueblo Bonito, I looked into the round pit with several rows of wall benches carved into the earth, imagining the ceremonies that must have taken place underground. There, completely embedded in the Earth Mother, hundreds of people chanting would have saturated the place with sound... or perhaps they sat together engulfed in shared silence. Appreciating the power of ritual as I do, I was awestruck by the spiritual technology of the ancestral Puebloans.

  Furthermore, Yupköyvi has revealed many astronomical alignments: structural features and petroglyphs coincide with solar and lunar risings during equinoxes and solstices; and eclipses, planets, stars, and even a supernova were recorded in the rocks. Buildings were strictly placed according to the four directions, and from the air, straight lines could be drawn from certain Chaco constructions to buttes, cairns (rock piles), and shrines, such as the one atop Chimney Rock, 360 miles (580 kilometers) away in Colorado. Clearly, the Chacoan people understood sacred geography, and applied it to enhance the ritualistic power of the place.

  Among the petroglyphs that Alex and I had observed carved into the canyon walls, the spiral wound most persistently through my imagination. My field guide of Southwestern rock art identified it as a symbol of migration. But it was so much more than that! I had come to regard the spiral as a quintessential archetype. Earth-connected peoples would notice how Nature creates in curves for the greatest strength and growth. Author Geoff Ward notes how “the spiral vortex, as found in the movement of water and in the structure of the DNA molecule, in just two examples, is nature’s favored form for the transmission of its energy, both economically and efficaciously, radiating out and drawing in simultaneously; infinitely and eternally.”127 Whereas the mandala embodies wholeness, the spiral delineates growth.