So I went to this free evening of Sex, Love and Spirit, to see a David Deida video in West Oakland last night. It was more checking out of Scott Longwell, and his work, which is based on Deida's. Deida's idea (as far as I could tell from the video) is that those of us with "feminine essence" desire to reach God through the medium of relationship. We yearn for a relationship strong enough and sacred enough to hold all our changing Shakti moods and open us up to our own divine all-that-is love consciousness, aka God.

This made sense to me. I know that one reason I was so upset when a lover betrayed me a few years ago was that I felt as if I were on sacred ground in our intimate moments. As if I'd glimpsed something of what heaven could feel like and then had that shattered.

Masculine essence, on the other hand, (according to Deida), can contact God solo, but loves being the penetrating consciousness, h0lding steady in the storm, feeling the swirling light of feminine arousal and awakening all around it.

The penetration part of that seems romanticized to me, like D.H. Lawrence's description of sex in Lady Chatterly's Lover, which is very lush, but doesn't fit my experience. I had kind of hoped we were past the days when men prescribed for women the form in which our orgasms were supposed to come.

However, it is the experience of a lot of women that being penetrated is ecstatic for them, and I wonder if it's a stumbling block in my own psyche, something born of stubbornness, resistance, trauma, or is it just that my nature is mixed? I'm too old to care what other people think about that anymore; I'm just trying to discover the truth of it for myself.

Also: part of what I do involves bringing people to consciousness; many of those people happen to be men. I penetrate them with my words and voice. I'm a medial woman in many of my friendships with men, I help them access their consciousness. I look to men to do things like help me with my computer and moving heavy furniture. I don't usually go to them for spiritual guidance. For better or for worse, I consider that women are better able to understand the nuances and complications of Spirit as I experience them.

But I'm trying to stay open to these ideas, because God knows there's been plenty of confusion and pain in my intimate relationships. I have something to learn here, some clarity to gain.

Like many artists and writers--like many people--I don't fit neatly into my gender box. Yesterday I enjoyed a killer game of tennis with G. in which I whacked the shit out of the ball, letting go of many of the stresses of the past few weeks. As usual, he was a better player, but I was far more competitive and obnoxious. I'm also somewhat career-driven, and could care less about home furnishings. I could live in a trailer with my laptop and be fine with that. There is definitely a cavewoman alive and well within me.

On the other hand, I love beautiful clothes , and jewelry, I like to look good, to wear makeup, to flirt, to dance, to attend to babies and children, to cook for people and make them feel good, (as long as "feeling good" doesn't involve cleaning products.)

It's true that I'm attracted to fairly masculine men who have a kind of steady heartbeat gentleness. In fact I often seek kindness, gentleness and nurturance from men, wisdom from women. Is this bass-ackwards, a reflection of my culture--a lot of Jewish men appear more spoft-spoken and unaggressive than many Jewish women--or is it just the way things are? And what does any of this have to do with the price of eggs? I can't believe I'm writing about this shit in 2007!!!

To be continued...

Meanwhile, in the third grade, 8-year-old Chris, whose sharp little features reveal that his mother was doing drugs while pregnant with him, pipes up, "Why do they say 'Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me? Words hurt a lot!'" It turns out someone called him a fag on the playground. One of the other kids asked innocently if "fag" was a bad name for a black person.

"No, honey," I said (Chris is white, but he's best friends with the only black kid in the class.) How to begin to begin to explain?