Venus and Her Lover

by Becca Tzigany

  Lakshmi says, “It was this loving innocence and sensual fun that was siphoned off from you during your torture. Do you see? Your bitterness then set the example for others.”

  She points to a towering fig tree at river’s edge, with its assertive roots in the water. I visualize how sexual energy flowed up the many roots into the trunk, where it was constricted and packaged, and then put out through the branches to be sold, like succulent fruit in the market. Poisoned fruit.

  Looking into Kali’s black eyes, I am hypnotized by what I perceive there: cycles of birth, death, rebirth. With her knowing gaze still upon me, she begins to laugh hysterically. Cycles and cycles, I comprehend, are what’s funny.

  “Three.”

  Kali’s cackle still echoes in my ears when I realize I am in Australia in the dark of night. A tribe gathers around a bonfire in the Outback. An elderly Koori woman greets me, leading me into the circle. She shows me a stick with notches. I see a line that has been freshly chiseled into it. I understand that these Aboriginal people mark the ages.

  Then a man steps forth. His broad smile shines against his dark skin, the very same mahogany skin color of the Dom, the Dalit man who tended the charnel fires on the Ganges. In fact, he looks like him.

  “Two,” I said.

  “Burning is for learning,” the tribal man says. “What have you learned?”

  “Power,” I begin to tell him. It is difficult to complete my sentence, because a thousand images of the pursuit of power rush to me at once. Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth... Ishtar, conqueror... Venus, manipulator of love... Kali demanding sacrifice... beating hearts of passion, beating hearts cut by obsidian blade... I think of the strenuous journey from the power chakra to the heart chakra.

  The Koori man beckons me to step into the fire. I hesitate, but do not feel afraid. “Transformation,” I hear him say. “Step into the fire. Take a turn up the spiral.”

  I lean toward it, then take a step. As I stand in the middle of the fire, I feel daggers of searing heat, followed by freezing icicles as cold as outer space. Looking up, I see, through the smoke, the starry vault of heaven, and it feels like home.

  “One,” I said.

  Burning karma, burning pain, burning shame... all is transformed in the fire.

  “Zero,” I declared with finality, taking a deep breath.

  I felt Sven firmly grab the sword, and with Susan’s help, they pull it out, announcing that they were throwing it into a lake of fire for its transformation. I let out a yell which ended in weeping. Taking continuous breaths through my tears, I let go. I let it all go.

  After invoking and pouring into me a golden light of wholeness, creativity, freedom, love, oneness, and all manner of life-affirming energies, they brought the session to a close.

  “In this work, timelines often open up or blur, and it really felt like you came full circle in that moment,” Susan said. “Not only was this a significant healing for you but for the collective as well.”

  Thanking Sven, Susan, and Sienna for their service, I staggered toward the bungalow, where I fell into bed, exhausted.

  Bringing into Balance

  I slept, dead to the world, until shortly before daybreak. I awoke with a start, feeling tender in the central core of my body. Wrapping myself in a sarong – it was cooler here than at the coast – I tiptoed outside. The night chill paused, prior to receding before the dawn. The rounded silhouettes of hills against a tawny yellow sky whispered of a new day.

  I stood barefoot on the ground. Closing my eyes, I felt rivulets of energy coming up through my feet, as if I were a tree with roots sunk into the Earth. As I traced the fractal lines, like the tributaries of a river, I sensed how far they went, how far my influence across lifetimes had penetrated. In an opposite direction, what I had been receiving through those channels lately were the tragic consequences of my actions as eons of suffering flowed back to me.

  Taking in a big inhalation, with focused intention, I drew in my energy. I heard popping in the distance: anchors in the form of spiral screws that were drilled into the ground were disengaging in my familiar river valleys – the Tigris and Euphrates, the Indus and Sarasvati, and the Nile – as well as the land of the Mayan black magician. Anchors had been sunk at the nodes of ley lines that held the control grid in place.

  “I reclaim my power. I live according to unconditional love and respect for the free will of all beings,” I said aloud. Roosters crowed in the distance.

  There was a boulder in the garden, and I sat upon it to continue my meditation. Experiencing the space inside where the sword had been, I felt a letting down of old pain. What to do with it? Gaia could handle it; I could channel it into the Earth. I straddled the smooth stone, and sank into meditation.

  With easy acceptance, using her magnetic force, Gaia pulled the old sorrow and regret down, down, from my body into hers, where she proceeded to decompose it. Then, I sensed energy pooling in the empty channel at my core, up from the Earth. I breathed it in. Suddenly my eyelids glowed red. Opening my eyes, I caught the first rays of sunrise. Squinting, I received the solar energy.

  Father Sun and Mother Earth begin to weave their energies on the loom of my interior – strand by strand, my DNA grows upon the trellis of memory. Genetic threads from Earth and the stars made humans fascinating to so many others of the Universe. When the broken strands are reconnected, they emit photons, and soon the glow of my DNA sends little rays of light into my aura. That explains why my radiance as High Priestess was awe-inspiring to humans before, and why it was threatening to those who knew they could not control whole beings who realized their own divinity.

  James always described the deities in the Venus and Her Lover paintings by saying, “They emit their own light.”

  As I continued breathing, I felt an increasing flow through my body. Rocking from side to side on the boulder, I allowed the currents of energy to flow between the left and right sides of my brain, clearing the path between the drives toward agency, individuality, logic, and Culture, and relationship, feelings, instincts, and Nature. The Masculine and the Feminine. Not only did I feel myself becoming a whole person, I remembered that this was how it was meant to be... before the balance was hijacked by the Dominator Command.

  I swayed in fluid balance for a while.

  Then I find myself back in the golden pyramid. My heart as a portal, I remember. The whirlpool of love energy swirls out from the black hole of my heart, swishing and roaring.

  The roar grows louder, and the ground begins to rumble. Suddenly, rising up from the earth, a shimmering silver pyramid of light hangs in the air, apex pointing down. Could this be what had imprisoned (or safely hidden?) feminine power in the Earth? With outstretched arms, I nudge the floating inverted pyramid into place. Merging with the golden pyramid, it forms a double star tetrahedron. I stand in a rainstorm of silver and gold light.

  I close my eyes in bliss – a perfect moment of balance – still holding my expanded heart in the middle of it all.

  Then, in my solar plexus, I sense a shining point of light, which grows into a luminous egg.

  I hear the words, “Your radiance is restored.”

  The Mission

  All the powers in the universe are already ours.

  It is we who have put our hands before our eyes

  and cry that it is dark.

  ~ Swami Vivekananda

  When we got back to Anjuna, I told James everything that had happened. “When was your healing session?” he asked.

  “Night before last,” I told him.

  James’ eyes widened, and he told me, “The same time you were going through that, I had this dream that I’ll never forget. Like the Excalibur story, there was a big rock that had a sword stuck in it. I knew the sword needed to be pulled out, but I thought to myself, ‘It is not for me to do.’ I didn’t even want to try. For me that was saying some
thing ‘cause in the real world, I probably would have tried. Wow, Becca, I really was feeling what you were going through. Incredible!”

  The Shadow work process had been so substantial, I needed to stop and let integration happen. As humans, we have a life-long process of removing the obstacles to realizing our divinity, and mine would continue. No one reported seeing a halo around me, so I knew that while my radiance had been restored on the causal plane, I still had a ways to go before it manifested in 3D. The double tetrahedron of the golden Divine Masculine and silvery Divine Feminine were radiating balance in one dimension, but we still needed to ground it in this one.

  I went to the beach with James more often, where I floated in the Indian Ocean soaking up sun, and dug myself into the sand, feeling held by the Earth.

  The moon hangs high above the river, which shimmers like a liquid mirror. A breeze shakes the fronds overhead gently, and I look at them. I love the way moonlight outlines the palm fronds. Taking a breath of the sweet night air, I step into my temple.

  Approaching the altar, I admire my noble facial features reflected in the water bowl of lotuses. When I reach for a rose, I prick my finger on a thorn. How bittersweet is life on Earth. So much beauty, so much pain. Pressing my finger into the thorn, I smile. Just like life, I think.

  Suddenly I sense that someone has entered the temple. Turning around, I behold a scene like a painting. Facing me is Becca. She takes the form of Isis/Venus in the painting, “Climax,” floating in front of me, with her legs outstretched in a stance of strength, and her arms directing energy to each side.

  I reveal my radiance, let her behold my wholeness, so she can know who she is... before the Feminine was torn asunder.

  Our eyes meet with loving familiarity. I say to her, “You know what you have to do.”

  Saturday Night Bazaar

  Underneath the sprawling branches of a mango tree, the tabla drummers were picking up the pace as a fire-twirler swung her flaming baton dangerously close to her dreadlocks. James and I sat at an outdoor table close to the stage enjoying the entertainment as well as the seething crowd. The Saturday Night Market, with its warren of cloth-draped stalls selling a dazzling variety of jewelry, saris, teas, Indian sculptures, brassware, crochet lamps, bamboo instruments, mirrored and embroidered Rajasthani cloth, and 1000 other items all jumbled together, was the hot nightspot for Goans on the weekend. Despite the party atmosphere, James and I were deep in conversation.

  “But I have a right to declare liberation for the lineage of Inanna, don’t I?” I asked in a moment of self-doubt.

  “Becca, of course you do, because you identify with it. It resonates with you. Look at me! The Mars archetype is not some theoretical character – I feel it in me! Why else would it have been so emotional for me to paint “Climax”? Mars laying down the sword! I poured my whole life into that image; it was cathartic for me to portray it.”

  “I feel like it is the mission I was given. I mean, the mission I chose to accept, to heal the misuse of seductive power, the broken trust, the tragedy of the couple...” I explained. “But it’s not like I’m the only one tuned into Venus who can do this. Any person – woman or man – who plugs into archetypal Love energy can do it.”

  James took a bite of chicken and used his chapati bread to mop up the spicy coconut-anise sauce. Plucking it into his mouth, he said, “Becca, what came to us for the subtitle of our project? Reinventing the Myth. We didn’t know when we started what that really meant. It’s not just that you can reinvent Inanna or Ishtar or Venus, and I can reinvent Mars or Set… we must reinvent them! We are coming into a new age, and the old interpretations of the archetypes don’t jibe. They must evolve. The times demand it.”

  I chewed my tamarind fish curry thoughtfully and said, “This message is for everyone. We are all holding up a destructive Dominator Culture; we are all doing our part to perpetuate it. But as we withdraw our support...”

  James used his chapati to wipe up the last of his coconut sauce, and showed me the clean plate. “It is no more!” he exclaimed.

  “But how can I explain such a vast picture in the book, James?” I asked. “My process, I mean. Shadow diving into the past – my past, apparently – Anunnaki gods being our creators, domination by Reptilian predators... I mean, come on! It’s totally bizarre!”

  “The bazaar!” intoned a deep Italian voice. Rocco stood before us. “Look what they tailored for me at this bazaar!” He modeled an avocado-colored silk tunic that fit him perfectly.

  “Rocco, we waited for you an hour and then started our dinner,” James said. “And Becca was just talking about her process being bizarre, not bazaar. She feels presumptuous speaking for Venus.”

  “Well, actually...” I began, but Rocco interrupted me.

  “Madonna, the goddess lives in you! How else can she live? The idea of the Masculine... who better to reform it than James here? And the Magician...”

  “Mago Merlino!” James responded, pointing at him. “What a trio we are!”

  “Salt, sulfur, and mercury,” Rocco said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Salt Becca, Sulfur James, and Mercury Rocco... the third element combines the two archetypes. I’m just a postman, an occult messenger of the mixture of the three archetypes,” Rocco explained.

  “Tell us more, Rocco,” I said.

  He went on. “Venus is green like a tea leaf, she is life, she maintains and nourishes children, she dispenses the pleasure of the yoni, and with her diplomacy, her perfumes, her music – the goddess builds a world of peace and harmony. Venus is an avatar of Vishnu, attached to the fresh energy of our existence. The rhythm of Nature and the moon cycles... She says: make love, no war! Dancing, loving... in the small and big rituals of the everyday life she sings, ‘Amo la vita che mi ha dato tanto’ [‘I love life, which has given me so much’], so Venus/Becca is the salt of life – pure Eros, guardian of the beauty, lover of things that last forever, and she will remain faithful to her role, sharing her experience with other people for the pleasure of Mother Earth...

  “As opposed to the Warrior... friend of Priapus, a child of the sulfur nights when serpent sex is served on the porch under the moonlight. Doctor James celebrates death after each orgasm... the blood that bathes the muscles, the psychiatric searcher of feminine depths. He abandon himself to boiling transformations in the alchemical Athanor oven, to resurrect himself inebriated by precious feminine juices. James is a human dragon, genuine in his intent and in his battle. He is divine crazy because he knows that one hair of pussy is stronger than a steel wire. He can be creative only if he has a salty female around. The warrior fights with a revolutionary feeling against injustice and hypocrisy. We need many sulfur Jameses nowadays; otherwise a gray boredom will obliterate all the colors. So, sulfur James, as you have all these skills, go to war and you will win.”

  “Right on, Rocco,” James exclaimed. “And you?”

  “I? I am evanescent: I’m here and not here... but when it is necessary, I appear – to mix, to combine, to encourage, because this is written in the second paragraph of our dharma...

  “Like three ancient Magi, we meet to play in time because we are figli delle stelle [children of the stars], and the sidereal time is different from the terrestrial. Bringing into the trio – Rebecca, Rocco, and James – a mercurial element... I’m androgynous: that means I perceive your masculine and feminine energies and I try to combine them as if I would answer a mysterious order.

  “So the three of us will continue to collaborate, because there is a subtle element which connects us... the diversity of our lives which makes what we create genuine.

  “My knowledge is my imagination,” Rocco said in conclusion. Straightening his tunic, he announced, “And now I seek the magic of hot chilis and tangy tamarindo, which will perform their alchemy on me.”

  As Rocco strode off to buy his dinner, James and I looked
at each other and laughed. Settling back in my chair, I turned my attention to the outdoor stage. The fire-twirler was done, but the tabla drummers had been joined by a local sitar player, a German guitarist, and a Japanese violin player. They played intently, working up a sweat in the warm night. Watching people meander through the crowd, I catalogued the different types... dark-skinned Dravidians from goddess-worshipping South India; creamy-brown-complected and round-eyed Goans of Arab, Indian, and Portuguese genetics; plump sun-burned tourists from the British Isles, that lair of pure-bloodline controllers; tall beer drinkers from Israel, where Ashtoreth’s temples and groves had been cut down to make way for a demanding god... How many galactic races might be represented here? It was, all of a sudden, hilarious to think about it.

  Whatever was Earth’s history, wherever we came from, whoever was in control, I felt strongly that now was humanity’s moment. Now we could choose to make ourselves in our own image, in the image of what we wanted to be. We were now the creator gods.

  Could it be that Earth gave us lessons on its continual creation, so that we graduated to become creators of stars, and then of whole galaxies? Were we destined to claim our identities as the All That Is/Great Spirit/Brahman and create our own Universes? By then, our sense of self would become an awareness of our infinite Self.

  I leaned toward James, pointing out the different types of people. He chuckled. “Becca, everyone is just trying to make their way through this life – this bizarre bazaar!”

  Feeling a lightness that I had not felt during the many weeks that Kali had been rampaging through my Shadow process, I was overcome with humor. It was as if we all sat at a great banquet eating Indian thali, savoring every one of life’s flavors, from the bland rice to the fiery lentil sambar to the crispy bean wafers to the sour green mango chutney to the refreshing raita (cucumber in yogurt) to the sweet pudding.

  Here we were as the human “race,” running Ganesha’s “remove-the-obstacles” course to remembering where we came from and who we were. We were all in this together, on a mad round of the Earth Escapades, by freely choosing to have the experience.