As touched upon previously, Eros can be considered a creative power rather than a deity that is often perceived as an infliction. For a different view, let us turn to the words of Audre Lorde. In “The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” Lorde writes:
There are many kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise. The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change.
The erotic is innate, a part of our individual selves, but society has pushed for its suppression and association with base acts. In doing so, we are deprived of full expression and sensory feeling. It subtracts from the totality of living. As Lorde puts it, “To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society is to encourage excellence.” In order to excel, all components of our being need to be recognized as comprising the whole. Otherwise, we are automatically living below our potential. It is a challenge because society continues to tell its members what is acceptable— often out of fear.
So we are taught to separate the erotic demand from most vital areas of our lives other than sex. And the lack of concern for the erotic root and satisfactions of our work is felt in our disaffection from so much of what we do.
How can we live in greatness if we numb or push aside any part of ourselves, especially that which is largely responsible for our existence? Simply, we cannot.
The dichotomy between the spiritual and the political is also false, resulting from an incomplete attention to our erotic knowledge. For the bridge which connects them is formed by the erotic—the sensual—those physical, emotional, and psychic expressions of what is deepest and strongest and richest within each of us, being shared: the passions of love, in its deepest meanings.
The erotic is an earthy energy and uniquely weaves through the physical, spiritual, and emotional. It all comes into play: grounding with the earth and feeling its dynamism, rooting down into our spiritual and sensual seat, and allowing that creative stream to flow within us and outward. The erotic empowers and enhances.
This is distinct from the Eros of Greek myth in that one is no longer victim to his wiles. Eros has morphed into a shapeless current and is often twisted into an almost entirely sexual form, but it is greater than that. We must not fear Eros but embrace it. For those whom Eros seems inaccessible, meditation may help show the way. Rather than be upset at having been denied your erotic power, be compassionate with yourself that you are now rediscovering it. Zen Buddhist priest Zenju Earthlyn Manuel speaks beautifully and eloquently in her aptly-titled Ten Percent talk, “Undoing Oppression with Tenderness:”
Only in the deep silence of meditation did I begin to disbelieve that I was born only to suffer. Eventually, after many years I would come to recognize the root of my self-hatred—both external and internal—as personal and collective denial, our denigration of the body I inhabited. In the silence of meditation, I could see that in being an object of hatred I lived my life as an object of everything and everyone. A thing can be dressed up and stripped down, depending on situations and circumstances. Denial and acceptance was based on being a good or bad object in the view of others. This was not life. To cultivate tenderness, we cannot go beyond the body. We must look our embodiment in the face. We must acknowledge the body and the denigration of certain types of bodies in the world. Only then can we begin to grow tender toward ourselves and others. Now, some believe that true happiness cannot exist together with conflict, strife, or pain. Many feel it almost certainly cannot be found amidst social struggles related to race, sexuality, and gender. Some may believe that the indignation and anger that motivate movements of protest only move us backward or away from what is more profound about our lives. But this is not completely correct. If we were to simply walk past the fires of racism, sexism, and so on, because illusions of separation exist within them, we would be walking past one of the widest gateways to liberation. It is a misinterpretation to suppose that attending to the fires of our existence cannot lead us to experience the waters of peace. Profundity, in fact, resides in what we see in the world. Awakening from the distortion of oppression begins with tenderness. We recognize our own wounded tenderness, which develops into the tenderness of vulnerability and culminates in the tenderness that comes with heartfelt and authentic liberation. That first experience of tenderness is a cry from deep within our own nature. It compels us to seek out reconnection to the earth and each other. As soon as we are born we begin to drift away from our true nature. We align with established structures that immediately begin to fix our perceptions of others and ourselves. Our lives are shaped by this alignment. Falling into line is a survival mechanism, driven by the suffering that already surrounds us at birth.
While Zenju’s message addresses oppression in a broad sense, I feel that Eros falls under that umbrella. Eros, as a catalyst for creativity, lies dormant until we recognize it within ourselves and tap into its potential beyond the widely accepted and grossly diminished notion of what Eros is.
Passing time caring for critters.
Creating while they nap.
