Venturing Beyond Their Expected Elements

I really love Sexuality in Arts. Its a great blog with deep thoughts on stuff that matters in life. Its one of those blogs which makes me think and a recent post is not exception… I think that sexuality is an expression of what matters in life. So is art and so is how we talk about either. For me, they are reflections of my ethics, of my purpose, of my personality, of my politics, of my social nature…and any of these can just as easily reflect all the others too, so the circle doesn’t necessarily start with sex or with art, I can easily make politics about my spirituality or my sexuality. None of these things are isolated parts of my experience or my view point. They flow into one another seamlessly. Onemore option seems to view things the way I do, so I frequently really get alot out of reading this blog.

In a recent post on an artist named Larriva, onemoreoption posed some questions to the reader which were inspired by the art. I thought the questions interesting:

Larriva’s painting can invite these kinds of questions:

Does beauty arise when a person ventures beyond their expected environment?

What can be experienced from stepping beyond assumed boundaries?

What dangers may arise from staying too long out of your element? And even if dangers arise from staying too long, might it still be better to stay for awhile?

Are we more remarkable to the degree we can adapt and excel in more conditions?

Are we more accomodating or desirable to the degree we are willing to inhabit more worlds?

John Larriva – Venturing Beyond Their Expected Elements « Sexuality in the Arts.

To me, these questions are Tantric. They invite me to delve deeply into myself and wonder aloud to me and anyone else who might be listening, not about the art related to the questions, but about deeper viewpoints of me or of you. Really…I wonder are you beautiful to me when you venture outside your safe zone? My answer is yes. I like how you spill over, how you get messy without your boxes and containment field of ‘norms’. Do I always like to be oozed on? Nope. In fact, that shoves me out of my boxes. I get thinking about how irritated I am and start thinking about why I’m irritated by this and then I have to wonder what would happen if I stopped being irritated and just met you where you are in all your messiness and oozing juiciness that’s outside your box and my box…What happens then? That’s beauty to me. It is authentic and growing into something. This can happen in an instant; we could clear this whole paragraph of inner inquiry in just a moment or two and then back in the boxes that fit what’s next; else you or I or we can be a leaping out of the box for a time period that lasts for messy, oozing months…even years. It takes strength to stand in that with someone. It takes compassion and mindfulness to not judge, not fix, not sort, not corral someone back in to their box just so I can feel more comfortable. I often contemplate the gift it is when those I love don’t corral me when I’m messy emotionally. These are the living experiences of Tantra in action for me. Its not all about souped up sex and orgasms. Its about evolving into Me and into a life that matters.

And yes. This is dangerous. It is dangerous for me to be messy in front of you, because you may not like me. You may judge me and find me an embarrassment to be around. You may find me tedious or a burden. But this is where you learn to not fix me, or corral me just to make me more palatable according to your need to control me. Will you engage in that learning? Will you grow too? Will you let me poke you into self inquiry and personal evolution just on the impetus of my own messiness? Will you care about either of us enough to do that? Do you care about anyone enough to do that? And why do you sort people into important and not when it comes to being present with the person you are with? Do your ethics extend to only those who ‘matter’ or is it a seamless ethic for living your life?

This is Tantra. It is dangerous to live this way- because you/me/we might be rejected -but there is dignity and grace in living like this too. We cannot have only pleasure in life. Sometimes there is risk and pain and it is those very things which make the pleasure so precious to us. It is the pain which makes the heat in life; which makes life passionate; which makes it meaningful. It is the paradox of pain- which really -any spanko ought to understand quite viscerally. *winks*

Images by Martina Hoffman