POEM: Do Not Let an Angry Man Enter You
Inspired by the tradition of Tantric teaching songs, the frequency of fundamental aggression, and Lysistrata
Dear Friends,
I offer you a poem today, which is more of a SONG in the tradition of tantric teaching songs. These songs helped preserve and disseminate wisdom and even specific instruction for tantric practice in times and places where the oral tradition was still prevalent.
I love reading these tantric songs because of the way they unfold their exoteric and esoteric meaning slowly, sensually, and in layers. You hear one of these songs and you might think about it for a long time. It might come back to you for years or even a lifetimes, revealing more as you’re ready. I’ve had this experience myself, many times. This skill in the poet is something I aspire to. I’m learning to communicate, as the great ones of old did—on the outer, inner, and secret levels of meaning simultaneously.
I want to say a few words to you, reader, about where this song comes from and my intention for sharing it.
This poem comes from the heart, from my own personal experience and reflections—as well as from a place beyond me that feels ancient…a teacher or set of teachings that regretfully, I did not receive in this life as a young woman and I wish I had. This feels like the recovery of some knowledge and a strong point of view—a transfer of wisdom maybe from an older woman to younger women—that we need now, that could help us.
To the many good men who read and who support this work: I love you and see you. I’m grateful that you’ve stayed with me as the feminine wisdom teachings flow through The Art of Emergence. To all the men doing the work of being and becoming, healing and wholling, retrieving your own rites and rituals—THANK YOU. I sense you will agree with what’s here. I’m not saying men are the problem. I’m not even saying angry men are the problem. NO. I don’t even see a problem; I see a PROCESS of collective recognition and healing and evolution. Women are angry, too. Women do plenty of damage to men. This poem/song is made and offered to relieve one aspect of this complex dance between us. I hope you can hold space for it.
This poem may not be for you. If you have already learned this lesson, or you don’t have sex with men, or you don’t resonate…beautiful! I offer it like a cup of wine or tea. If you are thirsty and you desire it, drink, imbibe, enjoy! If this is not your cup of tea, I respect that. Deep bow to the myriad ways of living and loving on earth.
Importantly—I want to recognize that in situations of rape and sexual abuse there is no choice or consent as the title of this poem suggests. This poem does not apply to those situations. I do not mean to imply that such violence could have been stopped by the victim. I know this is not the case. It saddens and angers me how common sexual violence is. It must stop. There are many, many interventions and social changes that need to happen to address this at the root. This writing is just a drop in the bucket. I pray it helps some folks.
Additionally, this poem/song comes from my own work with anger, specifically what the Buddhists call fundamental aggression.
This is not surface-level anger. The quality of this fundamental aggression is more visceral, tremulous, and fierce than I experience with situational anger. It flares up out of nowhere like a flare when provoked. It slices and cuts deep, seemingly in order to protect the fragile and sacred. It arises from the very depths of me—from a distant time and place, from the origins of the human experience and the dawn of time.
There’s plenty to point to in the world right now—plenty of people to point at. Turn on the news and what you will feel is outrage arising from fundamental aggression. It doesn’t matter “what side” you’re on. But, what surprised me recently as I worked with these feelings in my body was a sudden awareness that a lot of the anger stored in my energy body, specifically in my lower body, womb, and pelvic floor, was anger I took in from partners I’d had in the past. Sexual partners.
I believe the specificity of this insight was prompted by the deep healing work I’m doing around menopause—my mystical quest to understand and “pass through” the initiation of menopause so I can earn its wisdom and pass on the lessons to other women.
I suffered unnecessarily from a lack of guidance and initiation into my fertility years—specifically around the guardianship of the sacred Kundalini laying dormant and then very much awake within my body. Now, as a mother of a daughter who is nearly 15, I think about this all the time. As an older woman who works with a lot of younger women, I think about this all the time. This poem/song arises from the tears I shed when I felt how I had allowed partners to enter my body with anger, aggression and absence over the years. And how I had unconsciously taken on their pain and held it within myself until it felt like my own. I didn’t value or revere my own temple—so why would they?
The post-menopausal woman is returned to one of the great glories of girlhood—the only other time of life when her body is hers alone. I can see with increasing clarity the concessions and bargains I made with myself, society, and men during my fertility years. Now, I want nothing to do with them. And I want to spare younger women by sharing my experience. May we learn from the wisdom of our elders and not keep making the same mistakes. It is in this spirit of remorse, but also hopeful intergenerational exchange, that I offer this poem.
Lastly, I was reminded while writing this of the Greek play, Lysistrata (411 BC) in which the women withhold sex from the men until they agree to negotiate peace in the Peloponnesian War. A timely message then and now when ANGRY MEN, drunk on power and in the grips of devils, wage deadly wars and rape and pillage the planet and her beautiful body. It is a reminder that there is great power in a woman’s healthy NO. I can almost imagine applying the lessons here to the spirit of Democracy herself!
Imagine the peace that would reign in a land where every household holds sex and intimacy as a refined practice of love in action.
DO NOT LET AN ANGRY MAN ENTER YOU Young woman, beautiful woman Your body is a temple Your body is holy ground Do not let an angry man enter you You may be tempted You may be negligent, lonely or scared You may be willing to excuse this one thing You may tell yourself it's ok...this time Do not let a man make a battle ground of your holy hills or lay in wait to ambush the peace of your soul or plough your fertile soil with violence or release his armies of hate into your womb! If he comes to your bed he must be a man who can surrender, find a truce, negotiate peace in all inner and outer wars. A protector and preserver-- with discernment and discipline. He must be a lover of the earth a devotee of mystery a humble of servant of the Goddess. But, do not under any circumstances let an angry man desecrate your body with the anger that arises from his own wounds, his own unmet needs, and his own untamed aggression. He needs to do this work. This is not yours to do for him. This is not your responsibility. You help him most by denying him entry when he is unprepared to bow to the goddess who moves and holds you both. You help him most with your gentle (or firm) NO which requires of him exactly those actions and explorations that will bring him closer to himself closer to being the man he wants to be. We have strayed so far from the sacred in sex. We are wandering in a wasteland as far as that goes. I know because I wandered those places for a long time; not even knowing I was lost, feeling kind of "meh" like, I guess this is what all the fuss is about? It is not. We mistake aggression for passion We fetishize domination and submission. We fuck disembodied We are distracted, lost in fantasy, while a miracle of life and even possibly, love, opens her or himself to us. We use sex as release, We use sex to numb ourselves, We use sex to extract commitments from each other, We use sex to gain power over, We use sex... We use sex... We use each other and are used. There is something beyond temporary pleasure and excitable passion, beyond techniques, acrobatics and tricks. Be sensitive in all ways and you can master of this art form! There is subtlety and feeling... A prayer A worship service Where the bed is the altar and the beloved is the universe, black holes and all, and you are nothing less than the earth in all her majesty and fecundity... And the act of making love is a holy sacrament. This is the real strip tease: We free ourselves from all that would stand in the way of intimacy. This is the real pole dance: We dance, remembering the holy-fuck-joy of spiraling around the still center of the energized, erotic spine, the axis mundi. We love each other unconditionally but we engage in intimacy with boundaries and consent and care; compassion for self and other Not holding each other to unrealistic expectations But, also not giving each other carte blanche This is what protects the preciousness of the act the sacredness of this communion It must be entered into awake, aware, by choice. Moment to moment to moment. When a man releases his anger into a woman unconsciously or without her consent She holds onto it in her tissues in her subtle body in her being until it becomes unrecognizable as his she can spend years, even a lifetime thinking she is the angry one Crying with rage, not understanding why Trembling with aggression and anxiety that was never hers to begin with. There is a time and a place for soothing his pain The feminine washes his feet with her hair and holds his weary body to her bosom he restores himself in her arms. She knows what she does when she does this she offers this service willingly to those who seek it humbly She may choose to receive this anger as an act of healing as a way to help her beloved as a way to transmute anger in the world but in order to do this she must be advanced skilled in the art of alchemy indoctrinated into emptiness A master, a healer, a priestess Both of them must know this is what's happening There can be no shadow of self-sacrifice in her or entitlement in him. She must know how to clear this energy She must treasure herself and her body's magical abilities And she must never forget or let him forget the sacredness of this service. Know as you become a woman... you have the power to create within you. A power that the world--as it is now-- seeks to extract or suppress or control If you can protect it and learn to wield it with wisdom You will heal the body of the world You will birth a bright future This is one of the highest honors and gifts of a female incarnation Recognizing this you will understand that you are not here to take him in, but to hold him out until he learns to enter the gates with reverence and knowledge. Then, he will enter with his heart open and his eyes full of kindness and how you make love--fast or slow, vigorous or gentle is up to you and the energies of the moment you will respond to what you are both being called to conjoining in a single movement towards ecstasy, a fertile prayer-- you will be attuned, aligned and dancing and he will never again enter you as an outlet for his anger and you will never again feel sad after sex or angry for no perceptible reason. We will perfect this act and refine this ask until nothing-- not even two bodies perfectly designed for union; two energies willing to obliterate themselves for something higher; two individuals naked before each other and God; two beings seeing themselves in the other no separation no other nothing except the Love-- is left.
So powerful. This explains so much rage I feel. Thank you.
This is beautiful. It mirrors so many many aspects of modernity. I regret to say I have been this angry man. I weep with the awareness of how I have caused harm. Forgive me. All blessings:::