Redefining Eros
Over the past few weeks, we’ve spent considerable time writing about the Triune Autonomic Nervous System (TANS). The TANS lies at the core of our experience in the world and the ways our bodies and minds react and respond to the world around us. It’s also part of the focus of our upcoming live, online program, Erotic Embodiment and the Triune Autonomic Nervous System.
Take a moment here as you’re reading to simply notice what happens when you read the words ‘Erotic Embodiment.’
Maybe sensations ripple through you, or an image pops into your mind. Feelings, thoughts, words, or memories could drift into your awareness. Or, perhaps you don’t notice anything at all.
In Western Culture, the word erotic has been conflated with sex, and sex has been reduced to what you do with your genitals with another person. It’s a rather limited understanding that gives us little if any room to actually exist and explore.
We want to invite you into a very different understanding of the word erotic.
In ancient Greek mythology – I’m talking nearly 3000 years ago – Eros was not the bow-and-arrow wielding god of love that he became in the Greek pantheon, who went about piercing the flesh of gods and humans alike to inspire lust and love, and to foment alliances and discord at his whim. Instead, Eros was one of the original, primordial gods who helped to bring creation into existence. Eros, the myth goes, mated with chaos, and life sprang forth into the light.
At the Verdant Collective, this is absolutely critical to our understanding of erotic embodiment. Eros is not simply the sexual love or lust that can arise between two humans. It is the chaos of the raw energy of Life given form. It is pure potential, life force energy, given a shape and direction: to create more life.
Eros is the mountain lion descending on her prey, the seed bursting open to send roots into the earth, the raging river jumping its banks, the fierce and furious protestor standing her ground in service of justice, an orgasm rushing through your body leaving you shaky and breathless.
Erotic Embodiment is the somatic experience of these truths in our lives. It’s a partnership of our erotic energy with the other-than-human world rather than the man-made world that is tireless with its constriction and limitations. Tending to our Erotic Embodiment is a process of making more space for eros to flow through us so that we can recognize it, feed it, and nourish ourselves and our world with it.
Eros and erotic embodiment are not only about our personal pleasure and creativity. In fact, if we collapse the erotic into a solely human experience, we will continue to separate ourselves from the world around us, perpetuating the destruction of our relationships with one another, the other-than-human world, and Life itself. At its roots, eros is about our intimate relationship with the world around us and our participation in its continued unfolding.
To learn more about this in a uniquely experiential and communal way, check out our upcoming program, Erotic Embodiment and the Triune Autonomic Nervous System. We would love to have you join us.
