Peaches

There’s a ceremony in Tantra that involves naming your genitalia. Some Native American teachings contain information about reconnecting to your genital sense of Self. I was intrigued with all this when I first began my studies. There are so many layers of shame and confusion that prevent us from having a relationship with our precious most private parts, and I thought the naming ceremony was a brilliant way to reconnect…a baptism, of sorts. My lover of that time was such a lucky man, as I was trying out the things I was learning with him. The summer of 2000 was one of the best in my memory. We were playfully, innocently loving each other and enjoying the lightness of our loveship – no expectations, no plans, no demands – that was our motto.

One brilliant, crisp July morning we headed for a stream in South Boulder that we’d visited earlier in the year, when there was still ice along the edges. We’d spotted a boulder in the middle that looked smooth and even, the perfect place for a picnic. Removing our shoes, we waded into the icy cold water, carrying our essentials. We had the makings of mimosas, champagne and orange juice, a comfy blanket and some pillows, some fruit, a little primo chocolate, and a copy of “Jitterbug Perfume,” by Tom Robbins.

The rock was the perfect spot for some kissing, some reading and some culinary indulgence. We’d picked up some of the biggest, most luscious looking peaches I’d ever seen at the farmer’s market on our way out. We dropped them into the stream for chilling as we read a bit and enjoyed the sun and the sounds of the rushing water. After a while, we pulled the peaches up beside us. I suggested we both take a bite out of one at the same time, as we gazed into each other’s eyes.

We’d been talking about the naming of my yoni for a while. Nothing we’d come up with so far had seemed just right. As our eyes met with that peach between our lips, taking an intoxicating, juicy bite, we both said, through the mouthfuls, juice dribbling off our chins, “Her name is Peaches!” Gasping, gulping, giggling, I rolled off the rock and into the icy cold stream and we baptized her right there. And Peaches is her name.

Fast forward to the grim, gray, bone-chilling coldness of a central Texas January, 2004. Since leaving my home in Boulder, I’d been through a weird kind of chaotic instability, floating without a home, traveling in my new old truck, and suffering through a living situation that had ended with a long-term friendship blowing up, causing me to find myself homeless again at the end of the year. On top of this, I was in the last throes of menopausal hell. No health care, no money to get herbal help, feeling fortunate to have food stamps. I’m of the opinion that menopausal women should be carried around on satin pillows, with a hot young stud working the fan. This is not what I was getting. But I did get a temporary place to live in a little bungalow cabin in the woods. In front of this cabin was an ancient looking tree that I suspected was dead. It was squatty and broken and was probably a fruit tree of some sort, I thought. It held a certain kind of comfort for me somehow, and I’d stumble out to it and lay in its low branches, breathing deeply and asking for help. I needed to feel like I had something still to offer. I needed to know that my heart could still love after being so broken, so many times, by so many tragedies. I needed hope, and it seemed there was none.

As the weeks wore on, I visited this tree almost daily, telling it my troubles. In early March there were buds on it. By mid-March is was obvious that this was, in fact, a fruit tree and I delighted in bringing armfuls of the blossoms into town and distributing them to everyone I saw. I knew that if the fruit were as plentiful as the blossoms, it would break the tree apart. And that’s just what happened. The tree filled with hundreds, thousands of tiny peaches, and I watched them grow into the juiciest, prettiest little things you’ve ever seen. Tasty, too. That tree broke completely apart, in spite of my call to friends to bring buckets and harvest all they could. And I did gain hope. If that tree could bloom it’s little old heart out like that, in its last season, surely my life could blossom again.

(c) Jade Beaty
Luscious artwork courtesy of Dakini Di: www.dichromosarts.com

Death of My Libido

Photo courtesy of www.allanalford.com

Once lovingly deemed "Sex Goddess of the Universe," I was the last person I ever thought would lose interest in sex. And it happened to me.

I found sacred sexuality at the age of 48 and learned that there were unexplored depths I had only briefly touched, in a few outstanding encounters. Now I had tools and techniques to cultivate awareness of the presence of the Divine, instead of just having the innate knowing that She was somehow in the room, watching from a corner.

My fascination with sex has always had a spiritual component. At age 12, I was pretty much done with Christianity, as it was presented to me in a tiny Methodist church in Kress, Texas. Reverend Secord was a dear old man, but his only answer for all my questions ("Why are babies born blind? Why do people have to suffer and die? What's up with all this suffering?") was, "It is God's will." I'd sit back in the chair across from his huge desk, my feet dangling, and think to myself, "And I'm supposed to worship this dude?" Fortunately, a book about Edgar Cayce, "Many Mansions," by Gina Cerminara, crossed my path about this same time and my lifelong love of the possibilities of reincarnation was born (or reborn, perhaps).

I was wildly curious abut sex and got zero information from the supposedly caring adults around me. I figured I was just going to have to learn by doing. I found a willing participant and suddenly I shifted my obsessions from horses to boys. Exploring in the back seat of a car is better than nothing...no, better than lots of things. I knew in my bones that there must be something mystical/ magical about sexual encounter. I just couldn't find anyone that understood my quest until I found tantric teachings.

As I approached menopause, the emotional content of unresolved identity issues arose. It seems I reviewed my late teens and twenties, which were filled with turmoil and confusion. My emotional states became imbalanced and my body seemed to jump at the opportunity to fall apart, piece by piece. It was grim. I was saved by bio-identical hormones and a hot, young man who became my lover after a long dry spell. Saved! And now that things have settled down I find myself with a different sexuality. One based in respect, exquisite attention to detail, and thankfully, a slower pace. Not a hot, cute chick anymore, but still a hot momma...make that hot grandmamma.

An Old Young Man

He rose to shuffle to the front of the room. His khaki work clothes were freshly pressed, the top button of the shirt fastened neatly at his neck, the lapels stiff and starched looking.

This week’s class had not gone as planned. Our topics for the session were gratitude and humor, and those themes had inspired my guys to tell their personal stories. The stories we’d heard so far finished up with a dramatic event of spiritual redemption, or a religious experience that had made them see the light, and the folly of their criminal behavior. I had the feeling, as I often did in my years of working in prisons, that the inmates were saying what they thought would be acceptable to get them through the program. Sometimes I felt like patting them on the head and saying “good little prisoners,” but I had managed to resist so far. They were running a scam, like they’d done all their lives, and we all knew it. I forgave them for it. It’s how they’d managed to survive the horrendous childhoods most of them had lived through. I held tightly to a cherished illusion that maybe just one of them would catch something that was said in a class and remember it at some point down the road, when the need was great.

He started his monologue in a soft, singsong voice. His eyes were fixated on the floor in front of him. His arms stayed clamped straight to his sides, as he swayed slightly, side to side.

“When I was young I was the meanest baddest ass there ever was. I joined my gang when I was ten and I was the youngest, but the meanest baddest mutha fuckah in town.”

“Uh, could we leave out the most colorful language, please?” I requested quietly.

Without acknowledging me, he continued.

“My boyz, we all took care uh each other. I saw guys shot. My boyz got shot. I got shot once, too, when I was young. The bullet bounced off my breast bone ‘n went sideways.” He lightly touched the tips of his fingers to the area of his chest where the bullet had struck, and showed us the route it had taken, to the left. His eyes remained on the floor.

“I laid in the street for a long time, bleeding, and this lady drove by in a car and asked me if I wanted her to call the po-leece. I said, “No, call a amb’lance.” I guess she called 911, ‘cause the cops came and there weren’t no amb’lance. They started askin’ me a bunch a’ questions, like who shot me and I was bleedin’, layin’ there in that street. I had to grab a cop and say, “get me a amb’lance, you mutha fuckah.”

I squirmed, recrossed my legs, but said nothing. Everyone in the room was awake and seemed to be listening, a rare event in this mandatory drug class.

He continued. “I finally got took to the hospital and I was there for ‘bout a week or two. The doctor said it was a mir’cle I didn’t have that bullet go in my heart. I got out o’ that hospital and went home to my momma’s. I had to smoke some dope. I yelled at my momma, “get me some money so’s I can get some dope,” but she wouldn’t, so I had to get up and go steal somethin’ to get some dope, and I went home and smoked it and smoked it. I was mad.”

He looked up for the first time and seemed to notice everyone was listening intently. He swayed a few times, looked like he was going to say more, but then just started toward his chair, saying, “I got back with my boyz and lots more shit happened...”

He stopped, hesitated, looked around. “Then I came to this here prison and that’s what’s happene’ so far,” he finished.

He sat down and grinned at me with his four gold front teeth. One of them had a star cut out of the gold and a gleam of white tooth showed through. His face was smooth and calm, his eyes clear and bright and totally cool.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Antoine DeLeon,” he said quietly as he looked deeply into my eyes for the first time. I realized I hadn’t seen him in class before and didn’t recall his name from the register.

I felt mesmerized, suddenly. His eyes were light green and beautifully framed in long dark lashes.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“And you talk about “when you were young.” Do you feel you are not young, now?”

“Ah, my momma tol’ me I was a ol’ man when I was ten,” he answered as he studied the floor.

“And what do you think about where you are in your life right now?”

“You mean in dis here prison? Aw, man, if I wunn’t here now, I’d be dead, no doubt in this boyz mind. I’m glad I’m here. Comin’ here, it saved my life.”

“Do you think there’s a reason you didn’t die when you were shot?” I asked. “Do you think there’s a reason that you made it to dis here, ah, this prison?”

“Doun know, ma’am, I’ve had lots of es’perience maybe I can share with other ol’ boyz my age.” That big grin flashed again as our eyes connected. I felt thrown off base, uneasy, intrigued with him and wanting to know more.

I broke eye contact with him, reluctantly, and looked around the room. Many of the older prisoners had sad looks. I thought I caught one with a tear in his eye, before he looked away.

“I hope you get to do just that,” I said quietly to the old young man.

It seemed like a good time for a break.

Written June, 1998, about a class at FCI Bastrop, Winter, 1996
(c) All Rights Reserved Jade Beaty