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WHY WE'RE
ATTRACTED
Shepherd Hoodwin
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A few years ago, a friend of
mine who taught college invited me to speak to her sex education
classes about body types. I felt qualified to address them due to
my being an International Sex Symbol and the fact that I'm having
a prodigiously active sex life in several parallel universes, so I
accepted. It got to be about a larger, fascinating subject: why we
are attracted to other people. Since then, I've felt called to
write down my thoughts on this. I finally did it, and here it
is!
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
SOUL
Agreements and Life
Path
Soul
Chemistry
Soul Families and
Connections
Male/Female Energy
Ratio
Roles
Soul Ages
Overleaves
Karma
Astrology
Vibrational
Resonance
Celibacy and
Union
PERSONALITY
Family Scripts, or Fetal
Attraction
Finding
Balance
Resolving the
Past
BODY
Body-Type
Attraction
Your "Type"
Sexual
Orientation
Monogamy and
Polyfidelity
CONCLUSION
INTRODUCTION
Being in love is one of the great highs of
life, yet it is often elusive or ephemeral. Unrequited love is a
common theme of songs, and almost everyone experiences it on both
sides. Just why are we attracted to some people and not to
others?
There are many possible reasons for attraction,
and many different kinds of attraction, both within the sphere of
romantic attraction and outside it. On the surface, they can all
seem like the same thing--we just know that we feel attracted. For
example, attraction can be primarily physical, emotional, mental
or spiritual. Our inner child may be attracted to someone's
playfulness, while our body isn't particularly attracted to his,
and our inner parent may cringe at his lack of
responsibility--attraction often isn't consistent. We might have
solely a friendship connection with someone but try to make it
into a romantic one.
The concept of multi-causality is that often,
many factors converge to create a situation. There are usually
several reasons we are attracted to someone, just as there can be
several reasons for a life issue, illness, or event. Forces can be
at work on many levels. When we settle for just one explanation of
almost anything complex, we miss much of the picture.
Being able to identify the elements of our
attraction to someone can help us be clearer on what we have, and
what we don't. In comparing them to our relationship priorities,
we can determine whether there's enough there for a long-term
relationship. No relationship will cover all the bases, but if we
know ourselves well enough to know which needs are essential and
which are negotiable, we are better able to decide. Ultimately, it
will probably come down to a gut feeling--the overall gestalt of
the relationship either works for us or it doesn't--but having an
intellectual framework can help us avoid talking ourselves into
something because we're tired of waiting or our buttons,
emotional, mental or physical, are pushed. Biology doing its
hormonal job can cast a spell that leads to choices we later
regret. The spell is magical and worth enjoying while it lasts,
but alone isn't enough on which to base important decisions.
People who quickly fall in and out of love aren't really dealing
with love, in any spiritual sense, but with shifts in body
chemistry.
Ideally, a romantic relationship contains many
elements of attraction. If we're attuned to energy fields, we can
observe where, in general, the attractions are between a couple by
looking at their energetic lines of connection. For example, if
they share a soul connection, they will likely connect at their
physical hearts. If a couple strongly connects at their heads and
not too much at their gonads or anywhere else, their relationship
is probably primarily intellectual--they might have great,
enriching conversations--even if it's also a sexual relationship.
If they mostly connect at their gonads, it's likely to be
primarily a sexual relationship, without much intellectual or
spiritual sharing.
Frequently, connections are not straight
across. For example, one person's gonads may connect with the
other's head. In that case, the first person might be turned on
sexually by the other person's mind.
In a mature, well-balanced relationship,
there's a full, strong energy exchange. The more true this is, the
more the couple will feel oneness. Probably no couple connects
fully on all levels, but as a relationship grows and deepens, the
connections increase in both quantity and quality.
There are several "default settings" when it
comes to attraction that govern unless a person has reason to
override them. For example, bodies usually feel more comfortable
sexually with other bodies that are roughly the same age, and that
better suits biology's reproductive goals. It is usually assumed
that someone who prefers much older partners is looking for a
mother- or father-substitute, and someone who prefers much younger
partners is seeking his youth or is stuck at a younger age. This
may be the case, but not necessarily. If, for example, a younger
person has a soul agreement with an older person that can best be
fulfilled sexually, they may override the default. A person whose
life task or lessons concern being with older or younger partners
(for example, a life task of mentoring or bridging generations)
may include that as part of his "type." (In addition to bucking a
biological default, a man who is attracted to older women also
bucks our society's pressure for men to be with at least slightly
younger women as a symbol of their dominance.) Sometimes factors
such as age or even gender just disappear when two people are
drawn to each other.
There are also defaults that are more purely
cultural, created by familiarity and perhaps prejudice: people
tend to prefer partners with a similar socioeconomic and ethnic
background, for example.
Many people are offended by relationships that
cross these arbitrary boundaries, without really being able to say
why. There is nothing intrinsically sacred about defaults;
fundamentally, they are just habits, whether cultural or
biological. Computers comes from the factory with many default
settings, but it is our prerogative to change them.
Even with animals, there are exceptions to what
might be considered defaults. For example, one source says that
there are at least four hundred species that have been found to
engage in homosexual activity. If true, this ruins the argument of
the religious right that it isn't natural.
In a more enlightened world, we would all just
focus on what is right for us and wish others well, not worrying
about what they do as long as they aren't causing genuine,
tangible harm, such as trauma or physical damage. Those who oppose
gay marriage, for instance, believe it would harm the institution
of marriage. However, others having rights would not subtract in
any way from theirs. The institution of marriage is an abstract
concept, and the only harm that can come to a concept is in the
mind of the beholder. In someone else's imagination, gay marriage
might be seen to enhance the institution, because there would be
more couples partaking of it. In any case, it makes little sense
that people should be so emotionally invested in their views about
things that ostensibly don't concern them.
Social defaults do not remain the same. It
wasn't that long ago that it was scandalous for a straight couple
to live together without being married. It may take a generation
or two, but gay marriage will probably eventually become accepted,
along with other forms of relationship, such as polyfidelity
(discussed in the final section).
This article focuses on sexual/romantic
attraction, but most of what is covered applies to all kinds of
relationships. Much of the terminology used is from the channeled
Michael teachings. If you're new to them, my web site
(http://summerjoy.com)
has a glossary, bibliography, and other information, although I
have also included definitions in the text. We're going to explore
factors of attraction in three categories: soul, personality, and
body.
SOUL
AGREEMENTS AND LIFE
PATH
When we meet someone with whom we have an
soul-level agreement (contract to do something together on the
physical plane), we may have a surge of recognition and be
attracted to that person. Usually agreements have nothing to do
with sex, but if the person comes in the right "package" and we're
in the market for a romantic relationship, it's easy to assume
that the attraction is meant to be romantic. This can be a
mistake. Just because we have an agreement, or we like someone a
lot or get along well with him, it doesn't mean that we have the
makings of a long-term relationship.
First of all, there needs to be adequate
physical attraction, but people who have been waiting for a long
time for the right person are sometimes willing to compromise on
that, and it usually doesn't work out in the long haul. A few
women have told me that physical attraction that was lacking for
them grew as they bonded or fell in love, but I've never heard a
man say that, and most people I've discussed this with, both male
and female, say that if it's not there in the beginning, it's not
going to be. However, for some people, physical attraction is a
lesser priority and/or more flexible than for most, which was
probably true for those women. In any case, some physical
attraction is necessary glue for a sexual relationship, and it's
not a good idea to enter into a long-term relationship hoping that
it will follow.
Also, our life paths need to be able to fit
together. If, for example, our life task calls us to live in a
particular place, and the other person's calls him to a different
place, it's not going to work. Someone with a high wanderlust will
probably not fit with a homebody. If our path is to have several
children and the other person's is to have none, it won't work
well no matter how much love there is. Love is not enough.
Eventually, we'll all love each other, albeit in different ways;
it has to work, too.
That said, a mate relationship can be a useful
framework for completing agreements that, in themselves, have
nothing to do with being mated, provided that it does work. Many
couples are fulfilling agreements but have no mate agreement. That
doesn't make their relationship less good or satisfying, but it
does probably suggest that it is not about mating per se; the
mating is more a means to other ends, such as accomplishing a
particular task or lesson.
Among the many kinds of soul agreements we
make, both before incarnating and during a lifetime, the one that
directly concerns intimate relationships is the mate agreement. We
normally make several (about nine is average) because we never
know for sure before incarnating how things are going to work out,
who will be where, doing what. Sometimes we meet someone with whom
we have a mate agreement but check him off our list because, even
though the soul-level part works, the personality-level part
doesn't. For example: he became an alcoholic, or she abdicated her
fourth internal (midlife) monad and is sleepwalking through life.
So we say, "Next!" and see if we can meet someone else on our
list. Of course, we have shortcomings, too, so those with whom we
have mate agreements also have the right to cross us off their
list.
Validating that a relationship works on the
personality level is essential. Because the feminine concerns our
inner world, many women, especially, tend to fall in love with a
person's soul, and make too little of personality-level failings.
However, it's the personality that we live with day-to-day. Often,
they hope he will change, since they can clearly see his
potential. It's best to assume WYSIWYG: What you see is what you
get. People generally don't change dramatically in one lifetime,
discounting things like becoming sober or doing intensive
psychospiritual work. For example, if someone is a slob, he's not
likely to become neat, so if that's important to us, it wise to
take it seriously, and consider if we can live with that never
changing.
We are usually not conscious of what goes on
behind the scenes (our dreams sometimes offer glimpses), but our
soul and spirit guides are continually working to orchestrate our
lives to fulfill our life plan. If no one else is currently
available from our list of mate agreements, we go on to our backup
list, or see who else is out there. Agreements offer a framework,
but they aren't carved in stone. Our soul is flexible and is
mainly concerned with accomplishing its life tasks in whatever
ways work, sometimes reverting to Plan B, C, or D, or just winging
it. Having a mate agreement is not a requirement for having a
fulfilling relationship, and is not a guarantee of it either. For
example, a mate agreement may be made in order to repay a karmic
debt or to complete other agreements. Mate agreements aren't
necessarily made because we fit hand and glove. Even if we do fit
hand and glove on a soul level, that's no assurance that we will
on a personality level. However, if we do have a mate agreement,
we know that an intimate relationship works from the soul's point
of view. It's like having a mortgage pre-approved--we won't
necessarily buy the house, but if we decide to, the mortgage is in
place.
I worked with someone who'd been through a
large portion of her twenty mate agreements, crossing them off her
list not necessarily because of their inadequacies but because of
her own unavailability due to her fear of being vulnerable. She
rationalized that it was their fault, but she unconsciously
sabotaged each potential relationship. Being an "ideal" mate is
more important than finding one, because whomever we're with,
we're there, too.
Our life is a combination of our soul's loosely
framed life plan and the free will of all concerned. The physical
plane is, in large part, about learning to make wise choices in
light of how things are, even when they don't seem to be going
according to plan and we don't know what the future will bring
(which we never really do anyway). It's disappointing when a
relationship we had high hopes for doesn't work out, but all our
experiences can teach us and make us better equipped for those
that follow. The important thing is to move on, firmly grounded in
our intuition about what is right for us now, and now, and
now….
SOUL CHEMISTRY
We make agreements with other souls because of
our history together in past lives and between lives. Each pair of
souls develops a pattern of relating. For example, one soul may
continually stimulate us and/or push our buttons, whereas another
may be comforting. One soul may frequently mate with us while
another is often a sibling. One soul may often be our teacher
and/or student and another, our friend. There are lifetimes that
are exceptions to the rule, and soul relationships evolve and
change--sometimes friendly souls decide to try mating, for
instance. However, knowing our soul-level chemistry with another
person can add an important piece to the puzzle. Ways to access
this and other arcana include meditation, regression, and working
with a channel or psychic. For Michael teachings information,
consulting a Michael channel is often the most reliable
approach.
SOUL FAMILIES AND
CONNECTIONS
Being in the same cadence (group of seven),
entity (147 or so cadences) or cadre (seven entities) can be
responsible for providing an instant sense of recognition and
connection upon meeting someone. Within cadres, those in
neighboring entities feel especially allied, and those two apart
(for example, entities two and four) are particularly
complementary. It's similar among the twelve cadres of a cadre
group.
Ultimately, we're all one, but some connections
are more direct than others. The majority of our agreements are
with members of our cadre, and most of the rest are with members
of other cadres of our cadre group. However, the unpredictable
aspect of life means that occasionally we will meet and bond
strongly with souls not in our cadre group. Any extensive
past-life history with someone, regardless of soul family
connections, can bring a strong sense of already knowing him upon
meeting.
Our most powerful soul connection is with our
essence twin, a.k.a. twin soul or twin flame. ("Soul mate" is a
broader term that can refer to this, or other souls with whom we
have a mate agreement, or an otherwise important and often
comfortable bond.) The second most powerful is our task companion.
We may also have former essence twins (known as essence mates) and
task companions from previous planetary cycles; they feel similar
but less intense than the current ones; we're often very close to
them. These souls may or may not be incarnate when we are, and if
they are, they may or may not be mate material. If we meet them at
all, they could also be family members, friends, co-workers,
"ships passing in the night," or even nemeses.
People tend to romanticize these connections,
especially essence twins, but even if they're in the right
"package" and we have mate agreements with them, there's, again,
no guarantee that the personality half of the equation will work
well. On the other hand, no relationship is more compelling or
powerful than an essence twin mate relationship that does work
well. Such relationships are rare; for one thing, essence twins
can create their own insular world together and miss out on other
experiences, so souls don't often set it up to be together in this
way.
MALE/FEMALE ENERGY
RATIO
In the Michael teachings, male energy
specifically refers to linear energy that moves out into the world
to achieve a goal; female energy is the opposite: it is
atmospheric, process-oriented, and moves inward. For example,
someone with high male energy is more likely to be career-oriented
and can be a workaholic. Someone with high female energy tends to
like being at home and creating an environment. A soul who has the
opposite of our ratio is magnetic for us. The more extreme our
ratio, the more compelling is the opposite.
I used to wonder what brought my parents
together--they seemed mismatched. Then I channeled their Michael
Reading charts and found that my mother's ratio was 23/77 and my
father's is 77/23. They also had some body-type attraction, but
not a lot. (There are also couples in which the man has higher
female energy and the women, higher male, as well as same-sex
couples with opposite ratios.)
My ratio is 47/53. Being so close to the
middle, anyone else in the middle range can work for me, but
someone at exactly 53/47 or close to that has an extra pull for
me.
Role (soul type) has more to do with what we
think of as masculinity or femininity than male/female energy. For
example, even a higher-female-energy warrior or king will probably
seem more masculine in our culture than a high-male-energy artisan
or server. In a culture with a lot of warrior women and artisan
men, the opposite will seem true. Imprinting, body type, and many
other factors also play a part in the perception of masculinity or
femininity. However, all other things being equal, a
high-male-energy sage, for example, will likely seem more
masculine than a high-female-energy sage.
ROLES
There are seven roles, or soul types, on four
axes: server and priest (inspiration axis), artisan and sage
(expression), warrior and king (action), and scholar
(assimilation). We often see certain combinations together as
couples. Scholars (the number four role) and warriors (the number
three) may be the most common.
Many science fiction authors (and fans) are
male scholars. To create those complex, detailed universes, one
would almost have to be a scholar to have enough knowledge in
diverse fields to pull it off. Their heroines are frequently
warriors, whereas in other media such as movies, heroines are
usually softer roles (although that's changing somewhat). Those
scholar authors seem to look up at those strong warrior women with
puppy-dog eyes; for them, they're the epitome of womanhood.
Sometimes, the cover illustrations of heroines even look like
warriors, demonstrating how people may associate soul types with
looks, even if they don't know about roles consciously.
The other role combinations whose numbers add
up to seven also are classic combinations: servers (one) and
priests (six), and artisans (two) and sages (five). (Male sage
writers are likely to write artisan heroines, and vice versa.)
They also share their axis, which is another factor of comfort and
attraction; kings and warriors also get along well by reason of
both being on the action axis.
Another common combination is kings and servers
(with the caveat that kings only account for about four percent of
the population). Kings are already the number seven role, so the
number one role is the closest another person can come to adding
up to seven for them. Kings also like being served, and servers
especially like to serve kings.
Scholars and priests are also commonly
attracted and are frequently essence twins, although not as
commonly as scholars and warriors. Scholars, being the neutral
role, are naturally attracted to the two most intense roles;
warriors are intense in an earthy way, and priests in a spiritual
way. Priests and warriors like it that scholars can absorb their
excess energy, and scholars like the stimulation. (A similar
dynamic occurs between opposite body types.)
Souls of the same role tend to get along well,
with the possible exception of artisans, who often seek more
stabilizing partners. We also tend to be especially attracted to
those who have the same role as that of our essence twin when it's
different from our own. A scholar with a server essence twin, for
instance, will tend to be drawn to servers, even though that's not
usually a compelling combination.
Warriors, the lowest frequency role, can be
fascinated by the two high-frequency roles, artisans and priests,
and vice versa, so there can be a lot of "opposites attract"
chemistry, but the dishes can fly in those
relationships.
Artisans and kings are the most foreign
combination. It's not that they conflict so much that they tend to
have little ability to understand one another--it's like they're
from different planets.
Servers, artisans and scholars can be pretty
low key, and relationships between them can be rather flat. Of
course, there are exceptions to everything written here, and
essence twin bleed-through or even casting (our resonances with
certain roles based on our position within our soul families) can
bring in elements of attraction lacking in the roles
themselves.
SOUL AGES
There are five soul ages we experience on the
physical plane: infant, baby, young, mature, and old. They roughly
parallel human stages of development: newborn, toddler, youngster,
adolescent, and young adult. The movement from infant to young
climaxes in a sense of mastery of the outer world. Then, the soul
turns its biggest corner and dives in to the inner world, not
unlike what occurs when adolescence hits.
There can be successful relationships between
any combination of soul ages, but those of the same age have the
advantage of seeing life from the same vantage point. Mature and
old souls also usually get along well because both are inwardly
focused; in addition, mature souls' intensity and old souls'
casualness can balance one another. Similarly, baby and young
souls are both outwardly focused, and the baby soul's emphasis on
family and church can provide a foundation for the young soul's
career orientation. A young soul's industry can also balance an
old soul's laissez-faire attitude about things such as earning a
living, but their difference in perspective can be stressful. Baby
souls share mature souls' interest in community, although at a
simpler level and without a desire to process emotions. They can
have stable relationships that work fairly well, but baby souls
can find mature souls complicated, and mature souls can be
disappointed in baby souls' lack of emotional depth.
OVERLEAVES
Attraction due to overleaves, or personality
traits, is less clear-cut, but they can be a factor, too.
Especially if someone has a lot of trouble with a particular
overleaf's negative pole, he may be attracted to someone with the
opposite. For example, someone with a goal of discrimination who
tends to be prejudiced or too rejecting may be attracted to the
warm openness of someone in acceptance; however, the person in
acceptance may flinch at the discriminator's
rejections.
A busy person in growth may find relief and
relaxation with someone in flow (a.k.a. stagnation), the neutral
goal, and the person in flow may be stimulated by a partner in
growth. However, they might also judge each other, especially in
the negative poles. The person in growth might judge the person in
flow as being lazy; the laid-back person in flow might judge the
overwhelmed person in growth as being driven. Someone in growth
can feel similarly about someone with the opposite goal,
reevaluation (a.k.a. retardation), in which a person seeks a
simple, more inward life.
We could look at all the overleaf pairs in this
way: there could be either attraction or repulsion, depending on
whether we see the other person as balancing our strengths with
different strengths or as being weak where he "should" be
strong.
Someone with the same overleaves may have a
comforting similarity or might push our buttons. I could imagine a
pair of cynics either getting along famously, spitting tobacco
together and complaining about how the world has gone to hell, or
starting World War III--it depends on the individuals.
I enjoy being with others who, like myself, are
in acceptance. However, since I can be too much in my head, I find
it refreshing to be with people in the emotional center and
passion mode to balance my intellectual center and observation
mode.
As with the other overleaves, chief feature
(obstacle) combinations could go either way in terms of
attraction, although they are more likely to repel, especially if
they're strong. In the old paradigm, some arrogance (of either the
chief feature variety or just testosterone-driven overconfidence)
was considered attractive in men, and some self-deprecation
attractive in women. An arrogant person may like it that someone
in self-deprecation isn't threatening, and his apparent confidence
may reassure her; however, his criticisms can exacerbate her sense
of inadequacy. Two people greedy for the same things might align
in a relationship, and two people in self-destruction might drink
themselves into oblivion together. However, two people in strong
arrogance or impatience can enrage each other, and two people in
stubbornness easily get into stalemates. An impatient person will
tend to get impatient with a martyr, making him feel more
martyred. If someone in impatience pushes someone in stubbornness,
the latter will likely dig in his heels. Etc. In any case, it's
not a good idea to get into a relationship based on chief
features, which, by definition, are fear-based.
Incidentally, those in stubbornness may find
many excuses not to leave a bad relationship, dragging out the
process ad nauseum. Those in impatience may not give a
relationship a full chance before they're "outa here."
KARMA
When we get near someone with whom we have
incomplete karma, we may start to buzz with an excitement that is
similar to that of attraction, and is often confused for it if the
person is of the right gender, age and look. People who are
inexorably drawn into an abusive relationship and can't seem to
leave are sometimes repaying a karmic debt. When the debt is
repaid, the excitement goes flat, the person "returns to his
senses," and can then leave the relationship, often wondering at
that point what he ever saw in the other person.
True attraction delights. Completing a negative
karma doesn't feel good, but it is a relief, especially at the end
of it. It discharges energy rather than builds it. Sometimes
repaying a karmic debt, or allowing one to be repaid us, is
necessary to allow us to move on to a better
relationship.
ASTROLOGY
Astrology is a whole other system that can
explain attraction where others don't. However, it is more likely
to reflect factors covered here than to introduce entirely new
ones.
VIBRATIONAL
RESONANCE
We each vibrate at a particular level based on
the inner work we've done, consciously or unconsciously, to refine
and purify our energy, both in this lifetime and in past
lifetimes. It is not directly related to soul age and has nothing
to do with frequency on the Michael chart. It's the quality of
love we emanate. A lot of baggage such as stored anger or fear, or
a lot of limiting beliefs, brings down this quality.
I once met Louise Hay at a book convention.
Because it wasn't a new age event, she was standing alone rather
than being mobbed by fans. I spoke to her for a moment to thank
her for her work. Her outer style was a bit cool and distant,
probably developed over the years for protection. However, I've
never felt such a high-frequency energy field. Standing next to
her was like being at the ocean, bathed in negative ions and fresh
oxygen. She obviously had purified her thoughts and feelings to a
high degree, and had the soul development behind her so as to have
quite a powerfully loving presence. I imagine that many gurus feel
like this, too, and it must have been extraordinary to be in the
presence of someone like Jesus or Buddha, even before the Infinite
Soul (a representative of a high plane) entered.
I know some mature souls whose vibration feels
much higher than that of some old souls. Our vibration isn't
directly related to soul age because, although having a higher
soul age might give us more potential in this regard, it's the
work we do that actualizes that potential. We go through cycles of
accumulating experience and then processing it. If even a
seventh-level old soul has recently been though trauma and is
still carrying a lot of baggage, his vibration will be weighted
down. For example, if he'd been abused as a child and still
harbors anger and fear, he will not shine like he will once those
things are faced and healed. A lack of consistent integrity or an
unwillingness to examine issues also lower one's vibration and are
not directly related to soul-age.
Like attracts like. If someone who is
interested in you is vibrating at a significantly lower (slower
frequency) level than you are, he will either be drawn to do the
work to raise his vibration or will distance himself from you,
because it's uncomfortable to be around someone long-term who
vibrates at a significantly different speed. More often, people
choose to distance themselves rather than do the hard work of
facing their "stuff."
I would imagine that someone like Louise Hay
would have difficulty finding a mate. There are few people who
vibrate at her level. When you add that to all the other things
you need for a relationship to work, such as physical attraction,
it can be like finding a needle in a haystack. Even those with
whom she has mate agreements might not be available or be doing
the work to become conscious.
Many of my clients and friends, male and
female, straight, gay and bisexual, are in this predicament. It's
not hopeless, but it can take a lot of patience to find a good
match. We may be tempted to compromise. There are always
compromises in relationships--no one is perfect or has everything
we are looking for. However, compromising too much on vibrational
clarity doesn't work. In addition, if we want to be with someone
who has a high vibration, we must also develop and maintain our
own, living in integrity, facing our issues, and releasing our
anger and fear.
CELIBACY AND
UNION
The path of evolution contains a series of
separations and reunifications. When we first emerge into the
dimensional universe from the Tao (the ground of all being), we
fragment into individual souls, which separate further into
various reincarnational personalities. These divide into a
multitude of parallel selves, each of which contain myriad
subpersonalities, which themselves have various aspects. It is
rather like light passing through a series of prisms. These
fragments were always there as potential, just as all colors are
potential in light, and countless children are potential in sperm
and eggs. The universe is about manifesting potential and seeing
where it leads. As individuations or "children" of the Tao, we
mature through having experiences as we work our way back into
full union through smaller unions along the way. When we get
there, we will have contributed a new level of development and
expansion to the Tao.
We tend to think of sex as only a physical
thing. However, sex is our physical body's way of experiencing the
union that everything in the universe seeks. Souls on higher
planes merge their energies in increasingly complex and powerful
ways. There is no creation without the union of positive
(masculine) and negative (feminine). Physical union may or may not
result in the creation of new physical life, but all union creates
new energies.
When we come into union with others in a clean,
centered way, there is a clean creation. The more powerful the
union, the more substantial the creation. This applies not only to
physical sex but to any coming together. Power, obviously, can be
misused, and many people are afraid of it for that reason.
However, without power, there is no evolution. As we work with
what we can handle well, our skill grows. Loving relationships are
bound to bring up unresolved issues, but they can also provide a
means for healing them.
The physical plane is the elementary school of
union, and, for us, sex can be the apogee of that. The tantric
tradition teaches how to include mental, emotional and spiritual
union in sexual union, and those who come together in deep love
may experience that intuitively. There's nothing wrong with sex
that is mainly physical gratification, but when sex includes
higher unions as well, it is richer.
Many religions glorify celibacy and teach
people to be ashamed of their attractions, but without
attractions, there would be no unions. Union with God or the
All-That-Is doesn't preclude union with people; in fact, when
union with people is adequately free of mental/emotional baggage,
it is a vehicle for union with God--not the only one, but a valid
one, and for most people, the most powerful.
Tantra teaches that energy is lost through
ejaculation and that men should instead send sexual energy up
their spine. Many people believe that energy expended sexually is
not available for spiritual growth or creativity. However, as
Michael said in one of the books by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, there's
little loss of energy in sex when it's free of baggage. Also,
doctors now say that about three ejaculations per week are helpful
for a healthy prostate. Perhaps men could beneficially use tantric
non-ejaculatory techniques in addition to, rather than in place
of, regular sexual activities--finding balance in all things is a
key to life. Too little and too much are equally detrimental. Some
people are addicted to sex, which does lead to a loss of energy.
Sex addictions can be similar to food addictions, which are often
the result of a junk food diet that leaves people's needs
unsatisfied, causing them to seek more. The solution may be to
increase quality.
It's also been medically validated that a good
sex life makes the body healthier. Surely more energy is lost in
repressing natural desires and living with unfulfilled needs than
through balanced sex, although temporary celibacy can help one
detach from unhealthy patterns. If someone working on his
spiritual growth feels that he's not yet capable of staying clear
while in a relationship, celibacy might be a like the neutral gear
allowing him to shift to a higher gear. Some people need to be
alone earlier in life in order to heal their childhood and/or grow
freely into themselves, without having to deal with another
person's issues. However, sometimes the pattern becomes set and
they have a difficult time breaking out of it once the need to be
alone is no longer there.
Long-term celibacy can be a true and valid path
for some people, but it would be hard for someone to know if
that's the case for himself if he has a lot of shame about his
sexuality or is running from the challenges of relationships. In
those rare lifetimes that we set up to be asexual, we usually have
little or no sexual desire, so abstinence is not
difficult.
Eastern religions teach the value of
non-attachment and freedom from desire. Many people interpret that
to mean that they should repress their sexual desires. However,
most healthy bodies have sexual attractions. It's true that as we
evolve, we have more self control and make choices based on the
whole picture rather than momentary urges. However, freedom from
desire is about being at peace in the present moment, not needing
anything external in order to be happy. From non-attachment
(different from detachment), we can enjoy sex or anything else
that naturally flows in our lives, without tightly holding on to
it or making it more (or less) than it is.
The scandal in the Catholic Church regarding
the child-molesting priests (which has been widely known about for
years, and which involves girls as well as boys) points to the
distortions that can arise from repressing a natural drive. No
doubt a number of the priests are true pederasts in nature,
stunted in their emotional/sexual development at the child level,
but others probably resorted to that because they had the
opportunity. Needless to say, any form of molestation is extremely
damaging.
If religions had a healthier, more positive
view of sex (and of life itself), they probably would have evolved
different systems that don't require celibacy. Sex among monks and
priests was actually common and tolerated throughout much of
history, and there have always been alternatives to intercourse
for heterosexuals, even if the Catholic Church insists on its
unreasonable prohibition against birth control. Religions could
still reserve positions in their contemplative orders for those
who remain childless or who have finished raising their children.
Perhaps the celibacy requirement is really more about maintaining
control; certainly, it derives, at least in part, from a dualistic
either/or consciousness that says you can't have both God and sex,
as if they were separate.
In the past, people often mated shortly after
adolescence. Today's expectation that "good" teenagers won't be
sexually active is unrealistic and even cruel, considering that
it's the body's time of greatest desire, especially in boys. Of
course, no one should be pushed to have sex before he or she
ready, but providing education and a safe environment for first
sexual encounters, allowing them to be the sweet experiences they
can be, would be a great gift and would likely reduce the acting
out teenagers do in our society.
As with clerics, celibacy for unmarried people
(and monogamy after marriage) may have made some sense in the
past, to avoid unwanted babies and to ensure that children would
have both parents on hand. However, it has been enforced through
shame rather than being presented as a practical matter, and even
in the past, it would have been more sensible and effective to
simply teach young people how to avoid pregnancy. Shame about
natural functions leads to all sorts of distortions that spill
over into other areas of society. Maturing into a healthy,
uncharged view of sex yields many benefits.
On one level, sex is simply a biological need;
burdening it with the weight of morality warps it. Sex, like
anything else, can be used irresponsibly or to harm others, but of
itself, is neutral. As long as it's consensual and those involved
take responsibility for their choices, it is not a moral issue. No
government has a right to regulate consensual behavior between
adults, and the age of consent should probably be lowered to 14 or
so, as it is in Hawaii (it's 16-18 in most states). How unjust,
for example, that in some states, a 19-year-old dating a
17-year-old can be charged with statutory rape.
Those who don't have a satisfying sex life and
who would like one (which is probably the majority) are
understandably frustrated. People have varying needs in this
regard, but celibacy or chronically unsatisfying sex is not
natural or healthy long-term for most people. Even more basic is
the human need for touch, which, obviously, sex provides. It's
been found that babies who aren't touched will die. Some African
tribes view the Western tradition of having children sleep alone
in their own beds as child abuse (have you noticed how children
often want to get into bed with their parents?). And adults who
aren't touched have more health problems. We live in a so-called
civilization in which many children aren't breast-fed and grow up
starved for touch, and "touchy-feely" is an eptithet. However, if
we became a society unafraid of touch, it would alleviate many
social ills.
On the other hand, our physical sex drive is
related to our hard-wired survival instinct, and if we're feeling
panicked because of the lack of a partner, it's largely because
our bodies believe that if we don't have sex (and ostensibly
reproduce), the whole human race will die out. Obviously, that's
not going to happen, so we can reassure our body consciousness and
help calm it down. The hunger for sex is as real as the hunger for
food, but we won't die if we don't get sex, even though it might
feel that way. It's in our interests to relax our body; for one
thing, being too needy generally isn't attractive.
If our needs aren't being met, we can still
work with union in the ways that are available to us until we find
an appropriate partner. One is to be a good lover to ourselves
when masturbating. Another is to open our hearts to union with
nature. Through meditation, we can open to union with the
universe. Artistic and other creativity can be an outlet for some
of our sexual energies.
On a more practical level, many of us who are
seeking mates aren't putting ourselves out there enough, making it
harder for potential mates to find us. There's also often a lot of
inner work to be done to release blocks such as the famous fear of
intimacy--it's important to have a clear intent and not send out
mixed messages. After we've done all the work, both inner and
outer, that we know how to do, it then just might be a matter of
being patient and letting go.
Some people have found their mate after deeply
letting go of wanting one (not the same as giving up or becoming
resigned) and becoming peaceful with being single. It's similar to
what happens with some couples who desperately want to become
pregnant, but finally accept their situation and adopt;
surprisingly often, they then get pregnant. In both cases, wanting
something too much stood as a block to having it, perhaps because
so much of their energy was focusing on the lack. Paradoxically,
relaxing with how things are gives us more power to create
change.
Our soul and spirit guides do the best they can
to bring us potential mates, but people often don't follow their
spiritual impulses--from spirit's point of view, it can be like
herding cats. On the other hand, spirit is persistent. If our path
is to be in a happy mate relationship, we probably eventually will
be; it may just take time.
PERSONALITY
FAMILY SCRIPTS, or FETAL
ATTRACTION
There are many possible reasons that we, as
souls, might choose particular parents (and why they might choose
us to be their children). Sometimes, they are relatively
unimportant in the scheme of our life--they just provided an
appropriate body and circumstance. More often, they are highly
significant. For example, we may choose them because of karma or
other major life issues we need to work out.
The younger the soul, the more uncomfortable
with the interval between lives and the hastier in planning them
it tends to be. The more there is yet to experienced, the less
important planning is, because many different scenarios can
provide needed lessons. The older the soul, the fewer the items
remaining on its "to do" list and the stronger the need to
complete unfinished business. Therefore, older souls tend to be
more exacting in planning their lives. They also take a more
active role in it, whereas younger souls often allow their guides
to make arrangements. Even with very young souls, however, the
choice of parents is not arbitrary.
Typically, older souls make an agreement with a
particular soul to be its child well in advance, and the other
parent, as well as siblings, comes along as part of the package,
although agreements can also be negotiated between the other
parties who later come into the picture. A couple who has more
than one child generally alternates between fulfilling the
mother's and father's child agreements. However, which soul
incarnates into a particular baby is negotiable and plans can
change at the last minute as circumstances shift. Suppose that
before a birth, the parents decide to divorce. The soul slated to
incarnate may not want to take on that situation, opening the way
for another soul who was also interested in that body. As with
mate agreements, souls often make more than one child agreement.
If, for example, we were hoping to be the child of someone who
decided not to have children, we go to plan B or C.
The parent with whom we have our child
agreement is likely to be particularly catalytic for us, and it's
not necessarily the one we like better or feel closer to on a
personality level. This parent can be especially influential on
our attractions and the patterns we repeat, not necessarily so
much their cause as a trigger for latent issues we carry
from past lives.
When we're children, our parents represent the
masculine and feminine aspects of God to us. They are the Source
for us, and we want them to be perfect (just as we want God to be
perfect) so that we can feel safe in relying on them to provide
for us and show us the way to be. I suspect that the breakdown of
the family and religion is responsible for the ascendancy of our
society's worship of movie stars and royalty; the child in each of
us has an inborn need for heroes to emulate, and if we can't find
them at home or church, we look elsewhere. Unfortunately, what we
find is usually pretty shallow.
When we mature spiritually, we ourselves become
a hero, a representative of father/mother God in our life,
embodying traits such as compassion, integrity, and character. We
no longer need external symbols of it because we manifest our soul
and therefore connect with God (the whole) directly. Role models
have successfully fulfilled their function for us and may no
longer be needed, although there are always higher levels to
attain, and we can find inspiration in the strengths that others
embody. If we've been hung up on our parents, it's easier to
release that and know what we genuinely want, rather than
following imprinted scripts. However, probably nobody is fully
mature in all areas--we all have pockets of unhealed emotions that
keep us partly stuck in the past. This is illustrated when
powerful adults visit their parents and become twelve-years-old
again. Such experiences show us what we still need to work on in
order to experience more wholeness.
Some societies have community rites of
initiation, which say to young people, "You have passed the hero's
test and are no longer children. Now you take your place among the
men or women and show the way to the younger ones." Our society
mostly lacks this passage, although such things as graduations,
confirmations, and bar/bat mitzvahs may provide elements of it. If
we manage to mature without it and without good parenting, it's
often because we found our way ourselves through the school of
hard knocks, perhaps with a little help from our friends; if we're
lucky, we had a mentor or two.
Bringing children into the world is obviously
not something to undertake casually. The family values
conservatives are right that it is ideal for children to grow up
with both parents in a healthy, loving home; children
instinctively want that. However, considering the state of human
consciousness, the ideal has probably always been far less common
than nostalgia would indicate, even when the divorce rate was
lower. In addition, it cannot be legislated: one cannot force
couples to be mature and loving. At a certain point, the benefit
to children of a couple staying together is outweighed by
conflict. Having just one parent on hand is hard for all
concerned, but children are adaptable and resilient; the important
thing is that they are cared for as lovingly and wisely as
possible. Alternative family structures can work fine, including
those with two same-sex parents. However, when both biological
parents aren't on hand, it's very helpful to have good, stable
role models of both sexes in children's lives.
Although it's more comfortable to grow up in an
ideal family situation, or something close to it, many of us
didn't choose to be born into a maturely loving nuclear family.
For one thing, the waiting lists are long! For another, they are
not necessarily the most growthful. It's the irritating sand in
oysters that makes pearls grow. People from "Leave It to Beaver"
families may not develop the depth they otherwise might, because
they don't have to. There's an archetype called the "wounded
healer"--those of us who went through rough childhoods may have
accessed resources we can use to more effectively help others.
That said, there's no need to manufacture extra challenges for
children to toughen them up--the world provides enough. A loving
home can help create a solid foundation of self-esteem and life
skills to help deal with them. If a soul hungers for growth and
deepening, it will attract the necessary tools, whatever they may
be.
Our pictures of reality are extremely powerful;
we create our lives from them. That gives us the opportunity to
examine them, and change them if we don't like what we've created.
They develop from the conclusions we draw about our experiences
over many lifetimes. We are often drawn to our family, in part,
because its pictures match ours to some degree--like attracts
like. At least, the pictures that stick most strongly from our
family imprinting are usually those that echo the ones we already
held and wanted to work on. On the other hand, when we incarnate
into a family, we take on its energy, which includes pictures that
can go back several generations. These occupy the top layer of our
subconscious and are therefore the most accessible. These tend to
govern in the absence of stronger opposing pictures from before
this lifetime, or may set up a conflict that we can resolve
through life experiences.
For example, if several family members
committed suicide, either consciously or through a death wish, we
will tend to carry a picture that says that when life is hard, we
should escape it through death. If our soul also holds that
picture from other lifetimes, it will likely manifest strongly,
making it obvious that this is something we need to work on. If it
doesn't, the picture may still emerge in more subtle,
self-sabotaging ways. In either case, it is our responsibility to
change the picture if we wish to be joyful and life-affirming.
Simply being aware that we carry a picture and have a choice about
it is a powerful first step in changing it. Holding a new picture
when the old one comes up can gradually erase it.
It is disorienting when reality doesn't match
our pictures. For example, if someone's picture is that men are
abusive, because her father was, and she gets involved with a man
who is kind to her, it can be confusing--he's not following her
script. To make reality match her picture, she may unconsciously
manipulate him in order to try to get him to be abusive, or she
may turn off her attraction to him and move on until she finds
someone who fits her picture. Or, she may wake up and change her
picture. With positive, healthy pictures of reality, we are
unlikely to end up in abusive relationships.
As children, our parents are our role models
for what it is to be a man or woman. We desperately want to be
able to admire them and grow up to be like them, especially our
same-sex parent. We also want to view them as ideal mates,
especially our opposite-sex parent. Therefore, we tend to believe
their pictures of reality. Even if, as adults, we can see that
their pictures of reality were distorted in various ways, our
subconscious may still hold them and be creating our reality
accordingly.
It is often said that a woman married her
father or a man married his mother. If we're fortunate, we might
be attracted to someone like our opposite sex parent (or, less
frequently, our same-sex parent) because he or she really was a
good role model for a mate. As the old song goes, "I want a girl
just like the girl who married dear old dad." A son usually
identifies with his father and therefore may look for someone like
his mother. He got that picture of reality early on and may have
seen no reason to change it. Vice-versa for a girl. A gay son may
look for a male partner who is like his mother for the same
reason. However, if a child identifies more with his opposite-sex
parent, he may look for someone like his same-sex
parent.
We can also attract mates who are like the
parent with whom we're more unresolved if there were major issues.
A gay friend who has been unsuccessfully trying to extricate
himself from his domineering mother all his life still ended up
with a long-term partner much like her (and who gets along with
her famously).
One friend has had three long-term
relationships that followed a pattern established by her father.
He had been pretty kindly before her mother (his essence twin)
died when she was eight years old. After that, he went off the
deep end and became abusive and rather crazy at home. Similarly,
the three mates were loving until she had given up other options
to be with them; then they turned abusive and irrational. Sadly,
many people show their worst side to their significant other once
courting is over, whereas ideally, we would give our highest and
best. However, the abuse she received went beyond their merely
being mean--in each case, they seemed to have lost touch with
reality. It's not that she created their behavior, but that her
picture of reality drew those who would naturally play the part
that matched her picture. She did have one happy relationship, but
after a few years, he came to feel like a brother; their sexual
attraction faded. Perhaps, at least in part, she turned off her
attraction because he was not following the script--he remained
kind.
Of course, attraction often fades in time, for
many possible reasons. It may be that a couple completed their
work together, or that they fell into a rut and went on automatic
pilot. Once the biological imperatives have been satisfied by
successfully bringing mates together, there is less assistance
from the chemical highs with which the body rewards them. If we
have been doing the work of building a relationship, a deeper and
more subtle love can develop. One indication of loving someone in
this way is enjoying being with him even when we're not getting
something. In my experience, it takes at least six months to
develop an energetic bond with someone on a personality level, and
it's been said that it takes seven years to become actually
married to someone. In any case, it takes time to grow mature love
for a person.
The oedipal complex is not universal, but it is
fairly common in our society when boys feel that they have to
compete with their father for their mother's affections. Usually
the boy is picking up on his father's immature unwillingness to
share his wife with him. A boy might fantasize about killing his
father in order to get him out of the way so that he can get what
he needs from his mother. The mirror image of that can also occur,
with a girl competing with her mother for her father's affections.
Less commonly, a boy might compete with his mother for his
father's affections, or a girl with her father for her mother's,
which can be a factor in homosexuality. In some cases, children
have to compete with both parents for the love of the
other.
When there is a lack of solidarity between a
child's representatives of father/mother God in their love for
him, he grows up with a shaky foundation, feeling that there is
war in heaven. He may wonder if he deserves their love or if he is
causing the conflict.
A pattern of competition can repeat for
generations, since children who feel deprived of adequate love may
grow up not wanting to share their spouse with their own children,
and another generation grows up feeling that it didn't get enough.
This makes for stunted emotional development, also due, in part,
to not bonding well with the parent they're competing with, and is
another reason someone may "marry his mother" or father--he is
still trying to get what he didn't get as a child from the other
parent. In this situation, there are too many children and not
enough parents--maybe one and a half or less rather than two full
parents.
Misplaced loyalty or a lack of completion with,
particularly, the dominant parent can lead to an inability to
commit to a mate. Especially if the parent has died, loving a mate
can seem like a betrayal, as if it means we no longer love the
parent. Finding a sense of completion and letting go can be more
difficult in that case, but we can always speak with our loved
ones in spirit. They want completion as much as we do.
Scripts can work in more specific ways--for
example, relative to the timing of life events. A king I know
married his server task companion, who also had blond hair and a
nurturing personality like his mother (again, there are often
several elements of attraction at work). The reasons they gave for
divorcing later were the roles' negative poles: he was tyrannical
and she reacted to her sense of bondage by being manipulative. It
was by the book, and in my view could easily have been fixed with
awareness, but his father had divorced at that age, and he seemed
to have a need to follow the same script. It's as if he looked at
his inner watch and said, "It's time to get divorced." Many
subsequent events also eerily paralleled those of his childhood.
It was an unconscious way of exploring his unresolved issues; he
re-experienced those events from the other side, as father rather
than as son.
A scholar friend first married when she was
past 40, just like her scholar father, whom she adores. She
married a scholar, too, in a similar business. Her relationship
with her mother is extremely problematic, but after years of
therapy, she managed not to marry someone like her--she had worked
it out enough, fortunately, to not have to reenact those
dynamics.
Some people even die at the same age as their
dominant parent because they don't feel it would right to live
longer than he did, or because their picture is that that's the
right time to die. Such patterns can be hidden under the guise of
apparently hereditary diseases.
In processing wounds about what our parents
didn't give us, it's good to keep in mind that no one can give
what he doesn't have. Most parents love in the ways they know how.
Given the relatively low level of human consciousness, it's not
surprising that that's usually pretty limited. Acknowledging the
truth about our parenting is healthy, but blaming our parents for
where we now find ourselves is not; we are responsible for
ourselves. Being responsible is not the same as blaming ourselves,
either--it simply means that we accept how things are, as a
starting point, and then roll up our sleeves and do something
about them.
This is not to suggest that we should gloss
over painful feelings--they all need to be acknowledged and loved
in order to be healed. Also, we're all responsible for our acts,
even when we are ignorant, so this doesn't let our parents off the
hook if they were abusive or neglectful. However, the ultimate
solution to our parents' shortcomings is to be what was
lacking. For example, if our parents didn't believe in us, we can
believe in ourselves now. One of the primary ways we grow on the
physical plane is by overcoming the limitations into which we're
born.
Mainstream psychology, lacking understanding of
the soul, is quick to attribute most personality defects to bad
parenting, which places a burden of fear and guilt on parents.
However, knowledge of past lives makes clear that parenting is
only part of the picture.
We all long to share love, but faulty notions
of what love looks like can sabotage it. For example, if a
person's mate doesn't magically know and do what she wants without
being told, she may begin to feel confused and disappointed, and
that maybe he's not "the one" afterall.
It's never too late to acquire pictures of what
a truly loving and happy life can look life, and without such
pictures, we cannot create that reality. Perhaps the world's
biggest problem is a lack of vision. We cannot have peace,
freedom, or anything else we long for if we cannot specifically
imagine it. Many people simply have no idea what a mature
expression of love looks like, so they have no way to experience
it.
That's why the greatest gift we can give is to
embody love, in the highest way we know how; as we live our
highest vision, it grows higher. We change the world just by being
who we are. We teach by example, but, more importantly, by
bringing a higher vibration into the world. As with the hundredth
monkey, enough people transmitting it conditions the consciousness
of humanity, helping it leap to a new level. Whether living a
solitary, contemplative life, or being highly active in the
mainstream, expressing mature love, and its attendant qualities
such as truth, life and creativity, is the highest
achievement.
FINDING BALANCE
When we cut ourselves off from any part of
ourselves, we then long for it. For example, if we've denied our
body, we long to feel one with it and are likely to be highly
attracted to people who are strongly physical. It may look like
they have something unattainable to us, such as physical
self-confidence or athleticism, but what we long for is actually
something available within ourselves, a potential we are called to
actualize. If it weren't our potential, we probably wouldn't long
for it--it wouldn't even be on our radar. The shadow of such
attraction is judgment and rejection, due to the reasons we denied
our body in the first place--we may, for example, believe that the
body is dirty or sinful. Denial sets up a polarity, and attraction
can flip-flop with rejection. When we own and reintegrate our
body, that kind of attraction fades, along with the rejection.
People who repress their emotions tend to
attract partners who are over-emotional, or who at least become
over-emotional in the relationship, in an unconscious attempt to
balance it. In many couples, the feminine partner carries not only
her own emotions but those of her partner, who leaves her the job
out of his unwillingness to feel his. However, since he's denying
his own emotions, he also denies hers, and may accuse her of being
a "hysterical female." Sometimes, she leaves him the job of
carrying her intellect if she hasn't developed it, perhaps because
she has been too busy carrying all the emotions in the
relationship. In this way, natural strengths are exaggerated, and
relationships become excessively polarized. Some people are more
emotional and some, more intellectual or physical, but we all need
to think, feel and act for ourselves if we are to be
whole.
If we're cut off from our creativity and that's
an important part of who we are, then someone who is wildly
creative will be compelling. If we worship that person, putting
him on a pedestal, we might be really expressing how much we long
to express our own creativity. We may think that we don't have
much, but that's probably not the case.
If our masculine or feminine side is
underdeveloped, we may be attracted to someone in whom that side
is overdeveloped, at the expense of the opposite energy. This can
be the case whether we're male or female, and whether our soul is
higher in male or female energy. Most of us have at least some of
both energies and need free access to both in order to be in
balance. The place of balance is different for each person--most
of us won't be in our male and female energies exactly half the
time--but being able to use both energies when needed allows us to
feel whole. When we're in balance, we're still attracted to our
opposite, but it doesn't come from a place of trying to get
something we think we don't have. Rather, it's one of allowing
each person to do what comes naturally and finding that that
complements. (For some fascinating, original thinking on this, see
http://www.deida.com/.)
There are elements of projection in most
relationships, projecting both the gifts we deny and long for,
which can result in idolizing the other person, and the traits we
deny and judge about ourselves, which usually results in
fault-finding. In either case, we are unable to see the other
person for who he is. Relationships based more on projection than
on real connection are bound to fail; where there is illusion,
disillusionment comes sooner or later. The answer is taking
responsibility for being who we want to be and dealing with our
own issues, revealing ourselves as we are and seeing our partner
in a fair and balanced way. What our partner does is up to him--we
cannot make someone see us clearly. However, if someone
consistently doesn't, he's not good mate material for
us.
Developing any part of ourselves makes that
part more attractive. Athletes make their body more attractive by
putting energy, and therefore consciousness (light), into it. The
shape and tone they develop are beautiful, but they are, in part,
a result of increased physical consciousness. People who are
healthy and vigorous have a kind of light in their eyes that
demonstrates that. Mental, emotional, and spiritual development
likewise make those aspects of self shinier and more attractive.
Rarely are all levels of self developed equally, and that's not
necessarily a person's path--many of us specialize in one area of
development in a given lifetime--but it's helpful to attain as
much balance as possible.
It's easy to rest on our strengths, and it
takes discipline to develop our weaker areas, but increased
balance has many rewards: it makes everything we do more efficient
(it's easier to think clearly, for example, if we're physically
active) and helps us feel more whole. It also makes us attractive
in more ways and, therefore, to more people. Athletes might find
balance by reading or making music. An intellectual can benefit
from exercising or meditating.
RESOLVING THE
PAST
Our past is our past, whether in this lifetime,
past lifetimes, or even previous planetary cycles. We are always
seeking to work out unresolved issues. Having experiences is the
raw material of growth, but until we process them, becoming
conscious of what we learned and transforming our wounds into
strengths, the growth isn't realized. Anything we do in life may
be used for resolving issues.
We've been exploring how sexual relationships
are often used to resolve large life challenges, such as those
catalyzed by our parents. Specific practices may be used to
resolve specific issues. Again, there are many possible reasons
for any behavior or proclivity, so it's important not to jump to
conclusions. However, for example, people who are into the dungeon
scene may be working out past-life imprisonment experiences, as
either victim, victimizer, or both. On the other hand, they may
simply find it a fun and interesting game. Or, they may be
studying issues of power. Or all of the above. If a person's
involvement in it is obsessive and highly emotional, it's likely
that he's working out trauma, whatever else might be going on for
him as well. If it's fairly neutral, it's might more akin to a
hobby. Someone who previously worked out most of the trauma may
either lose interest in it or now view it as a game, reminding him
of past lessons.
Our subconscious operates in part through
associating things that are similar or seem similar; that is a
principle behind fetishes. If, for example, an article of clothing
was present at a time of strong arousal, especially in our youth,
it may become sexualized. Or if a person at one time happened to
become excited while being whipped, he might carry the idea that
being whipped was the cause of being turned on. Therefore,
it continues to turn him on, like Pavlov's dog. If the initial
experience was traumatic, it allows him to revisit the wound (the
more traumatic an experience, the more likely it is to be carried
forward into future lifetimes until it is resolved). If someone
was whipped by a parent who showed him little other attention, he
might equate being whipped with love. If a person numbed himself
to survive, and can only experiences feeling under great
intensity, such as while being whipped, he may now need that to
feel anything sexually. With any of these scenarios,
re-experiencing being whipped in a safe manner, with boundaries he
controls, can be a way of healing the wound, gradually taking the
charge out of it, releasing fear, anger, confusion, or whatever
other emotions it carries. The original events can also be
re-experienced mentally, through regression or other forms of
therapy.
Those exploring dualities often eventually
switch roles; for instance, a dominant person may become
submissive, or vice versa. When they thoroughly learn the lessons
of both sides, they can balance and integrate them internally,
perhaps no longer needing to experience either extreme. On the
other hand, being dominant or submissive might be a part of
someone's true personality; a submissive person, for example,
might find genuine joy in playing a subordinate role. In either
case, the overleaves of dominance or submission may be chosen by
souls attracted to this arena.
Acting out fantasies sometimes reveals that the
reality isn't as exciting as the fantasy, releasing some of the
charge around them. At the same time, there's nothing wrong with
role-playing or other games to "spice up" sex. The expression
roles, artisans and sages, especially tend to enjoy playing in
this way. It's no coincidence that the second chakra is said to
govern both sexuality and creativity. Sex that loses creativity
and spontaneity also tends to lose its intensity. Any sexual form
can introduce variety and establish a framework for relating.
However, the real power and satisfaction come from connecting
fully in the moment; if one is focused on the form or is just
replaying the past, the experience is not likely to be deeply
satisfying.
Today, there are many fast and powerful
psychospiritual techniques for healing traumas and releasing
blocks of all kinds, including problematic fetishes. For example,
past-life regression can be especially useful when examining the
current lifetime doesn't yield results. The key is to bring
consciousness to what has been unconscious. Consciousness brings
light and movement to what was dark and stuck. All healing
involves an expansion of consciousness. Acting out issues in our
outer life is sometimes necessary, but it's relatively slow and
unconscious. Whenever we're able to bring consciousness directly
to bear, healing is much faster. Advanced students are sometimes
able to go directly into the energy that holds a pattern and heal
it without a lot of analysis or expression, simply by consciously
being with it in love.
For example, a woman might carry frozen energy
containing fear and anger as a result of having been raped in
either the present or a past life. In meditation, she could ask
her body to "light up" where she is holding the dysfunctional
pattern (in her genitals, for instance). Then, by directly feeling
and enfolding it, and staying with it as it responds to her
awareness, it may clear. She may get pictures of what happened, or
she may simply be aware of changing sensations. If her meditation
is not able to fully clear what she's holding, she could try it
again later. In the least, such work would help other forms of
therapy be more effective.
Some imprints go so deep that no matter how
much good work we do, we don't entirely erase them. This is where
self-acceptance comes in.
BODY
BODY-TYPE
ATTRACTION
Body types are one of the least discussed and
most interesting and useful parts of the Michael teachings. They
are physical and psychological traits stemming from the influences
of celestial bodies on our physical bodies. This elegantly
symmetrical system is also part of the Gurdjieff teachings, and
has been taught for thousands of years in various esoteric
schools. There are loose, indirect correlations between our body
type and astrological influences. Body types are an important
factor in sexual attraction.
As with other typologies, body type categories
give us a shorthand for understanding forces at work in ourselves
and others. We are each complex, with many different influences,
so there are always exceptions to any generality. In addition,
people combine two to four body types influences. For example, my
body is 53% lunar, 36% martial, and 11% venusian, according to my
channeling.
Below are the seven major body types. (There
are also three minor body-type influences--neptunian, uranian, and
plutonian--that are never one's dominant body type.) They are
followed by their positive and negative poles (summaries of how
they manifest at their best and worst), construction (active or
passive, positive or negative charge, and masculine or feminine),
physical and psychological traits, and examples, both human and
cartoon. Each opposite pair is under its axis (fundamental
quality): inspiration, expression, action, and
assimilation.
INSPIRATION
LUNAR: + Luminous - Pallid
Passive, negative, and feminine
Pale, "baby fat," round-faced
Calm, introspective, mathematical
Andy Warhol, Emily Dickenson; Pillsbury
Doughboy
SATURNIAN: + Rugged - Gaunt
Active, positive, and masculine
Tall, strong bones, high forehead
Enduring, self- control, leadership
Sam Shepard, Vanessa Redgrave; Uncle
Sam
EXPRESSION
JOVIAL: + Grand - Extravagant
Passive, positive, and masculine
Large, short, male-pattern baldness,
wide-necked
Magnanimous, knowledgeable,
pleasure-oriented
Orson Welles, Ethel Merman; Santa
Claus
MERCURIAL: + Agile - Frenetic
Active, negative, and feminine
Dark hair & eyes, slender,
compact
Clever, quick, extroverted
George Gershwin, Debra Winger; Bugs
Bunny
ACTION
VENUSIAN: + Voluptuous - Obese
Passive, positive, and feminine
Dark & thick hair, olive skin, wide
hands
Easygoing, sensual, loyal,
nonjudgmental
Roseanne, Tom Selleck; Jessica
Rabbit
MARTIAL: + Wiry - Muscle-bound
Active, negative, and masculine
Reddish coloring, sinewy, broad
Direct, decisive, volatile
Richard Burton, Katharine Hepburn; Yosemite
Sam
ASSIMILATION
SOLAR: + Radiant - Ethereal
Active, positive, and androgynous
Delicate, slight, young-looking
Light-hearted, elegant, creative
Judy Garland, Michael Jackson; Peter
Pan
The body itself has a personality based on its
makeup, as opposed to the overleaves (the soul's chosen
personality traits, as described in the Michael teachings) or the
nature of the incarnating soul (which may be at odds with it--for
example, my soul is more expressive than my passive, low-key lunar
body). The behavior of the fetus prior to incarnation is derived
mainly from body type; for example, martial bodies kick the most.
The influence of body type in children's behavior continues to be
strong, especially in their first seven years before their
overleaves are fully manifested and solidified.
The personalities of the body types are evident
in the way we use some of the terms in common parlance. The
stereotype of the jolly fat person comes from the jovial body
type, which tends to be large. Saturnians can be saturnine, i.e.,
sullen or stolid. Mercurials can be volatile and swift.
There are three pairs that are opposite:
lunar/saturnian, jovial/mercurial, and venusian/martial. (Solar is
neutral, in the sense of not having an opposite.) Body-type
attraction between opposites can provide a "zing" in both sexual
and non-sexual relationships--our bodies feel stimulated just by
being together; they form a kind of electrical circuit. The pairs
are opposite in three respects: active/passive, positive/negative
(like the poles of a magnet), and masculine/feminine. (See the
list above.)
According to the Michael teachings, the first
pair is on the inspiration axis, meaning that they are internal.
The second is on the expression axis, which bridges the internal
and external (as in communication and creativity). The third is on
the action axis, more purely concerned with the external. Solar is
on the assimilation axis, which stands aside and observes the
others, reminiscent of atavistic art in which the sun has a face,
"observing" the planets.
If a person is heavily solar, any of the body
types may work for him since solar is neutral. However, it is
positive and active (like saturnian, although in a different way),
so that might give a slight edge to lunar, which is the only body
type that is both negative and passive. People with other body
types tend to like solar, too--it has a delicate quality that
brings out a feeling in them of wanting to take care of it. A
person with solar as his main body type can also look to his
secondaries for body-type attraction; for example, a solar/jovial
is especially attracted to mercurials.
Body types progress along a circle in this
order: lunar, venusian, mercurial, saturnian, martial, and jovial
(solar, being neutral, doesn't participate). They alternate
between positive and negative. The positive types are more like
the day: brighter, more optimistic, emphasizing the outer, and
tending to overlook flaws. The negative types are more like the
night: darker, more pessimistic, emphasizing the inner, and
tending to notice what needs correction. Positive is not "better"
than negative here--both kinds of charge are needed. It is easy to
see why solar is positive, since the sun creates daylight, and
lunar is negative, since the moon and the night are so closely
connected. Solar types tend to be radiant and light-hearted, and
lunar types tend to be sensitive and thoughtful. The traits of
other positive types are, like solar, brighter--the jovial type,
known for its mirth, is an example. The traits of other negative
types are, like lunar, darker--for example, the mercurial type can
be given to sarcasm.
Each body type is also active or passive.
Activity and passivity refer to whether the body's tendency is
more to do or to be. For instance, if someone has a free day with
nothing he "has to" do, he is likely to do something athletic or
take on a project if he has an active type, whereas someone with a
passive type might choose to read quietly or watch a movie
(although it's not cut-and-dried--the soul type is also a big
influence in this).
Unlike positive/negative, active/passive isn't
either/or; there are degrees of activity and passivity. Body types
wax and wane in this regard around the circle. The first body
type, lunar, is the most passive, the calm epitome of being
(femininity). The second, venusian, is also passive but less so;
it is moving in the direction of the active types, and becomes
more active by absorbing the explosive energy of its opposite,
martial. The third, mercurial, is active, increasingly so, winding
up by receiving the energy unwinding from its opposite, jovial.
The fourth, saturnian, is the most active, the calm, competent
epitome of doing (masculinity). The fifth, martial, is also active
but less so than saturnian; it releases energy through its
explosiveness. The sixth, jovial, is passive, completing martial's
dissipation of energy. Movement comes to a halt as the progression
arrives back at the stillness of lunar, the first, which begins
the progression anew. Solar, which, again, is not part of the
progression, is also active, but lightly or neutrally so: neither
wound-up (mercurial), stolid (saturnian), nor explosive (martial).
Its activity is reminiscent of that of a bird, as opposed to the
lumbering strength of the saturnian. Solar types are fine-boned,
whereas saturnians are big-boned.
The first three body types in the progression
are predominantly feminine (moving from most feminine to
least)--they receive. The second three are predominantly masculine
(moving from most masculine to least)--they emanate.
Positive and active are also both masculine
traits. Saturnian, both positive and the most active of types, is
considered the most masculine body type. Astrologically, Saturn is
the father figure, meting out discipline. Negative and passive are
also both considered feminine traits. Since lunar is both negative
and the most passive of types, it is considered the most feminine
body type. This is not surprising, since the moon is a prevalent
symbol of femininity, and women's bodies are particularly affected
by the lunar cycle. Lunar men and saturnian women are more likely
to be homosexual or bisexual than when the reverse is true,
although body type is only one of many factors influencing
sexuality. (The percentage of lunar or saturnian influence and the
secondary body-type influences determine how strong a factor the
lunar or saturnian influence is.)
In the pair mercurial (active/negative) and
jovial (passive/positive), both have one masculine and one
feminine trait. However, since in their dynamic, mercurial winds
up (receives) and jovial unwinds (emanates), mercurial, the active
type, is the more feminine. The opposite is true with the other
pair that has one masculine and one feminine trait, martial
(active/negative) and venusian (passive/positive). Martial
explodes (emanates) and venusian absorbs (receives), making
martial, the active type, the more masculine. If you compare
jovial and venusian bodies, which both tend to be round and large,
it's clear that venusians feel more feminine. Martials feel more
masculine than mercurials, even though both tend to be compact and
muscular. In the progression, the feminine types begin with the
ultimate feminine, lunar, and the masculine types begin with the
ultimate masculine, saturnian.
I know a gay man with a saturnian/martial body.
He is very tall and is a body builder. He looks like the epitome
of masculinity. However, his soul is higher in female energy and
he has a somewhat feminine manner. Higher female energy doesn't
necessarily result in a feminine manner--in the Michael teachings,
it simply indicates being more process- and less goal-oriented.
However, before this lifetime, he hadn't been in a male body for a
while, and is identified more with femininity. Souls seek balance,
including the ability to effectively use both male and female
energies, so he is rebalancing himself. He is currently fascinated
by masculinity, so he is studying it both within his own body and
in those of his highly masculine-appearing partners. He chose a
body that only wants to do (saturnian and martial are both
active), yet his underlying nature is more receptive.
Active types easily muscle up with exercise;
passive types don't. A woman I know has a saturnian type, and
martial and mercurial secondaries--again, all active types. She's
afraid to exercise because she gets so muscular. That would be
great if she were a body builder, but she is an actress, and too
much muscle could limit her ability to get the parts she wants.
Active types also tend to be thinner, even without exercise,
whereas passive types tend to be larger, softer, and rounder
(although the active-type actress just mentioned is also
large-breasted, a genetic exception to her normal body-type
influences). I know a man with a jovial type whom others often
perceive as being too thin. If he were predominantly mercurial and
had the same weight and frame, he would be perceived as being at
his normal weight. The passive types are meant to have a little
more "meat on their bones." Any body type can be fat or thin, but
active bodies have a "boxier," less-round look even when they're
fat.
The opposites of all our body type influences
can contribute to body-type attraction. I have maximum body-type
attraction with someone who has 53% saturnian, 36% venusian, and
11% martial (my opposites). However, anyone with a significant
amount of saturnian influence would provide meaningful body-type
attraction. Also having some venusian, especially, and martial
adds to it, but the saturnian energy is the most compelling and
essential, in part because I have half again more lunar than
martial, and relatively little venusian.
In addition, venusian and martial are
opposites, and I have both influences in my body. When we have
opposites internally, they cancel one another out, in a sense, so
having them externally is less compelling. (Since I have three
times as much martial as venusian, that's less true for me than if
they were equal.) If someone has, say, 52% jovial and 48%
mercurial, it's still helpful if his partner has some mercurial
and/or jovial, although, for him, body-type attraction may not be
as important as other factors.
Body-type attraction is not the same as
thinking that someone is beautiful or handsome, or even that
someone is our "type" (covered in the next section) or someone
we'd ever want to be with. Beauty is, in part, a function of
health, grooming, genetics, and self-expression. It is also, of
course, in the eye of the beholder, which is influenced by our
conditioning. Our image of beauty may relate to what advertising
and the media in general promote; our type may be someone who
reminds us of one of our parents or an important earlier lover.
Body-type attraction is more subtle. It is our body's fascination
with its opposite. Simply sitting next to someone with an opposite
body type can excite or stimulate your body, even if he's not your
type or of interest as a sexual partner.
Incidentally, souls do not necessarily want to
be in a body that would be considered handsome or beautiful. The
soul craves a variety of experiences and lessons. For example,
being beautiful might be considered a nuisance when the soul
wishes to have a lifetime quietly observing life. Being
good-looking may make sex more accessible but not necessarily a
good mate; it doesn't solve all one's problems, despite the
fantasies around it.
Body-type attraction can also account for our
being drawn sexually to someone who doesn't seem to be our "type"
or conform to our image of "good-looking." In addition, it can
account for some of those "odd couple" relationships, such as a
thin, wiry mercurial type in relationship with a large jovial
type. Body-type attraction was a factor in the oft-commented-upon
relationship between Lyle Lovett (lunar) and Julia Roberts
(saturnian).
If there is not some body-type attraction
between people in a romantic relationship, there are probably
other elements of attraction between them, such as opposite
male/female energy ratios, compatible overleaves, or close essence
(soul) bonds. However, if someone is our type, plus we also have
body-type attraction, that can be very compelling. One doesn't
need to have body-type attraction to have a good sexual
relationship, but it is an enhancement.
Body-type attraction is reciprocal: martial
attracts venusian, and vice-versa. However, it's only one factor
in what draws people together, so if we're attracted to someone
because of body-type attraction but don't fit the other person's
type, he may disregard the body-type attraction. One highly
martial man I know is a fitness buff who isn't attracted to women
who are even slightly overweight, yet venusian is his opposite,
and they put on weight relatively easily (think Elizabeth Taylor),
so he has always had trouble finding women to whom he's strongly
attracted.
Periodically, different body types come into
fashion. Jovials were popular in the 1890s, as they were in the
artist Reuben's time. The pale, moon-faced flapper look of the
1920s owed much to the lunar type. In the 1930s and 40s,
mercurial's oval face and lithe body, exemplified by Fred Astaire,
and pugnacious martial tough guys such as James Cagney, were
popular. (Mars, the red planet, is also known as the god of war).
The voluptuous sex symbols of the 50s such as Marilyn Monroe and
Elvis Presley embodied venusian influence (Venus is the
mythological goddess of love). Twiggy's child-like solar look set
the tone for the late 60s. Since the 80s or so, saturnians have
been in fashion, so models tend to be tall, athletic and thin.
It's hard to believe today that often in the past, tall people
were thought to look ungainly and thin people were considered
bony
In our society, we carry an almost religious
conviction that being slender is required to be attractive; it's
hard to imagine the possibility of seeing things any other way.
However, in cultures in which getting enough food was a problem
and only the rich could afford to be fat, being heavy was
considered beautiful or handsome. In conditions of famine, a
healthy fat person tends to survive longer than a thin person.
Now, it's relatively hard to be thin because of our sedentary
lifestyle, so being thin is prized, and the active body types,
which are more likely to be thin, are more popular. Even when a
passive body type, such as venusian, is in vogue, it is still
expected to have a slim, if not flat, waist. However, our stout
Presidents of the late 19th century, for instance, were considered
fine specimens of manhood. Even today, not all cultures share our
values: A very heavyset man I know visited an African tribe who
asked him if he was royalty.
In Autobiography of a Yogi, Yogananda
wrote about his sister in India about 100 years ago being thin and
unable to gain weight no matter what she did (she probably had a
predominantly active type), and her husband wasn't attracted to
her. Yogananda did a healing on her, she was able to gain 30
pounds, and was thrilled. It would be rare for a woman in our
society today to go to a healer to get help gaining weight. Just
about the only people happy to gain weight are male body builders
putting on muscle.
Despite the incessant programming we receive
that makes it harder to think of large people as attractive,
sometimes body type influence wins out. Mercurials are attracted
to jovials, who tend to be the largest of the types, and sometimes
compact mercurials buck the trend and adore large, sometimes very
large, jovials. The same can be true of martials and venusians.
People whose dominant parent was large or who feel themselves to
be overly slight may also be attracted to large
partners.
Jovials and venusians are not necessarily
overweight, but the passive types don't have an inborn need to be
in frequent movement, and these two types especially tend to like
to indulge in the pleasures of good food and drink. Passive types
also tend to have a slower metabolism, so it can be difficult for
them to lose weight. The active types can be overweight,
too--psychological factors, such as a need for protection, can
override body-type influences. In addition, health issues such as
glandular problems or enforced sedentariness due to, say, an
accident, can be a factor with anyone. If a person died of
starvation in a past life vowing that that would never happen
again, he may have a hard time controlling his subconscious need
to put on excess. However, active types generally put on weight
more slowly and take it off more easily than passive
types.
Body type is largely hereditary. I take after
my mother, and her body type was also lunar/martial, although her
third influence was solar rather than venusian (which I got from
my father). My older brother is the tintype of my father, who is
venusian/martial/jovial; my brother is martial/venusian. Since he
has more martial than my father, he's slimmer and more
active.
Every type has pros and cons. For example, a
soul who intends to be a writer might not want a highly active
body type that can't bear to be "tied to a desk." There is usually
enough wiggle room for our soul to create what it needs for that
lifetime from the genetic raw material that parents provide.
Computer nerds often have a high lunar
influence, which is the most passive and inward of the types. The
moon is out at night, and lunars often like to work at night and
sleep during the day. Lunar males can be more affected by the
lunar cycle than other males--for instance, I can sometimes sense
without looking at the sky when it's a full moon, because I feel
emotionally full then--it's my favorite time. The moon makes you
dream and reflect, and the lunar type can give rise to brilliant
thinkers. On the other hand, lunars aren't athletic, tend to be
pudgy, don't show much muscle even if they work out, and their
pale complexion doesn't tan easily. To be a lunar male today is to
be out of fashion. However, no tool does everything well. A hammer
doesn't function well as a screwdriver, and vice versa--you can't
have it all. And if there were no lunars, there would be no one
with whom saturnians could have body-type attraction. ("Will the
geek finally get the supermodel? Stay tuned.")
Stereotypical opera singers are heavyset
passive types, because larger, relaxed bodies make for a more
resonant voice. People with a rich, beautiful speaking voice are
also likely to have a predominantly passive body type.
Mercurial types tend to have high energy and be
quick and flexible, but they can also be nervous and high-strung,
especially if they don't get plenty of exercise. Saturnians can be
strong and muscular but also tend to have back and joint
problems.
We all need exercise. Passive types may need to
be more disciplined and deliberate about getting it, just as
active types may need to be more deliberate about
relaxing.
People who combine active and passive, and
positive and negative types in roughly equal amounts avoid the
extremes both in their pros and cons.
Some body types repel: mercurial and martial,
for example. Both are negative and active, but they function
differently: mercurial winds up and martial explodes; they can get
on each other's nerves. (This is less of a problem when someone
has both influences internally; they tend to blend, giving the
person some traits of both.) Jovial and venusian are both passive
and positive, but jovial unwinds while venusian absorbs, so they
don't have much to bring them together. When two people have the
same body type, it's pretty neutral, with neither attraction nor
repulsion.
As mentioned, body types progress along a
circle. Lunar very slowly moves toward venusian--it morphs into
it. Therefore, a person isn't merely lunar; he could be lunar
closer to jovial, in the middle of lunar, or lunar closer to
venusian (as I am). A lunar closer to venusian will be especially
comfortable with venusians closer to lunar, and vice versa, and
will be repelled by jovials, because he's moving away from jovial.
On the other hand, a lunar closer to jovial will be comfortable
with jovials. This is a different, milder kind of attraction than
that of opposites, and is often found in couples. Sometimes
couples have one opposite and one neighboring (or same)
influence.
For more information on body types, see my
book, The Journey of Your Soul, Michael--The Basic Teachings by
Aaron Christeaan et al, or Joel Friedlander's out-of-print Body
Types. The two latter books have useful illustrations. Your body
type information can be channeled as part of your Michael Reading
chart; you can also figure it out by studying the
material.
YOUR "TYPE"
Many people have a "type," a physical and
sometimes personality style that turns them on, a picture of what
their ideal mate would look like. This can come from many places,
including body-type attraction and many of the other factors
covered in this series. For example, someone with a lunar body
type might be attracted to people who are tall, because the
opposite body type, saturnian, tends to be tall (although there
are also short saturnians).
However, often our type is an imprint that
isn't necessarily related to anything organic. It can be similar
to a fetish in that our sexuality becomes linked to a certain
tangible thing, only it's a trait rather than an object. For
example, someone might be attracted to blonds because her father
was one, and she's working out issues relative to her father in
her relationships, so she looks for blonds. There can be a body
type element, too--hair color isn't directly tied to body types,
but there are some tendencies: Red hair color and skin tones are
especially linked to martial bodies. There are also an above
average number of solars with blond hair and venusians with dark.
Hair color can also represent an emotional quality we like: blond
feels cooler, and red, hotter.
There are several possible reasons someone
might only be strongly attracted to women with large breasts: His
mother, or another adult such as a movie star on whom he fixated
as the ideal of femininity when he was young, might have had them.
They might represent extreme femininity that balances his
identification with extreme masculinity, just as a large penis (or
wallet) can symbolize extreme masculinity to those who identify
with extreme femininity. Large breasts may also symbolize
nurturing he didn't get as a child. On a crude level, these things
seem to communicate, "You're going to get your needs met." Of
course, it doesn't always work out that way.
On a personality level, someone's type may be
quiet people with a wry sense of humor because her father was like
that, or extroverts because his mother was one (or because he's an
introvert and it balances him).
If a relationship ended in a way that left us
feeling incomplete, we might continue to look for someone
resembling the person we lost so that we can find a sense of
completion. Traumatic incompletions can be carried forward from
past lives. For example, if the love of someone's life died right
after they were married and she missed him for the rest of that
lifetime, she might continue to look for him reincarnated, or
someone like him.
I have a Caucasian friend who is most strongly
attracted to black men: she feels safe with them, and doesn't with
white men. In her experience, white men have been abusive, and
black men, kind. Her first love was black, and, no doubt, there's
also a past-life story or two here. Many metaphysical teachers say
that we create our reality from our beliefs. Perhaps her beliefs
about black and white men have drawn experiences that support
them.
It's also possible that in order to help us
find the person with whom we have our primary mate agreement
(covered in the first installment of this series), our soul
implanted some clues, and we keep falling for people who look or
feel similar until we find the right one. A friend said that she
always knew she would marry a man with a deep voice, and sure
enough, she's with an entity mate (a member of her spiritual
family) who's a basso profundo. Pheromones (chemicals our body
secretes) and other body scents can be more subtle clues that our
subconscious picks up.
There's a Rodgers and Hart song called "You
Always Love the Same Girl." Have you ever noticed how people's
significant others tend to resemble one another in certain ways?
My brother's first and second wives were born three days apart,
for example, and are both blondes (as was our mother). Observing
repetitive patterns in our life can be illuminating.
A person's type can simply be someone like him.
Couples who do well together often look alike, perhaps like male
and female versions of the same person. They seem to belong
together, a matched set like salt and pepper shakers. The
similarities most often show up in their faces. Couples can also
increasingly resemble each other the longer they're together, as
they blend their energies. Opposites attract, but similarities
bring comfort. Every relationship is a combination of opposites
and similarities, although the portion of each varies. Perhaps
those who like more opposite traits like more excitement. Even
couples who look alike in many ways can also have some striking
opposites, such as one being tall and the other, short.
We sometimes hear of people falling in love
with someone who isn't their type, or of people who don't have a
type (or who have more than one), which illustrates that there are
many other factors that can bring people together. To some degree,
we can transcend a lack of body-type attraction or the fact that
someone isn't our type if there's enough that's compelling on
other levels, but the physical perks are nice to have.
SEXUAL
ORIENTATION
The most basic question of attraction is
whether we're attracted to male or female bodies, or
both.
Biology's default is heterosexuality, because,
obviously, that suits its reproductive goals. When the world's
population was much lower and it seemed important to increase it,
the heterosexual default setting was a stronger imperative and
harder to override. In times of overpopulation, the imperative is
weaker. In experiments with laboratory rats, homosexual activity
increases with crowding, probably as part of an instinctive urge
to reduce it. We'll likely see a large increase of gay people if
the population continues to grow, not merely more people coming
out of the closet.
There's usually more than one factor in someone
being gay. Souls who need the experience of being gay, for
example, may chose to incarnate when the heterosexual imperative
is weaker, and may choose parents and body type that support that
(males with feminine body types, and females with masculine ones,
are slightly more inclined to be gay).
A body's memory can be imprinted by parental
issues and expectations while still in the womb, before the soul
incarnates. It's like applications installed on a computer's hard
drive at the factory, before you've used it, that run in the
background. The soul might be able to clear those once it enters,
but usually it just works around them, provided that enough space
on the drive is available for its purposes, since that's less
trouble. An example is a male carried by a mother who wanted a
girl. The prenatal imprint, if strong, may result in a tendency to
be gay and/or feminine. That may suit the soul's purposes, but if
it doesn't, he may end up straight, and any feminine traits may
recede as his soul manifests, illustrating how a soul might erase
or override an imprint. Alternately, being bisexual and/or mildly
feminine might still allow him to complete his soul-level tasks,
illustrating how a soul might dilute or work around an imprint.
Sometimes, however, a soul isn't strong enough or otherwise able
to override imprinting--it may have underestimated the task or not
foreseen other factors involved, such as the absence of suitable
male role models--and must therefore adapt its plans. It's all
good, because each scenario can bring valuable lessons, but the
latter is the most problematic and uncomfortable; it can be a
factor in someone who is mostly really gay trying to be straight,
creating a lot of tension in the personality.
The soul usually has a good idea what it's
getting itself into when incarnating, at least during the first
few years of life. However, there are always compromises; if the
"package" mostly works, the soul may be willing to accept and deal
with some elements that don't.
Imprinting that begins as early as conception
may, and often does, continue after birth. However, once the soul
incarnates the child has more power to interact with his parents
and, to some degree, reduce the impact of imprinting for which he
has no affinity. The imprinting for which he does have
affinity is that which is most likely to stick, wanted or
not.
Psychology usually attributes same-sex
orientation to early-childhood imprinting, and certainly that can
be a powerful influence. For example, a boy with a missing or
withdrawn father may so long for him that he fixates sexually on
males. Or if the mother was repellant and the father wasn't, he
might do the same. If both parents were repellant, he might become
either bisexual or asexual, depending on whether he continues to
seek something from both sexes or gives up on both.
Identification isn't the same as orientation. A
male can identify as feminine and still be attracted to women
(perhaps similar to being a lesbian). Some male-to-female
transsexuals are attracted to men, and some to women. Vice versa
for women.
Sometimes, a person fixates emotionally on the
same sex, but physically on the opposite sex, or vice versa. For
instance, a woman may emotionally want to be mated with another
woman, but her body responds more to men; she may experience this
as sexual dysfunction or a low sex drive in her relationships with
women. Conversely, she may be more physically excited by women but
feel that something is missing and find men more fulfilling
emotionally and/or intellectually. If this can't be worked out in
therapy or otherwise, one solution might be to mate with a
male/female couple in which the female is bisexual (see the
section on "Polyfidelity," which follows).
The most significant factor in sexual
orientation is what the soul brings into that lifetime. Some souls
prefer being male, for example, but need to occasionally get into
balance by being female. Their previous attractions may not turn
on a dime, and they may continue to be attracted to females. After
a lifetime of getting more comfortable in the female body and
learning more about the feminine by having it mirrored, they might
later come back as a heterosexual or bisexual female.
A soul may have had traumatic experiences that
damaged its masculine or feminine side. Therefore, it may, for
example, incarnate as a male carrying the belief that males are
violent and that it's bad to be a man. Being in a male body but
identifying as female sets up a conflict that encourages him to
deal with the issue. Illustrating multi-causality, it may also
choose a dominant mother, making it easier to identify with her.
Someone without that issue might not be as susceptible to her
influence. Psychologists see the dominant mother and assume that
she is the cause of her son's homosexuality, and that might be the
case, or part of it. However, if they lack knowledge of the soul,
they may not have a basis for understanding why that child
resonated with her and accepted her imprinting in that way,
whereas his brother didn't. There is always at least some
symbiosis in such things.
There is a higher incidence of homosexuality in
identical twins, because they are used to bonding strongly with
each other. However, sometimes one twin is gay and the other is
straight, which shows that imprinting or biology doesn't
necessarily govern. Incidentally, identical twins don't always
have identical body types, either, showing how our soul can meet
different needs from the same raw material.
A study found that the hypothalamus (in the
brain) is smaller in women and gay men than it is in heterosexual
men. Some people concluded that sexual orientation is biological.
Although biology can be a factor, it's likely that the size of the
hypothalamus as well as hormone levels more reflect how much
they're used than the other way around. Other factors are usually
more influential in orientation, but once the pattern is set, both
biologically and mentally, it is hard to change it. If, later in
life, a new soul who wants a different orientation walks in to the
body, it may not be able to achieve it. So-called reparative
therapy is rarely successful in changing orientation among gays,
and when it is, it's probably mainly with those who were at least
latently bisexual to begin with, and whose soul has agreements to
mate with the opposite sex.
There are vast numbers of people somewhere on
the spectrum of bisexuality, from being a little bit bi but mostly
straight or gay, to being 50/50. Their place on that spectrum is
not necessarily fixed--it can fluctuate depending upon the
circumstances and what's happening internally. Some can easily be
monogamous with either a male or female, and some need to have
both (similar with straight or gay people: some are suited to
monogamy, and others aren't). Many people's bisexuality is
unconscious until something activates it and brings it to the
surface. It can be limited to one or a few sexual activities or it
can be as fully engaged as the sexuality of a straight or gay
person. For example, some women like to be with other women only
above the waist. Some men won't kiss another man--it has to be
purely sexual, without emotional attachment or romanticism, which
they reserve for women. This may help them preserve the idea that
they're not gay--they're just fooling around--or it may indicate
that they have physical but not emotional attraction to
men.
Some gay and straight people don't like to kiss
or be romantic, either, often due to fear of intimacy. Many sex
workers won't kiss their clients because they reserve that for
someone with whom they're emotionally involved. Kissing suggests a
union of minds, not just bodies. In general, artisans, sages, and
priests are more romantic than the other roles. Warriors and kings
tend to be matter-of-fact about sex and most other things, and can
distrust what they perceive as excessive floridity. Scholars are
often game for anything, but their neutrality doesn't naturally
lean them toward romanticism. Servers appreciate romanticism--a
small gesture often means a lot to them--but they're big on "first
things first": basic needs take precedence for them.
A surprising number of people who identify as
being gay or straight have enjoyed bisexual experiences that they
think "don't count" or feel they need to keep secret so as not to
jeopardize their standing in their community. For example, some
politically active feminist lesbians fear they would be ostracized
if it was discovered that they sometimes slept with men. Many
people are truly only straight or gay, but some are bisexual
despite their identification.
The definition of bisexuality is hard to pin
down. Most people could derive some pleasure from the touch of
either sex, such as in receiving a massage. There's a gray area
between the therapeutic and the sensual. If someone is aroused
when receiving a massage from someone of the same sex, does that
alone make her bisexual (or gay)? Probably not. If someone enjoys
it when a person of the same sex performs oral sex on him, does
that make him bisexual? Maybe not. Perhaps a realistic definition
of bisexuality is that a person can be naturally aroused by the
bodies of either sex, as opposed to simply deriving pleasure from
being stimulated.
Probably more people are gay or bisexual than
is commonly thought; the stigma often leads to people not being
honest about it, even with themselves, and certainly not with
polling organizations. Gay men who are feminine and women who are
masculine cannot easily hide it and flock to the urban gay
ghettos. However, it is likely that the majority of gay people do
not fit the stereotypes and are not discerned by the average
person. The world of professional sports, for example, is seen as
being ultra-straight. However, a male friend of mine dated an NFL
football player and said that about 30% of his team is gay. Maybe
there was some wishful thinking involved, but chances are that in
any group of people, some of them are not straight. A surprising
number of movie stars are also quietly known to be gay or bi. When
a critical mass of celebrities comes out, it will have a large
impact on society's acceptance of non-straight
sexuality.
Sarah Chambers channeled Michael as saying that
all females are intrinsically bisexual, perhaps because the
feminine is responsive and can respond to either male or female.
If that is the case, however, many women are not in touch with it.
The same channeling stated that 25% of males are also
intrinsically bisexual (in addition to those who are gay, I
assume). The channeling did not define bisexuality.
In one of the Yarbro books, Michael said that
older souls are often bisexual because, after all their lifetimes
as both male and female, they are less identified with the body
they happen to wear at the moment, and they respond to the soul in
other people rather than to the body. That might be the ideal. We
can't make ourselves feel that way if we don't, but I know some
predominantly straight and gay people who have deliberately opened
themselves to bisexuality in an attempt to break down their
barriers. They didn't stick with it long-term, but feel that it
enriched them, helping them become more balanced.
MONOGAMY AND
POLYFIDELITY
Polyfidelity is a new term that refers to
committed long-term relationships with more than one person, as an
alternative to monogamy, promiscuity, and swinging. These units of
three or more can be straight, bisexual or gay. (For more
information on it, go to http://lovemore.com.)
Many people aren't suited to monogamy. There is
much lip service given to it in our society, but in practice,
often people "cheat." The use of that word shows how emotionally
charged our imprinting is, but the idea that monogamy is the only
moral lifestyle is a social construct; many societies feel
differently. In some tribes, for instance, a woman may feel
cheated if her husband has only one wife--she has to do all the
housework! Although it's been historically more common for a man
to have more than one wife rather than the other way around, today
there are increasing instances of a woman with more than one man,
or two or more couples mated to each other. If someone is
agonizing about choosing from more than one mate possibility,
sometimes the answer might be "and" rather than "or." However, it
takes a great deal of maturity to make such relationships
work.
There's brainwashing in our society that
brings, unquestioningly, the assumption that a partner being
"unfaithful" is the greatest of betrayals. Therefore, someone who
has committed to monogamy but who is not suited to it or who is
drawn to share something intimate outside his primary
relationship, perhaps because of soul-level agreements or because
his needs aren't being met, is in a tough quandary. Deceit is
poisonous to a relationship, yet telling the truth can also
destroy it, as can not being true to oneself. It might be cleaner
to renegotiate agreements, try to solve the problems, or end the
relationship before seeking outside it.
Still, affairs are seldom premeditated, and
expecting people, especially when they feel their needs aren't
being met, to consistently have the self-discipline to decline a
strong attraction may not be realistic. Making too much out of it
only aggravates the problem. The best way to avoid it is to let a
potential partner know at the beginning our stand on monogamy,
whether we require it, aren't suited to it, or are open on the
subject. If his stand is opposite, it might be better not to
pursue the relationship further. Of course, a person may not
realize his true needs when he's young, and they can change over
time. However, when people are honest and realistic about their
needs before embarking upon a relationship, a lot of heartache can
be avoided.
CONCLUSION
When we find someone attractive who doesn't
reciprocate, it's easy to doubt our attractiveness, but, as we've
been exploring, what turns on another person is complex and isn't
something we can control. When people are fortunate enough to find
each other highly attractive and are able to make a relationship
work, there's more than a little bit of luck involved.
Attraction is what brings people together; it's
not necessarily what keeps them together. Common interests allow
for things to discuss and do together, and common values are even
more important for relationship longevity. Unresolved issues
between people can kill attraction as anger and resentment build
up. Creating a strong relationship takes commitment, a mature
ability to resolve conflicts and communicate clearly, and an
alignment of purpose. A sense of humor helps, too.
May you find joy in your relating!
---
sgh (at) summerjoy (dot) com.
[Please replace (at) with @, etc.]
http://summerjoy.com
© 2002 Shepherd Hoodwin
Feel free to distribute with attribution to the
author and web site:
http://summerjoy.com/attraction.html
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