The Gift of Life That Comes From God
Desire. It’s a word that stirs the imagination. This simple word can conjure up smells, images, textures, pleasure, feelings, memories, tastes, and thoughts that are often labeled as sin.
Far from being sinful, the word desire actually means to wish, to expect, to long for. It comes from the Latin phrase de sidere, which means “from the stars or from heaven”.
In my experience, desire coupled with unmet expectation leads to suffering. But desire as a state of being that comes from the stars; now that feels more cosmically aligned with peace, grace, and harmony.
In fact, desire or libido, is the energy that infuses our beings with breath. It is the desire for life that keeps us finding food.
It is the desire for connection and love and the procreation of our species that gets us to pair up and have families. It is the desire for safety and security that then pulls our families into community with one another.
This powerful little word is used as a frequent topic for religious and spiritual discussions or sermons. It is warned against. It is talked about as a “bad” feeling that can catch the unaware by surprise, leading to impurity and perversion.
What if desire that is not balanced is the problem? Can’t anything that is healthy and nourishing be over consumed and cause imbalance and even disease? Is it wise to throw away desire out of fear when it is the very spark of energy that breathes life into all that is created?
A colleague of mine, Dr. Tina Sellers, asked this very question and began researching for “desire positive” stories in the Bible and other ancient Judaic Christian texts. She found several old stories that beautifully illustrate the need for a balanced view of sexuality and desire. One of these stories is over 2500 years old. It’s comes from the mystical Jewish tradition and takes place in Jerusalem almost 200 years before Plato and Aristotle lived. It goes like this….
In 500 BC in Jerusalem, adultery was becoming more and more common, causing consternation and distress amongst the religious leaders. They viewed the high occurrence of infidelity as a plague that was poisoning the citizens of the city, a contagion that could not be contained. Unsure about how to snuff this powerful sexual drive out, the masters turned to God. They fasted and prayed for three days. They wept and pleaded, “Let us slay the sexual drive before it slays us.”
God saw the suffering of His people and decided to give them exactly what they were asking for. The religious leaders witnessed a fiery lion emerge from within the Temple’s Holy of Holies, bounding away into the night. A prophet who saw the lion made of fire proclaimed it as the primal sexual urge personified. Desire had just left the city.
The religious leaders were elated and thanked God profusely for hearing their prayers and granting them in the way that they had requested.
Over the next few days, life changed drastically in Jerusalem. The steady flow of visitors to the Temple ground to a halt. Artists stopped creating. Hens no longer laid eggs. Milk no longer flowed for the cattle. Nothing grew. Businesses failed.
Finally, the people realized that the fiery lion represented not only the sexual urge, but also the drive that went beyond sex. It personified the breath of God, the spark of life that lit all creative endeavors and even life itself.
The masters returned to God once again and entreated that this Divine spark of creation be returned to the people, but tempered and balanced. God responded saying, “You cannot have only half a drive.” The greater the sacred power, the larger the shadow it will cast. It is the flip side of the same coin and up to each individual to channel it toward light rather than dark. The lion then reentered the Holy of Holies where it remains today.
This allegory illustrates the danger of separating spirituality from sexuality. When we divide the mind from the body and the heart from the spirit we are losing the power of the integrated whole. Our desires, including our sexual drive, are energized by this gift “from the stars.” It is God breathing through us. Like anything used with evil intent, it can be damaging and oppressing to ourselves and to others. When balanced within the core essence of who we are it is nourishing and life giving.
About the Author: Dr. Keesha Ewers is a board certified Functional Medicine provider as well as a psychotherapist, and a PhD sexologist. Dr. Ewers has worked for 30+ years in the medical field. Her books and articles focus on reclaiming energy, hormonal balance and vitality. Dr. Ewers offers a health coaching certification course in Integrative Medicine for lay people and licensed professionals alike. Her programs for women with low libido and adrenal fatigue are geared to finding and fixing the root causes sexual and vitality issues. http://www.functionalsexology.com.
For more information or questions about the content of this article email: info@functionalsexology.com . For enrollment into the March 1st Libido Cure webinar series register here. The first one is free of charge.