This Jungian Life

Sex fascinates us. Whether we turn toward it, flushed and excited or away from it, tense and disquieted. Archetypal images of sex adorn the thresholds of ancient temples and inform most mythological systems. Shiva and Shakti, in their union, create the universe – she’s providing all forms for his undifferentiated light. The gods beget gods as they mate, giving rise to infinite imagistic permutations of cosmic and personal qualities. These religious images of creation and pleasure inform our individual psyche granting sexuality a numinous intensity.  Human culture shapes our initial attitudes toward sex. When infused with monotheistic religious feeling, sex is held as a sacrament subject to the rites and rituals believed to protect the couple from its overwhelming power and god’s jealous monitoring of the behavior. Polytheistic religions generated a multiplicity of god-forms and related myths to reflect a wide variety of possible relationships to sex and its outcomes. Pan, the lusty fertility god of the rut, A