Bring on the Deadly Sins and let us rage with desire! Let the danger in! Let’s face it!
The beauty of lust is the truth of our feelings and needs! In our cultures and in many of our families and even in our own minds, we have believed that our feelings and needs are dangerous. Ancestors (especially mine of the Scottish Presbyterian flavor) whisper admonitions like “Don’t Emote!” and “My feelings don’t matter and neither do yours!”. “Suck it up and deal!”
And so, our desires, many of them completely repressed, fester and rot inside of us. This creates depression, anxiety, insomnia and general unhappiness. What is going on? I did what they told me to do! I repressed my true self, my weirdness, my needs, my desires. And now I need a pill to make me forget that I feel like shit. And a drink. And more pills and wait. I feel even more like shit….
This feeling of desire is real. It is life trying to speak through us.
In general, we fear lust because of it’s sexual connotations. But what is under that desire? What is beneath the lust for sexual contact? Are we longing for connection? For release? To be loved? To be desired? Sometimes we think we desire sex, but we really want whatever we imagine sexual intimacy may provide us. Sometimes its just simple acknowledgment. I know this because I have lusted after acknowledgment and safety and protection and validation. That is dangerous. It is dangerous to want something you can’t have. This may provoke change or upset in the way life has been set up. Oh Well. Lust cannot be stopped.
The origin of the word lust is lustre. Lustre is our natural radiance, power and strength. To be strong, we need to get in touch with our needs so that we may fulfill the potential we came here to express.
Lust is not the beast. Lust is the beauty that brings the beast into usefulness. Lust is strength and power.
Now go and feel all your feelings! Fulfill your needs! For life, for the earth, for yourself.
Margot Darling 