I understand you had a school for girls that taught both the graces and the ways of love and wisdom. Some have compared your school to that of Socrates and his school for men. I am in education and I would like to know what the curriculum for these types of knowledge and some specifics about the outcomes expected. I am especially interested in hearing more about how your school devoted itself to the cult of Aphrodite and Eros. Any specific information about how you did this would be much appreciated.
A Lifetime Learner
Dear Lifetime Learner,
ReplyDeleteYou have asked the very question that will open up the path to this type of knowledge.
In Greece during my time on Lesbos we taught spiritual truth and wisdom as evidenced by the Gods and Goddesses we honored and sought to be like. This is before Christianity and we had a pantheon of divine beings to honor and worship. We wanted to be like them and we modeled our behavior on theirs.
Aphrodite, Venus, Astarte are all the divine feminine principle. Just as Eros, Adonis, Zeus are all the divine masculine principle. We wanted to teach our young women to act, think, reason, and feel wisdom, love, peace and health. This in turn would create and foster these same qualities into our lives and our community.
The ancient temples of Greece were vastly different than the way worship is conducted today. Priestesses were there to serve and practice the arts of love. Both sexes were equally divine. Heterosexuality was not compulsive and love itself was the ritual to both practice love and honor the Gods with the gift of love.
Judgmental people reading this may now be questioning this philosophy saying how could one share acts of love with someone other than their husband or wife. To these people nothing I say will make sense or be acceptable. First - we teach that everyone is divine. See the god within yourself and others. Appealing always to the higher self in all matters as a tenet of higher reasoning and moral principle.
In some Greek Temples Priestess served men as a form of worship and some historians have described this a form of divine, sacred or religious prostitution. It might include a sacred marriage known as Hieros Gamos, a fertility ritual or simply a love anointment. Women do not refuse but give willingly in the name of Love. Corruption of these values occurs like corruption of all good things, an unpure heart, a judgmental mind, a desire to hurt or control others, all fall short of the divine intention behind these practices.
Of these Hieros Gamos is my favorite for it is the teaching that we all Gods and Goddesses and it is the sacred marriage of two such divine beings. Or of two humans representing the deities. In my school we taught women who loved women and witnessed the divine within themselves and their peers as Goddesses loving each other as only Goddesses could.
What would a love making session like that look like? It might begin with a soul salutation where each recognizes the higher self or soul of the other. The slow undressing of the human garment, the gentle opening of the seven charkas, the human touch on the human heart. Kisses that taste like nectar, ritual caresses that address,release and heal the spirit and the body.
If you have ever been touched like this or have touched someone like this you know what I mean, it is love. Not the kind of love that says I own you, your mine, but the kind of love that says I love you like you are god because you are just that divine.
Our curriculum was informal but the mission statement and the outcome was to always teach, honor, and practice love, as Aphrodite would have wanted us to. It included singing, music, poetry art and the graces. I hope this specific enough for you to know precisely what I am teaching.
Be Love
Sappho