I have a fantasy. It’s a sexual fantasy, and one that gets me all hot and bothered. It’s also possible that it’s good medicine. It’s been seeping up from the depths of my subconscious in the last few months and I’ve been asking myself this question: Is this a memory of what used to be, or a vision of what’s to come?
Here’s how it goes.
I’m inside a large tipi of a Native American tribe. It’s late at night and a fire is blazing in the center of the buckskin tent. About twenty people are gathered inside, most of them women sitting in a circle around the perimeter. Next to the fire at the center sits a bed of buckskin and fur. A man and a woman, presumably the tribal chief and the medicine woman, sit beside it.
Two adolescent children enter the tipi and sit down on the fur and leather bed. The smell of smoke pervades the room and the women in circle are chanting and humming very quietly, almost under their breath. This chanting has been going on for quite a while prior to the children’s entrance, perhaps for hours, and everyone inside the tent has entered a light trance state. The children are electric with anticipation, excitement, and nervousness.
The tribal elder paints marks on the forehead, cheeks, and abdomen of the young man; the medicine woman paints around the eyes, breasts, and belly of the young woman. As they are being painted, two lovers in their late twenties step into the center of the circle. This beloved couple kneels, facing each other, naked except for strips of leather tied around their waist. The adolescent girl sits watching this scene with the medicine woman; the boy with the chief.
The lovers, still kneeling and facing each other, begin to undulate, sway, and dance for each other as the chanting from the women builds getting louder and louder. As she dances, the woman drags her fingers across her own skin, playing with her nipples, pinching, carressing, and pulling, stroking her face, her arms, her thighs. The man follows her lead, touching his thighs and chest, running his fingers over his strong belly as part of their dance. They untie their leather clothes and both begin to stroke themselves, their eyes fixed on one another, their hands stroking and caressing their genitals with the kind of electrified touch that can only arise out of inner stillness.
The children take in this whole scene, the entire community united in a love trance as the beloved couple moves like a pair spirit animals together. The medicine woman has her arms around the adolescent girl; the chief’s arms are around the boy. Both children are held within the nurturing comfort of their tribe.
The lovers become more and more aroused through their dance; and the children see the man’s cock growing hard and long, casting shadows on the tipi walls. He lays his beloved down on the bed next to the fire, parts her legs, and sits between them. He massages her belly, her breasts, her thighs. He holds his hands over her vulva.
When she is ready, he penetrates her with his fingers, and continues to massage her within, as he does so she goes deeper and deeper into trance and ecstasy. He kneels down and places his mouth on her sex. Eventually, her orgasms roll one after another, nearly inseparable. In a break between the waves, he penetrates her. They ride and dance together as he skillfully guides her from one position to another. When she is spent and he is ready to ejaculate, he pulls out and places his hand on his wife’s belly, asking with his eyes if he can come on her belly. She smiles and invites him. He comes outside the body so that the children can see the ejaculate and watch the process. The beloveds heave and smile, softening into the bed and each other, entwined together next to the fire.
The medicine woman and chief hold the adolescent couple and invite them to whisper questions in their ears. When they are done with the questions, they are asked if they would like to go and love one another and explore each other’s bodies in a nearby tipi that has been prepared for them. They do, and are sent off with prayers, blessings, and knowing smiles.
The village has been initiating its young into the sexual mysteries in this way for as long as they can remember. In the morning, the young adults will be welcomed. They will begin learning their respective responsibilities to the tribe as they are now becoming adults. It’s a sacred day.
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This whole scene occurs to me as beautiful and wholesome. It lights me up and enlivens my whole being. I imagine what it might have been like had I been initiated in this way, or if my friends or family had been. I wonder how many awkward, confusing, isolated moments could have been averted, held within a deeper sense of interconnection.
Some might consider an initiation of this kind scandalous, dangerous even.
I wonder, is it? Or is it good medicine?
