Penises, penises everywhere- yet not a cock allowed to be thought about!

So we found several new-to-us books on the Sacred Phallic Masculine, and have acquired copies.

The first is The Serpent And The Sacred Fire: Fertility Images in Southwest Rock Art by Dennis Slifer. Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe NM, 2000. This book matches the second book, Kokopelli: The Magic, Mirth, and Mischief of an Ancient Symbol book by the same author, Gibbs Smith, Publisher, Santa Fe NM 2007. Both of these books feature phallic and erotic petroglyphs ranging from ancient to 19th-century cowboy graffiti. While the focus is on the desert Southwest of the EEUU, much more is featured: the Peterborough, Ontario site is featured, as is Namibian, Zimbabewan, and Transvaal glyphs! Slifer went quite thorough on his research. His text is a bit goddess-ey, and he includes fertility and hetero-oriented glyphs in his works; but his books are still overflowing with information, and make amazing and important reads. Other amazing glyphs offered are a male giving birth through his erection (found at Sabaean, Yemen), and Gnostic serpent staffs- which bring us to the third book, The Rod and Serpent of Asklepios: Symbol of Medicine by Jan Schouten (translated from Dutch by Ms. M.E. Hollander), Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967. Schouten was an art historian, and was Director of the Municipal Museum of Gouda, The Netherlands.

The Rod and Serpent of Asklepios is a dry read through early Christian, Medieval, and Enlightenment history, particularly art and medicine. Professor Schouten is an able guide, who is thorough, and keeps the ideas on track. He offers delightful and obscure insights and interpretation of the serpent-on-a-stick motif throughout history, be it a singular serpent or a double Caduceus. I learned quite a bit, and am awed by how persistent and powerful these symbols have been, and how they have survived, albeit obscured and no longer understood, in the Western mindframe. In the monotheist Bible, Numbers 21:4 and John 3:14 are related, the crucified Jesus being the replacement for the Serpent of Brass Upon a Stick. Did you also know the Caduceus was only accepted widespread in modern times at the 10th General Assembly of the World Medical Association in Havana, Cuba in October of 1956? Their official title is the Aesculapian emblem. Apparently we cannot escape our past so easily, and it continues to reappear, albeit in “hollow symbols, with the original meaning lost”.

The next and final book in this bundle is The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt by Richard H. Wilkinson (yes, of the famous Egyptologist family Wilkinson), Thames and Hudson, NY, 2003. Now among the extensive explanations of Egyptian religion and ritual, and the exhaustive list of Egyptian deities offered in a user-friendly, heavily-illustrated format, are some truly shocking Sacred masculine finds. Beyond a retelling of the Cosmic Creation by Atum, (who lay upside down on the Benben, and masturbated the other gods into existence- more on that in another essay), and the Horus versus Seth contest of trying to inseminate each other so they can claim the throne (more on that in another essay, too), we see pictures and profiles of Min and Nehebu-Kau. Min is an ithyphallic mummiform, who is related to Atum and Osiris, and who covers healing, fertility, and masculine rooting and mysteries. Min is depicted as a standing, swaddle-wrapped thin male, wearing a high plumed crown.
Min is depicted as a darker color, and he is always smiling. His right arm is up and out, almost behind him. The only other part of Min outside his wrappings is his straight-out-ahead erection. In many museums, Min has been castrated, and the images of him have no phalluses, as they were considered offensive to Victorian and Edwardian sensibilities. One can only hope there are drawers full of Min erections awaiting restoration and repatriations in Museum archives.
Nehebu-Kau is depicted as an arm-and-legged serpent with a prominent erection. His neck is collared, like a prepuce pulled back to expose the glans. This is significant, as the Egyptians circumcised at puberty. Nehebu-Kau's name means “he who harnesses the spirits”, and he was a great healer and strengthener, and could speak on behalf of the Pharaoh to the Two Enneads. My favorite depiction of Nehebu-Kau is him standing upright, feeding a naked Pharaoh (both have raging, large erections) the Apple of the Tree of Knowledge! It explains the Adam and Eve serpent story quite perfectly. Both Min and Nehebu-Kau are old deities, original dating to before the Old Kingdom. They remained popular through the thousands of years of Egyptian history, right up into the Greco-Roman period. It is significant, because Egypt is one of the roots of the monotheist religions- pre-12th dynasty, Egypt was extremely masculinist and tribal; the 18th dynasty onward was monotheist, imperial, genocidal, and feminized (thank you, Akenaten, who is Tutankhamun's father, and his great-auntie, trannie drag king Hatshepsut).

After yet even more data on the Sacred Masculine, it must be asked again- what is wrong with us today? Why don't/ can't/ won't we rediscover, engage, and live this glorious, powerful masculine heritage? What overwhelming forces compel us to run from what is built into us by our Creator? Why have we allowed our connection to the Divine to be severed?

The time has come for us to be ready, able, and willing to embrace and become the full masculine glory we were born to be.

- JoaquinRaymundo in Sewaornock, Manahatouac