Sacred Symbol of Female Creative Power...

The relationship between Goddess, hunter, and prey is shown in this ancient rock painting from Tassili in the Sahara.
Rufus Camphausen, The Yoni, Sacred Symbol of Female Creative Power (Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1996), p.58.

While packing books today, I was deep in my maternal body section, and found a stunning cross-cultural book on The Yoni. Which I haven't read but will. And I also found this roaming through the blogosphere over my morning coffee. Is there any connection? In the way of things, yes, I'm sure there is. This delightful wisdom from Dave Bonta's blog, Via Negativa:

"A woman with the right kind of fat is a joy to others and a joy to herself. Her body is pure lubricity, able to move in several directions at once: go watch a belly dancer if you don't believe me. One night with such a woman, my friend, & no skinny woman will ever again be able to entrance you with her momentary cry & one-dimensional hunger. The exclamation point soon loses its power to astonish, but the round curves of a question mark? Ah, there's something to ponder! A thousand queries flood my tongue with the tang of olives.

Yes, hmmnnn...

Now isn't that line drawing of an ancient cave painting most interesting? The way they saw it, the woman's yoni feeds the man's erection and gives him the magical "hunt" power to enrapture/capture his prey...

I could keep you occupied for many posts with images from this book, photographs of natural formations, very beautiful, ancient art, where the yoni is revered, and modern art, where, well, it can be strange (see Gottfried Helnwein's Lulu), or natural & sensual (see Georgia O'Keefe's Gray Line), or as worthy of worship (see Judy Chicago's Cunt as Temple, Tomb, Cave or Flower); if all that isn't enough, there are close-ups of different shaped vulvas (padmini "lotus," chitrini "fancy," shankhini "fairy or conch," and hastini "elephant") classified according to the Kama Sutra, the Anganga Ranga and the Koka Shastra of India. Camphausen wrote this book before Eve Ensler's, The Vagina Monologues, or else that'd be in there too. I don't know of a counterpart book on male mythic sexuality, do you?

Alas, I have to keep packing.

But you can expound prolifically in the comments if this post has caused a springload to flourish in you...