Book: "Sex and the Intelligence of the Heart"

River

Active member
I'm starting -- again -- to read this book.

Sex and the Intelligence of the Heart: Nature, Intimacy, and Sexual Energy
by Julie McIntyre


https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14483616-sex-and-the-intelligence-of-the-hea

I owned a copy of this book years ago... but somehow it disappeared. I know not how or why! Maybe someone borrowed it and we both forgot? Maybe it was stolen? Maybe it went wherever all the left socks go in laundromats? But today I bought another copy, and I'm reading it now. Well, I was reading it a moment ago, before deciding to post this here.

It's not a polyamory book, per se. But neither is it in the least opposed to polyamory. It's a reflective inquiry about love and sex -- and how could one not love that?

If you'll read along with me we can discuss it. :)

The author's website: https://juliemcintyre.net/
 
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I'm reading a sample now. Seems interesting but probably too...hm...mystic? or New Age-y? for me.

Leetah
 
I'm reading a sample now. Seems interesting but probably too...hm...mystic? or New Age-y? for me.

Leetah

huhmmm. I tend to shy away from most things folks associate with "new age" -- you know, crystal healing, remote chakra balancing, the so-called "law of attraction," reincarnation, channeling....

If there is anything otherworldly mystical in this book (so far -- haven't read much yet), I've not seen it. I do see evidence of some this-worldly mysticism in it, though. That is, naturalistic mysticism -- the kind where each of us are radically interconnected with nature, instead of separate from nature. And there's no conflict with reason or science in that world view.

Though I'm not into new age-y stuff so much, I feel right at home in naturalistic nature mysticism. Bring it on!
 
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"Each of us is radically interconnected with nature, instead of separate from nature."

Homo sapiens is but a subset of nature.
 
That, I certainly agree with. Over the years I've had the "humans ARE animals" discussion with a number of kids. I will read further.

Leetah
 
I read the description. What is Sacred Sex and how does it relate to science, specifically evolutionary biology?
 
I read the description. What is Sacred Sex and how does it relate to science, specifically evolutionary biology?

I haven't yet had much time to spend with the book (Sex and the Intelligence of the Heart). I was going to spend some real time with it yesterday, but then an old friend I haven't been hanging out with in years -- who had recently apologized to me for this and that and said he wanted to revive our friendship -- came by for a visit.

All I can say about the book is that whenever I pick it up and open it at random for a taste of what is to come (to read a few paragraphs here and there), it "speaks to me". It offers up words which resonate with me and the path I'm on.

The word "sacred" is avoided in the writings of "science, [strike]specifically[/strike] evolutionary biology". Applied to sex (and, more broadly spoken, the erotic), the word can have various legitimate meanings which are not in conflict with science, though. It need not make reference to anything supernatural or irrational (though some room may be allowed for the arational). Psychology is an example, as is poetry, as are various contemplative practices which are designed to awaken our senses and deepen our capacity to feel and be vitally alive. My impression is that the book were discussing takes these three -- psychology, poetry and contemplative traditions -- as the experiential and conceptual basis for its use of the word "sacred". The author is also very much interested in us discovering things about how civilization tames us and how we are really meant to be wild beings -- and she ties this together with an invitation to renew our relation with the living Earth, connecting our erotic energies and lives with Gaia.
 
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Homo sapiens is but a subset of nature.

Indeed! We are nature. We are part of nature. We are natural.

To me, everything which exists is, in some sense, natural -- is nature. But human beings, rather obviously, are a strange kind of animal which has uniquely engaged in modifying the world around her, shaping most things to suit her preferences, desires and wants (and sometimes--though less so--needs). We thus have this distinction of 'artificial' and 'natural' … which can lead to metaphysical confusions of various kinds. The distinction is useful up to a point, but no further.

Anyway, while we are nature, are of nature, and are entirely within the flow of natural processes, I would argue (as the author of this book does) that we have managed to lose real and meaningful contact and relation with wildness... and with the Earth, which (as I understand it) is our larger body.

That's right! As individual humans we are a part of Gaia, and Gaia is replete with wholeness (which recently human cultures have largely forgotten). There is a sense in which the leaf is the tree; and that sense is similar to how the wave is the ocean. If we are self-aware, conscious leaves or waves (figuratively speaking), our sense of identity can be overly determined by our distinctness from the larger whole of which we are a part. And such, unfortunately, is the condition of most humans on this planet at this time.

In any case, intellectually knowing that humans are a part of nature is one thing and experiencing this truth in a significant way are two different things. The dominant culture in our world at this time emphasizes the leaf and the wave (the distinctness of things, often felt as separation -- even isolation and alienation at its extreme). In my experience -- at times -- the leaf and wave have been encompassed within a larger experience of identity, in which in fact I simply AM nature. Not part of it. All of it. And I don't mean this solipsistically. I simply mean that the sense of separation can fall away, leaving me as simply a wave or a leaf which is undivided from the whole which we all are. My wholeness is found in radical relatedness, in other words.
 
Sounds like this should have been posted in the Spirituality section. Not my cup of tea, but enjoy the book.
 
Sounds like this should have been posted in the Spirituality section. Not my cup of tea, but enjoy the book.

I bet you'd never have looked at it were it posted in the Spirituality section. I bet a lot of folks who come to this forum never poke around in the spirituality section. Why? Because so much which is called "spirituality" is nothing more than myth and wishful thinking. And many people dismiss the whole of "spirituality" on that basis. But that would be tossing out the baby with the bath water.

One does not have to call Sex and the Intelligence of the Heart a "spiritual" book. It can be understood as more psychological than spiritual -- and that's how I'm understanding it. It is equally about culture, and how the dominant culture has caused us all (well, most of us) to lose touch with some of our human potentials with regard to sex, eros, love … and in relationships. For this reason, it is better to have the thread in this section, where it certainly does belong.
 
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