The most expressive and effective art form that the world has ever known is the tapestry art form. The stories of the Greeks, Romans, Medieval, and the Renaissance period as well as the Old and New Testament are told vividly in woven tapestry art. Stories related to Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are expressed in these tapestry wall hangings . Even the stories of Virgil’s Aneida and Ovid’s Metamorphoses are intensely portrayed through these wall hangings.

Innumerable heroes and nobility have owned hand-woven wall hangings tapestries in France, England, Germany, and Italy from ancient times to the more recent times through the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. There was a period of darkness and interruption of artistic expression between the hand-woven tapestry art of classical antiquity and that of the thirteenth century and wall hanging tapestries. For over a thousand years, the weavers were content to leave the making of large tapestry wall hangings to artists and embroider. Today they are made on Jacquard looms.

You can choose from a wide range of tapestry wall hangings from Budget Tapestries. You can choose form Unicorn tapestries, Medieval art forms, Renaissance, Raphael, Verdure, François Boucher, Aubusson, Bayeux, Chenille Tapestries, Floral and Still life, Lake Como, Royal Hunt Scenes, Oriental tapestries, William Morris, Arts and Crafts, Beatrix Potter and Cicely Mary Parker. Among the various wall hangings, Unicorn wall hangings tapestry is a vivid example of marvelous art form, as in no other art form has such pictorial depiction of events and stories so vividly portrayed as in Unicorn wall hanging tapestries. Compositions reflect the Passion of Christ, Resurrection, and Incarnation.

In the early thirteenth and fourteenth century, Gothic art appeared in woven tapestry. Themes in medieval tapestry wall hangings are highly personal, intense, human and spiritual. You can see the opposite expressed in Renaissance wall hangings. The purpose of Renaissance tapestry wall hanging was to produce illusions of what reality should be. Raphael’s sketches have made a special place in tapestries. Raphael is best known for his Madonna and for his large figure compositions in the Vatican in Rome.

Verdure’s main subject is nature that includes landscape, forests, leaves, fruits, animals, and hunters. French painter, François Boucher is noted for his pastoral and mythological scenes. Frivolity and sensuousness characterize his work.

Budget tapestries offer great prices for all its products. It provides free shipping to worldwide, which becomes another reason to buy your favourite wall hanging from Budget tapestry.

Jude is a well known writer who has been writing on Belgium Tapestries and Tapestry Wall Hangingsand etc for the website www.tapestries-tapestry.com for a long time.

Human beings love to argue over various things. In my philanthropy work I have noticed that many people that are involved in the world crisis issues and humanitarian efforts have an incredible amount of passion for their life’s work and the endeavors that they are involved with. Almost to the point were they are willing to come to blows or even fight another person who is also helping over the means and methods used to help.

Some of the most hard to deal with people I have ever met in my life have been on committees at NGOs and mind you these are organizations whose mission statements are all about helping others. It is truly amazing the infighting that goes on in these fiefdoms that are created in the nonprofit sector.

If you are passionate about helping others in humanitarian efforts and you must remember to hold short on the sound and fury and understand that others are also passionate and care. In fact they care so much they are willing to do something evil, so they can do something good. It is ironic indeed that we seen this situation so often.

My advice would be; be careful what you wish for. Understand your driving force and your passion, but also understand that there are others like you who will do anything to get their way and do what they feel must be done. There seems to be a lot of disagreement in humanitarian efforts in the world. Perhaps this is why so many problems go un-fixed.

Of course the world needs people with strong passion to get the job done because people who are weak and lack character cannot lead such an important task or it will never get done. In studying all sides of this issue, I have decided that I’m far too passionate to be involved with philanthropic efforts in large groups. I am better off to sit on the sideline and help recruit people for the effort, then to be involved in committees.

This is in no way a copout because I do my best to help in other ways. Perhaps you will heed my warnings and advice and think twice about how your passion is helping or hurting the process of the humanitarian efforts that the world so desperately needs.

L. Winslow is a Humanitarian and Economic Advisor to the Online Think Tank, a Futurist and retired entreprenuer. Currently he is planning a bicycle ride across the US to raise money for charity and is sponsored by http://www.Calling-Plans.com and all the proceeds will go to various charities who sign up.

Chateau Gaillard was built by Richard the Lionhearted and it was sieged and taken by the French in 1204 AD. The story of this castle, and its siege is one of the most interesting stories in medieval history.

Chateau Gaillard is a medieval castle in every sense. When we think of medieval times and castles, or when we watch a movie with combat from this period, we are seeing what happened during the life and times of this magnificent castle. Richard the Lion Hearted built it between 1196 and 1198 as part of his Crusades campaign, and although it isn’t a functioning castle anymore its remains can still be seen and visited.

It was built on a natural triangular formation of land on the bank of the Seine river and had all the hallmarks of a well-designed and well-fortified castle with both water and land as protection. It also had a remarkable set of three concentric circles for defense. The outer circle was wooden and the two inner circles were stone. These formations posed a formidable challenge to any attacking force but they were not invincible. In 1203 AD Philip, the King of France, lay siege to this castle and after eight months of battle it surrendered to him on March 8, 1204.

The siege began in August of 1203 when King Philip massed his forces around the land structure and dug ditches for protection. His forces then proceeded to dig a mining tunnel under the outer wooden wall of the castle. This breached the wall and the first step of the siege was complete.

The second castle wall proved to be much more difficult and it was thought that the French forces would not be able to accomplish the task until a flaw in the design of the castle was discovered. They found an unguarded toilet chute that lead right into a chapel within the second wall. French forces entered the chute and took over this middle section of the fortification.

The third, and final castle fortification, was surrounded by a water moat with a natural rock bridge that crossed it. The sieging army used the rock bridge as cover while they dug a tunnel that breached the wall. This breaching of the final wall was the demise of the castle and the knights that remained (20 knights, and 120 men at arms) surrendered to King Philip.

The siege of this castle is definitive of what warfare was like in the middle ages before the advent of gunpowder. Practically every type of siege technique was used to bring this fortress down. These included siege towers and the effective method of mining tunnels under fortifications to either breach or collapse the walls. The French also used Greek fire to destroy wooden parts of the castle and the French navy even erected siege towers on the tops of their warships. They then sailed the ships up close to the castle to make their assaults.

There were many battles and sieges during the middle ages and the siege of the Chateau Gaillard is probably one of the most interesting and is one that defines what warfare was during that period of time.

Learn more about the fascinating life and times of Medieval Castles at the authors website: Medieval Castles

To Learn more about Medieval Weapons, Armor, and Knights visit his site: The Medieval Armory

Millions of people are dying of starvation, HIV-AIDS and by Wars, Terrorist Acts or Civil Unrest around the World. What are we doing about it? What is humanity doing to solve these problems? Is this the best humans can do; is this really an acceptable response.

Indeed, I have witnessed the noble efforts of the NGOs and all the World Leaders and those high-profile entertainers. I would like to make a point. The point is all this BS, Movie Star Publicity, Bono Concerts and Non-profits and all this commotion and sending money in isn’t working. No one is doing anything to fix the real problems, only the symptoms. This is typical of Politically Correct methodology that permeates the world.

There are too many humans reproducing too fast for a sustainable civilization and there is too much corruption between the aid and the recipients. In the case of the Nairobi Slums it appears that the Nairobi City Council and Kenya Government do not care, perhaps they may, but we can only go by the actions not the political speeches or rhetoric.

The problems there could potentially be solved for less than 150 million dollars, which is nothing considering 800,000 people live in one slum, named Kibera alone. Over 1.6 million slum inhabitants total live in and around Nairobi, Kenya. Worse the US funds 1.6 Billion in Aid to Kenya and so far lots of promises and not much else.

With the proper plan completed to fix this problem it makes a statement to the WORLD that we can actually solve this problem for real. So, either they need to do it or we need to send a message to all these committees, publicity hounds and NGOs. They have not solved the problem; they have; “FAILED!”

Why can’t we divert AID to Kenya; after all what is the aid for; paying-off politicians? Great, but “Free-Money” comes with stipulations. Look either you care about “Humans Dying” or you do not. Sending in AID that never gets there and knowing it won’t is a LIE. It proves you do not care. We need to stop the band-aids and fix the problems.

L. Winslow is an Economic Advisor to the Online Think Tank, a Futurist and retired entrepreneur. Currently he is planning a bicycle ride across the US to raise money for charity and is sponsored by http://www.Calling-Plans.com - all the proceeds will go to various charities who sign up.

Each formal occasion has its own rules and conventions to follow and a graduation ceremony is no exception. The graduation traditions that we follow now were started since the middle ages.

The tradition of graduations started in the 12th and 13th centuries, when universities were taking shape. They didn’t have central heating then. Most classes were conducted in a church or nearby buildings. Historians suggest that universities were started by clerics themselves. Back in those days any scholar be it be a student or a teacher wore the dress of a cleric. There were very few exceptions. A medieval scholar normally would belong to at least some orders, made certain vows and may have been tonsured - so they wear long gowns with hoods to cover their bald heads. That got replaced only by the skull cap.

It wasn’t until 1321 that a statue of University of Coimbra that all “Doctors, Licentiates, and Bachelors” wear gowns. By the second half of the 14th century in England there were statues of a couple of colleges that restricted ‘excess in apparel’ and decreed that the long gown be worn. In the late 15th and 16th centuries under the reign of Henry VIII, Oxford and Cambridge Universities started decreeing a definite academic dress. The universities even had control down to the minor details of clothing.

Later on, the graduation gown color was standardized largely because of contributions by Gardner Cotrell Leonard of Albany, New York in the late 19th century. Mr. Leonard designed graduation gowns for his class at Williams College in 1887 - they were made by Cotrell and Leonard - his family firm in Albany. He wrote an article about the academic dress in 1893 which got him invited to work with Intercollegiate Commission and led to having a standardized system of academic attire. This Commission met at Columbia University in 1895 and adopted the code for academic dress. They not only regulated the cut and style and materials of the graduation gowns, they also assigned the colors to each of the various academic disciplines.

That’s how the traditions of graduation gowns got started. But what are YOU supposed to wear to your graduation ceremony apart from the graduation gown? The first thing to do is to check with your school or college for specific rules. A lot of colleges would already have rules and guide lines for the graduation or commencement ceremony.

Remember that your graduation would most likely fall between May and June so think light clothing. You can’t get rid of the graduation gown but you can wear light and airy fabrics like cotton and linen.
Ladies should wear something easy and elegant like a simple dress or a skirt and blouse. If your graduation gown is white or yellow, make sure you wear a light color underneath - not only will it be cooler the outline won’t show up in your graduation pictures!

The gentlemen might need to wear a tie depending on school customs. Even if your school is not forcing you to wear it, get one anyway - it just looks nice and formal. You can get a rep tie or a foulard and wear with with a neatly pressed shirt in white, blue or any other pale color. Either a spread collar or button down are fine. As far as the pants go, wear a neatly pressed casual khaki or olive drab trousers - dress trousers are not a necessity.

Your graduation shoes should be moderately dressy, either flats or pumps are fine but nothing that you’d go into the mosh pit to. Gentlemen graduates should wear either a loafer or dress shoe. At any time, please do not wear jeans or shorts, flip-flops, sandals, tennis shoes or bunny slippers - keep them in your bed room or dorm.

At your graduation ceremony do not affix a message out of masking tape letters to the top of the mortarboard or the back of the gowns. Now that you know the history of your gown and what you’re supposed to wear, the only thing left is to enjoy your graduation because it is something that you’ve earned.

This article on graduation attire may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author’s name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.

Dave Richards has a keen interest in designing - especially ecards, fashion photography and writing. He writes about Graduation Cards and Ecards

Why do bad things happen to good people? That is the age-old question.

What are some of the answers people give?

- God is trying to teach us something. - God is getting back at us for something we did or did not do. - There is no God and things just happen. - The list goes on and on.

The truth is that many of those bad things did not have to happen. If that is so, who is the cause? Let us clear up one thing first. God is not to blame.

In Acts 10:38 it says God anointed Jesus with the Holy Ghost and with power and went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil.

In John 10:10 it states that the thief comes not, but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

The two verses above indicate that there are two forces at work. God is the good one and the devil (Satan) is the bad one. You need to remember that.

So, how do you get in on God’s blessings and avoid Satan’s attacks?

The first thing you need to do is to become a Christian. This does not mean just going to church and being a good person. That is not what makes you a Christian. You need to believe, accept and confess Jesus as your personal Savior.

Then you need to read your Bible to become as close to God as possible. You need to realize that God is not just force out there; he is a spirit person that you can become near to. He wants you to talk to Him and He wants to talk with you. That is what prayer is.

When you read the Bible you will begin to learn God’s way of doing things. When you start actually doing things God’s way, you will become blessed.

Hebrews 11:6 says - But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Deuteronomy 30:19 states - I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.

The entire 91st Psalm talks about the safety provided to those that abide in Him.

God does protect and reward people, but it doesn’t come automatically. God will tell you things to do, places to go, what to say. When you follow his directions it will work toward your safety.

God has given us everything we need to live safely, so when something bad happens look inward to what you may need to change, but never blame God.

Tom Broadbridge is President of ‘The Kids Bible Company LLC’ a media & entertainment company that produces ‘The Animated Kid’s Bible’ DVD Collectibles. To find out more, view a trailer, check FAQ’s or character gallery — go now to http://www.thekidsbible.com

Textile goods are social objects that assume an importance beyond household maintenance and use. In all ages they have been seen as displays of conspicuous consumption and reserves of wealth, but has the creating of the textiles been a move from valued craftsmen to professional articles produced by anonymous employees.

Today, most textiles are made in far away from the retail customer, often in 3rd world countries where labor is cheap or in large factories using automated machinery. From the exclusive design houses patronized by the rich and famous through brand name products sold in better quality stores to generic branded items in budget stores, consumers are unlikely to personally meet either the designer or the maker of their goods.

Embroidery is valued more for what it signifies rather than for what it is. We display the logos that indicate that an item is from a desirable brand or chose embellished textiles to achieve a particular decorating theme.

Has this changed from the past? Not really. Since the industrial revolution most textile production and embellishment has been done in factories. “Fancy work” was desirable accomplishment for women of wealth or the upper classes. Their projects were mainly designed to show off elegant hands or to keep them from boredom or to embellish decorative items. Such women did not create or deal directly with those who actually made the bulk of their clothing or household furnishings.

Poor and working class women were those who labored in the sewing rooms of the fashionable designers or in the, usually, unsafe factories. It is ironic that these women were paid such low wages and worked such long hours that they had to clothe themselves and their families in cheaply manufactured or second-hand items.

Prior to the industrial revolution things were not so dramatically different. The nobility and very wealthy purchased their best textiles from professional workshops staffed by guild-trained craftsman (and the occasional craftswoman). Bulk textiles were made locally, either by servants or by village workers. Many of the embroidery patterns used to embellish domestic linen were drawn by traveling professional pattern-makers or copied from purchased pattern books.

Still, women of wealth or the upper classes were expected to be able to use embroidery to embellish their clothes and produce decorative textiles to give visual evidence of family status and wealth.

It is really only in modern times that the skill of individual embroiders is truly appreciated. Modern society has now given many women and men time to be able to carry out embroidery as an art-form rather than from necessity, and so we need to learn from the superb achievements of the past without viewing it through rose-colored glasses as a craft paradise for that has never really existed.

Annette Garcia is an embroidery enthusiast with a day-job of managing projects for the manufacturing industry. She runs a website, http://www.xstitchandbeyond.com providing her original designs in blackwork, cross-stitch and other counted thread techniques.

The eight new focus areas respond to emerging demand from countries, according to the report for the Development Committee, Accelerating Development Outcomes in Africa: Progress and Change in the Africa Action Plan.

Many countries would like to develop or are developing national strategies for health, energy, water, education, private sector development and other crucial areas. Part of the Bank’s role is helping to match country plans and strategies with appropriate financing, deal with new development partners, and adapt global or regional programs, such as malaria or AIDS programs, to country-specific circumstances, says the report.

“One of the Bank’s most useful roles is helping to mobilize others to help finance these programs in countries,” says Page.

The Bank’s strategy will vary from country to country. Mineral-rich countries will receive analytic and advisory assistance to help them manage revenues from natural resources and invest them to sustain prosperity.

In slow-growing countries, where more than a third of Africans live, the Bank’s most effective role is often helping to develop core government functions and mobilize donor support, the report says. The Bank’s impact would likely be most felt in human development, such as improving education and health systems, and in basic infrastructure such as water and roads.

The costs of conflict and recent post-conflict countries are borne beyond their borders, says the report. The Bank can help by supporting their efforts to build capacity in the government to deliver services and establish a viable state..

Action Plan Achievements

Provided 1.7 million people with access to safe water
Built systems to irrigate 15,524 hectares of farmland
Trained 86,116 teachers and built 46,058 classrooms between 2002 and 2006
Reached 173 million people with HIV prevention messages
Provided prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV for 1.5 million women.
14 countries agreed to make their extractive industry sector more transparent.

Many faster-growing countries have already reduced poverty. The Bank can help these countries by leveraging IDA funds to attract additional private and public resources to break such constraints to growth as unreliable energy supply or lack of skilled workers.

Such countries can offer clues to solving problems in slower growing countries, says Page. Lessons learned through identifying growth constraints in faster growing economies and finding ways to fix them may be applied in other countries, says Page.

“It’s about understanding what these growth leaders might help us do to accelerate growth more generally in Africa,” he says.

Their success is “important for them, important for their neighbors, and important for the region as a whole.”

Two years ago, Africa seemed at a turning point.

Could it reverse a two-decade decline in economic and social progress? Could it end poverty and hunger in a decade?

The need to reduce poverty and speed up quality of life improvements in Africa will be on the agenda at the World Bank-International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings this week.

The World Bank’s key strategy for Africa-the three-year Africa Action Plan-is up for mid-term review April 15 at the Development Committee, the body that that advises the Boards of Governors of the Bank and the Fund on critical development issues.

While the Africa Action Plan has many successes from its first 18 months to report, it also acknowledges that if current trends continue, poverty in Africa will only fall to 37 percent by 2015-the target date for fulfilling the eight Millennium Development Goals that include eradicating severe poverty and hunger and achieving universal primary education.

With many countries at risk of being left behind, the Bank decided to amend its strategy to accelerate progress and work more effectively with countries and other development partners.

The result is a more focused and outcome-oriented plan that leverages the Bank Group’s strengths and seeks to improve the odds for all 48 African nations, says John Page, Chief Economist for the Bank’s Africa region.

Page says the revised plan does not affect the Bank’s traditional focus of working one-on-one with countries. Nor does it change the amount of financing each country receives from the International Development Association (IDA), the arm of the World Bank that provides zero-interest loans and grants and 90 percent of the Bank’s financing for Africa.

But an assessment of the action plan, first approved in September 2005, revealed it was “too wide ranging.” As a result it has been pared down from 14 focus areas to eight that now include:

Strengthen the African private sector
Increase the economic empowerment of women
Build skills for competitiveness in the global economy
Raise agricultural productivity
Improve access to and reliability of clean energy
Expand and upgrade road networks and transit corridors
Increase access to safe water and sanitation
Strengthen national health systems and combat malaria and HIV/AIDS

Each area was carefully selected for maximum impact in working toward achieving the MDGs and complementing the work of development partners such as the African Development Bank, United Nations, individual country donors, and foundations.

“We wanted to see what we could do as the Bank group to be the most helpful,” says Page. “In each case, we tried to give thought to what the Bank’s core competencies are, relative to other partners, in order to get the development outcomes that we need.”

The changes reflect a continuing effort “to position the Bank strategically to be most useful as a member of the development partnership in supporting growth and attainment of the MDGs in Africa,” he says.

We live in a sexually pluralistic world and whatever our conviction, sex is here to stay. No use decrying it. It is a fact of daily life and provides humankind with significant components of meaning. Through the realities of sex and sexual experience we can gauge a person’s inner most truth, his/her consciousness.

But how sad, despite global interaction and expansion in awareness, most people still tend to conceal bodily experience; they do not recognize wisdom of the body, which is worth loving for its grace, truth and reality.

Painters, photographers and poets view the human body with all its senses, emotions and intellect as a repository of actual pleasure, pain and ecstasy. They express it with imagination and philosophical intuition, making us conscious of our varied realities. They are not inhibited by false shame. They know human sexuality, if presented and used properly, should help us fuse the primordial male-female polarity into energy which could then make life in harmony with the original source, bring the individual and humanity closer, and promote stable sexual relations. If used unwisely it may degenerate into a diffracted and miserable world.

Sex : A metaphor

Artists do not question the cult of pleasure or the reverence for abstinence as they explore the naked physicality in all its dimensions. They do not create a work for the sake of casual stimulation. Rather, they know that sexual symbolism becomes devalued and inexpressive if it loses the wealth of its actual sexual experience and fails to illumine ones inner landscape; they seek to illuminate the realities of life through body-images.

Sex is a metaphor: the encounter of man and woman, woman and woman, man and man to express feelings, to feel valued or loved, to explore relationships, concerns, roles, to react against false ethical and cultural values, against stereotypes and prejudices, against hypocrisy and dubious social standards that enchain, and debase honest aspirations as lust or vulgarity.

Against a gnawing sense of loss of meaning and purpose in the computerized, simulation-filled emptiness of our life today, including gimmicks, imitations, romantic overtures, and even plain silliness that are often noticed, sex serves as an antidote to the fast dehumanizing existence: Its expression is a means of defying the disgusting sociopolitical world without; it’s a form of active resistance to political manipulation day in and day out.

No Narrow View

With their erotic presentation, artists and poets seek to create what is physically balanced and confident, and elevating to the senses. They know that the naked body is a pretext for a work of art and it can be made expressive of a far wider and more civilizing experience. As Kenneth Clark observes in The Nude (1956), “It is ourselves, and arouses memories of all the things we wish to do with ourselves.”

There is, therefore, a sense of purpose in a poet or artist’s eroticism or sexuality - love of the self through exploration of the body, or naked physicality leading to love, or libidinal sublimation, or sexual union of two consenting adults.

It cannot be objectionable to express the real human needs and experiences, the physical body artistically re-formed or sex-acts re-enacted with a sense of shared delight. The sexual imagery indeed conveys a mixture of memories and sensations, a desire to perpetuate ourselves in the complex of living.

Octavio Paz writes in The Double Flame (1995) that eroticism is a social form of sexuality which is transfigured by our dreams. I see it as a means to rediscover the original magic of life just as sex is the mainspring of ones psyche and constitutes the sensory experience besides being the balance-point of various beings.

It is in no way being “low”, “vulgar”, or “obscene”. In fact, in ancient Indian Writings love and eroticism carried the same connotation or concept: the pursuit of its language and emotion in various forms is art. In the Atharva Veda there are a lot of ashleela Suktas - obscene only according to narrow view of morality.

Sexpression: Indian Heritage

Many of our thousand-year old temple sculptures are an undisguised exaltation of physical desire; the sensuous friezes of the temples at Khajuraho and the figures carved on the stone walls of the Sun Temple at Konark are great works of art because their eroticism is part of the Indian philosophy; it is our cultural heritage.

We should be able to appreciate the purity of intention, the desire to distil from the smallest experience the largest, most universal insights, something which unites us all.

The process of erotic creation, like Kama-adhyatma, pursuing sex to spiritual height, is something positive in Hindu ethos; it is an important psychological fact of life, a sort of libidinal sublimation if one also performs with an awareness of the rich and ennobling pluralistic dimensions of the Hindu culture.

Love and celebration of womanhood, as part of erotic experience through a process of exhilaration, stimulation and relaxation - swimming through the river of heavenly happiness, uniting the eye, mind and imagination, and losing ignorance - is both physical and spiritual. This is what keeps an artist going, giving birth to new works, one after the other, reaching a height to feel silence through spirit in the body.

Orthodoxy Undesirable

But somehow, in recent years, largely due to lack of the spirit of enquiry and appreciation of the Hindu culture, tradition and values, discussion and expression of sex in public seems to have been denigrated. Authors and artists have been frequently subjected to violence of the orthodox right wing which seeks to ban honest sexual self-expression and is intolerant of recreational and non-procreative sex acts.

There was a time when even prostituted in India were an integral and respectable part of the Hindu society. There was no social tension due to unsatisfied lost. Sex practice was not looked down upon just as men and women enjoyed healthy emotional relationship both within marital and larger societal contexts. The writers of the ancient Sanskrit manuals like Kamasutra, Panchasakya, Smara Pradit, Ratimanjari, Kokashastra, Ratirahasya, Ananga Ranga etc. educated men and women in the art of courtship, foreplay, actual intercourse (including various postures of union) and post-coital activities; they treated love not only as a matter of giving and receiving pleasure, but also as a means of access to the realm where human and divine meet.

Emotional lyrics of poets like Kalidasa, Bhavabhuti, Bhartrhari, Amaru, Yashovarman, Jayadeva and others reflect frank eroticism but create a transcending spiritual effect and meaning with their expression of the primordial pursuh-prakriti, or what the Chinese call Yin-Yang interplay.

God Created Sex

I do not know how many people would disagree with the view that the taste of the forbidden fruit in Eden was actually the awareness of physical attraction between man and woman: The tree of knowledge was actually the knowledge of the process of creation, of love, of sex.

The Bible, like the ancient Hindu scriptures, does not decry sex. In fact celebration of physical union is God-ordained; man and woman are expected to stay together, love each other as their own flesh.

Because God created human beings as male and female, He created sex and ordained sexual union (in a socially acceptable form) to bind man and woman together, to make them dear to each other as husband and wife, to lead a healthy emotional life through love and sex, and thus ensure personal and social stability.

As I see it, it is God’s design that we enjoy life, be happy, be one flesh in coitus, and thus glorify Him in body. In the Vedas and Upanishads, too, sex is the source of happiness in equality, in oneness of man and woman, in love.

The search for love, or desire for sex, even if erotic, is essentially the aspiration for entering into another to know, to understand. It is rather a search for the ‘whole’ in daily living and giving. It is the search for a bridge between the uncontrollable external events and the often impulsive, subjective, or internal responses.

Body as Soul

In brief, depiction of sex in art and literature has been metaphysically serious in India, just as sexual desire and fulfillment is an action of the spirit in body, leading to pleasure and harmony. The body images illuminate the realities of life; sexual metaphors in art make it possible for artists to convey what it feels like to be filled with desire, transmuting and transmitting memories of experience.

Artists visualize human body as a picture of the human soul; they celebrate it to understand the world and the self. If they glorify nudity, it is to explore the consciousness, in conflict with the muddling external chaos.

As a poet I realize humans are flesh in sensuality and there is divinity in it. The fleshly unity is the reality, the passage to experience divinity, and its expression should not be repressed through governmental interference in the name of morality and all that.

Sexual self-expression should be treated as ones fundamental right just as personal freedom of choice, sexual privacy rights, and tolerance for diversity are the hallmarks of a liberated enlightened society.

–Dr.R.K.SINGH,
Professor & Head, Dept of Humanities & Social Sciences,
Indian School of Mines University,
Dhanbad 826004, India.