When I walked into the shrine room at Karma Ling for the first time, I recognised much of the symbolism; as I've said before, Madame Blavatsky (and others of course) took from Tibetan Buddhism, reinterpreted it and created a framework that still under lies much of contemporary pagan thought.

When I read of Alister Crowley eating 'cakes of light' and his need of a 'Scarlet Woman' I hear first of all Madame Blavatsky and then the deeper echos from Tibet where the woman would be either real, a Karma Mudra, or an imaginary sexual partner.

The role of the female partner was never really my thing, I wanted equality and a partnership, I wanted synergy and to that end I was fully prepared to accept anything.

I learnt that in fact all that was needed from me was something only a little more than to act as a living icon. I am fine with that but only so long as it serves a purpose..it slowly dawned on me that that was all, and forever all I could hope for.

Tibetan Buddhism has fallen a long way from its Hindu connections. Sex is a problematic subject and of course the safest kind of sex takes place in the imagination or is simply hinted at to give a thrill, or excised entirely to prevent 'accidents'. Most versions of text do not give the student the full visulisation (I was given Dorje Semper from my teacher, a married lama, who thought that of course I had the original text).

In keeping with the remains of the Hindu texts Marpa brought back from India there is no female-centric version of the Dorje Semper practice (Vajrasattva is you prefer Sanskrit).

I could write one, it would be fairly easy to use the underlying principals to create one.

But that isn't what I'm looking at or for right now. Besides which after June Campbell published her book, sex and the Vajrayana do not mix. June was the consort of Kalu Rinpoche and wrote a book about her experiences called, "Traveler in Space":

Buddhist tantra makes use of the notion that to enlist the passions in one's religious practice; rather than avoid them, is a potent way to realize the basic non- substantiality of all phenomena. The Buddhist tantric deities are invoked and visualized in meditation, and practitioners identify with them in such a way as to enable them not only to be released from the limitations of ego-clinging, but also to transmute the various mind poisons into various forms of wisdom or enlightenment that the deities represent. This is reputed to help break the boundaries between "self" and "other" and ultimately between all dualities that are experienced as part of mundane existence. The highest form of realization is said only to come about through the secret tantric practices that involve sexual relations, and that are depicted iconographically in many religious paintings and images. Among celibate practitioners and the "not-so-advanced," these actions are visualized in the mind during meditation as a way of experiencing the "non-dual" through the images of the dual.

June points out that contemporary Tibetan Buddhism is using a system adapted from Hindu tantra, but in a schizophrenic way; women and sex are vitally important in Hindu alchemical tantra but Buddhism cannot embrace the notion of giving birth, or even living life (if life includes love, joy, passion!) and so there is a big problem:

But in the functioning of the system, to have an actual sexual consort is considered the most important ingredient in the path of tantra. That's where so much of the confusion and ambivalence and misogyny come into play, because you have both: the emphasis on male monastic society and, at the same time the need for women, but without the acknowledgment of the role women play. The centrality of the hidden sexual relationship is terribly important.

I wondered into all this, knowing about tantra, wanting to be a karma mudra, being able to read the symbols and I ended up feeling as if I was laterally shattered inside with my energy channels burnt out because when I changed my role from less-than-whore to pregnant woman there was no place for me in the grand scheme.

What I am seeing is an alchemy based on a male-centered version of the universe being sold as the path to enlightenment (salvation) for all.

So let's say I'm correct in how I read the symbols. Let's agree that Kali (a word that means more than black and more than time, a word similar to the concept of a black hole -a place where time stops) becomes Mahakala in Tibet.

Mahakala as a male version of an older, female 'god' has a lot in common with the Zoroastrian deity Zrvan, who becomes Phanes in the Orphic tradition. In Hesiod, Kali or Mahakala would be called Chronos. The latter cosmology (described as Orphic) gave birth to many mystery cults: initiates would be expected to fast, to walk a long way, to make offerings (slaughter an animal depending upon the deity -Persephone, Demeter, Dionysus....) The Eleusinian Mysteries remain just that, but the mythologies remain to give us a clue as to their inner meaning. Whilst the Orphic songs and poems remain for all to read literally embossed in gold.

It is hard to explain misogyny; it grows I guess out of twisted love and fear and also a lifetime of stupid ideas passed on as fact, plus women's compliance with the script..but regardless of social forces, the Greeks seemed to have a clear idea about to whom creation should be attributed -God (in all His forms: Zeus, Chronos, Dionysus, Phanes) has the thunderbolt!

In the Orphic theogyny only Nyx serves as the powerful female (mother of the furies).

From the time of The Epic of Gilgamesh, and the latter story (I think?) of Mardock killing Tiamat, the creative deep -the deep blue sky, home of the Queen of Heaven who Gilgamesh insulted; the deep, sweet waters of the abyss, the realm of Tiamat- was envisioned as enemy.

Yet Her power was not to be diminished, the art was to bind the energy of the Great Feminine to oneself...if one had the balls to be a great magician.

The word Lama means High Mother, Tibetan Tantras are full of praise for female nature, for compassion and love. Eroticism exists as a force, like a voltage to be used to open up inner channels, to purify them and to undo 'knots'...and then used to destroy the self.

This involves an encounter with the fire-woman; the Tibetan name for Kundalini is Tumo (angry woman) she is also known as Candali. She is perhaps -if I go back to Hindu tantra) the inner-fire-woman (Kaliagni- black fire) for her role in the practice of Tumo is to burn away the inner, psychic body of the practitioner...

Now, is that the the absolute opposite of Bob Dylan's words: "I'd sacrifice the world for you and watch my senses die" or absolutely the same concept?

Either way, the inability of Tibetan Buddhism to acknowledge the importance of sex and to accommodate women by restoring female centered practice made it a tough school for me...