Origin Stories
A personal essay on sexuality, shame, and becoming
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ORIGIN STORIES
Origin stories forge an orientation to the world. No matter how distant they feel from our consciousness, we are shaped by these inception tales. Like a compass, origin stories provide placement, but they are not a map. The art of living is creating the map for yourself.
The stories we tell ourselves hold a harness on where we came from and where we are going. A mapped memory can be a healing balm to the dust-up of life. Recapitulation is self-liberation. Step one is to hear the story you tell yourself. Step two is to know where you learned it. Step three is to ask yourself, is it true? If not, write a new one.
THE FIRST WOMAN
I am Christina Tasooji, daughter of Linda Lucia Becerra, granddaughter of Barbara Jean Warren, great-granddaughter of Pauline May Shopbell, great-great-granddaughter of Ella May Wilson. I was created in California. On May 3rd, 1988, my mother birthed me at Hoag Hospital. Moments after I drew my first breath, my grandmother came into the room and scooped me up in her arms and showered me with love. I know this because I saw it in a home video VHS tape made by my dad. Blurred and out of focus, I hear my grandmother’s voice clearly say, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” Her prayers seep deep into my fresh born brain.
Breathless in recovery from birth, my mother says, “she looks just like Nicholas!” and my grandmother agrees. My brother, Nick, is the first baby in our family, but I am the first girl. Their legacy lives on. My mother prayed. My mother’s mother prayed. There is nothing more powerful than the prayers of a mother. They come from the heart of every one of her cells. A mother’s prayer is the projection of an ultra-high amplitude wave signal...DNA to DNA. Every one of our tens of trillions of physical cells contain a heart-brain known as the mitochondria. Our mitochondrial DNA is inherited solely through our mother, through our maternal line. The entire human race can be traced back to a group of mothers in Africa. Following this logic implies we all come from the same woman. My question is, who was she?
ALL ABOUT EVE
I learned the story of the woman who lived in a precious garden with a delicious forbidden fruit tree. For tasting its knowledge, she was banished from the garden and the gates clanged shut behind her. The mother of man was made to feel shame and wander in the wilderness. She was punished and forced to earn her bread by the sweat of her brow, not by filling her mouth with sweet juicy fruits that bend low on their branches. To be redeemed, she was to subdue her wildness, and the wilderness to which she was cast. Her path is one of a rough road through an alien world. If she squashes her desire, maybe she will be invited back to her heavenly home. Her worthiness is no guarantee.
CHRISTINA THE CHRISTIAN
I’m four when I play Mary in the Christmas pageant at our community church. Wrapped in a cerulean blue tunic, I carry my bald baby doll down the brown carpeted aisle. My mother and grandmother marvel at my angelic nature from the pews. I hear I am “spiritual” before I know what that means. I enjoy my Christian upbringing. I have my first kiss at Vacation Bible School. Technically my Dad is Muslim, but he comes to church with us every Sunday anyway. I worry, though: will they let him in? To heaven, that is.
WWJD?
As a preteen, I make plastic beaded “WWJD” bracelets. “What Would Jesus Do?” seems like a perfect guide post for whatever will come my way. Then I meet a boy and the question becomes moot. He tasted like salt and chlorine. I spend all my waking hours thinking of him and the next time he will touch me. His scent stains my memory. His sweat was sweet and his body was smooth and hard and tan, except for his thighs which remained their virgin pinky cream. He was a swimmer and cut like a fish. Hairless. I see him now, naked in the back of his white 4Runner putting a condom on. I’m stunned by the perfection of him. He glows. I can no longer, in earnest, wear my purity ring. With the exception of Easter and Christmas, I stop going to church. I apologize profusely in prayer but I seem to have amnesia of my guilt as soon as I see my swimmer again.
LILITH
According to Jewish folklore, Adam had a wife before Eve. Her name was Lilith. Like Adam, she was born of the earth. You would think they would get along, being the only two people on earth. But Lilith and Adam preferred different positions. Different sexual positions. Adam demanded Lilith lie on her back but Lilith refused. Why should he decide how they do it? It’s much more pleasurable for the woman on top...hello clitoral stimulation! The Garden of Eden was not all so wonderful with a browbeat like Adam, so Lilith split. She said the secret name of God (a name only she knew), took her freedom and flew out of Eden to frolic with the angels. Adam was furious and shouted for Lilith to come back but Lilith denied his command.
Lilith soon got a bad rep. In an effort to promote submissiveness and adherence to the new monotheistic religion the men were creating, Lilith became an object of fear and loathing. Many of her stories are dark; she steals babies and cavorts with demons. She was called the “winged succubus,” the “bride of the devil”; an evil sexual demon who preyed on men at night to give them wet dreams. She became the symbol of what happened to women who disobeyed their husbands. Adam asks God for a new wife, and this new woman comes out of his rib. Myths brought Lilith back to the Garden of Eden, but this time, as the serpent. Eve has been blamed for accepting the temptation of the serpent for 2000 years, but Lilith was the vehicle for that temptation. I can't help but notice, it was Lilith’s knowledge and direct connection to divinity that gave her the freedom to leave the subservience of man. She is sovereign and unapologetic for her sexual prowess.
LET’S DANCE
I meet a man for drinks at Jones on Santa Monica Boulevard, as working people do in the entertainment business. It's a networking meetup, not a date, but I am nursing the heartbreak of a brutal breakup and welcome his handsome distraction. I hold the stare of his steel blue eyes as we drink dirty vodka martinis with blue cheese olives. I accept his invitation for a cigarette at his apartment up the street. I learn he is also in the midst of a break up. A song comes on that reminds him of her. He sheds a tear and boy do I get it. I ask him to dance with me. We play that one song on repeat for an hour. Our bodies sway together and somewhere between the wine and the cigarettes and the music, sadness slips away and joy emerges. He changes the song, the mood lifts, and I break free in movement. I don’t intend for my dance to be sultry or seductive. It’s wild and playful and goofy and just me being me. I twirl on his living room rug, glide across his couch, dip my head back and elongate my arms with musicality. I show him freedom with my movement. He giggles and I wink at him. “I love this song,” he says.
I command, “sing it to me!” And he does. I applaud him. Then, in one gallant gesture, he swoops me up into his arms and carries me to his bed. We roll on top of each other, breathless and in disbelief. We are touching something more than each other's bodies. It is blissful and real and we are blown away. It is liberty.
He asks me to stay but I refuse. So he walks me to my car and a smile lingers on his face and mine. Neither of us have words to express the inexpressible. Where did this come from? He sits in my passenger seat, not wanting the night to end. We attempt to give words to it for another hour. I tell him it’s time, I need to go home. He nods, and then with an incredulous look on his face asks, “Are you a hussy?” What? Gut punch. I am surprised. Even though I’m not sure what that means, I know I don't like it. A wave of shame washes over me. I am angry. How was anything we just experienced immoral? Instead of him thanking me for pulling him out of his depression, he asks an insulting question. Did he not just partake in the act same as I? I am stunned. I shake, no, remain calm, cool, collected. I should have spit on him. I should have said, I am if you are. The sacred and profane share a border.
HUSSY
Merriam-Webster defines hussy as a lewd or brazen woman. Lewd is offensive in a sexual way, but to be brazen is to be without shame. Lewd is a word often used to describe a dancing woman. In Old English, until about the 16th century, “lewd” referred to nonclerical men, lay men, those who were not priests or members of religious order. Perhaps lewd is a ghost from the time when women were spiritual practitioners who were not accepted as part of the religious order, and thus they were lewd. If they danced as part of their spiritual expression, well then they were very lewd indeed.
DMT
At twenty-four, I am a self-proclaimed “seeker.” I watch a Netflix documentary about DMT, “The Spirit Molecule.” When a member of Summit Series, a new and hip conscious business community, offers me and my best friend a private DMT experience, I say yes. Sprinkled over a marijuana pipe, I take one hit and leave the third dimension. I see vibrant complex geometry – red and green and black. The shapes undulates, like a snake coiling in a kaleidoscope creating the sacred geometry of a blooming rose. My ears melt in erotic pleasure. A violin is sexing me with a dance. The deep, dark, and bright colors vibrate to the strings. An amorphous energy is present. A woman! I can’t see her but I feel her. I am immersed in her. Her lubricious laughter is teasing and playful. She is tantalizing. I’m enveloped in the sultry sense of her immense power. She is pure, raw, uninhibited feminine energy. She is source. Big mama. I’m scared. Is she terrifying? Yes, and she is terrific.
I’m home in a primordial sensual realm, feeling with my feminine brain. Slap! My sexuality is clarifying my mind, not poisoning it. I knew my understanding of life was decisively and forever changed; and that change felt like power.
The experience is over in a handful of minutes. I blink and I’m back in this reality. The reason for the patriarchal paradigm is so obvious all of the sudden. She is so powerful, it’s frightening. Shame is a tool to subvert her. But it’s a fool’s errand. She is omnipotent. She is the the gushing of the rivers; the depth of the oceans; the massive of the mountains; the delicacy of the flowers; the violence of volcanoes. She both creates and destroys. Feared by men and women alike, we push her down in our psyche and culture. The once and future Goddess, relegated to the underworld; made to be the story of “original sin.”
ORIGINAL INNOCENCE
It's taken me nearly a decade to fully grasp the magnanimity of what was known in that moment. Even without this experience, would I have figured it out? The truth hides in plain sight. Purity is not the same as holiness. They are not interchangeable. Purity is separation from. Holy is communion in. Sex is holy. Sexuality is aliveness, it is not indecent nor sinful; it is the portal to higher consciousness. A force both human and divine, sexuality deserves our greatest respect. Feminine energy is creative energy. Creative energy is sexual energy. Sexual energy is sensual, pleasure giving, erotic and healing.
So in that moment, what did I know? What did I see?
She was me.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this piece of writing, I would be so grateful if you shared it.
With so much love,
Christina
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