Is Pleasure a Good Thing?

Have you ever been lost in a bout of Hedonism and debauchery? Maybe, for the few moments of fleeting pleasure you experienced, you thought it was true bliss. Maybe, after the experience was over you felt depleted and guilty, or, maybe not at all. Either way, pleasure is causing a great deal of pain for folks interested in self-development lately, and the pain is in need of healing.

The Empress Archetype is a template for the divine feminine in human form, a template we can each look to for guidance about navigating our feminine energies, whether we are men or women. Everyone has yin energy and, therefore, everyone can learn from the five virtues of the Empress:
1. Intelligence
2. Fertility
3. Vitality
4. Right Action
5. Beneficial Influence

Because the Empress is ruled by Venus, the planet of love and beauty, it stands to reason that the Empress is also a source of pleasure since many of us link pleasure to love and beauty.

In a time when many are overwhelmed with, what I like to call, "Guilt of Consciousness", we are probing our depths and asking big questions. One of the questions at the fore is: "Is pleasure a good thing?" One of the reasons we're asking this question is because many of the consequences we are facing now are due, in part, to the pleasure seeking of yesteryear. It stands to reason that we would be toiling over this very fundamental question.

One answer is simple, though its practical application is hardly easy. We could be meant to experience great pleasure and, truly, to follow our bliss... BUT, this would also mean that we must examine our desires for pleasure, excavate the hidden motives we carry for our pleasure seeking, and begin to consider the consequences and costs of the pleasure we seek.

Rudimentary? Perhaps before things in our global environmental and economic climate began to change. Now, however, it seems we are with fewer black and white rules and so we must learn to examine our lives with more reverence for color than ever before. Translation: we need to be in touch with our emotions and their spiritual messages in order to weigh the costs of our pleasures more holistically and completely.

For more thoughts on the subject and some groovy tunes, check out this episode of Every Empress:

http://virginiajester.podOmatic.com/entry/eg/2009-10-26T21_15_32-07_00

What do you think, or, perhaps more appropriately, what do you feel? Be well, friends, and remember that we are one!