Yoni - What Does it Mean? On Google and Bling?

First of all, Yoni is a term borrowed from India's ancient language, Sanskrit or devanagari ("divine language"). It can be translated by several English concepts ("origin", "source", "womb", "female genitals") and is the most respectful word available for naming what our modern languages refer to as vulva, pussy or cunt; or other equivalents.

The term Yoni heralds from a culture and religion in which women have long been regarded and honored as the embodiment of divine female energy - the goddess known as Shakti - and where the female genitals are seen as a sacred symbol of the Great Goddess.

Because Tantrics and others worship the Divine in the form of a Goddess, the term yoni has also acquired other, more cosmic meanings, becoming a symbol of the Universal Womb, the Matrix of Generation and Source of All.

Second, and most unfortunate for a) people interested in the Yoni and b) many male Israeli's, Yoni is the short version for men named Jonatan. It's a grievance to them, and it's a grievance to all of those who'd like the term YONI in a search on Google or Bling to only bring up information about the Sanskrit YONI.

Well, here's a kind of temporary solution. Search for yoni woman, yoni massage, yoni portraits, yoni art or yoni sanskrit - and you'll find way more relevant pages than by searching for yoni alone.

Image: Copyright © Christina Camphausen. For more about her work, check out this blog.

Intimate Part - Delicate Art

Judging by this image, it seems that the world-wide Atheist Club and their ingenious ad-campaign have inspired others to get on the bus as well.

After all, being on a Big City Bus assures a rather large audience, and it may - perhaps - create quite a Buzz.

However, in this case the message seems to be for a rather different club, because the word Yoni is mainly known to people who speak ancient Sanskrit, apart from a few hundred thousand others who have read books about Her, books about the Goddess, books about Gyn-Ecology.

Now if you're not one of this club, perhaps the image at left will say more than the proverbial thousand words. It is just as the title of this item announced ... Yoni Portraits is a book showing - in gorgeous colors - women's most intimate part in the form of delicate art. And the artist who created these intimate portraits (of 49 daring women) is a woman as well. She is Dutch and her name is Christina Camphausen.

So the advert on the bus is about a book featuring her art ... and to find out more about it you can best move your hand for a fraction so that the mouse can click on this link which goes to the website where you can find out all about the artist and her book ... not to mention order it - if you like what you see and read.

Click on the image for a large version.

Copyright © Christina Camphausen - All Rights Reserved. Used here with permission.

Megalithic Temple of the Yoni

In a paper entitled Stonehenge: a view from medicine (Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, February 2003), Professor Anthony M. Perks has launched the theory that the megaliths have been build in order to represent the Yoni (female genitalia).

Viewed from above, Perks suggests, the inner bluestone circle is equivalent to the labia minora, and the giant outer sarsen circle to the labia majora. Last not least, the altar stone represents the clitoris … and so on.

As was to be expected, the theory has been criticized and made ridiculous in many newspaper articles and on many blogs. What most people do not realize - because hardly anyone reads the original paper - is that Mr. Perks himself has admitted that it’s just a theory; and one that can never be tested, never be proven right or wrong.

Naturally, everyone is free to see it this way or not, but the idea very well fits into the framework of many ancient religious beliefs in which an Earth Mother and other Goddesses had a central role.

One doesn’t have to believe it … but it certainly is good food for thought.

The original article from JRSM can be read in this PDF