The Yoni: Sacred Symbol of Female Creative Power

From earliest times, humanity has found visual expression for the cosmic forces of creation, birth, and passion in artistic representations of human genitalia. Fertility cults centered on phallic worship are well documented, but older and even more pervasive are Goddess images of the vulva-known in the East since ancient times as the yoni. Yoni symbolism is a part of spiritual traditions in every part of the globe-from naturally occuring rock formations revered by North American Native peoples to the shakta-pithas of Hindu temples, and from early Celtic sheela-na-gig carvings to the Japanese kagura ritual.

The Yoni traces this primal motif in Australian Aboriginal folk tales, in alchemy, in Tantric practices, and in contemporary art by painters such as Georgia O'Keefe and Judy Chicago. 

Dozens of illustrations, many in color, reproduce the variety of carvings, drawings, and other portrayals of this universal symbol of feminine creativity. 

This engaging, honest and beautifully written book is something that could make a grandiose change for the better in the lives of so many people. The author has a truly brave personality with a profound wisdom and sharp ability to understand life and women. I was surpised at the negative content of some reviews. One cannot really thrive on sustaining one's complexes and attempts to shed and ignore truth and facts.

I read this book because it was a required reading for a Yoga Prenatal Teacher Training I am taking. I would say this book is LIFE CHANGING. I am not kidding.

This book blew me away. It has so much historical information in it, and it touches on so many issues from cultural to spiritual to sexual and emotional.

If you are at all interested or intriqued, enough so that you are reading this, then you must buy it and read it. I'm loaning it and recommending it to all my female friends.

And I have three young daughters, and I'm going to make sure they know all about their yonis and the power of creation they all carry within them.

I find the contents of this book is academic and well researched.

I also liked the guiding spirit of the volume, that is celebrating female genitals.

However, I found the page that described the 4 arch types of Yonis according to Ayur veda a little bit like bogus.

You need more actual examples and more detailed comments.

Primitive people lived or died by the success or failure of their crops and by the growth or dwindling of their flocks. New life meant everything to their survival. It is no wonder that, when their instinct for religion demanded a focus, that those people focused on their own lives. The outer sign of the birth canal embodies the source of life most directly. So, when early man sought to worship the creative force, early woman provided the most direct link to creation, in her own person. Yoni worship arose that way: veneration of a woman's outer genitals as a symbol of divine presence.

Camphausen examines that worship across tens of millenia, up to the current day. His passionate tone might startle a hard-core Freudian. No trace of penis (lingam) envy contaminates this text, quite the opposite. Instead, Camphausen documents praise of femininity and fecundity from Venus of Willendorf (who he renames) to recent works by Georgia O'Keefe and by his wife, Christina. In between, he documents a wide range of devotions, devotional art, and secular representation.

In many cases, though, I come away wondering just what "secular" means, if the religious spirit is something that arises from within. The yoni clearly inspires Camphausen's sense of the divine. Secularist that I am, I have to admit: his intensity of spirit moves me past respect and affection towards devotion, too.

-- wiredweird

I think this book and its message are very, very valuable both from a psychological/ spiritual AND a purely health standpoint. The pictures are beautiful, the text uplifting. It's not silly, insulting or ridiculous. The fact is in the past ( and even today) many woman let serious health issues go unchecked and untreated because they can't deal with their own genitals until a problem has already taken root. Woman have *died* because they were to ashamed to look "down there" or describe symptoms to a medical practitioner. A positive attitude toward the Yoni is not only spiritually uplifting, it can be lifesaving!

I am dismayed to read woman reviewers describe their own vaginas as smelly and dirty. I have a friend who is an OB /GYN nurse, and she says that while a little natural odor is normal , an unpleasant odor is often the sign of an infection, poor hygiene or a more serious underlying medical problem. The "fishy" odor that many people attribute to woman is often a symptom of a bacterial infection called Gardnerella ( sp?). Or- men take notice- post sex it can be the result of proteins ( semen ) breaking down in the acidic environment of the vagina. Women, If you truly smell bad on an ongoing basis, go see a doctor! Also, woman often assume that men think they smell bad because this is the way they were taught. My husband sent me straight on that one! Many men enjoy the way a clean healthy woman smells.

And someone farther down on the list said that it's a medical fact that the vagina and female genitals in general are dirty and unsanitary. This is *not* a medical fact. One of the dirtiest area of the human body is the mouth, and few people are horrified of kissing. When someone who has has a joint replacement or a heart condition goes in for dental work or certain types of rectal exams/ surgeries, they often must "pre medicate" with antibiotics because there's so much bacteria in these two areas and it can get into the bloodstream and cause serious problems. Heart and joint replacement patients do *not* have to pre medicate before a pelvic exam or surgery in the female genital area. Check with a doctor or nurse! If it were really so dirty, they would!

I lent this book to so many people over the years that it has finally disappeared. I guess I should buy another copy!