Which came first, the phallus or the egg?

I held a shiva lingam yesterday, a sacred stone from the Narmada River in western India, which resembles both a phallus and an egg, and is considered to hold energy of the divine union of male and female, among other positive qualities. When holding it, what kept coming up for me was seed. A seed holds everything needed for the full manifestation of the plant/universe. It is tiny, and usually well protected. Its being is part of a dynamic of relations, movement, nourishing and receiving. It may be called potential, though I see it more as the whole universe in a turtle shell. It's all there, it's all perfect. You can hardly see any of it, but with time you will see an ongoing cycle, that continues from that same seed when the plant it becomes dies and rejoins the earth and becomes part of another plant and many other forms of life.

I haven't been here in a while. My life has been full of tumult this fall and winter, both harmonious and discordant. I'm realizing as I write that I haven't been here because I don't feel that the blogosphere, no matter how small mine may be, is where I want to process what's going on through these times. Still, it feels good to remember that I have a place to begin a conversation, or an expression to a quiet ear, about whatever comes up...