to capture her soul.
— Leila Hussein —
my heart is not a clock…
Love, like art,
must always be free.
– Wachowskis and J. Michael Straczynski –
to nature’s hearbeat…
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where non intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more…
— Lord Byron —
this freedom inside…
We should choose someone
because they make us come alive
with passion and feel empowered.
— Laura Brown —
letters to a young poet…
To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. For this reason young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet know love: they have to learn it. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and so loving, for a long while ahead and far on into life, is — solitude, intensified and deepened loneness for him who loves. Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over, and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate — ?), it is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world for himself for another’s sake, it is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.
— Rilke
giving your body to your lover is a gift…
“Sometimes I get real lonely sleeping with you.”
~ Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
We want intimacy and avoid sex. Or we fear intimacy and crave sex.
There is a pervasive confusion about sex and intimacy. We use the words interchangeably, but purely physical intimacy stops way short of a meaningful experience or a sustainable connection. The more we focus on the physicality of sex—how we look, what we wear, toys and techniques—the further we get from true intimacy.
Here are my six suggestions for having radically intimate sex.
1. Shhhhh: No Talking
Often when we think of intimacy, we think about the sharing of secrets. There is something intimate about verbalizing our innermost thoughts and desires—especially when it comes to sex. However, as alluring as fantasy can be, by its very definition, it’s a way of escaping reality. And we tend to hide behind our words, using conversation as a means of avoiding vulnerability. We tell people who we are instead of showing them.
True intimacy with a lover happens in the silent moments of presence and connectedness between words.
Practice #1: Set a specific time to meet in the bedroom without speaking a single word. Spend an hour together, not talking, before any physical intimacy begins. Show up clean—physically and emotionally. This is an opportunity to let our stories fall away—as individuals and as a couple—making room for a deep, non-verbal, energetic connection.
2. Make It Anti-Climactic: No Orgasm
When Emerson said, “Life is a journey, not a destination” he meant that when we focus on getting to a particular goal, we miss value in the moments along the way. And so it is with sex. There are reports that women can have 11 different kinds of orgasms. From the time men are boys, they are fascinated with ejaculating (it’s a built-in, biological preoccupation on which the survival of the species depends!). We have misunderstood the destination of sex to be orgasm, and by doing so, robbed ourselves of some potentially powerful opportunities for both pleasure and intimacy.
Practice #2: Agree upfront to forgo reaching orgasm. Take the possibility completely off the table, for both of you. By doing so, you provide space to be present and find appreciation of each moment for the pleasure and connection it brings, without distraction. Take turns bringing each other close and backing off. Notice the powerful bond created as you hold each other on the brink of ecstasy.
3. Like a Lava Lamp: Slow It Way Down
We live in a fast-paced, over-stimulating, 140-character-status-update kind of world. As a culture, we are usually focused on “doing” rather than “being.” Because we juggle so many responsibilities, sex tends to become just another thing on the “To Do List.”
Rushing through the “doing of sex” does not encourage the “being” of intimacy.
Practice #3: Create a bubble of time and space to climb into together. Do whatever it takes to enable getting lost in your own world together. Make a conscious decision not to rush. Let energy flow between you like a lava lamp. Moving verrrrry slowly, savor each moment of sensation and allow intimacy to rise.
4. Sealed with a Kiss: Undress Each Other
Whether it’s your first time together, or you’ve been having sex for 30 years, giving your body to your lover is a gift. To receive your partner’s body is a privilege. Don’t let modesty or habit stop you from honoring this generous exchange.
Practice #4: This practice is most comfortable done with the lights dimmed or by candlelight. Undress each other by taking turns removing one article of clothing at a time. As each piece comes off, gently kiss the part of the body revealed in gratitude.
5. In and Out: Breathe Life Into It
It is a technique in meditation to turn the focus from thoughts to the breath. In Tantra, partners will “match breath” as a way of forming an energetic connection that is not based on the giving and receiving of physical pleasure.
Practice #5: Begin in a simple embrace. Spend a few minutes slowing and synchronizing your breath. Silently negotiate a rhythm that is comfortable for both of you. Pause at the top of each inhale and at the bottom of each exhale, creating a moment of mutual stillness. Breathing together is facilitated by cooperation and consideration for each other. Try to maintain this collaboration as sex unfolds.
6. Windows to the Soul: Eye Gazing
Eye contact is a distinct point of connection. Yet, it is common to keep one’s eyes closed during sex. Extended eye contact reveals vulnerability, and so it can be a powerful facilitator of intimacy.
Practice #6: Sit on the floor facing each other and gaze into each other’s eyes without looking away for 20 minutes. Shifting from eye to eye helps sustain the gaze. Maintain eye contact as much as possible as sex unfolds. Play with looking into each other’s eyes all the way through orgasm. It is nearly impossible to climax with open eyes (like sneezing).
Gazing into your lover’s eyes at the moment of release just might be the very definition of intimacy.
— Zoë Kors —
mírame…
I recently read that there is no greater intimacy then to hold your lover’s eyes as you cum. I believe this to be true. The trick is to find another who is brave enough to bear such beauty in their soul… this light called Hope.
where the wild things are…
Where do we come from?
What are we?
Where are we going?
you can’t have it all…
But you can have the fig tree and
its fat leaves like clown hands
gloved with green.
You can have the touch of a single
eleven-year-old finger
on your cheek, waking you at one
a.m. to say the hamster is back.
You can have the purr of the cat
and the soulful look
of the black dog, the look that
says, If I could I would bite
every sorrow until it fled, and when
it is August,
you can have it August and
abundantly so.
You can have love,
though often it will be mysterious,
like the white foam
that bubbles up at the top of the
bean pot over the red kidneys until
you realize foam’s twin is blood.
You can have the skin at the center
between a man’s legs,
so solid, so doll-like.
You can have the life of the mind,
glowing occasionally in priestly
vestments, never admitting
pettiness, never stooping to bribe
the sullen guard who’ll tell you
all roads narrow at the border.
You can speak a foreign language, sometimes,
and it can mean something.
You can visit the marker on the grave
where your father wept openly.
You can’t bring back the dead,
but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands
as if they meant to spend a lifetime together.
And you can be grateful for makeup,
the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful
for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels
sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts,
for passion fruit, for saliva.
You can have the dream,
the dream of Egypt,
the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand.
You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed,
at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping
of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise.
You can’t count on grace to pick you out of a crowd
but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump,
how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards,
until you learn about love, about sweet surrender,
and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind
as real as Africa.
And when adulthood fails you,
you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond
of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas
your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept.
There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother’s,
it will always whisper, you can’t have it all,
but there is this.
– Barbara Ras –