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"Sex is more than you think it is."  - Seth

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Sex is this for me now.  It is, I think, the essence of that mystical union that religions often strive to provide.  The vision of the spirit in the flesh that was offered but dimly in my childhood rituals in church is now fulfilled in my life.

I am you, you are me, I am you.  We mirror each other.  Sexual giving and receiving don't really exist as separate activities. I give to my lover, and in his response, I see my own self reflected back to me.  I get the experience of him, the feelings he is feeling, which arise through his experience of me.  I am receiving myself back, and in this state of mind, I receive him as well.  There is no barrier.

This can be frightening, as life itself can be.  Sex involves more than physical nakedness, and when I express myself nakedly, I must have the courage to experience what is reflected back at me.  The great gift of this intimate mirror of sexuality, however, is that I can see myself as truly beautiful, truly powerful in my being, and truly one with another, and thus with the universe itself.

Does a tree, or a bee, feel itself separate from the earth and from its fellow creatures? Does it long to connect to another body in order to feel whole?  Sounds silly to imagine.  We live in paradise and are creatures as surely as a tree or a bee.  I welcome touch as I welcome sunshine.  There is no barrier necessary between me and the world.  I am as safe with other human beings as a bee is safe in its hive.

At least, this is my ideal.  I come close to this in actual experience as well, but just as the sun sometimes causes a burn, so do sexual interactions at times cause pain.  I am not more hurt, though, than the time it takes me to soothe my wounded skin and step out into the sunshine again.

It took me years to see this.  I moved like a snail towards the sunshine of my body, gradually leaving behind the shadow of my fears.  I feared others as well as my own self.  Looking back on the trail I left, I see how it was mostly curiousity that kept me moving forward, and still does.  There is always more, and more, and more to discover in this communal body we share as physical beings.

To illustrate what I am saying, I offer you this meditation in love-making.

Imagine sitting in a backyard, under a tree, and how safe that feels, to simply be in the presence of another living creature.  Your physical bodies are near each other.  The tree is aware of your presence, of your physical and spiritual essence, and it is not afraid.

Imagine that you can make love to a tree.  This is the essence of making love to another human being.  Touch the tree.  Feel the bark.  The bark is its skin.  Touch the skin of the tree.  Softly at first, very gently.  Yes, it's a tree, and it's tough, but you want to feel its essence.  Go gently at first, and slowly, and turn off your mind, letting your fingers do the listening, the responding, the thinking.  Your fingers are your sexual eyes and ears as you touch this tree.  Feel it's vibrancy.  It's alive, it's growing, its cells are dividing and growing, dying, changing, swimming past each other intimately and closely.  The cells of the tree are naked, vibrant, surging with rhythm, giving life to the tree in each second.

Caress the tree's skin.  Feel how it responds to your touch.  It knows you are touching it, and it knows how you are touching it, and it feels the energy flowing out of your fingers.  It takes it into itself.  It puts its mind toward you, and it listens to your hands, and it feels you.

It would be strange, at this point, to become afraid.  If the tree were a human being, though, it would be quite normal to begin to put up inner blocks and psychic barriers.  We have so many reasons to back off from each other.  Forget human for a moment.

You don't have any notion of how to make love to a tree.  Nevertheless, you are doing it.  You caress with your soft fingertips the smooth, or rough, bark of this fine tree under your touch.  You are enchanting it, making it take notice, soothing it and stimulating it.  Let it feel you.  The tree understands sex in a different way.  Be curious.  The tree understands the rawness of touch, the nakedness of touch, the power of physical form in a way that you don't.  Let it teach you. Move your body against the tree's bark.  Hold your entire body against the tree, and lean into it as if it were your lover.  Don't think about what is supposed to happen in your body when you make love, or what is supposed to happen in the body of the other.  The other is a tree, in this instance, and there is nothing at all that you could possibly know about what is supposed to happen.  Just lean in and feel your skin connecting with its skin.

There is passion in this tree, just as there is passion in every living thing.  To stand and grow in the sunshine and bend in the winds and be drenched by the rains and reach higher and higher to the sky every day, that is passion, and that is what sex is concerned with, as much as life is concerned with it.  Passion to be.  Passion to be more.  Passion to share one's being.  Passion to share more of one's being.

Wrap your arms around the tree.  Kiss the tree, lightly, letting your lips just graze the bark.  Feel if the tree likes your lips, if the tree kisses you back.  Branches might caress your neck, or a breeze might be called by the tree to pass over you and lift your hair a tiny bit.  You may feel yourself becoming closer to the tree, understanding the tree's existence more, wanting to notice the colors, the texture, the smell, wanting to climb the tree.  The tree may be wanting this too, to feel your whole body pushed up against it, moving, climbing, stretching, laying your weight upon it, sucking its leaves.

The tree may be finding you very sweet to have around.

Imagine climbing onto one of those strong curved branches, wrapping your legs around it, and letting the tree take over, letting the tree bring you into it's own passion.  Breathe with the tree.  Don't think of how to breathe, just let your breath fall onto the tree, and let the tree breathe through you.  Your bodies are intertwined now.  Does a tree have an orgasm?  How would you know?  What would it feel like?  You don't know.  You don't need to know.  You don't need to know anything at all.

Making love to a human being is the same.  There is nothing that is supposed to happen beyond this touching, this being close, this wondrous connection of bodies, this shared energy between two separate pieces of life, which is what you are, a piece of life.  We are each pieces of the earth, creatures with skin and hearts and breath and lips and eyes and ears and extensions outward toward other creatures.  There is no danger in being a naked creature, and there is no danger in touching.

The danger lies in not touching.  I do not mean go out and fuck wildly with everyone.  I mean, let yourself be open to the nakedness of yourself and the nakedness of everyone you meet, and don't fear it.  You can live celibate, and still understand this beautiful nakedness, and not fear it.  It's not the amount or the type of sex or the purity or sleaziness of it that matters.  The choices are not between monogamy or non-monogamy, or gender of partner, or particular lifestyle.  The choice is between feeling and not feeling.  You are as naked and as vital as a tree stretching itself to the sky, or a monkey grabbing it's crotch, or a butterfly that lives only to mate, and die.  Sex is not just sex.  What it is... well, that is the mystery we each explore. 

©1998, Mui. Printed in the October 1998 Issue of the online Conscious Creation Journal. (Feel free to duplicate this column for personal use - please include this copyright notice.) http://www.consciouscreation.com/