Susan Frioni hosts the podcast LOVE SEX DESIRE from Brisbane, Australia, where she also leads “sexy and soulful” Sacred Dance Parties. Attendees of her next event, themed “Resurrected,” are invited to consider “What part of you is aching to be brought back to life?” Although the dance is a great distance away, Frioni’s question lives very near to my heart. I’ve incurred a few losses recently that have been unsettling and painful, but have also made space to experience more joy.
To feel into what is re-emerging, I’ve been communing with internal “parts” that I can’t hear when I’m busy. They’ve been advising me to listen to Bach flute concertos in the morning, as I did in 1978. Back then, I was completing a college coop at an alternative health center in Boston. When the sun was barely rising, I would crank up the concertos and prepare rations of wheatgrass, considered the “staff of life” for our terminally ill residents, as were colonics.Once a week the staff held its own sacred dance party. I remember dancing ecstatically to Stevie Wonder’s album Inner Vision, which is still a favorite of mine. Our youthful vigor was the yang to the yin of our guest’s ebbing vitality. We drank and ate freely, flouting the strict raw food regimen we otherwise followed. Even though I hated wheatgrass – and detest it now – I was exposed to wellness practices that I “mostly” adhere to today. Not infrequently, though, I stray from the path. In fact, my life has been a journey of finding and losing my appreciation of music, salubrious lifestyle and roving inner vision.
To Frioni’s question, I can answer that the part of me that is devoted to sacred hedonism is aching to come back to life. She is a lover of ritual, beauty, movement, reading-for-fun and sensual pleasure of all kinds. This part sprung to life again while I was sipping Blue Butterfly tea with rice milk at a Vietnamese restaurant in Berlin. My love affair with tea, which harkens back to my teenage years in Toronto, was roused by this exotic libation. Seeing me love struck, our friends urged us to visit Paper and Tea, where we blew our wad on a miniature pot, two Zen sipping cups and a tiny ceramic storage jar (presumably the last of its kind) that cost more than the teapot and cups.
That spree made the trip totally worthwhile (Berlin was unbearably cold in January). The grassy notes of sencha, fragrant oolong, and diminutive accoutrements add beauty and sensuality to the start of my day. I am eternally fascinated by the way hot water turns tight blossoms into billowy kelp-like strands. My friend Tony caught my vibe and bought me a Chinese “Gaiwan” (a lidded bowl that functions as a teapot and teacup in one) for my birthday. Now I can make these holy infusions wherever I am. He also threw in little bags of twigs and tarry patties that I made sure were drinkable – and legal.
While sipping tea this morning, I realized that “resurrected” fits perfectly with the presentation I am giving at a conference next month. Entitled, “Waking from the Performance Trance in Erotic Recovery,” it speaks to honoring the “Can” instead of the “Can’t,” the “Want” instead of the “Should,” which is particularly hard when we’ve suffered erotic injuries and losses.
Loss and resurrection shadow us throughout life, inside and outside of the bedroom. While some things are best let go of, like hurtful ideas about ourselves, or favored positions that now strain our joints, we can always resurrect dormant aspects of our eroticism, no matter our age or stage of life. The question “What parts are aching to come back to life?” definitely applies to sexuality, and is the focus of Part 3 of our couple’s retreats: Erotic Expression: Befriending the Many Guises of Desire.
In the erotic realm (possibly in every realm), this question is best directed to our body. Our body can show us, through movement, what is waking up now; what parts are stirring to life. It’s so easy to lose touch with our body, and therefore our intrinsic eroticism, especially if we’ve been hurt, or if we are anxious, critical, fast and goal-oriented. When we’re in this “performance trance,” we’re apt to end up in familiar places of pain and dissatisfaction. In contrast, if we let go of ideas about what we can do, about what will happen, about how things should happen, we can recover trust in our body as a wise and reliable guide. This eliminates the effort and striving associated with sex, and eventually the fear, as we shed images of “healthy,” “functional,” “hot,” and “normal” in favor of what feels right in the moment.
Mindful embodied sex helps us listen and respond to the parts that are aching to come back to life. It takes time and some training to recover this natural birthright. We may have to empty the cache of imprints that prevent us from hearing these parts. Sometimes, they show up in our fantasies and dreams, which is why it helps to notice what turns us on and who is doing what that arouses us.
To find out more about reviving intimacy as a couple and enjoying passionate sex again, join me for our upcoming webinar series “Finding Your Erotic Potential as a Couple,” or register for Part One of our 4-part Training, “Tending Eros in Long-Term Relationships.”
