Tantric hangover

We discussed how each of us women carries within her every person who's been sexual with her. No wonder many of us take these things so seriously! We brought the 60s back, forging a sacred reconnection with ancient matriarchal ritual, baring ourselves and identifying the parts of each other we felt to be the most beautiful. Inevitably, we found that the things we were most self-conscious about were often the very source of our gorgeousness, and we heard ourselves commenting on the many facets of beauty the fashion mags leave out. I almost included the list of compliments I was given, but it was sounding too X-rated, so I'll have to leave that to your imagination. Then we dined outside, wearing sarongs, and the fare was, most happily for me, vegan with a lot of raw.

It was in this atmosphere of acceptance and appreciation that we told the stories of our Yonis and proceeded to explore them in the most accurate ways. Our teacher turned us into sticks of butter, and we melted and, becoming sponges, soaked up our surroundings, hummingbirds darting through massive umbrellas of glittering leaves. We exited that secluded Silverlake location radiantly but reluctantly, like the post-coital separation from your partner necessitated by the demands of dental hygiene. You don't want to leave, but you have to. Otherwise, your teeth will rot. And you can't stay in bed forever, can you?

We had never felt from other fingers what our classmates' fingers had so simply brought out--this from a room of women who have, for the most part, had attentive partners who've delighted them with all sorts of tingling touches. I can only imagine what sex with a conscious lover is like. Did I just say lover? Yeah, I did. With conscious fingers. And other conscious parts. It is refreshing to continue on a path of allowance of ever-increasing pleasure, of basking in the orgasmic way of being that is more than sex and certainly more than the boring definition society offers--the meeting of penis and vagina. It is carnal inspiration, then a gaze, heat, touch, and whatever else you dream up. We actually have sex way more than we think.

The event was powerful, and I am grateful to have had the courage to see it through. Turns out I've learned something valuable from the challenging partners who have been unwilling to commit to a real relationship: when we have resistance to something, we have to push through it because that's precisely where the healing is. Björk was right in Five Years when she called out the cowards "who can't handle love." I am more "bored with cowards" than I've ever been because I'm braver than ever. Because I took a chance on the unknown, I feel like I'm recovering from a night of indulging in the perfect amounts of red wine, dark chocolate, and cocaine followed by repeat effings by a partner who loves me intensely, even though I'm a teetotaler who's never done blow and hasn't had a boyfriend since Nixon was in the White House. I do love my chocolate, though.

We are changed. We've seen and been seen. Our society doesn't make room for this kind of seeing. We don't see birth because we've handed that process to doctors, who've kept it in hospitals. If you are present for it, you're often asked not to look too long. We don't really see the bit of nudity that is supposedly available to us. On nude beaches, we have to pretend we're not looking. We live not seeing bodies outside of a sexual context, while dead and dying bodies are shielded from view. It's a spectrum of not seeing, one in which there is little expansion. We don't see what other people are and therefore do not see ourselves. If we're ready to see, though, we can. Any woman should be able to feel the universe that is another woman, that is woman herself, without fear or shame. We should be encouraged to know in a deeper way who we are, that each of us is a universe in the universe, the microcosm to the macrocosm. We are the trees and the birds and the sky. We are breath and energy and life itself.

I am a universe. This realization not only changes every interaction I will ever have but also informs my musical responses to upcoming experiences. Future inhabitants of my universe should start sweating over their resumes.