Sexual Purity ... What IS It ...?

Sexuality is a hot topic.

(moment of silence for all the resonating "duh's"...)

A heated discussion about "purity" came up on Facebook, about the value of "waiting 'til marriage" ... and "holding out for purity" ... and all manner of other expectations that we have, culturally and variously, about the "shoulds" of sex. Not only "shoulds" prior to marriage/partnership, but within it to ... expectations, fears, shame, insecurities, rejection, control, manipulation, punishment, rules, restrictions, limitations ... all of which limits who we are, and how we can freely express that.

It was asked: Why is sex the one natural drive that we are supposed to suppress?

I ask: who came up with this notion of "purity" ... what does it really mean, is it valid, or an archaic-and-now-obsolete concept, and does it have ANYthing to do with humans in the first place...? AND, how can we guide our children through this morass, particularly when we're navigating those waters ourselves...?

Sooooo ... my (randomly-meandering) thoughts:

"Purity" is a false standard based on the erroneous belief that something is wrong/tainted about us, and that sex is dirty (think of our words, "your mind is in the gutter"). Why would we not, instead say, "my mind was just soaring the heights"...?

We do this, because we FEAR the raw power of sex (women have been taught to fear losing control, surrendering ... & men have been taught to fear and suppress the sexual capacity/power of women, for millennia). We fear the vulnerability of exposing ourselves ... of being naked before another - not just in the exposure of our body, but in baring our hearts, minds, souls, shadows, secrets ... those deep places that we both fear to expose, and yet LONG to expose. Ah, that hunger to see and be seen ... and to risk the pain of rejection, in order to experience an accepting-connection.

We have been trained to be "destination-focused" in sexuality, rather than "journey-focused" ... going after that orgasmic-prize ... so we trade in the present-moment joy, in pursuit of a goal (of course, we do this with the totality of life).

Sexuality, as I see and experience it, is our primary energy, as humans ... and it totally merges with our spirituality -- we are both divinity and humanity (think of upper/"heavenly" and lower/"earthly" chakras; and they *meet* at the heart). My sexuality IS my spirituality; the divine/human-dichotomy that enables me to be alive. ALL life begins with an orgasm - no exception. Making love to another human being, with whom my heart is connected is THE most spiritual thing I can do with my body. It is THE most transformative healing-tool on the planet (for authentic intimacy will bring up *every* thing within me that "objects" and says I am not worthy of such a beautiful experience). It is THE most intimate and powerful way of expressing love to another.

It does NOT require a judge's signature, or a pastor's homily, or the exchange of rings, or the recitation of vows, or ANY aspect of the humanly-invented institution we call "marriage" to render us "pure" or to give us *permission* to do that which our bodies were clearly designed/created/intended to DO.

What I want most, for me and for my children, is to find a partner with whom they are matched and connected (heart/mind/soul/body), and to explore the beauty of sexuality with an open heart, an eager soul, a free mind and an enraptured body, and to enJOY every possible nuance of that experience.

Only they (& each one of us) knows when that has happened. Only they truly know when they are ready. And yes, it may, like all other learning-experiences (from walking to working, to mastering a new skill) require a great deal of trial and error (i.e., "mistakes" - THE vehicle by which we learn ANYthing), to discover who they are, who they are not, what they want, what they do not want. WithOUT the burden of shame, judgement and punishment.

What if true "purity" is the commitment to authentically be who we are?

It starts with the basics (what I tell myself, my children, anyone else): love yourself (without which you cannot love another); know yourself; trust yourself; honor yourself and the other; be responsible and response-able; communicate openly; express uninhibitedly; indulge lavishly; be aware and wise about that small window of time in which pregnancy can occur, so act accordingly. Learn what pleases you, and what pleases the other, laugh, play, explore, and dance that beautiful, powerful, reciprocally-mergering, giving-and-receiving blur-dance of uberly-utter BLISS-out, because you were *made* to do so...! *~YES!!!!~*

(that had a lovely crescendo-effect, as I got caught up in what I was writing ... not unlike the energy of sexuality, itself! Whew! Now I want to cuddle!)

Born-Again...?

I did something crazy-brave today ...

I drove south, to the city of my birth, to experience a process that's a type of "rebirthing".

The process is called Transformational Breathwork ... it's a self-healing modality that enables a deep integrating of old, "stuck" emotional energy ... allowing it to be accessed, experienced, felt, and "digested" so that the body can use it, rather than waste energy suppressing/wharehousing it.

The mind can get rather annoyed, since it's not part of the process ... which is good, as I no longer am interested in getting trapped in the mental-circularity ... my mind only *thinks* it helps me with its myriad of stories, explanations, plans, solutions and interpretations... all the while busying me with the "effects" while the "cause" goes on unseen ...

The point of TB is to get to the cause, without revisiting painful memories, or reliving traumatic events ... the body knows HOW to digest these emotional energies, just as it know show to digest the food we eat -- without our conscious involvement or instruction ("hey, banana, turn left ... ok, stop ... ok, body, start with the digestive juices now...").

Our bodies have innate wisdom we are largely unaware of.

The amazing woman who journeyed with me in this process is Phyllis Linn - in Eugene, Oregon. She opened up her home, her experience, and her gift to me ... and I am grateful.

While doing the connective breathing, and trusting the process, the facilitator massaged various spots on my body, to help "release" the trapped emotional energy ... and she would occasionally say a phrase she intuitively felt was corresponding to what I was repressing.

For instance:

I forgive everyone I believe has harmed me in any way.

It is safe to express all of who I am.

It is safe to fully give and receive love.

I trust the perfect and safe unfolding of my life.

With each of those statements, as I was breathing ... tears were released. I had no memories arise, I just felt a flood of emotion -- but more like I was observing this emotion being felt in my body, rather than feeling "the story" of the emotion.

Other messages I "received" were these:

The universe is friendly.

Everything that happens is FOR me, not TO me.

Everyone, including me, is doing their best, at all times.

I am unconditional love, at the very core of my being.

Everyone loves me -- they just might not know it yet.

What thought am I believing that is causing my suffering? Is it possible that it's not true?

At the end of the session, after over an hour of continuous breathing, movements, toning ... I was wrapped in a warm blanket, and left to slow my breathing to normal, while floating on gentle waves of music ... I felt peaceful, serene, safe ... calm. Loved. Empowered. I had flash-visions of me dancing ... and creating art. Ohhhhh, how I have missed me!

A far cry from the frenzy of fear, panic, grief, tied-in-knottedness I've been experiencing lately.

I do not yet know what was "done" ... whether this is a turning point from the "dark night of the soul" ... or whether it's just a merciful respite. I have to let this unfold, as I go forward. I know that this is a tool that I can continue ... a daily practice I can take with me in my life.

There was one more "take-away" that the facilitator gave me:

You live and move and have your being in a universe that consists of such tenderness, such love, such personal care of the living God, of the eternal presence in all that is, that it simply defies description. You are surrounded by a universe in which there is simply nothing ever to fear, no matter what momentary appearances may be.

And so it is ...

Don't Settle ...!

I often run into the admonition, "don't settle for less than what you deserve! you deserve the best - you deserve to be happy!"

Oh really..?

I mean, I get the concept. I've even said it: "I won't settle."

Who can say what is "settling"? I agree, never "settle" ... but no one outside of us can determine what that may be.

I will not settle for less than my soul's purpose ... but that may have nothing to do with our culture's romantic, fairy-tale expectations of what we think we "deserve" ... or "happily ever after."

Deep relationships are often about growth, not just "being happy" ... happiness is but one of a multitude of emotions that humans experience ... for me to label some emotions "good/welcome" and some "bad/unwelcome" is to become hemiplegic to my full humanity! If I squelch the "bad" emotions/experiences, I also dull the "good" emotions/experiences ... it takes both postivity and negativity to enable the universe itself to exist.

I am here to experience it all ... ala Rumi's

"The Guest House"

... every emotion, every experience, every encounter is a messenger to me, and therefore welcome (though I often resist, and need to continuously remind myself to be welcoming, when the painful "guests" arrive).

An authentically intimate relationship will "trigger" my deepest wounds, my core beliefs, my hidden shadows, and bring them to the surface ... this does not usually feel "good"...! It often feels like open-soul surgery, without any anesthesia. I am prone to blaming, projecting, and running. I am that human.

And yet, love would say, "I trust you - I welcome you into my depths - I give you permission to love me enough to mirror my depths back to me, so that I may know myself in ways I cannot on my own ... and I shall do the same for you."

I did not stand in the "stupid-happy" line for this lifetime ... I apparently stood in the "gimme full-throttle, roller-coastery, deep-saturation" line. It's wild. It's real. It's often gut-kickingly, double-overingly PAINful ... as in exquisite agony. But also excruciatingly delicious.

I want authentic intimacy. I will not settle for merely "happy."

Nope. No way. Nuh-uh.

'Member Me...?

When three people tell you that they visited your blog, in one day ... well, it may be time to revisit the notion of blogging again ...

Meanwhile ...

I quit my former job.
I moved back to the town where my children live.
I am in a magical and gorgeous Victorian house-turned-apartment.
I am experiencing the restoration of relationships.
I continue to be in a stage of cocooning ... transformation, nurturing, self-care, exploring who I am...
I am a "kept" woman ... kept by the Universe ... provided-for in wondrous ways.
Going to return to doing all manner of art, starting next month ... including inspiring children to discover their own inner-creativity.

It has been an intensely difficult and wonderful year ... more highs and lows than the stock market or a roller coaster. It's all been valid and required.

I wrote this last night ... it poured out of my heart:


For all those moments when my resistant mind screams, "yeah, but!" ..
For all those moments when my life feels hopelessly stuck in a rut ...
For all those moments when the wave of pain can double me over ...
For all those moments when it seems that life is all but over ...
For all those moments when despair rips open the scars of my heart ...
For all those moments when the child in me trembles or screams out ...
For all those moments when I feel so isolated and alone ...
For all those moments when I cry outloud "please let me just go home ..."
For all those moments when abject fear can collapse me to my knees ...
For all those moments when all I can manage to pray is "... oh god, please ...!" ...
For all those moments when I cry out, "no, no no, not again..!"
For all those moments when I long for confusion & suffering to end ...
For all those moments when I simply cannot take one thing more ...
For all those moments when I want to run & blindly flee out the door ...
For all those moments when I feel I simply have nothing left to give ...
For all those moments when I just can't find within me the will to live ...
For all those moments of sobbing out my heart into the floor ...
For all those moments of anguish - mind and heart seeming to be at war ...
For all those moments of wondering what the hell has become of my life?
For all those moments of longing for joy, but only finding strife ...
For all those moments of questioning my courage and sanity ...
For all those moments of begging Presence to clobber me with clarity ...
For all those moments of nagging Spirit, "I just need another sign!"
For all those moments I'd give anything, to escape the boundaries of time ...
For all those moments of crying and snotting into my zebra rug ...
For all those moments when my whole being just longs and aches for a hug ...
For all those moments when memories simply just can't be enough ...
For all those moments when I discover "I'm making it - wow, I can be tough!" ...
For all those moments when I long to just be held while I fall apart ...
For all those moments when the best I can do is to keep on playing the part...
For all those moments I've dared to look deep, and not cringe at what I might find...
For all those moments when I am aware this wild journey is SO worth the ride ...
For all those moment I look in my eyes, and I see there both Shadow and Light ...
For all those moments I hold my heart, and feel there both Love and Fright ...
For all those moments when vulnerable-rawness enables me to grow ...
For all those moments when the mystery itself becomes enough to know ...

♥ I THANK YOU. ♥
Life goes on ... the miracles keep coming ... they way keeps unfolding.

So be it.

~Dena

Ponder-Fodder: Might As Well ...!

Melikes:

"The Natural Freedom of the Mind"

Since the One Mind -- pure from the beginningless beginning
and with no need to grasp things other than itself --
has nothing to do with an intermediary or with a fixed plan,
the individual mind might as well be happy.

Since awareness has no objective relationship of any kind,
no specific direction or focus,
the individual might as well love everyone.

Since vision and commitment to vision
have nothing to do with complacency or fear,
the individual might as well be joyous.

Since action and goals have nothing to do with success or failure,
hope and anxiety,
and it doesn't matter whether they are won or lost,
the individual might as well feel content.

Since everything is an illusion --
with some more perfect than others --
with no relationship to good or bad, being or not-being,
one might as well laugh from beginning to end.


— Longchenpa, 1308-1363, Tibetan scholar, maste of the Nyingma tradition

My Half-Way Through Life Birthday Wish for ME..!

I found myself writing this on Facebook last night:

It's official: I have NO clue what I "believe" anymore.
And I notice two things about that ...
I do not care.
I actually feel better - nearly giddy with relief - about not caring ...!

And, thus far, it's still true for today. ;)

It's been a long and winding road, out of religion ... through the morass of spirituality ... and into ... Life.

I mean, I don't know what else to call this ... I'm alive, I'm here, I'm having this experience ... so yeah, it's Life. It doesn't seem to care what I call it ... it just seems determined to be experienced.

I'm done. Done with externally-impositioned-or-invented mindsets (& just think about THAT word for a minute!) that tell me how/what/when/why to act, think, feel, believe, or BE...!

It strikes me as uberly-absurd to think that something outside of me could even possibly define me, or make me feel "ok", or dictate my life in any sort of way...!

This has been building up in me for a while now, but I'm coming out - I am just feeling so TIRED of the "search" ... wanting OUT. It's as if we searchers "take on" a spiritual perspective, and then we adhere to it, and try to live up to it, and it's just another externaly-imposed religion! ARGH!

Yeah, wanna just LIVE ... enJOY life fully .. and my "morality" is part of me ... it's about love, loving self, loving others ... it's who I AM ... don't need anyone/anything outside of me telling me how to do it ...

I'm tired of trying, and trying harder, and pretending to "get/have" something that I just want to "get/have", or think I'm supposed to "get/have" (as IF something is MISSING!) ... I feel like the kid who said, "The emperor has no clothes on!"

C'mon ... it's time to admit the dude is naked.

When I was a Christian, I was surrounded by folks who said they "had a personal relationship" with Jesus ... and that they "felt the Holy Spirit" ... and these folks would fall down like cord wood when someone put annoying oil - I mean, anointing oil - on their foreheads. How often was I the last-woman-standing ... feeling torn between a perverse sense of pride for not falling, and a horrible sense of deprivation that I hadn't fallen ...?

When I was searching for enlightenment, it was the same ... I have been surrounded by folks who claim to have a relationship with their Higher Self ... that they feel this person inside ... guiding them, leading them. These folks would chant, and hum, and rub crystals... how often was I the last-woman-sitting-cross-legged ... feeling torn between pretending I was being transported, and a horrible sense of deprivation that I hadn't been enlightened ..?

Now, I'm not saying that I didn't "get something" out of much of that ... not saying it wasn't valuable, not saying it wasn't valid/required ... I'm saying ... I'm tired.

I'm saying I'm tired of feeling like I'm "out" and they're "in" ... that they've "got something" and I'm "lacking something" ... I'm tired of chasing after something I'm not even sure is real ...

I *exhausted* myself, trying to FEEL Jesus, trying to FEEL my Higher Self ... crying out ... begging ... reading endless books ... praying/meditating my heart out ... trying to surrender enough, let go enough, denounce enough, release enough, confess enough, positive-affirm enough, think enough, unthink enough, be good enough, lose self enough, find self enough ... ENOUGH...!

I'm saying I don't know what I know, what I think, or what I believe.

I do have my experience ... I have had a wide array of uncanny, attention-getting, sit-up-and-take-notice, surreal, beyond-coincidental experiences ... things I can't explain, can't label, can't describe ... some I can't share.

But I am SO tired, of trying to "get it right" ... trying to adhere to some particular religion, or perspective, or formula, or book, or teaching, or group, or mindset, or expectation ...

I'm so tired of the message that there is a part of me to accept (Higher Self) and a part of me to reject (ego) ...

... there's just me.

I am all that.

I am a walking contradiction, a complex and confused full-throttle human ... I am up and down ... high and low ... quiet and loud ... hot and cold ... happy and sad ... accepting and resisting ... bitter and sweet ... mean and kind ... jubilant and despairing ... shadow and light.

I am all that.

Here's what I know ... from observation and experience:

I am alive. I am here, now. I am real.

I am apparently meant to live this life ...

I am to enJOY this life ... how could I MISS that obviousness?!?

Look around, look in, look up, look down - I see beauty all around me ... full-living-colored, myriadly-textured, awe-inspiring, senses-ravaging BEAUTY all around me!

I am covered, head-to-toe, with exquisitely~operational nerve endings that beg for stimulation ~ from warmth, to a tickle, to a caress, to a crescendo of passion ..!

I have taste buds, and olfactory nerves, and ear drums, and eyes that SEE ... all absorbing endless input!

I have a body that moves ... that can climb mountains, dance to rhythms that compel me, paint the images in my mind, and embrace those I love.

I have emotions that feel the FULL panoply of expression ... and they arise without being bidden.

I am here to LIVE, to enJOY, to participate in this sensory-playground of experience ... not to imitate the experience of any other - not to "get something right".

If this experience takes me deep into uncharted territory, whether the frontier's horizon be ahead of me, or within me - so be it.

If it takes me into the opportunity to splash and play in utter simplicity of the golden moment at hand, so be it.

So, I'm changing the spelling of believe ... for me, it's now spelled "Be/Live".

So be it.

Ummmm ... Remember me...?

HOW many blogs, I wonder ... begin, every so often, with the phrase, "it's been a long time since I blogged" ...?

Well, here's another one of those.

I cannnot begin to fill in the uber-changing details of my life here ... but, suffice it to say that I have experienced great bliss, and intense pain, and more change than I thought I could endure, in a rather short expanse of time.

I am here.
I am breathing.
I am living.
I am learning.
I am experiencing.
I am surviving.
And I take it on faith that I am thriving ... even when it would appear/feel/seem otherwise.

And ... I have missed blogging. So, for today, I am blogging.

We'll see what happens tomorrow.

A friend showed up on Facebook, and shared one of her poems with me ... it was one of those "wow" moments, for it fit with something I saw, in my mind's eye, years ago ... read on:

Oh Divine Weaver,
I would not
have expected
You to use
the threads
of pain and
suffering in order
to weave a tapestry fit
to be your
covering.

You work so
silently in
the stillness.
I can never
quite catch
you at the
loom.

But I look
at this Heart
and
I Know,
I Know,
this is the
work of
your skillful
hands.

Who could
weave so
skillfully,
so compassionately,
so tenderly
as to not
tangle those
rare, and delicate
threads?

I only have eyes
to see the
underlayer -
quite messy it appears,
but I trust
that a work
of magnificent
beauty
is in the
making.

~Joan Burtner

Years ago, while in the very beginnings of this undoingness ... I remember having a "vision/image" of being on the underside of a huge tapestry ... it was being woven, above me, and I was watching. I knew it was about my life ... the problem, from my perspective, is that from "down here" it looked like a MESS! Tangles, and snarls, and knots galore ... and I could NOT, not even while squinting, make out the pattern ... it made NO sense to me. But then I knew, intuitively, that from the other side, from the "higher" vantage point, it was a work of art ... a very intentional, beautiful, even breath-taking tapestry, that was my life. Today, after not connecting with Joan for some months ... she showed up, and shared this poem ... and I am reminded ... and I am grateful. At least for this moment, I can rest in that gratitude.

Thank you.