Longing

Here,
in the center of my chest,
their constant dwelling:
the persistent yearning
the insistent craving
the unbidden imagining
the desire awakening
the daydream, the nightdream
the reverie unfolding:
the language of longing
drawing me home.

~ Jan Richardson, In Wisdom’s Path

Sometimes it aches, much like grief. Sometimes it feels dark, like emptiness. Sometimes it feels like incredible passion that has no outlet for expression. It comes in waves. It will come when I am alone. It will come when I am surrounded by others. It will even come when I am in another’s embrace.

Longing. A deep reaching for something I can feel, yet mostly remains just out of grasp. It feels like I crave something much bigger than my heart can hold, possibly bigger than life itself.

"Longing is the core of mystery. Longing itself brings the cure. The only rule is, suffer the pain. Your desires must be disciplined And what you want to happen in time, sacrificed." ~Rumi

I have been contemplating and reading a lot about longing. Actually, the Universe has been talking to me about longing. I am attempting to truly understand this place I keep returning to. No matter what path I follow, no matter what I do with my life or what relationships I form, I keep coming back to this incessant and deep longing for something more. I can project onto other people or creative projects for awhile, but it never lasts. I return to what feels like the vast space between me and everything, me and God.

Intellectually, I know it is a longing for Oneness and direct experience of the Divine. That is the source of all our longing, a desire to return to where we come from, where there is no separation or isolation. Wearing a skinsuit (as a dear friend puts it), sets us apart from one another. While we can penetrate each others bodies and experience communion through shared energy, we can never truly become one while we are in skinsuits. I cannot join you in yours, you cannot join me in mine.

Oh but we try. I have been first hand witness to a couple hundred people attempting to assuage their longing for a few brief moments as they dance and play and fuck in a room together. I have had rapturous moments with lovers in a union of love and orgasm. We crave sex because it is the closest thing to Oneness most of us know.

And then there are those of us who have tasted Oneness through ritual, altered states induced by substances or body modification or prayer, and energetic experiences with individuals and groups. My empathic experiences certainly feel like Oneness.

No matter how we get there the experience is brief. Few of us have attained enlightenment – which I believe is a full time conscious experience of Oneness with All That Is. The rest of us get brief tastes...and we may likely become addicted to them.

I know all this intellectually, I know to the core of my being that spiritual connection is a vital expression of who I am, and yet I keep turning away from it. I lack discipline and I find distraction in what feels good, especially intimacy (oxytocin, touch, emotional vulnerability) and relationship (validation), which may be addictions, and justify it as conscious experience through which I am evolving. I am evolving in many ways, but I am also stagnating spiritually, returning to the same place over and over again.

"Our longing is the way." Rumi

Here. Where the longing is so great I feel it physically in my chest. It's time to dive in to the mystery, to follow the trail along which longing leads me. No more distractions and avoidance. No more hiding. My longing is the way.

Go to the Limits of Your Longing

God speaks to each of us
as he makes us,
then walks with us silently
out of the night.

These are the words
we dimly hear:

You, sent out
beyond your recall,
Go to the limits
of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

– Rainer Maria Rilke

Longing

I feel accountable to the self-care resolution of writing every day. I have written today, quite a bit on a couple different post drafts. But they aren't for sharing yet.

I am tired. I am not clear on my motivations in my writing. I am uneasy tonight.

My weekend was so incredibly full and I did not get enough sleep. While my experiences were primarily joy-full intimacy, they were also deeply meaningful and emotionally complex, giving me much to process emotionally.

Sharing Knight with another woman was a big, big deal. It was an amazing opportunity to consciously choose compersion rather than my old stories of invisibility.

Sharing a cathartic scene with Knight was also a big deal. I am too tired to give proper words to the bigness of that.

And Fire was fantastic, deeply sacred and hilariously irreverent. We gave and witnessed powerful sharings.

I am being offered complex opportunities to practice relating from a spiritual perspective. It's a lot to process. And it seems after every great physical and emotional energy sharing, exhaustion sets in and emotions fall. I am heart-achy today.

After fire I was feeling wound up and asked Knight if I could come over and cuddle for a few minutes. I felt I needed a transition from the fullness of so much intimacy to the quiet aloneness of my home. Knight helps me ground. Being held by him helps me regain my center. He graciously said yes.

We cuddled. We talked a bit. And I settled into a peaceful state.

We both felt some desire for sex, but we consciously decided that was not our intent. I asked for support in grounding, he desired to provide it. We flirted, but we held to our agreement.

And then I got up and went home by myself. This would have normally been our week of living together at my place. Leaving his place was bittersweet, as is sitting here without him now and knowing I'll wake up tomorrow without him. On the drive home I felt a deep longing for him. To sleep with him beside me. To wake up to him. Oh god, how I miss starting my day on his chest, breathing him in, kissing his lips, kissing his cock. For me, there is no better way to start the day than that. I miss it very, very, very much. But this longing is not an experience of suffering.

I long for the intimacy we share. It is good and healthy. Sharing life with each other makes us happier and our lives richer because we both love intimacy in relationship. We both believe in relationship as a spiritual path and practice (we just weren't living what we believe). There is much light and good in our merging that it is appropriate to long for it, as long as it is without the suffering of attachment to fulfillment.

I realized this longing, that I know he feels as well, is a gift and its own experience of our intimacy. How blessed am I to have someone that my Divine Spark longs to unite with such intensity. I would much rather have this -- the longing, the heartache, the complexity and uncertainty, the back and forth between my heart and my ego to make the healthy choices -- than to not have it. I am blessed to love and be loved by this man and to get to share the process of evolution with him. Whether we are sharing a bed or not, we are always united in our heart connection. Every moment of our love shared is a gift and a potential experience of union. We are always One where our Divine Sparks meet, witness, play with, love and long for each other.