“The way you make love is the way God will be with you.” -Rumi
You will find this quote on the first page of my forthcoming book, Sex That Works – An Intimate Guide To Awakening Your Erotic Life. My book sums up the wonder of living deeply in your erotic self and how that act connects you to the divine in ways that nothing else in life compares. Sex That Works explores the steps of awakening your erotic life in a series of chapters. With gratitude being the focus of many people’s Thanksgiving season, I wanted to shed some light on how grateful living can go beyond great food and great company. Bringing gratitude to love making can truly awaken one’s erotic potential. In fact, there might not be two words that are better suited to live side-by-side than gratitude and sex. What moment could more fully embody gratitude than the deeply transformative pleasure of two bodies entwined in lovemaking? Our universal drive to experience orgasm is much greater than simple pleasure seeking, rather these moments of transcendent connection help us to recognize how our bodies are wired for intimacy to connect us, not only to each other but to the cosmos.
It is in this recognition that we feel how gratitude lives in us viscerally. Sharing sexual pleasure is the most potent glue of human relationships. Sexual gratitude cracks the heart open with the recognition that we are loved, we are worthy of love and we are able to love. And yet, the revelation of our erotic selves is an overwhelming awakening, even for me, after decades of knowing someone, the act of fully abandoning one’s consciousness into the mysterious sexual spaces that I could never write down or even say out loud, what we do with and to each other.
Each time I read good erotica, beyond the turn on, I am amazed at the fluency of language that some erotic writers master in describing the depths of human sexuality. The intensity of sensation and pleasure that is evoked within human sexual ecstasy is singular in all the world.
Every year I get multiple emails about national and even international events that are planned to inspire as many lovers as possible to orgasm at the same moment with the intention of sending that collective ecstatic energy towards universal healing. I don’t know if I have ever hit the prescribed time slot, but the idea of it comes to me often when I am making love and makes me wonder, when I am most full of the alchemy of orgasmic release, how profoundly different the world could be by waking up to the power of gratitude in sexuality. And, it makes those of us who are fortunate enough to create loving sexual acts responsible for sharing that love with those who are not so lucky.
It starts with being deeply grateful for each and every moment of erotic bliss we get. No taking our love for granted, no dismissing the wonder of the intimacy and the emotional cleansing that only deep love making generates. This is one of the most powerful forms of gratitude, sourced from the energy of our rapture that we can embody and offer to others. Like a prayer, our loving sexual relationships are a potent remedy for the immense pain that dominates our collective sexual consciousness. Holding our sexuality close to our heart is a sacred act that heals in concentric circles, starting with our own life and radiating out.
By all means, be grateful for the feast, family and friends this week, but please take a moment to bow down to the extraordinary capacity for mystical healing that is held uniquely in the embrace of our erotic souls.
