Gentle reverence
As one year of the Western calendar rolls out and the next one takes its place, I am not alone in reflecting and wondering on what was and what may come to be. The place of learning though is in the present, here and now. On the 1st of January 2023 I woke with thoughts about the holiday season and how relationships can be confusing and challenging at this time followed by amazing love making with my partner such that I want to share pieces of these with you. First, about the disruption of holidays on useful routines and rituals, second about how relationships can be challenged by this disruption, and thirdly about love making, the almost dead feeling after orgasm, and why love making and not killer orgasms is important to intimate relationships. I close with two words which feel potent to me in 2023 and hope you feel pleasure and freedom in the year ahead.
Routines and rituals embedded into our every day help to ground us and bring a sense of stability to an otherwise chaotic world. A routine is something we do rhythmically like having a coffee at 10am-ish or cleaning our teeth every morning and evening. A ritual has both rhythm and a depth of meaning. Like having a coffee at 10am and grinding the beans while watching, listening, smelling the garden out the window, and bringing awareness in stillness and silence to the sound of the coffee brewing and steam off the milk saying it is complete. This daily sequence allows my addiction to caffeine to be met and is also filled with meditative silence, embodiment practices and resets the day from one stage to another. Coffee for me is a ritual.
In the working weeks of the year there is so much to ‘do’ my rituals help me organise my day, focus on the thing that needs to be done (not worrying about that which I cannot affect), and being content in my body with what is (in spite of the mile high to do list). When it comes to relationships these follow similarly. My partner Stephen alternates between Timaru and Wanaka every week and has done for five years (yes, amazing!). This in person and distance relationship suits us both in it allows him to parent his youngest in Timaru and the distance adds a bit of spice and space to our together time. When he is not here, I can let the dishes pile up and the study and writing flow into all hours of day and night. When he is here, I am less about getting things done and more about spending time together.
Holiday season messes with all the routines and rituals mentioned and more, coffee is unpredictable, living apart non-existent. This brings a certain tension to our relationship. It is disruptive. Combined with my hormonal swings of menopause and natural tendency for volatility it can take everything in my power to not say or do something destructive. At this edge of disruption knowing what fills the soul is important. For me a bike ride in solitude up the Aspiring Valley on the last day of 2022 gave me everything I needed to ground and come back to me as a loving partner not a discombobulated irritation. I share below a meditation from the Clutha River, Mata Au from this ride.
In a grounded meditative inner space love making has magical and spiritual dimension. This morning we added a few pieces of erotica we hadn’t played with before. For me, love making is a little bit ritual as in it has a depth of meaning and a frequency that is important to maintain, but it is a whole lot not ritual and definitely not routine. Love making for me is creative, always a little bit different from any time before. I love sound to bring the erotic vibration into togetherness, inviting touch in very directed ways, escalating eros with imagination, spoken and embodied. When I asked for a certain touch this morning Stephen said the words “gentle with reverence” came to his fingers. Dancing between embodied sensations, emotion, imagination, threading bodies and souls together in breath, sound, and movement we allow the waves to flow and ebb, to flow and grow. This morning the waves of orgasm were loud and deep. We both returned to stillness and sleep.
I woke to the sun on our bed and felt half dead. Orgasm that feels so good can be so depleting. It was wonderful to go that far together this morning, it felt special and deeply connecting. Orgasm is never a goal, and we don’t always come, let alone together. I rarely come with penis in vagina sex and I love mutual masturbation. Sometimes there is no orgasm at all and sometimes I like that more. My point here is that there is no formula to intimacy but there are things we can do to raise what feels like a zero-point libido (making sound being my fav) and bring in pieces to keep it fresh and alive (like erotic talk or different touch styles).
Just as #rituals can bring an #embodied sense of contentment in a world of chaos, maintaining #intimacy in our primary #relationships provides #resilience to move through disruption to deeper #connection.
If you are finding the festive holiday season challenging and want a guide in coming back to connection with your intimate self and partner, please do reach out for you are not alone and there are things we can do to help move you forward in gentle reverence.
Take care and have fun,
Sonia.
Best wishes for 2023 from Sonia and Stephen.
(selfie taken in Albert Park, Auckland).