Boulder Creek California (Santa Cruz Mountains), June 25, 2010: For months I’ve been fascinated, excited, and terrified.
It happened like this —
For three years after Adrienne and I parted, I’ve wanted no woman in my life.
And then came a day … that I did.
Well, I know what to do (http://sweetheartreport.com), and so I began the process.
I’m seeking the Love of my Life, my Beloved, my dearest lover and best friend, yet again. I’ve had a few hundred lovers in my life, and been deeply and completely in love three times. I’d like to make it four. I’m ready.
Back in San Francisco days, in addition to picking up women in the supermarket, on the bus, in classes, at a funeral, and on the street, I’d learned to use classified ads. That was the big thing, back then. And twenty-some years later, it’s online dating sites.
I tested two sites, one against the other. (Match.com wins. SeniorPeopleMeet.com works and provides plenty of prospects, but it seems to hand me more women who are being “old people.” While I know how to act my age, I also want the freedom and fun of acting like a kid, and Match.com seems to hand me more creative and vibrant women.)
One of my first dates was a small, delicate, and enthusiastic young lady of about my own age, with an endearing sweet smile, wild auburn hair, and a body that seemed both refined and indecent. And thirty minutes into the conversation she said a particular word.
That word was Tantra.
She was three weeks out of a weekend seminar. She was flying. She was razzed.
And I’ve been in sales long enough to know when I’m being qualified as a prospect.
My ups and downs with her were exciting, but this story is about something else.
This weekend in the Santa Cruz mountains was life-transforming, and I’m still basking in a kind of warm glow. This is one of the most powerful and sweetest experiences of my life, and so much is different for me now.
Sometime during the last year, I’ve realized there are really only three questions about love —
(1) How do you find love?
(2) How to get along?
(3) How do you make love last?
I had an epiphany at age 26, and found a method, how to find love.
I was told something at age 50, and that has been the core of being able to get along. Not always, and not perfectly, but far far better than ever before.
I’ve not had an answer to how to make love last.
With all the best intentions and doing everything I knew how to do, twice I watched love grow, and then grow weaker and weaker, and I couldn’t do a damned thing to “fix it.”
I suspect that, with the things I’ve learned in the last few months (about the different love languages, about new methods of guidance, and much more about the differences between men and women), and with what I’ve learned about intimacy, connection, spirituality, and sexual joy, just in this weekend … I suspect that things could have been so sweetly different.
While to this day I regret the loss of love, I’m grateful for the freedom to grow into this expansion.
So much has happened. I’ve dropped 65 pounds, and I feel better than any time in the last 20 years.
And, ready for love, when a chance word (‘Tantra’) four months ago inflamed my memory like a match struck in darkness, I was drawn to this weekend seminar like the wild goose knows how to navigate the hundreds of leagues to find it’s winter home.
In this new community, I’ve met some of the most wonderful people, men and women, and I’m absolutely entranced.
I had a number of fears.
This introductory workshop is gender-balanced, both couples and singles. During the day, there is learning (yoga, tantric sexual technique, chakras, and some ceremonial exercises called pujas), and it opens you right up, real fast. And somehow, in only a day and a half, the idea (for us singles) of choosing some stranger (and being chosen) to be the partner in a homework (‘homeplay’) tantric-sexual healing exercise … seems reasonable. Weird.
You know, for years, I have been saying things like, “I don’t like massage much. I don’t like strangers touching my body.” And “I don’t like belly dancers. I don’t like strange women sticking their stuff in my face.” This weekend, while talking with a woman named Elena, she mentioned massage, and I trotted out my don’t-like-massage and belly-dancers thing, and suddenly I realized …
It wasn’t that I didn’t like it. It was that I was scared.
And rather than being a scared guy, all those years ago I just began saying “I don’t like it” and went down the years not-liking-it, which was better than being scared.
Pretty silly, huh?
My hugest fear of all, for this workshop, was … that I would not be chosen at all.
(The women choose, and it’s their option to participate at all, so no guarantees.)
And, to my eternal delight and gratitude … I was chosen.
The two optional homeplay exercises, done in the temple you create in your room or hotel room, are ‘turn about’. The first night it’s all for the woman. The man merely serves.
The second night, should a woman choose to invite you, it’s all for the man.
There is a childlike sensuous delight in making the space pretty, and in a long and luxurious bath (separately), and then, coming together in this lovely and special space, wearing something exotic, we lie together with breathing synchronized while the chakras open and align. What a peaceful and sweet feeling. Then, for the woman, some massage, and in a while it becomes an erotic massage, and then asking for permission. If it is given, one gives what is called sacred-spot massage. And it’s not the usual spot.
That first night, her night, we only found three hours for sleep.
The next morning, back in class, the faces of so many of the women were radiant; they were changed. The men looked strong and calm, and I understood. It is a pure joy to serve the goddess walking.
We all shared our experiences, and my partner and I were among the last to speak.
And there, in front of that entire group, my partner said that she was deeply moved by such a sweet and spiritual experience, that she felt deeply grateful to receive so much just for her, and that it was the best sexual experience she’d ever had in her life.
Now, it wasn’t really me. I just did what they taught me, and forgot lots even then. And of course her life experiences are what they were.
But can you imagine, at that moment, how I felt, as a man?
I felt so validated. I’m 66, and I felt like Tarzan, Superman, Arnold, and Apollo, all at once.
The next night, the same woman invited me again. My night of pure bliss. It was lovely.
How was my weekend?
I guess you could say … it was good.
In a few days from now, I leave again for the Santa Cruz mountains. The workshop this weekend was two and a half days. This next workshop is eleven days long.
Oh, my.
Leave a Reply