FIRST KNOW YOUR NAME…THEN FORGET IT

BREATHE!

One of my breakthrough moments came from the study of a shamanic exploration of sexuality. During one talk, our teacher said something that connected to things discussed in a Taoist sexual manual, and another thing said by a guru at some time I can’t remember. That’s what happens when you wander too many avenues: you have connecting memories, but cannot be certain exactly where they came from.

It was something to the effect that in those cultures that have examined sexuality as a natural human experience to be explored like any other, the intensity of an orgasm was said to be in direct proportion to the amount of ego you release at that moment. To put it another way: if you can remember your name, it wasn’t really good sex.

This connected with comments from artists about Flow State (“The page opened up and I fell in”), athletes about The Zone (“She’s gone into the danger zone, where the dancer becomes the dance”) and other similar things.

There is the thing, the act. And then there is the ego. And when the ego dissolves, the dancer becomes the dance. To do this in ANY art, the basics of the art must be absorbed at “unconscious competence” so that you simply “chop wood, carry water” — you just do what you do. As long as you are counting “one two three, one two three” you are not dancing. You are observing the dance.

In sex, the “beast with two backs” is the melding of two bodies, or two energetic systems. In relationships, it is the…