Hello all -

It's been awhile since I last posted. Some lovely people have joined this site since I was last checking it frequently. I've enjoyed reading other's insights.

I was without internet for almost two weeks and I have appreciated some distance from the computer, but I have missed having people to have a dialogue with about this topic, and have also missed the self-reflection about where I am in my sexuality and spirituality right now.

As I mentioned, Goldenheart left almost three weeks ago, back to New Mexico, land of my heart. One reason I am able to share love with him is because we love the same land. I could foresee meeting someone very special here in Oregon but know that it is important to me to be with a man who likes the desert and the boonies. So . . . there's a lot of potential there. I am feeling in a good space about him being gone even though we did not leave off with anything definitively clear as to our future together. I am feeling comfortable in not knowing and trusting that the timing of things will make all evident that needs to be.

What I am learning mostly in my life right now is that I feel nourished by life, in my true power, full of gratitude and enjoyment when I am able to overcome the inertia of living enough to actually cultivate a consistent current of awareness. For me recently my spiritual practice has taken the form of intuitive dance, chi kung, and hiking. "Spiritual practice" is vague. By this I mean any practice of sustaining my awareness in such a way that at some point my distracted mind calms down enough for me to access and ride a sort of current - in this current, or frame of mind, or "flow", I feel energized through the alchemy of holding consistent while at the same time relaxing. I think that these states are characterized by a fine fusion of both yin and yang qualities - the strength of focus of yang awareness coupled with the flexibility and responsiveness of the yin. An example: when I am doing intuitive dance, my awareness is on my body and the movement that it already knows it wants to express. It is a felt experience guided by a combination of consistent attention and flexible adaptation in which the varying patterns of movement, rather than throwing off the focus, are able to merge seamlessly into one another.

I hope this isn't too abstract. I'd like to try to relate this to how I am beginning to understand a sort of alchemy in terms of how I relate to men or the continuity (or lack thereof) of my consciousness around them.

I bring this up because I noticed some things about my state of awareness on the last night before Goldenheart left, when we went out dancing. I would describe the quality of my consciousness as distracted by other men. Or should I say the excitement of potential between myself and men I am not with? (dopamine).

Over the past two years, since I have not been in a committed relationship, the focus of my awareness and attention has been given free reign to wander to any attractive men who happen to be about. I've often mistaken distraction for attraction. I go out dancing primarily to dance, i generally don't really go out with any explicit intention of meeting men. BUT, of course there is attraction to others, and others being attracted, and this is a certain frequency, one that I have been on for awhile. The frequency here and cultivation here is one of trying to look attractive to another; I bring my attention to mybody, posture, and attitude differently when someone attractive is nearby than if I am alone. I send off certain signals that can be detected by others at that frequency, and this is done via the focus of my attention.

But this is not really cultivation, because there is no real object. Basically this form of attention as I've exprienced it is like flirting with endless potential, but it doesn't always manifest anywhere particularly interesting, because what excites us about potential is usually loaded with our own fantasies of what we crave to happen, and therefore we are flirting with our own preferences and are essentially being self-absorbed, not really encountering another human being per se. Eventually this can get boring, because the person, once actually made contact with, either meets or doesn't meet our fantasy.

I noticed that night that part of my inability to really enjoy Goldenheart stems from the fact that I am just not really on the wavelength of MUTUAL CULTIVATION, if I even ever have been. Sure, I've been in "committed relationships" (sounds so boring - and, it is! I hope to actually relate in the future, not relate to our concept of a "relationship".) And I have been generous and I have received and I have loved, but I have never really mutually cultivated anything with a lover, as in: being able to share a conscious sustained attention on subtler levels of nourishment - ie, attitude, or a conscious intention to remain at a certain frequency or wavelength.

So, perhaps I am not yet ripe enough to actually share a mutual cultivation, or a spiritual sexual relationship because I am only right now developing within myself an awareness of where I am focusing my attention, when I am distracting myself, and what really nourishes me.

But I am learning some things. The great thing about cultivation is that it is not creation - it is building upon a frequency whose signal has perhaps become very weak due to a deadening of the receptors or the amplifier - but which is nevertheless pre-existent, already available. We are not starting from scratch here or ever. However, when I am able to find the peace of mind to cultivate a dynamic and adaptable but sustained awareness or groove in a frequency that is basically nourishing to myself -- at a certain point, that frequency has been reinforced to such a degree that IT BEGINS TO GENERATE ITSELF, or the skill level has been reached that the source of this spring has been found and one may simply be it, become more of it, drink long from it, be a satisfied human being.

This is an EXPERIENCE. The beginnings of cultivation often come from a cerebral acknowledgement that something is out of balance and that a change must be had. The new pattern has to be established. BUT - it is not all struggle the whole time. Once a consistent current of attention has been cultivated, it starts to flow like the nectar of the gods and goddesses, available to all, abundant and refreshing. For the most part in my life I have sensed this and had small tastes of it but, being terrified of my true power, knowing instinctively that true power is the obliteration of the self, I have shied away. It is like there is a platter of fruit before that I dare not eat (or is it an apple - fruit not of the knowledge of good and evil, but - according to some gnostic sources - actually the fruit of the tree of the thought of light [see The Book of John]). Why could i not accept nourishment? Why could I not accept love? Why have I chosen distraction?

My spiritual journey right now is to basically know deep inside myself that this source of energy, love, juiciness, and presence is completely available to me - and that I do choose it. That I have gone through this process enough to know that I cannot stop short of choosing it - choosing the knowledge that this experience of life is divine and open. But that a free-for-all is not always the most sure way to feed of the cornucopia. The divinity and openness IS me, when I am able to hold my awareness in this knowing. And when I am able to do this, it is ecstacy, because the sense of self dissolves, and I become who I really am - the universe unfolding, becoming aware through me, resonating in my every cell and letting me know it is good to be alive.