Doddergasm

 

My birthday is coming up in a few days. I’ll be 74. I decided to do something special for myself this year. So, I’m making a birthday wish. This one is just for me. I wish that when I’m old enough to be a doddering fool, I’ll still have some erotic impulses. I like being juicy. I want to stay that way. I have been Lucky enough to experience the joy of being immersed in the great Spasm of orgasm. It has introduced me, from early on, to the mysteries of Life. Each time, I am blessed to feel a full-bodied connection with the Divine. My wish is that I always feel that connection viscerally, and celebrate it all the way through my old age.

 

I cry when I come. At first, I was mystified by this occurrence. Embarrassed even. But that passed as it kept happening, and I came (so to speak) to know better what I was experiencing. At the moment when everything goes beyond my control, it feels like I fall into an ocean of grief. It is a strange kind of grief, painful like you would expect, but laced with a form of hilarity. Sometimes amongst the sobs, there are moments of great exultation, like I am getting away with something precious. The sobbing wracks my body, sometimes going on for as long as 15 minutes. My sweetie has enough sense to just hold me. When it is over, I am wrung out, relaxed, and always bewildered. I have no idea, other than the softening of my soul, of what is happening.

 

I want some version of it to continue. There is something humbling, and deeply blessing, about having such a moving experience, that one is not in control of. I know I’m headed toward the barn, and after that, to the graveyard. Maybe this experience will evolve with me. I hope so. In the meantime, my birthday wish is that I develop the erotic chops that will allow me to keep playing in this field.

 

I expect that aging is going to further change me. If I don’t die, before reaching really old age, I would love to be capable of being part of the erotic nature of the Universe. It keeps on creating! I am so impressed, and humbled, by the generativity of what made us. I’d like to participate in that amorousness. Maybe I already do! I don’t know.

 

All I do know is that I would like to keep myself in the flow, aroused by the incredible, and dazed by life springing forth. Getting old is getting closer to the source. Some kind of dizzying delight is hopefully on my path.

I’ve always been a little bit shy about my erotic preoccupation. But, just like the book about aging and wearing purple, I’ve come to not be so sensitive about what others may think. That has freed me to be as exactly as horny for Mystery as I am. What a relief. I can now talk about my sense, that sexual desire lies on the same continuum as spiritual longing. Sometimes, I would submit, they coincide. Happy

is the day that happens!

 

Anyway, what I am wishing for myself this year is that I discover that the fountain of youth lies inside me, in the most devoted of places. A doddergasm may take a long time, may only come once, or be totally decimating, but it will move me a little closer to the Mystery that animates us all. At least, that is what I’m wishing for myself.

 

Happy Birthday Lucky one!

 

 

 

 

Friendship

Isolation is everyone’s problem. It makes believing in a made-up reality deriguer. Conspiracy theories about others are easy to believe, when you don’t know any others. Humans fail to thrive when they are not touched enough, when they lack meaningful and loving connections. When loneliness prevails, then a whole society can fail to thrive. The lonely stories of neglected old people are our stories, they drive us deeper into believing each of us is unimportant. I’ve heard many such stories, and have come to see the art of friendship as being essential to life in today’s social madness. It is an art form that has been too much neglected and insufficiently talked about. Connecting with another, makes feeling connected an important, life-saving reality.

Friendship is one of the true things, it cannot be bought. Everyone can do something to respond to the uncertainty of these times. Uniting with another is one form of self-preservation. It goes against the cultural grain, letting another be as important to you as you are to yourself. Lay yourself on the altar of your friendships, because that is the place where you are going to discover who you truly are.

Friendship is elusive in this busy commercial world where most people are on the move being wage slaves, having little, or no time, for personal moments. The ties that bind can be very loose, when they depend on shared work, commutes, and workout clubs. Bars provide a distorted form of social club. Retirement throws people out of the social-commercial rat race leaving them unsupported, beyond others, and drifting into the hands of social entrepreneurs. True friendship doesn’t follow all the commercial currents, it only concerns itself with the tide of connection. Social love provides an antidote to the isolated loneliness that is so characteristic of our times.

Friendship is an art form that has almost gone away. Few have the quality and quantity of friends to make it through the gauntlet of challenges that face us today. It is as if the importance of being human has gone the way of Dodo birds. We all suffer when that is true. The light dims. People wander, feeling unknown, and like they don’t matter.

Fortunately, this is something we can do something about. It doesn’t even take that much courage. All we have to do is listen, admire, and recognize. Also, making some time to hang out. The ability to be a friend is hardwired into we social animals — it is like falling off a log. No matter how our training for the economy has proceeded, no matter how shy we are, no matter how old we are, the bonds of friendship are available. All we have to do is reach out. All we have to do is let another know that the desire for connection is present.

Good friendship relies upon periodic moments of intimacy. These moments, when one goes beyond oneself, are like food.  They feed connection, meaning, and trust. They have the effect of nourishing the soul.  But, they require a little more. Friendship then becomes a practice field where new aspects of oneself can be tried out. Conversations that one has never had, revealing something new about oneself or our shared humanity, bring us closer to each other. Friends can provide solace. There is no more comforting feeling than knowing a friend has your back. Physical safety and emotional support are parts of the art of friendship.

There is something ineffable about certain friendships. Some form of synergy arises that makes an invisible relationship more. It becomes something magical, possessing and turning distance, time, and memory into a lasting unity, a special miracle of love. Siamese twins are not closer. That which cannot be named dances in the between, illuminating possibilities.  

It is relatively easy to find words that extoll friendship. They positively drip with warmth, contact and compassionate loving. Harder, is the effort that brings on the kind of affiliation that touches us with reassurance. The outside validation that friendship brings is precious. It isn’t part of what is available in our normal exchanges. We have to make it through life mostly by ourselves, so the honest feedback that friends can offer is a marker buoy, helping and revealing the unique path each of us is unfolding. Friendship makes the Universe warmer, companionable and hospitable.  The relational engagement that characterizes a friendship models the expectant attitude that best prepares us to meet the unknown.

Old friends are the best, and the most necessary. Reminiscences have power, but not like the shared power of combined memories.  There is something so gratifying about the welcome of someone you have known for a while. Calmness can set-in, and belonging melts anticipation, relaxing one.  Knowing the love of a friend translates into well-being.  The Universe, through this other, loves you.

So, why is it so hard to make time for friends? Besides the fact that genuine friendship is not commercially valuable and takes time, there is the fact that friends don’t grow on trees. Befriending someone is an iffy proposition. It takes a certain amount of self-revelation — a desire to be known. Most of us are prone to eschew friendship because of that possibility. We humans are also prone to be judgmental. We would rather fight with another, than with ourselves. Friendship rests on a paradox— it is the relationship where one gets to know oneself, as you are letting yourself be known.  If one doesn’t have time for oneself, then one seldom has time for a friend. It is very possible to find someone who shields themselves, and thus you, from reality. They, however, are not really a friend. They are the way one maintains pretense. That’s all.

Friendship is an exacting art form. The more of you that you put into it, the more you get out of it. Even more paradoxically, the more you try to get out of it, the more you miss what’s really there. You only have this moment; there is a special kind of grace, that comes with sharing it.