Grief is an erotic portal

the weight of life in your hands

She called at midnight.
Slithered me into the long black dress draped over the bed.
Summoned me to the basement.
Into the darkness.
Onto the chilling winter floor.
Wrapped me in gold fabric.

She moved me into unnamable shapes.
Into twists and curls of tenderness.
Into softening spaciousness.

Through salt licked lips and
terrifying sweetness,
a river of awakening.
She moved me into remembering
the Erotic Feminine.

•••

Before, I sat on my bed immersed in images of lovers touching, hands exploring bodies, black and white softness, swaths of beauty flushing my system. The longing set in.

Several years ago I sold my camera in a moment of impulse; I thought I wanted something else.

Really, I was afraid of what I was discovering through the lens turned on myself.

I still grieve the loss of that instrument. I want it back.

Its weight in my hands, the action of the shutter, the beauty of a 50mm lens.

I spent the first five years of my remembering both in front of and behind that camera.

And I want it back.

Simple as that.

So let these words be part prayer, part lesson.

•••

You already know my take on getting undressed and seeing yourself. It’s a profound way of healing our connection with our Erotic selves.

But I want to talk about what exactly erotic is. Because it is not what the common narrative says.

The Erotic is not the sexual or sensual or even the pleasurable. It can be all of those things, yes. But the Erotic is far more than that.

The Erotic is connection. The quivering web. The life impulse. The deep stillness from which movement arises. From which everything arises.

The Erotic is the root.

You cannot fabricate it with black lace and red lipstick (though you can evoke it with just the right circumstance).

The Erotic is not on the surface, yet it is. It is. Everywhere you look, everywhere you feel, there is it.

It is the deepest of the deep. Beyond conception. Profoundly unproductive. Inherent.

Wild and nonsensical and the most wonderful thing you’ve ever experienced.

The most devastating. Absolutely terribly depressing.

And then, when you sink all the way into her embrace, you learn

even the darkness is ecstatic remembering.

And you’re crying on the floor of the basement at 12am naked with gold mesh wrapped around your breasts and there she is. There she is again. You remember the pain comes when you disconnect. You didn’t even know you’d let her go. But she always comes back. She’s always just beneath the surface. Always waiting, whispering a hymn, if you’re willing to listen.

•••

I am tempted to leave it at that, but there is one more thing before we go:

Grief is a portal into bliss.

When she summoned me to the basement, I didn’t know why. I only knew I felt it. The irresistible pull to go into this — whatever it was — stirring in my belly.

It’s been said that “grief is love with nowhere to go.” When you hold it inside, that is true. I wonder if the act of holding grief is the same as holding a belief that in letting it out, you will lose something.

From where I stand, the opposite is true. You will gain a deeper connection with the very thing you fear feeling the loss of. Because to let it out, you first have to let it all the way in. Let it penetrate your beliefs. Let it pierce through your fear, your resistance. Let it in so deep it goes through your marrow.

I didn’t know, till I sat on the freezing floor with my iPhone pointed toward my naked body, how much it hurt to have let go of my camera. How my grief had both nothing and everything to do with the camera. Nothing to do with the object itself, and everything to do with how it felt. To feel the weight of my art. The force of erotic connection. The impact of loving myself through a clear lens. To feel the life in my hands.

•••

An important note on practice

If you are intrigued by this practice and want to try it on your own, I strongly suggest creating a CONTAINER for yourself to practice within. Grief is a strong emotional portal and if not given a container can easily spiral into despair.

I recommend:

1. Making sure you feel at ease in your space (a locked door helps immensely).

2. Giving yourself a time limit - 10-20 minutes is a good staring point. You can do this through a timer, or making a playlist of that length).

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