I’ve been avoiding Thanksgiving with my family for years. Manufacturing flu, geographical limitations and whatever other excuse I could find.

One year I packed up the kids, sent them to my parents with my ex-husband and his new girlfriend, and watched three seasons of Weeds, back-to-back in an OTC drugged out kind of way. I was so delirious by the time they came back all I could say was, Why exactly don’t I have a hot, powerful, rich Mexican drug lord boyfriend?, while they turned off the TV and tucked me in.

If I’m being honest, I have to admit that my list of complaints about my family have been much longer than any list of gratitude I could come up with in any given year. I preferred the company of friends, often feeling that the depth and intimacy of my friendships far exceeded anything I felt for my family.

So, I reasoned, if we’re supposed to be with the people we loved best in the world on holidays, why should I be with my family? They were the most shallow relationships I had in my life.

I know, it sounds harsh. Like anyone with such a chronic complaint, I could cite evidence for this viewpoint. But considering how I promote intimacy, relationship, love, peace and all that good stuff, it was a little inconsistent with my persona. So I went underground with it, and it turned into, well, the annual holiday flu.

This year, I’m keenly aware of the cost those underground feelings can have. On the body, the psyche, the spirit. And I’m just not willing to pay it anymore.

So today, I got up at 7:30, walked past my already-set table, and slipped into the quiet kitchen while the kids slept, and got my 18 lb fresh organic turkey into the oven. Without even a whisper of past complaints dogging my heels. Expecting about half of the brood…enough to fill the house but not so many that we can’t have a sit-down dinner.

I’ve been asking myself for the past few days…what’s changed? When I first decided to host, I said it was because my Dad had passed away and I didn’t want my Mom to be alone. But I don’t think that’s it.

I think it’s another milestone in what has become my Big Lesson of 2011, which continues to unfold and reveal itself.

I noticed, when my Dad passed, how easily I let go of all my past complaints about him. Next thing I knew, I had the space to finish writing a play I was struggling with, and I had the courage to produce and perform it in the Philly Fringe Festival.

Which made me start to wonder, how much of my creativity is being held back by my lifetime of complaints?

There’s only one way to find out…

I’ve officially begun a personal campaign. I’ve even given it a name: Stop Complaining, Start Creating. Every time I notice myself in a cycle of complaints, I switch gears and ask myself what I can create instead.

And just so I don’t make it sound easier than it is…I really do some work on letting go of the complaints, so they don’t manifest as illness, either now or down the road. I dance them out in my 5 Rhythms dance practice. I write them out and release them in my sensual writing practice. I incorporate them into my morning download with my Project Miracle partner. I work them out in my Landmark Education Seminar. Or I talk them through with friends, using the Be Present Empowerment Model.

I’ve spent a lifetime gathering tools for personal transformation. I’ve built a business on helping others transform. But I realize that I have accepted, secretly, within myself, pockets of being stuck and stagnant. I’ve complained about not writing more, instead of just writing. I’ve complained about having shallow relationships with my family, rather than deepening them. I’ve complained about not having the kind of intimate primary relationship I envision, rather than establishing one.

Today, with this turkey, around this table, I will take one more step in my effort to stop complaining and start creating. It feels like one of my biggest so far.

I already feel lighter. I’m already writing more. I’m already loving more. And the turkey still has a few hours to cook.

However you are enjoying this day – whether in community with friends and family, in solitude, or in mourning for the history of it – I hope you’ll take a moment to clear some space. Let the air of your complaints, breathe life into your creativity.

I doubt there’s a more powerful or positive act you could take…today or any day.

If the superstition is true that a terrible dress rehearsal begets a brilliant opening night performance…then tomorrow’s debut performance of “Song of the Sacred Whore” at the Philly Fringe Festival is going to be masterful.

While I cling to that possibility, the monkeys chattering in my head have transformed into an angry mob of jilted lovers. You know, the ones who think it was all your fault. And they want to spend the rest of their lives making you pay for your sins.

Somewhere along the way, I realize I have made this all about the performance. Whether my newfound “acting” skills will be up to the task. Whether or not I will embarrass myself or my castmate. As if I will live or die by tomorrow night’s performance.

Which isn’t the point at all. Never was.

Months ago — maybe even years ago — I started weaving the threads of this show. Not in a linear, or even a conscious way. In fact any time I tried to impose some kind of form or structure to it, the words just dried up. I remember my yoga teacher telling me to “Just write…and figure out what it wants to be later.”

She wasn’t the first who said that to me. My college writing teacher said it. The palm reader I went to on my 40th birthday said it. My ex-husband said it. Almost like one voice talking to me, through as many willing mouths as it could find to give the words sound.

Just write…

It was only when I was willing to trust that voice that “Song of the Sacred Whore” could find it’s way out into the light of the day. With me practically kicking and screaming the entire way! But still, I opened the channel full tilt. I allowed the words to come through. Allowed myself to be revealed in every one of them.

As I’ve rehearsed — adding in a director, an acting coach, a castmate, a stage manager, and a myriad of production details — I am learning that lesson all over again. That I must be an open vessel. Permeable. As my archetypal woman in the show says, “To give of myself. To be used, in the best possible way.”

I remember vividly the days of looking at the blank page, knowing what I needed to write on it…and being too afraid. And then, just a few  weeks ago, trying to speak those words out loud…and being afraid. And then, just one week ago, allowing myself to fully feel the words I’d written and communicate them from the stage…and being afraid.

All the way to tonight. Knowing that by this time tomorrow, opening night will have had its way with me. And being afraid.

And I realize, it isn’t about the page or the stage. Or the critics or the audience or my family. It’s about opening. And how scary it can be every single time we do it. Sure, we develop a muscle for it over time. Mantra’s or rituals that help us. Friends who encourage us. But each and every time we take a risk — it’s still a risk. The caveman part of our brain fears death.

The cacophany of jilted lovers is no match for one terrified caveman. But the open heart is. The open hand. The open vessel.

No waiting for tomorrow night to open. No peeking out from behind the curtain. Draw it back, baby. Come out. Stay out. Be out. As if there were nowhere else to go. As if no one could hurt you. As if you weren’t afraid. As if you could melt away fear itself, with that big old open heart of yours.

If you’d like to come see “Song of the Sacred Whore” it will run September 8-11 with shows at 8pm each night, and a matinee performance at 2pm on September 11. All performances are at the Media Bureau on 725 S. 4th Street in the Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia. For more information, click here.

There are some things that can’t be imagined in advance.

Before I got married the first time, I thought I knew what I was getting into…until I took my first step down the aisle, looked at my fiance beaming back at me, and realized I had made a huge mistake. A mistake that would take two years to fully unravel.

Before I went into labor with my first child, I thought I could anticipate what labor would feel like…until the first contraction hit. Despite taking childbirth classes, talking to other women, and having experienced extreme pain in a car accident earlier in my life — nothing had fully prepared me for the intensity of labor.

Before I lost my father last month, I would have told you I was prepared for the death of my parents, whenever it might come. That I had done enough “work” on whatever issues I’d had with them. That I was complete.

Until the moment when the funeral home representative came to the hospital room to collect his body.

I had been there 14 hours that day, gathered with my mother, my brothers, their wives, one of my nieces. As we acknowledged together that it was time to let him go. As he was removed from the medications and machines. As his breathing and his heart gradually wound down.

I couldn’t bring myself to leave the room when the rest of the family left. Couldn’t leave him sitting alone in the bed. I secretly hoped it would be hours before they might get around to removing him to the morgue. I played Rickie Lee Jones on the little CD Player I had brought in weeks before, when he was first admitted. And I waited.

On some level, I knew that life had suddenly changed — more dramatically than I could have anticipated. I knew that when I left the hospital for the last time, I would be in the after. I would be making arrangements, figuring out what to do with all that he left behind, supporting the family, grieving.

I had done those things before. My father-in-law died while I was married to my first husband. My best friend’s father died several years ago. People have been getting married, getting divorced, having babies and losing parents since the dawn of time. People close to me.

And yet, this time, just like all those other times…I was not prepared.

Not for the heaviness I felt in my chest for weeks. Not for the profound silence that would come over me. Not for the stillness I felt inside myself. Not for the lack of oxygen in my lungs. Not for the lack of words, even in private places, let alone these public places where I generally share openly and fully.

And certainly not for the razor-sharp clarity I suddenly felt. Priorities that I had struggled with became much clearer. My tolerance for the ridiculous behavior of other people became almost nil. And my resistance to doing the things I most wanted to do in my life fell away.

Much as our mind tries — it is ultimately our body and our spirit that rules us. It is figuring out how to take the next breath…and the one after that…and the one after that. How to get up out of the chair, turn off the music, shake the hand of the funeral director, and let him take away the body of the man you’ve called your father for the last 33 years.

I am still early in this journey. I am sure there is more to come. All I know for now, is that it was a watershed experience. Clearly an ending and a beginning rolled into one.

I no longer  have the hubris to think that I can anticipate what might come next. That I can prepare. That I can know, in advance of a moment, how I might feel.

There is a freedom in that. And a confirmation that this is, truly, a sensual life that we live. A life of opening by experience, of knowing through feeling, of being through our humanity. An unanticipated life. Which it appears, from my current vantage point, is the only kind.

As I face what so many others do – looking for a job, tending to a sick parent, raising my two kids – I can’t help but notice that I am getting quieter and quieter here. It’s the exact same response we all have when life becomes so consuming, and we turn our back on our sensual lives. But I’m supposed to be the one who knows how to do it differently! How to not turn my back on the sensuality of everyday life – of living orgasmically even – no matter what the universe is serving me for dinner.

I am the one who is not supposed to be afraid that I might not get a job because I run this little company called The Sensual Life. Who is not ashamed that my life’s passion is about…well…passion. The one who isn’t going to resort to a different name or go into hiding because now, it could affect my livelihood to be public here. The one who knows the value of what I bring to everything I do, and is willing to stand firm in who I am until I find the right fit, rather than change or hide parts of myself that might be less acceptable to other people.

I am supposed to be the one who does not shut down her feelings – whatever they may be – while I watch my father lie in the ICU and get weaker every day. The one who doesn’t turn away or avert my eyes from his, as he is subjected to a flimsy hospital gown, ventilator, a dozen or so tubes sticking out of all parts of his body. The one who knows that making sure he has the jazz he loves playing in the background, and talking to him like the man I know is still in there, is just as important as his lab results.

I am supposed to be the one who knows that imposing ideas of how I “should” be sucks the air out of whatever room I’m in.

So, the battle has been raging in my head, every day, though on paper, I’ve been quiet.

To not give in to the urge to shut down and just get through it all. To stay present in each moment. To remember who I am rather than worry about who people might want me to be.

Who doesn’t struggle with this? Who doesn’t have these times when one challenge after another knocks on our door, demanding our attention?

This certainly isn’t the first time for me, either. But it may be the most conscious and awake I’ve been during such a time as this. And I know that the choices I’m making now – in each moment – are not random. They are a result of many years of preparing to be just this: fully human, fully feeling, fully engaged, fully creative…full with love, with life.

I have never wanted to join the guru crowd. Have often eschewed the self-important “teacher” label in favor of facilitator, guide, instigator. Because any attempt at being extraordinary robs us of the simple beauty – and challenge – that comes with the ordinary.

And it is our ability to meet these most ordinary moments with our full, unflinching selves, that defines who we are more than any title ever will.

I caught my father lying on his side when I walked in his room the other day, looking towards the window. I saw the line of trees as he saw them. So I pulled up a chair, and I told him about the cherry blossoms I saw over the weekend, about the Japanese Maples that blossomed in my front yard overnight. He has seen seventy-three Springs…but he is missing this one. And so, I share it with him. Chet Baker playing in the background, my hand wrapped around the only spot on his arm free of IV tubes.

It is a sensual moment. It is two embodied humans, sharing intimacy, touching one another, being willing to feel what is there to feel. And yes, it is orgasmic. How could it not be? It is all we have.

I feel lost sometimes. Lost in this hyper-marketed world where everything is yelling at us all the time, vying for our fleeting attention. Hundreds of hours of TV time about Osama Bin Laden. Thousands of internet porn sites. The earth turning itself inside out with tsunami’s, tornadoes, hurricanes…and their destructive aftermath…in an effort to compete with our electronic distractions.

And here I am, waving this silly flag. Sensuality. My marketing colleagues shake their head – doesn’t she know its sex that sells? Isn’t that what she really means by sensuality?

No, it really isn’t.

By all means, have sex. Have it as often as you want, with who you want, exactly as you like it. But know, it’s just a start. It is like a child taking its first step. Knowing and embracing your sexual expression simply unlocks the door. It’s an important door, and there are many gatekeepers and tricksters standing in your way.

But it isn’t the whole journey. All it does is allow you to get to know the world through the lens of your pleasure, rather than your pain. It sounds so simple. Revolution usually is.

I feel sure, today, that if it wasn’t for the sensual exploration I’ve undertaken these last few years, the many moments I’ve been sharing with my father would be very different right now. Or that I would feel like my life is in some type of crisis or tailspin. That I would have to put the feeling part of myself aside in order to function, to go on interviews, to take care of my kids.

I know because I feel the pull to those ways of behavior. But I also am no longer able to turn my back on these parts of myself – and I have expanded my capacity to hold more of life than ever before. So that even the most extraordinary days, now feel ordinary. Just an average day in the life of a human being, being human.

Such a gift.

So, no, I won’t be taking down this site, or changing my name, any time soon.  Even if it means that some employers decide to pass me by. And I won’t start selling sex – only – any time soon. Even though I’m sure it means I’m missing out on mountains of easy internet cash.

I will keep talking about things like expansion, intimacy, presence…and referring to them as part of the continuum of our sensual expression. I will continue to reclaim this word, this concept, this way of living. And trust that it’s enough.

Like today, right now, if you made it this far into this blog. It doesn’t have to be any more extraordinary than that. And I don’t need to be your guru. It’s enough to be here together, on this page, and know that our journeys have converged for a moment, and maybe, changed something.

It has for me.

Last night, a good friend was sad and grieving…and wanted company. He asked me to tell him jokes. He told me how much my love letter on Valentine’s Day meant to him. And he kept saying, “don’t stop being you.”

We texted this way for a while, until we both gave in to sleep. He asked me to keep “holding” him, if I could, through the night. Dutifully, I wrapped myself around my daughter’s penguin pillow pet and did just as he asked.

I didn’t need his body there to feel him. We didn’t need to talk specifically about his pain or his heartbreak for me to be a comfort for him.

There was nothing to do. Except to be.

This morning, it hit me. How often I’ve felt like I needed to do something in order to be wanted, needed, loved. How often I’ve changed myself, obscured this part and that, because I was afraid I would either be too much…or not enough.

But his plea, please don’t stop being you, I need you, revealed the counter-intuitive truth about what the people who love us really want from us.

To simply be ourselves in their presence. No matter what.

Not our advice. Not our brilliant insights. Not our agreement with their pain and suffering.

They might accept those things from us. They might even ask for them. But don’t fall for it.

By being yourself…by loving them and allowing them to love you…without the need to share a story or a viewpoint…you are providing air, water, food. The basic necessities in life.

From there, whatever healing, insight and brilliance they require will come from them. Just by you being you, you create a space for them to be them.

There truly is no greater gift you can give another person.

If you follow this blog at all, you know that when it gets quiet here, it’s generally very busy elsewhere. This time is no different!

And the results of this busy time will not only be felt by those in the Northeast, who are able to physically attend my events, workshops and courses…

There will finally be a way to access my courses and coaching right here online. Plus, I am in conversations with readers and FaceBook fans from all over the country who are preparing to bring The Sensual Life to their communities.

It is a very exciting time!

As a beginning step, I launched a new, totally free, online publication called “Your E-Sensual Journal” that goes out to everyone on the mailing list. It’s a very brief sharing of a concept or idea related to your sensual life, followed by a few suggested exercises to foster you having your own, self-guided, sensual awareness or experience.

If you aren’t already on The Sensual Life mailing list, there are two great reasons to do so right now:

The Sensual Life’s Guide to Getting Off: What It Really Takes To Have It All

Your E-Sensual Journal

These publications are available only to subscribers. Here’s a sample issue of Your E-Sensual Journal. Take a moment to enjoy it…and then join the list!

Your E-Sensual Journal: An Unusual Way to Ignite Your Passion

When we say that we are “not in the mood” to engage with someone in a sensual or sexual way, what are we really saying?

Often, it means there are layers of other thoughts, feelings and emotions piled on top of the molten core of our sensual selves. Complaints, discontent, worries, fears concerns, and petty grudges. They are layered between us and our passion like too many blankets on the first day of Spring!

We need to strip them off, one by one, before we reach our naked selves underneath.

I know, I know…you thought the path to nirvana was paved with dinner, candles, and roses.

While those things are lovely, they add layers to the pile. Nice layers, granted. But what most of us really need is to remove a few layers before we’re ready to receive anything more — no matter how romantic or loving — from another person.

In Your E-Sensual Journal this week, I invite you to remove a few of those layers — and burn them. That’s right…matches, fire, pyrotechnics. Get rid of them.

Here are some exercises you can try:

• Set a timer for 15 minutes and write down all of your complaints. They might be about your partner, children, house, job, family — just make a random list as they pop into your mind. When you’re done, take the list outside (or put into a fireplace) and light it with a match. Let yourself really release all of your discontent as the list is, literally, consumed by fire and turned to ash.
• Draw a picture — make it as ugly as you can imagine. Scribble on it, use colors you hate, paste images to it of all the morbid, ugly things you think about but never say. Pour every bit of negative energy you have into creating this poster. When you’re done, take the poster outside (or put into a fireplace) and light it with a match. Let yourself really release all the negativity you poured into that paper as it is, literally, consumed by fire and turned to ash.
• If you can score some time alone in a sound-proof, quiet space you can release with sound. Put on some super-loud music — very invigorating, no lyrics, preferably heavy on the drums — and let yourself really let go. Dance, punch the air, scream and holler, curse, cry, sweat…basically, let yourself go until you feel spent. Then, turn off the music or replace it with something more mellow and soothing and lie down or stand still for 10 minutes and let your body and mind adjust to the space you just cleared.

Once you have released a few layers, you will have at least a small pocket of space free. Be sure to fill this with something nourishing and sensual, such as a bath, a massage, or perhaps writing a list of gratitudes. As an added twist, mail yourself the gratitude list so you’ll be reminded of it again in a few days.

Now you can make those dinner reservations and schedule that sexy date! You’ll be more likely to actually enjoy it once you do this week’s exercise. And if you’re inspired to share your experience, I’d love to hear how it goes for you. Please send it to monica@thesensuallife.com.

Enjoy!

I have to admit, when I conceived of my latest workshop, “Penned Intimacy: The Lost Art of Writing Love Letters,” I did it with my marketing hat on. I was simply hopping on the Valentine’s Day bandwagon. But I thought it was, well, a little fluffy for me personally.

Was I wrong!

As I prepared the workshop, I found myself being pulled into this form of writing more and more. I noticed how it tapped into a different place — a lost voice if you will — that my regular regimen of journal writing doesn’t touch. There is a level of truth, intimacy, and expression in a love letter that raises the heat in your body, quickens your pulse, and gets your blood flowing to all the right places.

And it doesn’t matter if you decide to share the love letter or not with the person on the salutation line. The very act of committing your feelings for another person on the page is its own rich — and sensual — experience.  I’ve decided, after last night, to make this workshop a regular offering for The Sensual Life — and I’m already working on turning it into an online course. So stay tuned!

In the meantime, I wanted to share two letters with you from last night. The instruction for this particular prompt was to write a confessional love letter and share something with someone that you haven’t told them before:

Dear G,

“I finally said it. In a text, in response to some fabulous opening line of yours, I just blurted it out…

“OMG – I love you…”

Quickly, I texted something else to distract you, to keep it light, so maybe you wouldn’t notice.

Of course, you noticed.

“What? Why?”

“I just do – no explanation,” I text back. And we move on.

But I am relieved. I have said the thing that has been sitting right there, for months now.

I love you.

It’s not even some long list of attributes that I love. Yes, your pieces all fit together well. But it’s not that.

It’s just you. The spirit of you. The essence. And the way we are so connected, as if our spirit got cut in half about a dozen or two lifetimes ago – and every now and then, we get to touch the halves together again.

You are so gentle in there. After years of tough love, piled on top of empty love – you are like food, air, water.

Your access to truth. Willingness to be vulnerable. Openness to love. Always diving right in to the core. But with a scalpel, never a club.

You brush away parts of me the way a mother wipes crumbs from her child’s face. Shame, doubt, rage…just like that…gone.

I am clean, reborn – new to a love like this.

A love with no having. A love with no form or structure. A love with no time or season.

Even sex feels too small a container, though we’ve visited there. Tumbled down into that ancient place of connection, touched briefly. And when I wanted to stay in that box, when I wanted to turn the unknown of you into something familiar, you gently pull me out. Show me something I’ve never met before. A love undefined.

I love you.

Love you, love you , love you. I can’t say it enough. I can’t say it at all. It would be too much for us both. But here, on this page, in this room, I speak the unspoken.

I love you. “

M.

__________

Dear Clients,

I know it looks like I know what I’m doing. I have the table. The space I hold bears a complete resemblance to the space of one who is competent, who is confident. But what I don’t reveal to you in those moments when I’m lost, when I don’t know what to do or say, is the fake I feel inside, pretending I have it together or know how to serve you.

You come in so willing and trusting of me, and I’m grateful for that, but I think that’s what makes me feel like I’m somehow taking advantage. You deserve more.
I feel guilty for even having so much attention on myself. Perhaps I need to have more attention on you, on your willingness to lie there, hurting, tired, sick, confused, needing a connection to your body, to your energy source, to feel you, and honor that vulnerability more and acknowledge our journey as one we take together. Some humility please!

Ah that is it. So odd how much ego is in the feeling so small, just the shadow of the need to feel big.
What about being your partner and seeing you more? That is what I desire to offer you. To not stop with my feelings of falsehood, but to follow it to the truth. Which is that you come to me humbled, and to mirror you we must walk that together.

I love you. I can promise to honor the role you play and feel you there and trust together something will unfold, as it does when I’m not busy feeling like a fake or fraud. To a partnership of authenticity, vulnerability, courage, and healing, transformation movement and possibility.

I dig it.
Love,
Your humble loving practitioner

It happens at the start of every year. We make resolutions. Vow to lose weight, exercise more, make more money. Make some kind of change for the better.

And yet, most of us fall back on those promises before the first month of the year is through. That’s why I did something radical this year.  I decided to explore the idea of being happy with things exactly as they are.

Well, OK. To be honest, I didn’t know that’s where I was headed. I just knew that I didn’t have the heart to make one more resolution that might fall flat in a few short weeks. It felt like the movie Groundhog Day…and I really wanted to wake up.

I’ve lived most of my life looking ahead, planning for success, striving to achieve the next thing…and the next…and the next. I’m like Sisyphus, rolling that damn boulder uphill, day in, day out. Wondering why, when the light dwindles and the temperature drops at the end of the year, I’m completely exhausted.

I usually save myself from the despair brought on by  chronic dissatisfaction with a good dose of New Year optimism.This will be the year that I finally…blah, blah, blah.

Instead, I allowed myself to go into a deep, dark funk. To wonder why I was even here. To embrace my shadow existentialism. To tumble into the profound nothingness that is always under the surface, pulling at my feet.

I sunk into it the way you slide into a hot bath on a cold day. I surrendered to it. I let it have me. I didn’t even put up a fight.

No one was more surprised than me at my discovery…

In place of resolutions — where I pretend to know what to do in order to get what I want — I simply started listening to what arose out of the utter, desolate silence of despair.

Now, trust me, I am not overstating it! It felt as awful in that place as I am making it sound on this page. Anyone who has been depressed can tell you it’s true.

But there was a tremendous amount of freedom in there, too. A freedom that can only come when we allow ourselves to trust what we feel more than what we think. When we give ourselves permission to look bad and feel terrible and not know what to do about it…but we still trust that the next moment will reveal itself.

Slowly, when given patience and compassion, a quiet voice inside me started to speak. It told me to dance — something I had given up for the last 24 years since my car accident. So I did. And I realized that I don’t merely “like” to dance, I “am” dance. My body needs to reflect that part of my spirit.

It seems like such a simple thing. Perhaps something I could have gotten without a six-week depression. I’d been invited to 5 Rhythms (the place where I found my dance) for the last 3 years and kept finding excuses not to go.
Resistance may, ultimately, be futile. But that doesn’t mean it won’t give you a run for your money.
What I’ve learned is that our resolutions come from our mind — the part of us that thinks we know something. But true growth and change comes from the wisdom of our body, and our ability to hear what it’s telling us.

I’m happy to report that since I listened to mine, I’ve been experiencing a sense of profound happiness. I haven’t resolved to make any concrete changes, but rather to go with the flow of life and embrace whatever unfolds. To judge less and breathe and smile and laugh and dance more. To joyfully acknowledge that what I “want” usually pales in comparison to what’s possible.

So far, I’ve noticed that when I pay attention to each moment and allow the next to unfold without my silly attempts at manipulation, a sort of perfection arises that I could never have predicted. The more I repeat this cycle, the happier I get. There is a wild joy arising from me that is rarely related to, but usually spills over into, my immediate circumstances.

So if you are where most of us land with resolutions around this time of year, don’t despair. Or rather, do despair. Listen to what the despair has to say. Underneath the top coat of resolve and the layers of despair below, there is a voice.

That’s the one to trust.

Wrote this a while ago. Had occasion to read it at Zimmun – an open sharing at my favorite synagogue, Rome’mu, on the Upper West Side.

My kids were there, so I picked something ‘family friendly.’ It’s funny, because I noticed myself making some disclaimers before I read — somehow feeling that I had to apologize for breaking out of my usual edgy and erotic zone.

And yet, when it was over, I realized that making such a sweeping, open, unapologetic statement about love might be one of the most edgy, most erotic pieces I’ve done…depending on your definition.

See what you think!

Cleave Yourself To Love

Cleave yourself to love
as if that is all there is

as if all your tears and disappointments were spent
all your fears and insecurities could be tossed aside with a kiss

as if your deepest desires
even the wants you’ve been afraid
to speak out loud
were waiting for you at the breakfast table

as if you were healed
over and over and over
just because the sun came up again
just because your heart was simply too full
to abide emptiness ever again

Cleave yourself to love
as if that is all there is

because you have noticed time after time
that when you do
magic happens
doors open to you –
the worlds revealed on the other side
much richer and sweeter than you dared hope

you are invited into secret places –
inside a child’s cry in the deepest night
inside the dreams of your lover
inside your own heart, finally laid wide open
displaying innocence and wisdom in equal measure.

Cleave yourself to love
as if that is all there is

so that when those who would come to hurt you
who would misunderstand you
who would take your words
and twist them into something you don’t recognize
who would take your open heart for granted

who would see something new about themselves
in the power of your very presence
and let their fear of something so precious and unknown
become a weapon they would take up against you
and yet, when they do
the only thing that could possibly shatter
is the mirror of their own illusions.

And in a place far, far away
from even the tiniest shard
you would stand
hands outstretched, heart open, vision unswerving
vast and all-encompassing as all the oceans
that lap upon the shores of the world
and hold the land in its embrace

You have gently allowed every barrier to drop away
every excuse subside
until every step of the journey
becomes just this –

a race towards love
towards this ultimate knowing
that outshines all others.

It is true. And it is all that is left to do
and say and show in every moment
between now and eternity

that love really is all.

The other night I was trying to gear up for the Philadelphia Erotic Literary Salon. Honestly, after launching a new Salon series in Philly last week…producing and hosting an amazing sold-out show in NYC last Saturday night…and managing the additional life logistics of 10+ days of houseguests in two different cities…I was whooped. Didn’t think I could pull anything off — on stage or otherwise.

But I lit a candle, cranked up Pandora, and went jogging through the erotic archives of my computer to see if I could come up with something.

Nothing like a little nostalgia to put you right over the edge! All the sweet moments with past lovers. The beginnings and the endings brilliantly sketched out. The middles notable only in their absence. The nothing-to-say-ness about them spoke volumes.

Except for one. Written smack in the middle of my marriage.

I couldn’t bring myself to read it onstage, but I’ll share it here:

The Fifth Year

Please don’t meet my hesitance with yours
or we may never open that space
again; that space we touched once
with shy fingertips so quietly
in my uncle’s house.
Our mouths hung open
so careful not to let any sound break the
mundane silence, the presumption that we
were just napping guests on a slow
Sunday afternoon.
As my body shook and tears fell, you knew
there was no sadness
there was no shyness
you knew not to run, but to hold tighter
wrap yourself into me until the
drumming of our hearts
slowed and syncopated together.

Did you know then that I would run –
that I would wear the bride gear
bear the child, balance the checkbook
plan and make the meals
all while crouched in the corner
under unforgiving layers of
excuses and fear?
Did you know that you touched
the sapphire, the ruby, the diamond
that hides like the night shies from the day?
Did you know it was something other
than love, something that still waits to be named?

I am no open book
I am nothing if not terrified
But what was touched once
yearns to be found again
even while determined to provide
no open invitation, no simple direction.
Don’t just wait.
Hold out something precious to me
and see what peeks out
from behind the wedding veil.

I don’t indulge much in regret. The minute you try to take one thing back, the tapestry of your life unravels, and the good is washed away with the bad. Like the two brilliant and gorgeous children I wouldn’t have had if it weren’t for a near-fatal car accident that crushed both my feet and ankles. Sure, I’d love the ankles and mobility back. And oh, to wear fuck-me pumps again!!

But I certainly wouldn’t trade the kids for them.

Still, it’s challenging to pull this poem up. To see the road not taken. Knowing it wasn’t all me. Knowing that between us, we couldn’t get past the roles and responsibilities of marriage to unearth something deeper. The fact that I have tools now that I didn’t have then doesn’t change anything…for me…for us…or for my children. We will all live with my earlier limitations — and I’m sure many beautiful things will arise from that soil, just like it did from my car accident.

So I reach instead for gratitute. That I am no longer crouched in the corner, hiding out, desperate and terrified to be found at the same time. No longer waiting for someone else to uncover and show me the jewels of my own spirit. No longer imprisoned by the infrastructure of life.

And grateful, too, that I don’t ever have to drop another bomb to go free. I can simply open the door. Invite the other person to walk through with me. See what’s on the other side together. Or at least, issue an invitation instead of an ultimatum….provide an answer instead of a test…move from love, instead of fear.

All so incredibly clichéd…until you try it, and realize it is the most challenging, counter-intuitive, kick-ass thing you can do.