33 -Sex Change Goddess

SEX
In the early stages of a relationship we would never imagine that our passionate sex life will one day be barely there. Our passion is so strong, our sex life is so good, our intimacy is a central part of our identity as a couple in love. Despite our deep seated belief that we will be different than those who trade in the bonfire for a pilot light, it is a fact of later stage love (and aging/changing bodies) that frequency of sex fades.

When I told a close friend that I was going to write a book, he assumed if it would be a book of erotica. Shocking, hopefully, for most readers, but when I told another close personal confidant about this supposition I got this matter-of-fact reaction: “of course, that's what anyone who knows you would say.” Sex is a favorite topic of mine, and I enjoy sharing and hearing details. For a while, I was the one who fed juicy stories to my friends. That well dried up when I got married. As fitting the sanctity of marriage, I set boundaries on blabbing. Never appropriate for the professional persona, I discern between wanton voyeurism and all important education, honesty and openness. Sexuality is human, a universal life theme. I strongly maintain that sex is sacred, even when it is sad or bad or kinky or gay or short or solo. [Sex is not sacred when it is scary, coerced and abusive.]

CHANGE
The truth is that kids change everything. It is a platitude, I know, but it is the truth. In my case, my marriage never existed without kids. I dated a daddy-daughter combo; immediately we were a not-yet family unit. Once we were all living together we discovered her hidden talent – sex radar. The second that we started kissing, she would cry out from her room awake. Sex-dar! - not for sale. The only ever blessing of the every other weekend custody arrangement was those early relationship weekends in bed without the sex alarm sounding. Life re-arranged, now in my perfect world all of our children would always be under our roof, ready to climb into bed for morning tickles.

Clearly with children it is not only how our bodies change, though that is a key point. My pregnancy was far from typical if there is such a thing. Speaking generally, pregnancy changes every cell of the body. Nothing is spared. Hormones are powerful drugs and growing another being inside your body is radical (not to mention growing three babies at once!). Delivery brings other changes, both typers -vaginal and cesarean. I wouldn't doubt if adoptive mothers and mothers by surrogacy have their own experience of physical changes when they become mothers. Mothering, all parenting, is an extreme sport.

When I say everything changes, I mean everything. Nerve ending rearrange themselves, breasts change colors and sizes, muscles tighten that are supposed to loosen and loosen that are supposed to tighten. Taste buds transform, nourishment triggers vomiting, vegetarians crave meat. Bodies with perpetually cold fingers, nose and toes can suddenly heat an entire house. Emotions become exagerated, sensitivities super-size.

I didn't always recognize myself. I don't recognize myself in women who say they went through pregnancy with no changes at all in lifestyle, then gave away their maternity jeans the day after delivery, God bless them. One day, or night, or afternoon- months after giving birth, I attempted to have sex. That's when I realized that my clitoris had moved. Yes, my anatomy was rearranged! Quite disturbing to discover my body had become completely alien. Moments like those, its so nice to be so sleep deprived with three babies needing your boobs for sustenance. Nature's way of compensating. No time or energy to ponder the freak show that is me in the moment.

GODDESS*
Yet another part of the owner's manual for women's body that they didn't give to us in middle school sex ed. Think of the bump you get from walking into a wall and imagine the swelling you'd have if a head burst through your groin. Ah, yes, the birth canal, that is not a separate accessory loaned to you for the event, it is your very own one and only vagina. Stretched beyond her limit, engorged with blood flow, she swells beyond recognition to bring forth new life.

I saw a Goddess in my first sight of a woman naked and swollen after child birth. A sight before unseen by me, this was surely the body of God. Yes, creation is an act of godliness and childbirth is an act of Goddessness. The Goddess body surely but slowly (days, months, years) morphs back into a semblance of the pre-mother woman, with the woman always retaining the primordial woman Goddessness. “God was in this place, and I did not know.” Every physical sensation is a source for spiritual awareness, every body breathes soul, every moment we hold the holy in our hands. The rawness of it, also found in sex, and the sweetness of it, also found in sensuality, are not exclusive to this experience.

The point is that passion is divine. Physical fire fuels the entry level of soul work. The intense heat is a furnace of spiritual refinement. It was hot in that desert while we walked and sweated to the oldies. Hard work building and shlepping the tabernacle. The sun so hot it baked matzoh on our backs as we fled slavery for the promise of freedom, with each step getting closer to the light of revelation. Accessing your passion, your heat, your light, your fire is your own dance of freedom. Feel the fire that fuels you, let yourself get sticky and sweaty from the heat, enjoy the fun all for the sake of finding the Goddess within.

Today is the 33rd day of the Omer, that is 4 weeks and 5 days. Today is the celebration of Lag B'Omer, marked by bonfires and wild celebration. Fire and freedom, divine purpose and passion .



Practice:
-Get those inner fires burning. Dance until you drip from sweat – alone in your home, with a friend, lover or child. Or take your dancing out to a community Lag B'Omer celebration. An alternate physical practice is a yoga practice focusing on the lower abs.

Consider a burning ritual. If there were a safe bonfire for you, what items would you offer up? You can set your intention for letting go and moving towards freedom (burn that letter from your ex) or for celebrating your passionate dreams (burn a letter to yourself or to God that describes the person you aspire to be, your big dreams. Write as if, i.e. “I am happy, joyous and free”, “I am successful in business and in love with my wife.”)


*Please note that my use of Goddess here illuminates the female face of God and does not mean that I believe in anything but One Unified God. Questions welcome as always.