Meditations On Sexuality

As I watched my daughter
sleeping, three years old,
her face and breath serene,
this thought quivered inside me
with privilege:
sex that creates life is miraculous.

Gaze on a child you love:
meditate on her features,
listen to his voice,
and remember the mysterious union
that brings consciousness into being.
Every person you know began with a sexual climax.
Utterly commonplace,
the act has been repeated billions of times;
yet each time,
sex leading to birth is a miracle.

Remember, too,
sex is good and wholesome in itself
as a bond between two people,
as love enacted.
There is an intimacy which subsumes
any sexual act.
It may express comfort or closeness,
increase the solidarity of a couple,
and it may celebrate we the living
in these precious, impermanent bodies.
It is simply good
to touch,
be held,
and satiate together.

A relationship which has experienced both
the reproductive miracle
and the joys of intimacy
— playful, fierce, or tender —
and has endured through changes;
that is a relationship
to cherish and defend.

Some do not procreate, but
make a life together
and a family of choice, if not biology;
Together they draw from the same well of qi
as all other lovers.
For me, perhaps the strongest sexual bond
is that between a committed couple,
as familiar with each other’s bodies as their own,
and trusting each other wholly.
Love is a copula of truth.

At times, too, sex is
a passionate explosion of urge,
dissolving barriers:
friction and softness
yielding;
filling and enveloping
musk;
grounding the senses,
lifting us from the mundane,
re-connecting and liberating our instincts.
This can happen in or out of commitment,
and it can bring both
good and ill.

For me,
sex can also be empty,
when we use a human being as an object
(another person, or one’s own body,
as a blunt instrument of pleasure)
This sex can be
a narcissistic mirror,
it can prop up one’s self worth,
it can be a drama which plays out
all the earlier hurts, hungers,
and unmet needs.
It can become addiction or emotional anesthetic.
The poet Rainer Maria Rilke said:
“Most people misuse and squander this experience
and apply it as a stimulant
at the tired spots of their lives
and as distraction …
instead of a rallying toward exalted moments.”

Each of us has a choice
again and again
of how we experience sexuality
along this varied and
multi-dimensioned range
of possibilities:

miracle
wholesome
bond
impermanent
cherish
trusting
copula
urge
instincts
empty
distraction
rallying toward …
exalted moments