We come face to face with our own raw, pulsing heart.
We allow ourselves to be touched by the realization and promise of Eros.
This is our home.
Instead of rendering us weak, it's where we draw our strength.
Washed out
Forgive to heal
First taste of our authentic value
Source of genius is revealed
Following climax, waves and paroxysms move through the body, shuttling our consciousness in a bottomless descent. In the habituated state, this descent often ends in anxiety or sleep. It lacks the necessary gravity to make it down into the true reward of emptiness: the experience of an essence that lies below the protective walls constructed from our deep-seated fear of being hurt.
The force of Eros can break through, cracking the walls around the heart constructed by pride, indifference, aloofness, hysteria, envy, and comparison. We glimpse something untouched by the infractions and aggressions of life: something naked, vulnerable, and innocent. We come face-to-face with our own raw, pulsing heart, allowing ourselves to be touched by the realization and promise of Eros.
We see that what we have viewed as our weakness—a place where an inexpressible homesickness issues that we think we must escape from or conceal—is, in fact, our home. We draw strength from this place that we have viewed as our weakness.
The throb we previously experienced at a distance, through protective layers, proves to be the direct throbbing of our heart when touched in nakedness. Through climax, Eros washes away our protective layers, allowing our mind to move down into the very center of our lives. As long as our attention has been purified of the tumescence that would have it buoy back up, it can sink in and release its confusion and lack of knowing. Our consciousness is able to let go of what it has been holding on to in its attempt to protect us.
We rest inside of a knowing deep enough to hold the whole of us, from our worst badness to our inexpressible, paralyzing yearnings. Finally, someone has us. As is the way of Eros, we are now faced with ourselves and with the burn of seeing how we have hidden, run, blocked, or demonized the delicate nature of our heart. We feel as if we can hear our own heartbeat from the inside.
Even as we want to turn away from this, we are surrounded by a forgiveness beyond human understanding. We sense the work is done, that all Eros ever wanted of us was to come home to our heart and allow Eros to come through. We are humbled as we see our efforts were unnecessary, and that our only work is to return and reside here. Eros seeks itself and lives in this truth.
As we rest in the heart of Eros, we learn how to receive the world just as we are received by Eros—with relief, joy, gratitude, and celebration of our return. There is no need for Eros to forgive, because no crime has been committed; getting lost and forgetting where our home is has been our only transgression. Even our defiance against home was in truth a forgetting. Eros embraces us and holds us, the only appropriate response to one who has been lost.
If climax is flooding, the stage of resolution is welling up—gratitude, relief, tears. What we call an "afterglow" is our heart welling up with love.
Yet there is an emptiness to it, as we find we have confused emptiness for lack and felt a need to fill. Stilled from the outflowing of climax, we find we cannot return to our habit of acquisition and filling, as we have learned our best adornments are not nearly as elegant as the nature of the heart.
The hope is that in glimpsing this beauty, something in us is reversed: instead of simply drawing in, we can also allow outward flow, thus living in an unfettered heart showcasing the natural beauty that can only be seen rightly with it. When seen, this beauty is so breath-giving, we resolve to live with openhandedness. Our resolution is not out of generosity; it's to release anything that would obstruct our view.
The most terrifying place in Eros is the virginal mind resolution brings us to. Self-consciousness has been absorbed, as well as the need to be the best dog in the show, always repeating the same tricks. We return to ourselves as we were before all the cunning defense mechanisms installed themselves in our mind. This is the pure, alive moment when we realize everything we thought we knew is wrong. We realize we are useless to Eros.
We now have two choices: we can head back out to the limited world and look good, or we can allow ourselves to be vulnerable on our knees, the only place Eros can reach us and begin to work through us. With this second choice, the power of wonder is restored, and it is a power. Think of the world-weary suitor who is undone by the virgin, and consider who holds the power in that dynamic.
In the resolution stage, there is a sensitivity to the clitoris and the finger in OM—a sense of burning often associated with pain. We might presume neither want to be touched, when in fact they want to be met with the most exquisite attention.
No motion is required and, when contact is made, essence knows essence. Here is knowing without preconception, without filter—a renewal, a rebirth of the senses. Free of the leash of concepts, this sensing organ delights in the curious exploration it yearns to do.
The wall between the mind and the body has been knocked down by the force of climax, and now, mind and body are brought together and exposed. Ideas that previously operated as the enemy of the body play through the heart as inspiration. With the barrier between them removed, the yearnings of the body that so threatened the mind are able to add power to its ideas. As these two forces come to see what can only be seen through a heart that knows they are better off for the other's existence, the body fills with a sense of being in love.
However, in habituated resolution, we may not glimpse this prior to passing out. We may feel a sadness we can't quite locate, or we may lock up to prevent the unknown descent. That which wanted to be washed away may instead circulate even more through the mind, likely in the form of shame or self-recrimination. This fundamental mental shame views itself as having failed for losing control, and becomes determined to redouble its efforts to restore control.
If, instead, we reclaim our birthright to descent, we can go even further down. As we descend, we may experience a seeming numbness.
However, just as a black hole is not the absence of matter but actually an incredibly dense concentration of it, this numbness is not a sign of a lack of sensation, but rather of its superabundance. This impacted sensation indicates we have too much for our sensory apparatus to process all at once.
Here, we often resort to theatrics rather than slowing down to feel all of the sensation. If we instead tune in, we see our own power of gravity to draw in. Eros enters the heart as love. Previously, our heart was full of the hatred we created inside ourselves as a way to protect against perceived external hatred. When Eros enters, it demonstrates the truth of the home we are coming to inhabit. We are healed by this love filling our now-Erotic heart. And this is not at the expense of our genius; it is the very source of it. Here, we have access to the wisdom of all things by the leveling of identity to the location where we all meet.
When we are turned on and in the resolution stage in OM, we are tuned into subtlety and relish rich and nourishing sensations. Our nervous system feels bathed in these sensations as we resettle into our body. When we are turned off, we feel either sluggish and heavy or overly sensitive in a way that communicates we do not wish to be touched. This stage feels like an unnecessary waypoint where we don't want to be and we may find ourselves checked out.
OMing in resolution requires a precise attention in order to feel this new set of subtle sensations. With this attention, we recast the down as honorable, offering unconditional approval. Inside our preconceptions of pain or sadness, we find the sweet spot of rawness.
When stroking someone in resolution, we stroke with a stillness to receive her outpouring of energy, sometimes stroking with such light pressure that we are merely stroking the lube on top of the clitoris, not the clitoris itself. The resolution stage has the most heightened sensation of the down stages, yet the sensitivity does not mean the OM should end. Instead, we make space for the down sensation, which may manifest as tears and an energy of grief.
If our partner is turned off, we should have her verbally direct the entire OM, while keeping our finger receptive to draw out sensation rather than quenching it. Over-stroking or using too much pressure at this level of sensitivity could result in disconnection in this stage where there is the most potential for connection.
When we are being stroked in resolution, if we think the sensations of down are shameful, we may disconnect from our clitoris. The invitation in resolution is to give ourselves permission to be felt in this location. We maintain a level of engagement to add gravity to the downward movement, rather than merely sinking in and riding it.
We allow the sensation to prickle with the light strokes, which keeps the sensitivity alive as those prickles collect, pulling sensation down further. Making requests here keeps us from being self-sufficient. If we find ourself turned off in resolution, we push out our clitoris, feeling one stroke at a time, and adding attention to each. We find one good stroke and communicate it to our partner.
