DEATH, ART, LOVE, & SEX

“Letting go is one of the sexiest and most pleasurable things known to humanity.”
--- Eric Francis; writer, photographer, astrologer (see planetwaves.com)

I woke up from a really good dream this morning, full of all of my favorite dream themes—a handsome man, feelings of desire, sexual tension, a feeling of being truly loved, and images of myself being free and spontaneous. The dream was so pleasurable that waking up brought a sense of profound sorrow. I wanted to hold on to it. To make it my reality. And then to hold on to that reality and never let it go.

This is one of the reasons I write: To capture an experience in an attempt to give it some form and permanence, even though I know that the most the words can do is to point to something that can never be captured fully, something that disappears just as quickly as the words hit page. Still, it’s all I have, and I therefore accept that this is enough. I woke up feeling as though I wanted to hold on to my dream forever. Writing about it, though, will have to be enough. And this further requires a letting-go. Still, the longing remains.

I have often thought about writing, and art more generally, as a form of making love with the world. This is not an original idea, likening creativity to sexuality. Many, many others have made this link before me. One way of understanding this widely-made observation is that making love, like making art, can be about this oscillation of holding-on and letting-go. The passion of some sexual encounters is fueled by a desire to hold on to a feeling, to embody it, to ex-press it, and to give it form. The desire that rages within needs expression, which in turn offers it a reality, a form, a sort-of place within the world which then, just as it’s expressed, disappears. Moreover, the very act of expression (i.e., what we do in an attempt to hold on to the feeling in the first place) itself requires a letting go or giving-over to the experience itself.

I wonder if life is “just” a series of moments of embodying something and then letting go. Embodying something and then letting go. The impulse to hold on to something, to embody it, is an essential part of creating one’s life and giving it a particular form. Letting go is equally essential. Imagine, if you will, not having the letting-go part. Imagine having to have the same experience continuously. In truth, holding on to an experience continuously, however pleasurable it may be in a moment, is a sure form of torture, though it’s what many of us try to do, in a way. Imagine always eating chocolate cake, a never-ending kiss, or a runner’s high that goes on forever. The person eating the cake would never get to have the kiss. And the runner couldn’t eat chocolate cake, while the kisser couldn’t run. It is the letting go which allows us to be open to the next experience: The next… sexy dream, tender moment, encounter with another, feeling, thought, walk outside, accomplishment, failure, piece of art, trip to the post office, day, season, phase of life….

Letting go is what allows life to move. The French word for orgasm translates as “little death.” Sex and death are the ultimate in letting go. Living life as a series of letting-go moments is then akin to making love to the world, with the full experience of orgasm; or of dying to the world, with the full potential for rebirth. Eric’s quote, above, captures this well. So, too, do tantric philosophies which espouse beginning with one’s desire and making love to the world, each on the way toward a kind-of metaphorical rebirth. Springtime is ripe for such a way of living. In certain parts of the world right now, rebirth is all around us, as are opportunities to desire the world. I encourage us all to try to grasp these opportunities, even as we let them go.