3

Hearticulations

I got up after another sleepless night and postponed my flight to the next day. No choice. I walked down the path to our meeting point at exactly 11 a.m. She wasn’t there. I panicked, remembering that I still didn’t have any real information about her—no phone, no email, nothing. I started pacing, anxiously looking for her in every direction.

Suddenly, I heard a giggle emanating from above. I looked up to see Sarah sitting on a high branch of a large tree, her back pushed up against the thick trunk. Her smiling eyes immediately calmed me. She scaled down like a tree-climbing Olympian, a blue piece of chalk in her right hand.

“Talking to the trees again?” I remarked, in my usual sarcastic style.

“No, the chalk is for later. Let’s go,” she said, slightly annoyed. “My car is close by.”

As we drove away from Boulder in her circa 1967 VW Beetle, I experienced yet another déjà vu, as though we had stumbled into the pre-written movie of our lives. I sat beside her in silence, completely sated. In her presence, the psychic locomotive slowed to a crawl, as a unified consciousness filled the space. The petty details fell away, the essentials emerged. Sarah was a mouthful, a handful, a dram of sweet metaphors. I already loved her completely.

Rivers of Essence

We soon arrived at a place called Rocky Mountain national Park. When we got out of the car, she headed straight for the brush, yet again. I followed her, scurrying tentatively over fallen trees and rough ground. There was no visible trail, but it didn’t seem to matter. She knew where we were headed.

After a half hour, we opened to a wondrous valley. At its heart was a lively river, sparkling and churning between two rock formations. Spidery rock climbers scaled the jagged mountain across the way. After a few moments, she took off her shoes and ran down the hill toward the river. I took my shoes off and clumsily raced after her. She was fast, a spry little wood nymph with winged feet. Whenever I got close, she darted off in another direction, laughing joyfully. Just before the river, I caught up with her and we found our way to a large rock at the river’s edge.

Sarah spoke: “This has always been a precious place for me. I come here to remember. I never came here with anyone. Until now.” I looked into her eyes, not knowing quite what to say. I was never at a loss for words when I was talking about nothing, but heart-talk was an entirely different thing. I had yet to establish the resonance and groove.

The river raced by, as the sun’s rays bounced off the water. I moved in to kiss her. Our lips brushed. She pulled back, tilting her head to the left. Then she furrowed her brow and looked square on into me, as though to say, “This moment should not be taken lightly. This little kiss is a BIG step.”

“You know we don’t need that. We’re already there,” she said.

“Need what?”

“The physical.”

“But...”

“Desire gets in the way.”

“But what about healthy desire?”

She was quiet for a moment, and then asked, “Does it ever stay healthy?” like someone whose youthfulness belied her wisdom.

I stepped back and looked right at her. With one gaze into her eyes, all words fell away. And it didn’t matter at all. In this place of hearticulation, there was no need for words. This love spoke a language all its own, a grammarless lexicon of longing and union. Who needs syllables when you can hear each other’s souls?

I moved toward her again. This time she met me. We stayed with our lips locked for minutes, plummeting deeper and deeper into love with every breath. Entranced by her divinity, my breath fell into alignment with hers, bridging our hearts across the dimensions. Profound love sensations coursed through me, stroking my armored heart back to life. I opened my eyes, and I saw that her eyes were opened too. It was the nature of this love to want to be seen.

This love didn’t just transcend the details, it transformed them. The rock we stood on became an eternal bridge, erected for she and I alone, ushering us deeper into wonder with every kiss. The cold water that splashed against our ankles, the rivers of essence. The hands that touched my face with tenderness, the hands of divinity. The more time we spent together, the holier the world became. We had opened the door to a sacred universe. I felt both impenetrable and entirely exposed at the same time. Yet another undress rehearsal.

In the no-blink of an eye, I got it. Enlightenment isn’t a head trip—it’s a heart trip. Gusts of God blowing through the portal of the heart. We may want to enlighten through the safety of the mind, but the God-self lives in vulnerable places. As we dunked our hearts in the rivers of essence, everything became God. And God became everything. Holy moly!

After what felt like an eternity, we started to walk the trails. I looked at my watch. We had only been by the river for 30 minutes. So strange. Time lasts forever when you are actually in the moment.

“How do we hold this safe, Lowen?” Sarah wondered aloud.

The question struck me.

“What do you mean?” I inquired tentatively.

“Just being with you is enough. I feel so close to you already. Maybe if we keep it simple, we will avoid the upsets.”

“But how do we keep it sim…”

Before I could finish my sentence, a red cardinal flew right past us, perilously close to Sarah’s face.

Sarah became excited. Her eyes lit up like a child who had seen something beautiful for the first time. “Do you know what a cardinal represents, Lowen? They represent transformation. Pa used to study the birds. Red cardinals are a fiery symbol of change. Seeing them is a strong sign. One came close to me the day we met, too.”

I couldn’t help but wonder if it was the same one I saw.

She bounced like a tigger down the trail, before getting serious again.

“Perhaps we keep things chaste. Avoid the sexuality. Just being together is everything, yes?”

“Are you not attracted to me?” asked my ego.

She stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face me.

“My essence, my body want you fully, but this connection feels so pure. I just don’t know if spirituality and sexuality can mix without getting spoiled. Maybe the saints are right.”

I wanted to protest, but said nothing. Not because I didn’t have an argument for her—I mean, surely sexuality can be a spiritual experience—but because a part of me resonated with her words. I could feel tremendous energy in the sexual field between us—expansive, but potentially explosive—so bloody hot to the touch. Too hot to the touch? The connection felt like a precious jewel. How to protect it from itself?

“Let’s lie down on the ground, okay?” she suggested.

I nodded yes, as she steered us towards a small clearing between two large trees.

We lay down beside one another on a patch of long grass. Sarah wrapped her body around mine, her legs entwining mine like two trees with a unified root. We fell fast asleep on the valley floor, merging our energies with Mother Earth. Our first sleep together.

After a few hours, I was startled awake by strange, foreboding dreams. Sarah was sitting beside me, staring at me intently. I got the feeling she had been staring at me for some time. It was getting dark in the forest.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Wild dreams.”

“Yah, me too. We bring up everything in each other.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean: the brighter the love, the darker the shadow.”

“You love… me?”

She looked away, quietly speaking, “It seems too obvious for words.”

Obvious or not, it felt good to hear it.

“Let’s head out before it’s too dark. I don’t want you to get lost in the bush, city boy,” she said with a mischievous smile.

As we drove back to Boulder, I heard from a whole boardroom of inner cynics. My defenses were much too sturdily constructed to evaporate this quickly. My rational self dropped down from the clouds to remind me that I don’t actually know this woman: This is way the hell out there, Lowen. You just met her—you need to get to know someone before you love them.

I also heard from my warrior self, stoking my fear of failure with visions of career sabotage: This connection threatens everything you have built. You need focus to build your practice. You need to hold yourself together. Don’t let this derail your ambitions.

My inner humorist had the final word, reminding me that the only way to see God at first sight was to be born in heaven. God at first sight? You must be on LSD!

Maybe I was—Love’s Supreme Drug.

The cynics went quiet the moment I looked over at her. A tear tumbled softly down her cheek. I didn’t need to ask why she was crying. I knew. Tears of joy. I reached over and stole her tear, putting it to my lips.

We stopped at a red light. She turned to look at me, eyes tender and moist. “I’m scared too,” she said. The light turned green.

When we got back to Boulder, she pulled up in front of my hotel to drop me off.

“I’m leaving tomorrow. Will you come up?” I asked.

“I need to do a few things. Can I come back in an hour?”

“Of course, room 718.”

I kissed her softly on the lips and got out of the car. She drove away right after I closed the car door, again triggering my fear that I would never see her again.

When I got to the room, the phone was ringing. It was Daniel, calling to make sure I was still alive. After hearing my voice, he inquired into my well-being, “You alright? You sound strange… not like you?”

His point was well taken. Who am I took on a whole different meaning in the heart of this love. Which me is real—the localized consciousness I have habitually called home, or the vaster terrain I was called to in her divine presence?

Our conversation ended with his version of wisdom: “Stay strong. She’s just one chick, after all.” As much as I wanted to whack him, a small part of me appreciated the reminder from the brotherhood. I had a feeling I would need to lean into him in the coming months.

Touching the G(od) Spot

There was a knock on my door a few hours later. I opened the door and Sarah was standing there with a small bag in her hands.

“I brought my pj’s, Lowen. Let’s have a sleepover.”

She threw the bag on the bed, and reached over to hug me. I stepped back from her, momentarily afraid to connect. She looked at me, puzzled. I quickly moved back in for the hug.

We soon found ourselves lying on the bed, facing one another with our eyes wide open. We lay there for hours, soul-gazing to our heart’s content. Goodness Goddess, where have you been all my life? Where have you not been all my life? Were you not always right here, awaiting our cosmic re-embrace?

Late into the night, she asked me to touch her body. I felt suddenly shy, reluctant to see her. I stood up and turned off the light. She understood. This was the nature of the process: revealings, resistance, deeper revealings. I guess we still needed to keep something hidden.

I walked to the bottom of the bed, and undressed her with a tenderness I had never experienced with a woman. I didn’t care at all about my own pleasure this night. I wanted only to worship this divinity. With great reverence, I began to touch her whole body. My usually selfish hands became tools of devotion, praying at the temple of her. The smell of her body comforted and ignited me—heaven scent. My fingertips became highly charged love-lights, hungrily searching for dark, hidden wonders to infuse with light. We fell asleep around sunrise, after many hours touching the G-od spot. I had no idea my hands could love another that deeply.

When Sarah woke me the next morning at 10, I realized I had missed my flight home. And I didn’t care at all. I just felt ecstatic. A bridge of light was forming between our souls, as though a cadre of invisible angels were weaving it while we slept. Clearly, I had taken a different kind of flight home.

After we dressed to go, we lay back down on the bed one more time. I felt a strong desire to make love to her, but it almost felt redundant. It was amazing to me how intimate we were together, even with our clothes on.

She drove me to Denver airport to catch a later flight. On the way, a bright red family van pulled sharply in front of us, causing her to swerve to avoid hitting them. Their Ontario license plate read Heart Unity. We laughed. Where were we... Serendipity Central?

When we arrived at the airport, Sarah handed me a large hawk feather she had picked up on our first walk together, “To fly our hearts home to each other.” I left the car pulsating with hope.