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Making Love with Life
by Spiritual MidWife Judith Barr

If you are a woman and your partner is a woman or if you are a man and your partner is a man, I hope you will not be turned away by the form in which I have offered my message ... but rather will allow yourself to move through the form to the essence.

Sun and Earth agreed to make love tonight. But in fact! this is not what they are doing. True, they are holding each other, stroking each other. Their eyes are closed. Silence is between them. Sun is stroking Earth too quickly -- it is overstimulating for her. It feels like his stroking is meant to stimulate her, to arouse her, rather than to give to her, rather than to connect with her, rather than to love her.

Earth feels pain in response to what is happening and not happening between them. She tries to push the pain aside and go on, because that's what they've always done, that's what she's always done, that's the cultural image of love-making. But she can't anymore. What she used to be able to deny, she can no longer. What she previously could blame on herself, she can no longer.

What she formerly could numb herself against feeling, she can no longer. Earth's pain is so great she feels her inner cells pulling away, although her outer body is still lying there entwined with Sun's. She doesn't know what to do. The tears well in her body. She tries so hard to contain them, but in spite of her efforts little streams of tears trickle through her closed eyelids and down her cheeks. At first she is scared Sun will see her tears; but as she realizes that with his eyes closed, and in his own world he won't even notice her tears, her pain doubles.

She wants to tell him what he's doing doesn't feel good. From past experience, though, she knows it will take him to his own wounded place, where he will be hurt and angry, telling her "I can't do anything right for you!" or "Nothing I do feels good to you!" In these vulnerable moments she couldn't bear to have things turned around on her again.

She considers asking him to open his eyes and connect with her, but knows that in this moment that would be a way to get herself out of the feelings so she can fix it without really expressing the pain, without going through it at the deepest levels -- within herself and with Sun.

She thinks about telling him gently that this is painful, but every time she goes to form the words "Sun, this hurts" ... terror begins to rise in her body, terror she doesn't yet know the meaning of, terror that comes from her efforts as a child to tell someone who was hurting her that it hurt.

Now she wants to connect with Sun more than ever. But she remembers a psycho-spiritual friend of hers who told his lover to leave her (inner) child in the living room when they made love. Earth shudders and then shuts down to escape the terror and the pain, but sinks into despair as she continues to engage sexually with Sun. "What shall I do?" she screams loudly but silently in the sanctuary at the core of her being. "What shall I do? What shall I do? What shall I do?"

In the silence that follows her screams, Earth hears a voice. A sweet voice. A loving voice. A knowing voice.

"Who are you?" Earth inquires.

"I am Moon," comes the reply, "and I am here to help you, Earth. I am here to help you and Sun."

"How can you help me? How can you help us?" Earth asks.

"Just listen, my dear," answers Moon, "and let what I offer to you into your being. Then together we will discover what next unfolds organically in this journey between you and Sun."

"Your world, Earth, moves back and forth between being engulfed by the darkness and blinded by the light. The beings of your world split the two apart and, as a result, make it impossible for the darkness and the light to be in their natural state -- a union that comes of making love with each other.

"If you let the world's image rule -- making love in the light, split off from darkness, or making love in the darkness, split off from the light -- you and Sun will never truly make love with one another.

"If you let the psychological and spiritual teachings of the world become distorted, intimidating you into a mask of enlightenment and away from your realness ... you will not grow deeper into your Self, you will not grow closer with Sun, and it will not be you who is making love with Sun, but rather a hollow image of what is holy that has never done the journey-work to become whole.

"If you let your world's fear of feelings and your fear of your own feelings dominate you ... you will feed a distorted, blocked, destructive place in your world's evolution and in your own. Your world's beings have become so estranged from their feelings. In every situation they fear, what they fear at the very deepest place is what they will feel in that experience. They have created all sorts of distorted means to defend themselves against their feelings. So alienated from their own feelings, they are left bereft, unable to make love with anyone ... unable to make love with themselves, with another, with even Life itself. If you cut yourself off from your feelings, if you cut Sun off from your feelings ... you will render yourselves impotent! incapable of making love with each other and with Life!

"Dear Earth, any of the responses you have considered will only disconnect you further from yourself and from Sun. And then silently, beneath the surface, a spiral of destructive psychic interactions will multiply exponentially between you. Not just in this sexual engagement, but as you go through your night together, and your tomorrow, and the next time you agree to make love, and on and on ... until it is very difficult, if not impossible, to even remember what started the spiral between you.

"What I am about to suggest, Earth, requires a certain level of development. A level from which feelings will be shared responsibly, lovingly, with positive intention. A level from which feelings will be received and responded to responsibly, lovingly, with positive intention. A level from which what has been shared will not be used or misused against yourselves or each other. A level from which everything shared will serve your individual and joint healing, growth, deepening. A level from which everything revealed, every moment of life, will serve the marriage of Love and Truth.

"Sweet Earth, lying there entwined with Sun, surrender to your feelings. Let your tears come. Let yourself feel them, hear them, taste them. Let Sun feel them, hear them, taste them, and see them. Instead of hiding your feelings, trying not to interfere with your love-making, and consequently ending it ... let your feelings become a part of your love-making, integral to your love-making, and in so doing, deepen your love-making. Let your feelings create the alchemy that transforms your sexual engagement into making love."

Inspired by Moon's loving offerings, Earth smiles up at her. Relieved by Moon's truth, Earth breathes a sigh of relief. And having now dropped her mask, Earth also whispers to Moon, "I'm scared." "I know," responds Moon. "I know. It's a courageous leap of faith." Her arms wrapped around Sun's back, her legs wrapped around his, Earth takes a deep breath and as she exhales her cries pour forth. At first Sun thinks the movement of her body is a sign of her orgasm and continues his stroking. But then in his body he knows it is not. And in his heart he knows it is not. He feels she is in pain. "What's happening, Sweetheart?" Sun asks Earth gently. "Why are you crying?"

His tenderness opens the floodgates and her cries turn to sobs. She cries like a woman. She cries like a child. At moments she even cries like an infant. He holds her patiently, tenderly, lovingly. He holds all of her. She holds onto him in response.

Finally as the waves of feeling become smaller and have more space between them, she is able to tell him, "It was so painful to be sexual with you without connection between us. It didn't feel at all like making love. It hurt so much."

Earth opens her eyes and looks at Sun, still somewhat frightened of his response. He smiles at her with tears in his eyes. "God bless you, my love, for being so real and vulnerable with me. Allowing me to bring my light and my heart to your pain has helped me connect even more with you, and has helped me connect even more with myself. Your courage and undefendedness have brought us both to a new depth of the meaning and possibility of making love with one another and with Life!"

"And Goddess bless you, my sweet heart," Earth replies, "for taking what I have just allowed and given as the precious gift it is."

Together they cry with joy, their tears turning into laughter and back to tears, again and again and again ... They lay together, holding each other, making love in this new way they have never before experienced -- but always known in their souls was possible.

Before they fall asleep Earth whispers to Moon ... "Thank you, my dear friend."

And Moon whispers back ... "Thank you, my precious friend."

by Judith Barr, Spiritual Midwife.
www.judithbarr.com