The Art of Domination

View this article on The Good Men Project

In a society that emphasizes the value of ‘dominance,’ I’ve noticed a significant dearth of men who are actually skilled in this art.

I don’t intend to blame or emasculate nor do I mean to imply that it is always a man who dominates and a woman who submits. There are a significant number of cases where a woman tops a man, a man tops another man, a woman tops another woman or any variation of gender fluidity in between. Domination has more to do with the quality of one’s energy than the genitals between one’s legs.

However, since domination is a role that requires a more masculine set of skills,  we often see men take the ‘dominant’ role in carnal play.

As a woman who has spent most of her sexual life on the bottom, I consider a skillful dom to be nothing short than a gift from God. I will bow before the throne of this man. I will kiss his feet, offer my unending devotion and surrender all that I am at the altar of him.

So why does it seem that, in the (almost) lament of Flannery O’Connor, a good ‘dom’ is hard to find?

In a word: humility. Or lack thereof.

What is typically described as ‘dominance’ actually stems from reptilian-minded, scarcity-driven thinking, i.e. kill or be killed. Men’s compulsive acquisition of status and competitive one-upmanship are masks hiding deep wounds surrounding their disconnect from the feminine and confusion about their own authentic masculinity.

We’ve seen the stereotype: men craving bigger, better, faster cars and younger, blonder, sexier women in order to feel ‘on top’ in the world. Cream the competition. Leave no prisoners. Never take ‘No’ for an answer. Feelings are for pussies.

So if dominance is the ‘prize,’ than anything that is not, i.e. ‘submission,’ is viewed as ‘the loser,’ ‘less than’ or ‘beneath.’

However, nothing could be further from the truth. Feeling is essential in domination, vanity is poison and submission is considered the ‘power position.’

Think less like a lizard and more like a sculptor: there is the clay, the artist and the sculpture within. Contrary to what may appear to be happening, the sculptor is not ‘controlling’ the scene, nor is he ‘better than’ the clay or the sculpture within. The sculpture determines the next stroke and the clay relays this message to the sculptor’s hands.

The same applies in power play. Desire, or that which yearns for expression, channels orgasm through the submissive to the dominant.

Therefore, though dominance is a role requiring strength and solidity, it also includes humility, respect and ‘beginner’s mind.’

Anyone can Google ‘Shibari,’ ‘Spanking’ or ‘How to Get Her Off’ to learn a variety of techniques for sensual play. But tools are not enough. One must learn the language of the feminine, and totally surrender himself to her desire, in order to dominate like a master.

The following is a guide for unleashing your inner dom (note: for this guide, I use the term ‘Her’ in reference to ‘Submissive’, with an implication that the Dominant is a man. As I mentioned before, there are a variety genders playing both roles, but for the purposes of easeful distinction, I am using the heteronormative language):

1.    Know Thyself. Are you truly looking to dominate? Or are you donning the dom mantle in order to enroll someone to dominate you? This can often be seen in ‘tit-for-tat’ scenarios, i.e. ‘if I do you a little, will you do me in return?’ As I have stated before, our society often views submission as ‘weak,’ so it is no wonder men would feel embarrassed by submissive desires. Be braver than that; admit what turns you on and go for it.

2.    Be of service. A dom is overflowing with generosity. Just as a massage therapist is in service of his client or a restaurant server is in service of her patrons, so must you be in service of your submissive’s desire (even if she can not yet articulate it). Have their favorite foods on the fridge, sensual music playing and warm lighting in the space. Put care and attention into creating your scene.

3.    Choose your partners wisely. If your turn-on is rope work and hers is daddy role-play, you may not be a good match for each other (no matter how hot she is). You don’t see Michael Jordon riffing on a guitar or Carlos Santana shooting free throws. This doesn’t mean you can’t expand your repertoire or have a variety of kinks. But by being honest about your desires, you will more easily attract play partners suited to your tastes.

4.    Communicate, communicate, communicate. Speaking of desires, it is imperative that you lay your cards on the table and invite her to do the same. Ask what her what turns her on. What edges would she like to push. Does she have any requests. Any injuries. Any boundaries or ‘Hard No’s.’ Any STDs. Choose safe words. If you have a question, ask and get her consent on anything that feels ‘iffy.’ This is vital to the safety and sanctity of play.

5.    Let go of the goal.  Again: let go of the goal. One more time: Let. Go. Of. The. Goal. I know it can get exciting when things get wet and juicy and you want that big BANG to reassure you that you are doing a good job. But nothing kills a scene faster than pushing for a result. She will either get angry that you aren’t feeling her or obliged to perform a certain way so as not to hurt your feelings. Remember, the art is in connection, not perfection.

6.    Connect your heart to your cock. Yes, a sub wants to feel your animal, but she also wants to feel loved. Oftentimes men will sacrifice one for the other and we end up with a room full of ‘nice guys’ and ‘assholes.’ You certainly don’t have to be ‘in love’ or life partners, but you must empathize with her and stay connected to both your power and compassion.

7.    Harder and faster doesn’t always mean better. In most cases, it’s a disguise for losing connection with your partner. You must be willing to go painstakingly slow—so slow that even she can’t stand it—in order to build the kind of energy for deep, erotic play. In the same vein, whacking her hard won’t necessarily open her either. Think of the more intense strokes as peaks of the experience, rather than blasting the scene with the same loud note. As I like to say, the feather sometimes is mightier than the flogger.

8.    Be a rock. She has to know in her body that you have her no matter what. If you are only 99% present, she will feel it and won’t feel safe enough to open. Be a 100% solid rock for the tempest of her desire.

9.    Be vulnerable. That being said, you must also be receptive to her. You must feel her experience and ride her wave. You must know your own pain in order to consciously inflict it and know your own pleasure to revel in hers. Your vulnerability also invites hers out, which is essential for orgasm to arise.

10.  Hold, not control. Again, this hearkens back to the letting go of the goal part. You are simply holding space for her opening. The impulse to ‘control’ will cut you off from feeling the next right stroke.

11.  Be willing to sit in the unknown. If you’ve stopped feeling her, chances are she’s stopped feeling you. Stop. Breathe. Reconnect. Sit in the unknown. And allow desire to take the reigns.

12.  Keep it simple. Don’t try to use every toy or get into every position. To dispel the myth about BDSM, it isn’t all whips and chains and leather and pain. You don’t even have to get naked. A scene can be as simple as a blindfold and a bowl of strawberries. Art isn’t just knowing what to express; it’s also knowing what to edit.

13.  Keep it safe, but don’t protect her. You want to keep the space safe for expression, but don’t make the mistake of protecting her from her orgasm. It’s raw, real and wild. Remember: solid as a rock. Get big enough to hold all of her, but don’t buffer her experience because of your own discomfort.

14.  Do not take responsibility for her orgasm. Yes, be responsible for yourself. Yes, be responsible for the care of someone who is entrusting her mind/body/spirit to you. But don’t take on her work and yours too. Otherwise you will feel angry, resentful and obligated to ‘make something happen.’ Your job is to feel the orgasm through the conduit of her body. It’s up to her how much she wants to open to what’s inside her.

15.  Claim her. Not too get all Harlequin romance novel on you, but this is an important point. In a recent bondage workshop I attended, the instructor demonstrated a hair pulling technique that beautifully illustrates ‘claiming.’ When she pulled the hair up and out, it felt yanked out of my skin and like she was taking something from me. When she pulled the hair down and in, it dropped me deeper into my body and closer to her, as if she was saying with her actions “You are mine.” Through this unwavering declaration, I was more willing to submit.

16.  Breathe. Oftentimes, when the energy gets high, we hold our breaths. Remember to breathe, let the energy flow, which will in turn relax her even more into her orgasm.

17.  Touch her in a way that feels good to you. Imagine you are petting a cat. You aren’t petting the cat for a result or to try to get something from her. You pet the cat because it feels good to your hand. A sub is the same way. If it feels good to you (and you are fully present with her), then she’s probably purring with equal delight.

18.  Have a sense of humor. Poop happens. Pussy farts happen. Banging heads happen. Don’t take it all so seriously. Be willing to laugh and roll with the punches. And then move on.

19.  Ride the edge. A skilled dom can feel their sub’s threshold and go just one step beyond. This is the sweet spot of dynamic tension. One step too far and the scene climaxes too quickly. One step too short and it never builds enough steam to take off.

20.  Aftercare. Most people think of ‘climax’ as the most important part of play. For me, it’s aftercare, which is the process of ‘coming down from the high’ and reintegrating back into the world. Aftercare is a process often overlooked, but vital to the health of your relationship. A good comedown has your partner feeling relaxed in absolute trust and allows her to stretch further in future scenes. A bad one has her feeling abandoned with her guts hanging out and not likely to play with you anymore. Hold her. Caress her. Wrap warm towels around her. Bring her fresh water and hot tea. Share peak moments from your experience with each other. In these gentle moments, you lay fresh ground for new connection and deeper intimacy.

21.  Bring it. All of it. Your fear, your courage, your prejudice, your brutality, your softness, your warrior, your wounded little boy and your dirty old man. Sex will quickly highlight all the facets of your soul that have remained in the shadows and the more you hide them, the less your sub will trust you. Be confident. You are who you are. Own it. 

The Last Time: An Erotic Lesson in Love

Photo by Jocelyn Marquis

Written October 2011

He starts by softly touching my pussy—whole hand, the hood still covering my clit. It’s more like a massage. A gentle pressing in. One hand on the left nipple, the other on the clit. He has me hike my left knee up high. It exposes me. Light caresses on my coarse hairs along the edge with the backs of his fingers.

He stops. Tells me to turn onto my belly. I obey. He puts his fingers into my shoulders and squeezes. Tender. Giving permission to all those pockets of unexpressed joy, anger, grief.

He has me turn on my side. I am facing him now. My left leg over his head, my right pressed tightly against him. He slides his fingers inside me. Gentle pulses in my body. A simultaneous relaxing and priming. His thumb occasionally grazes my clit. Red hot velcro. Each stroke he makes, his body is there to brace me. Hold me. Warm. Open. Slick walls.

Then he has me lie on my back. His fingers deep inside, he draws me forth. I am contracting in deep rhythm to my heartbeat, and yet there is still a small sweetness within the pulse. He strokes up. I feel a fast rush of heat over my left foot and calf—it’s almost too hot to bear. I want to cry. So I breathe. And surrender another layer. I want to feel all of this.

And the burning escapes out my feet and we float back down into a grey, clear pool. Hovering. His fingers inside me press upward, while his other hand continues to stroke my clit. I keep relaxing and chanting the mantra, “There is nothing to fear.”

I sink back into my body, feeling something deep within wanting to emerge. A round, bulbous heat—a burning pleasure—snowballs as it moves from my belly to my clit. I keep relaxing. I envision the bulb moving out, but without force. The heat has now opened into a canyon of potential.

“What if you just say yes,” I think to myself, “and trust that you are held.”

“Yes,” I whisper.

I feel the fog-tide rolling over my feet. Creeping in over my surrendered-ness. The cool mist-water makes its way up my feet, thighs, pussy, belly, arms, chest, head. My whole body is now bathed in orgasm. There is no thrashing around; just a quiet sparkle. I exhale and more mist-water rolls over us. Suspended in timelessness.

And then the tide recedes back to the reservoir at my feet. I have forgotten myself. The connection between us is viscerally human—and expands beyond cosmic comprehension.

It’s at this moment that I realize how very lonely I have been. I miss God. I miss having the constant companion of fullness and depth inhabiting my body.

I begin to shake and cry. “Oh God,” I cry out, “I miss God.”

A wave of gratitude grips my throat and I keen an ancient sound—a sound that is twisted with both agony and wonder. We touched love. Not ephemeral romance, that crunches and pounces and cramps. But love. Pure. Rich. Golden. Love.

I cry. And cry. His fingers inside me push up and forward. Releasing. He then pulls them out and presses his palm firmly on my pussy. Solid. Ground. I am held throughout the never-ending melting.

A bit embarrassed by my emotional nakedness, I murmur once more, “I miss God.” I cry a bit more. And then a bubble rises in my throat and I realize what really needs to be said. The hardest words of all. But the desire is so powerful that to hold it back would be like a slow, rotting death.

“I love you. I love you so much.”

Something sweet melts in his eyes. I cry some more.

I can’t help noticing the peachy-salmon tones of his shirt. “Peach and purple look good on him,” I think. 

“I like that color on you,” I finally gasp out. We laugh.

The peak slips away and we simply hold on to one another. A raw, humble warmth of orgasm hums between us. I am deeply immersed. Present. There is nothing else to do but feel. Just me…and the man who taught me how to love.

Surrender: The Hardest Thing You'll Never Do

Read this article on elephantjournal.com

Of all fires love is the only inexhaustible one.” ~ Pablo Neruda

I feel like I am at a crossroads. I’ve been here for some time now and I’m getting a little impatient. As the shadows of my former life fade, a vast uncertainty lies before me:

Do I move full-time to Los Angeles this year? Next year? Ever?
Do I travel to Peru, Thailand, India or somewhere else?
Do I continue acting?
Do I continue coaching?
Do I lead workshops?
Do I take more classes?
Do I keep writing articles? A book?
Do I give in to necessity and find that secure 9-5 with health benefits?
Do I have children now? In five years? Ever?

The more I get caught in the questions, the more trapped/confused/angry/scared I feel. Survival mode kicks in and I start making plans, solving problems and fixing my circumstances. I busy myself with menial tasks that are suddenly of great importance. I fixate on anything that seems to move my life ahead, just like a responsible 32-year-old woman should.

I am a woman in control—pearls on, belt cinched, lipstick unsmudged.

Then a hefty kick in the ass arrives (or sometimes just good sex, though the two often go hand-in-hand these days) and I remember that I have chosen an Orgasmic Life—a life of magic, play, spontaneity, curiosity, adventure, growth and above all, a moment-by-moment willingness to surrender to desire.

And the moment I begin to do anything, I have moved from faith to mistrust. From authenticity to masquerading. From being to performing.

Control forces us to do. Surrender requires that we are done.

In the realm of Orgasm, life does its work through you—but you don’t do a damn thing. In fact, the moment you start to do, you actually get in the way of the greater intelligence unfolding from within.

Unfortunately, our achievement-minded society doesn’t think highly of surrender. In fact, those who choose to live on the edge of uncertainty are often labeled as “cowards”, “irresponsible”, “weak” or “pussies.” We overvalue being on top and ignore, scoff at, condemn or even abuse anything that is seemingly “beneath us.”

We all want to fuck life hard and fast…but no one wants to admit their desire to be fucked.

Yet here’s the sad part—for as much as we walk around brandishing our overdeveloped cocks and boasting about our latest conquests, we are actually starving to be well-fucked and thoroughly conquered. Really. Man, woman, gender neutral, hermaphrodite—it doesn’t matter. The art of receiving a good fuck from life is a human experience and is the gift of our inherent femininity.

Surrender requires a hefty amount of vulnerability. We must be willing to let our guard down. We must be willing to explore what we want. We must be willing to unapologetically ask for it. We must be willing to sit in the fire as we watch the tricks, defenses and games we use to hide, burn away, so we can create the space to receive that which we most desire.

And yet, as my friend Pamela Madsen says, this soft, wet, messy, fucked-open vulnerability is “the place from where sexy flows.” It’s the void where unlimited Orgasm resides and where only the brave and truly powerful can unleash Her onto the world. It is unconditional love.

We think we are starving for love and we troll dating sites and bars searching for that person or experience that we think is going to feed us. We think, perhaps if we fuck it open, it will give us the spiritual nutrition we seek.

We are not starving for love.

We are bloated with love. In fact, we have years of backed up love rotting in our systems. We are just stingy, prideful and frightened motherfuckers who think that we are “giving something up” if we reveal our hands first. We hide behind seduction, perfectionism and poker faces, all while silently choking with shame on our tears of gratitude and awe (that have turned bitter with resentment over the years of blame and victimhood).

No, we are not starving for love, but for the nourishment that comes from being fucked open and sharing our own abundance. When you meet someone and fall in love, that person isn’t giving you their love; they are giving you permission to finally, finally express what’s been locked up inside you. And that expression demands nothing less than the fullest surrender of your pride, anger, shame, fear, envy, hatred and any other stagnant energy sitting on top of your orgasm.

These emotions aren’t wrong. Pride, anger, etc. are all part of the journey and when they are acknowledged and fully felt, can be alchemized as fuel for desire and can deepen intimacy with yourself and the people in your life.

Surrender is a practice, just like anything else in life.

There’s a reason why savasana is considered a master pose and why those who hide behind their busyness pop right up out of it at the end of yoga class (myself included). There’s a reason why many try Orgasmic Meditation once, only to run as far from it as possible afterwards. We seek to do the next thing that takes us out of that place of no-thingness…that uncertain void…the ultimate death of all we thought we were.

And yet, on the other side is the sweetest grace you’ve ever known: absolute communion with your soul. The work is to release the conditions that say, “I will only surrender if…(fill in the blank with whatever is it to which you are attaching your happiness).”

So I’ve given up bargaining with Her, released trying to discover the next right move and allowed her to penetrate my innermost being so that pure, unadulterated Orgasm can flow from me in gratitude and grace. And it’s within the healing balm of grace that love is a choice, freedom is inevitable and surrender is the holiest of prayers.

PS: Stay tuned for the upcoming article in my new elephantjournal.com column, Orgasmic Living, entitled “Ashes on the Playa: An Uncensored Narrative of Love and Surrender.”

PPS: To learn more about Pamela Madsen’s work, including an upcoming retreat focused on healing yourself through vulnerability and surrender, visit http://www.beingshameless.com/the-retreat/

BONUS VIDEO: From the vaults of my surrendered heart

How long will I last?

Can I turn up the heat?


What star am I circling?


What’s circling me?


Now my ebb and my flow


My lack of control


Turning on, turning off


Saying yes, but playing no

The Hazards of Being an Orgasmic Woman

Read this article on elephantjournal.com

There is a beast inside of me right now. She’s been neglected for a very, very long time. She’s pissed, starving and demands to be fucked.

If she’s like most women, she’s a sexual anorexic. This is NOT to be confused with a sexually hungry person. A sexually hungry person knows what they want and will do what they need to feed themselves (even if it’s living off Ramen Noodles for a while). A sexual anorexic, on the other hand, has too much pride to admit she’s hungry and gets off on having superior control. She looks down on all those creepy guys in the Tenderloin who stare at you as if you were a dripping, succulent steak. She’s fresh, pure and hops straight off the cover of Cosmo in her size 2 Prada dress.

All that changes when you open your orgasm.

Many guys joke when they hear about it. “Geez, I wish my wife/girlfriend had that problem of wanting to be fucked all the time.” Really? Most men don’t know how to handle a woman when she’s in the throes of indecision of what to order for dinner. You want to throw a 20+ year backlog of unexpressed desire, anger, resentment and trauma into the mix? Good luck.

The current perception of igniting a woman’s sex comes attached with pink feather boas, blossoming flowers and rainbows shooting from vaginas. There also seems to be the annoyingly ubiquitous use of the word ‘juicy.’

Let me set the record straight: forget Barbie and her Sex and the City entourage. Say hello to your dirty, skanky heroin addict.

The other day I woke up in the grips of this otherworldly thing that demanded climax and would stop at nothing to get it. I had just enough consciousness to acknowledge the beast and created the space for her to emerge—and then I plunged pussy-first into the darkness.

I did something I haven’t done in years—I watched porn. Now that may not sound like anything shocking, but what was powerful for me to observe was how utterly helpless I felt in the moment. I needed the drug so bad that I wasn’t going to step out of my room until I had it. I grabbed my phone (which was closer to me than my computer) and searched for ‘free porn.’ I found a video, but when it took too long to download, I gave up and ran for my laptop like it was sexual crack. With shaking hands I flipped up the monitor, typed in my password and found what I needed. The Visitor 3. “I don’t give a shit about parts 1 & 2,” I said to myself. “I just want to get straight to the cock-in-pussy pounding.”

Three minutes later, after I had climaxed, a little bit of reality started to settle back into me. My belly felt swollen, like I’d just wolfed down three Big Macs. I was watching this video of two people clearly not connected to each other. And it was set to some of the worst music I’ve ever heard in my life. I started laughing at myself.

“Have I really become that kind of person?” I thought. “I feel more like a scared, pre-teen boy than a 31-year old woman.”

Then it hit me: this was who was rising to the surface—my hyper-sexual teenager—and she was pissed at being chained in the basement for so long.

There was a period in my life, from ages 11-13, when I would masturbate almost every day. Yet in the midst of that sexual exploration, I also felt profound levels of shame. I saw members of my family struggle with sexual addiction and unhealed sexual abuse. I grew up in the South where young, Christian ladies didn’t do things like that. I had heard boys joke about masturbation all the time, but girls never talked about it. I thought I was a pervert—and yet I couldn’t stop.

Until I was 13 years old and got suspended from school for drug possession. I will never forget the look of abject fear on my mother’s face when she got the news. I felt like this horrible, out-of-control animal that had brought shame upon her. A straight-A student fallen from grace. I made a vow that day to suppress anything that was ‘wrong’ or ‘immoral’—which included my sexual appetite.

Fast forward eight years. I’m 21 years old and I’ve just started dating the man I would eventually marry (who was, incidentally, also the first man with whom I’d had intercourse). I’m away for the summer and I meet someone else—someone who rouses that slumbering beast within me. And I fuck him. And again, I feel like this out-of-control animal. And again, I make a decision to tamp down that wretched appetite. I can’t bear to see the look of pain on my soon-to-be husband’s face.

So for the six-year duration of my marriage, I buried that secret along with my shame and my sex. It’s also no surprise that for those six years, I lived as a food anorexic. If history had taught me anything, it was this:

Appetite = People Getting Hurt

But in the back of my mind, I knew that starving it wouldn’t help. In fact, the harder I pushed it down, the harder it smacked me in the face the moment my attention drifted elsewhere. I had to confront it head on. So I left the marriage and decided I would do whatever it took to recover from anorexia.

The months following the separation from my husband were some of the most humiliating of my life. I felt so insecure sexually that I seduced men just to prove to myself that I could, even though I was clueless about my own desires and hadn’t menstruated in over two-and-a-half years. I cried for five months straight. I found myself, on many occasions, standing in my kitchen pantry at 3am gobbling three or four bowls of cereal in a row, not even tasting what I was shoving into my face.

Yet through it all, I knew I was giving my body exactly what it needed. When you hold a pendulum all the way to the left, it has to swing all the way to the right and back again, multiple times, before it finally finds its center.

And this is how it feels right now in my sex. In spite of the junk-food orgasm and the predator-woman who is ready to jump on anything in her path, I simply have to trust how the path is unfolding before me. It feels like I am going down again, only this time the well is deeper. I have fear of losing everything: my money to the credit card company; my credibility to people who know what they hell they are doing; my fiancé to a younger, skinnier, more sexually-embodied tantric goddess.

And here’s kicker: even with all this sexual appetite, I’m bumping right up against my ineptitude. It’s still so difficult for me to ask for what I want. It’s painful to admit to my lover when I’m faking my own turn-on. It’s agonizing to watch as I lie and withhold my love and gratitude again and again and again.

I recently had someone tell me that fucking me was boring. BORING!?

Dear God. Tell me I’m crazy. Tell me I’m out-of-control. Tell me I’m too much to handle. But boring?!?! With my ego thoroughly eviscerated, I had reached a new low.

So this is orgasm in its rawest form. No sparkly glitter parades or rose-scented sheets. Just a searing burn and unbearable pressure as I sit in the crucible of my sex.

But as I sit here, the words of Anais Nin rise to the surface:

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

And I am reminded of why I chose this path and how lucky I am to feel alive. Those lonely, numb nights of starving madness are a place I can never return. Now that I have had a taste of what’s possible—electric connection, deep love and surrendered pleasure—I have no choice but to burn on.

This is what it takes to move from the chains of bondage to orgasmic freedom. The real sexual revolution doesn’t happen by burning bras or holding on to anger against men; it happens in our own minds, hearts and pussies. And it’s waiting for us, whenever we’re ready.

Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

11 Reasons Why I’m Getting Married (Again)

At Symbiosis, post-engagement. Photo by Karl Baba

View this article on elephantjournal.com

I swore off marriage when I was twelve years old. I was a jaded pre-teen with a bit of a feminist streak who had witnessed the demise of her parents’ relationship a few years before. I decided that I was never going to fall prey that heteronormative, societal slave trap. I was going to make something of my life and no amount of schmaltzy, romantic bullshit was going to stand in my way.

Ten years later I was married (life has a funny way of taking our belief systems and packing them with dynamite). I was a good wife—or at least I tried to be. I cooked and cleaned. I was understanding and kind (sometimes). And I really, really cared about my husband. But, admittedly, my heart was not in it. Nobody’s fault. We simply weren’t the best fit for each other and hung on for much longer than was respectfully necessary.

So, I ended up joining the ranks of one of the real housewives who get to say fashionable things like “My ex-husband this” or “My divorce settlement that”—all before the age of 30.

Joking aside, it was a pretty intense period of my life. Walking away from everything I had known about love and relating. Feeling like total failure. A selfish, sick little girl with no stable ground to stand on. Even though through it all I knew I was making the right choice, I was shaking with fear behind my mask of quiet bravery.

And with that mask came a resounding voice from the past: don’t ever get married again. No really. You are not wife material. You are not a mother. Do you want to put another man (and possibly innocent children) though hell?

Then five months ago he came along. And my whole system went “What the hell are you doing, Candice? Again? Really?”

No, not really. Something was different. Some puzzle piece went ‘click.’ The first part of the puzzle had to do with me. The fact that I done some deep soul spelunking, made peace with my hunger and discovered the courage to share my desire made a huge difference in being able to fearlessly express love (even in the face of inevitable rejection and humiliation).

Then, when you meet someone who totally compliments you and loves you and trusts you exactly as you are, there is a sort of ease and freedom that arises. Rather than trying to maintain some ideal of what I think wifedom and marriage should be, I am encouraged to peel off the layers and reveal parts of myself I have kept in the shadows for many years. In fact, the more intimate we are with each other, the better the relationship gets (case in point: jealousy and anger make for great raw material in sex).

And so I had to once again re-examine the voice that was against marriage. OK, so I am not in favor of the stagnant, co-dependent models of relating that parade themselves as marriage. And I think the way that marriage is represented in American culture isn’t truly rooted in love and commitment. I mean, we hungrily follow which football star Kim Kardashian might shack up with next. So-called ‘reality’ TV like the The Bachelor and The Millionaire Matchmaker have reduced marriage to the level of game shows, with husbands and wives as the ultimate prize. And as women, we get caught in this schizophrenic bind of having to find a husband and wanting our freedom: either we have to hunt him and trap him before we turn 30 (because the clock is ticking, ladies) or we give up relating all together for casual trysts that fill the gaps between power lunches and spin classes.

Cut and paste all that against the backdrop of a fierce political and religious debate surrounding the ‘sanctity’ of marriage as it’s ‘threatened’ by homosexual couples and you can see why we have a pretty twisted notion of what it means to be wedded in holy matrimony.

And it’s at this point that I settle onto my mediation cushion and find the pearl of wisdom that rests within me:

“Candice?”
“Yes, oh Sagacious One.”
“Do whatever the fuck you want.”

Exactly. At the heart of it all, I want to marry this man. He’s so fucking cool! I get excited when I think about living a crazy, rockstar, dream life with him—a life that goes way beyond the bounds of ‘normal’ marriage. We—my Beloved and I—get to create something unique and authentic. We get to make the rules (and break them). And in the end, we answer to no one but ourselves.

But I like to make lists. And I like to write articles. And I like to make lists when I write articles. So even though there’s really only one reason I’m choosing marriage (because it’s my desire), here are 11 Reasons Why I’m Getting Married (Again):

1. It was spontaneous. And I just love that. It feels much more honest when life happens at the unfiltered speed of ‘Yes.’ If you give me the perfectly scripted diamond-ring-and-down-on-one-knee proposal, I may smile and think “Oh how sweet,” but I’m not going to be sold. But if you give me the day of a total eclipse at the Symbiosis Festival in the Reckless In Love Shack at 3am while surrounded by an inebriated gang of Brits, you have yourself a winner.

2. He’s my best friend. We don’t just love each other; we like each other. We have lots of cracked out, dorky fun together. We like singing Bohemian Rhapsody (the entire thing!). We like quoting cheesy movies to each other. We make each other fall down laughing with our free associations and impressions of other people. And if after 13 days of spending nearly every moment together (days that included very little sleep, 30 hours of driving and camping out in some pretty harsh conditions) we still want to hang out with each other, that’s a pretty damn good sign.

3. We know when to take space. And then, after the 13 days of traveling together, when I say to him, “Honey, I need the night off,” he meets me with understanding and respect. He also knows when to ask for space. We may say something like, “I miss you. I feel sad. I’m disappointed not to see you. My body aches for you.” But in the end, absence does make the heart grow fonder—or at least our relationship stronger. For when we take the time to cultivate our individual passions, we come back together from a place of fullness and energy, ready to share our discoveries with each other.

4. I want to grow old with him. What’s more, I could even see myself having our child (yikes!). This is a very, very hard piece for me to admit. It hits my pride as a ‘free woman’ on so many levels. And yet, when I slow down and feel my desire, I discover joy in the possibility of building a life together—who we are as a team is infinitely greater than who we are alone. I don’t have to spend my life with him. I know I can survive just fine. But I’ve had flashes of his wise, old face in a rocking chair on the front porch of our home. I’m choosing to stick around long enough to see that.

5. He cries. I trust a man who is not afraid to share his innermost wonder and grief. It gives me the courage to share mine. His raw vulnerability is a huge gift in a world where masculinity is falsely touted as being some unbreakable superhero. No, dear readers. The masculine face of love sheds many, many tears on the journey of opening one’s heart to a woman.

6. Because why the fuck not? I don’t ever want to say on my deathbed “Thank God I played it safe when I was in love.” I want to be able to revel in the fact that I risked it all and made the most of every second life had to offer me. I don’t think the universe makes mistakes and I certainly don’t see my first marriage as a mistake. I think it was a glorious journey that has taken me exactly where I need to be. This time, the universe has raised the stakes and I am ready to play balls out.

7. We inspire each other to keep growing. Settling for ‘ok’ isn’t good enough for either of us, even if that means discomfort on both our parts. But that discomfort is just a sign we are hitting a fertile boundary, ripe with creativity and promise. And we are both courageous enough to stay connected within the change, even when it includes some scary shit like moving to another city or exploring our sexuality with someone outside of the relationship.

8. We trust each other’s inner compass. And we strive to speak our truth and have space for the other person’s experience. When he feels something is ‘off’, I listen. When I get intuitive hits about where to go next, he pays attention. This kind of respect is not something I take for granted. It requires a high level of communication and trust to say things like:

“What’s your deeper desire?”
“Where are you right now?”
“Stop playing nice.”
“You feel far away.”
“What are you not saying?”
“I know we planned to turn right, but I’d like to go left.”
“You don’t feel connected to your heart.”
“I love you and I am fuckin’ pissed.”
“This is a hard boundary and I am saying ‘No.’”

9. I get to wear a kick-ass dress. OK, perhaps one of the more shallow reasons to get married again (and also why this list went from 10 to 11) but I like dressing up. And last time I got married at the Justice of the Peace in casual pants and a sweater, so this time I want to go all out. Think Tim Burton meets Moulin Rouge. Yeah, you know you’re jealous.

10. He’s a rock. In the sense that I can throw all my wackiest, off-the-wall, crazy, angry, jealous, freaked out, neurotic shit at him, and he’s still standing. Not only is he still standing—he’s still loving me. He’s not afraid to violate the rules I have locking my orgasm. His commitment to total presence in the face of my feminine outrage liberates the woman in me—and the delicious reward on the other side of that liberation frees us both.

11. I like kissing him. Don’t get me wrong—the sex is awesome too. And if you know anything about me, you know that I place a high value on quality sex. However, there’s something so intimate about kissing someone. There’s nowhere to hide. It’s as if I’m emotionally naked and all the faces of my desire come out as he is staring into my eyes. The warm, electric promise of more when he brushes his lips below my ear and slides his thumb over my nipple. The comfort of home when cups his hands over my ears and grazes his mouth against my forehead. The rousing of my hungry animal when he thrusts me against a wall and devours my face, while pressing his cock against my thick, wet pussy. The sweet, adolescent innocence of his soft, full lips against mine as our tongues barely caress each other. I’ve had a variety of terrific lovers, for which I have tremendous gratitude. But to know how to slake a dying woman’s thirst with just the right kiss—that’s enough to bring me to my knees and pledge a lifetime of eternal devotion.

Womanhood and the Reawakening of My Erotic Innocence

Also view this article on elephantjournal.com

I have been a very dirty girl. And I’m OK with that.

Well, sort of. It’s more like I am learning to love this part of myself. She’s been in hiding for some time now, afraid that if she speaks to loudly or chews with her mouth open or runs naked through the streets, people will get angry. Or they will laugh at her. Or they will watch her with a starving madness and she will feel their shame burning through her skin (which will then light the fire of her own shame and her ‘good girl’ cover may get blown).

But this ‘dirty girl’ is not what you might be thinking. She’s no ‘been-there-done-that’ kinda chick, nor does she spend her nights trolling around town looking for the next hot lay. She’s actually quite naïve—she comes from a place before her sex got tied in the knots of social conditioning.

We’ve only been recently reacquainted.

I’m face down on the bed. My legs are spread. My lover pushing himself inside me. My right fingertips are on my clit. His hands are tangled in my hair as he shoves my face into the pillow. I am bellowing from a place deep within the basement of my soul. It’s uncontrollable, as if a fury has taken over my voice. I vacillate between crying and laughing. Grieving the release of past trauma and marveling at the humorous absurdity of it all.  I am a 31-year-old woman possessed by the banshee spirit of a 4-year-old while in the throes of some pretty brutal fucking.

And within it all, the anger, the terror, the hilarity and the tears, is a tremendous amount of turn-on. My whole body is alive. I have expanded to a point just a hair’s breadth beyond the limits of my safety, for the moment. I feel a twinge of guilt in not pushing further, as if my sex were some sort of product to deliver (and the business of my sex demands utmost customer service), but we fall asleep, sweetly drenched in the hair and sweat of our electric togetherness.

But what expands, must equally and oppositely contract. A few hours later, he reaches for me in the vulnerable darkness, hands on my ass, cock pressing against me. All at once a rage snaps my body tightly together, a violent ‘No’ escaping my throat and I clutch the sheets in a feeble attempt to scurry away. I am angry and terrified, as a childhood ghost flies through me. My lover holds me tightly, letting me know that I am safe. After a few tense seconds, my body slackens, but what was once alive has now gone numb.

And this frightens me. I know this place. I took up residence for a number of years. Starving myself in the addiction of anorexia in the attempt to quell the voices of a ravenous (and dangerous) sexuality. Maintaining a pre-pubescent state of being so I didn’t have to face the terror that comes with stepping into womanhood.

After a few minutes I fall asleep. I leave his place the next morning, quiet and unfeeling. I don’t know how to make sense of what I am experiencing. Is it resentment? Violation? Pain? Anger? Shame? All I can tell is that my emotional body has shut down and is on some sort of autopilot. A big block of cement sits right on my belly. If I let the old Candice take over, a passive aggressive brew of sexual withholding and the silent treatment isn’t far away.

A few hours go by and the pain starts to thaw. Vulnerability wins. I can feel again. I break down and call him, crying. I am a confused mess of a woman. On the one hand, I am angry at all men who rape women and for every man who has ever only wanted me for my sex. On the other, I ashamed at my compulsive need to have every man I meet want me sexually. Who am I if I don’t have my sex to offer as collateral for my right to exist in this world? My insecurity breeds a way of being in the world that invites the very reaction I most fear and therefore, it also invites a reaction that comes with a large amount of desire. Desire to confront and know myself as a woman of sexual maturity.

We end the conversation. I feel a bit more relieved, but there is still a bubble of unexpressed desire sitting in me. A few hours later, I meet with a friend for an OM (Orgasmic Meditation). The moment his finger slides onto my clit, the bubble wells up into my eyes and I am silently crying. In this moment, as he is stroking me with tenderness and care. I connect with the sexual innocence of a child. It is sweet, soft and nurturing. I feel emotionally safe and free from shame—something for which my body has hungered for a long time.

As kids, we are naturally curious about our bodies and express pleasure without concern for what others think. Children aren’t born with shame; they experience it once they learn from adults—who are themselves wrestling with their own unhealed wounds around shame and fear of abandonment—that some part of who they are is ‘dirty’ or ‘wrong.’

Our erotic journeys begin at conception, which is itself a sexual act. You see little babies touch themselves in utero. We are birthed through our mother’s genitals. We are nourished at our mother’s breasts. Our fathers hold us in their laps and tickle us to tears. The entire experience of young childhood is both sensual and innocent.

Then shame enters the picture. This can look like adults condemning erotic expression and setting up walls between themselves and children; or, as in my case, adults will be so erotically starving and are unable to share that with their adult partner (if they even have a partner) that they will use their children for energetic support, which opens the door to emotional or physical incest.

Here are a few highlights in the tapestry of my childhood sexual shame:

I can remember being 6-years-old and the neighbor boy pulling down his pants and showing me his ‘wee wee’ and me thinking “Oh my God, I hope my mother doesn’t walk in on this.”

I can remember being 9-years-old and having family members tell me not to dance or lick my lips like Madonna, lest I get the ‘wrong’ kind of attention.

I can remember being 10-years-old and having play acting sessions with my girlfriends in which I would pretend to be the ‘guy’ and we would kiss and rub up against each other. I was both frightened that they would tell their parents and mortified by how much I desired to kiss them again.

I can remember being 11-years-old and teasing one of the girls in after-school care about being sexual. She went and told one of the leaders, who then accused me of child abuse.

I can remember being 12-years-old and thinking I was the only female in the world who masturbated. I had heard all the jokes about boys doing it, but not girls. I thought I was some sort of pervert.

Shame is an arena where most of us can relate, but are too afraid to share with each other because of the repercussions society dishes out for deviating from the sexual ‘norm.’ We women are supposed to hold on to our ‘precious’ virginity as long as possible and only give it up for guys that are ‘marriage material.’ Then once you finally pick one guy, only fuck him for the rest of your life. Be a whore on-demand with him at night, but totally asexual during the day. Without the freedom to explore our desire and communicate it to our partners, we often live our lives with our orgasm locked in resentment and rotting inside our bodies.

Men don’t have it much easier. They are expected to walk around with perpetual hard-ons and their worth as a man rests on their ability to please a woman all night long (a farcical notion frequently expressed in many love songs). If his only experience is from watching porn and talking to his buddies, he may lie to cover up the fact that he doesn’t know how to handle a woman’s pussy and is too ashamed to admit it. This shame, which is vacuum-sealed like Saran Wrap around our fear of sex, is why both men and women continue to hide within the ‘safety’ of societal conditioning; thus, unfortunately, widening the chasm between ourselves and our authentic erotic expression.

Many of us in more ‘liberal’ cities may think we have moved past this kind of archaic relationship with sexuality, but I contest that it is very present. The war on abortion and women’s reproductive rights is a direct attack on female desire. The recent ban on gay marriage in North Carolina (as well as the ban on civil unions for both gay and straight couples) reinforces the belief that unless you are in a monogamous, long-term, heterosexual relationship, you are an unlawful deviant of society. Abstinence-only sex education is getting more of a push from right-wing leaders and now, young girls are attending events known as ‘Purity Balls,’ in which female teenagers pledge their virginity to God and elect their fathers as guardians—a role which then passes only to her future husband.

As you can see, there are many people and institutions more than willing to take the load of sexual responsibility off our hands. And the longer we continue to play this charade, the harder it gets to separate our personal truth from the social lie.  To stand up and say, “No, it is my life, my body and my sex. I will decide what is right for me,” is nothing short of revolutionary.

In the past, I thought this meant doing all the kinky things I had avoided during my young adult years (my focus on school and my marriage were great places for my sex to hide). This ‘saying yes’ to every sexual opportunity that came my way was ‘proof’ that I was sexually expressed. I see now that the more powerful (and vulnerable) choice lies in reclaiming my own erotic innocence, i.e. that part of myself that is simple, pure, unfiltered in her desires and lives with the ethos of ‘pleasure for the sake of pleasure’ and enjoys something simply because it feels good (rather than looks good), without the fear of ‘not deserving it’ or ‘what do I have to give up in return.’ She doesn’t have to show off or prove her worth. For her, ‘No’ is a valid response—it gives her ‘Yes’ that much more power.

And my erotic innocent is a little dirty at times. Because it’s fun to break the rules. To be a little bad. It turns her on. Rebellion is exciting because it paves the way for some new discovery—shakes up the status quo and creates the opportunity for messiness, play and growth. In confronting my childhood trauma, shame and hidden desires, I am now creating the space for all facets of my erotic being to emerge. Within this sexual self-compassion comes the ability to empathize with each person and accept their erotic self. The newborn, the homeless guy, my father, the elderly lady on life support, the nun—everyone is a sexual being. We are all perfectly built for sensuality. And it is through personal acceptance that the doors of inspiration, abundance and living the life of your dreams open. It’s not a silly, utopian fantasy or a special place reserved only for those lucky enough to find it; it is your birthright.

The journey is not easy. But if it were easy, it wouldn’t be as much fun. The pain, the shame, the falling apart, the voices of doubt—they are not my enemies. They are the raw material for my creativity and serve to remind me just how exquisitely human I am—all I have to do is to surrender to them. What a gift that is. To recognize the gift, accept it with humility and pour out gratitude in service to the Divine is nothing short of grace. And it is within the grace of surrender that an erotic innocent is ushered into Womanhood.

Sex: Not for the Faint of Heart {Adult}

Photo: Bryan Brenneman

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I got fucked open by the Universe recently. And not in a hippy-dippy, namaste, all-you-need-is-love sorta way. I mean in a total possession, out-of-control, freak-out sorta way. And since filling you in on the details would probably involve a good five hours of chain smoking and tequila shots, let’s just cut to the chase and say, it wasn’t very pretty—or rather, it wasn’t very ladylike.

There’s a reason why American conservative and religious leaders are doing their very best to crack down on sexuality. It threatens a system built on predictability, logic and the survival of a moral code based on patriarchal rule. We are seeing more and more the push for abstinence-only education, new bills are being passed limiting talk of ‘gateway sex’ in theclassroom and abortion rights and easy access to contraception are under fire.  

Then you have social conditioning parading around as ‘normal behavior’ adding another layer of obscurity to our already warped sense of sexuality (much of it tied up in the arenas of romance, commitment and relationships). This can be seen in books such as The Rules (a woman’s guide to capturing the heart of Mr. Right), classes taught by professional ‘Pick-Up Artists’ and Hollywood films hammering home the message that once you find ‘The One’ then all your fairy tale wishes will come true.

Finally, if you get through the labyrinth of political and social nonsense sitting on top your sex, you have to then contend with your own booby traps and deadbolts:

I’m too tired for sex
I don’t deserve sex
My vibrator/pornography gets the job done without the hassle
I’m straight/gay/married, etc, so I could never have sex with that person.
I’m too fat/ugly/old for sex
If I have sex now, I’ll be giving away the milk before he/she buys the cow
I’ve been hurt by sex in the past

So yeah, it’s pretty obvious why opening one’s sex is one of the most stigmatized and misunderstood of human journeys.

Sex.

Is.

Fuckin’.

Scary.

Period.

OK, a little more context. I went to a meditation retreat a few weeks ago and one of the things that came up for me was a huge amount of sexual trauma in my body. I had some floating memories of where this came from, but the history mattered less than the knots of terror that had embedded themselves in my genitals and were now passing through my system. The result looked a lot like a scene from The Exorcist. Screaming, shaking and crying rushed out of me as my pride (which had calcified on top of my trauma) began to burn away. Through the rusty faucet of my now flowing sex, a rotting cesspool of unexpressed anger took me over so powerfully, I thought I was going to die.

Obviously, I did not die (literally), but afterwards I felt as if I had been flayed alive. Every sound and touch was like pots banging in my ear or mites biting my skin. I had no more filter for how I was experiencing life. With no filter, my self-expression was direct, concentrated and immediate. This expression didn’t have time to collect a residue that would eventually fester and stink of shame (which would, of course, later end up in the basement of my soul with the other unsavory bits).

And then…something miraculous happened.

In the midst of my rawness, my lover came to me…and I could feel my pussy for the first time. I mean, on a profoundly deep level. All these years of thinking I knew what good sex was (I mean, I’ve been climaxing with a stash of porn since I was eleven, thank you very much), I had never dreamed of feeling something like this. It’s a little hard to put into words, but just set aside your woo-woo prejudice for one moment and stay with me.

Whereas before I was simply feeling my own body, I was now feeling my own body through the tip of his cock, which he was feeling (obviously). And I could feel him feeling his cock and feeling me with his cock. So it’s as if there was a circuit of connection—from me, to his cock, to his mind, back to his cock, and to me again—that added a whole new dimension of sensation to the experience. I wasn’t only in my orgasm, I was also in his orgasm, which then melded and becomes the shared orgasm. It’s as if one plus one did not equal two, but infinity.

Now I’m not saying every moment was bliss and rainbows and magical Candyland. For me, sex encompasses a lot more than the linear trajectory we typically ascribe to it (a kiss leads to above the waist action which leads to oral which finally leads to the grand slam intercourse and ejaculation). I mean, is it sex if, as he’s entering me, my body contracts into an accordion of fear, with the infantile mewing of “No, no, no” escaping my lips? Or is it sex when a man is reduced to tears of repentance the moment my velvet pussy lips slip around his cock? Or is it sex if I spend the whole night floating my hand over the warm fur of his chest in a state of wonder? For me: yes.

Sex is the most volatile arena for exploring who you are in the world and what you are running away from will typically arise in sex—quickly and in obvious contrast to everything you think you are. Facing this kind of ego death is a viable reason to keep sex tucked away in the back drawer of our psyches. But the reward for allowing all of myself to arise and to be witnessed and loved by someone else in that vulnerable state was nothing short of total liberation.

And I realized: to the extent that I could set aside my ‘script for good sex’ and allow myself to be penetrated with no judgment on what arose, I could actually experience God in connection with another human being. Which is what I think we are most hungry for on this planet (case in point: I had a recent OM, a.k.a. Orgasmic Meditation, with a friend of mine, who was grateful to stroke a woman who has spent time cultivating her orgasm because for him it was like ‘physical nourishment’).

Society teaches us that power lies in being the unrelenting penetrator. Go in hard, no holds barred and don’t come back until you’ve got the prize. It’s goal-oriented, it’s hard and fast and relies on brute force. We feel like we are in control of it all and get an ego boost when we shoot a giant wad after just one good thrust from our monstrous cocks, be that in boardroom or in the bedroom. It’s a brand of pseudo-masculinity that’s sort of like bad Chinese food—it fills you up in the moment, but leaves you hungry and undernourished over time.

Yet to admit that underneath all the bravado, we are dying to be penetrated is to come face to face with every taboo we have around sex and relating, especially for men. Look at the snarky remarks made whenever anyone mentions anal sex. Or the brutal jokes told in reference to gay men. In fact, the phrase ‘To be fucked over’ implies that you were a dumbass who put out and got nothing in return (which also ties into the often transactional nature of sex—make sure you get yours before they get theirs, lest you be ‘fucked over’). And who in society gets ‘fucked over’ all the time? Why pussies, of course.

Unfortunately, this negative view of being fucked (and the notion that the one being penetrated is somehow ‘weak’) is keeping us from the intimacy and connection we so desperately crave. Let me tell you from experience: it takes a lot of courage to be fully fucked open, to surrender to the Spirit within and to let all of her out in the presence of another. It is not weakness to be fucked open, but a place of power. And within that power, you will find innocence. 

As for penetrating: this is actually the most surrendered position of all, for the penetrator must be willing to hold total presence and ride the waves of whatever arises. And it’s not physical strength that matters most, but the strength of commitment to stay 100% connected that creates the space for the penetrated to open and release.

In time (and to make things really interesting), there comes a point when the roles of penetrator and penetrated switch between partners from moment to moment—regardless of who has what member in what orifice. Many a skilled courtesan has deeply penetrated a man while his cock was inside of her.

And in the final stage of pure grace, the roles fall away completely and the Universe takes over. You become the penetrated and the penetrator. The fucker and the fucked. Kali and Shiva. Adam and Eve (and Lilith and the Apple and the Snake).

Get it? Of course you don’t. I don’t even get it. It’s a felt experience, not a rational one. In fact, I feel like I have had only a taste of the sheer potential available in the realm of my sex. Will I ever have this kind of experience again? Who knows. The path now is to simply keep feeling my way rather than trying to chase an ideal. But my intuition says if I continue to play like this, there are many doors that will open into ballrooms and caverns I never thought possible. I started my OM practice over two years ago and what was once an opening the size of a pinhole is now a quarter-sized aperture of orgasmic expression. It feels like the journey (with its feathers, stingers and silky, warm wetness) is just beginning.

Courageous Ones

By Candice Holdorf (written May 2009)

It’s the Courageous Ones

Who dare to tread My salty shores

Who spread their fingers

In My deceptive seas

(with hidden octopus

and pink jellyfish)

But when My tempests rage

And oceans wage war

Against their virgin skin

(Which rebels in welted bliss)

They think of it as a baptism

And bow their heads in honor

For who but a holy fool

Would offer sacraments

To My shrine…

And spend his whole life

Suffering for the religion

Of My Love?

Legend of the South Seas (written 5/3/2009)

Venice Beach, CA. Photo Copyright Candice Holdorf

Legend of the South Seas

(written 5/3/2009)

My heart hums in a secret volcano

Hidden patiently dormant

Midway between Helena and Espiritu Santo

Teetering on the tip of tectonic bliss

A loner by nature

(She never fit in with Pangea)

She calls the ring of fire

Home

Enigmatic magma rumbles

Beneath her crest

Luring worthy sailors

To slip onto her shores

Map-less, they must brave her currents

(No easy sextant for celestial navigation)

Caressing her whispering zephyrs

Riding her blistering squalls

‘Til they wash up famished

On her full, wet sands

Igniting her belly ablaze

Swollen earth morphs to enveloping lava

And in unrivaled eruptions

(Pele is so jealous!)

Impassioned ashes descend

Searing skin-to-skin, soul-to-soul

Immortalizing their bodies

In cinder-splendor

A pacific monument

To her tempestuous love