In Candescence

Last night I went to an event titled, Candescence, a demonstration of a woman in a state of orgasm for one hour. I left the demonstration with the same feeling in my body and mind as at the end of an entire 10 days spent in silent meditation, for 10 hours each day.

Honestly, it is a bit edgy to write about this. I am uber aware that most people didn't spend their Saturday night in quite the same way as I did. But the experience of the energy of Sexuality and Spirituality being one was profound enough for me to tell you all about my unusual weekend event attendance.

The demonstration was the culmination of 4 years of work and research by this woman and her partner, into extended, expanded orgasm, under the guidance of Nicole Daedone of OneTaste in San Francisco. On one level, what we 75 people watched and experienced was a brave and naked woman lying on a lushly-draped dias, being stroked manually by her gloved partner. For one hour. But on another level, we - the un-stroked - rode her energetic waves along with her, felt the touches ripple through the room and our own bodies. Our bodies ignited, we tuned out when she did, we went up and down along with her, and our matter was gently caressed and expanded like this woman on the opposite side of the room.

At the end of the evening I felt pre-verbal, hard-pressed to speak or put words to what I was experiencing. I felt open, raw, ignited, vulnerable, and deeply moved. There was more to this than the sum of its components. It felt like we'd all been exposed to a sacred, ritualized energy.

There is apparently a region in the brain whose sole function is to suppress sexual turn-on. During sex and orgasm, it stops suppressing and we experience increased sensation and turn-on.

Is sensation and orgasm proprietary and localized to a body, or is it an owner-less energy, like the wind, that we only know when it touches and ripples over us?

Is our natural state orgasm? Is sexual turn-on happening all the time, we are just in various states of suppression?

Don't get me wrong. There are times when NOT feeling immense levels of sensation and openness is OK, like driving a car or operating heavy machinery - or trying to articulate an incredibly profound experience of the divine creative energy that made us all, so present in the room this last Saturday evening.