THE SENSUAL LIFE

 

A Favorite Cedar Tree

Not sensual as in sexy but as in Open Your Senses.  Let your senses respond to all that's around you:  tasting, touching, seeing, hearing, smelling and, that greatest of sensual pleasures, your emotional response.  That leaning toward that leads to an indwelling of total presence.  A withness and a thereness.    As you write (or think or remember), be there again. Luxuriate.  Then maybe seek out the experience, repeat the things make your life full.  You might start with the words "I Love . . . " and go from there.  Mine range from the mundane to the life affirming.  

I LOVE . . .

the smell under the cedar trees.  Pruning the dead lower branches is a fragrance-paradise.  Clipping for winter bouquets brings memories indoors weeks before Christmas.  Keep or find a few low branches for perching after a long walk.  Under any tree is a great place to hang out, but here under a cedar the smell is sweetest.  Cedar is calming.

the way the neighborhood geese sound. They squawk their pass-by every morning and evening, keeping the flock organized; no camouflage for them.  Daytimes they waddle from pond to grass and back again, oblivious to the traffic jam of a car or two or the honk of a horn.  Such centered creatures.  We could all learn a lesson there.  

the smell of lotion on my skin.  Almond with lavender, or vanilla. What's your favorite? The soothing feel of hands stroking body.  A way of appreciating all our bodies do for us.  Freshly clean, squeaky wet hair.  Skin nourished, not tight or itchy.  This can be a true sensual experience that lasts all day. 

the way love makes all the difference.  (Now, in your own mind, elaborate. 💗)  Every sense awakened, contributing. The way nothing brings us into the moment like love.  The way love makes us brave, confident, compassionate.  The way God made us fit like puzzle pieces. 

the feeling that comes after a sincere compliment, by stranger or friend, given or received, an allover feeling.  

that if I listen to my intuition I know what's true.  That silencing my intuition when it tries to alert me to danger is a mistake.  Our intuitions are on our side. When I have wondered why I am fearful, why things seem off, my intuition has never been wrong.  I need to let it take the reins.

a hug.  A night of hugging.  Not a perfunctory hug, but bodies aligned.  Close your eyes and indulge the other senses 

when the rain cools the summer heat and brightens the trees.  The vivid green after a shower.  The tree frogs after a thunderstorm passes. When we rejoice in something as simple as rain. 

everything about a snowy day.  Here in the Piedmont we relish snow, the beauty, the softness, the slower pace, its miraculous appearance in the morning as daylight spreads.  

the feeling of disappearing into a natural sleep.  The meandering of thoughts further and further apart, the letting go, the sinking into stillness.  In sleep we heal, we're renewed, we lengthen our lives. Sleep is a gift.

Emily Dickinson's poems.  Now there's a revelry of senses. 

Where do your senses take you?  I bet our soul's innermost desires can be found if we follow our senses.