I should be an expert.  Well, not compared to say, Elizabeth Taylor.  I’ve only been married 3 times.  Evidence prevails that sheer numbers does not make one an expert, perhaps only optimistic.  Truth is, I’d say I make a fairly good wife.  Lots of practice.  Good genes.  Thousands of years of DNA in service to the masculine.  A role model mother that was exemplary.  And references from former partners that this is indeed the case.  What brings this musing on the institution of marriage, you may ask?  Tired subject, for sure.  I find myself preparing to officiate a marriage today. 

Right before my birthday this year, I received an email from friends, they wished me to officiate their wedding.  They wanted a woman.  Someone who was not associated with any organized church and who had a spiritual perspective on the world.  I was flattered.  After all these years, one would think that I had grown beyond the “oh my god, they want ME!” impulse.  I felt I put forth simple requests.  I wanted to meet with them 3 times.   Felt some responsibility in solemnizing vows with 30 somethings if I had not provided some opportunity to consider the pitfalls and obstacles of committed intimacy that I am all too familiar with. 

First meeting did not go well.  I had hoped to open the conversation on what I perceive to be the most pernicious lie in marriage:  That two people look at each other and say “I will never be attracted to another person for the rest of my life EVER!  And neither will you!  Now I am not saying that this is not possible.  Highly unlikely, yes.  Impossible, well, nothing is impossible.  Given that the U.S. has the highest divorce rate in the 1^st world, I’d say evidence exists that our dreams do not match our reality.  From that first lie, all partners collude, depending on the often ‘unspoken’ agreements; they subtly or not so subtly, manipulate or repress (as the case may be) their behavior to avoid the inalienable truth that we may be abandoned at any moment.  That we are truly, utterly alone.  That we may find some temporary respite or comfort in one another, but that more than likely the evolutionary hormones that drive desire shift, and without intention and awareness, one or the other finds themselves drifting towards ennui, boredom, and the mistaken conclusion that there is something better out there, that next time it WILL be different.

So anyway, that’s what I had hoped to prepare these young optimists for.  Barely a word from them for the next several months, until just a few days before the ceremony I receive their vows.  There it is, the line that I know I could not speak “I, (insert name), take you (another name) in MONOGAMY for the rest of our lives.  I was sick to my stomach.  The families are in town.  More energy had been placed on who was bringing the coolers and getting the groomsmen meaningless gifts, than the words that would set the intention for their lives together.  I could really give the bride something to worry about (truth is anyone from any conventional church would be happy to read those vows), but what came up more for me was, what was my line in the sand?  Do I go along, just to not make other people uncomfortable?  Do I have some over-inflated sense of self that what I do/say has that much impact?  The groom and I spoke.  He admitted that he had abdicated responsibility in crafting the words.  New job, avoiding conflict, over-extended financial, personal and professional responsibilities.  He agreed with me.  She had asked him numerous times to participate.  The word ‘monogamy’ was important to her.  He told me I really wasn’t aware of her ‘wound’ how sensitive she was about this.  She had been in open relationships and been betrayed.  I said “WE HAVE All BEEN BETRAYED!”. In the most loving of relationships, we all at some time, have, and will, disappointment one another.  Do we have, what I call, the internal muscles, that allow us to speak, listen and experience the true revealing of ourselves and the other, while simultaneously keeping our hearts open.  Ouch.  Not an easy job. Do we accept that for love to move through our bodies, to sustain the qualities of open expression, we need to get comfortable with the truth that we change.  We grow.  That love does not ‘die’.  The form, the expression of the relationship may change.  But love, that spacious open expression of life, is always there, right inside you and I.  Independent of what the other or the world does or says. 

And yes, all the sex toys we have created, tantric workshops and marriage encounters may produce temporary novelty, but what don’t I want to face?  That we all die?  That we are imperfect?  That I do not complete anyone anymore than they complete me?  That ultimately, I am my partner for life?

So what happened?  I asked the groom to place his voice in the vows.  To shift the word ‘monogamy’ to ‘fidelity’.  And he did.  And today they will stand before me, their families and friends, and I will wish for them to become the most courageous they can be as I read their words…….

Now I’ve had a lifetime of looking at jealousy from every possible emotionally charged angle.  Married for many years to a man who had a seemingly limitless queue of women.  Involved in the examination of coupledom, polyamory, all expressions of intimate relating.  Mentally, philosophically, I’m down.  In my sane moments I rest in the spacious, unattached expression of living a life.  Love and freedom being able to live in the same room.  Desiring to take pleasure in my partner’s pleasure.  And aware that my cultural and social imprinting do not support this.  From an early age, we are taught to share some things, but definitely not others.  Anthropologists even suggest that there is an aspect of jealousy that is part of our DNA.  As a neanderthal girl, if you followed that young thing down the hill, I would be left helpless against predators, disadvantaged in raising my young.  When land became private property, sometime after the Dark Ages, paternity became relevant, hence ownership of women, a guarding of purity of that gene pool. 

Ok, I digress.  What does this have to do with the dog?  I initially was surprised.  I like to think of myself as pretty open. Yeah, yeah, in my clear moments, I love to think of myself as open.  I like to think that if my partner is not with me, maybe having a good time and not even thinking of me, I’m OK with that.  Yeah, I can even be happy.  He’s away for a few days, I’m fine.  So there’s a little judgment going on.  She can’t be without the dog for 2 days?  Come on.

Things happen pretty fast for me now.  If I find myself in judgment of anyone else, it’s a matter of days, at most, where those points are not reflected in myself.  Get this.  The next evening, I have a dream.  This lovely woman who lives in Hawaii that I literally have not seen nor thought of in years is at our house.  Basically, she is saying to me, “I want him”.  Not in any, she wants to take him away, just, she wants him.  And in the dream, I am panicked.  I am exhibiting all the physical emotional responses of my housemate.  The anxiety in my sleeping body is palpable.

This is reminding me of something that happened, oh decades ago.  I was doing acid with my soon to be first husband, an ex-lover and his new girlfriend.  I had this really cool fringe hippie vest I had gotten in NY.  The girlfriend wanted to wear the vest, put it on and was wearing it.  The whole trip I was anxious that she would just walk out with the vest on.   I should be able to let it go, it looked great on her.  Even then, as a dumb 18 yo, I intrinsically knew I had an attachment to something that was causing me suffering.  I spent the whole trip tightened around my attachment to the vest.  I couldn’t say a word about it.  I should be able to just give it to her.  Let it go.  I couldn’t let go.  It was expensive.  It was the one thing that had come out of NY with me.  It represented who I was then, the money I spent, the way I saw myself.  At the end of the trip they were leaving, going towards the door.  In a moment, she turned, slipped the vest off, and walked out the door.  I still had the vest.  Of course I have no idea what happened to it, or if I ever wore it again.

So I keep getting to practice.  I get to practice being compassionate to those around me, knowing that we each have an edge, of holding on, wanting to feel safe, loved.  That somehow if we just have this partner, this dog, this vest, we can stave off, at least temporarily, how untethered we really are.  And isn’t it interesting, that spacious untethering, that free fall, that looking right into the face of our aloneness, is where freedom is.  I just know it.

Incentive to begin FINALLY (yes, I’m yelling) is yet another phone call. Can’t say definitively how inoccuous this was, but caller says, in southern type drawl, “I’m calling about tantra”. And I say, “what exactly about tantra were you interested in?” And the questions go as follows:

caller: “What about voluntary ejaculation?”

me: “Well, that’s a sexual issue that I have skills to help you manage, but that is not tantra”

Caller: “What about better orgasms?”

me: “Hmmmm. This is also a sexual issue, but it is not tantra.”

Caller: “Well, I see that a lot of the ‘goddesses’ are nude. Tantra is about nudity?”

me: At this point I’m noticing that I’m not breathing. Over the last many years I have become pretty adept at identifying a masturbator. I can tell by a voice tone. I also notice that there is a way I begin to armour myself at the hint that it might be a masturbator and I am already not in the moment, but projecting what this call could possibly be and that definitely is NOT tantra.

An aside. This cracks me up. There is obviously a lot of men with a lot of free time that obviously don’t want to cough up the whatever it is per minute for phone sex wherein someone could answer the phone that actually is OK with said caller masturbating while she (pick one) a) is watching Oprah, b) folding laundry, c) doing her nails or d) you fill in the blank for any number of banal activities that a woman might think of doing while getting paid a nominal fee to let someone rub one out (my boyfriend taught me that phrase).

I have enough background in paraphilias (classified sexual dysfunctions) to know that there are a lot of people that actually become aroused by imposing their arousal on unsuspecting strangers. Like flashing. Wow, we haven’t heard of that one in a long time! I tend to think that most of my callers just surf the web and find a photo and the addition of ANY human voice is enough to support them in the 90 second arousal needed to get off. That sounded disparaging, didn’t it? I often wish that at the abrupt end of the call (I either figure it out and hang up, or they do) I could say something profound. Something that would speak to their humanness. That I am somebody’s mother, daughter, sister. I am a human. They wouldn’t want some strange guy calling their mother would they?

Back to the call. I notice my tightening. I want to bring my humanness. I tell him that tantra is a catch-all word that is now being used to ’spiritualize’, legitimize or bring hipness to almost anything. Day spas, restaurants, more frequently escorts and what we call in the field, holy hand job artists. (No, I did not say that on the call) I keep my voice very professional, matter of fact, like I could be talking to someone inquiring about buying software. .

What is Tantra? It is the 24/7 practice of being awake. Watching my judgments. Imposing the past on this present. Projecting the future, anticipation, fear, hope, dread. It is breathing myself into this moment. It is noticing that I allow some disembodied voice clamp my energy down. It is disciplined practice. It is wild abandon. It is the free flow of energy moving through me in all directions. It is courageous. ]]> http://www.annamarti.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=6