ISTA L1 Notes

• My mind reeled from 3:30 am, when it woke up to a lusty body, erect and restless; hungry for more of Sara's soft, steamy caresses. For seven hours it turned again and again and again, fantasizing the explosion of my inner beast in the main circle in the morning.

• I was seeing connection between a man and a woman to be binary. It either happened, or it didn't happen, in which case I was left a rejected emotional mess, licking my wounds for days. Today, tonight, at temple night it occurs in many different shades in between. WE do not merely search for someone, and either "catch" them or "not catch" them. We interact with one another like fluids. A look here, a touch there, perhaps a dance, perhaps a massage, perhaps a release [a parting]. There is space to realize that fear of release is unnecessary. AS this stream diverges, another soon likely comes. It helps immensely to allow all streams to run freely, rather than damming and coercing the streams in fixed paths. For in a damned and propertied flow, we cannot truly trust the streams to find us, and to continue flowing we claim our pieces of current quickly, before the others do, and only dam it further.
• In the temple night, we do not claim and keep and guard our currents. We share them with each other. We share.

• Envy can be a strong drive to leave our current, to want another. I saw three different pairs of man/woman playing sensually, and I realized this envy wanted to be in one position just as much as in the others. It didn't realize it couldn't be in more than one role at once, yet it wanted all of them. A desperate child in a candy store. Let us realize envy seeks the impossible: it seeks to replace an irreplaceable role with another. It seeks to change the unchangeable now.

• Grateful towards witnesses.

[Notes written near the end of ISTA Switzerland L1, Oct 2019]

we share

We share.

[Written during ISTA Switzerland L1, Oct 2019.

I saw within during breathing exercise

these words being written on the background

of the nothingness within]

rhombus flower

folded concentric paper walls

layers as close as a flower's

a recursive rhombus

[Written during ISTA Switzerland L1, Oct 2019.

I saw within during some exercise or self-time]

Masturbation

Tonight I masturbated as I imagine women masturbate more often than men. Playful, softly, receptive. I touched my own skin, my genitals, my shaft and balls, and cherished the sensations as they came into me. Surged in me as a river, a soft electric river, soothing me and teasing me with every stroke and slide, far deeper in my body than the point of contact between my skins. I played touching myself softly, oh so softly, and noticed, noticed, as the sensations came through.

What was different about this masturbation? I felt no shame about it. No shame, no loneliness, it was not a hiding man's recourse to soothe the pains of boredom and resentment of the past, the crumbs of a starving beggar. It was a game between my fingers and my skin. Body to body. An act of devotion to myself. A river of sensation whose course I directed with my hands and my focus, at each moment of attentive play.

There was no need of a woman. There was no fantasy of a woman, pressuring my imagination into expressing dominance and masculinity, into getting it done with virility, into doing it right. Of lasting enough, of my shaft being big enough, hard enough, of hidden stories and fantasies. Just a game, an exploration of landscapes yet to discover.

And as shame was not there, my body felt free to sound. Long deep breaths accompanied my movements and my sensations, and gave a rhythm within each all happened. My exhales felt open, unblocked. No volume limit. No lid. And the waves, in sequence, flowed smoothly as well. Long relieving sighs through my body as it opened, in pulses, like a flower, as I felt my body in never-before-imagined positions of surrendered delight. On my knees, legs spread out on the ground, my shaft fully erect in the direction it chose to, my spine curved back and my face to the sky. Softness was welcome for once, no longer excluded from my masculinity, and it gave everything a texture of pleasure and surrender. It is new to me.

Much shame and loneliness and aim and desires and repression had been linked to my masturbation. Now they all feel much looser, if still there at all. Thank you, body. Thank you, attention.

how

how
to

free it?

it is a screaming child that will not yield
will
not
yield

I may silence it
I may play reasoning with it
I may justify it and give it a thousand stories
I may breathe together with it and lull it to sleep
I may feel lofty and ethereal and feel I don't ever need any more than this moment
yet it
returns
a frustrated child
ever tighter
under tight-puckered eyebrows

tight silent throat
intense look, accusing look
invariably saying the same

"When do I get what I WANT??"
and I have no answer for it
only a blind advice of patience

because I know what it wants
I have words for it
and I have no words for its answer

it wants company
comfort
attention
mutual affection
a partner in play
to be playful
to laugh at her
to tease her
to tease me
to surprise us
to teach us
tell us stories
to hold each other
in the empty nights

beautiful if forever
need not be forever
but yes... mutual
real, joyful,
free, open
lasting, let its stream be felt
not curtailed
hindered
grasping to find a sliver of time
among arbitrary schedules
dampened by female defenses, caution
fucking failure happenstances
that drift me away from everyone
like

a twig in a current
that shoves me without
my will, consent, nor understanding

and the child is still there
unyielding
irrefutable
intransigent
it KNOWS its right in this life
or what it feels is his right
so strongly
he tests my trust harshly
or maybe I trust to assuage his starkness

and no matter how much incense I burn or mantras I chant or truths I spit out or drugs (so far) I experience or fears I step through or dances I slide or explode into or catharses I blow or silence I hold
it waits, tight-fisted and resentful
for the villain destiny to give it what it wants