Eros in sex and death

For a time, in this past year of changes and challenges in my life,  I thought that maybe I had taken a departure from the erotic for a time.  My sex drive seemed lower and less important perhaps, as I navigated my way through the stresses and struggles of my life which were plenty, 2014 was a tough year it seems, on many levels.  Then at the end of the year,  I spent a period of time in the throws of dealing face to face with dying and transition of a woman that I was caring for.   A large part of my energy was given entirely to this process and I was deeply affected by my experience being with this beautiful woman throughout her entire process and the days that followed.  My thoughts then turned to the realtionship between sex and death, and I realized I had not taken a departure from the erotic at all, I was just flowing with the ride that Eros was taking me on, the ride through struggle, growth, loss, grief, death and the transformation of it all.

So how does Eros intersects with death and dying? With a grin, Eros is a trickster, perhaps like Death who sometimes smiles when we are not looking.   Eros, not always what we think it is, is the life force energy that is transformative in sex just as it is in birth and death, all seem to be moving always in the direction of each other somehow.   Life after all is what feeds death and death is what feeds life, one just has to look to nature to see it, the cycle is continuous, what is there to say?  In sex, as in death, when we can be open to the all that is true and alive for us in the moment, in our passion, our pleasure, our pain, our orgasm or lack there of, our confusion, our fear, in our most vulnerable places, in the unknown, unpredictable and great mystery of it all, we can then be open to the transformational gift of what each moment has to offer.

Eros doesn't always have to look sexy, unless you find death sexy, and some of us do.  I think back to all the times I lured my boyfriends to the cemetery that I lived next to, for sexual encounters and I have to laugh.  Eros can look like many things.  As one who considers herself an erotic explorer, an educator of sexuality,  I have felt at times, like I have to always be sexually "on,"  pushing the boundaries of sexploration if not in the flesh, at least in my mind, scheming up my next sexy plan or task or thing to experience or become "better" at.   I have now come to see it in a different light.  I never really took a departure from the erotic,  I have in fact, been doing some of the sexiest work of all.  The work of being present to every moment life, sex and death have to offer, with an open heart as a willing sacred witness to exactly what is, no turning away, in all its beauty, it's humanness, its messines, is erotic.  Become deaths lover, and you will find beauty where you least expected to see it.