When we wake, the sky is bright all around us, the loud “HOOS!” of a nearby Osho meditation fill the air and footsteps are crunching across the gravel pathway between the dorms and dining area.
It’s a sweet and cosy moment, yet I’m also aware, that the sense of our one-ness becoming two-ness again is creeping into the edges of my consciousness.
I don’t want to assume we’re now an item and need to hang out all day, and yet I’m also still wrapped in the bliss of our togetherness and would love it to continue.
In true tantric fashion, we both share our feelings and desires transparently. And I happily agree to meet up after breakfast in the sauna.
As it turns out, we’re first into the sauna on this day, so I’m impressed and grateful, when Peder steps into action: putting logs onto the stove and doing whatever else is needed to get the space heated up for us.
I love being in the sauna! The deep heat, the meditative stillness (I can hear my breath), the dark womblike space are all so nourishing. It feels like the perfect place to be after a night of dance and love-making.
And since we’re alone and naked, there’s an easy return to intimacy; first in our conversation and then our physicality.
Without anticipation or forethought, desire has awoken in both of us and I find myself straddling Peder, feeling hot and juicy.
Just as we’re on the verge of coitus, though, the sauna door swings open and in a split second, I shift off of him and back into sitting. Though this puts paid to our erotic longings, it’s a relief for me in part, since the hard wooden slats had been digging into my knees!
With the energy thus shifted, we return to simply enjoying the sauna experience and then, after a few sortees to the cold shower and back, venture out onto the lawn in front to rest our glowing, naked bodies together.
Peder is quiet and contemplative. And I relish our soft contact and easy immersion in nature. But then I am seized by an immense surge of joyful aliveness and get up to cartwheel across the grass; almost delirious with the playful spontaneity and sheer delight of my freedom of being.
We part soon after, as I head off to rendezvous with my buddy group and Peder goes to rest in the chill-out lounge above the café.
And it’s here that I find him again, some hours later, lying peacefully on an old leather couch with a blanket wrapped around him.
I stroke his face, then snuggle quietly up against him. And when he stirs, we begin to talk; sharing more about our respective lives and worlds.
The words brings us simultaneously closer and further apart, as they hit us up against the unavoidable realisation, that this precious intimacy isn’t destined for the long-term.
I speak of my children, my vocation and my desire for a committed relationship. He tells me about his past, his travels and his desire to start a family. I don’t disclose my age, but as he talks, I discover I am almost 20 years his senior.
It’s no surprise. I’ve the body and energy of a far younger woman and my lovers tend to reflect this.
***
Dinner-time. And the day has carried me on its tide of delicious offerings, as I’ve flowed through it with the unmistakeble air of languid plenitude that arises, when we are both fatigued and erotically fulfilled.
The air is still warm. The evening light. And as I cross towards the dorm to freshen up and change for the night, I spot Peder sitting under an apple tree.
I join him. And we sit. And the truth bubbles up.
As we eye-gaze and breathe together, he takes my hands and tears begin to stream down his face, as he haltingly speaks the ending of whatever this has been.
He is in awe and admiration of my presence, yet we are both at different stages in our lives. He longs for children, but I am done with that. And we live in different countries anyhow.
He shares his sense of guilt for following his desire to be with me. And his belief that it’s best we don’t spend another night together.
My heart swells and smarts with the combined ache of love and sadness. And my own tears begin to flow, as I speak of his beauty and my gratitude for this truth and the precious time we have shared.
No need for guilt, I say. We both followed our longing. We both made this choice. And I am profoundly thankful for it.
I am touched so deeply by this man’s gentleness and honesty, noticing how effortlessly the heart receives and is opened by truth – whether it suits the ego or not.
We embrace and then I get up to continue on my mission of preparing for that evening’s closing ceremony, feeling the sharp poignancy of this moment, even as a subtle tinge of excitement begins to rise within me in anticipation of the night ahead.
