rejoicing, somehow

moments at the intersection of pleasure and grief

My skin has come alive, shimmering, sensitive to the lightest touch. A sigh pours from my mouth when my hair brushes against my back. It’s new and tender. Pleasure has been the focus of my exploration for the past few years but I have a teacher now¹, someone to offer tools, support and guidance, so I am no longer feeling around in the dark in my practice - literally and metaphorically. (I bought candles.) This new studiousness has turned up the dial on my ability to tune in to subtle sensations. There is a vibration that starts in my feet and tingles all the way up to my thighs at any given moment, like pulling energy up from the earth. I have tapped into a sense of vitality that I never before had the privilege of knowing. I already understood that experiencing pleasure requires a willingness to meet yourself in discomfort - to tend to yourself in sadness or feel the fullness of pain - but I could not have foreseen how intimately I would come to know my grief through this process. 

Last fall, I was traveling alone in Sardinia. I emerged from retreat certain that all things tend toward goodness and, in a day, the belief that I held so strongly became a dream that felt severed from me. Rage surged through my body, swallowed by grief that felt heavier and more still. Every glimmer of love, every moment of joy and pleasure, every sadness, was transposed onto that backdrop of grief. I had this sense of getting to know the ridges of my emotions, little peaks and valleys that could be encapsulated in a larger despair. After spending years feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of my feelings, I learned that I was spacious enough to hold multiple things at once. 

Every day in Santa Teresa, after spending the morning writing or crying at the cafe on the corner, I would dip my body in the cool sea to put some space between the world and me. Muscles softened, held for a moment by dense saltwater, I emerged feeling new. I’d always pass the market on my way home, droplets of water still beaded on my skin. Greet the vendors. Walk toward the same carton of ripe fruit. I would sort through peaches until I found the perfect one: firm with a little give when I pressed into it with my thumb, heavy and teeming with juice underneath soft flesh. When I got back to my room, I’d strip all the way down and hang my damp bikini off the railing of my balcony to dry. Bougainvillea climbed over the edge to frame the view of sprawling Sardinian hills with electric pink petals. Below me, the streets were still. Riposo called everyone back into their homes, and I could sit outside comfortably, unafraid of being seen. Reclined on the deck chair, I’d cross one ankle over the other on the footrest and close my eyes while I took the day’s first deep breath, velvet skin of peach soft in my hand. Noon sun scorched my skin and I turned my face toward it. Drenched in light, I’d bite into tender summer fruit. Nectar dripped down my chin onto my chest and traced downward toward my stomach, sticky and sweet. It felt like real freedom. That small ritual showed me how simple joy could be, and how it could withstand even intense grief, like a flower growing through a crack in concrete.

Still, I can’t help but feel like joy is a radical act these days. I am thinking of pleasure as an honest form of resistance, something that can carve us open and soften us, and so I am engaging in actions that bring me pleasure, big and small, even when I feel so attuned to suffering. It’s different from the foreground pleasure and background pain that I experienced when I was in Sardinia. There are days when the intensity of my sorrow is equal to the intensity of my joy, simultaneously, like oppositional forces. In my biggest sadness, I can feel a shiver in my chest, my breath ragged, charged with the feeling of being alive. It’s hard for me to say out loud in this space that my friend is dying, that people haven’t stopped dying. There are some days when it feels too much so I fall back into the old habit of trying to outrun my emotions. I find myself spinning in circles - trying to do things, never stopping doing things, until my head hits the pillow and I’m too tired to consider the state of the world. In those moments, when I finally stop, my tears flow in an endless stream. 

On a day when I noticed my endless running, my needing-to-do without getting-things-done, my roommate and I contemplated practicing yoga with my favorite teacher. I made excuses not to go, citing my busyness over and over again. I recognized that I was afraid to pause because the weight that day was too heavy and I feared it would be suffocating. So I went, because the most important time to practice is when we’re too busy. I promised myself that I could let it be easy, just take space to be. For the first time, Kia guided us through a sequence without music. She taught as she typically does - calm, present, aware - and the room was hypnotized by her instruction. The silence beyond her voice gave me the stillness I needed (and had been avoiding). 

One of the most profound things in a Three Jewels class is the invitation to dedicate our practice to someone who could use its benefits. At the end of this particular class, we were guided to envision unconditional love spreading from our heart, reaching through the walls toward the rest of the world, enveloping the entire earth in the blue light of our offering. The visualization cracked the veneer I’d built by refusing to pause, and reminded me what it’s all really for, anyway. Sobs shook my entire body like an earthquake originating in the center of my chest where the epicenter of the blue light had been. It didn’t stop for days. I couldn’t be anywhere without my eyes glazing over in mourning. ²

It makes me think that I want to infuse every single action with prayer. Any time I dance, I offer it to the memory of people who cannot dance again. I was at a concert last week and, for a moment, my guilt creeped in to remind my happiness that suffering exists. Instead of being robbed of joy in moments when it appears, I move to turn it into an offering. I rejoice in its visit and imagine it rippling out from the center of my chest, reaching anyone who might need it. I take that opportunity to pray that every being, everywhere, can be safe and free (finally, finally, finally). 

What I want to say is, “I am feeling a lot of pleasure right now, and I’m also feeling a lot of pain. I’ve learned that I can actually hold them both at the same time and that feels really precious to me, like I have succeeded in my mission to stretch my emotional capacity.” The juxtaposition of my feelings is stark and painful but, in their magnitude, there is beauty. In a way, it speaks to human expansiveness - how I have evolved to hold my own multitudes and navigate a complex emotional landscape. Pleasure doesn’t have to be an escape, but a portal into some deeper part of ourselves, into some underlying truth that exists within us all. It isn’t an antidote to pain. If there is one at all, it’s presence, and probably service (if i’ve learned anything), and definitely love. The thing about grief, which I can see so clearly now, is that, at its core, it is love; a vision for a better world. In fact, I am still choosing to believe that there is love at the core of everything. I know how radical that sounds, I know, but you can’t tell me otherwise.

1. Her name is Bibi Brzozka (@planetbibi) and she’s a magical being (as well as incredibly knowledgeable and compassionate). I am currently doing her Ladder to Bliss course, after following her teachings from a distance since 2021. If you have any interest or curiosity, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

2. I have a tendency to race toward positivity. It’s something I’m consciously working on - not wanting to change the feeling, just letting it be. Emily Fletcher talks about it beautifully in this episode of Sex, Love, Psychedelics with Dr. Cat Meyer