I am seventy-one but I discovered my orgasm at twenty-five and enjoyed a great deal of orgasmic sex in the years after; until I experienced what I shall describe as a time of sexual hibernation. Thankfully, I went on to re-emerge from that hibernation, and I want to share my experience of a new sexual blossoming in what are my twilight years.

I’ll begin my insight into sexual experiences with a question: Why reach for a more conscious sexuality? The actuality is that we either love consciously or we love (and live) based in memories from the past. Those memories become automatic routines which attempt to support our ego, that is, how we imagine ourselves. We circle the drain—just going ‘round and ‘round the same old stories as death approaches. (In honor of that fact, I confess that I am seventy-one, and closer to the end than the beginning.) Conscious sexuality is the ability to disobey old habits and prejudices while discovering our body’s sensual wonders.

I want to share my experience of a new sexual blossoming…

Before getting too heavy, just so you know, I would be skeptical reading this if I hadn’t experienced it myself. I’m continually discovering more of my body’s capacity, which includes a love of truth. As I clarify and honor this love of truth, I find there is more and more freedom and joy in my body, and what I want is to support and invite you readers into your own discovery. Furthermore, while I am polyamorous by nature, I am not suggesting non-monogamy is the only means of discovering more of your own capacity for clarity and joy. Different expressions of sexuality are a huge part of my experience and still I understand that such diversity is not for everyone.

Conscious sexuality is the ability to disobey old habits and prejudices while discovering our body’s sensual wonders.

As I said above, after many years of orgasmic joy, my sexuality went into a state of deep rest when I turned sixty-eight. It was a winter-like hibernation that lasted about two years, and I wondered constantly what had caused such a withdrawal. I felt during that time that I might be dying, though medical tests proved otherwise. So I inquired into circumstances. There were circumstances and people who I could not control, and my efforts to do so were futile and draining. There were also negative emotional reactions happening within and without that I could not understand, and could not accept. Due to this exceedingly uncomfortable experience, I fell into my old habit of trying to explain it all, trying to find some sense of security. All my efforts at explaining what was going on left me with a dormant libido. I felt reduced to ash in dark, cold endless space. That sounds awful, and indeed, I didn’t feel very good during that time, until something surprising happened. An event came to pass wherein I felt an astounding flash of heat in my body, like a sunburst, and came back to life. What rekindled the fire in my belly? – My longtime lover passionately connected with a wonderful woman who exuded an amazing life force. Their connection had something to do with the thaw-inducing sunburst I experienced. Odd as it may seem, I felt completely included in his almost instant love for her. Unfortunately, within a few months, she became unable to continue meeting with him (or us) even as friends. She disappeared and wouldn’t respond. I think it was his unique and intense love for this woman – love that was so inclusive, so bright with aliveness – that brought me out of sexual hibernation. Most interesting to me is that who I was before this happened is not the one who came back. My sexuality rekindled like a phoenix rising from ashes.

“I felt completely included in his love for her.”

My interest in this new sexual life affirmation brought me an even deeper understanding of my body-mind. In every way the body expresses, be it physical, sexual, emotional, mental, imaginative or mysterious, I felt a clarifying consciousness occurring in my body. This has been a great gift for me and has been a boon for my work as a massage practitioner and hypnotherapist. I came back to sexuality better able to see how our subconscious mind makes it easy for us to live on auto-pilot. We run our lives on habits found in our memories and limited by our past. They are driven by the fear of loss, making self-centered fear the basis for the choices we only think we are making consciously. I could also see that the satisfaction of any desire can never free us from the past that…

makes fear the driver. Only truly conscious choice can free us from automatic habits of behavior learned in the past. I came back to life knowing one can only disobey entrenched habits of mind consciously—habits the mind has made to create and protect an identity. With this new conscious understanding, and as my lover was enduring waves of passionate longing for someone who ghosted him, I felt I was meeting myself anew. My sexuality felt rejuvenated and my orgasms were different as I felt the inclusiveness when he shared his passionate love, for her and for me.

“Only truly conscious choice can free us from automatic habits of behavior”

Since my new emergence in this twilight blossoming, I am experiencing orgasmic joy beyond what I have known before. This body’s orgasms are longer and more full body than ever, and they continue to include visions of color and other inexplicable phenomena while radiating passionate intensity in utterly remorseless pleasure. That is a joy! While my sexual appetite is not as urgent as when I was younger, this doesn’t concern me. My body still roars often, just not every day. When I was younger my orgasms burst from my clitoris like fireworks flashing across the night sky. Now they are longer and sweeter than ever before. Instead of orgasms like geysers with a sudden force that then pass quickly, I have orgasms that start and just go on and on, like a bubbling, laughing river running through me, and at other times, cascading over a waterfall. Orgasm ripples across my skin and across my face, while also moving deep inside my body. Other times I feel somehow I am the string holding a kite that is wafting in the sky, the wind lifting it higher and higher, carrying me as I soar in the unknown skies of joy, with colors of the night and of the dawn, twilight and mid-day shining sun, high in the sky. And these colorful, long, luxurious orgasmic waves of bliss just keep coming. All this at the age of seventy-one, as this body exposes and goes right on exploding the myth of ageism. A myth that I believed until I discovered the truth. As my lover mentioned above said, sometimes it‘s wonderful to be wrong.

This body’s orgasms are longer and more full body than ever

I find orgasmic joy with such variety, fun, and free-falling beauty and grace, that I’m continually astounded. Gratefully and happily I’m leaning into new adventures and possibilities with old and new friends and lovers. I feel more at home and interested in exploring for fun and for free as an open, loving, responsible adult. I’m fulfilling an intuition of inherent freedom that I somehow knew as a small child, and it comes to life as I am living conscious sexuality as an adult. I have enjoyed experiencing sex clubs, free spirit events, and tantric exploration, and I will continue to live this conscious adventure. I think this is possible for whomever is willing to go beyond the known. Again (because it is so important,) when we subconsciously rely on the past for our map of reality, it traps us in routines, and keeps us from realizing our full capacity. It keeps us crashing on the same old shore, while we keep longing to fulfill that intuition that there is somehow more. Well, that “more” is not “out there,” it’s in our own body, opening to our real capacity for joy, for conscious awareness of this gift of being alive.

We feel the intensification of aliveness when in the unknown, outside of the routine that gives us a false sense of security. If we fear the unknown, we are probably fixated on safety and security, relying on amusements and diversions that involve little if any discovery. And while a belief may seem to console fears, no belief can actually guarantee safety and security. The alternative to living in variations of memory over and over is to live in the world of more conscious discovery. Here, discovery includes gain and loss, the coming and going of subjective and objective events including intense feeling. A capacity to endure intense mental and emotional states including discomfort is part of the capacity to soar like a bird without any strings attached.

Discovery is a trial and error exploration in the midst of life. It‘s been my experience that open sexuality is relating intimately with others directly and indirectly. This actual interconnection has allowed me to find my own capacities. The joyful, full body, sensual living color and oceanic orgasms I experience in this open universe that exists beyond what I’ve known in my past. It’s actually the great gift of non-identification with how I imagine myself in my mind. It’s why I meditate and work in hypnotherapy—I want to invite others out of whatever habits of mind are limiting them so they can discover their own life, love, and clarity. Now is the moment where discovery awaits.

I am living this joy, and it’s here for whomever wants to feel fully alive and dares to discover their own conscious choices.