Soulful loving includes romance, yet is more than romance. Soulful loving includes sex, yet is more than sex. Soulful loving is embracing your Beloved in body, heart and mind, allowing the deepest part of your being to be seen and touched. Soulful loving has an enduring quality, its effects lasting far longer than the moment itself. When soulful loving is part of our life, it affects every part of our life, infusing our days with a brightness that comes from within. At night, we sleep with the innocence and peacefulness of deep contentment.

Soulful loving takes place when our sexual energy merges with the flow of love in our hearts. We look into our Beloved’s eyes and see a reflection of our own happiness.

The delicious merging of love and sex can happen spontaneously, especially when two people are newly in love. Driven by hormones and desire, their bodies and hearts bond together with thrilling excitement and tender joy.

Sometimes it is inspired by the exquisite beauty of nature or an especially meaningful occasion. In front of the fireplace on a rustic winter holiday, at home after toasting a particularly happy anniversary…

Soulful loving is what we hope to experience with our chosen life partner, why we walk down the aisle, why we bravely step into the challenging path of committed relationship.

Yet, too often, the comfort of no longer needing to attract or court our partner leads to a deficit of soul-bonding and a withering of such intimate moments.

A Chinese proverb states that “Young love is of the earth; mature love is from heaven.”

Mature love demonstrates a ripening of sexual and spiritual knowledge and skills. In a long-term committed relationship, mature soulful loving may require some conscious intention and a little training, but it is well worth the effort! And it is equally, if not more, rewarding, than at the beginning.

Purposefully raising the vibration, the frequency and the pleasure of sexual activity in your relationship can bring incredibly powerful and joyous benefits to body, mind and spirit!

But how do you do that, you may ask? How do you find the time, the interest, the desire, the skill for soulful loving?

There is a growing library of books to read, workshops to attend. There is the laboratory of your own bedroom, your own sacred space. Soulful loving is a sexual joining that begins with intention, rather than arousal. And, unlike the conventional pattern of sex play, which ends with the separate release of genital tension, soulful loving concludes with both partners in a shared and heightened state of spiritual union! Orgasm is transformed into an ongoing experience of energy flow and bliss, rather than an individual objective or ending point.

Tantra, an ancient spiritual teaching, provides us with tools and practices that help us bring our full attention to the present moment. Whether it is the taste of a strawberry or the touch of wind on our skin, the scent of our Beloved, or the softness of silk sheets, each moment becomes “Tantric” when experienced fully. Even so-called negative emotions, such as anger and fear, can be encountered as the sensory truth of the moment. All experience becomes a doorway through which we can step out of our personal story of separation and into a spiritual experience of oneness and authentic presence.

We don’t have to wait for the starlit night or the candlelight dinner, although either or both may help create a supportive atmosphere. Soulful loving with a Beloved is the activity of being present and sexual, open and receptive. It is about being alive in all of our senses, aware of our internal energy and passionate and communicative about our commitment to one another, and to our own soul.

© Copyright 2002 Diana Daffner. All Rights Reserved.