by Charity Joy
As many of you saw on Facebook, COVID-19 finally caught up with the Tree House. On the afternoon of Monday, May 23 I was feeling a stuffy nose and some fatigue. While sitting in my office at work, I completed a test…assuming that it would show one single line, as it had hundreds of times before. I was in the middle of a messenger exchange with a very sexy man whom I was to have a first date with the following day. In the middle of finalizing the date plans and feeling a surge of excitement, I glanced over at the test and saw a second faint pink line materialize. Oh Fuck!
I had been at Massage a Trois on Saturday. Cliff and I had spent a luscious multi-hour sexual interlude the day before. Who had I infected? Would this be the long-dreaded super spreader event…with me as the vector? After a flurry of messaging, cancelling work appointments, informing everyone I could think of about their potential exposure exposure, and meditating to curb the dread in my body…I drove home from my office. Cliff greeted me and let me know his test was negative. I wanted to run into his arms for comfort, but realized that was not an option. He spoke gentle words of comfort and moved the furniture in the basement so I had a comfortable area to quarantine. I walked down the stairs to the basement, which only two days prior had been full of coconut-oil covered naked bodies basking in bliss.
I have severe asthma. When COVID-19 emerged in our world in March 2020, I experienced panic like I never had before. My sister, an MD working as a hospitalist in California delivering babies to COVID positive moms called me and said, “I don’t want to scare you, but you really need to not get this.” I had spent 10 days in the ICU in 2010 with total respiratory failure from the common cold. It was unlikely that I would have a good outcome. Through the love of my partners, starting my practice of Transcendental Meditation, EMDR, and the evolving science progressed, my heart began to ease as 2020 progressed. My inner self image of a frail child who was often hospitalized, needles in my arms, and forced into isolation was still a frequent companion throughout most of 2020. When I rolled up my sleeve in January 2021 for my first vaccination, I began to breathe a little easier.
As I saw that little pink line show up on my COVID test last Monday, I felt that tiny, frail, little girl knocking on the door of my heart, wanting to be seen and acknowledged. As I exiled myself to our basement…a place fully imbibed with love and pleasure, I feared the PTSD images would flood me. And I would be alone and unable to ask for help. Not because help was unavailable, but because showing vulnerability has always been extremely difficult for me. And all was quiet around me.
Then I looked at my phone. Message after message of love, support, and care. Cliff knocked on the door (masked) to let me know he had picked up chicken soup for me…despite being vegetarian. Calls. Texts. Offers to bring me what I needed. The most touching were messages thanking me that Empowered Pleasure exists, for working to make connection as safe as possible, and gratitude. While I was not being touched physically, my innermost heart was being touched. It kept on day after day.
My dance with COVID-19 was extremely mild. My dance with my inner exile of fear, fragility, and loneliness was also lovely. Rather than denying the existence of that frail little girl and shutting her up because she feels really uncomfortable, I held her and soothed her inside of myself. So did all of you.
Tantra means weaving. Integrating and embracing all that is. You have all helped me this week to embrace my vulnerability, receive help and support, and reminded me that while there are tender parts of me that need love…I am also resilient, strong, and loving. Thank you for being my tantric lovers this week.
We believe that connection and conscious loving is vital to our humanity. It has always been risky to be vulnerable, to open to the painful and wounded parts of ourselves and allow them to heal in love. It is now materially risky because of this virus that has become a part of our world’s ecology. I was reminded this week that not only is it worth the risk, but expanded consciousness and the awakened heart are essential for the healing of the world. Not everyone’s path will be tantra, but I am so glad it has been one of mine.