Edition 3 - Portable Romance

Beauty isn’t skin deep, it isn’t superfluous, it’s subversive. It’s a disruptor.

Beauty is dangerous to the status quo because it expands your idea of what is possible. It puts you into your sensuous body and gives you the lusciousness of the world. It grounds you in gratitude. You shift all of consciousness when you step into beauty. 

In this exercise we are going to give ourselves the opportunity to step into beauty multiple times a day and create our own portable romance. We will imagine ourselves as visiting dignitaries in our own home and create a miniature and moveable altar to our pussies and our lives. This is a playful way to up our access to our enchantment and appreciation of the beauty in our worlds.. 

Start with finding some kind of tray. Today I am using a small wooden tray with a coupe of water stains that I picked up at Goodwill. This speaks to me, I like the patina of its storied past. But of course you could go all out and pick up something fancy, something in silver or with a colorful laquered sheen. You could also just use a large book if you didn’t have anything lying around and wanted to get started right away. I find that at least a little bit of an upturned edge is helpful to keep things corralled while I move the tray about. This one is about 12 by 12 inches, which makes it very easy to take it from room to room or from inside to outside.

I add a small vase, sometimes an empty spice bottle, with a flower or a leaf or even a piece of grass or some weeds I collected on a walk. I like something still living that connects me to my place in my larger environment.

I add a candle. There is something about the light of a candle that immediately makes me feel more alive and also softer; while the ritual of lighting the candle is a way to mark this moment as a celebration of myself.

I add a couple of small objects that are beautiful or meaningful to me. Today I have a tiny seashell and a white and gold, glossy marble that I found. Somehow the marble ended up in the seashell and it looks like a pink, open pussy with a generous lustrous pearl of a clit. I also have a rose quartz that I held every morning and night and whispered prayers into during my IVF journey as my husband delivered shots into my belly. These objects change depending on what is calling me. 

I have a small teacup. This one is old with a rose medallion pattern; a glazing imperfection inside; and a small chip. This one has tea in it. I like to its warmth and I like that it’s a part of the natural environment — some dried leaves with water poured over them — that I can take into me. The tea is from an old growth pueher tea forest and it feels alive. Holding the cup with tea inside it reminds me to ask:

Do I give and take pleasure from the things that I hold?

Touch is connection to our world. We are never alone. We are always in relationship. We are always sitting on something or standing on something, feeling cloth or air or fingers or tongues on our skin. We are always in relationship with some piece of our world. These relationships can have any kind of flavor we want, often they are detached, cold – we see our environment as inert, dead. But it’s not. Why not have these relationships be romantic? We are made and remade in our relationships. How can we bring appreciation to our relationships with the most seemingly mundane objects? There is no such thing as discrete edges between bodies and objects. All of our molecules are vibrating and rubbing up against each other and trading places with each other. 

Your desires and pussy will lead you to creating the perfect piece of portable romance for you. The idea is to create a little slice of beauty, a moveable altar where you can connect in with yourself. It’s so easy to get lost in the movements of a day, in the to-do list. This is a visual reminder, an invitation to take a moment for yourself and to savor the beauty, textures and possibly tastes that you have created for yourself. This slow-down and connection expands your tune-in and turn-on so that you notice more in the world around you too. You may find additional things to savor, the feeling of the air on your skin or or the softness of a pillow at your back, the noises outside your window or a piece of light streaming into the room. Savoring is the way the body practices appreciation. It is a way to be In Love. To say “Thank You” with your whole being.

Above is a 5 minute ritual I invite you to join me in. Have your tray with you as well as some matches and a pen and some paper.

You can of course have this tray to help set the stage for all kind of rituals. You can have it available to take into the room with you for a pussy reclamation. But its real power is in its always being ready for you. It’s portable so it can be wherever you are. There is always a moment of self-romance that you can claim for yourself. It could be as quick as the 20 seconds it takes to light the candle and take a deep breath. It could be 2 minutes of slow breathing, bringing awareness to where you are, what’s happening inside you, taking touch along your skin as you do so. It could be a few minutes of a strip tease, a 20 minute mediation. It could be an afternoon spent with yourself as a visiting dignitary.