All I wanted was a break from my seemingly endless kitchen remodel. After three consecutive weekends of sanding drywall and priming trim, I’d had enough. So, at the very last minute, I signed up for an introductory Tantra workshop. Something different -- this would definitely be it.

Being uncoupled at the time, I signed up alone, something I might have been uncomfortable with if I’d had more time to think about it, but -- I didn't. Last-minute decisions have their advantages.

Saturday night we form a circle to choose our partners for the sacred-spot massage. The men sit cross legged on the outside, eyes closed; the women circle slowly, then choose a man. I kneel in front of Tom and take his hand. We’ve spoken very little, but I feel an instinctive trust towards him. Simply put, he feels like a good man. I hear some whispering behind, and another woman, Sara, joins us. Okay. This will be different than how I pictured it. I release my expectations of how the evening will be. For good measure, I decide to give up all expectations.

The three of us arrange the how and where of things, and go off together into the night, slightly giddy at the prospect of spending the evening with not one but two strangers. Waiting in front of the hotel for Sara to get her things, Tom asks how I am feeling. Okay, I say. Not nervous. Just open. I am prepared to have my mind blown, I tell him.

We go to Tom’s house and eventually make our way upstairs. There are rose petals on the bed, and candles lighting the spacious bedroom. Sitting on the floor, we breathe together, hold hands, set our intention. Tom sets out a picture he says means much to him: a burning heart engulfed by flames. The week before I’d dreamed of a beautiful necklace, and a man showing me one particular image on it: the Hindu deity Hanuman, kneeling, his heart ripped open, exposed. The quintessence of devotion.

Sara is nervous. I will go first. I lie on the bed, Tom sits next to me. He touches me lightly all over. We start to feel each other’s energy. He asks permission to untie my sarong. He asks permission to touch my yoni. He asks permission to enter me. He begins to press me, lightly, sensitively, from the inside. Quivers of energy begin to undulate through my body, moving outward like ripples on the surface of a pond. I am attuned, waiting, open. The energy pools and plays in my body, without me doing anything at all. My job is just to lie there and receive it. Such a lovely gift, this alone, to be released into pure receptivity.

The subtle energy turns into waves, bigger and bigger sensations that just keep coming. I begin laughing uncontrollably as I feel the subtle orgasmic energy in my legs and feet. Laughter pushes out through the sole of my left foot, extending beyond the boundaries of my body in an energetic arc. A rhythm begins to develop: the energy moves in sets, the way waves do, building to a release, then receding, only to build slowly again. Tom is a master at reading the precise type of presence and stimulation I need. Every time I open my eyes I see him looking at my face, attuned to every nuance, every detail. I take such comfort in his constant, steady presence. He doesn't shift, doesn't fidget, just sits there and touches me, steadily, nonstop, the way no man has ever touched me before. I soak up his solid masculine presence, as stable as a mountain.

Wave after wave of energy moves through my body, building to climaxes that are unlike any orgasm I’ve ever known – bigger, yet lighter; more subtle, more profound. The energy builds until I weep, feeling both the huge relief of being touched like this, so intimately and tenderly, in a way I always knew was possible -- mixed with anguish at having to wait so fucking long, all of my 47 years, for this to take place. It’s bittersweet, I tell him, a depth of feeling too complex to fully articulate.

More ripples, as the energy moves through my upper body and out the top of my head. I feel like a musical instrument that’s been tuned and is now being played for real. The orgasmic energy surges more strongly, opening after opening. It’s subtler and lighter than my usual orgasms, but seemingly endless – on and on and on. I have a feeling it could go on endlessly, that another wave will come, for as long as I breathe.

This is timeless space, space less time. We are all dancing in this realm. I feel an opening around my navel, even deeper than I’ve ever felt before, yet somehow higher, and then a sense of spaciousness that stays through the waves. “Yes, yes,” I keep saying, and every time I look at Tom, he’s nodding assent in time with my yesses, as I move into deeper and deeper space. I am dancing to this hidden yet heard rhythm, an inner pulsation that comes as opening after opening into boundless, endless space.

And it just keeps coming (and so do I), on and on, moving into new areas of my body. I can feel the gates opening within my body, the waves getting bigger. It’s more subtle than my usual one-off orgasms, but definitely more prolonged. As long as I'm breathing, I'm coming. And every time I look, Tom is just sitting there touching me in this incredible way, watching me so intently, and Sara is holding my feet, and it feels like music moving through me, I'm being played by a master. We three are a circuit in some way.

It’s difficult to find the words to describe this, because it’s not a linear process -- more like dream time. But in the hours that follow, I flash on how we’ve tapped into the effortless river of shakti that's always flowing beneath the surface of physical form. And I realize, with a shock, the endlessness of this gift that’s always there. Grace. Blessings. Effortless bliss. Unfolding after unfolding.

A few days later, I read something that finally made sense -- how the root of the word tantra is tan, ‘to weave,’ referring to the continuity of experience. I've heard that before. But I finally, finally got what that means -- the seamless ness of the waves that rise in this place; how everything is cut from the same cloth, an all-extensive continuity. It was a revelation akin to a key sliding into a lock and clicking, and the door swings wide open.

I see also the commitment to making love, literally making it, pulling it out of thin air, creating it. Charles and Leah demonstrating on Saturday how love can be generated out of tiredness, passion ignited out of routine. Creating it right there on the spot in front of us. Realizing how it can be a commitment, a joyful one, but a practice nonetheless. A duty, a responsibility, to check in with your partner, to make the time for it. Spending ten minutes together to generate joy and interest so that the deeper energy that we all so need can flow. Plugging into shakti, that river that’s always flowing.

How big is big?, Charles keeps asking all weekend, a question that has no answer.

The feelings expand into the days that follow. I keep on riding those waves that roll in, in big, lazy timeless arcs. Thursday is the first day in two weeks where I have nothing scheduled, no commitments to keep. It’s a blissfully perfect spring day. I watch the white blossoms from the flowering cherry trees drift down like snow. The breeze carries the scent of lilacs and fresh grass. It’s full spring. Everywhere I look are flowers totally surrendered into full bloom, giving themselves up utterly. All day long I feel those big waves moving through me, and I surrender to them, again and again. And again. Endless. It never ends.

That river is always there.