Sometimes we find something wonderful only to lose it. Or the wonderful thing gets sick or damage. We worry it's going to disappear. Our perfect world is danger of being destroyed. Sometimes we are lucky and things are set right -- and if we're really lucky, they're better than they ever were! I was one of the really lucky ones.

As detailed in my two prior essays, I have been developing my ability to see visions beyond my eyes and to gather and expel energy. I have been doing this work on my own, without guidance of books and only occasional discussion with others, including Storm Constantine, Gabriel Strange and Taylor Ellwood. All last year, this work was going well.

Then with the new year, I began to founder. The cause of the problem was a health problem I had, menorraghia, and the treatment I began for it, birth control pills. I would not have begun such treatment if the situation had not become so troublesome. The pills did work, bringing an end to my problems nearly immediately, but they had a side effect which was unpleasant and distressing. No longer could I conjure visions as I had before, combining the energy manipulation with that of orgasm. My body was physically unable to respond as it once had.

I remained fairly calm about this, as I had read that birth control pills could cause changes to a woman's libido and ability to experience pleasure. I had also read that often the changes were temporary and confined to the first months of treatment, after which the flames rekindle, so to speak. I kept my faith that I was not permanently disabled and with this faith, I was able to move on and, so it turns out, make some important discoveries.

I discovered, in short, that I do not necessarily need the physical. Lying in my bed at night, I could generate pleasure for myself without being touched in any regard. I could breath in the universe and it would course through me and gather in a pool, like molten metal, glowing powerful stuff. Eyes closed, I could still see the shining white sun through the trees and sometimes, other lights I had not seen before.

Sometimes the space behind my eyes would get very dark and I would see powerful lights, like flashlights or spotlights, penetrating through the darkness. Sometimes they were green, sometimes white. Sometimes fields of colors would wash over the darkness like a filter.

There was something else I discovered, something that I could have discovered earlier but had not been open to before, for whatever reason. It was as if my mind finally saw things from the proper angle and recognized the tool for what it was: It was my bathtub!

It sounds absurd, but I realized that my bathtub could be something like a meditation chamber. It happened one night when I had filled up the tub and had turned on the jets. It's a big fancy tub, the kind with five jets that froth up the water and force you to be very careful with the amount of bubble bath or oil you've added to the water. I had filled it up and the jets came on. I sank into it and then eventually slipped my head under the water.

It's amazing what you can do when it's just you and nothing else. The sound of the jets and the motor propelling them filled my ears. My eyes were closed. It was only my mind, the sound, and the feel of the hot water crashing against me on all sides, tickling and caressing me. There were no distractions, nothing but me and the forces of energy, like somehow I made some sort of raw connection where there was no resistance. I lay under the water and flexed the energy and feelings the way I knew how and just as in the bed, the wonderful feelings pooled together in me and pleasure coursed through me. Intention and action were one and the same.

It was through such practices, in bath and bed, plus the passage of time, that I was able to once again begin to progress in my quest to become more powerful and interface more closely with whatever energies are out there. Although it was no longer essential, I found I could once again have the orgasmic experiences which had brought me into this in the first place. In the bath, I amazed myself with how sensitive I could become to every touch of the water against my skin, how my body seemed to become water, how I felt so beautiful and blessed, like somebody was gifting me, a golden hand of kindness, giving me the ability to experience such intense relaxation and satisfaction.

Which brings me to an experience that happened this past April.

I had had a full day, with the usual Saturday morning coffee with the neighbors, then an afternoon of picnicking with members of a club I belong to. We met up at a park on the Chattahoochee River and I ate and chatted, played with dogs, walked a boardwalk in a muddy swamp, and soaked in the sun I am so seldom exposed to.

I came home tired from it, a bit sunburnt, but also elated. I sank into my chair at the computer and used my hands and eyes, which were about all that was left of me, stomach filled and aching, so sleepy, and proceeded to the weekly online chat held among fans of Wraeththu. Everyone was there and we spoke of many things.

I was very happy, content. I was sent some files to read, I had some separate chats, and through all this, something built and built in me. My food was being digested finally, I was feeling better, and then after what was four hours -- time that seemed to flash by in fifteen minutes -- it was as if everything inside my condensed and I lost the dream world, the virtual world of the chat, reading, my computer, and I became separate flesh and spirit again.

I got up and in a few moments, the bath was prepared. I lit candles all over, two candles stuck in liqueur bottles on the counter, a dark chocolate candle, tea lights, cluster of Mexican religious candles. I found the new CD that came from Middle Pillar yesterday, an amazing album called Between the Twilights, an aural meditation based on dreams and sleep, and put it on in my computer and turned up the volume so I might be able to hear it in the bathroom next door. As I walked about arranging the mundane details, like fetching the CD from the stereo in the living room, I felt my thrumming with energy. I felt like there was something like a tornado or a raging river inside me, animating me with energy that either wasn't my own or which I had just recently gained.

Cutting the electric lights and losing my clothes, I stepped into the tub as it filled with hot, steaming water. I lost the sound of the music in the crash of the water on the bottom of the tub, but I knew it was there, casting dreams over the air. As the water splashed, I felt so clear-sighted, as if I were conducting some task like cooking, only I didn't have a recipe before me, I simply knew what I had to do. I plucked two bath oil pearls from a box and dropped them in the water. It swirled about me and I leaned back, watching the candles, splashing the water up onto my legs, watching the gleam of the candles against my wet, naked skin. I closed my eyes for a bit, just drifting, and then I felt like I had woken up: I opened my eye and the pearls had dissolved. The air smelled like flowers in sunlight, which was appropriate given the pearls I had used had been golden, smelling of something like spring.

Finally the moment came when the water was high enough for the jets, which would allow me to sink below the surface and interface, which I knew was my goal. It was inevitable. I pressed the button and the engine roared to life, the water began to froth, and a sea of white creamy foam swirled on the surface, riding the currents. I did not put my head under water and did not try to see anything at first, only to work with energies. I did as I have learned to do, using my intentions to cause things to change. I willed energy to come into my body and pool inside me or run through me as if I were transparent. It did exactly that and I was happy just with that. I felt the wonderful silky water against me and enjoyed the pleasure of it.

Next I flipped over onto my stomach. I felt like I had not done quite what I had wanted to do, that even though things were good, there was something more important ahead, something more monumental. As always, the feel of the jets swirling water onto my body was wonderful and I enjoyed it, but in only a few moments I discovered the thing I'd been anticipating. Right before my eyes, I saw a cluster of lights. At first I didn't quite register what it was, but then I realized it was the images of candles on the counter, reflecting off the surface of the tub, which is white and made of plexiglass with shiny coating, apparently clean enough to make quite good reflections, although I'd never noticed this before.

The candle visions

I peered at the images and counted five candles. Then I turned my head to look at the counter. Three candles and the reflection of two in the mirror behind. So three real candles and two reflections were making five candles appear inches in front of my face. I stared back at the images, entranced by them. They seemed to be living in some other dimension or layer, like fish under the surface of a pond or the stars in the sky. The space between the surface of the tub and the candles was soft gray, a kind of chasm, and I felt like I was pressed up against glass as I watched them flicker.

Then something else happened. I was looking at the candles and naturally it occurred to me that they are expressions of energy. I often think of how when you light a candle, you are creating something which did not exist. I looked at those candles and they seemed real or at least, they were as real as images in my head. In a way, they were a kind of vision. It was then that I suddenly had a feeling that just as I could draw energy from things unseen behind my eyes, I could get energy from these candles. I concentrated on doing that, trying to gather in energy. The candles would burn for quite a while and these were not real candles anyway, but candles of infinite strength and duration.

I did this for a few moments and then something made me close my eyes. I shuddered and then I began to swallow, almost convulsively, and it was like something was coursing down my throat into my stomach. I was swallowing energy, consuming it greedily and gathering it up inside. I did not do this consciously, it simply was a response. I "ate" and "ate" and thought to myself how odd it was to be doing it, thinking it rather funny and, I'm sure, smiling about it with my mouth just below the surface of the water. My eyes snapped open and again I saw the candles and thought about getting their energy. Intention and action became one and I was communicating my desires, then feeling it, then closing my eyes. I swallowed some more and it felt so good to me.

Satisfied with what I had achieved, I flipped over to my back again and decided it was time for some visions at least, for whatever was going to come. What I saw was a field of gold with spots of light, most definitely coming from the glow of the candles and the bright spots of the flames around me. At least this was at first. Soon, the actual light through my eyelids combined with the light I can see in the darkness at night. I saw things getting lighter and lighter, especially at the top, and suddenly I realized that all the light was built almost on levels like a pyramid. It was a tall, rather narrow pyramid and I think it was more like a staircase with magnificent rails to the side, probably carved monsters and so on. I didn't see any of this, only felt the idea of it.

Behind my eyelids: the pyramid

At the top of the pyramid was a great light or, I knew, there would be. The light was still coming into being. It was like waiting for sunrise. I saw the glow, but not the sun. And yet I knew it would be there. Suspending in this vision for I don't know how long, I waited patiently and kept seeing flashing of the sun before it would hide behind the peak of the pyramid. It was as if it didn't want me to see or somehow I was not equipped to. Finally, however, the glimpses were coming so closely together it was as I could almost see it continuously. It was at that point, however, that the sense of this great light dimmed and instead of it being a focused light, like a giant torch, that it became a more general light, washing everything, making it all pale. The pyramid faded along with everything else. The vision was ended.

I opened my eyes and it was like waking up. I wondered about what sort of state I'd been in. Was that meditation? Or a trance? How much time had passed? The CD was still running and I knew it was just over an hour worth of music and not set to repeat, so I knew hours couldn't have passed, but yet time really didn't matter at all, doesn't matter at all, when I am in that state. When things are that intense, I don't think of a single thing except those things connected to that experience. To do so would make it so much less vivid. The interface should be as pure as can be.

I didn't get out of the tub right away. Instead, I shut off the jets. Finally I could hear the dream music clearly. The foam from the bath oil hissed as the tiny bubbles popped in the warm air. The candles flickered. And I thought to myself, it doesn't matter at all that I live by myself and don't have sex because sex cannot possibly be as wonderful as conjuring up fiery golden pyramids. If it's anything, it might be as good, different, but not better. And what I am able to enjoy is not a common pleasure, it is something amazing.

There is no reason for me to be sad about supposed lacks and I realized, lying there, that I no longer really do feel that. There's the competition angle of it, wanting the experience, to be like other people, and of course I feel I am ready for it, with the right person, the right situation, but I don't feel like I used to. I'm not frigid or blocked off or suffering, but experiencing something greater than I could have imagined was possible. Considering all the hurt I have gone through, this dropped a lot of weight off my shoulders.

I don't know exactly what my future is with all this. But I think it's safe to say I will moving forward to chase it.