The etymology of the word intimacy is from the Latin word intimus, meaning the innermost and the deepest.

I am speaking here about intimacy that goes far beyond a sexual or romantic context. I am talking about relating as who we are as a being with the beingness of all people and everything. I am talking about moving past treating other people like things to treating people as beings—realizing that all of Creation is the expression of Being.

If we are in an intimate space, being to being, there is communion going on. All of Being is in communion all the time in the intimacy of Being. Electrons are intimate with protons. The earth is intimate with the sun, even though we think of them as being a great distance apart. In communion there is an opportunity for some kind of fusion, some kind of merger and coming together, and then the release of creativity because of what’s come together.

Coming right down to our experience as human beings, there is the opportunity for communion and fusion at every level of our being. The level that typically stands out in human awareness is at the foundation of things. If we think about it in terms of the seven endocrine glands, at the root of all that is the spirit of the New Earth, which is the energy at the lowest level of the glands, in the gonads. But that’s just one out of seven levels, and even communion at that level of things doesn’t necessarily imply physical sexuality. It simply implies an energetic coming together in the spirit of the New Earth. Now that’s important because, from the upward moving flow of creative energy in the human experience, it is the point of initiation. There is so much that is generated out of physical matter, and that comes to focus in the gonads.

For us as human beings there is so much that is generated out of a healthy communion at this foundational level. It is the beginning of the rising of energy up through the body and up through the human experience at every level. So that has great significance. But in the general human experience it is fair to say that people tend to limit intimacy at the first level, to something physical, without going beyond that. So they wear out the experience, as if it were the only opportunity for communion. And then, when the sexual experience is worn out, people can come to the conclusion that they are left with a life without intimacy and communion.

In the process, the person may be ignoring the opportunity for communion at every level of their being. How about mental communion—a powerful sharing of thoughts and ideas that are ecstatically creative? One of the most exciting experiences of mental communion for me has been collaborating on writing music with somebody else. It is not just a mental creation, but certainly the mind is involved. It can be ecstatically wonderful to co-create a song or a musical recording. Musical ideas are born, and there is the opportunity to share a deep heart space with another person. That’s communion. It’s intimacy, out of which a song is born.

What is initiated at the root of the human experience, and then moves up, is profound. It is the rising of the Great Mother in the human experience. Without that energy moving powerfully and freely, we are not truly alive.

There is another energy moving down. It is the Father, the Divine Masculine, entering us through the pineal gland. It is a reality coming down through the Seven Seals, which are the energetic gateways in the seven endocrine glands, landing in our physicality.

The interplay of these energies—the Mother and the Father energies—in the individual creates a wonderful dance. And then there is the dance that we do together. It is the dance of welcoming the ordering, initiating power of the Father and the upwelling, vitalizing energy of the Mother.

We are in position to hold space for that intimate experience. It takes some maturity and intelligence to hold the space for communion, and then to let it happen, not only as an idea, not only as something you can read about, not only something we might teach in a class, but something to know every day. We have the opportunity to know a powerful interchange at all seven levels of our being.

If there is no Mother energy—no upwelling through the Seven Seals, which are within the seven endocrine glands—if there is low rising energy in a human being, there is not energy to fill the human capacity, because from one standpoint the fountain that is going to fill the capacity originates at the bottom and then fills it to overflowing.

It is also imperative to invoke the Father energy to know the dance. Our human capacity is filled from the top down through the Father’s love. Within the Father’s love is the governance of Being. Without the strong ordering pattern within the Father coming down through consciousness and holding it all, and with just the Mother’s energy upwelling, you get adolescent-style experience and behavior, out of control. It is in the meeting of Mother and Father energy that there is profound communion and profound intimacy. There is profound generation that is held within a sacred container, leading to something beautiful and wonderful.

Do you think the world is wondering about this stuff? People are playing with it and trying to find the answers. But experiments can go wrong. My intention is to experiment with the minimum of damage and to experiment with a maximum of fusion, generation, creativity and joy.

I would like to consider creative attitudes that contribute towards intimacy. When those attitudes are lacking, there is low intimacy. I do believe that our culture generally suffers from the lack of communion, which is alienation—a sense of being separate and alone.

I live at Sunrise Ranch, an intentional community of 100 people living and working in close proximity. But people can feel dreadfully alone at Sunrise Ranch. What creates that aloneness? There are other people all around, and an opportunity to have meals together and to create together. Despite all that, aloneness comes when there is a breakdown of intimacy in the experience of a person. If there are enough people in any collective for whom that’s happening, there is a breakdown of intimacy in the culture of the collective, whether it is a community, a family, a nation or the world.

Living outside intimacy, we don’t really believe that people appreciate us or that we are important to other people. We don’t experience ourselves as seen by others. We observe the outside of other people but don’t experience their beingness. They become objectified in our own minds, and so do we, ourselves. We are not extending communion and the intimate space that would allow us to be in a place of intimacy with another person.

With a lack of intimacy, it can feel like you are living in a vacuum. In that vacuum, there is no one out there for us. Other people seem distant. We don’t feel them as beings.

The same thing can happen relative to God, by whatever name. Living outside of intimacy, any experience of what is referred to by the word God is remote. Without spiritual intimacy, our concept of God is of a distant or nonexistent reality. You can pray to God, but there is no real answer in the human experience without intimacy. A person may reach out through worship and prayer, not really appreciating that there is anyone who is receiving that worship and prayer.

So we can feel like we are here all alone. I suggest to you that all of Being desires you to be present here and now. All of Being wants you here. All of Being is calling to you and asking for you. You are needed by all of Being.

You are needed by all your friends, whether they know it or not. You are needed by all the people in your life. You’re being called for by Being. You are seen by Being. When you pray, there is somebody listening, there is somebody talking to you, there is somebody desiring you as you give those prayers.

There is a wonderful Zulu word, sawabona. It means “I see you. We see you.” And the we that is seeing you is the tribe, but it is also the ancestors. So it is not just we who are here incarnate but all the angels of heaven, if I was to put sawabona in a Western context.

Can you speak not only for yourself and your tribe but for the angels of heaven? Probably not often saying it quite this way, but in essence conveying to another person, We see you. We desire you. We want you here. We appreciate you. I do believe we have the opportunity to be a voice that breaks down the tendency to become alienated, to experience ourselves as an isolated thing, to make people into things, and to make things out of all the forms of Creation. Seeing on behalf of the ancestors is an antidote to that.

Seeing and appreciating on behalf of all Being is a power that we have rarely invoked. Sometimes you could invoke that power and the other person thinks, You are making a move on me. Perhaps a sexual move, or perhaps some other kind of manipulation. Because they feel the love that is the energy of communion. And so often, human love goes to manipulation.

We have the opportunity to know where love usually goes in the human experience, but also where we’re taking it. No, I’m not taking it into bed. I’m taking it into Creation. I’m taking it into fusion at all the levels of Being that we’re rightly meant to share. I’m taking it into life and life more abundantly. To joy and joyful living.

I met a brilliant man recently who also has a soft heart. He has taught at the university level, and he writes and lectures. I believe he is in his 30s.

He told the story of an invalid wife for whom he has been the primary caretaker for about four years. He’s devoted his life to her with limited time for anything else. He has chosen not to just hire somebody to do the work of caretaking his wife. He’s chosen to do the work himself, and it is clear to me that his devotion has transformed him. His communion with her and his service to her has transformed him.

He shared his own internal motto for himself. Always, already. Of course I can. Faced with the great needs of his wife, his response is Always, already. Of course I can. In his very countenance was not only a brilliant intellect but a heart cracked open through his service. It was magnificent to witness who he had become.

Something else I heard him say was the simple statement that our lives are not our own. That could be seen as a terribly onerous thing. That could be thought of from the stance of a victim. But there’s something miraculous that happens when our lives are given to something that’s bigger than we are and we are in service to that. When we are in service to Being—which means we are in service to other beings and we’re in service to all of Being—we take the attitude Always, already. Of course I can. And then, when we give away our lives in service, they are given back to us in a way that they never could be if we didn’t come to that place of service. Because in acknowledging that we are wanted and desired by all of Being, and showing up to answer that call, we find ourselves.

Here is my recent experience of this. I was traveling and I ended up staying up late at night, soaking in the hot tub of a friend. I awoke a little before 8 o’clock in the morning, and I was half dressed when I heard a rap on the door. So I got up and opened the door halfway. I heard an authoritative voice saying to me, “David, could you come and talk to me in my office?”

The way my life has gone, I haven’t had a boss for over a decade. And here was this person demanding my presence. Hmmm. I haven’t felt that dynamic for some time. Yet instantaneously, there was the feeling response, Always, already. Of course I can.

Here are some further thoughts about intimacy, and about feeling called, needed and desired by Being. If I get real about it, I did not create the life I have. In the most important ways, I had nothing to do with it. I had nothing to do with Al and Ginny, my parents, coming together. I had nothing to do with the creative juice that came into my growing body as a child. I had nothing to do with the food that nourished me.

Today, I have nothing to do with the creation of the energy that feeds my mind, my atoms, and my cells. I don’t grow the food I eat. In so many important ways, my life is given to me. It is not my life. It came from someplace and I didn’t make it.

Our lives are given to us. They’re not ours to hold on to for “dear life.” When we give them back in service to all of Being around us, they’re given to us again. In the intimacy of giving our lives to others and to the living universe all around us, we find ourselves. We embrace who we are as a being who is doing what all of Being is doing—loving itself among all the dimensions of itself.

Think of the alternative. It is to believe that it is our life to take credit for and hold on to, as if we could squeeze joy out of it. As if that joy came from accumulating as much around us as we could—as much stuff, as much love, as many people and as much money. It’s crazy when you see it.

I hear the call of Being all around me. And the answer? Always, already. Of course I can. And then we end up living a life of communion and intimacy, a real life that’s lived on the interior of the world that everybody else is living in—in the inmost space. Living in intimacy, we are living into the exterior space to which so many people have relegated themselves.

Humanity has a wound of aloneness from which it suffers. I have outlined what I believe to be the origin of that wound and the remedy. That wound of aloneness is a wound of feeling like you don’t belong and you are not wanted. If you know the remedy to that wound for yourself, which is intimacy, communion and belonging, then you can share that remedy with others. You can invite intimacy in all the appropriate ways that are available. You can share communion. You can, in all the vocabulary of human communication, say to the people around you, I appreciate you. I desire you in my life. I am calling you to be with me. I need you for the greater fulfillment of who I am.

Let us appreciate each other and create a space in which appreciation and seeing one another is natural. Let’s create a community of people where it is in the air.