Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

The breath of life moves you. It creates you. You give it shape. Feel the breath.

Breathe it in, let it expand you. Feel the breath.

Let it fill you. Feel the breath.

The breath of life is within you. Feel the breath.

Let it rise. Let it fill you. Let it overflow. Feel the breath.

The breath of life is without. Feel the breath.

Feel it within you expanding out. Feel the breath.

It is in all things. A grain of sand. The rock beneath you. The tree trunk at your back. The flower petal nearby. The hum of the bee. The song of the bird. Feel the breath within you, without.

Let it fill you. Let it rise. Notice all things. Let it connect you to all that is. The breath animates all. Feel the breath.

Let your eyes close. What can you perceive? What do your ears hear? Buzzing insects? Crunching leaves? Whispering wind? Whirring motors? Children playing? Stretch beyond. The breath animates all. How far can you reach? What's the furthest thing you can hear? Do you perceive all? The breath animates all. Feel the breath.

- Within and Without: A Tindin Journey With Erotica

I stopped in my tracks. I had just entered dojo 6. Denten wasn't in there, but a stack of books was. And on the top of the stack was The Art and Practice of Tindin Erotica. A bit of horror rippled through me. What? Stars! Was this some weird Tindin initiation? Get to Level 9, and we indoctrinate you with our sex rituals? Was this a sex cult? Where were the orgies?

Denten entered and began greeting the sun. I joined him. I could feel him next to me moving through the flow. He was his usual self. Breath, movement, solid, undaunted. No weird vibes. I lost myself in the morning flow. I am the breath. The breath moves me. Lunge. Strike. Bend. Reach. Twist. Stretch.

I was supposedly a Level 9— a Niner— and I wanted to find out what that meant. Could I take Denten? Had I really become proficient enough to spar him at full strength? He couldn't have made me a Niner if I wasn't good enough to spar at full strength. I had to find out. I had to know what I was doing in that dojo, and if I'd really earned those beads. The flow came to an end. We bowed. I struck.

I did not hold back. I did not stop. I was the breath. I was form. I was movement. He responded. He moved. He was fast. I was faster. He was stronger, bigger, heavier. I was lighter, quicker, more limber. It was movement. It was fury. It was dance. And we were graceful. I could feel him. He was having fun. He wanted the challenge. He wanted to push me harder.

He said aloud, "Let go, Ryst. Drop the curtain," and I could feel what he meant. He didn't want me to hold back my Talent. He wanted to see what I could do. He wanted to dance with it. Could I do that? Could I concentrate on form and movement and defense and attack with all my senses open?

I let go. There was movement. Denten was there. He was excited. He wanted to see me do it. He wanted to know what it was like to dance that way. I could sense his movements. I knew what he was doing before he did it. I evaded easily. He couldn't get a hold on me. I anticipated and moved in. I nearly collapsed his left knee, but pulled back before I hurt him. He took the moment to roll. I attacked. He defended. I knew what he was doing before he did it, and his breaths came quicker. Denten enjoyed the challenge.

She is the wind. I cannot touch the wind. She is the wind, he thought, delighted.

He thought about the books on the other side of the room. I pushed out a feeling of confusion.

The Erotica, is this the time?

It bothers you? Why does this bother you? Intimacy is part of life. I felt him more than heard him. It was not words, but it felt like words. I just knew what he was thinking, inside me.

But I don't want to be thinking about intimacy when I'm sparring. What kind of weird rituals to Tindin have?

I felt his humor. He wanted me to know about the Erotica. I had asked about the Durstahngnat, hadn't I? What was the reason to not discuss it?

I pushed back. Why would I discuss this? This is a personal, private thing. Not something I want to go around talking to people about. Is this what Shurwinn do?

We are open about sex. Ask any question. There is nothing to be ashamed about with sex and intimacy. It is part of life. It is part of the breath. The breath moves us and creates us. We breathe it in and give it shape. I am a man. I am a father. There is no shame in it. Are you not an obgyneca? Do you not deliver babies? How can you help patients if you do not see them naked? Do you not discuss sexual matters with them? Are you not objective as a medica? Do you not have experience separating intimate, personal matters from objective conversation? I am not ashamed to be a man and a father. I am not ashamed to have done The Art and Practice of Tindin Erotica.

And the interesting thing was, I heard— felt his mind fully. But I wasn't seeing actual sexual things he had done or felt. I wasn't seeing him with his wife making babies. I wasn't feeling anything from him other than a nonchalant, matter-of-fact teacher talking to a student about a book. A book he knew and had no shame in discussing.

And I wasn't afraid. I wasn't embarrassed. I didn't feel like I was invading his mind or getting private information. I wasn't doing anything bad. I didn't mind. He was right. I was an obgyneca. I touched naked people all the time, and it was not sexual, it was clinical. There was a difference between intimacy with a lover and physical examinations.

And I suddenly didn't care anymore. I didn't care if he knew I read the book. I didn't care that I could hear his thoughts. Because it didn't matter. He was comfortable with me and trusted me. And I trusted him. He didn't want to hurt me. He saw me as a granddaughter who might have questions, and he was willing to answer if I wanted to ask. That was all. It was simple. He was just making himself available.

So we danced. And danced. And danced. We slowed, both panting. My arms were getting heavy. How long could I keep going? I was faster than him, but I couldn't keep it up much longer. It was getting dangerous. If we kept going we could accidentally hurt each other out of fatigue. We were grappling when we both paused, and I felt him relax the same moment I did. "Yield," we both said at the same time.

We sat with our backs to the wall, catching our breath, and drinking water. I reached into my tight tank and pulled the strand of braided beads out from between my sweaty breasts. Denten grimaced, "Gross." We chuckled.

I held out the beads declaring, "Explain yourself, Master!"

He laughed and nodded. "Silver: the student questions the way the world works. White: the students asks a question the teacher cannot answer. Black: the student asks a question but expects no answer."

"Humh." I hummed. That was really quite beautiful. Asking questions that you know will not be answered. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Was that the pinnacle of the mystical path? Everything is a mystery, and we accept that we won't understand it?

"So," I asked, "are all Tindin asking questions about leaving the Known Cosmos? Do Shurwinn know something about what's going on that the rest of us don't?"

"No, Ryst. I've never heard anything quite like what you said: that technological advances aren't what is restricting us to nine galaxies. I'm not really sure. But the Tindin path is unique to every individual. My own path to Black was quite different, and the questions I asked were more related to a specific scenario that was happening in my life at the time. But it was similar to yours in some ways because it was about the suffering in the world. I just had a different, more narrow way of looking at it."

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I nodded, "So, the questions that we are asking are going to be unique to us. It doesn't matter really what questions we are asking, it's just that we are questioning. That's what the Silver Bead is. We are questioning the way things work? Why are we doing things this way? Is there another way? That sort of thing?"

"Exactly. And the point of the Teacher is to be there as the student continues on her path, supporting her and listening to her as she grows. Because no one knows what twists and turns a life will take until it is lived."

Wow, who knew that Denten was such a philosopher?

"Denten, did you really do the Durstahngnat? That whole practice seemed— well, is it kind of sadistic? I mean a 100-day abstinence program? How is all of that supposed to be intimate? How can you practice the art of conception with abstinence? I think I know how babies are made, and it's not upside down without touching each other."

We both laughed, open and free. Denten waved his hands in the air. "No, no, it's not like that. It took me a long time to really understand the book. And I didn't understand it until I went on the journey myself. It's actually how I got my Purple Beads."

"Really? You demonstrated some supernatural sex thing?"

He guffawed. "No, well, kind of. Okay. I was a young man. I was a romantic. I liked the idea of having one woman and one woman only. An Ahtah: only one. I hadn't met Lirin yet, and I was young and wanted to read the book. So, I did it. I did all the exercises. It was fun. It was difficult. A real challenge. And I wanted to be really good at it, so applied myself like a good student," he added with a mischievous air.

Then he shook his head like he was admonishing his younger self. "Then I embarked on the 100-day exercise. Did you read the part about virginal males asking for a male partner? The observer role?"

Yes, I had. And it had given me plenty of homoerotic fantasies to enjoy when I was by myself, and I was not thinking of that right now— not at all! The observer was supposed to watch the participant (the man who was upside down in a back bend with only his feet and hands on the floor). The observer was not a lover, he was a male Tindin of at least one higher rank who had experienced at least some of the exercises in the book.

The observer's role was to aid the participant in being stimulated. At first, the participant could ask the observer for touch, but eventually, the goal was to be untouched through the process. The observer would talk to the participant. There were mantras to repeat. It was all very, "the phallus is the wand of creation" type of stuff. "Praise the phallus! All hail the phallus! Behold the glory of your penis!"

I just nodded.

"I asked a Silver Beader I knew to be an observer, and he agreed. I didn't want him touching me. That wasn't part of my plan and wasn't something I desired. I just wanted to see if I could do it, if it was even possible." He laughed. "I didn't really believe it, you know. Anyway, the observer isn't there to finish. It's not about the observer's pleasure. He doesn't have to be abstinent. He can go home and do whatever he wants."

"The participant is supposed to be abstinent, but can release during the Durstahngnat any way he wants to at first. Meaning, the observer can help him release, should he desire it. But I didn't want that. So, we were about fifty days in. And every day it's 'breathe the breath of life, feel the flow of life, let the erotica fill you, let the erotica stoke you, feel it surge within you.' All the mantras. Repeating them over and over and joining with the creation force of life."

"It is amazingly erotic. It's wildly stimulating. And it really opened me to something new. It was sexual eroticism, but I was connecting my own sexuality to a force outside of me. I could feel how vibrantly alive everything was and how beautiful it was to create, and to create as a man. And I realized that all the mantras that seemed so ridiculous when you first read them are true. The phallus is glorious!"

We were laughing as he continued, "But my friend was really worried. You are allowed to use one hand, if you can. But who can hold a backbend one-armed like that? The Silver Bearder got disturbed about the whole thing because it was over a month, and I was getting all this stimulation but never releasing it. He found it distressing and went to his Teacher because he thought we should stop the exercise. After he talked to his Teacher, he asked me what I wanted to do because he was uncomfortable."

"So, I told him that I'd talk to my Teacher about it too, and we wouldn't worry about it too much. It wasn't supposed to be a thing that caused people problems, you know? It was supposed to be about connecting to a deeper force of creation that we all have access to. It wasn't about torturing yourself."

"So, I went to my teacher and told him all about it. I explained what I just told you. And I realized that at some point I had stopped caring about climax. I was just doing it because it really did connect me to something that was beautiful and mysterious— the process of creation that is going on within us and around us all the time. And that isn't always sexual. A flower blooming isn't sex, but it is creation. It is erotic and not erotic at the same time. And he gave me the purple beads."

Denten laughed harder than I had ever seen. "And then, it was all just ridiculous! I was holding the purple beads because of my cock! The phallus is glorious!"

We roared with laughter. We laughed until we cried and my sides hurt from laughing so hard.

"I did complete the whole 100 days. I told my friend not to observe any more, and I wanted to keep doing it just so I could. I decided that it really is not possible to finish on just the erotic breath of life alone. And I've asked people. I've never heard of a single case of it happening. So, I think the whole point of the exercise is to connect with something more. I don't think it's about mastering a mystical form of orgasm."

"Wow. I'm not sure if I want to know your path to Black Beader. If that was your purple…"

"No," he answered, sobering a little. "That path came later after Lirin and I were married with our first child, and we went through a difficult period. Her sister had lost a baby before he was born and was deeply depressed. It had a heartbreaking affect on all of us, and we went through some dark times. So, you can see how that would cause me to ask questions that can't be answered."

I nodded gently. There were many things that I didn't have words for, and loss of a child was one of them.

So, I just leaned my head against the wall, and we sat there for a moment breathing in and out. I switched topics. "So, you really think I'm a Black Beader now? I don't think I could've sparred so long against you without my Talent."

"You think I would give Black Beads to someone unqualified?"

"I just, I don't think I'm a fighter at Level 9 Tindin yet."

He nodded with a "Hm," and then asked, "You are used to a martial art where the progress up the levels is all about sparring acumen, correct?"

"Yes," I nodded.

"Well, Tindin is different. It stops being about sparring at Level 3. You can progress to Black without ever sparring again. But if you do continue to dance, then it would only make sense that you incorporate all of your learning. So, if you have a Talent, then that is part of how you spar at Level 9, correct?"

"Hm," I said with a frown. "I don't know."

He tried again. "The biggest difference between you and me is not strength or size, it is years in the dojo. If I tried to dance without all of my years of experience being incorporated into what I am doing, then I wouldn't be sparring at my level, would I? So, if you are dancing without using your Talent, then you wouldn't be sparring at your level. Does that make sense, Ryst?"

"Maybe," I thought. "Maybe. I guess I'm still trying to think of it like a Jendo Level 9, and it might take some time to think of it in this new way. Just like I'm learning to think of myself in a new way. It's different and unfamiliar, and I need some time to let it sink in. To change the subject completely, do you and Lirin want to have dinner again soon? I could bring a curry. I want to talk more about what I'm going to do long term once I'm a citizen."

"Of course, Ryst. Lirin will be so happy. I'll let you know when is a good time."

"Perfect!" I picked up the sweaty beads and headed for breakfast.

Journal

In order to more fully understand my Talent, I'm going to record my observations and study it. Here goes.

Today I sparred—no, danced—with Denten and dropped the curtain. We fought at our full capacities, neither of us holding back. When I let go and just let my Talent reach out, I was in his mind. It was like hearing, but he wasn't saying words, really. It was kind of— feelings? Like I just knew what he wanted or what he was intending? It was a general sense. Impressions.

That's the correct word, I had impressions of everything he was doing, wanting, saying to me and the feelings that went along with it such as being excited about the match. But there were limits to the information that came across. When he was "talking" about The Art and Practice of Tindin Erotica, I didn't get images or feelings about what he had done. I didn't get sexual things about his wife. So, somehow, there's only so much that comes through.

Was that his choice or mine? Is there something that people do affect the information that I get? And intention? He didn't intend for me to know that information, so I didn't receive it? As though, we weren't going to be talking about it out loud, so we would not be communicating about it mind to mind? Was it an unspoken, unthought agreement on both our parts to not share that kind of information? We just did it instinctively?

There's so much to explore. When this first started happening, there was nothing I could do to control it, or to shut it out. So, did things change because I intended to shut it out? And am I able to use it better now because I intend to? How do I practice this? I'm still not really sure what it is or why it is useful. Why would such a Talent even exist? What is it for? What should I do with it? What's the point? I'm trying to think of an advantage that it gives me or a purpose for it, but it doesn't seem like there's a practical application.

Unless it's a way for me to connect to the man, my man, my Ahtah. I mean, am I this way now because it's how I can find him? Or draw him to me somehow? How much control do I have? If I get better at this, can I use it to reach him? How? Intend to?