This blog is about kisses, the kind usually done in private . . . or in Paris in public. This is my third draft on this subject, and I’m going with it no matter where it goes.

The first place it is going is that kisses are better than wine. Great kisses, that is, are better than great wine. The opposite is also true, bad kisses tend towards the vinegar-esque.

The second place it is going is that great kisses may or may not be sexual but they are always sensual, just as good sex must be sensual (a personal observation) while sensuality may or may not be sexual.

The third place is it going is to confront the innate problem of writing a blog about kisses. If I only write a paean to, and attempted deconstruction of, mind-blowing kisses, . . . well, not everyone has the requisite partner(s) or relationship(s) for such kisses, and I don’t want to set people up for lamentations or a sense of missing out.

So, instead of focusing on kisses per se, which may or may not be within your reach, let’s look at the overall context of sexual vs. sensual – their differences, overlap, and nuances – because, while transmission of sexual energy usually requires two or more for full ignition, sensuality requires only one person in heightened awareness and receptivity.

No physical partner is needed for you to experience the pleasures of sensuality even while any emotion or response brought on by the creations – music, art, fashion, food, writing – of another human means in some sense that another person is present even if their body isn’t. It’s simply a factor of unaligned time and space.

Further: sensual enjoyment is your birthright. You came into the world equipped as a sensual being. Look at a baby’s goofy smile when a finger is lightly traced down its belly. That is sensuality, as in experiencing the senses of touch, sight, sound, smell, and taste.

Relishing, savoring, being immersed in, swooning over, salivating, feeling the back of your head zoom into space, having your knees give way, knowing there is no other color red in the world like the one you’re looking at right now, knowing no musical segue ever before was so sweet, being lost in Now and giving up your identity to Wholeness . . . yup, that’s what a great kiss feels like, but . . . oh, sorry, I wasn’t going to go there.

Sexuality might be embedded in sensuality, but sexuality urges you towards a completion, to a release. It is a grabbing and claiming, an escape from the mundane.

Sensuality gathers you in its arms and takes you into the knowing of More. It reveals the exquisiteness that a moment before had been camouflaged as mundane.

Sexuality takes you away from washing the dishes. Sensuality reminds you of the feel of china, the smell of good food, and the comfort of warm water.

At its fullest, sensuality ushers you into an ecstatic love inside and outside of yourself by going through the senses of your body and mind. Sex may have love as a component, but sensuality reveals the streaming love that has always been there, timeless without boundaries. Sensuality is the powerful play between you and beauty where you yield in order to expand beyond identity and ego instead of being a power play between people striving for dominance and control in the dynamics of sex.

Sensuality without sexuality is leagues ahead of sexuality without sensuality. They don’t occupy the same planet, even though sensuality that includes sexuality is what premier cru kisses are made of . . . oh, I wasn’t going to go there.

Well, yes, let’s actually go there. I have all these photos of people kissing in Paris I want to share.

About kisses:

Each kiss is unique even when it is a pile up of the same old same old between two people. It is always a communication, even when sometimes, sadly, it is a “kiss off.” Kisses cannot avoid communicating even though most are half-felt, half-given, half-received, and half-registered.

There are kisses we give to children and babies, the elderly, long-time friends, and pets. These kisses ask for nothing, and we give them because we feel safe enough to express our affection and tenderness. Message given, message received. Bonding has been done. Nice.

But what I am mulling over these days are kisses between people who are discovering each other, who need to figure out, confirm, or explore a sexual or highly affectionate relationship.

Here is where we need to become more fluent. We need to learn the language of kisses, the accents and dialects, the give and take, daring, shyness, boldness, yielding, claiming, and whispers louder than shouts. This language demands trust. Kisses cannot be fluent in sensuality without trust.

To be sure, sex can occur without trust, but exquisite sensuality cannot. This is why mature adults, those of us not prone to random sex, paid partners, swapping, sending Instagrams of our private parts, or seeking younger bodies to make us feel potent, want meaningful relationships based on honesty and trust. We know the difference between sexual and sensual and that sexuality without sensuality is too much like puberty. To be avoided.

Trust requires knowing we are loved and cherished, and we become instinctively less interested over time if our partner wears us down by neglect, or being a workaholic or other addict, or being unable to engage in things that have meaning to us. And why do I suddenly remember an ex-husband’s wish that we linger in the uncomfortable chairs after dinner so we could bond over his explaining international finance to me? I mean, I would have become an expert in euros and renminbi if there had been reciprocity, but . . . oops, I probably shouldn’t go there either.

Back to sensuality, because that is the prize, that is the goal, that is the birthright, that is the joy, that is the expansion that is yours. I believe the closest we can come to knowing god is through truly experiencing life through our senses; and I believe that when two or more come together in His name (i.e. in love and sensuality), there He is also.

Okay, I really stepped into it because I don’t believe in a sentient entity keeping score beyond interstellar space even though I do believe in my parking angel – and I probably should have said “goddess” anyway. That is, I believe in the tendency of energies to solve problems in harmonic ways. I believe peace wants a chance. I believe synchronicity happens every second. I believe health wants to happen. I believe there are morphic fields of knowing and evolving and sharing of our collective minds.

And I believe kissing is a master art and only those who approach it in adoration can taste its full beauty.

And I believe the potential for sensual joy surrounds us at all times. It is music, it is taste, it is birdsong, it is morning sun, it is dance, it is cascading into laughter, it is a wet rock in the sand, it is dirty dishes. It is opening our senses and being fully alive. It is where we partner, as two or more gathered, in ecstasy with Now.