Monday, December 23, 2013

From My Bowl Full Of Jelly To Yours, With Love.

Oh, the holiday ten. 

The holiday ten is the much-loathed and dreadfully feared ten pounds that we tend to gain around the holidays. There are thousands of articles out there telling you how to avoid the holiday ten and how to “survive” parties without going overboard.  This is not one of those articles.  This article is going to share with you some tips on how to (reader beware) enjoy your inevitable indulgences, and clear out the some of guilt that may be standing in the way of you taking as much pleasure as possible from this time of year.

Let’s start by making one thing clear. There are two types of holiday indulgences: joy driven ones, and stress driven ones.  An example of a joy driven indulgence would be the other night when I consumed a downright nauseating amount of eggnog while laughing it up around a fireplace with my best friends.  The eggnog made me feel festive and I was in full acceptance of the bellyache that ensued afterwards.  It was well worth it. This is much different than year I snuck a bottle of reddi-whip into the bathroom because my family was stressing me out. I ran the water so that no one would hear me squirting it into my mouth with a speed and efficiency that would only have been rivaled by being hooked up to an IV.

Ahh, memories. 


The antidote to guilt when it comes to indulgence is to slow down and enjoy.  But if you are having a reddi-whip moment and you are anything like me, you may be prone to spontaneously bitch slap the idiot who tells you to ‘slow down’. Slowing down means feeling and often that is the exact thing reddi-whip moments are allowing us not to do. 

First of all, I still love you and think you are awesome no matter what kind of reddi-whip, cookie, biscuit, champagne overdose’s you may have experienced this month.  So if you choose not to slow down, no biggie. There are no points lost.  I've been there and I will be there again myself.  What I do want to offer you is a game that I play that makes slowing down entertaining and fun, rather that punitive.  Or, if you are already slowed down and simply want to enjoy on a deeper level, will give you a whole new dimension of enjoyment. 

It is a game of traveling the world through the senses. It gives savoring a purpose, and if you let it, it can take you on the ride of your life. 

I played this game recently on Sensual Sunday, a weekly date I have with Vivi La Voix, where we go on sensual adventures throughout the city to constantly up our seduction game.  This week we went to a restaurant that specializes in chocolate and wine pairings.  As we slowly wove our way through five different truffles that were elegantly displayed on the husk of a giant cocoa bean (which we promptly threw in our purses to bring home to our altars) we closed our eyes and went on a journey. 

The first truffle we tried was pomegranate and dark chocolate.  Oh my heavens.  Letting this masterpiece melt on our tongues, we both agreed, was like slipping into bed under the softest hot pink sheets under big, warm, fluffy dark brown duvet for a long winter’s nap.
Hand baked by Vivi La Voix.
Photo Beth Mayesh
The next bundle of joy was a cluster of hazelnut and milk chocolate.  As I bit into this slice of heaven I could feel the fierce heat of a fireplace warming my skin as I sat next to it.  For Vivi, she also felt the warmth of a fire, but in her vision, the fire was inside waiting for her as she felt cold nip her cheeks and the crunch of snow fill her mouth after biting into a firmly packed snowball.

On to the mango with paprika and white chocolate.  As I let these exotic flavors penetrate me I could feel myself swaying side to side in a howdah (carriage) on the back of an elephant.  I saw gorgeous silks inside the carriage, feeling the dust around me as my entourage made it's way across a sandy plain.  (Note: howdahs are extremely inhumane, so I am not endorsing them. I digress.)  For Vivi, she felt the caress of an ivory silk garment woven with golden threads and saffron tassels, all being illuminated by a late afternoon sun. 

Finally, the orange peel with dark chocolate.  There was an effervescence to this one, almost a bubbling.  This took us to a fizzing hot tub filled with orange slices and cocoa beans being tossed about around us, giving fragrance to the steam that rose into a chilly December night.

The one that I did not mention was Pistachio and Rose Hip.  We didn’t really like it that much, it didn’t take us anywhere. :)

If you are someone for whom this resonates, good.  If this is making no sense to you at all, that’s also good.  Because the senses don’t actually make “sense”.  What they make is sensation.  

So my invitation to you this holiday as you bite into, let’s say, a mushroom tart, is to see if as you allow that mushroom to dance across your taste buds, you might simultaneously feel soil underneath your fingernails from digging your hands into the earth to retrieve it.  Or maybe you taste the brine of a Wellfleet oyster as the mushroom’s slippery texture slides across your tongue.  Perhaps the flaky, fluffy texture of the tart itself brings visions of being in Paris on a warm spring morning, enjoying a croissant as you stroll through the Tuileries. 

Whatever happens when you embark on your journey, the only rule is to not take it too seriously.  It’s just a game.  It can be played with any of the senses.  Myself, I keep a journal of these joyrides and it's fun to look back at them" "When having my belly massaged, it feels like biting into fresh baked bread.  When smelling the inside of a cookie jar, I can feel the tight squeeze of my Aunt Cathy’s hugs.  When having an orgasm, I feel like a flower that has been filmed through it’s entire unfolding but the film has been sped up to display the whole process in a total of 15 seconds”.

Just some musings from my diary. 

I wish you the most blessed, delicious, light filled holiday this year.  If you wish to send me a note with your sensual discoveries, please do not hesitate.  There are few things that would delight me more.

I am so grateful for you.

Let the games begin!


Kitty

PS - Ever wonder what the difference is between Seduction and Sex? Or how you can use seduction to have your way outside the bedroom as well?  Join me for a free tele-class January 2nd at 8pm ET.  (If you are too busy having a seduction adventure at that time, the call will be recorded and signing up will get you access to the recording.)  

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