There is more than one way to create a diamond body. For example, Don Juan’s dreaming double and the Taoist’s diamond body are similar, each being bodies of consciousness that are independent of the physical body. However, the ways of creating them are quite different.

For Don Juan the dreaming double is created when we are able to be awake in our dreams. Once we can do this, our dream consciousness acquires an independency and a power of its own. It becomes us, although not us of the flesh. But it can operate in physical reality, and it will survive the death of the physical body.

The Taoist uses meditation to achieve this same end. In meditation, the Taoist circulates the light of awareness between two poles, the one of Spirit that is centered between the eyes and the one of Earth that is centered in the solar plexus. In this way, awareness begins to circulate between spirit and body, and from this circulation an inner child is born, a diamond body that will continue to exist after the death of the physical body.

And there are other ways to create a diamond body. I became a diamond body briefly when I died as a young boy, when a voice told me to turn the falling into flying. I did so and flew effortlessly and blissfully towards the Light. I was out of my body then, yet still me and still aware of what I was doing. The voice that told me as a boy to turn the falling into flying, that voice was my own voice from years later when I was a young man, a man who went back in time to help me as that panicked young boy. I remember when I did this as that young man, laying in my down sleeping bag in the high mountains, under the stars.
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For the Taoist, the life forces can flow either outward into the world or inward where they can be used to power the circulation of light. For most of us, however, our thoughts and feelings are usually directed outwards to the world, and our life energy, our seed, is used for pleasure or to create new life.

I have certainly embraced the joys of life. I have walked in beauty and love, and I have certainly helped to create new life. However. I have still spent much of my life alone, withdrawn from the world. I have turned inwards – dreaming and consulting the I Ching and meditating and of course doing medicine – and I have found my way back to my diamond body once again.
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The Taoist adept, once his meditation has become fixated, becomes in himself a true marriage of nature and spirit. Because his body has become conscious and pregnant with meaning, he will remain physically healthy and enjoy a long life. And because his consciousness has become infused with power and is pregnant with life, he will continue to exist as a conscious being even after the death of his body.

I’m certainly not the monastic sort of Taoist. I’ve always felt that since I was living in this world, in this body, I would be wise to explore and enjoy this world and this body. I have certainly done so. Although I have five children and have been a father for more than fifty years, I have still spent most of my life exploring the depths of consciousness and following the Tao. And now, almost 79 years old, I am still physically healthy and enjoying a long life. And when I do die, I will continue to exist as a conscious diamond body, an unlimited being with all the memories of this life that are worth saving.

Aspen and I met in late January of 1985. We were engaged by the middle of March and married by late June. We have never looked back, have always loved one another and have never thought of ending our marriage.

With half of all marriages in the United States ending in divorce, we have decided to share our love story and how and why it has lasted for more than 26 years. So, if you are at all interested in a serious relationship with another person, especially if you want to have children some day, it will certainly be worth your while to read about how we have done it.
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The other day, while Aspen and I were out walking, we came upon a man we knew. He saw us and blurted out, “You’re holding hands.” Yes, we were. We do so whenever we can. We snuggle together every night too, and we make wonderful love. We’re still loving, after all these years. It has always come natural to us.

How did this happen, when it is so rare in the world? Well, when we met that fateful January, we were medicine folks. Every Friday night, we did Ecstasy and acid, first the Ecstasy and then several hours later high dose acid. We did this every Friday night for several months. Doing so, we opened up to each other completely. We came to know each other more deeply in that short time than most couples do in a lifetime of marriage.

The night we decided to get married, we were doing medicines. I asked Aspen if she wanted all of me. She said yes, and she has had all of me, all of my love and support and understanding ever since.
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After our courtship and our marriage, we began to spend more and more time backpacking and traveling. We did some climbing with a friend here in Boulder and in Joshua Tree. We went to more than one Rainbow Gathering too. We lived outside the law, and we were honest. We started in Boulder, of course, but we also lived briefly in California, in Mammoth Lakes, and in Arizona, in and around Tucson. We lived on the West Slope of the Rockies too, in Paonia, on an organic fruit farm.

When we were still living in Tucson, before we moved to Paonia, we wondered what else we could do with our love. We had been married for over 14 years. We had done almost everything we had wanted to do. What else could we do? The decision seemed to be made for us. Aspen was in her mid-thirties and was beginning to realize that she would have to have children soon if she wanted to be a mother.
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Although I had thought that I was done raising children, I was more than okay with us being parents together. I knew she would be a great mom. And I have always enjoyed being a dad. Being parents together would be our new life adventure. I certainly enjoyed actualizing her desire for children, and soon the babies began to come.

When they started coming, with Callahan being the first, we moved back to Boulder, and we now live just two blocks from where we started out 26 years ago, back when we first realized that we loved each other and wanted to share a life together. Since then we have come full circle in our life and our love. And now our love is actually stronger now than it was when we left Boulder all those years ago – way more than enough to nourish our three young boys.

The boys are 5, 8, and 11 years old now. They are more than a handful. They are all high maintenance, extremely loud, and overwhelming argumentative. They are also heartwarmingly loving and extremely interesting. It’s awesome watching them grow up and become people. They are my sons. God! What an obligation! What a responsibility! I love it.

I sure have to work hard to keep myself strong and healthy. I have to do yoga every morning and then, three days a week, lift weights at the gym. I have to walk or else hike in the woods somewhere around here nearly every day. I have to ride my bike as much as I can. I have to meditate every afternoon. I have to watch what I eat, how much pot I smoke, how often I get off, things like that. I have to take conscious care of myself as body.

I get really tired of having to do all this all the time – especially the yoga every morning while the rest of the family is breaking their fast. But the truth is, I am much more supple than most folks in their late seventies.

Aspen and I lift weights at the gym three days a week, I am really tired of working out. I’ve been working out with weights for almost sixty years now, ever since I was 19 years old. However, once we’re there, actually doing our leg presses and pulldowns and bench presses and curls and all that, I almost enjoy it. Although I sure am glad when I’m finished for the day.

I have come to see that I will have to meditate, do yoga, lift weights and keep on walking or hiking for as long as I live. However, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the walking part. And I do love my daily meditations.
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It’s worth it all though. It’s like when I’m hiking along a trail in the woods; there’s always something new I want to see just around the next bend in the trail. And when I get there, there’s always something new I want see just around the next bend, the one up ahead. Sometimes I feel I could hike on forever. There’s always something new to see.

It’s the same with my life. There’s always something new I want to see just around the next bend of my life. So I keep on meditating and doing yoga and lifting weights and walking. I know that whatever is coming up around the next bend will always be worth the hard work.

Actually, I can see from here that there’s a new bend ahead in the trail of my life, and it’s coming up soon. And, being almost up to this coming bend, I can already see more money coming, some good acid too. I can also see from here more high and conscious friends coming into my life.

As I approach this next bend in my life, I’m looking forward to seeing how I’m going to support this wonderful family of ours on a higher level. I definitely have my preferences.

Looking ahead to this next bend in my life, I want to see that I’ll have more loving time with Aspen, lots of it. I’m hoping for another 25 years or so. I also want to see my boys become men. I think they will be splendid, definitely worth all the time and effort that Aspen and I have and will have put into raising them.

Looking ahead to this next bend in my life, I want to see how long I can stay strong and healthy. I want to see how long I’ll be able to rassle and hike with my boys, how long I’ll be able to play with Aspen too. Mostly, I want to see if I can live to be 111. When I was a young boy, a voice told me that I would live that long.

Looking ahead to this next bend in my life, I guess I’m sort of interested in what will go down on the collective level too. I don’t have much confidence in the human race, but I do continue to work for our collective rescue, hopefully moving us all away from the brink of disaster where we have placed ourselves.

The Tao of love teaches that we must “conserve the seed.” (The Secret of the Golden Flower, p. 48) “The ancients really attained long life by the help of the seed-power present in their own bodies.” (p. 69)

Taoism is spiritually wide and includes many differences, but all Taoists would agree that we must conserve our seed. In The Secret of the Golden Flower, it is written that “every man who unites bodily with a woman feels pleasure first and then bitterness; when the seed has flowed out, the body is tired and the spirit languid. It is quite different when the adept lets spirit and power unite.” (p. 69)

The legend of Old Master P’eng, although ambiguous in this regard, is often recounted to support this view. He reputedly lived to be 880 years old. However, it is also said, as the writer of The Secret of the Golden Flower ruefully admits, that he lived to this age, “because he made use of serving maids to nourish his life.” The author, greatly influenced by Buddhism, says that this must be a misunderstanding – Master P’eng must have lived that long by using “the method of sublimation of spirit and power. (p. 70)

Other Taoists agree that we must conserve the seed so that we can power the circulation of light, but they argue that we can do this without denying lust. They agree that lust in a man, when stirred, desires women and if unchecked would create new life. But they also say that if we retain our energy instead of allowing it to flow outwards into the woman, it “penetrates the crucible of the creative and refreshes and nourishes heart and body.” (p. 35)

Old Master P’eng knew exactly what he was doing with those serving maids, making love often, getting off seldom or never. He knew that making love has little or nothing to do with getting off unless you’re trying to create new life. It’s no wonder that he lived so long, using all his turned on energy from all that love play to fuel the circulation of his light.

Remember that Taoism began with Lao Tzu, a wanderer who had no trips, no routines or goals, nothing at all except his life and his awareness. The only reason we know anything at all about him is that, in his old age, when he was trying to leave China to wander the rest of his life in wilderness, the master of the gate wouldn’t let him out until he had written down his best thoughts. These became the Tao Te Ching, a glimpse into the mind and soul of an extraordinary master.

Although there has been a wide diversity among his various followers with regard to both theory and practice, they all agree upon one key concept, the notion of inaction through action.

All the instructions for the various Taoist meditations focus upon the actions of breathing, quieting the heart with the breathing, inner seeing and hearing, and circulating the attention between the two poles and back again. However, none of these actions are important in and of themselves, and none of them would lead to the goal of the immortal diamond body.

Yet by continuing to perform these actions, there comes a time when they finally become automatic. As the Taoists say, the circulation of the light becomes fixated. At this point, it takes on a life of its own and no longer needs our attention to make it turn and turn again. Once this has happened, we are continually recharging and renewing ourselves. Our physical and our spiritual consciousnesses are continually interacting, with the result that our bodies becomes conscious and our spirits becomes grounded.

The Taoist adept, once his meditation has become fixated, becomes in himself a true marriage of nature and spirit. Because his body has become conscious and pregnant with meaning, he will remain physically healthy and enjoy long life. And because his consciousness has become infused with power and is pregnant with life, he will continue to exist as a conscious being even after the death of his body.

Aspen and I met in January of 1985. We proposed to each other on St. Patrick’s Day, and were married on June 23 of the same year, twenty-five years ago. Right from the start we knew we were meant for each other. And we really were. We have had a wonderful 25 years together.

We spent the first 14 years enjoying our relationship. We traveled a lot of the time. We moved about a bit, but always returned to Boulder. We lived for a while in Tucson, Arizona, in Mammoth Lakes in California, and in Paonia, in western Colorado.

Once we lived in a van for almost a year, telling folks that we weren’t homeless, just houseless.

We went to a fair number of Rainbow Gatherings too – Missouri, Vermont, Minnesota, Colorado twice, Montana, Wyoming, and best of all, Nevada. We met a lot of good folks and made a lot of good friends.

We also backpacked as much as we could. Most of our backpacking trips have been here in Colorado, mostly in the Rocky Mountain National Park. Our favorite camp in the park was up in Glacier Gorge. We have also backpacked several times into my old camp at Dinky Creek in the High Sierras of California. Each time, it was like coming home. Dinky is and always will be my spiritual home, because of what I went through camping there in the sixties and early seventies,
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After 14 wonderful years of sweet loving and traveling and living in wilderness, we felt that we had to find something new that we could do together that would also be fun and fulfilling. We decided then that we would have children and become parents together. Except for raising Ariana during the first years of our marriage, from when she was 11 years old until she was 18, we had been happily married without children. Having children again would be a new and exciting adventure for us.

Callahan was the first, coming to us in November of 1999. He was conceived in Tucson, Arizona, but by the time he was born, we were living out in Paonia, on Colorado’s west slope. But then, when he was 8 months old, we decided to return to Boulder.

We enjoyed being his parents so much that we decided to have another kid. Jake was the result of that, and he was born in June of 2002.

Although we toyed with the idea of having a third kid, even trying for a while to conceive, we felt we had enough on our hands with Callahan and Jake. But, on the anniversary of our marriage proposal to each other, on St. Patrick’s Day, we made wonderful love, and nine months later, in December of 2005, Zane came to us.

Three boys! Although we had hoped for a girl, somewhere in all this, we were happy with the boys. We decided then that we had enough. After all I was already in my seventies, and Aspen was getting worn out physically. She had been pregnant or nursing for over ten years by then, and her body was starting to wear out.
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The boys are now four, eight, and ten years old, and we’re beginning to feel that we might make it. It has been much more difficult that we could have ever imagined. The worst of it is all the yelling and arguing that goes on constantly between the three boys. We know though, that this is part of their growing up. We accept it, sometimes giving ourselves time-out and going off alone together into one of the more quiet rooms of our house.

We haven’t been out on a real date since Callahan came to us. But we are still having fun, and we really like being mom and dad. In fact, I’m very sad when I think that Zane will be the last kid I’ll ever raise – at least in this body. I love babies and little kids before they start getting their egos. But I have also liked watching my two older children, Jonathan, now 48, and Ariana, now 35, as they have grown into adulthood.
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These days, when we’re not being full on parents, when we’re free to turn our attention upon ourselves and each other, we’re usually so tired that we have very little energy to hang out together. Our only time alone in the school year has been in the morning when all the boys are in school. We’ve been going out to breakfast during this time, just to get out of the house and be alone with each other.

In the summer – it’s summer now – we have even less time to be alone with one another. In spite of this, we love and lust for each other immensely. We have never faltered in our love. We have both been completely open and honest and faithful and have always had each other’s backs.

Someone suggested that we keep going for another 25 years. I’m tempted. I’ll only be 102 and Aspen will be only 71. We could do it. The boys would like that.

Aspen and I also have our own trips. I do a lot of writing, working on two books now and writing notes regularly for my blog. I also continue to explored consciousness and reality with the aid of my medicines. Aspen has been spending a lot of her time lately knitting and pursuing her other fiber arts. She’s beginning to sell some of her work now.

We’re beginning to find new friends too. Most of our old friends weren’t parents and dropped us, and most of the parents we have met these past ten years have been boring. Our new friends, as well as a few of our old ones, mostly fit the categories of uncles and aunts and seem to enjoy our kids as well as they like us.

I do think that I’m going for it. The next 25 years ought to be amazing, watching our boys grow up into men. I wonder what else will come our way.

Remember the movie, Dr. Strangelove, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb? Remember how Dr. Strangelove was always afraid of making love, always afraid of losing his “vital essence?” There was some truth to his worry. His vital essence wasn’t just the physical sperm that he would ejaculate when he came. It was also his creative masculine energy.

Although a man may continue to produce sperm, if he comes too often, his masculine energy will soon be depleted, and, until it is replaced, he will feel an aversion to sex. He will feel threatened by his partner, as if she were a vampire sucking him dry. He will turn away from her until his sexual energy builds up again – and then the cycle will begin anew.

The Taoists teach the importance of a man managing his own sexual energy. He should not get off too often. How often varies with the man’s age and his innate vitality. Although I make love often, some of the time I save my masculine energy to make things happen in the outer world. Most men can’t relate to this. I can hear them saying, “What’s the point of making love if we don’t come?”

But there’s more than one reason for making love. Besides baby making, we also make love to share our love, to share touch, and to give and receive pleasure. If you are one with your woman while making love, you will feel her pleasure too. You will feel it as your own. She will feel yours too. And pleasure shared is always pleasure doubled. Sometimes, if you are really tuned to your partner, her come will be strong enough to take you with her.

If you don’t get off every time you make love, your masculine energy will always be there whenever your woman wants you to share it with her. It will be there whenever you need to be masculine and creative in the world too. Most importantly, if you love your lover (not all of us do), the energy you have saved from your lovemaking will be an ecstatic and joyful reminder of your time together, drawing you and your lover to each other always

Most importantly, really love her. To love her, you have to love yourself, especially your own femininity. If you don’t love yourself, how can you love another? If you don’t love your own femininity, how can you love your woman?

Always be affectionate and loving. Be her best friend at all times, not just when you want to get laid. Touch her often. Don’t wait until you’re horny. For most women, whenever their man touches them, it’s a signal that he wants sex.

When you and her are making love, be in touch with your heart and express your love. Cry out and sing with her. Let her know that you are enjoying her too, that it’s not just your dick.

If you do love your woman and can express it to her, she will be blessed. Many men are uptight sexually, yet there are so many women who can’t get off by fucking alone. But many men know of nothing else – or if they do, they are too afraid of the feminine to do anything about it.

Go down on your lover. Women like this. They all want you to focus on their pleasure for a change. Pay homage to the Goddess at her main altar, between your woman’s legs. What better place to worship the feminine?

The main difference between a man and a woman sexually is the slowness of the woman’s response compared to that of the man’s. If you do want to please your woman, slow down. There’s no hurry. And make sure that she gets off before or as you do.

The man who is focused upon his woman’s pleasure will learn a great secret here. If you are one with your woman while you are making love, you will feel what she feels – and her pleasure is always much more intense than yours could ever be.

And afterwards, don’t leave her immediately for your thoughts. Continue to hold and caress her. Stay in your own body for awhile too. Stay with the feelings. By all this, she will know that it wasn’t just your lust speaking of love.

The conspiracy by men to repress women that has existed for over five thousand years extends even to the bedroom. For all this time, men have rarely considered women’s pleasure at all.

“In ancient China, however, it was basic to the philosophy of Taoism. When the Tao of Loving was first formulated, Chinese society had only just changed from a matriarchy to a patriarchy. The position of women at that point was still nearly equal to that of men.” (The Tao of Love and Sex, p. 71)

Since those early days in China, the male viewpoint has come to dominate, and, until recently, women have been considered lesser beings, to be used for man’s pleasure and to make babies. Women have even been seen as dangerous, as vampires who take a man’s vital essence and use it to stay young and strong at the man’s expense. A woman who enjoys sex has come to be seen either as a temptress to be shunned or else as a slut to be condemned.

However, beginning near the turn of last century, the studies of Ellis, Freud, and others gave impetus to the then revolutionary idea that women could and should be sexually satisfied. Today the work of these pioneers has born fruit, and women are again beginning to be accorded equal rights in the bedroom.

But even today, most women are not getting the physical love and affection that they need. This must change! Half of the world cannot be miserable while the other half is blissfully unaware. And it is so unnecessary too! A man who has learned the Tao of Loving, a man who can control himself and his ejaculations, “can completely satisfy his partner without fail. In turn, he will find his own erotic pleasure tremendously enhanced.” (p. 78)

Everywhere I go, I see women who are bitter and who have given up on love. More awareness and love from their men would quickly end this. And if all women were sexually satisfied, half of the world would immediately be happier and more fulfilled. Their partners would be too. A fun and easy way to save the world!

As a therapist, women tell me things that most men never hear. They tell me what they want from a man and what they actually get. Most don’t get what they want.

Ann Landers did a survey several years ago, asking women how they felt about sex. A majority answered that they would rather just be held than have sex with their partners.

Now I know that women can enjoy sex immensely. Any woman can. For one thing, a woman’s sense of pleasure is much more sensitive and intense than a man’s. This being so, why would a majority of them prefer to pass on sex?

The answer is in the question. Few women want to have sex. All women want to make love. Making love includes being held and requires affection between the partners. Without affection, the man is merely masturbating, using the woman for his selfish sexual release. This is always degrading and disgusting for the woman.

All women can enjoy sex, but many of them have had bad experiences with uncaring, self-centered, and even violent men. Many have never even had an orgasm, although almost all of them could. Turned off to sex and disappointed with love, they just do it to get it over with and to protect their relationship.

Most men are bad lovers because they are ignorant about what pleases a woman. Why are they so ignorant? Men have figured out how to send a rocket to the moon, and yet they can’t be bothered figuring out how to please their women. Why is this?

It’s because they don’t value women or the feminine in themselves. They have been raised this way – to be real boys and eventually real men, whatever that means. This reflects thousands of years of social conditioning, beginning when men took spiritual authority away from women and the Great Goddess.

It’s sad. Most men don’t know what they’re missing. Making love is much more intense and rewarding for a man when he is focused on pleasuring his mate and being one with her.