The experience in the commune in many ways exceeded the powers of description. I don’t believe anyone else has ever reported on it from the inside, so I must try.
The feeling was so completely filling. There was no room left—in my heart, in my thoughts, seemingly in the universe—for anything else. Even now, when all I know is distance, a distance I sometimes don’t think I will ever be able to cross, I know it was the strongest force I’ve ever touched. I beheld the power of the sun burning and raging in every human heart, all inhibition lifted.
Each person was beautiful, so indescribably, perfectly beautiful, because their faults no longer meant anything. They came to you pulsing and burning with that truth you shared. They were that complete love. You were that love. The closer you were to each other, the more you felt the presence, the immensity, the surety of that love. And as there were more people, you felt surrounded, completely immersed, completely joyful and without worry. Each soul to join the commune brought a share of this love and nothing else mattered.
If I think of the practices on the commune in the terms someone from the outside might use, I understand the outsiders’ fascination and disgust. Did a man penetrate me as we sought this union? Yes, as did women, as did I to others. But it did not mean what it would mean outside. It wasn’t an interaction with some other individual; it was an effort to touch the immense burning love behind them, behind all of us. Present within each of us.
I weep at night when I think of my separation.