Because we have a predisposition against down, it’s easy to mistake a downstroke as a punishment. At the height of sensation, the instruction to stroke down seems counterintuitive: at the crescendo, the moment where the relief of the wave crashing down would feel like the reward with its cascade of endorphins, we instead reverse the direction of the stroke and drop down a few notches. Or, if our partner is in a state of anticipation, brimming with electricity and excitement, we may start with a downstroke. Rather than shaking with excitement, the electricity is brought down where it is steadied and held in the solidity of the body.
For the tumescent mind, there is a formula: to experience excitement, keep building it until there is an explosion and a relief. To then stroke down instead suggests to the tumescent mind that it has lost its only potential for relief. Eros operates on another model. It stays with and grows our range of enjoyment, prior to the anxiety of excitement, so we are no longer living in a state that seeks relief. This model happens when we are brought down into the bones and sinew of the body, where there is comfort and safety. As we come to know this well, it’s no longer a state we are trying to escape; instead, it’s a state we rest inside of.
Downstrokes bring us down into the world of feelings and unexamined experiences. Because the body never lies, we are brought face-to-face with our emotions, and to the wisdom our emotions were aiming to draw us into. We discover the fear we previously tried to escape was what was drawing us to the deepest level of resilience, and the lust we couldn’t outrun was actually the source from which all attraction issues. Downstrokes bring us to the emotional reactivity, even outrage, that wants to draw us down into the power to be with injustice in such a way we can heal it rather than perpetuate it.
Downstrokes bring us down into the truths we know could set us free, where we will either flail or fall into the arms of Eros, depending on our relationship to the below. Those who have discovered that this is where we find the bedrock of truth—the landing pad of the body where we relax, refresh, and integrate—meet the downstroke as we would a lover whose arms we might fall into.
The downstroke is where we can finally let go and abandon the effort. The downstroke signifies we will be home soon. In the exalted form, downstrokes are associated with surrender, which is the engaged act of offering ourselves to experience exactly as it is. There is a sense of being at the mercy of something, in the same way we are at the mercy of gravity, with a force pulling us down that speeds up the descent more than if we were on flat ground. This surrender can be alternately terrifying and thrilling. That quality of conquering and climbing that is part of an upstroke is swallowed into this downward motion.
When we lie down for an OM — Orgasmic Meditation, after our daily life that can leave us buzzing above our bodies and outside of our minds, the first downstroke collects us back into the warm bath of the body, where we can concurrently let go and collect ourselves. We spend so much of our lives believing detachment and dissociation are as good as it gets, and we keep pumping for joy until we have only fumes left to run on. It finally gets so uncomfortable that we must altogether detach.
But a good downstroke can take that frantic, manic mind, which trembles and shakes and runs when we try to connect to it, and bring it into the safe warmth of the body. The anxiousness we might call ecstasy or bliss is replaced with a deep and abiding comfort. With the feeling of contact between finger and clitoris, both partners get to exhale as they drop down a few flights and are able to simply be.