“In sexual abandon as in danger we are impelled, however briefly, into that vital present in which we do not stand apart from life, we ARE life, our being fills us, in ecstasy with another being, loneliness falls away into eternity. But in other days, such union was attainable through simple awe.”

“In sexual abandon as in danger we are impelled, however briefly, into that vital present in which we do not stand apart from life, we ARE life, our being fills us, in ecstasy with another being, loneliness falls away into eternity. But in other days, such union was attainable through simple awe.”

— Peter Matthiessen