My teachers often used to teach about the heart being raw, open and tender, so that nothing could could be experienced or met without some effect being felt internally. This is not to say we fall apart at the sight or sound of any distressing thing, but it is to say that we do not block out the world. T'ai Chi (and by now you know that when I say or write 'T'ai Chi' that I do not mean simply a series of graceful physical movements...) helps me cultivate this tender heart, even as my partner touches me and sets my body in motion. Just now I was just marking some art work for the college that I teach for, and read a quote in the course book that reminds me of this tender, open connection that we can create:
"You pass the spot each day. You know and love every brick and tree. Suddenly, in a moment, everything is changed." - Carel Weight (painter)
Whether through art, music, T'ai Chi, or some other path of wisdom, we could seek to develop this joining with the world. It is only through this, I would say, that you can experience the incredible moments of oneness or newness, which for me are not accompanied by choirs of angels or flashes of light, but are sometimes just the sparkling knowledge of being identical with the forest floor on which I am squatting, or the sudden, unexpected, momentary union with the partner with whom I have pushed hands a hundred times, as they again push, enter, yield with/as me. Doing the practice, regularly, deeply, clears out all the debris and allows what is actually always present in life to flow.
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