As I look at the bench on my deck and feel its presence, feel its color, feel its woodiness, I experience an intimacy with the bench. Another day, I might describe this as I am aware of the bench. I think they are two words to describe the same event.
Whenever I am aware of something or some one, I am taking down the mental barriers that separate us. When I am aware, I am relaxing the shield that protects me. I am experiencing a certain vulnerability in order to see something or some one just as they are. I have to put aside all imagination and expectation. I abandon a safe place and ignore caution.
It seems to me that when I describe awareness this way, I am also describing intimacy. When I am aware, there is a certain energy that seems to flow both ways between me and the object of my awareness. We are connected. A oneness is affirmed and recognized. We effectively merge.
Awareness is not an activity as much as it is a state. Being mindful is not an effort, it is a letting go in order to be a receptive sponge. If anything, it is a cessation of all activity, all mental effort. Awareness is a blending, a connection, a relaxed state of no barriers. Mind and senses become one.
There seem to be many ways to speak of intimacy and it takes many forms. For me, it seems that one thing they all have in common is a heightened level of awareness.