Month: September 2018

I get it.  I have lived with a word and concept for many years.    But it only fully revealed itself to me a little over a week ago.    And I expect there is more revealing to come.

Near the end of the retreat, we were all gathered in a huge circle next to the lake, singing songs.   Someone shouted out the first words of a song as an invitation to sing it, “We friends……..”     I was totally unprepared, I didn’t see it coming.   I never joined in, never got out a word of the song because this overwhelming feeling just fountained from deep inside me and the tears started flowing.   I knew instantly that I had opened a deeper level of my heart and the key had the word “friend” written on it.

I can see now that this had been gradually arising as so many people at the retreat opened their hearts in attentive, respectful and affectionate ways.   Each gesture of opening was an invitation for me to do the same.    I was ready when I arrived at the retreat, and the awareness of others gave  me all the encouragement it needed.    Their revelation as friends gave me the encouragement to do the same.

I have become aware that my friends do more than support and care for me. They help me keep my heart open to the world, they tend to my heart each in their own way.    I am realizing that when they present themselves before me they invite me to embrace them and the world with my own heart.

I am aware that my friends are all over the spectrum on this, some able to display the kind of open-hearted encouragement more than others.    Individuals show me their open-heartedness in many ways and to different degrees.   But what I am only now noticing  is that they open my own awareness to an amazing depth.   I think I am ready, but their friend key is an important part of my open feeling.

I began noticing this early at the retreat and it has continued to evolve.    Even when I think of an absent friend, I often feel their presence down to the bottom of my heart.    I am able to remind my heart that my friends are there not just in their assurances and support, but especially in their welcoming and accepting my open heart.    The awareness is so penetrating and I have seen it growing for some time.    But the thunderbolt only struck about a week ago.

The mindful movements that I do every morning have been part of the gradual change, as I extend my heart out to each of the friends who come to mind.   My opening up to their presence at the retreat has taken the awareness to such a depth that at times I can scarcely contain my response to them.    They may not even be present.

They allow me to be present to them, and so I am deeply aware of them.    The bow between two people captures all this and is felt with such deep awareness if they are open to the exchange of awareness.

I now notice that naming ourselves as friends has so much more meaning and is felt at such a deeper level.   The realities may have been there before, but now I am aware and allow myself to feel its depth.

My own recent invitation to become friends with someone has showed me all that simple word and expression can mean, what possibilities it can include.     So much is often hidden, but it can now be revealed with more clarity.

Friend is such a powerful word.

 

Being romantic is a tricky notion.    It can mean a lot of different things.    For me, most but not all of them are negative.

A few days ago, when I heard myself telling someone that I wasn’t offering an invitation to a romantic relationship, I paused.    Just what did I mean, and why is it so easy for me to say that I’m not interested in a romantic relationship.    Actually, I could easily add that I don’t see it in my best interest.

There probably are come common notions or implications when people speak of romance.    For me it isn’t quite that simple.

Romance, I think, speaks of fantasy, something not based on reality.   It relies for its energy on what could be or might be, not what is here and now. A lot of relationships are built on this shifting base, and often end up interesting and exciting  but very shaky and ultimately disappointing.

Romance is dependent more on dreams than on what actually exists between two people.    It is not exclusively that way, of course, but romance depends heavily on fantasy.    If two people have a romantic relationship, it usually has more to do with their hopes of what might happen between them than the reality of what actually exists now.   It might even have some of the power and effect of psychedelics.  Its sustenance relies on a heavy dose of serotonin.

In my culture, romance has so much to do with the desire to possess, and that is why I have such a negative reaction.   When people are in a romantic relationship or want to be, it has more to do with themselves and their security than with one another.    Romance is heavily fueled by wanting the assurance of the other being present, always.  The other is of significance only to the degree that they can be possessed.

The cultural representation of romance is dripping with expressions of ‘one and only’, ‘together forever,’ ‘happy ever after.’  All notions of desired stability and possession rather than open-hearted awareness.

Romance usually has the connotation of a sexual relationship.    If people say they have a romantic relationship, it is customary code to signal that they are being sexual with one another.    Romance often has a goal and expression of sharing sexual pleasures with one another.

The two notions of romance and sexual activity have gotten so aligned with one another that some of their attributes are shared.    ‘One and only’ is often part of romance, just as it is typically an expectation when people share sexual pleasures. The goal has the attribute of permanence or at least lasting a very long time.

Both romance and sharing pleasures are typically expected to get memorialized in marriage.   ‘Happy ever after’ is often the pictured outcome of romance.   People ask, “So when are you getting married?”

I don’t think that a close friendship is any less loving or dynamic than a romantic relationship.  In fact, in some ways it is more wholesome.   With a close friendship, it is more evident that the aim is not to possess, contain or restrict.   Basically, it lacks some of the negative attributes I see in romance.

I do not seek to lock anyone or be locked  in a one-on-one relationship, and so I don’t see a romantic relationship in my future.    I want my close friends to know that their freedom and singularity remain intact.   There is no illusion that we will ever be ‘one.’   Unlike a typical romance, there is no implication that they will ultimately be just like me.   There is little value in our being or becoming alike.

I do not want to possess or be possessed by anyone.   I suppose I am giving up the mythological notion of stability and accepting the uncertainty of relationships.    I am both interested in and intertwined in deep, loving relationships.   Each is unique and none of them has the notion that we are or might ever be a couple.

I do not want to be coupled.   I want a community of companions who are willing to walk closely beside me but have their own independent lives.    We might share many things together, even the pleasures of closeness, but as clearly separate individuals.

The irony of this is that I am actually ‘a romantic’ in a certain sense of the term.    I am simply not one who craves romantic relationships, in spite of their occasional attractiveness.     I want my friendships to be based on reality, what is here and now.

I am aware that even my being a romantic can have kind of a dreamy, ethereal  aspect.   I know that is part of me, a product of my imagination, and I can easily go to that place.    However, I want my friendships to be grounded in what is real and not in floating loosely in what my imagination creates.   I am choosing against romance.

 

 

 

 

 

I will no longer give myself to anything that does not cause me joy.   I choose joy above all else, and that is more than enough.    My heart is open and alert, ready to encircle whatever or whoever presents.    That act of embracing will give me the greatest joy.

I have been taught this simple act of joy by my garden.    My garden asks only that I give it gestures of care and affection, not that I labor and work.   I try in return not to work in my garden, but only do gardening to the extent that it gives me pleasure and joy.    I stop my efforts in my garden when I no longer have the stamina or interest to generate joy.

I am not sure what has changed, my garden or me.    I know that we have come to an understanding and acceptance that mutual pleasure is most important in how we come together.

The same is true of people.    I only allow myself to do what gives me joy.    I try to avoid interaction that is a burden and only seek connections that produce joy.    Hopefully, the joy that results is mutual.

This has become my habit only because of the change in me.    My heart has found a more joy-filled way to welcome engagement.   Even encounter with people, plants and rocks is becoming a moment of open embrace.   I choose the path of joy and it willingly finds me.   I embrace who and what presents, and I am embraced.

It is a relatively simple way to live, even though it has taken me many years to find it.    All I need to do is observe who or what is before me.    When I relax and unfold the portals of my heart, so does the world before me.     Men and women become my brothers and sisters, trees become my welcome companions, rocks become the supporting elements of my stalwart world .   We meet in an explosion of joy.

Even what might seem unpleasant or a burden slowly unfolds to be a new source of joy.    There is some element of humor and surprise in things that would otherwise disturb.    There are times I can find that opening into the presence of the unpleasant and even the absurd becomes a miracle of joy.

Perhaps everything is best experienced as ambiguous, uncertain and unpredictable.     For me, that means that all things, everyone, has an element that can produce joy.    If allowed to find it, my heart will naturally embrace that element of joy.