3/10/2014—Finding Unconditional Love

Today's post is the first of a series of posts from guest writers. Today's guest writers work under the pen names Sparky and Goddess and they write about love. The first part is written by Goddess and the second part by Sparky. I'm off for my birthday, but will be back with Wednesday's post. :)

the Sparky and Goddess Chronicles

On Unconditional Love
Contributing writers:  Sparky and Goddess







Goddess

    he spoke gently and with a soft love in his gaze, giving her a raw and honest description of the “other” love, that other connection, his other relationship was bringing him.   ...of how he honored that other relationship and why.  what value that particular stream of love had brought to his life and his personal evolution, even now as they sat talking.  he, sitting in a visible cloud of integrity...authenticity embedded in the sounds of his words.  Sparky and Goddess had spoken long and often about what a truly evolved life could look like, for each of them and for the world.  they’d reflected on the rewards of opening the door to lives of expanded consciousness, letting go of imposed beliefs that were now outdated in the currently emerging paradigm of a conscious state of evolution, on just being, allowing, with fewer limitations.  they had whispered words to each other on what the fruits of genuine authenticity could actually bring to a love relationship.  they had sought a universal perspective on love in their lives individually, and now together.

    and hours later it hit her as she drove along under the new moon that night, feeling a great warmth emanating out from her heart, that in the witnessing of that other stream of love in Sparky’s life, she was actually receiving that love as well—that she was feeling it even in this moment, experiencing it quite profoundly in her own being.  this pure warmth that felt so right, so real, so purposeful to her life and also to life itself. Goddess realized it would be her who would be shutting the door to love in her life if she turned away from Sparky now, because she was about to shut the door on that love——that other love of Sparky’s that was seemingly outside of her life, seemingly threatening somehow to her own connection with this man that she was feeling a profound and elevated love with as well.

    and then at some level, Goddess found a knowing that love is love.



     and whether that other stream of love coming to Sparky was admiration or lust or friendship or even co-dependency didn’t actually matter at all, because what our egos don’t want to face is that every kind of love is valuable in every kind of way with every kind of person as we all evolve along together in this world.  All of it is purposeful in the end. and shutting the door to witnessing that other love would subtly but profoundly shut the door to love in her own life at some point, in some way, even right now.  she wondered why the cultural norm demanded that others deny love in their lives in the first place?  saying no to love, wherever it shows up, is saying no to love.  as Goddess looked into the energy of this situation through her familiar lens of conscious evolution, she felt an emerging clarity that we really are all in this together.

   there is only one of us here...

    and then Goddess understood that she didn’t need to say no to Sparky. she didn’t need to walk away.  she didn’t want to venture further into the smokescreen of a confined and pre-defined future - into the nebulous clouds of old, limited reacting—..and then acting out.  she didn’t want to be stuck eternally in a maze of egoic aggrandizement, careening down a path of narcissism cloaked in the veil of the status quo “true love.”



     she had a transcendental realization that opening the door now to an expanded experience would allow her to embody that feeling too ~ the one that Sparky was offering to give to her, to share with her—.and that she could then give to him, and share with him.   and by letting that in, and allowing it fully, her love with him could be even greater than she had ever imagined because she would not be putting limitations on the breadth and depth and scope of what is possible to feel.   if he can feel that, he can teach her that, and they could share that, and they could have that and grow in that and live that. And she wanted that with him.

     she got that Sparky was growing in his own personal evolution from his experience.  and because of her connection with him of an unspoken, ancient understanding and ease, she could steep in his words and feelings with a true trust that allowed her to feel even more deeply into the authenticity of his experience with the other.  she reveled in the quality of that feeling and her allowing of this frequency for herself opened up new spaces within her.  and Goddess knew that it was because it was him that she was able to process the richness of the learning and the allowing available for her, for them both, here.  she would not choose limitation, she would choose expansion.  she recognized a priceless gift in this new relationship.

    Goddess felt a great swell of love for him and she knew that no matter what, she wanted him to have that experience.  she felt that he deserved it, and she knew that this man of true integrity would hold his precious experience and cherish it and it would become a part of his character moving forward in his life with herself.  she could learn from him about unconditionality...in ways that she had never before encountered in her life.  and she could open. and experience. love. in ways that she could not without him. she trusted this aspect of the universe that was available for all who would take themselves to that edge.  she knew that this level of realization was beyond denial, delusion or desperation. she viscerally felt the overpowering freedom of true flow, without resistance, of unconditionality.  unconditional love.  for him.  for herself.  for all.  and she wanted him as well as herself to have that——anywhere, everywhere.





    Goddess understood too, from a lifetime of seeking the universal perspective that if she took the judgement off of love in her own life, took the societal rules off, took off the fear and the ego and the need to protect that which doesn’t need to be protected, that this experience would be stored in that great database in the sky and would then be available for all the others——those who were afraid—those who were stuck in the frozen beliefs of days gone by.



    she got it too, that she was having this experience of realization only because others had had it before her——those who came before her from countless millennia back in time.   their tears shed, their courage mustered, their inspired visions made it possible for her to step into the realms of authentic trust, true acceptance and unconditional love right now, with Sparky.

     so Goddess stepped forward with her face to the sky, feeling gratitude for the capacity of the universe and all it allows us, and all it provides for us to allow in return.

     and then she flung that door wide open—

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




Sparky



“They say love conquers all

You can’t start it like a car

You can’t stop it with a gun”

Warren Zevon – Searching For a Heart



Sparky sat down to reflect on the ambiguities around the concept of unconditional love. Such was the ambiguity that seemed to be at the heart of the concern that had arisen from Goddess.  He wondered if it really was about unconditional love or about forming some conditions around the unconditional love within their love relationship?  Either way, he was grateful to have found a direction that pointed towards the rub.  It could now become a portal, a way into beginning the discussion and the processing around this amazing, newly forming relationship.

Sparky knew it to be a trick of the ego, this identifying a “problem”, but then he’d always had to do so before he could really dive into anything new.  Just as he’d had to see a “problem” before accepting the spiritual path.  His experience with life had to feel very unsatisfactory indeed and he had to see it as a problem, for a spiritual path to arise and to be recognized as a way.  Without some form to push against, no imperative would arise from which one could work through— it was all just too perfect without a problem.  Sort of like heaven, he imagined.  Sparky had concluded that, in the world of form, we’ve gotta create a little hell to do much of anything.



First, there was the concept of unconditional love.  He had decided that the very term was a redundancy.  Sparky didn’t think that love was ever burdened by conditions at all.  Conditions are what people place around love, for many reasons but he imagined that protection from hurting and from being hurt were chief among them.  Only love doesn’t hurt people, people hurt people.  Egos place conditions on love and then say, “Wow, this is hard— Love hurts.”  He decided, it’s kinda like blaming your feet for the blisters rubbed by bad-fitting shoes.  Love doesn’t hurt.  It’s not a thing, after all, but a non-thing: a force, more like weather.  Our forms hurt; boundaries bruise, conditions break, containers shatter.  He knew  first hand, that love forms the forms we place around it.  Love shapes with gentle, caressing breezes and also blows a hole like a cyclone bursting through a brick wall.  Sparky smiled at his own failed, tragic-comedic attempts to harness and use love for some purpose he’d felt was important.  Usually he was trying to protect someone, until he realized that protecting always morphed into covering and distorting that which he’d sought to preserve.  He realized that in the inner world of thoughts, feelings and experiences - to consciously offer space is to honor love, and whom you love, the best.    



He remembered some words from Hafiz, who wrote, “I am a hole in the flute through which the Christ moves through— Listen to this music.” Love is like the Christ part in that, he thought.  It creates the music through the space which we allow.  The smaller the hole, the shriller the sound.  Sparky could say he didn’t really know what love was but he’d learned that the greater the space, the better the sound.

He’d learned this too from someone that he’d fallen in love with nearly a year before he’d met Goddess.  She had opened him up to a deeper experience with love, which had truly changed him and also left him wanting more love in his life.  They had a rich, dramatic and fulfilling romance, in which both had expanded, deepened and even evolved.   And though their life circumstances would not permit them to be together as a couple, they had maintained a deep and loving friendship together.   It had been difficult to keep this as a friendship in the wake of their intense romance, but they continued to love and to support one another and to hold each other dear.  And still, the space for love remained in him.

In some way, allowing that space to be as it was, was what had led Sparky to Goddess.  He knew that Goddess too had held space for a greater love relationship in her life.  And, Goddess could feel the love he held for his former lover.  She felt the richness, the depth and the life of it.  And Sparky affirmed it.  So now, as often occurs upon the threshold of real change, of growth and new possibilities – a barrier was flung into their path.  The barrier, it seemed to Sparky, was the love that he still held for his dear friend and that somehow to honor the love that was rushing through he and Goddess, he was needed to limit or deny that love that had awakened him, championed him and brought him to Goddess even now.  But if open, untamed, unconditional love had carried both Sparky and Goddess this far, it didn’t feel appropriate to declare, “That’s enough unconditionality, no more space, no more flow!   Now, I have a better idea—”  He felt that they wouldn’t improve their experience of love by limiting the way for love, or by changing or denying its flow.



And then it hit him, as a parable, through the wise and cautious words, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s—”  Do with yourself for love as love has done unto you.  Learn about love from love, not from other’s expectations or well intended advice.  

And as he sat with this, details of agreements and conditions melted away.  Presence emerged and clarity came with it.  He did not need to stake a position upon which some conditions resided, other than to not cling to conditions at all.  He didn’t have to choose a side, or present and defend one because another way was shown.  An impeccable imperative had emerged from the clearing; offer the space for love unto the love relationship, which will be the container that he and Goddess could create together.  Goddess, as a vessel of love, must feel her way to the music that is right for her.  As would his cherished friend.  As would he.  All could stand in their own power.  No one here needs protecting.  The impeccable imperative showed him the way: resist nothing, cover nothing, allow everything for love.


And so he offered to Goddess, for her too, to seek and to hold herself open to love in all the ways that it may be held and however it may yet come to arise in her.  He realized that is what he had offered his former lover, and she had offered that to him as well.  And that had brought him here.  And with that, he felt such gratitude for allowing love, which is unconditional itself, to flow and to enrich each life it touches; to honor, deepen and change everything we hold, to bless this wondrous and new relationship, to do all that, and more... All that without conditions.