3/23/14—Putting Trust in the Walrus

I came across this photo of a walrus laying on top of a submarine hatch today and I have to say, I can identify. With the sailors, that is. Though there are times I also identify with the walrus. :)

The past couple of weeks have been a loud blend of blessing and curse. Where one stressor has been relieved, another has swooped in to take its place. Where progress is being made, obstacles fly in to even the score. And it's not happening in just one area of my life, but in multiple areas. 

It feels like I was finally getting things shored up on top of my submarine and some walrus comes along to sit on the hatch. When do you get to get to crawl inside this thing you've been working on and enjoy the ride? When do you get to take a step forward without taking two steps back?

Of course, I'm being over-dramatic. None of what's going on in my life is insurmountable. And when it comes down to brass tacks, I lead a pretty blessed life. But there are a few "best practices" I'm trying to get off the ground, like budgeting more and spending less, and exercising more and eating less. But then I find ways to cut my spending each month, only to have a dog tear up the lawn furniture. Or to get in a car and it won't start. It's frustrating. 

Things like spending less and eating less are areas where I have internal blocks I need to overcome. So it would be nice to have some affirmation from the universe. But I think at some point or another, the universe asks us to affirm ourselves. It's sticky wicket, though. Because are you encountering obstacles so you will persevere? Or are you encountering them because you're moving in the wrong direction? Only time will tell. 

If there's one thing I've learned along the way, it's that sometimes there's a big storm before the calm. And often when my mind gets overloaded and out of focus, it's right before a big leap forward. 

We all have moments where we just have to move forward on faith. The walrus on our hatch is definitely there for a reason. And, barring information otherwise, we have to assume he's there because there are things about these waters only he can show us, whether that involves dangers we may not see or a faster way home. 

3/20/2014—Being Born Again and Again

This post is special. It's part of a blog hop, where you travel from blog to blog to read diverse ideas on an assigned topic. This blog hop celebrates Ostara, the coming of spring and Easter. The topic is resurrection and rebirth. Use the links below to navigate the posts in the hop. 

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This week, this blog has addressed the stories we tell ourselves about our lives. The topic came up as I recalled an epic canoe trip I took with my dad when I was a girl. Until I recalled that trip, I had always told myself the story that I never had a special connection or memory with my father that was just between me and him. Thinking this was a sad thought. It was also untrue. 

As I look back on my life, I can see a lot of similar unfounded stories I've told myself. Because I grew up overweight, I never had the endurance for sports. So I developed a story that I wasn't good at sports. Many years later I started exercising and lost weight. Then I discovered that I totally have "the eye of the tiger". I compete against myself quite effectively, physically speaking. I found I was good at a lot of physical challenges I had told myself I couldn't do and would even go so far as to say I excelled at power walking—my long stride, focused mind, competitive spirit and newfound endurance fueling the fire. 

Writing this, trying to think of the stories I've bought into, most of them are really sad and pathetic...the kinds of things that undermine confidence and keep me "small". Today's blog isn't about feeling sorry for myself, though, so I won't share those. But I mention them because somewhere in the dark corners of your mind, you probably have similar stories. Whether they were told to you through the thoughtless comments of parents, siblings and teachers, ingrained in you by societal boundaries or produced yourself to explain or assuage places where you might have fallen short at one time or another, chances are good they're simply not true. 

Here's an easy one to tell. I hate peas. I find them disgusting. And if you serve me peas in something, I will go to great lengths to pick them out. When was the last time I ate a pea? Well, maybe 45 years ago. So there's this story I tell myself about peas that may not even be true. What's true is that I love split pea soup. And even now as I think of buttery, salty, mushy peas, I'm thinking they're not all that bad. But I have this story that keeps me from ever finding out for sure. 

The unfounded stories and "lies" we tell ourselves are not absolute. What was true at five isn't necessarily true at 51. And we can just as easily continue stories about things we like or do well long past their expiration date, as we can stories about what we don't like or can't do. 

And what does all of this have to do with Jesus rising from the dead? In every moment of every day of every year of our life, we have an opportunity to be reborn. Somewhere along the line, the atheist inside me died and was reborn as a very spiritual person. The self-conscious, woman was reborn as confident. The fat girl was reborn as a hottie. Then the hottie was reborn as fat again...haha. But none of this is absolute. 

Our stories often exist only to limit us. And sure, we all have limitations. But our limitations aren't nearly as broad as we make them out to be. Just because we're getting older doesn't mean we have to turn into our mothers. Just because we have a physical or mental handicap doesn't mean we can't be agile. And just because we're not good at something doesn't mean we can't pursue it as a hobby or even a career. Those things are stories. Most of the REAL limitations we have are things we don't even care about. Like I will never play for the NFL. Cry me a river. 

Other things, when you really look at them, just aren't true. Like I might tell myself I'll never have children (in reality, I actually don't want children, so this is a hypothetical) but that wouldn't be true. I could adopt. I could end up in a relationship with someone with children. A child might land on my doorstep from some unforeseen source (hey, it happened with Moses, right?). And as my recent female-cycle-that-shouldn't-have-happened-because-I thought-I-was-in-menopause proves, I may very well still have eggs left. God forbid. 

So rebirth isn't just a story you read about in ancient texts. When I think back over my life, I don't even recognize the woman I was at 20...30...40. I feel like I've been reborn, reinterpreted and resurrected countless times in my life. And while we're on the topic of Jesus, being "born again" isn't just for Christians. It's for everyone. And doing so is not "difficult", unless that's the story you're telling yourself. It's just an intention away. 

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3/18/14—Becoming What You Might Have Been

First, I want to alert everyone that at 1pm Eastern on Thursday, I'll be making a post as part of a Blog Hop here. We've done this before. If you view the post from my blog, you'll have access to dozens of other blogs, all writing on the topic of resurrection and rebirth for Ostara or Easter. 

Next, I've been doing a lot of thinking since Monday's post about the stories we tell ourselves. Unfortunately, I don't have time to write them up because of work. So here's a classic post from 1/7/12 that expands on the conversation. 

The quote on today's image is from George Eliot—"It's never too late to be what you might have become." And who better than Mary Anne Evans (aka George Eliot) to deliver that message? She wrote some of the Victorian age's most popular novels—Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner and Middlemarch—under a male name to ensure her work was taken seriously...to ensure that she would be what she might have become had she not been subject to stereotype about the kind of literature a woman could create. 

I was lucky to grow up with a mother with a successful "man's" career. Her generation was really the first to take the risks of entering a man's world and it forged new possibilities for women. She never allowed the fact that she was a woman to limit her career, but she *was* limited by the fact that she was the mother of six kids and the wife of a high-ranking officer...a wife that's expected to entertain and lead "the ladies". Put it all together, though, and she totally worked her overall potential...successful career, marriage and family. That's rarely truly achieved today, much less in the '60s and '70s. 

So I grew up believing there really were no limitations based on the fact that I was a woman. But in other areas of my life, my parents and my environment offered clues that there were some dreams that just weren't in the cards for me. And just as I bought into knowing that being a woman wouldn't limit me, I unfortunately bought into believing that there were other aspects of who I was that would. 

I think if you poke around enough, you'll find this is the story of every person reading this blog. Maybe you were too short to be taken seriously. Too pretty to be appreciated for your brains. Too opinionated to play the role of a mediator. Too independent to work for the government. Too poor to get out of the 'hood. Or may just not "good enough" at something to be a success at it. 

I doubt any parent or teacher or sibling or other influential person meant to limit you in that way. But before you got a chance to really even explore your options for yourself, someone or some situation came around to tell you who you were and who you weren't. What you were suited for and what you weren't. They may not have even said it to your face, but you knew it was there. Concern over your grades. Worries about how you never had any friends. Fears about you being too wild. And this became part of your story for however long. 

Childhood psychology and modern thought indicate that the things that happen in your life prior to the age of 8 or 10 pretty much shape everything thereafter. So, for example, the loss of a parent at four might have far more wide-reaching effects on who you are than the loss of a parent at the age 13. Both are tragic and pack impact, but your ability to process the impact in healthier ways grows as you do. 

So these things that happen during those impressionable years have a tendency to stick. And, having lived with those beliefs for decades, we may not ever question them. They become part of our truth...part of our story. We end up believing them as if we'd tried and failed and it were all true. But we really need to take stock at some point and question them, because chances are those beliefs and limitations are a reflection of someone else's fears about us than actual facts. For every limitation out there, there's someone out there, like George Eliot, who bucked it. 

Certainly Oprah heard many times that her weight would keep her from succeeding...or her poor upbringing would keep her from being accepted by a certain part of society. She even tells a story about how her grandmother taught her to scrub floors in preparation for her life as a black woman in American society. I'm sure Oprah's not devoid of false limitations, but she completely defied the most obvious ones. Because she got that they weren't about her. They were about everyone else's fears and limitations.  

So think about the things that are holding you back, whether they're physical, psychological, social, societal, financial or whatever. And really try to trace that belief back to its origins. Is it true? If it was true then, is it true today? And think also about "what you might have been" if it weren't something deemed silly or impractical or impossible at one time in your life. You may find that false beliefs based on someone else's life view could be holding you back from what you might have been. And, like George/Mary Anne says, it's never too late to right that wrong. 

3/16/14—Rewriting Our Story

I was watching Shark Tank the other night—a show where entrepreneurs try to get millionaires to partner with them on a business—and there was a little girl on with her dad. She was six years old and, with her dad, invented a paint-on bandage in colors...skin tones and colorful colors. Personally, I thought it was brilliant. The sharks didn't buy into it, though. 

As I watched them walk away from the sharks after their pitch, I thought how wonderful it was that her dad took her seriously and believed in her so much. I thought, "what an epic adventure that they'll both always have." I cried because it was beautiful. Then that cry turned into crying for myself because I had nothing like that with my dad. 

The second I had that last thought, however, it was as if someone in the heavens said "wait just one second, missy." Then the canoe trip replayed in my mind. The canoe trip was epic. And it was something just me and my dad shared. 

We didn't set out to have an epic canoe trip that day. My parents were visiting a friend with a house on the Shenandoah River. I was maybe 12...too young to stay at home over night by myself, even with my older siblings around. So I think it was just the three of us on that trip. 

We put in up-river, up above the rapids. The put-in spot was maybe a 4-7 mile car drive from the friend's house, so we counted on a 2 or 3 hour trip. My mom got in the canoe first. My dad had lectured us on the proper way to get into a canoe. So she climbed in carefully while he steadied the boat, then she got herself all adjusted...her big straw hat carefully tied beneath her chin, her book at her side and her hands folded on her lap. Then I got in the canoe and took my seat. Then my dad got in the canoe and toppled all of us into the river. 

My mom stood up without a word, dripping as she moved toward shore. She quietly walked back to the car and drove away. Without saying a WORD...haha. That left just me and my dad. I certainly hadn't planned on being stuck with my dad all day, nor had he planned on being stuck with me. See, my dad, who was such a charming person to strangers, had two modes of conversation with his kids. Either complete silence because he was off in some world you weren't invited into. Or, when he was stressed, terse and brusque. I can't recall ever having many actual conversations with my father. 

So with my only hope now driving off in the station wagon, my father told me to get back into the canoe, which I did. The first hour or so of the trip was fine. Lazy paddling on calm waters. Then we came to a dam, at which point we got out of the canoe and had to carry the heavy thing all the way around the dam. On the other side of the dam, I was told to get in the canoe as fast as possible because water moccasins were headed right toward me. This, of course, terrified me. And thus the scene was set for phase two of the adventure...the rapids. 

Well, nobody prepared me for this. I was in flip flops and shorts, which meant I couldn't get out of the canoe from that point forward because of the sharp rocks. And, as it turns out, 5 miles by car can be 25 miles by river, depending on the river. Any food or water we had went down when my mom got dumped. And, on top of all of that, I was in charge of steering through the rapids. My dad would call out "shoot right" or "shoot left" and I would comply. But it's a well-known fact that my father, who was a navigator in the Air Force, didn't know his right from his left. So I would inevitably do it wrong. This just upped the stress level and, as I said before, he got pissy when he was stressed. 

So hours of intense rapids go by and the sun starts getting lower in the sky and it's clear we're hopelessly lost. My dad kept saying "I'll know when we're a mile or two away because there will be a general store on the right bank." By now we've been on the river 6 hours...twice the amount of time he said we'd be gone. It was clear to me that he finally realized we'd bitten off more than we could chew. And even though I kept asking him to pull over and call for help, we soldiered on. By this time, though, he finally noticed he had a terrified young girl in the canoe that he'd been barking at the entire trip and she was on the verge of a breakdown. So as the sun and all hope began to disappear, he got calmer and kinder. He realized he had to put his shit aside and be strong for me.

We started our trip at noon. And we finally saw the general store at 8pm. By 9:30, as the last sliver of light left the summer sky, we reached our destination. 

So, as it turns out, I did have an epic experience with my father, one none of my other siblings would ever come close to duplicating. It's a fair bet I'll never do 25 miles of white water canoeing again in my life, so I can now say I've done that. And while neither of us ever would have volunteered to do it alone together, we survived it. And while he never said it, he had to have felt proud (or something) of me because I didn't cry and I gutted it out. I imagine, as a father, he had to swallow hard because he brought a young girl out ill-prepared for the conditions. He miscalculated. He put both of us in danger. He knew it. I knew it. And we never spoke of it. In the end, all we suffered was hunger and sunburn. 

The point of this rather long story is that we have things we tell ourselves that just aren't true. We have stories we make up. As I was watching Shark Tank and crying over the adventure I never had with my father, I was lying to myself. Sure, my adventure was a nightmare...haha. But it was something we survived together. It was a connection. And I saw that my father was fallible. I saw him vulnerable. I saw him, for the only time in my life, having no answer at all...not even a wrong one. I think I saw him scared. A veteran of three wars. A two-star general. Scared and over his head in a situation he couldn't control. 

Anyway, back to the point, we have tales of victimhood and woe we tell ourselves and many times they just aren't true. Byron Katie has a series of four questions we should ask ourselves for when we're retelling our stories of woe in our head. And the first one is simply, "is it true?" Very simple, yet very powerful. 

If you use that question responsibly, you're likely to find that everything other people did to you was really something you did to yourself. A mean person didn't make you feel bad about yourself, for example. They didn't tie you down and attach electrodes to you, refusing to let you go until they had scientific proof that you now felt bad about yourself. No. They said something and you chose to feel bad about yourself because of it. 

The same is true for so much of what we mourn in our lives. They're stories that we tell ourselves, but they're not true. Often they're just about us not taking responsibility for our own role or they're about us failing to see the gift hidden within. And while many of us might not have gotten what we wish we would have from loved ones, that's not an excuse for why we haven't given it to ourselves. It's also not an excuse for why we withhold it from others. I would venture to say that many, if not all of my own hard luck stories, aren't entirely true. 

Here are Katie's four questions: 
1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely KNOW it's true?
3. How do you react when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without that thought?

Even as I told the story above, you can see beneath it a belief that I wasn't quite loved by my father. But also in the story, you see that's not true. We could have all left with my mother, but he wanted to continue on with me. He was actually open to being told he didn't know his right from his left...haha...so there was some openness there. And when he finally awoke to how scared I was, he softened. I was his little girl. And we shared something that I'm not sure if my other siblings ever got to see...his weakness, his vulnerability, his humanity. Even remembering this trip when I did felt like a message from the other side  letting me know he loved me. 

And yet for question #3...it's soul wrenching to believe your dad doesn't love you. I would be a different person today if I hadn't held that thought for so much of my life. And at the crux of it all, it just wasn't true. He never said he didn't love me. He never cast me aside. He never rejected me. He just wasn't the warm, affirming father I wished I had. And that's not really his fault now, is it? He met all his own expectations of what a father should be—strong and a provider. That he didn't meet mine begins with my own expectations, includes the fact that I never told him what I needed, and ends with what he was capable of based on what he was given to work with from his parents. He did as much as he knew to do. 

So what story have you been telling yourself? How has it affected your life? And who's fault is it that you chose to tell the story the way you have all these years? How would you be different had you chosen another, more accurate story? Allowing our stories to define who we are when they are, in the end, just stories, is as dangerous and venomous to our happiness as a river full of water moccasins. Best to rewrite the story and just paddle away. 

3/14/14—Making Quiche

The perfect quiche? Getting there. 

One of the things I rarely mention in these posts is that I like to cook. I might only cook once, maybe twice, a week. But I do enjoy it. And since I'm all about the cooking from scratch, I put a lot of thought and planning into it so I'm fully prepared come "go time". 

I'm probably more of a "good cook" than a fabulous or impressive cook. If I have anything to brag about, it's impeccable timing. Everything is ready to serve at the same time. I never gave myself much credit for this until I found out that others have an issue with it. I'm good at multitasking in the kitchen. I get into a zone. 

Anyway, one of the things I like to do is "perfect" dishes. To my own palate, of course. So for, say, six months, most of what I cook will be risotto. Or garlic mashed potatoes. Or brownies. Or chicken marsala. Basically, I cook something over and over again until I'm using the best ingredients, best proportions and best techniques to satisfy my tastebuds. Then I move on to the next thing. 

If you can't tell by the picture I posted, right now it's quiche. Currently I'm just working on the fillings. As it turns out, you can put too much cheese in quiche. That's what I've learned so far. I'd rather eyeball than measure when I cook, which kind of inhibits the perfection process. But really it's all for fun. When I get the nice custardy filling down, I'll start working on perfecting the crusts. Right now I'm ashamed to admit I use a refrigerated Pillsbury crust. 

A month ago. Ugly overcooked crust and too much cheese. 

Cooking the same thing over and over again is not just a Zen process, it also mirrors our spiritual
pursuits—we'll often cook the same issue over and over again until it's cooked right. Sometimes we put in too much cheese. Sometimes we cheat on the crust until we get the filling just right. Sometimes we can't figure out what we did wrong, so we just do whatever. With cooking I'll generally follow a recipe closely the first time and then start improvising. Same with when I'm working through spiritual lessons. I'll try to do it "the right way" (whatever that is) the first time to get a baseline, then I'll tailor to my individual needs. 

When I first made chicken marsala, it was perfect the first time. I didn't have to work hard on that. Some lessons just come to us and some don't. But then again, sometimes you think you're done exploring a recipe and once you get into the groove with it, you find it's still missing something. Then there are the dishes that give us indigestion or are inedible. If I were to keep following that same recipe over and over again thinking it would eventually taste better, I wouldn't be a very effective cook. And then there's the garlic mashed potatoes. I can't honestly claim I ever quite perfected that (though roasted garlic got me the closest to what I wanted). But I doubt anyone else would complain. Sometimes you just have to accept your limitations and let good enough be good enough. 

Outside of "stretch" and "persist", there really aren't any set ingredients—or even a recipe—for spiritual or personal growth. Pushing past your comfort zone (stretching) and continuing to try different ways (persisting) are like the salt and pepper of the spiritual world. They're good in everything. As long as you remain stocked up on those two, pretty much any dish you want to try will be the better for it. 

3/12/14—Gaining Help From Beyond

My boy Kismet was once under the oppressive rule of a rather foreboding alpha dog named Passion. We were all kind of under her rule. Passion was clearly a soul that grudgingly agreed to come down here as a dog in order to teach me how to love unconditionally. And she never let me lose sight of her sacrifice. She spent most of her 10 years of life incredibly bored and trapped inside a slightly broken body. Imagine if you had to come back as a dog. Parts of it would be good, but most of it would bore the crap out of you.

Anyway, knowing this about Passion, I let her choose a companion dog. She chose a terrified and deeply wounded boy that I called Kismet because I kept out of the decision making and trusted the right dog would come to us. Because Passion was big and scary and ridiculously alpha, she was a good match for Kizzie. She could protect him. Also, knowing that Passion was bored and more human than most dogs, I told her we could co-parent.

She was a very strict parent and Kizzie was never allowed to play with toys (bones were OK, but all toys belonged to her.) I would try to buy him toys for Christmas and she would yank them from my hand, never to be seen again. Kizzie didn't seem to mind. After he met Passion and me and was confident he was safe, he became kind of happy-go-lucky...content with pretty much any circumstance as long as he had a full belly and his girls at his side.

All of this is setting up an odd phenomenon that happens around the house. Often over the past few years, I'll glance over at Kizzie on his bed and he'll be surrounded by stuffed toys. Now, I've only ever once seen Kizzie with a toy in his mouth and that was the day we met him. So I don't think he's carrying them into his bed. I suppose it might be logical to assume his sisters deposit them there after play and that's how they get there. I don't pay that close attention, so again, it's not something I've seen. But that's just as well, because there's another explanation I kind of fancy.

Passion, Kizzie's other mother.

See, Kizzie sees dead people. He's got a lot of mystical/healing energy to him. Often when I meditate, he'll come over and sit at my feet and "watch" my body while I'm gone. I have a painting of Passion on my living room wall and I can't tell you how many times I've seen him just sit and stare at that painting, transfixed. Plus, he seems to "see" something sitting on the sofa and won't jump up for a snuggle until I prove it's gone.

I think Passion visits. And I think she is surrounding him in toys!

Sometimes when people die, they'll hang around or come back to help right some of the wrongs they did on earth. It's like a last-chance extra credit move. They get up there and see clearly, for the first time, the error of their ways and they set about righting it as well as they can, assuming they don't want to repeat the lesson again. 

My father did this with me. Years after he died, he helped me buy this house through a series of interactions he had with me. I think he even pulled some strings in the afterlife, because someone else's contract got accepted first. When that happened, I heard him say "10 days" in my ear. Ten days later, that contract fell through and the house was mine. I'll have to tell the whole story one day, because there were so many signs and "coincidences" surrounding the purchase of this house.

He did it to make up for some of the ways he treated me unfairly in life...unfairly in comparison to all my other siblings. None of us "deserved" his help as an adult and all of us got more help than most kids. But there was a pattern of me being given less privilege than my siblings. I never knew why, but suspect it was because I chose something other than marriage or the military for my life. In his eyes, those were the only acceptable options for girls and I had the audacity to make a man's choice...to do whatever I pleased with my life. Build a career. Stay single. Have dogs instead of children. 

Mommy's toy boy. 

That said, my life was more privileged than most, so I'm not complaining. Just explaining. I think he got up there and saw the pain it caused me to be treated differently and how hard I worked at building my "alternative" life. So he helped me find the perfect house and made sure I got it, despite the competition. This isn't something I just suspect. It's something I know because the "coincidences" were just too much to be coincidences. 

And so I wonder if Passion is doing the same thing for her Kizzie boy....surrounding him in all the toys he never got to play with when he was young. That's how I like to think of it. I also like to think she helped him find the confidence to be more leaderly once she was gone. And I think she also helped us find Magick Moonbeam to inject a more lighthearted tone into our lives. I think our loved ones who have passed over help us out much more than we'll ever know. 

All this begs the question as to whether you've ever had someone help you from beyond the grave? But it should also make us think about what we might discover about ourselves and the way we treat those we love while we're alive. My father stayed behind a long time to help sort things out before he could move on. While we work at our growth to help us evolve in the next incarnation, we might also consider letting down some of our defenses and walls to leave without regrets and help us move forward more readily in the time between lives. 

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.