This is the first installment of a story about cosmic LOVE and human love.  Like many mystical or mythical stories, its truth is found not so much in the precision of factual matters – though many facts support this story – but more in how it touches our hearts and guides our lives. 

A LOVE Story: The Prologue

         Once upon a time, in the very beginning before there was time, there was NO-THING, a sacred silence, a profound-intelligent-creative emptiness, a fertile void.  Physicists refer to a singularity.  Religions speak of GOD or the TAO.

         From this fertile emptiness, there flared forth a great blossoming.  NO-THING exploded into LOVE, a hot dance of birth and death and re-birth.  LOVE, gradually cooling at precisely the right rate, unfolded and expanded into all that is this universe - everything we see and everything we don’t see.

         In this story, LOVE is the energy of everything and the essence of everything.  Each galaxy, star, and planet, each rock, each tree, each animal, and each human is an expression of LOVE. 

         LOVE and all its manifestations are imbued with three essential principles or qualities of being: UNIQUENESS, ONENESS, and RELATIONSHIP.  Each everything is totally unique, absolutely one and inescapably in relationship.

         One day, these cosmic qualities decided to reveal their nature.

         UNIQUENESS said, “I am ONENESS in RELATIONSHIP with itself.”

         ONENESS said, “I am the deepest expression of UNIQUENESS in RELATIONSHIP.”

         RELATIONSHIP said, “I am the eternal dance of UNIQUENESS and ONENESS.”

         They defined themselves in terms of each other, as if they were intertwined, as if none existed separately from the others.

         In graduate school, I was taught to mistrust circular definitions.  While my mind gets lost in the circle and struggles to comprehend, at another level it all makes sense to me, since everything in the universe is one big circle anyway. 

         As a psychologist, marital therapist and lifelong student of interpersonal living, I am most interested in the cosmic principle or quality of being called RELATIONSHIP.  RELATIONSHIP is quite the mystery – this never-ending dance of UNIQUENESS and ONENESS. 

         ONENESS says: “You and he/she are one.”  UNIQUENESS says: “You and he/she are two.”  And both of them are telling the truth.

         Since RELATIONSHIP at the cosmic level of being is so mysterious and paradoxical, it’s no surprise that we humans find the doing of relationship so baffling and so challenging.

         Human relationships mirror cosmic RELATIONSHIP.  It’s our attempt to translate being into doing.  We are trying to remember, realize and actualize who we are.  We are RELATIONSHIP, and so we try to the best of our ability to do relationship.  We are LOVE, and so we seek to express love, to do love, to make love.

         Inevitably, we bumble and stumble in our attempts to love well.  As we form our deepest relationships, we are dancing, not only with the cosmic mysteries of UNIQUENESS and ONENESS, but also with the polarities and contradictions of the human heart.  We hunger for the magical experience of ecstatic union, where boundaries and barriers are transcended.  At the same time, we yearn for the freedom and autonomy to develop and celebrate the unique, one-of-a-kind self each of us is.

         Predictably, in this dance, we get out of balance.  In our hunger for oneness, we may forget about uniqueness and push for a merging of identities, confusing sameness for oneness.  Or we can focus in an exaggerated way on uniqueness and individuality, becoming so single-minded in building, protecting and enhancing personal identity that we create isolation and separation.  Of course, we struggle.

         The desire for close connection is built into the fabric of who we are.  Life beckons us to the dance floor of relationship. We yearn to master the dance steps – to find skillful and balanced ways to move with life’s music.  We search…

         Stay tuned for the next installment: A Love Story: The Dance.

         I just arrived home in the wee hours this morning from a wonderfully uplifting trip:  a week in Nepal, a week in Bhutan – populated by some of the gentlest and most gracious people on the planet - followed by an amazing and transformational week of retreat in Southern California, led by Master Chunyi Lin, originator of Spring Forest QiGong.

         We talked briefly during the retreat about an inspiring letter, written by Albert Einstein to his daughter on the subject of love. As I researched a bit more, I discovered that Einstein likely did not author this piece.  Darn.

         However, I still find it beautiful and want to share it with you – one more installment in a series of writings on love.

“Einstein” on Love

         “...There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us.

        This universal force is LOVE.

         When scientists looked for a unified theory of the universe they forgot the most powerful unseen force.

         Love is Light, that enlightens those who give and receive it.

         Love is gravity, because it makes some people feel attracted to others.

         Love is power, because it multiplies the best we have, and allows humanity not to be extinguished in their blind selfishness.

         Love unfolds and reveals.  For love we live and die.  Love is God and God is Love.

         This force explains everything and gives meaning to life. This is the variable that we have ignored for too long, maybe because we are afraid of love because it is the only energy in the universe that man has not learned to drive at will.

         To give visibility to love, I made a simple substitution in my most famous equation.  If instead of E = mc2, we accept that the energy to heal the world can be obtained through love multiplied by the speed of light squared, we arrive at the conclusion that love is the most powerful force there is, because it has no limits.

         After the failure of humanity in the use and control of the other forces of the universe that have turned against us, it is urgent that we nourish ourselves with another kind of energy…

         If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhabits it, love is the one and only answer.

         Perhaps we are not yet ready to make a bomb of love, a device powerful enough to entirely destroy the hate, selfishness and greed that devastate the planet.

         However, each individual carries within them a small but powerful generator of love whose energy is waiting to be released.

         When we learn to give and receive this universal energy, dear Lieserl, we will have affirmed that love conquers all, is able to transcend everything and anything, because love is the quintessence of life.”

         As I let these words digest within me, I’m struck, once again, by the paradoxical nature of love - its incredible power and its exquisite gentleness.  All genuine power is rooted in love.

Teilhard on Love

         Theologian, Louis Savary, and psychologist, Patricia Berne - a married couple – spend much of their professional lives teaching and writing about the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 – 1955) – a paleontologist, cosmologist, theologian, Jesuit priest, and brilliant, original and far-sighted thinker about the evolution of the universe.  I remember there being much excitement about Teilhard when I was a seminary student in the 1960’s. 

         While Teilhard’s thoughts on love permeate his writing, he did not devote a book to the subject, so Louis and Patricia wrote: Teilhard de Chardin on Love.  I’m happy to share some insights from their book, which draws from many resources and organizes Teilhard’s ideas in ways I find accessible.

         According to Teilhard, the evolution of the universe is inherently relational – driven by the energy of love, the most powerful force in the universe.  “Love is the essential nature of God and the best name for God” (p. 6)

         At all levels – molecular, human and cosmic – love energizes attraction, which leads to connection, which leads to greater complexity and individuation, which leads to the evolution of consciousness.  We naturally move toward connection and communion - and that movement frees us to be more fully individual and more deeply conscious. 

         If we hold on too tightly to individuality and ego identity, thus resisting love’s invitation to connection and communion, we tend to focus on knowledge and personal/tribal/national power in a way that can become competitive and isolating - thus blocking evolution’s natural arc.

         Teilhard sees a synergistic relationship between the partners in a relationship and the relational entity itself, which has its own identity and character, distinct from the individual identities of persons in the relationship.  Teilhard named this relational entity -which could be a marriage, a friendship, a family or a team/organization/tribe/nation – the “Third Self.” This Third Self is a whole that is greater and more capable than the sum of its parts.  That greater wholeness is part of the synergy.  The other part is that the Third Self in a loving relationship elicits growth and capability in each partner – far beyond what he/she could achieve alone.  For example, the Third Self we call the Philadelphia Eagles clearly brought out the best in its players during the recent Super Bowl. 

         As I read Savary and Berne’s impressive book, I feel a confirmation of things I’ve felt, thought and taught for some time.  For example, when I used the term “the third” in a recent post, I had not yet encountered Teilhard’s use – and likely coining – of the term.  I’m also encountering, and still digesting, new and deeper insights from Teilhard about our mysterious universe.

         So, here are some conclusions I am comfortable sharing, based on what I’ve read and digested so far.

1.     Love connects.  Love is the energy underlying the inherent interconnectivity of nature.  In Teilhard’s words,  “even among the molecules, love was the building power that worked against entropy, and under its attraction the elements groped their way toward union.” (p. x)

2.   Love liberates.  Relationship frees up our deepest human potentials.  Surrendering to love and connection frees us to be more fully our unique selves.  Individuals in deep relationship “become differentiated.  They discover their own personal emergent properties.” (p.57)

3.   Love is who we are.  “We are, in the most basic sense, the sum of our loves….We are born out of love, we exist in love, and we are created for the fullness of love.”  God is love and that energy is our spark as well.

4.   Love grows everything.  Love is “the core energy of evolving life” (p. xi) and “the driving force of evolution.” (p. xiv)  It grows us.  It grows the planet.  It grows the universe.  So, if we want anything to grow, we need to love it first.

5.   Love is energy.  For Teilhard, love is not about affection or tender feelings.  It is energy - which he and most scientists define as the capacity to do work.  “Love is energy because it is able to accomplish things, make a difference, transform people.” (p. xiv)  Unlike physical forms of energy that tend to wear down, love is a “second species of energy (not electro-thermodynamic but spiritual)” that can continue to grow and expand in its power to transform.  (p. 12)  Love works!

6.   Love matters.  “According to Teilhard, until we human beings begin to master the dynamics of loving, as we have mastered so many other forces of nature…we will not really evolve as a human species.” (p. 12)  How we love shapes the future of the earth – and, in some small yet important way, the evolution of the universe.  “Learning to love is what our human life is all about.” (p. 5)

         Note:  Thanks to my friend, Dan, for his generous gift of Savary and Berne’s book.

         Final note:  For the next few weeks, I’ll be traveling – mostly in Himalayan countries – and likely won’t post again till mid-March.  May the movement of the earth toward equinox be a movement toward balance for all of us.  Abundant blessings!

Ove on Love

         The novel, A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman, is a book about a curmudgeon, and it’s a book about love.  During the last third of the story, I was totally unsuccessful in holding back my tears.

         Love, implicit throughout the novel, is explicitly referenced in only a handful of passages.  Here are two.

         “Loving someone is like moving into a house.  At first you fall in love with all the new things, amazed every morning that all this belongs to you, as if fearing that someone would suddenly come rushing in through the door to explain that a terrible mistake had been made, you weren’t actually supposed to live in a wonderful place like this.  Then over the years the walls become weathered, the wood splinters here and there, and you start to love that house not so much because of all its perfections, but rather for its imperfections.  You get to know all the nooks and crannies.  How to avoid getting the key caught in the lock when it’s cold outside.  Which of the floorboards flex slightly when one steps on them or exactly how to open the wardrobe doors without them creaking.  These are the little secrets that make it your home.”  (pp. 305-6)

         “Love is a strange thing.  It takes you by surprise.” (p. 326)

         Human love is indeed mysterious and tricky to navigate.  We are baffled and awed.  We are ecstatic and woeful.  I think God must have a sense of humor – inviting us, in this clever way, to participate in the expansion of loving universe, while housing us in human structures ideally suited to profound misunderstanding of each other. 

         Our primary love relationships are often our most primitive relationships – and our most important teachers. Awkward, we fumble and stumble, moving forward and backward, knowing and being known.  Eventually/hopefully, we come to appreciate the unique beauty of our individual houses, along with the beauty of the relational dwelling – and, perhaps even, the divine indwelling - we share.

Three Approaches to Relationship

         I’ve been thinking lately about three different ways we can orient ourselves in our important relationships – be they with family members, lovers or close friends. 

         We all want to belong and feel connected.  And we all want the freedom to be ourselves.  At some point in our lives, we’ve all felt the tension between those two desires – as if we had to choose between them.  And, at different points in our lives, we’ve emphasized one over the other – emphasized being connected at the expense of selfhood or emphasized selfhood at the expense of connection. 

         One approach to relationship, I call fusion, emphasizes connection at the expense of selfhood.  It attempts to create closeness in relationship by making two people into one.  There’s a pressure toward same-ness – to think and feel and want the same things.  In full-blown fusion, we dishonor individuality, either one’s own or the other’s, and disregard personal boundaries.   In our efforts for two to become one, we often find ourselves clashing over which one we’re going to become. 

         In the fusion approach, one person’s strength and growth toward wholeness can be experienced as a threat to the relationship.  Individual incompleteness is a glue that holds co-dependent relationships together.  I assume responsibility for your wellbeing and expect you to do the same for me.  Because my welfare is in your hands, I invest my energy in control strategies – controlling you and controlling me.

         Ironically, this approach to relationship, if unchecked, eventually strangles the very closeness it attempts to create.

         Isolation is a second approach to relationship.  Often in our early attempts to establish boundaries or in our response to the experience of fusion where the integrity of the self was dishonored in some way, we create walls to protect ourselves.  Deep connection is experienced as threatening to my personal integrity.  In an effort to be responsible for myself and not be responsible for others, I may find that I’m only responsive to me and have difficulty responding to the need of another.    

         Isolation is a stance of exaggerated independence, in which I strive for total self-sufficiency. My wellbeing depends on not ever being vulnerable, not ever needing anyone, not ever relying on others for anything important.  My walls protect me - not just from the risks of close relationship, but also from embracing parts of me I fear might weaken me.

         The irony of isolation unchecked is that the self I’m trying so hard to enhance and protect eventually shrivels from a lack of the nourishment that only deep connection can bring.

         The third approach to relationship, intimacy, embraces both our need for connection and our need for selfhood.  It doesn’t ask us to choose.  We each have our own individuality and we share who we are with each other.  Boundaries are clear and respected, and we regularly connect - emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually.  We take responsibility for ourselves and we are responsive to each other.  We are present with ourselves and with each other.  We are autonomous, whole persons and we are interdependent.  We are free to ask each other for help and, when asked for help, we are free to say yes or no.

         In intimate relationship, we invest energy in two primary activities - knowing and being known.  Whatever the relational situation, I do my best to listen to you and see you clearly and I do my best to reveal myself to you with honesty and care.  Even in conflict, it’s my job to listen and share, to stay open to what I want and what you want, and to look for win-win possibilities. 

         Intimate relationships – between friends, between lovers, between family members – create an energy in their “between-ness”, a synergy perhaps.  Richard Moss calls this “the third”.  I see the third as a “We” that exists between “I” and “Thou.”  From my spiritual perspective, this “We” is the energy of Love – our contribution to an expanding Universe of Love.

         The math of fusion is 1/2 + 1/2 = 1.  The math of isolation is 1 + 1 = 1 + 1.  The mysterious math of intimacy is 1 + 1 = 3.

         Fusion and isolation are imbalanced approaches to close relationship.  We all experiment with them, as we fumble and stumble in our relational lives.  Hopefully, we don’t get stuck there.  Of course, being human, we still find ourselves, now and then, retreating to one of these imbalanced approaches.

         What helps me re-orient toward intimacy is to realize that, in every moment of relationship, I have a choice.  I can invest in control strategies.  I can invest in self-protection.  Or I can invest in knowing and being known. 

         I know which investment I intend to make.  How about you?

Choose Only Love

         I’m happy and excited to announce that my friend and mentor, Richard Moss, will be coming to central Minnesota this summer for another Deep Work Retreat – this one to focus on love.  It’s titled:  Choose Only Love.

         A gifted teacher and author, internationally respected as a leader in the field of conscious living, Richard listens deeply to his students and to Life, with an exquisite sensitivity and an intuitive grace that guides his teaching directly to the heart of the matter.  I’m regularly astounded by his insight and wisdom.  For me, experiencing Richard in a small-group retreat setting is like having Yo-Yo Ma playing cello in your living room.

         Here’s what Richard wrote recently in anticipation of our gathering:

         “In the present moment, in our bodies and hearts, we all understand love.  It is that which we desire most: to feel, to give, and to receive.  And though few really experience this, love wants us just as much as we want it.

“In this gathering we will explore love as a path and as a Pole Star – an essential reference by which to navigate every moment of life.  We will see how new discoveries in neuroscience help to explain our mental and behavioral confusion about love and how these same discoveries confirm the wisdom and practical value of the long tradition of spiritual practices that open our minds and hearts to love.”

         The retreat starts on Thursday, June 28, at dinnertime, and ends after lunch on July 1.  I invite you to reserve this time on your calendar for what promises to be a truly transformational experience.

         To learn more about this event or to register, please go to Richard’s website:  www.richardmoss.com  Scroll down and click on Deep Work “Choose only Love.”  (Look for a picture of a couple of blue butterflies facing each other.) 

         Scholarships are available to reduce the cost for those who might need some help in order to come.

         For additional questions or for help in navigating the process, please email Roseanna Ross at: rgross@stcloudstate.edu   or contact me through this website.

         Thank you!  I know this is a departure from my usual postings.  Because this opportunity is so close to my heart, I decided to take this space to tell you about it. 

         In the next couple weeks, I plan to share more thoughts on love.  Meanwhile, please trust the being of love that you are!

Trust Love

         For most of my life I’ve been a student of love, seeking to understand its mysteries and taste its sweetness.  I’ve searched for love and found it elusive.  So, I searched some more.

         I imagine the universe smiling gently at us humans searching and searching for what already surrounds us and is always within us - smiling gently at our apparent blindness to our lovability and love-ability - gently inviting us to search less and find more.

         I’ve come to believe that the search for love signals a mistrust of love.  In our yearning to experience love, we try to control it.  When we search for love in this fashion, we closely watch the other, focusing on how he/she orients toward us.  This expectant focus creates pressure in a relationship - a subtle force-field that impedes the free-flow of love.  We view love as a scarce commodity – and this scarcity belief becomes self-fulfilling.  The search for love begins with mistrust and ends with mistrust confirmed.

         A friend recently wrote: “Look in the mirror and love all that you see.”  More clearly than ever before, life teaches me that it is my job to love me – my job to see the love that is within me and all around me – and, eventually, to realize that love is who I am.  To quote my mentor, Richard Moss:  “You are, already, that which you seek.” 

         As I soften to love and relax into its unavoidability, love from all sources outside of me comes naturally - a free gift, over which I have no control and for which I am deeply grateful.  The more I open to love’s flow, the more I receive and radiate its abundance and the more I experience love’s economy as luxurious and luscious.

         I suspect that many of us have been focusing too intently on love.  Instead, let’s orient toward joy, service and fullness of life in the present moment - and let go of fretting about love.

         Let’s trust love.

Mud Settling

         A good friend recently wrote: “I’m really at odds with myself lately.  Trying to listen to what my heart needs.  Could use advice from a wise friend.“

         Presuming she meant me, I responded:  “Trust your heart, my friend.  Pose your question gently.  Let go of figuring and searching.  Allow heart-sense to appear when it’s ready. 

         “Having opposing feelings about things is part of the human condition.

         “Meanwhile, find enjoyment and nourishment in odd, small moments – like right now.” 

         The exchange reminds me of a quote from Stephen Mitchell’s translation of Tao Te Ching:

         “Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear.

         “Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself.”

         We stir up muddy water with our ruminations – figuring and figuring, round and round.  In the quiet of gentle breathing and simply being, muddy waters settle and clarify.

Watcher and Witness

         As an introspective person, I tend to notice how I introspect.  This noticing has helped me identify two primary vantage points from which I observe myself.  One I call Watcher and the other, Witness.  For me, both are personified as male. So, when I use masculine pronouns, I am speaking only of my own experience.

         The Watcher is a well-developed pattern of self-critical and fault-finding analysis and scrutiny.  For most of my life, the Watcher has handled the bulk of my inner observing.  His basic stance sounds something like this:  “James is not trustworthy, he requires careful monitoring, and he damn-well better be near-perfect and mistake-free or he’ll never belong and be loved.”  Because the Watcher developed within me early in life, he’s quite young, loudly opinionated and clearly biased in what he sees and points out.  His currencies are fear and shame.

         As I think about Witness, I find myself smiling.  He’s ancient, wise, calm and accepting.  My imperfections don’t seem to bother him.  He observes accurately and quietly, with kind eyes – and he never raises his voice.  I realize now that he’s been my companion all along – patiently accompanying me on the journey, observing my struggles and triumphs, my sorrows and joys - gently inviting me toward freedom and fullness of being, never judging, never doubting my value.  His currency is love. 

         The voice of Witness is so soft that I need to be very quiet, and attentive in the moment, to hear it.  His messages come at odd moments of grace.  While I can practice making space for these moments of quiet clarity, I have no control over when or how they arrive. 

         Watcher and Witness - two inner sources of feedback and guidance.  We get to decide.  We don’t have to entertain any pattern that damages the spirit.  We can consciously choose which source we cultivate and consider – consciously choose which voice we let in and listen to.

New Year Orienting

         For many of us, the year’s beginning is a time for reflection – a time to review where we’ve been and orient ourselves toward where we’d like to go.  It’s a time to look into the mirror with clear, compassionate eyes, to listen deeply to how we feel and what we value, and to pay attention to how our choices and behaviors line up with our deepest feelings and values.  It’s a time for clarity and gentle firmness with ourselves, a time to set realistic goals – baby steps, perhaps – moving us in the direction of our heart’s desire and our soul’s purpose.

         The standard joke about New Year’s resolutions is that we keep them for a week or two before reverting to old patterns.  Under the chuckle, there may be a sense that we don’t really take seriously the promises we make to ourselves.   For many of us, our word is more impeccable when we give it to others, than it is when we give it to ourselves.  We know that breaking our word with friends can damage our relationships with them.  I suspect we underestimate the harm that breaking our word does to the integrity of our connection within.  We may not see the message of disregard we give ourselves and the mistrust of self this disregard engenders.

         I tend to have lofty goals that inspire me and elevate my spirit.  The ideal of softening to love, for example, orients me toward opening my heart to the flow of love.  It orients me toward deeper connection with myself, with others and with the universe.  It’s been a “north star” in my life, toward which my inner compass points.  However, I rarely translate that loftiness into specific, concrete actions I commit to taking every day.  I go with the flow and do a number of things that move me in the direction I’m choosing.  I wing it - and that works out ok.

         I’m coming to see that the ideal I cherish deserves better than ok.  It deserves better than the nebulousness of winging it.  It deserves a clearer commitment, and more accountability, from me.

         Last May, a prayer/poem came to me during a powerful, vision-like experience I had while on a boundary waters wilderness retreat - an experience that mirrored for me, and connected me to, my Larger Self.  This prayer has become both an affirmation and an instruction for me:

Big Self,

Mirror Jesus.

Love in.

Love out.

Soften to Love.

Dissolve into God.

         So, one concrete, specific New Year’s resolution I intend to keep in 2018 is to make eye-to-eye contact with myself in the mirror each morning and say this prayer – meaningfully. 

         Perhaps, there’s a small, meaningful step you can take on a regular basis this year - one that moves you closer to your heart’s desire and your soul’s purpose – a promise you can keep.

         May your new year be healthy, happy, joyful and growthful!