Partner Picking

       I'm preparing to give a talk on relationships later this week to a wonderful group of divorced, widowed and separated folks.  A question for many of them has to do with the challenge of picking a partner in life – a challenge, I believe, that invites a balance head and heart.

       An all-time favorite quote of mine comes from Mary Oliver's poem, Wild Geese:  

       "… let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." 

       What a delightful invitation to honor one's heart in all of life, not only in matters of love.

       Balancing Mary Oliver's wisdom are two wise authors in the love department – Elizabeth Gilbert (Committed) and David Whyte (The Three Marriages) – who offer a perspective I hadn't encountered before.

       Here's a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert:

       "People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other's personalities.  Who wouldn't.  Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person.  The really clever trick is this:  Can you accept the flaws?  Can you look at your partner's faults honestly and say, 'I can work around that.'?"  (p. 129-130)

       Just last night, I discovered this passage from David Whyte: 

       "In a very personal way we are marrying not only a person's ability to love and take care of us, but also that person's particular species of selfishness and particular form of egotism.  It is only a question of time before these appear.  One of the tests of finding the right person is to ask ourselves if this is the particular form of selfishness and egotism we can live with … A sign of possible success is our ability to answer in the affirmative.  It means the chemistry is right …"  (p. 244)

       I have a long history of romantic idealism.  It's a gift to encounter a balancing perspective – twice already, in the last week or so.  Life is a generous teacher.  Perhaps, in the balance of head and heart, a practical romantic emerges.

P.S.

       After last week's venture into the political/cultural arena, I heard from a number of you.  Thank you.

      Many expressed support for my speaking up – support much needed and appreciated. One of you (thanks Betsy) made the wonderful suggestion that I send love energy to Glenn Beck.  I've long taught that if we want anything to grow or change, in ourselves or in someone else, we have to love it first. And it's always a good idea to walk one's talk.

       I was most struck – both touched and humbled – by the unexpectedly gentle response from a couple of folks whose views differ from mine.  My surprise reminded me of how easy it is, in these polarized times, to paint each other in overly broad strokes, to miss the complexity and nuances of individuals, to avoid one another, to forget the humanness and divinity we all share.

       As I do my best to follow a path of love, I look for balance – a "both/and" that includes engagement and disengagement, doing and not doing, showing up and letting go.  I acknowledge mystery, contradiction, ambiguity.  I live with knowing and not knowing – and questions like:

       Can I make room inside for the peaceful warrior?

The Right is Wrong

       I believe a new paradigm is coming, one in which, at the level of belief and behavior, humanity breaks through the myth of separation and embraces unity consciousness.  I realize old paradigms typically put up one heck of a fight – a desperate, last-ditch effort, to preserve the old view – just before what's new emerges.  I know it's darkest just before dawn.

       Still, I'm unnerved by the violence of the right-wing response to the president and his efforts to create a better America for all of us.  I'm dismayed by pundits making millions using misinformation to preach fear, hatred, self-righteousness and greed.

       Reluctant – and a bit fearful, truth be told – to challenge this vehemence and to share publicly my cultural/political orientation, I've been standing on the sidelines – until now.  Recently, Glenn Beck advised listeners and viewers to leave any church that teaches social or economic justice, which he claims are codes for Nazism and Communism.  Dumbfounded, I need to speak.

       At its center, Jesus' message is: Love your neighbor.

       The political and (sad to say) religious right have been narrowing the definition of "neighbor" for some time now, by teaching intolerance and advocating policies that increase the chasm between "haves" and "have-nots".

       In this case, the right is wrong – and terribly short-sighted.  We all sink or swim together.  "What you do to these least of my brethren…"

Spaciousness

       I've been thinking about space lately – not Star Trek's final frontier, of which I am a fan, but inner space, which is much bigger than anything on Star Trek.

       Physicists tell us that we're mostly empty space and that the space within us, if drawn to scale, would mimic the space between and within solar systems and galaxies.

       Spiritual teachers suggest that space is a sacred emptiness – an infinite, formless, timeless dimension in which all forms and everything temporary (including all thoughts and material objects) arise and subside. 

       We find this emptiness in the silence between thoughts.  It's an exquisitely quiet presence, sometimes described as a noiselessness faintly humming in the background of existence. The search for it is the search for our truest self – that which is vast, nameless and unknowable in us.  It is, I believe, the search for God.

       Sacred emptiness holds us ever so gently.  It's all around us and all within us.  In some mysterious way, a way that feels so true to me and yet so outlandish, we are the holder and the held.

At-one-ness and Aloneness

       A friend recently wrote about an experience of walking meditation, in which he focused on at-one-ness, hoping to feel a deep sense of connection.  Instead, what came to him was the thought that if you replace just the "t" in at-one-ness, you get aloneness.  His thoughtful comment invited me to ponder some themes I've been writing about lately.

       One mystery that's awed me for some time is the paradox that we are always alone and we are never alone.  Human experience is one of separateness.  As we grapple with separateness, we learn so much.  We get glimpses of oneness and the memory of who we are.  And then we forget – only to learn more, remember more and forget again. 

       The truth of our oneness is sometimes validated by a beautiful feeling of deep peace.  And, sometimes, it's not validated at all – at least not in any way we can tell.  When we feel the pain of separateness and aloneness, the best I think we can do is stay gentle and present and spacious with the discomfort.  We don't get to make it go away.  We don't get to eliminate it or control it.  It moves through us at its own pace.  And it moves best when we give it breath – and the quiet space of awareness. 

       We can, of course (and often do), turn our discomfort into real suffering by going to war with it and by indulging in various stories of fear and unworthiness.  And that suffering invites more learning.  Life as I know it on this planet.

       At-one-ness and aloneness – only a tiny letter apart.

From Fret to Flow

       After last week's posting, I've started paying attention, once again, to what brain researchers are calling "the default mode" – the place mind automatically goes during down time, when we're not busy doing something.  For me, that place usually involves fret and fantasy – including regrets and recriminations, review and rehearsal, preparation and planning, and imaginary interactions.  Standard monkey mind.

       I'm playing with ways to shift this default mode to something much more peaceful, so that idle moments are actually restful and restorative.   My favorite approach is to breathe light (love energy) into my lower belly, hold it there for a moment, then exhale through the heart – clearing and opening the heart, sharing the light. 

       There are lots of possibilities here.  The trick, I think, is to find something we like, keep it simple, and stubbornly stick to it – gently and firmly returning to the flow each time we stray.

       If it's true that we need 10,000 repetitions to create a new default, I only have about 9,947 to go.

       Joanie and I spent the last few days backpacking on the Superior Hiking Trail.  As usual, the experience out there was an immersion in beauty – interesting, varied, subtle and not-so-subtle beauty. For me, it's a bit like Holy Communion. 

       One evening, an hour or so before dusk, I decided to write about an experience in the moment.  For those who have been following these postings for a while, you'll detect a familiar theme. 

Beauty and the Beast

       I'm sitting on a rock face high on a bluff overlooking a beaver pond way below in a valley of pines and poplars.  It's a majestic scene – quietly beautiful as the sun begins to soften in the western sky.  Leaning back, lounge-chair-style, with a huge slab of granite supporting me and stubby cedars growing through crevices in the rock at my feet, I realize, with a jolt, that for some time now I've let this bounty of beauty slip right through my awareness.  Instead, my attention has been riveted to an interior drama, a fretful fantasy.  The "beast" was back.

       Eckhart Tolle – whose book, The New Earth, now provides backing for the sheet of paper I'm writing on – says it's a success when we become aware of ego's story telling.  Maybe so.  At this moment, though, I'm not feeling particularly successful – more ego commentary, I suspect.

       Last night, at a campsite six miles southwest down the trail, while reading The New Earth, I was struck by a particularly powerful passage in his book.  I hunt for it among dog-eared pages.

       "You are the light of Presence, the awareness that is prior to and deeper than any thoughts and emotions."  (p. 118).

       Grateful for the message, I breathe … and soften – attuned, for a time, to the quiet observer inside who does not judge, who does not fret.

Nuggets

       Here are some stray thoughts that came my way this week.

       The mind is a beautiful instrument.  Unfortunately, I use it all too often to torment myself.

       Every moment, life brings us just what we need to deepen and grow.  See the gift.

       I believe both of the following statements are true:  We are alone.  We are never alone.  It's in our power to open to both realities and to think/behave in ways that make one truth more real for us than the other.

       "It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages."  Friedrich Nietzsche.

       "Gratitude's the Attitude!"  Ethel Lombardi.

Gardening Love

       Been thinking lately about idealism and realism in romance.  A lifelong romantic, I started doodling hearts at age 4.  I know all too well the yearning for love's intoxication. 

       The knight questing for Holy Grail, the lone seafarer searching for Tropical Paradise, the romantic looking for The One: these stories emphasize the element of search.  That's where the challenge is.  Implied is the notion that once you find the one, your work is pretty much done.  There's plenty to eat in paradise.  The trick is to find the island.

       Another model of relationship is peeking its way into my consciousness:  the gardener.  I remember, as a kid, I didn't like gardening.  I especially disliked weeding.  I wasn't fond of hoeing either.  Perhaps it’s the new house.  Perhaps it's having a partner who can't wait to garden next spring.  Anyway, I'm warming to the idea.

       Gardeners find a good plot of land, cultivate it, nourish it, plant seeds, water, weed, cultivate and nourish some more.  They harvest and enjoy their crops - grateful for what they have, accepting that some years are leaner than others.  Some gardeners freeze or can for enjoyment and nourishment during the winter. 

       During winter, gardeners often think about and prepare for the next spring, when the cycle begins anew.  They are famous for trying new things, learning new techniques, paying attention to what works and what doesn't.  Master gardeners remain students.  They study the art of gardening and the unique nature of their particular garden.  Year after year, they tend and attend.  Year after year, their gardens grow even more unique, more beautiful, and more abundant.

       I know of no stories out there about gardeners searching and searching for the perfect plot to plant.  For gardeners, it's not the search that's important.  It's what you do after you pick a piece of ground that counts.

       Be merry.  Hoe, hoe, hoe.

Bushwhacking Brain

       On our last day in the Boundary Waters, my good friend Doug and I decided to fish a small lake that had no trail leading to it.  Since the lake was almost certainly seldom visited, we imagined it teeming with hungry Bass and Northern Pike. 

       Heading west from a nearby campsite, we pushed and weaved our way over, under, around and through dense underbrush, branches, downed trees, boulders and crevices till we got to a marshy swamp that signaled our proximity to the lake.  After another quarter-mile of slogging, we arrived at relatively firm ground on lakeshore, then proceeded to bushwhack for another couple hours, as we fished up the shoreline (there was no sandy beach on this lake). 

       All that effort for one eight-inch perch Doug snagged on his first cast and released.  It was totally worth it.

       Our adventure reminds me of a challenge I face in relationship.  Through years of repetition, I've etched in my brain well worn paths that do not serve me – old stories of loss and disappointment, gloomy predictions, well-worn protection strategies – familiar trails, leading to familiar places. 

       I need to bushwhack in my brain – head into wilderness, blaze new trails, risk the unknown.  It's damn hard work, way harder than it looks on a map.  But the going gets easier with each trip into new territory.  New paths form.  Old trails diminish from disuse.

       Brain pathways are more malleable than we once believed. While paths are made by walking, they're begun by bushwhacking.