Of all the questions that have been fluttering into my inbox recently about love and relationships and being present, and how and why and what not, etc., (soon to be a new correspondent column, btw - title pending), I feel one of the underlying threads of response to these conflagrant questions regarding the non/existence of soul mates, one-and-only's, what's the glue that sticks a relationship together so mysteriously, etc. etc. etc. seems to come down to one momentous event: choice.
Whatever brings two percipient perceptibles together in the same place in the time and space continuum, and in whatever state of mindful awareness they arrive, how each energy body perceives and is perceived, each can choose their course in the infinite matrix of possibility.
To travel together, or to maintain singular status? etc.
Ditto for each moment thereafter: is there a limit to love? That, too, depends on choice. Every moment is a choice to stay committed, together, present and fully open to the spontaneous present.
Osho wrote about the fleeting nature of love - When it hits, roll with it. You never know when it will be gone. But ultimately, love is freedom. Freedom to choose.
Sherman Alexie wrote: "He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing."
Kelly Diels eloquently put it this way:
Choice. Chosen. Decided, deciding, every day.
Selection.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
A private conversation
Private intimacy is more that just pillow talk.
Private intimacy - as noted by Liz Gilbert at the end of Committed - is the heart's language, untapped, pure, true. It's what happens outside of all of the societal infrastructures that would attempt to contain such momentous love with red tape and ramifications. The happening of "I choose one" comes from the subversive flowing wellspring shared between two hearts. In the quiet, in whispers, in shared memories, in the dark, behind closed doors. It is the powerful secret between lovers committed to the ruling body of love.
Private intimacy - as noted by Liz Gilbert at the end of Committed - is the heart's language, untapped, pure, true. It's what happens outside of all of the societal infrastructures that would attempt to contain such momentous love with red tape and ramifications. The happening of "I choose one" comes from the subversive flowing wellspring shared between two hearts. In the quiet, in whispers, in shared memories, in the dark, behind closed doors. It is the powerful secret between lovers committed to the ruling body of love.
Friday, March 12, 2010
To dance with your heart
"Chemistry with another person can also mean becoming acquainted with what is best about yourself. Though this critical organ [the heart] should be familiar to us, the gentle, inexplicable sensation of experiencing it is anything but. To feel another's heartbeat mingle with your own - that's a pleasure that's hard to leave. St. Augustine wrote: "The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart." Scientists can locate the chemicals, but what the heart craves is a mystery." - Maria Finn, Hold Me Tight & Tango Me Home
Monday, March 8, 2010
Perpetual sleepover
"You like being married?" I asked my co-worker who moved to the states to be with her beau.
"I do," she replied with her euro-wit.
"Why?" I prodded, entirely curious.
"Marriage is pretty neat," she smiled. "It's like a never ending slumber party."
"I do," she replied with her euro-wit.
"Why?" I prodded, entirely curious.
"Marriage is pretty neat," she smiled. "It's like a never ending slumber party."
Tear down the walls
Ala Jake:
"There are no insurmountable divisions between men and women; I believe that with all my heart. We create the walls between us out of the dust of thoughts and memories, held by the mortar of our experience. And our experience is tinted with our prejudices, imagined and real, inherited and newly created."
"There are no insurmountable divisions between men and women; I believe that with all my heart. We create the walls between us out of the dust of thoughts and memories, held by the mortar of our experience. And our experience is tinted with our prejudices, imagined and real, inherited and newly created."
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Ambiguous loss
Anyone who's still-beating heart has been blind-sightedly ripped from their chest cavity by an other of significance knows the overwhelming gravitas and ache in the space that follows. Along with the grappling to understand this new found tabula rasa of reality in the midst of the tangle of memories. Where is the person I fell in love with? What about the life we had planned? The dreams in which 'we' were an integral part?
It was a dream of sweet love
Hours of happiness and loving
It was the poem of yesterday
- Poema, by Francisco Canaro
Disbelief enters this space, trying to comprehend that life has become so uncertain. Is this a lie, a bad dream or some sick joke?
When the re-galling, yearning riddle of 'where is my love?' yields nothing but the obvious empty cut-out of where they once were - and the head and heart are still dumbfounded by all of these prevalent facts - nothing remains but the lingering grief and disorientation as the eviscerated body waits to believe the present memo made of fragments of the love it once knew that is not now-fleshy-tangible. The imagination takes to this space, with fervor.
At night when I go to bed
I can't close the door
because by leaving it open
I make believe that you're coming back.
- Mi Noche Triste
The love that nested in the heart, took root in dreams of the future, and that seems to have undergone a disappearing trick only to never return, creates a gaping void, an echoing chamber that rakes ones insides and leaves a dead weight in the vicinity of the heart. The horrible pain that follows - and that nothing can seem to eclipse into oblivion - can become a vacuum that can suck a broken heart into isolation. Unless, one moves through the body-memory one step at a time.
The cure for the shattered heart is (of course) the Argentine Tango.
It was a dream of sweet love
Hours of happiness and loving
It was the poem of yesterday
- Poema, by Francisco Canaro
Disbelief enters this space, trying to comprehend that life has become so uncertain. Is this a lie, a bad dream or some sick joke?
When the re-galling, yearning riddle of 'where is my love?' yields nothing but the obvious empty cut-out of where they once were - and the head and heart are still dumbfounded by all of these prevalent facts - nothing remains but the lingering grief and disorientation as the eviscerated body waits to believe the present memo made of fragments of the love it once knew that is not now-fleshy-tangible. The imagination takes to this space, with fervor.
At night when I go to bed
I can't close the door
because by leaving it open
I make believe that you're coming back.
- Mi Noche Triste
The love that nested in the heart, took root in dreams of the future, and that seems to have undergone a disappearing trick only to never return, creates a gaping void, an echoing chamber that rakes ones insides and leaves a dead weight in the vicinity of the heart. The horrible pain that follows - and that nothing can seem to eclipse into oblivion - can become a vacuum that can suck a broken heart into isolation. Unless, one moves through the body-memory one step at a time.
The cure for the shattered heart is (of course) the Argentine Tango.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Seduce me, fo reals
This is from over at Jake's place, in response to Kelly Diels massive missive about the Pick-Up Artist Community. And, as usual, both conversations are worth more than a browse. Here's my favorite part from Jake's post:
"Real seduction is still something magic. And it’s on-going. It’s not about being someone else or reciting scripts or doing what some PUA guru told you to do. It’s about having enough confidence to take great joy in honest and playful dance with those you like. Real seduction becomes effortless. It’s a smirk or a playful tease without hidden agenda. It’s leaning in toward each other to listen more intently. It’s the way our eyes move from eye to eye to mouth and back again before a kiss, but not because we know the Kiss Test. Simply because this is just what we do, who we are.
"The magic of real seduction is in the back-and-forth. The thousand little things we do that convey interest and attraction to each other. The tiny little games we play. And all of this can be observed and discussed and shared – by women to women, men to men, etc, etc…
"But the spark, especially the one that lasts, is something that – like enlightenment – can’t be taught. It can only be pointed toward: we are most attractive to others when we’re being exactly who we want to be. Not who we think we should be. Nor who we think other people want us to be.
"We’re most attractive when we are who we want to be.
"Learn this lesson and take care of yourself. That’s all you really need to know."
"Real seduction is still something magic. And it’s on-going. It’s not about being someone else or reciting scripts or doing what some PUA guru told you to do. It’s about having enough confidence to take great joy in honest and playful dance with those you like. Real seduction becomes effortless. It’s a smirk or a playful tease without hidden agenda. It’s leaning in toward each other to listen more intently. It’s the way our eyes move from eye to eye to mouth and back again before a kiss, but not because we know the Kiss Test. Simply because this is just what we do, who we are.
"The magic of real seduction is in the back-and-forth. The thousand little things we do that convey interest and attraction to each other. The tiny little games we play. And all of this can be observed and discussed and shared – by women to women, men to men, etc, etc…
"But the spark, especially the one that lasts, is something that – like enlightenment – can’t be taught. It can only be pointed toward: we are most attractive to others when we’re being exactly who we want to be. Not who we think we should be. Nor who we think other people want us to be.
"We’re most attractive when we are who we want to be.
"Learn this lesson and take care of yourself. That’s all you really need to know."
Let's do lunch
This love sandwich meditation (from Chez Cleavage) I can't resist:
"Love is a packed lunch. This packed lunch is the future (you will be hungry) meets the present (I made this because I love you and the thought of you hungry pains me) meets the past (I have always loved you. I loved you before I knew you. Love is who we are, baby, and this lunch is our history) meets the real (the apple the sandwich the effort the caring it forward: you can eat love). Love is a packed lunch."
Bon Appetit.
"Love is a packed lunch. This packed lunch is the future (you will be hungry) meets the present (I made this because I love you and the thought of you hungry pains me) meets the past (I have always loved you. I loved you before I knew you. Love is who we are, baby, and this lunch is our history) meets the real (the apple the sandwich the effort the caring it forward: you can eat love). Love is a packed lunch."
Bon Appetit.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Dance me to love again
As a tango baby who has learned many a lesson about myself-in-relationship in just one short year of dance class once a week, I've learned to love the tango for the reasons I feared it initially. It's about connection - about leading and following with your heart. You have to be comfortable with closeness. Not something that is easy to do in the wake of dissolution with gnarly breakup matter still clouding your aura.
I resonated with My Love Affair with Tango, by Maria Finn as she enumerated its transformational possibilities for the heartsunk and lovetorn based on her experience.
Here's an excerpt:
"I asked him why he had started dancing. “My 7-year-old daughter wanted to know why her mother and I divorced. I didn’t know. And I couldn’t explain how you can love someone so much, then split so far apart. So I began tango to learn how to be with a woman without expecting anything. How to find balance with
another person.”
"He offered a quick lesson, and I accepted. First I had to lean against him—I had to trust the lead entirely. I could smell the nape of his neck, feel the slight slope of his shoulders and the soft pulse of his heart. It quickly felt suffocating, and such closeness made me feel squeamish. He showed me how to step around him while my chest stayed aligned with his. But I was too uncomfortable to be so near someone I didn’t know. My own marriage had just ended, and I still felt dead inside.
"I couldn’t help but linger when this stranger returned to the group. The tango songs were laments of heartbreak, but the dancers brought to mind the perfect state of bliss. I thought of an idea from Plato’s Symposium: People were once whole, but because they didn’t properly honor the gods, they were split apart and doomed to be forever searching for their other half. To find one’s missing half is to once again experience harmony and happiness. That’s what the dancers in Central Park looked like—finally reunited.
"Maybe, I thought, I could learn to tango if I were with a man I loved. But not with total strangers.
"I’d never been so wrong."
I resonated with My Love Affair with Tango, by Maria Finn as she enumerated its transformational possibilities for the heartsunk and lovetorn based on her experience.
Here's an excerpt:
"I asked him why he had started dancing. “My 7-year-old daughter wanted to know why her mother and I divorced. I didn’t know. And I couldn’t explain how you can love someone so much, then split so far apart. So I began tango to learn how to be with a woman without expecting anything. How to find balance with
another person.”
"He offered a quick lesson, and I accepted. First I had to lean against him—I had to trust the lead entirely. I could smell the nape of his neck, feel the slight slope of his shoulders and the soft pulse of his heart. It quickly felt suffocating, and such closeness made me feel squeamish. He showed me how to step around him while my chest stayed aligned with his. But I was too uncomfortable to be so near someone I didn’t know. My own marriage had just ended, and I still felt dead inside.
"I couldn’t help but linger when this stranger returned to the group. The tango songs were laments of heartbreak, but the dancers brought to mind the perfect state of bliss. I thought of an idea from Plato’s Symposium: People were once whole, but because they didn’t properly honor the gods, they were split apart and doomed to be forever searching for their other half. To find one’s missing half is to once again experience harmony and happiness. That’s what the dancers in Central Park looked like—finally reunited.
"Maybe, I thought, I could learn to tango if I were with a man I loved. But not with total strangers.
"I’d never been so wrong."
This love business
Gwen Bell has a mighty precious rumination on the entrepreneurship of love start ups. From spark to launch to inner workings, through growth and innovation and charting the course on unmapped territory - hers is a great metaphor for the economy of love.
The game of pick up chicks
Kelly Diels, the great mistress of Cleavage, has an epic post series on the Seduction Community - you know, those pick up artists, and how kindacrazyeffedup it is, in case you're interested (and, you should be)...
Here's a (gentler) excerpt from the first post:
"No, you’re awesome, honey. He just can’t see it. He’s a bastard. They all are. That’s why we’re so awesome. Thank goodness for girlfriends. Otherwise we’d have to rely on them.
"If that kind of talk is a two-martini girl-bonding Friday night for me, why am I so shocked when I encounter misogyny in the Seduction Community?
"This kind of misogny and misandry – the kind that collapses The Other into a caricature – is a burlesque. We parody and mock The Other in order to defuse the power they have over us.
"Because sexuality, and sexual love, is primal, spiritual stuff. It is dangerous and divine. We can harm or heal each other, and most often, we do both.
"So, in heterosexual, binary-gendered, conventional world – which is to say, my suburban milieu – groups of heterosexual women get together to bitch about men so that men are less threatening to our hearts and heads. Groups of men get together to figure out a way to manage women so that women are less threatening to their heads and hearts. And then we all go home and drunk-dial our exes."
Read it all - but proceed with caution: it's a metric ton of brilliance.
Here's a (gentler) excerpt from the first post:
"No, you’re awesome, honey. He just can’t see it. He’s a bastard. They all are. That’s why we’re so awesome. Thank goodness for girlfriends. Otherwise we’d have to rely on them.
"If that kind of talk is a two-martini girl-bonding Friday night for me, why am I so shocked when I encounter misogyny in the Seduction Community?
"This kind of misogny and misandry – the kind that collapses The Other into a caricature – is a burlesque. We parody and mock The Other in order to defuse the power they have over us.
"Because sexuality, and sexual love, is primal, spiritual stuff. It is dangerous and divine. We can harm or heal each other, and most often, we do both.
"So, in heterosexual, binary-gendered, conventional world – which is to say, my suburban milieu – groups of heterosexual women get together to bitch about men so that men are less threatening to our hearts and heads. Groups of men get together to figure out a way to manage women so that women are less threatening to their heads and hearts. And then we all go home and drunk-dial our exes."
Read it all - but proceed with caution: it's a metric ton of brilliance.
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