Boundary Waters’ Teachings

      I recently returned from a wonderful trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, a National Park wilderness on the border of Minnesota and Canada.  Two or three times a year, I venture into that wilderness and always come back feeling renewed and invigorated – and often inspired.  I’d like to touch on three teachings that were especially significant for me this time.

         I left home with the intention to work on staying present and mindful in the moment.  After a five-hour drive to the entry point, my good intention was tested immediately by the task of backpacking 60 pounds of gear for 2/3 mile of rough, up-and-down terrain on the portage to the first lake.  I was humbled by how quickly my thoughts turned to estimates of how much further I had to go and questions about the wisdom of bringing all this stuff.  And I was impressed by how much easier the portage became – and how much lighter my load – when I focused on just the one step before me.  I saw once again how efforts to escape from what we deem unpleasant add to our suffering and how the practice of gently returning, again and again, to the present moment brings peace.

         After setting up camp, I perched on the massive, flat, granite slab that served as the campsite’s front porch and basked in the beauty of my surroundings.  The sun was moving lower in the west-northwestern sky.  I felt an all-body sensation, familiar to me during times in nature or in deep meditation.  The mind was quiet and the body was vibrating with a kind of hum – hard to describe.  I just slipped into it, without noticing.  When I did notice, self-consciousness took over.  The mind got excited and immediately began giving my body instructions on how to deepen the experience - which, of course, diminished it.  Again, I was humbled – and frustrated with the way my mind butts in and tries to control things, when the body’s doing just fine.  I apologized to my body, took some deep breaths and, to my surprise, I felt forgiven and re-connected with myself – despite that goofy intervention.  More and more I’m reminded to trust my body’s wisdom.  It knows the way.

         The next evening, shortly after sunset, from that same vantage point on the front porch, I was drawn to a scraggly looking pine tree on the shore opposite the campsite – directly across from where I was sitting.  It had a sense of motion about it.  As I looked closer, I could see arms outstretched and legs bent at the knees and a wild-looking headdress at the top.  I saw the tree as a dancing warrior, moving with boldness and abandon.  I felt an invitation to embrace the dancing warrior within, to let the bolder part of me breathe a bit, to give the wild man some room, to let go of some of the seriousness, cautiousness and self-containment that I no longer need, to see that being careful is not the same as caring, to take another step in the direction of freeing myself – and trusting myself. 

         On the way home, I stopped at Vanilla Bean, one of my favorite restaurants on the shore of Lake Superior.  While awaiting my walleye cakes and eggs, I read some “Banter Verses” from The Radiance Sutras by Lorin Roche. The masculine deity, “The God who is the Consciousness that Permeates Everywhere” is speaking:

         I am always here.

         I am the embrace

         Of your most intimate experience.

         Though I am beyond the intellect,

         I am not beyond your daring.

                  (Banter Verse 15)

         I am everywhere, infusing everything.

         To find me,

         Become absorbed in intense experience.

         Go all the way.   

         Be drenched in the energies of life.

         Enter the world beyond separation.

                  (Banter Verse 20)

         The invitation to dare and dive in - what a delicious cherry on the hot fudge sundae of boundary waters’ teachings!

         For several months, I’ve been writing about the relational nature of the universe, with a focus on how we connect deeply with others.  Now, I’d like to shift the focus to interior realms, with a series of short posts on how we relate to ourselves.

Be Yourself

         Be yourself.  How often have you heard or given this advice?  This doesn’t mean that we disregard others and care only about our own reality.  There’s a balance here – and also a sequence.  Inner engagement informs how we engage the world. The dance of inner and outer begins with the inner.

         In order to operate with authenticity and integrity, we first need to enter our insides with curiosity and compassion – no comparisons with anyone else, no judgments about how we ought to be.  We orient toward appreciating what is – creating an inner spaciousness that allows room for every feeling, every desire, every nook and cranny within us, - including our inconsistencies and contradictions in an ever-unfolding inner landscape. 

         To prevent paralysis or aimless drifting, inner spaciousness is balanced by clarity and focus.  In a friendly, balanced relationship with ourselves - when we attend respectfully to the interior, inviting spaciousness and clarity - we naturally gravitate toward what’s important and central.  An inner gyroscope directs us toward choices and actions that reflect and express who we are – allowing us to live with authenticity and deep integrity.

         Again and again, we return to the practice of mindfulness – gentle, compassionate self-awareness, self-discovery and clarity. We have to be with ourselves before we can be ourselves.

Nepo on Relationship

         One of my favorite spiritual authors, Mark Nepo, has written a profound book of short meditations, called: Things that Join the Sea and Sky.  His introduction to the section on relationships touches on the awkwardness and transformational power of close connection – themes dear to me – inviting compassion and awe as I experience the goofiness and grandeur of the human condition.

         Here is what he wrote:

“It’s so tempting at times to withdraw and watch life go by, but it’s through relationship that we come alive and heal.  There’s no other way but to open the door to our mind, to our heart, and venture out, knowing we will be changed by everything and everyone we meet.  Yet try as we do, we seldom come close to what we aim for.  I go to love you and miss, hurting your feelings.  You aim to protect yourself and push me away, a little too hard.  The friend we encourage to be herself finally stands up, knocking down everyone near.  Still, our heartfelt attempts, clumsy as they are, are the seeds that restore the world.  All the spiritual traditions speak about renewal through relationship, and all agree that God – or the Spirit of the Universe, or the Ultimate Bareness of Being, or whatever name you want to give to Essence – remains an indwelling presence until revealed in the world through relationship.  In time, meaning is revealed through relationship.  Of course, we need to be alone and then together.  Of course, we need to retreat and then run into each other’s arms.  But the beauty is that the cycle of relationship is never done.  And with each turn of relationship, we are transformed.”  (Nepo, 2017, p.45)

A Love/LOVE Story:

The Alchemy of Intimacy

         In our story, at the cosmic level of pure being, UNIQUENESS and ONENESS dance together.  Neither exists without the other – and both are deepened by this timeless dance. The dance of UNIQUENESS and ONENESS is called RELATIONSHIP.  It is how LOVE expresses itself in an expanding Universe of LOVE.

         At the human level – the level of doing - relationship is also a dance of uniqueness and oneness.  The human doing of relationship mirrors the cosmic being in RELATIONSHIP.  Here, too, uniqueness and oneness support each other in a synergy that deepens both.  Our wholeness as individuals enhances our capacity to form deep intimate partnerships – more perfect unions - just as an intimate partnership fosters deeper individuality, personal growth and wholeness in each partner.

         In this story’s third installment, as we explore the alchemy of intimacy, we see how a healthy and balanced approach to close human relationship brings doing and being together in a way that transforms the individual, creates a LOVE entity (a Third Self), and expands the universe.  In this alchemy, love becomes LOVE.

Individual Transformation

         Most of us bring to our closest relationships a hope that the relationship will lead to healing and transformation.  And I believe it does – only not in the way we hope.  We hope that our wounds and sore spots will be comforted in the balm of relational love and will essentially disappear.  Generally, the opposite happens.  Our partners inevitably activate the very discomforts we were hoping to avoid.  I see this activation as a well-disguised gift.

         Typically, our first response is to try to get the partner to change, so that our discomfort abates.  While not always a bad idea, this approach usually doesn’t work – until, oddly enough, we face what we need to face with spaciousness, compassion and love.  This loving ownership of self often frees our partner to join us in that compassionate, healing endeavor. 

         For example, one person in a relationship is sensitive to feelings of loneliness and abandonment.  When that sensitivity is activated, he tries to get his partner to be more loving.  The partner, however, who is sensitive to feelings of being criticized or controlled, stiffens and emotionally withdraws in an attempt to avoid her discomfort.  Her withdrawal activates his discomfort; his pressure activates hers.  Around and around they go, stuck in a painful dance that sidetracks them from intimate connection, illuminates their sore spots and invites deeper self-reflection.   Once each faces his/her own sensitivity, owns it compassionately and shares it in a self-revealing way, space opens for both to heal. 

         Intimate life - through the gift of grace and the messiness of trial and error - tugs us gently and persistently toward expansion.  Despite many failures, we learn new skills, new ways of seeing and operating.  We collect more tools for our toolbox. We learn new love languages. We become more whole and complete, more able to grow a relationship.

  The Third Self

         It’s long been known in the psychotherapeutic community that - in healthy, balanced, mature relationships - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  This wholeness cannot be accounted for by simply looking at the individuals in the relationship, any more than water can be accounted for by looking at hydrogen and oxygen. 

         When people gather – as a couple, a family, a team, a tribe, an organization, or a nation – there is an identity created that is distinct from, and larger than, the individuals that make up that gathering.  In their teachings about love and intimacy, Teilhard de Chardin and Richard Moss label this distinct identity the Third Self - a spiritual entity, present in every relationship, with its own evolving energy or character, its own unique potentials and purpose, and its own requirements and needs.

         This Third Self is palpable and real.  It’s the spirit or soul of a relationship - a bit like the culture of an organization.  It is co-created by the individuals in a group and it, in turn, has profound effects on its members.  For example, a problem solving team creates a climate of trust, openness and safety that welcomes and values input from all its members.  In the warmth of that Third Self, individual team members blossom and shine.

         In close, long-term relationships, the impact of the Third Self is even more powerful.  When we orient ourselves toward intimacy - toward spaciousness and self-revelation - our human love co-creates a spiritual entity whose essence is LOVE.  Our balanced, generous and heartfelt doing of love mirrors cosmic LOVE, births new LOVE and expands the universe.

Expanding Universe of LOVE

         Relentlessly, since that first explosion of LOVE, the universe has been expanding.  According to Teilhard de Chardin, all evolution – personal, interpersonal, planetary and cosmic - is relational.  Growth takes place in the context of relationship.  And LOVE is the energy at the core of that growth.  Creative, intelligent and intentional, LOVE energizes evolution.  Since we are inseparable from LOVE, each of us is part of that expansion.  And the part we play matters more than we can imagine.

         In this story, while all relationships teach and transform us, our closest relationships lead to the deepest personal transformations and have powerful effects on the world around us.  Every act of authentic intimacy - every doing of love - makes LOVE.  Knowing and being known, receiving and radiating love, consciously co-creating LOVE – these actions transform people, partnerships and planets.  LOVE heals.  LOVE grows the universe.

         Romantic movies make such fanfare about love – high drama, violin music, grand passion, love that is larger than life.  We may roll our eyes a bit, and yet find ourselves somehow stirred.  Maybe it’s not just that our emotions are being played.  Perhaps something deeper is being tapped, something we recognize at the level of soul, but can’t quite recall.

         Perhaps we have an ancient memory of LOVE that is grander than anything imaginable – LOVE that is larger than life.

Postscript: 

         First of all, I want to thank your for being patient with me these last couple months, as I have focused single-mindedly on the topic of love - repeating similar themes in slightly different ways.  I’m preparing for a presentation on the transformational power of love at an upcoming conference and have been gathering my thoughts through these postings - rehearsing with you. 

         Secondly, I want to remind you that Richard Moss is coming to central Minnesota (June 28 – July 1) to offer a retreat – Choose Only Love - focused on the spirituality and psychology of love.  I am so looking forward to this extraordinary gathering and hope some of you can join me there. 

         Please check out Richard’s website at www.richardmoss.com for more information.  Feel free to email me with any questions at jbryer3@gmail.com   Scholarships are available as needed.

         Nearly 20 years ago, some dear friends asked me to speak at their wedding.  Since the third installment of our story is still in process, I’d like to share with you what I shared with them - one of my first attempts to express publicly some themes you’ll see in that third installment - A Love/LOVE Story: The Alchemy of Intimacy.

A Wedding Talk

         Look into each other’s eyes.  Feel into each other’s hearts.  Everything you need to know about love is right here.  That’s because who you ARE is love.  You are children of the Universe, children of God, who is Love.  You are created in Love - and of Love.  It’s your essence.  You cannot not be Love.

         Love has no opposite.  I used to think hate was the opposite of love.  Then I thought fear was.  Now I believe that everything we do is either an act of love, and therefore an expression of who we are, or an act of searching for Love, because we’ve temporarily forgotten who we are.

         As you know, we spend much of our time in that state of forgetfulness and searching.  Traditionally, weddings are a time when a veil is lifted.  Today, you lift a veil for us.  You help us all remember, once again, that Love is where we come from, it’s where we’re headed, and it’s who we are right now.  Thank you!

         Today, you are affirming spiritual partnership.  This is a grand and glorious, bold and brave thing to do, a wonderful adventure.  You’ll have great fun - playing and working together, laughing, loving, building, discovering.  Plunge into the exhilaration of it all.  Drink deeply.  Don’t let the temporary nature of all joy dampen the fullness you feel.

         Spiritual partnership is a challenging opportunity for healing and wholeness.  And, as you know, it’s not always fun.

         We have these wounds inside us - fears of abandonment and not belonging, fears of not being good enough, fears about losing ourselves as we try to be close to another.  Spiritual partnerships shine a spotlight on those wounds.  I guarantee you: there is not a sore spot in you that will not be unearthed by your relationship.

         Being together is going to hurt sometimes.  You may feel like your relationship is going awry.  You may even be tempted to look back on today and wonder if you did the right thing.  Don’t worry, mates.  This is your relationship doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.  It’s supposed to expose your sore spots, so you can heal.  It’s supposed to invite you to stretch beyond your habitual patterns of thinking and feeling, acting and reacting.  That’s how you realize wholeness.

         When hurt happens, the first impulse is to tighten up.  You’re going to want to run like crazy or fight like a banshee.  You’ll want to go to war with the pain and build barriers to protect yourself.  And, sometimes, that’s exactly what you’ll do.

         Here’s my invitation:  Notice this tendency to tighten.  Breathe.  Breathe deeply.  Breathe gently.  Soften to your wound.  Stay present to yourself.  Offer yourselves the gentle light of awareness and the tender mercy of compassion.  Sometimes our hearts have to break in order to grow.

         You’re going to misread each other at times.  You’ll see each other through lenses shaded by old wounds.  Breathe.  Breathe.  Soften to the process.  Stay engaged.  Soften and open to grief - yours and your partner’s. 

         Invest your energy in knowing and being known.  Reveal all you can to each other.  Be naked and vulnerable - in joy and in sorrow.  See each other with soft eyes - and clear eyes.  Make room for complexities and contradictions.   Cherish the mystery.  Free each other, as you free yourselves, to be and become.

         When you love this way, you’re not just doing something nice for yourselves and for each other.  You’re helping all of us.  Not to put any pressure, but the Universe is counting on you.  Your love grows, not just yourselves, it grows the Universe.  Love is the Energy of the Universe and when you love well, you contribute to an expanding Universe of Love.

         Trust your love.  It’s who you are.  Trust your lovability, your worthiness to receive.  And trust your love-ability, your capacity to love.  It’s boundless.

         In her poem, Wild Geese, Mary Oliver writes:  “…let the soft animal of your body love what it loves”.  As you embark on this amazing adventure, let the soft animal out of its cage.  Let it purr.  Let it roar.  Like a bonfire, let it warm you.  Let it warm your household and your community.  Let it warm all of us.  And, while you’re at it, let it warm the Universe. 

         This second installment addresses the relational dance at the human level.   In a recent post, Three Approaches to Relationship (archived on the Softening to Love website, Feb. 3), I compared two imbalanced approaches to relationship – fusion and isolation – with a more balanced approach that mirrors the cosmic dance of UNIQUENESS and ONENESS.  Our story continues, with a focus on that third approach:  Intimacy. 

A Love Story: The Dance of Intimacy

         The dance of intimacy is essentially a two-step - with infinite variations – the two steps being the two essential tasks of close relationship: knowing and being known.  The dance requires that we let go of control agendas and self-protection strategies and that we honor uniqueness and oneness in a balanced way.

         This segment of the story, shifts our attention from the cosmic level to the human level, offers practical wisdom about intimate life, and touches on the following topics:  Spaciousness, Into-me-see (self-revelation), Partnership in Conflict, and Balance.

Spaciousness

         The intimate stance in relationship sees and honors what is.  It creates space for the self, for the other and for the relationship.  Spaciousness offers partners in relationship the freedom to be fully themselves and, thus, the freedom to connect deeply.

         The lover’s declaration of intention to the beloved might sound something like this: 

         “I want to enter your world gently, to see the richness of you through clear and compassionate lenses.  I want to be a mirror that reflects the beauty and uniqueness of you.

         “Without abandoning my own perspective, I want to try on yours and see what you see.  I want to appreciate your inner world and your outer world.  I want to know what makes you laugh and what makes you cry, what you want and what you don’t want, what you value and what you think.

          “I want to approach you, each day with fresh, curious and attentive eyes and ears – humbly aware that you are evolving and growing and that I am not the expert on you.  Each day, I want to learn more about you – and more from you.

          “I want to meet you, discover you and accept you, as you are, without correcting, criticizing or confining you – or confusing you with anyone else.  I welcome every aspect of you into my life and into my heart.”

Into-me-see

         The lover continues: 

         “I want to reveal myself to you.  I want to reveal how I feel, what I believe in, what matters to me, my hopes, my dreams, my wants and desires, my sore spots and vulnerabilities, my fears and joys, my failures and triumphs, my heart, my mind, and my soul.  

         “I intend to share myself with you, as truthfully and accurately as I can – resisting the temptation to present myself to you as someone I think you might like, as a way of trying to win your affection.  I will do my best to stay honest with you and to stay open to your honesty with me.  My intention is to be fully present with you - to open my heart to your heart.”

         Revealing the heart is an act of courage.  The emotional nakedness of deep self-disclosure feels risky.  We long to be seen.  We long to belong.  And we feel vulnerable to rejection and judgment.  Sometimes, in our fear and yearning, we reveal too much too soon.  Sometimes fear tricks us into hiding from connection.  It takes wisdom, trust in ourselves and in each other, and conscious effort to keep fear from running the show.

         In this story, the essential tool for self-revelation is the I-statement.  For example, if I want to express what I feel or what I want, I first attend inside to discover what I actually do feel or want.  Then I simply share it, as in: “I feel…” or “I want…”

          One pitfall here is the common tendency to hide a judgment in the guise of a self-disclosure.  For example, if I let you know I’m unhappy about something and then go on at great length to convict you of wrongdoing, I’m probably delivering more of a you-statement than an I-statement.  I may find it hard to trust that my feelings are valid.  I may try to build an ironclad case to protect myself from being discounted.  Ironically, the case I build can make it less likely that my feelings will be heard.

         In the intimate approach to relationship, I don’t have to prove my validity.  If I’m feeling hurt or angry or unhappy, I can say so.  I can speak about what I like and what I don’t like, what I want and what I don’t want.  I get to set boundaries about what is ok with me and what is not ok.   Genuine self-disclosure - even when it is hard to share or hard to hear - is a gift to a relationship.  It’s an act of intimacy.  

Partnership in Conflict

         In any authentic approach to close relationship, conflict is inevitable.  The relational dance can be especially challenging at these times.  Our focus can easily shift from knowing and being known to winning, defending, controlling or self-protecting. We may see the partner as an adversary, rather than a friend and resource.  The body can flood with the chemistry of fight-flight. With the nervous system on high alert, our most primitive self tends to grab center stage.  We armor up, harden our hearts and act tough, as if we’re fighting for our lives.

         In order to reorient toward knowing and being known, we may need to do some breathing or take a break to get back in balance.  As we re-engage, we may need a structure to help us return to the constructive conversation.

         The Native American practice of the “talking stick” can be helpful to create the room needed for spacious and skillful talking and listening.  The person with the stick uses I-statements to self-disclose from his/her perspective for up to five minutes without interruption and then sets the stick down.  The partner takes the stick, mirrors compassionately something that seemed important to the speaker, then self-discloses – using I-statements - for up to five minutes without interruption.  The stick can alternate in this fashion, till each has had his/her say.

         This practice invites a nice balance of spaciousness and into-me-see.  We can stay soft, gentle and receptive, and still be honest, clear and firm.  Sometimes, just having our say and listening to each other in a respectful setting allows a conflict to melt.  Especially with big issues, it’s often better to allow some time for “percolation” rather than push for immediate resolution.

         When resolution is needed, knowing and being known is at the center of a constructive, win-win approach.  We set a time and declare our intention to find mutually beneficial solutions.  We work as collaborators - not as adversaries advocating exclusively for their own agenda.  

         Win-win problem solving begins with each person stating what he/she wants.  A very important next step is for both persons to acknowledge the validity of what the other wants.  Then, they can collaborate to find creative possibilities.

         In some cases, when both needs are honored, partners can agree that one individual’s need is more crucial at this time and should take priority.  In other cases, if the two wants appear mutually exclusive, partners can dig deeper to see the goals that underlie the stated wants – thus, allowing new possibilities to emerge.  Sometimes, brainstorming can result in a mutually acceptable compromise.  Sometimes, partners agree to take turns, as a way for both to get what they want/need.

         Once relational partners become collaborators, routes to conflict resolution are abundant.  Trust deepens.

Balance

      Dancing skillfully in the ballroom of human relationship requires balance in so many areas.  Here are a few:   

·      Honoring self and honoring the other;

·      Listening and self-disclosing;

·      Showing up and letting go;

·      Following and leading;

·      Wise heart and wise mind;

·      Receptivity and clarity;

·      Flexibility and firmness;

·      Playfulness and seriousness;

·      Gentleness and strength.

         Balance and skill in the dance of intimacy grows us as individuals.  It grows relationships.  And it grows the cosmos. 

         Stay tuned for the final installment:  A Love/LOVE Story: The Alchemy of Intimacy.

         The second installment I referenced last week, A Love Story: The Dance, needs a little more time to gestate.  Here’s a guided meditation I wrote a while back.  It ventures into that same neighborhood of love’s dance.

The Lover Speaks

         Picture yourself in a beautiful wooded area – on a gorgeous day.  The sun is shining, a gentle breeze is blowing, and the temperature is just right for a walk in the woods.

       Imagine you're on a path that heads toward a clearing.  As you draw closer to the clearing, you hear the sound of a voice.  You stop and listen.  The speaker is not visible to you – and from the sound of the voice, you can't tell if it's a male or a female.

       The speaker is talking out loud in soliloquy – as if rehearsing a message to a beloved.  The lover speaks:

       "Can I open my heart to the mystery of you?  Can I soften my being to the energy of you and to the many different ways your energy comes toward me?  Can I receive the truth of you in all its versions, in all its contradictions.  You seem so new to me – yet so anciently familiar.

       "Can I open to your divinity, as well as to your humanity – to your uniqueness, as well as to our oneness?

       "Can I allow you to matter, to complicate my already complicated life?  Can I trust myself to find balance – to make room for you, but not too much room – to give myself completely to you, without giving up myself – to love you and not lose me?

       "Can I approach you, each day, with fresh eyes – letting go of history, labels, preconceived categories and judgments – so that my gaze is filled with wonder and curiosity?  Can I see you with the eyes of an innocent waif, who has never before set sight on a human being – and, at the same time, see you with the eyes of the aged sage in me, who has seen it all and loves it all?

       "Can I come to you from the fertile void that allows the miracle of you to blossom without expectation or containment?

       "Can I notice the details of you with all my senses alive – eyesight, hearing, touch, taste and smell?  Can I also attend to you with that sixth sense that immediately recognizes your soul?

       "And, if we become lovers, can I stay fully present and engaged?  Can I keep my heart and eyes open and clear?  Can I surrender completely to the joy of discovering you?"

       The lover is now silent.  Quietly, without being noticed, you return down the path along the way you came – walking slowly, pondering what you heard.

       And as you walk, a question crystallizes:

           How do I attend to my beloved?

         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!