Dear Sequoia 3

Dear Sequoia,

Your Mom and I haven't spoken in three weeks.  I can't tell you how strange it is.  I received a painting from her though, and it's dedicated to you.  She sends me paintings to let me know I am still in her heart, while she takes this break, but she wants to remind me of her and of you in the paintings she sends me.  Isn't that beautiful?  you are going to love her.

She loves you so much.  You can't know right now how much she loves you, but if you could, you would be overwhelmed.  What she is doing right now, in being apart from me, she is doing for you.  She is becoming her Self. She is living in the world of mystery and uncertainty.  She is risking everything, in a way, because she really doesn't know if I'm going to be waiting for her when she's done.  And by risking me, she's risking you.  But she's doing it because she loves you so deeply.  She knows she needs to become the person she needs to become, and the person you need her to become in order to be your Mom, and she can only do it through these fires and trials of life she's taking on.  Isn't that amazing?

I think of her all day long....and the days are long while we're apart.  But what i see when I think of her is a being so courageous, so full of heart and adventure, that getting to be born to her you are going to come into a life that is going to blow you away.  I think of you every day my sweet baby.  I can almost smell your skin, like I can smell your mom's.  your brightness is blinding, and I have no idea how to express to the universe my gratitude for you.  You are the greatest gift of my life.

love,

me

Love, Lost, or Not At All

Is it better to have loved and lost, than to not have loved at all?  that comes from a poem written in 1850.  well, it's kind of sentimental Hallmark-y, here in 2009, in our age of new-cynicism and reality TV.  But I bring the question up because I just kind of said something similiar out loud, randomly, in reference to my partner, who is apart from me, on her journey, doing whatever she's doing, somewhere in the world without me.  I just sent her a text and told her 'I wish I could hug your heart tonight.'  And I probably won't get a response from her....because she's on her journey....and that might sting....and no matter how I show-up....we might not end up together....but....the thing is....I LOVE.  I love.  Love is a choice, and I choose to love.

It's hard to articulate this.....because it's so....seemingly doormat-y.  It gives her, or anyone else who might attempt this path, room to be whatever kind of asshole they want to be.  I don't know what to say other than....there is some kind of wisdom, some kind of gift, some kind of strength and courage in giving someone ultimate space.  There is nothing easy about it....although...I suspect that it may get easy after doing it for a time.  you just keep on keeping on with the love and space and allowance.  You keep on keeping on while checking in with yourself to make sure you are not selling your soul down the river meantime.

I have sold my soul down the river.  I have done the sacrificing thing while paying the price of spirit stripping, eye sucking, expectation of some kind of return.  The 'trick' is, if it can be called a trick, is to find the space in yourself where what you're doing, you're doing because you you believe it is a way of being in the worthy of scrutiny, a way of being that will stand the test of time, a way of being that is based on the higher good and the greatever evolution of everyone involved....no matter how crazy it seems.

Everyone wants to tell you to get out, you don't deserve this, you are a great person and should be loved, lots of stuff that has to do with what's yours and what's coming to you.  But what is YOUR life based on?  what do you want to communicate through your spirit to the rest of the world?  the doormat thing is not not-real.  There is a point where we can recognize a loosing battle or that we are being taken advantage of....BUT....there is all kinds of space before then where your partner can unfold in a very fucking difficult reality that even THEY can't articulate as they're trying to go through it.  There is space you can hold, there are choices you can make that are life enhancing.  You can hold them in a greater idea of what they may become in their exploration than you currently what to hold them in.

Why?

Because.  At the end of the day....no matter HOW you slice it....what it comes down to...in the ideal version of life and love is....what Jesus or any of the great teachers would have done....Allow and Love.  The thing about allowing in loving is that you have to find a space in yourself that actually let's you do.  So you can't 'do it' AND at the same time be resenting doing it.  It actually has to be there fully, with full resonance, so you can fully participate.  This come from seeing the world, reality, life, spirit presence, with such a wide angle lens, with such vision, that the small machinations of someone's 'actions' don't effect the way of spirit, the way of the warrior.  you are choosing this because no one else is choosing it.  it is a gift beyond measure, to yourself and to the person on the other end other end of the receiving....and the example it is to everyone around you.

But you do it because you believe it...because you CAN do it.  it's like playing the violin or painting, you do it because it's your gift and you're meant to use it.  I wish the best for you, i hope it all goes your way at the end of the day and your investments pay off, and your journey is colored with great love and shiny life and beautiful people from these high, high, choices you're making.  That may or may not be so.  I wish it so for you, and give the universe gratitude in advance that it works out that way.  But if it doesn't, the path that you choose is as vital as it is no matter what.  Nelson Mandela was in jail for 27 years before he became the president of south africa.  that time....what probably more than a quarter of his life.  Was it a waste?  did it pay off because he became president?

l love because I love.  I choose to love because my love follows where my heart leads and my Self chooses to go.  I love her because i do.  I want her because I'm meant to.  I show up because my greatest challenges come in her eyes.  I am allowed this lifetime because we're meant to do this dance, and I see that, i feel that, and I want that, no matter what.  so of course i give her everything, of course I offer her years, of course I offer her the more raw and barest parts of myself.  Of course i will hang, and dangle, and swing, as she uncovers the language of her soul for the first time.  Of course I will.  Why wouldn't I?  is there anywhere more interesting in the world to be?  maybe, but i only have eyes for her...because I am looking with the eyes of my heart...and what they see is the unfolding cosmos, wrapped up in the pink and black and white of perfection.

Scalding Sidewalk in New Jersey

Right.  okay.   I always forget how hard the first week is without her.  it's with drawl, like from some kind of serious drug.  she is crystal meth maybe, and I can't help but feel the pain as her smell fades from my room, as the feel of her cheek in my hand becomes slightly less visceral, as our energies separate.  and since I can't have my meth, I have tequila.  don't know which one is worse....or better.  it's a funny thing to be in love with someone...to feel that sense of addiction to them....to want what you want FROM them....instead of just being WITH them.  that's why situations like these are invaluable, they are so instructive because they keep the dynamic REAL.  

I mean to say that because of this situation I am kept real.  I am not allowed to fool myself into believing that I am just easefully in love.  No, I'm not.  I am in love for sure, but I am also attached, I am also addicted to 'getting' something from her that i 'need.'  Is this co-dependence? Co-dependence smacks of desperation, it heralds in the devouring sense of my-life-makes-no-sense-without-this-person;  And while from an esoteric point of view that's true, she and I have always had our own lives, experiencing reality in separate ways, and include each other only some of the time.  I THINK in the face of loosing each other...we have become MORE co-dependent....in the sense that dependence is somewhat hinged on desire.  We WANT to be together, so there is a dependence on taking care of the 'us' while the 'I's' are doing what they need to do.  It is a kind of protection, knowing that life does/is/tries to always give us more.  MORE is often misleading, and when you know what you want you just don't want to be mislead...at least not hopelessly so.   Loosing her, loosing us, loosing our life together....I don't fear that anymore.  I do get caught up in what life can do, will do, must do at times.  Even still, I think we're going to wind up together, make it through this.  But what comes up for me now is how?

I'm not really asking 'how'.  There's no way to imagine how the universe will work it out...it will be astonishing, I get that.  So what I mean by how is, how am I going to BE/LIVE/DO my life in the next year while all of this unfolds.  Not having the drug will get easier, it always does after we're apart for a while.  But....the deeper feeling there is how will i live into me....when 'I' stand still, still wanting to be with her while she's journeying? 

 What does sadness speak?  the yearning of a pure heart?  the wail of an unrequited clarity?  or is 'sadness' a default more reaction to not getting what I want?  As deeply as I feel for her, there is also a sense that all my sadness is unnecessary and could in fact be its opposite.  Allowing is giving.  To love is to free.  To let go is to evolve.  All of these are causes for celebration not sadness.  No love is lost in the process, in fact more is born through the act of self-less beingness.  'Self-less' not in the martyr paradigm but in the sense that the self is not making the choices here, rather the Self is.  The 'S'elf is actually self-LESS because the Self holds big picture vision and chooses from the greater love and experience of Oneness than the 's'elf is able to conceive or hold.

My heart breaks at the idea of loosing my baby and soars at the idea of my baby gaining herself...everyday a step closer to the possible reality we might share.  but even if we don't, she still gains herself and flies in the face of traditional world values by the very nature of her courageous journey, and my joy is living the edge with her, if i can just find the joy in it.

LIFE is PARADOX.  The MIND is NOT the HEART.  The EGO is NOT the SPIRIT.  Mind and Ego hold tight to patterns and wishes and it takes concentration and deep desire for life to LIVE IN US differently than those forces allow.  HEART and SPIRIT will give and allow and free and celebrate.  Mind and Ego will demand, deserve, and entitle, and 'make sense' of the situation.  And so this journey of heart and spirit is solo and audacious, without acknowledgment and maybe too without reward or practical fulfillment, rather the fulfillment may be in some kind of progression playing out years or decades or lifetimes from now.  that's why finding the JOY in my choices (sinking in to heart and spirit) has to be the reward in itself, somehow knowing that eliciting a greater sense of beingness is where we want to go as individuals and as a culture.  Love isn't love.  Love is LOVE.

God, I love being in love.  I resent my dysfunction and non-clarity around it.  But even when it's not clear it's still GREAT.  can you imagine what it would be like in all it's true depth and clarity?  i barely can.  I don't know if I've ever experienced it.  But I'm here for it now, stripping my layers and laying naked on the scalding sidewalk in July in New Jersey, having the cosmos bake it out of me...all of it....all that needs to go in order to make room for what the transformation is offering to bring in.

Dear Sequoia 2

Dear Sequoia,

I had a crazy thought about you today, about us. I dreamed, day dreamed, that you were taking me on a tour of a day in your life. You were in school, I think grad. school, and your were running me down the street up to the door of your school where you couldn't wait to show me what you've been up to.

You have long dark brown hair, not as black as your Mom's but a lot darker than mine. It's funny, I can see your spirit much more clearly than I can see your face. You are so bright. I hope you got the best of me and the best of your Mom. I hope my weaknesses aren't too much of a burden on you as you grow and turn into the extraordinary woman I see in front of me. I could not possibly be more proud of you, more curious about you, more in love with the life that you are carving out for yourself because I can see how much YOU love it.

We haven't seen each other in a while. Your Mom and I live somewhere else from where you're going to school. And I get the sense that she's not in town with us right now...I came to visit you on my own. I get the sense that these are are magical times for us, somehow recharging and healing for both of us.

Be patient as your Mom and I work things out to eventually come together to invite you here. Know that I hold you in my heart, and love you more than I can express.

Love Wins.

i haven't written in a long time, i know, almost a month. Sometimes I dont' write when life is too busy taking my attention. Although I have written in other places, not the blog. i'm still getting used to being this publicly open....not that anyone is even reading this. Also, I go through periods where what I have to say is more in process than it is in practice. Like I can describe a practice of Unconditional Love, holding space for my partner while she's in New Orleans with her lover. That is a practice.

She came home by the way, and when she did she was full. She had an amazing experience, synchronisitic experience, play and wonder, exuberance, challenge. And when she came to me she was still clear that she wants to spend her life with me. She still wants us to have a 'break' from one another but in the end find each other again. So we're figuring out the details of how this can work for us. I have no idea. We are taking it day to day. Today is not a particularly good day, I woke up missing her and it's noon and I am still missing her. Mornings are the hardest, usually the light of day warms everything up. Today I just miss her and I can't imagine how I'm going to spend the next few years 'without' her.

I am actively inviting adventure back into my life. I have asked the Universe to present the people, experiences, and joyful challenges that will bring me back into a sense of myself and my journey, rather than my journey revolving around her. One of the difficulties I've been dealing with is WANTING my journey to revolve around her and NOT inviting the Universe to present new breath into my life. So this is a step for me. Feeling into how to hold her close while also letting my life open up again, is new territory. But i feel like it's also necessary if we're going to make it through this.

It's so strange from this end, having a kind of knowing that we will be on the other side of this one day while LOOKING AT IT FROM HERE and having no idea how it could be possible. She has such a distance to go to find her way back to me. The things I need to do I can probably do with or without her. I don't know actually, I haven't let go enough to feel into that. But seeing it from the other side, what a journey we will have been on together, what a distance we will have come, what a foundation of trust we will be standing on. And it's helpful to feel into that because it helps me HERE release into the creation of, creative process of, the unfolding future. Holding that vision in mind, of the three of us, she, me, and our daughter, it's almost shocking in its clarity. By visualizing that, i am connected to it...like, directly. And it eases the confusion, frustration, and occassional hopeless feeling of the current moments of transition.

The questioning that is caused in me is good questioning....and I'm sure the same kinds of questioning that she is going through. The pro's and con's of each other, timing, life path, are any of the con's too immense for me to really want for the rest of my life. Is any of this fantasy rather than what I really want? These are crucial questions for anyone on the path. Can my partner, will my partner, enhance my journey or detract from it. Do we bring out the best in each other on a daily basis? Am i willing to allow the Universe to bring in the 'righter' person if she isn't it? or will I hold on because I KNOW best what is right for me? How much, how hard, how long, will i fight for her? Is fighting antithetical to the spiritual path of cosmic unfoldment of journey and purpose relative to everything else that is also unfolding in the universe? How come I am willing to let almost anything else in my life 'go' in favor of the greater journey but not my love? not my relationship? If it's because love is RARE, and the MOST important thing to me in this incarnation, is that a good enough reason? or should I STILL defer to the Universe. What does co-creation end and ego begin?

Should I just step away until all these questions don't need to be asked and the energetic is just clear because it IS.

I've known for a long time that love isn't enough, but I didn't know what was enough. What it seems to be is a combination of radical allowance, radical letting go, and radical centering of Self...in the midst of a great love that consistently offers itself. If all of those qualities can be present, and if it can be mutual, and if can sustain itself in the uncertain dynamic of the presence of all of those for as long as it needs to, then 'love' wins. And you will have a greater love than you ever imagined in the beginning. Your hurting heart, your bruised ego, your parenthetical thoughts about the welcoming of death, will have long evapoarted because you will have moved to a new plane of connection with a human being. But you DO have to take that leap, if that's what's being asked of you. AND maybe it is radically relevant to your purpose on the planet to have such a profound connection with your partner. IT'S NOT FOR EVERYONE. but if it is what's presenting for you....then maybe it's important for you.

What have I written so far? i dont' go back and read it. This is a radical path. I know it's something about that. Radical trust, radical allowance, radical radical radical. Get out of the ego and into the cosmos. You're not crazy, you're living, you're really alive.