the mysteries of love

Seriously, though.

It is one hell of a mystery!

Rumi says: "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you built against it." That's so true for me. In my particular worldview, which defies categorization but is perhaps something along the lines of technopagantribaljewishurbangypsyearthmama, maybe, um . . . oh yes! In my worldview, love is the very fabric of the universe. Love is the animating force for the first exhale of God, a breath that imbued life into all of creation in a millionth of an instant. Love is what we are. It is not something we do, or something outside of us, it is something we are unfolding as, continually.

Love is the aliveness in every cell of our being. It is what motivates our lives, what drives us to create and expand and explore. "Work is love made manifest," said Kahlil Gibran.

And of course, love is what impels us to seek our Other. I suspect, although I certainly don't know, that 'true love' is what happens when two people come together and their hearts come open into the realization and reality of who and what they truly are -- which is Love. Together, two people in love and in partnership -- two people who are truly compatible, who may even have been destined for one another -- can reflect to one another the divinity that is enfolded into every aspect of their humanity.

So, okay, this is all perfectly cool by me. The universal love stuff? No problem whatsoever. It makes sense, I get it, I seriously dig it, I feel psyched to be able to access the amazing experience of being connected to all hearts and to earth's heart, all that good stuff.

But interpersonal love? Another story entirely, friends. Una otra historia. In this arena, I am certifiably an imbecile. If you are the betting type, I'd say a good 85% of the time the odds are in your favor that intimate partnership is not what's happening for your homegirl here. That other wildcard 15%? You'll find me either leaving a trail of broken hearts in my hapless wake, or pining hopelessly after love-misers who deign to toss me a crumb now and then. Precisely 0% of the time am I happily and healthfully dating one person who is kind, sexy, down to earth, passionate, and smart, not to mention who lives within a 15-mile radius of me.

You know what, though? I am giving up something major. I am sacrificing upon the altar of truth, any notion that I've been coyly hanging on to for all these years that "there's something wrong with me." That people just don't *like* me or don't *notice* me because I'm physically unacceptable or emotionally inferior or in any way non-viable as a warm-bodied human being. Because that attitude is B.S., my friends and neighbors. It is just a cute little way for me to not take responsibility for the walls I myself am putting up.

Yeah, I got a wall in front of my heart. I know it, I feel it. Who doesn't, at least now and then? What I'm realizing is that I have to take a look at this wall. Sit with it for a bit. Leave the dynamite and the sledgehammer and the spraypaint at home, and just go on over and lean against this wall for a while. What's it made of? What are its contours, its textures? How long has it been there and who were its stonemasons?

Good old inquiry, y'all. Not denying it, not railing against it, not condemning it. Taking a real, curious, compassionate look at the thing, and maybe even coming to understand it.

Because until I do that, it's just plain irresponsible of me to act like I'm ready to engage in intimate relationship with anyone. Because as beautiful as my words may come across to a potential lover about how open and ready I am, and as well-oiled as my steely intellectual machinations may be when the going gets tough, my heart is still yearning to be free but this heart-wall is still standing strong. And what all that means is that the love energy leaks out in all kinds of unconscious ways, which just can't attract anything good and wholesome.

*Sigh.* They're the bitterest medicine, these ill-fated love affairs. But medicine is medicine, and after this most recent bout of watching another weird stilted heartbreak play out in front of me, I am realizing that it's high time that I have a little meeting with myself. A meeting that may last several months. A meeting in which I am sequestered with myself and only myself, and all these tempting tantalizing people who keep popping up will just. have. to. wait. A meeting in which I ask myself some probing questions, to which I shall reply honestly and to the best of my ability. A meeting which may involve power-point presentations and/ or shamanic journeys, as the situation calls.

My hope is that once the meeting is adjourned, I can re-emerge from that stuffy boardroom (just kidding - we're going on retreat!) into the wild and wonderful world of turning-towards-love, but this time with confidence and with integrity, knowing full well who I am, where I am at, what I am offering, and most importantly, what *I* want. I look forward to a time of standing with two feet fully planted into the earth, spine in balance, awareness centered in my belly and my heart, so my outstretched arms can embrace Love without me toppling forwards or collapsing backwards.

All of this, so that one day it shall come to pass in my life that, finally, there are no words for the gift that arrives: "Although I may try to write about Love I am rendered helpless; my pen breaks and the paper slips away at the ineffable place where Love, Loving and Loved are one." ~Rumi.

How July is (so far)

Believe me, dear readers, I did not mean to leave you here alone for all these many weeks!

It's just that I went backpacking deep into the Trinity Alps, where we could see the reflections of the planets in the glossy black surface of Caribou lake, and the exhilarating explosion of cold water in the morning followed by my back on the warm rocks brought me close to earth again...




and then I fell into a torrid two-week romance, which, as you might imagine, ended torridly...


and then I drove through grey-brown distant-mountained deserts to the glittering green hills of Ruby Valley, NV for the Indigenous Environmental Network conference, and the original people of our lands spoke about the many devastations that add up to the great disaster we are visiting upon ourselves, we who are so cut adrift from the anchor of reverence...


and in between, there were of course dazzling blown-glass exhibits and inspired lunch meetings and dinner delivery to new parents and women's circles. And all the mundane and awesome moments that make a life.



These weeks of summer are so full, and bring so much, and fly so quick.