LOVE'S ADVENTURE

We long for love as much as we fear receiving it.

We yearn to be seen as much as we bolt at the possibility of being seen.

We hunger for the deep embrace of presence, tender eyes that gaze upon us with understanding and empathy, as much as we try to escape that very holding. It's too intimate. Too risky. Too exposing.

Nowhere to hide. To be seen is to be loved. To be seen is to die. Love is danger. Or so we have been taught.

A battle rages in us. The unloved one longing to hide, and the one who longs for the thrill and risk of living. Contraction and expansion. Breathing, in and out.

Unconsciously, we are attracted to or repelled by those who treat us, speak to us, hold us the way our parents did or did not. We are drawn to those who can heal us, and sometimes drawn to those who cannot, or worse. We think we are falling in love with a person, and sometimes we are just falling in love with our own image of them, which has nothing to do with the 'other' at all.

We love and we lose our images of love. We rise and we fall. Our hearts soar and our hearts break into a million pieces. We seek security and find insecurity and we find security in that. We seek freedom and find the prison of our own programming and lose hope and then regain it.

Sometimes it takes courage to leave a relationship. Sometimes it takes courage to stay. Sometimes it takes courage to do nothing, today. Sometimes it takes courage to admit how much pain you are in.

Sometimes it takes courage to admit how happy you are.

Sometimes you take a step without knowing why, and everything only becomes clear in hindsight.

You can't get it wrong anyway.

We lose ourselves and we find ourselves. We give more than we can take, exhausting ourselves in the name of "love". Or we run as fast as we can, exhausting ourselves in our flight from "love".

"Will somebody see me. Listen. Hold me. Let me break..."

And the drama of love plays out. And as the play goes on we learn more about ourselves. We begin to see our blind spots. Our unconscious patterns come into the light of awareness. We realise our assumptions. Our childhood fantasies start to crumble. Pain that we never wanted to feel, we suddenly feel. Grief. Anger. Feelings of rejection, abandonment. We want to run, go back into the old addictions, the old comfort, and for whatever reason, we don't. We get curious. We start looking and stop thinking so much.

We begin to relate to ourselves. Treat ourselves like the greatest lovers that we are. The most fascinating and beloved creatures.

With each day, we begin meeting ourselves more deeply. Discovering who we really are. What we feel, and what we don't. What we want and what we don't. Learning to say 'yes' when we mean yes and 'no' when we mean no and if that hurts someone, giving them back their responsibility to heal. Learning that love is not all butterflies and roses and positive feelings. It is work, too. It is mess. It is pain and the courage to breathe through that pain into joy and expansiveness. Love asks us to become more and more real, more and more human, more and more conscious, less and less perfect. More self-aware and willing to feel. And to feel more. And to feel more. And more. And to let our hearts break sometimes. To not know, sometimes. To be bored, sometimes. To be blissed-out, sometimes. To be full of life. To sometimes not know what the next step is. And to take it, or not.

Love is not a feeling, a state, or an experience. It's not a destination.

It's this extraordinary Light that shines from within.

It's this radiant Knowing that never leaves.

It's the Joy of being alive.

We can know it together. We can know it alone.

We can remind each other of it. We can forget, too.

We can trigger each other and help each other get curious about those triggers. We can do that work, or not.

We can meet in love's fire. Walk together, or not.

Share our hearts. Step back. Step towards. Or stay where we are.

Learn to love the dance of it, the spontaneity, the adventure, the mystery, the immediacy and the intimacy of it and the running too.

Learn to unlearn what we knew and embrace the unknowing as new knowing.

And get more and more content with the unresolveability of it all.

More and more happy with the unhappy one, certain about the uncertainty, so secure in the insecurity.

More and more blissed-out at our lack of bliss.

More and more curious about what's here Now.

Less and less solid, more and more playful.

Less a seeker of love, more a giver of it, and a finder, and a Presence that invites others into the same wild joy.

This is Love's Adventure.

Remind me ~Jeremy Goldberg (I love this!)

Remind me to always lie with you, but never to you, and that hurt only hurts while it lasts. Remind me to hold hands but never hold back.
Remind me of love, remind me of heart, and remind me that life will not tear me apart today, but if it tries and when it does, remind me that I’m good enough to be enough for you.
Remind me that the only way to make it last is to put us first, and remind me that the past is a prelude and pain is a choice, that I’ll get knocked down but I can get up quick, and yes, I’ll get destroyed but I can rebuild again.
When you see me flailing in rough seas, coughing up lungfuls of dark waves, and I’m thinking I’m sinking because my arms are numb and I can’t feel my legs, remind me with a hushed assurance and a knowing grin, “You’ll drown slower if your chin’s up, friend.”
Remind me to have faith.
Remind me why I love you.
Remind me that the stargaze stares we share and the galaxies we wish to explore are inside, not above, that the paths we long to travel are internal, not foreign, and remind me when my dreams seem lost like faraway lands in disrepair, that you’ll hold my hand and always care.
Remind me that it’s me you think about when you wish for happily ever after.
Remind me that not all aches are bad, that black nights still shine light and even in rainstorms or when hail comes and the sky is filled with emptiness we run from, the sun is always out somewhere.
Remind me that I am filled with light.
Remind me why your eyes do such funny things to mine and how, sometimes, time stops in the shadow of your smile.
Remind me that storm clouds are just water up high in the sky, that water is needed, that water gives life, and though it may arrive in drops of sweat or tears of strife, remind me that I can heal.

Remind me to keep you close but to never go too far, and remind me that even if we feel like a lifetime stopped and stuck in its tracks like a frozen statue of our distant past, even if it feels like pointless paralysis or a beginner’s magic trick, even when we resemble an empty well all out of wishes, remind me it will be okay and already is.

Remind me that you are strong, and remind me so am I.
Remind me that you aren’t scared when, can’t run from, won’t hide, and don’t mind my pain when it’s all I know and feel and fear.
Remind me that we’ll never know how it ends until it does, and even then, it doesn’t because what we have and who we are isn’t something we can just pack up and leave behind, like some kind of shooting star in some cold and fleeting night.
Remind me how I love getting lost in you.
Remind me that you are an adventure worth taking and never forgetting.
Remind me it starts now, today, for always in all ways, and remind me to remind you of this, all of it, always in all ways.

To my sweet wild woman~ Kate Rose

I know why it hasn’t worked out with anyone else.....
you don’t need a man, but a goddamn warrior.
You are the strength of Turkish coffee at sunrise darlin’ and don’t try to pretend that you’re not.
You are one of the wild ones, and no matter how you tried to hide that fact, you can’t be anything other than what you are,......and that’s okay.
You are just as you are supposed to be, magnificently wild in all of your chaotic beauty.
I know you’ve had your heart broken and I know that you don’t understand why it always seems to never work out, but I’ve finally figured it out:
You don’t need a man, you need a goddamn warrior.
It doesn’t matter if this warrior drives a Jeep or a shiny sports car, and it won’t matter if he wears silk or cotton it will not even matter if he works in a high-rise, or on the night shift.
What is going to matter is that when it comes to taking bets on your heart, he is going to be high stakes all the way.
This warrior of yours will crave your strength, and your intensity.
He’s going to look at you and not see something to tame, but something to just fuckin’ admire.
This warrior of yours won’t be someone that you can manipulate or play with as you have in the past, so honey, don’t even try, and trust me, you’re going to love him even more because of it.
Because you aren’t just a woman, you’re a goddamn goddess.
Your fierceness is going to bring him to his knees every single time he looks into your gorgeous eyes, but the difference is, unlike the others, he isn’t going to be scared off.
No, this time, you will have finally met your match because a simple man for you just won’t do.
You need someone to match the fire in your eyes with his own.
Not only that, my little wild thing, but this warrior of yours is going to want to encourage the flames instead of trying to douse them with his own insecurities.
Because for you, a warrior is the only man who will ever live in the wild with you.
He may not have to slay any dragons to earn your love, but he would still walk through fire if it meant seeing that amazing smile that you hold in reserve for only him.
This is the thing, free spirit, this warrior you seek….he’s seeking you too.
For he’s had failed relationships that have left him wondering if maybe he was meant to be alone for the rest of his journey and you’re going to change all of that for him.
You both have been traveling along on your separate journeys and have been doing an okay job at it, but that about to change too.
Because baby, when you and this warrior of yours meet and collide, it’s going to be a love set on fire.
Don’t try to run this time
I know your heart has been broken before, and that you’re not used to things working out, but this time it’s different.
Give yourself time to see that.
This warrior of yours needs to see that it’s possible for someone to see all of his wild, and still be there when he craves his freedom and ventures off into this world for a bit.
You won’t always need to follow him, just as he won’t always follow you.
Let yourself stay wild, even when all you want to do is curl up in that spot along his side and forget the rest of the world exists.
Let yourself still wander naked under the full moon, and drink moonshine with the stars.
Let yourself feel the pull of the wind on your heart, and the sun toward a new journey.
Because this warrior is going to love you because of your wild and he’ll want you to keep it.
You’ll be in this together now,
this amazing, crazy, chaotic, wonderfully heartbreaking life, because it takes a warrior to love a goddess.
And it takes a goddess to show a warrior what real love is.
So pack up your insecurities and your ideas about picket fences, because that was never you anyway. You were born knowing that you were destined for more, and now is the time for you to see what all those dreams look like.
There is no stopping a love like this, so promise me you’ll hold out just a little bit longer.
Have a little bit of hope, and always give love just one more try, because I promise you my sweet wild woman......
the love that you seek is seeking you as well.

Someone...

Someone to wake up to. To share the weather with, then the coffee.

Someone to dream with—to plan and scheme and then celebrate with.
Someone to win with, and someone to lose with.
Someone to care for and protect—and to let go of and watch fly.
Someone to stare at in wonder, and to think, “That heart loves mine.”
Someone to talk long with under stars on frosty nights. To giggle through scarves and gloves and hats with, and to kiss under mistletoe.
Someone to hold. Someone to be held by. To be treasured by a treasure.
Someone to notice birds with. To catch flashes of blue and green and purple and brown—and to feel the excitement of soaring little wonders. To see life as it is, not as it seems.
Someone to sit with and watch children, perhaps our own, and to laugh in their innocence and swell at our luck.
Someone to forget with.
Someone to cook with. To sweep mud off the floor. Someone to make magic out of mundane with and smile because it’s with each other.
Someone to cry with. To share rivers of grief indistinguishable from the other. To hold and to hug, and to help and to heal.
Someone to hold hands with. To glance at, fingers intertwined beneath coffee tables, and hearts blurring between eyes.
Someone to lay with with, nothing in between. To be everything holy and exist in a dream. To be naked to our souls and give everything unseen.
Someone to trust. To tell darkest secrets to and reveal hungry fears. Someone to know all of themselves and to want to see more. Someone whose eyes reflect what’s in ours.
Someone to walk with. To travel with. To find pockets of magic in grey city dullness. To drive miles and miles just for that “mile” that’s ours.
Someone to smile with. A deep knowing grin that says, “I see you” and “I’m staying.”
Someone to miss, even for a minute—until they return, and it feels like home again.
Someone to stare at for moments unending.
Someone to love.

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close." ~ Pablo Neruda

The Deep Joy of Being of Service

At first, spirituality is all about the individual waking up to the deeper layers of their consciousness, and integrating these truths--both the transcendental truths as well as the hidden, suppressed personal beliefs--until one comes into unison within ones self. But then, spirituality becomes all about being of service to the other-selves which are all portions of the over-arching being that you/I/we are.
When most of the personal doubts and separations have been resolved, there is no greater honor for the individual than to be so fully of service that he sees nothing but the One Infinite Creator interacting with itself in infinite ways through endless individuations. This state cannot be explained nor understood until experienced first-hand, but there is no greater satisfaction than to be of service to the All.
In fact, after one has gone through most of one's own spiritual growth, the only way to evolve even further is to direct that spiritual awareness unto the rest of ones Self (aka other-selves) and commit to that so fully that one becomes even more self-transcendent in their consciousness.
There is no way to describe this state of being as it is truly transpersonal. The balance of love, wisdom, confidence, tact and humility that one gets to learn in these rapturous as well as heart-breaking scenarios that the soul then attracts to its personality-extensions is so subtle no teaching except the living of it can touch upon this reality.
Make no mistake, this is the state I prepare you all for in my Trinfinity Academy and through my teachings. I might talk about attracting your dream life, and you will be able to manifest that too using these tools, but it will also naturally evolve you into a shepherding consciousness to which I cannot speak in words except barely. But when that stage has fully arrived for you, we will be able to look each other in the eyes when we meet and share instant tears of gratitude and ungraspable recognition of each other's beingness, fearless heart and journey. We will see the oneness of our vision and purpose.
There is no greater joy, no deeper honor, than to be of service to others in the most intangible of ways.
May you know your utter union with the Creator through all experience and catalyst that you attract to yourself as a human today. We will meet as brothers and sister of light when the time comes for you to have passed successfully through the challenge of loneliness and misunderstanding.
The ultimate reward lies on the other side of your unconditional willingness to give ever more of yourself to those who ask for your soul to be present here on earth.

THE JOY OF DESIRE...paradox of divinity and humanity

It's not wrong to want. 

Spiritual awakening, enlightenment, liberation, is often framed as the total annihilation of human wants, desires, needs.
This is a terrible misunderstanding that keeps so many people stuck, numb, bored, disconnected, at war with their bodies.

You'll be free from desire when you are a corpse.

The Buddha tried annihilating his desires, remember. It didn't work. Eventually he gave up and embraced them instead. This is the Middle Way.

Wants do not disappear in awakening. In fact, no thought or feeling does. It's your relationship with them that radically shifts. 

Now, you recognise yourself as the ever-present vastness in which ALL wants, urges, impulses, thoughts, sensations, feelings, sounds, can come and go; the unending sky in which the weather doesn't need to 'disappear', but can flourish. Come rain, come shine, come desire, come sorrow, come joy, come despair, you remain, as the wide open space that holds it all.

No more numbing wants, or denying them in order to appear 'spiritual'; yet no need to rush towards their fulfilment either, always running towards the future, fleeing a sense of lack. There is a deeper fulfilment, rooted in your own presence, that notices wants, bows to them, listens to them, yet is not their slave.

You see, you are the paradox of divinity and humanity, absolute and relative, formless and form:
You want nothing but can deeply honour your wants.
You need nothing but can learn to bow to your needs, see their sacredness.
You desire nothing but can hold desire, play with it, see its beauty, its intelligence; and know that all desire, deep down, is really the desire for Self.

As a little one, it was healthy to want food, to need love, to desire objects, to explore your own boundaries, test your limits, feel thwarted, then vindicated, then frustrated, then relieved, taste your own power, learn to honour your powerlessness, touch your freedom and your physical limitations. 

Desirelessness is a numb state, a state where you are afraid of desire and become its slave; it is not freedom.

And wanting the end of wanting is the biggest want of all.

You deserve love, little one. You deserve all the spiritual riches of life. You are precious, and all the mountains and trees and oceans and stars bow to you as you walk, for they recognise themselves in you, share your power, feel your heart.

Jeff Foster