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.

A LETTER TO MAGNIFICENT MEN~Christabel Zamor (Inspired by the work of David Deida)

My dear beautiful man,

What I relish from you more than anything is presence. I hunger for you to have the capacity to maintain deep, unwavering eye contact, undistracted by anything in the background.

I crave your deep, resonant voice, and the slow methodical speed of your well thought out words. I yearn for you to breathe each breath with me and guide me to deepen my presence through example.

I am eager for you to stand strong, tall and powerful without figeting or getting restless. I love it when your face is relaxed enough to take me in with or without smiling, but always with deep breaths and a steady gaze.

I love it when your head is held high, your spine is tall, your body looks strong and powerful. I adore it when you can hold me in a tender embrace long enough for me to melt.

I ache for your stability so I can be wild, expressive, and emotional. I want to be able to let go and go crazy with desire, passion, anger or sadness and see you still here and unwavering, just being like an eternal mountain range~ grounded and dependable. I long to feel your ability to stay through discomfort.

I love and adore your power because it is great and ferocious, but only when it is fuelled by protective love instead of anger or the desire to control. I yearn to feel your devotion instead of any agenda to fix, solve, or match my energy.

I want you to be a man so I can be fully what it is to be a woman. I love the strong, distinct flavour of male energy and I want to taste it in you through your passionate dedication to show up.

I need you to desire and cherish my radiance above your own. I need to feel that my beauty brings you into your body and gives meaning to your life. While I love that you feel emotions and I want to know about them, I hope overall you are the force of stability so I don’t need to constantly carry the mantle of strength… that diminishes my feminine light and hurts my spirit.

I love it when the flow of masculine and feminine ebbs back and forth between us both. It feels nice when you can show your strength in softness and I can flow my femininity through action… this feels delicious when we play it together.

What I crave above all is the polarity in whatever dance we explore so we are magnetically drawn together.

Overall, I need you to know that I adore you! When you stand tall in your greatest power, I become the most tender, flowing and open. I want nothing more then to unleash and soften with you. I want nothing more than to trust you fully and give myself totally to you.

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

Understanding Giving...

When we give with a need to receive we set ourselves up for disappointment. And "need to receive" reflects the lack of self love and a sense of unworthiness.And as we begin to drop this emotional need we begin to drop our expectations of how others should be and see them more truly, sooner. Then we stop doing for others just to make them happy or approve of us and start ensuring that we are happy first.

When I am happy with myself it becomes very easy to open to the gifts that life and other people bring. This happens in unexpected and delightfully surprising ways, It happens often in very small ways that were always there but we did not have the eyes to see them because we were blinded by our need to "get back".If I give, I give because it makes me happy. Whether another acknowledges the receipt or not it makes no difference to my pleasure in that moment. There maybe a genuine recognition later and that is a bonus. 

So perhaps we could say that "give and take" is not the best basis for relationship. Give and receive is much better. And if I give to you and you just keep taking you will not be seeing the truth of my gift and that will be about you, not me.And if I keep giving wanting to receive your acknowledgement of me but you cannot "see" because you are "self engrossed" then for me to keep "giving" my "gift" is like throwing my self worth away.

You know. we get signals of how others are willing or not to receive very early in our meetings with them. Decide what you are prepared to give based on your feelings of your own empowerment not on your need for another to show you what a wonderful person you are.

We all want to be loved, appreciated, and truly acknowledged. It is at the base of human nature. And it will happen for us all as we move further and further into Unity Consciousness and we meet and start to live with our huge Soul Family.

But in the meantime we are each learning to take our own power and above all truly Love being who we are and experiencing the power of our own Heartfelt loving. Discernment and clarity are big keys. Learn to give first to yourself, to give yourself the gifts of freedom and self expression, of love and total respect, of connection and gratitude for that connection.

Then you will see much clearer to be able to give to others without reacting and with some expectation of your rights, and the need to “take”. In other words you will be more open to receive the gifts hidden in everything that happens to you. And you will be able to see the amazing beauty of the whole conversation that the Universe (reflected through the events that are happening to you) is having with you. In other words you will be open to Receiving rather than “taking” (or ‘making it happen)

Finally as you do all this you stop experiencing betrayal because your actions are not based on the other’s response but on you creating the feelings you wish to experience. In doing this you get very quick at discerning what to give others. You especially get to know, through your honesty and your heart knowing, when it is time to back off (with a loving smile, at least to yourself), and to perhaps move on. You learn not to give less but to expect only what another is willing to give freely and unsought, and waste no more time with unreal expectations of the other being there to fulfill your needs. To be in nonjudgement and in acceptance of what is.

Love yourself sweet Masters, and then it not only becomes easy to love others but you will attract those who are also learning to be at home with themselves. And thus you will be served with ones who are open to love you.

Walk Alone : Tagore

If no one answers your call
make a stride and walk alone

When everyone is closed and shut
Open your mind and speak alone.

Walk Alone, Walk Alone, Walk Alone

If they turn away and desert
and the wild path obstacles exerts

trample the thorns no matter the hurt
And Alone along blood-lined track traverse.

Walk Alone, Walk Alone, Walk Alone

If no one holds up the light
and a fierce storm troubles the night,

with the thunder flame of pain ignite
your heart, alone, and let it burn bright

Walk Alone, Walk Alone, Walk Alone...!

~ Rabindranath Tagore

The Phoenix...

She folded her knees and sat up, rocking to and fro, as if trying to comfort her own self with a steady motion. She felt dead; as if someone had sucked her life force from within and left just a shell, a husk with no grain. Her grief, her hurt was too deep for tears.

She blankly stared into space as if trying to divine an answer from the air itself. I could hear her silent screams "Why", why"... she repeated the same word. I knew. She wanted to make sense of it all; sense of something which just is. There is no pattern to it. It manifests itself into each person's life in a different way and each person has to fight for his or her own survival. I have given them everything, but it’s dormant. They have to activate their own selves.

And while I wept tears of blood for her, I stood by her side, saying nothing, just sending thought wave after thought wave of love towards her heart, hoping that through the darkness, even a small ray would reach her, telling her that life is still worth living and the stranger she meets on the bus deserves a smile. Just because the last stranger wiped the smile of her face with a backhand swipe, she must still trust; as in that lies her salvation. To smile, to love, to live, to rejoice... in spite of ALL that may happened.

She was sobbing now, her body shaking and trembling, her head bent down on her knees, immersed in her agony. My heart went out to her and I said ", Child! Do not weep anymore. The oceans in my universe have run dry as they fall from your eyes. I beseech you to try and see me, see that I love you, and see that my arms are open wide for you. But till such time that you are where you are, you must still smile, spread love and joy, and never get bitter because that is certain poison to kill me"...
She looked up, as if straight into my eyes, and I could see her spirit fighting her pain, and as a tiny smile glinted in her eyes, I knew that once again, the phoenix had risen. I sent her a bright colorful ray on which danced a thousand dreams and went on.

"Hope" ... a poem by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—


And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird—
That kept so many warm—


I’ve heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.