Love asks us to be fearlessly vulnerable.
There’s a delicate, precious center of your soul. True love has us simply cup our hands like we’re holding a baby bird, and offer it to another person. We give over the sweet, the delicious and the perfect; and it is the only gift that has any real meaning in this world.
Cupped hands pass each other with equally precious glass cargo, each containing different colors and textures. To be held by the other, in love.
The mind holding on to a grievance (a way in which we were “wronged”) is like a full-time sentry guard whose job is to remain on the lookout for emotional threats from other people. … The mind that scans the environment for threats, insults, and things we don’t like keeps us edgy and tense, preventing us from opening up and letting love in.
- John Welwood
It’s such a conundrum that so often, in relationships, one person opens, and the other pulls back. I see it over and over with couples. So… the open person retreats again, and closes off. So the other person comes forward, and opens. Back and forth.
What happens if the first person just stays open? Happy. And doesn’t concern themselves with the openness of the other? Happy. Zen-like. Naive? Neglected? That’s the challenge. To not pull back, carry on, and know that the more one carries on, the more love they carry with them, from all sources.
Does immersion in all things spiritually enlightening and expansive every really soak into our skin, through our bodies, and into our soul? Spiritual direction, meditation, yoga, buddha, burning rituals, soulseeds, all manner of reading…. and some days I worry about being impervious.
Some days it feels like baby steps forward, and then giant steps back. It can be exhausting and discouraging, and the steps backward seem so big (whether they are or not is hard to tell), and are generally called out. Steps forward are almost hard to notice, and are generally not called out by others (although if we’ve moved forward far enough, then, of course, we don’t need others to notice).
The uphill path toward self-actualization, awareness, fearlessness, and letting go is fraught with obstacles (some of which we carry on our backs), unsure footing, sliding sections, and the occasional mud puddle. Sometimes I need to just sit down where I am on the path, brush myself off, look around, and then close my eyes. Do I have the energy to get back up and keep going knowing that I am not likely to reach the pinnacle (assuming one exists) given my humanity and lack of ashram time? How does it feel to be another mile ahead? Worth it?
Maybe tomorrow. Today I need to sit here wanting to enjoy the view from where I am, but unable to open my eyes.
Just when you think its safe to go back in the water,
Fin.
The shark circles,
And invites her friends.
They snap, they chomp, they taunt, they tease.
They succeed.
In what? You ask.
And they are gone.
And you see the beach, and it is beautiful.
And you will get there
before she returns with her vicious, hungry friends.
Before you are burned by the sun.
Before you forget they came.
Before you forgot the question.
And you will get there.
Bask.
And you get in the water again. Or drown.
About Nancy Cole
Live in Love.
"I'll know my name when it's called again." -Mumford & Sons
Contact: cole dot nancy at gmail
