Marriage in the Air: Sun-Juno in Libra

31 thoughts on “Marriage in the Air: Sun-Juno in Libra”

1. Thanks, Jan. That is what I was getting at.

2. Generally, women could own property (real property), but it was marriage that had the main impact on the control of that property. That began to change in the mid-1800s with the passage of “Married Women’s Property Act” in various states. Unmarried women and widows owned property. Dower was a means to provide for the widow by allocating a portion of the late husband’s estate for her benefit as long as she lived. Curtesy was the corresponding right of men in women’s property. Each state was slightly different. Ironically, in Michigan curtesy was abolished in the 1890s, yet a form of dower still exists.

   So, it was primarily the institution of marriage that inhibited women’s property rights. At least in the last two hundred years we have made some progress, albeit not anywhere near enough, at unravelling the tangled, knotted mess of patriarchal domination, moving toward equality ever so slowly. Or at least until recent days when the likes of some of the Pub candidates and the state of Mississippi want to make contraception illegal by means of declaring life viable at fertilization via a state constitutional amendment.

   The lunacy will continue to ratchet until it snaps.
   JannKinz

3. My understanding of proeprty law relates to women’s lack of ownership rights (and the vote) until very recently in our society.

4. “Consensus of course can also work at all three stages – we agree to disagree, we agree to put the common good before our own needs, we agree to work together so that everyone gets what they need at some stage and in some way.”

   That’s exactly how DH and I do it. Looked at in that way, it isn’t about ‘giving up’ anything but instead embracing something different. Perspective is everything isn’t it?

5. Carrie, the annus mirabilis is purely my invention, and I have lived it out 7 times in the last 20 years. It fits my personality, and yes there is some poignancy involved at the ‘end’ – but the *whole* point is to treat one another as though this is the ONLY year you have.

   I made a very big mistake in doing the annus with someone who said, as I was giving him the ring, “So, is this like a trial relationship.” No, I said, ring in mid-air, this is it – one year, take it or leave it. He said ‘yes’ a little too fast. I found out that meant, ~~ okay, since it’s only a year, that means I can have a nervous breakdown blow up all of my responsibilities and you’ll take care of me.~~

   Let’s just say I learned alot that year.

   As for your last question, I will refer you to Hepburn and Tracy. (There’s more than reason I dreamed I was her daughter.) Look ’em up and you’ll have the basic idea.

   We’re fine, but we have off years and on years.

6. “Yet it’s all about getting a hold of this thing that may not even work well anymore; …and that has its basis in property law.”

   “What jumped out at me was Amanda’s statement: ‘and that has its basis in property law’ . . . How can anything that has to do with human lives being linked for an intended lifetime of legal and financial bonds to one another work to enhance self-actualization if the basis is in PROPERTY law? Just a question?”

   Without resorting to tedious legal research and a “brief”, if I understand Amanda’s statement, “thing” references marriage. The basis in real property law most likely has to do with primogeniture, that is “right, by law or custom, of the firstborn to inherit the entire estate, to the exclusion of younger siblings (compare to ultimogeniture). Historically, the term implied male primogeniture, to the exclusion of females.” (Wikipedia).

   The historic pressure was to produce a male heir, and marriage was the vehicle that allegedly would assure the fidelity of the female. (“Motherhood is an act of God. Fatherhood is an act of faith.”

   Technically, a discussion of marriage in the context of primogeniture has nothing to do with relationship. It has to do with producing a male heir and preservation of the family estate and inheritance, as well as monarchies.

   As an aside, common belief is that Henry VIII started the Anglican Church because he wasn’t allowed to divorce. Divorce was an issue, but the main issue of his divorces was having a male heir to inherit the throne. There were many other political issues that led to Henry VIII leaving the Roman Catholic Church having to do with the repeated interference of the papacy in internal political affairs of countries, particularly Britain. Henry always considered himself to be Catholic, and the Anglican Church (and its American counterpart, the Episcopal Church) are “Catholic”, whatever that may mean.

   Don’t know if that answers Burning River’s question about property law, but I will say that regardless of primogeniture, our human lives currently linked for more than a lifetime of legal and financial bonds created by our culture and society, now more than ever based on such bonds being an enslavement to debt. Certainly none of this fosters any self actualization or self-worth.

   To all – what a phenomenal discussion, definitely to be reread. Thanks to all and thanks for sharing life stories. So often the life stories of the PW community shed light into my life. Much gratitude.

   Jann Kinz

7. How about this as a model:

   3 stages to ‘dispute’ (or rather, differing needs being stated)

   Stage 1 – conflict.
   Stage 2 – compromise.
   Stage 3 – Collaboration.

   I try to work to stage 3, collaborative problem solving. And consensus wraps it all up. Consensus of course can also work at all three stages – we agree to disagree, we agree to put the common good before our own needs, we agree to work together so that everyone gets what they need at some stage and in some way.

8. Wow. Fabulous thread. I would just like to offer a different perspective on marriage….

   My father left the house when I was 7 months old, while Kennedy was still in the White House (but not for long). This was the beginning of a childhood spent seeing/living through the dark matter of unhealthy marriage and dating. This, surprise surprise, helped lead to an adulthood spent not entirely (thank god), but largely, alone.

   I have two friends who have spent their lives even more alone than myself. I just want to offer that I believe some people lead such lives with as much comfort and fulfillment as some who spend their lives in marriage with other persons….but, I think the loner life can just as much derive from denial and lack of self actualization as anything else, and thus result in the same broken endpoint as any failed marriage. In its own way, I think it can be romanticized just as much as marriage, and thus might be as much an unaware choice for some as marriage is for others.

   Of course, I can only speak for myself and this has been true for me. But!…my one friend who is approaching 50 and has never dated recently decided he wanted to change this about himself….so I think I might be on to something. My 3rd friend is the same age and had one short fling in her early years that she enjoyed, but otherwise seems to have found comfort in her life alone. I tend to believe it works for her. I’ve decided it does not work for me, and have been working to turn things around. Thank you for your help, by the way, Planet Waves!

   In this particular discussion, I like seeing the failure of the institution of marriage being turned toward the people misusing it, instead of just blaming the institution for all of the unhappiness. That said, I support the alternatives (poly, being alone…) as much as I, in general, support marriage.

   Procreation is the tough one for me. Thank God for the beautiful children I see being born who give me hope for the future. On the other hand, the planet is dangerously overpopulated….many children end up stuck in very broken parts of our communities….hmmmm…..is this not another scoop of programming gone wrong?

9. “I prefer consensus over compromise for resolving differences in any situation with people who have differing perceived wants, needs and opinions. Compromise rings of giving something up leaving neither fully satisfied.”

   I have to say that the latter does not always leave neither fully satisfied. The notion that one must be always fully satisfied is, I believe, part of that very American notion that the individual is all-important and that the individual’s wants and needs are paramount. That buys into the ideology that if someone ‘gives up’ something it is always a negative. This is from the hyper-competitive living model that permeates every facet of American life.

   We are really toddlers in this department if we truly believe that we must always be fully satisfied in all things. Dissatisfaction often is the fertile ground for profound inner change so it is useful when in balance with satisfaction.

   Suppose the giving up part is about one person giving up the verbal abuse they resort to in every disagreement. Is giving that up a bad thing if it leaves the verbal abuser dissatisfied? This is why that paradigm of thinking ‘compromise leaves people dissatisfied’ and is therefore unacceptable is not something I can agree with.

   “Consensus brings resolution through time and discussion and time and discussion until both can agree on the same thing resulting in a solution that is actually fully acceptable to both.”

   This may seem like the ideal but that pesky ‘time and time and time again’ part is extremely difficult to do in our very rushed, time-constrained lives. Sometimes DH and I cannot take that much time so each of us figures out what we are willing to ‘give up’ to achieve a resolution that we can both accept without resentment. It is a matter of realizing what is the really important issue and what are peripherals. Or as a lot of mothers say, we ‘pick our battles’ so as not to waste disagreement on those which are not that disagreeable to us or of that much importance.

   I think the idea of compromise has gotten a bad rap because of that idea of ‘giving up’ but it doesn’t have to be seen in that light. Sometimes we realize that the very thing we are afraid to ‘give up’ is the very thing we should give up in order to grow as persons. The act of compromise is in actuality an act of placing the health of the relationship above our own ego at times. Too much of that is bad but too much ego is bad as well. Balance is the key, as always.

10. I prefer consensus over compromise for resolving differences in any situation with people who have differing perceived wants, needs and opinions. Compromise rings of giving something up leaving neither fully satisfied. Consensus brings resolution through time and discussion and time and discussion until both can agree on the same thing resulting in a solution that is actually fully acceptable to both. The idea and practice of consensus is fully discussed in the book ON CONFLICT AND CONSENSUS by C.T. Butler and Amy Rothstein. I have seen it used effectivly time again in healthy 12 step groups. I look forward to seeing it taken up by couples and families who sincerely want the best for the dyad (the whole) as well as the individual.

11. “annus mirabilis. I would approach a man (in the last round, a woman) who found me fetching, and say: Wanna go out? Four or five dates later if it still seemed like a good fit, I would propose the annus mirabilis, the miracle year. During that time (10-14 months) we would be best friends, lovers, co-conspirators. The period is long enough to become fluent, short enough to keep us graceful.”

    That’s a new way of doing it that I hadn’t considered. I wonder about that last sentence and how do you keep the other person from becoming attached (more than you may want)? I wonder that because of our social programming to pair-bond (usually the pressure is “for life”).

    I know that if I did something like that I would get very emotionally attached; I tend to get emotionally attached to people way too easily. If that happens, how do you deal with that in yourself?

    This brings up so many possibilities and questions but it sounds a lot like the ‘temporary marriage’ of Shiite Muslims and the ‘year and a day’ of certain Pagan beliefs.

    “I am too old to play the poly game. Too complicated…”

    I feel the same about poly; I already have close relationships with five other people (though only one is a sexual relationship with DH, the others are the parent relationships with my children). Just juggling those is enough of a workout for me; adding a second intimate and sexual relationship to the one I already have with DH just sounds way too time consuming, energy sapping, and a lot of work. Especially as it would entail dealing with the four kids and their issues about it (their fears, the insecurities all kids have about their parents’ relationships). Also dealing with DH’s insecurities and feelings and my own fears (will I like the second one more than the first and how could I deal with the hurt that would cause him; I love him too much to hurt him). It is just way more complicated than I want.

    That doesn’t mean I don’t fantasize about it (my Pisces sun does) but I am too realistic (Virgo rising and Cap moon) to think reality would be the same.

    This next part is addressed personally to you, Mystes (as opposed to just the thought or idea):

    “This form was developed for the off-years when my principal consort was not available. ”

    May I respectfully ask what you meant by ‘unavailable?’ Did you mean physically not around or not available sexually or time-wise or emotionally? You don’t have to answer if that makes you uncomfortable; or we can take it to e-mail if you prefer. Thanks for posting this.

12. Eric:

    RE: Other models (besides poly).

    Here’s one I did for years :: annus mirabilis. I would approach a man (in the last round, a woman) who found me fetching, and say: Wanna go out? Four or five dates later if it still seemed like a good fit, I would propose the annus mirabilis, the miracle year. During that time (10-14 months) we would be best friends, lovers, co-conspirators. The period is long enough to become fluent, short enough to keep us graceful.

    I’ve discovered the hard way that you DON’T do the annus with someone who responds: so this is a trial relationship?

    This form was developed for the off-years when my principal consort was not available. This way I could remain fedeli d’amour – and still enjoy and be enjoyed. For someone like me, who is truly a gawd-awful wife, this has been a way to work out the partnership question in a sanity-preserving way.

    As much as I admire Maria, I am too old to play the poly game. Too complicated and I’ve never managed it without stepping on some toes and/or having mine thoroughly stomped. Truth is hard to come by in most conventional relationships – and I’ve never found polyamorantes much more truthful.

    So that’s my confession for the internets. ‘sokay, cause I’ve copyrighted the term and if you want a handfasting for the year, you’ll HAVE to come through me (guffah).

    Kissies to all,

    M
    ***
    **
    (

13. “The recipe for self-actualization might call for you and other as the ingredients and the relationship as the pot you must be cooked in to get there.”

    Yeahhhhhhh. 🙂

14. “One of the reasons I don’t always address the person when I quote and reply is because I am replying to the thought, not the person.”

    Exactly — this is a basic protocol for civilized public discourse that does not “get personal.”

15. Sarah writes:

    The paradox of relationship is the simultaneous giving of yourself fully to something while still acknowledging you are a whole person.

    That pretty much sums it up for me – whatever form the relationship takes. I think success in relationship boils down to that paradox. It is truly the razor’s edge. Many, if not most, don’t seem to reach that boiling point.

    The recipe for self-actualization might call for you and other as the ingredients and the relationship as the pot you must be cooked in to get there.

    Namaste.

16. “did not assume that idea was exclusive to you — I hear it a lot, and it’s not usually questioned, so I was questioning it.”

    Please apply this same thought to what I am writing here. One of the reasons I don’t always address the person when I quote and reply is because I am replying to the thought, not the person. I learned to do that while participating on a Religious Experiences message board for ten years; debate issues not people. Also, I often forget to insert the name of the person I am quoting because of time constraints so please don’t anyone feel slighted. I reply in moments of inactivity and those are few these days. Sometimes a reply is typed in bits because of the interruptions I get. This messes with the continuity of thought a lot.

17. “It ‘works’ if many of the parties involved contort themselves into strange positions, and invest a lot of energy into denial of various feelings, desires, ideas, impulses and so on.”

    I agree that within many marriages (and relationships of all kinds) people often deny their feelings, desires, ideas and impulses to an unhealthy degree.

    I don’t agree that this is the only way it “works.”

    It IS important for them to be aware of those feelings desires etc. It is also important for them to be honest with themselves about them. It is not important for them to ACT on all of them or have them all fulfilled. I think there has to be a balance of being ones’ self and denying some of one’s desires and feelings.

    One issue I hear about a LOT from so many people (people talk to me for some reason) is that they feel like they should be able to have every desire and feeling met within the relationship. They don’t seem to want to deny anything or compromise at all. This is anecdotal information based on my experience.

    I see this a lot in people younger than myself; I wonder if it is a generational thing?

    The way I see it, sometimes it isn’t best when every desire or feeling is acted on. Just as a gardener weeds the garden and thins the seedlings so the ones left can grow healthier, we sublimate those desires or feelings to flourish. My studies have shown that it is a child’s brain that wants every desire or feeling to be granted; adult brains realize that giving in to all of these is not necessarily the most healthy way to live.

    Adults are supposed to be mature enough to realize that you cannot have it all, all the time, because it is often very unhealthy.

    Like the toddler marshmallow test; some toddlers are unable to delay instant gratification for a greater reward and others ARE able to delay gratification. The latter tend to do better as adults and have less problems in work, relationships, and all areas of life. Why? Because all interactions between others are a balancing act of my desires and feelings and the feelings and desires of others.

    We inhabit a planet with almost 7 billion other human beings; we cannot have everything our way and get along. Yet I hear so many people telling me they feel like they are ‘giving up’ their desires or their ‘real’ selves to be in a relationship but as they talk, I find they are unwilling to compromise and they want to have it all their way.

    Is this a product of our ‘instant gratification’ social programming of the past 40 years of ‘me-me-me?’ It is a real problem and causes a lot of unhappiness in relationships. The people who talk to me don’t seem to see it though.

    “It’s always the story of wanting some finality and stability at the expense of potential and flexibility, based on the belief that both are not possible at the same time (which may be true, but I don’t understand finality and stability as end goals, as they don’t leave much room for creativity). ”

    I don’t think stability and creativity (or stability and potential/ flexibility) are mutually exclusive. For some, stability is a necessity; they feel they need it so they see it as an end goal. This only means they are best off if they pair up with someone who feels the same. It doesn’t mean they are not creative (or flexible); creativity is defined differently for different people.

    Sometimes the best creativity comes from within restriction; Saturn in action as some say. The restrictions we place on ourselves for the sake of stability often bring out creativity we never knew existed.

    I see it this way; some people desire freedom to be creative. Other people desire security to be creative. Neither is wrong, they are who they are. Neither will understand the other because they simply cannot. Both are valid. Does that make sense?

    I don’t personally feel I have exchanged flexibility or potential or creativity for stability but then, that’s because of who I am stable with. I suppose others may not feel the same as I do.

18. eric – got it. misread it as a critique of the essay as much as of the idea itself. whoops!

19. Amanda – did not assume that idea was exclusive to you — I hear it a lot, and it’s not usually questioned, so I was questioning it.

20. Sarah, Alexander, SheBear(!), Mystes, Amanda–what fascinating reading for me this morning. Thank you all.

    What jumped out at me was Amanda’s statement:

    ‘and that has its basis in property law’

    How can anything that has to do with human lives being linked for an intended lifetime of legal and financial bonds to one another work to enhance self-actualization if the basis is in PROPERTY law? Just a question? (Do you hear my anguished indignation?) We are talking not just about the “institution of marriage”, we are talking about the human institution of property law being applied to women, for the most part, and men as a concept that has been and still is acceptable, or it would not be LAW.

    For the sake of children coming into the world, a commitment by their DNA providers often enhances the self – actualization of those who are born to them. Some tribal communities however do not even leave the raising of the children to the DNA donors alone but the entire tribe assumes responsibility and delight in the care of the children. It really does take an entire tribe to raise well one child, in my experience.

    The “institution of marriage” itself is to me based on a faulty foundation and can never produce healthy outcomes until that flaw is remedied..

    Juno was one unhappy goddess if you look into her story. Zeus, or was it Jupiter? (can’t remember the Roman name of the Top God), any way he was after her for a long time and she was not interested until finally he tricked her into marrying him. After that she was stuck with living with him and dealing with all the stories and results of his desire for and conquest of other women also. So she just turned into an angry, vengeful bitch. The problem with being a philandering woman ( I have thought about this—why didn’t she just do the same?) is that women are the ones susceptible to having children and all the far reaching responsibilities and psychological hang-ups of failing at being a ‘good’ mother/woman that are possibilities if the birth control doesn’t work. Women simply do not have the biological/emotional / psychological freedom of men sexually during their child-bearing years. In my opinion.

    Enough of my opinions! :>). Alexander, I think I could truly appreciate HIM. I have a bit of that in me. Mystes, you do to, eh? Awesome plan! And Kathryn smiling bemusedly at you? Think of it—she had Spencer heart and soul and body and never married him. Think of it. Of course she was smiling bemusedly. We can become true to ourselves just as she did. Keep holding that hand of hers!

    SheBear! How Great to hear your dear voice! Love to see your experience in Eire through your beautiful, discerning, loving eyes. May the wind continue at your back! ( I have McWhorter blood in me:>) )

    Sarah, really appreciated your comment about experiencing wholeness in a relationship, even if momentarily. That seems to be it. We are learning and at the beginning we will only have glimpses and short spots of the experience. But it will grow. It will grow. That is what we are here pioneering, I believe. Companionship, loneliness, true to one’s self, connection to another. What great mysteries of delight and suffering that is constructive and instructive that we are exploring.

    Thank you all for how you have encouraged me on my way today. I am still property. But I am not a commodity and am making everyone uncomfortable with my refusal ti play by anyone’s rules but my own, within the faulty system. Blessings and wind at all of our backs today. . .

21. “Why does ‘respecting one another as individuals’ as a function of a ‘healthy’ marriage have to be in the context of marriage, per se? What about respecting one another as individuals, just because?”

    eric — i never said that it had to be. i was writing a piece about marriage because that’s we had discussed the astrology was about. of course any healthy relationship — lower case “r” — should involve that respect. and that includes relating to the clerk at the grocery checkout.

22. “Why does ‘respecting one another as individuals’ as a function of a ‘healthy’ marriage have to be in the context of marriage, per se? What about respecting one another as individuals, just because?”

    It doesn’t have to be in the context of marriage; it should be a function of any relationship, romantic, sexual, or not. For example, it should be a function of the relationship between parents and their children or between a manager and her employees. Respecting one another as individuals should be the default social program within any relational framework.

    It is our society that places the emphasis on marriage as the default. It wasn’t always that way in human societies. Many Native societies just pair-bonded until they chose to unbond; that was the default model for them. It is an Abrahamic religions (as well as some others) notion that marriage is the default social ideal. If we could disassociate religion from relationships, it could change. In my opinion, that disassociation would be a change for the better. Divorcing religion from the pair-bonding relationships would go a long way in healing the dysfunction so prevalent in our society.

    There’s the issue of paternity and control over the scarce reproductive ovum; this is part of the problem and it needs addressing. In pretty much every society on earth, females are controlled as soon as puberty (read -fertility) is established and doesn’t stop until menopause (read loss of fertility). Control of scarce resources has always been an issue; female egg production is a limited resource because of the set number of eggs she has over her lifetime and the huge investment in reproduction human females must make. Therefore controlling females and access to their eggs has given rise to social conventions (such as marriage). When women have control of their own eggs, (much like the Iroquois tribes did it before Westernization changed them) marriage is not an institution. How to reconcile the male desire for genetically tied offspring and the female need for control over her own eggs? That is an important issue and until it is resolved, marriage will be a socially promoted default.

23. “I realize that for many, marriage works. From what I can tell, those are the marriages in which a fair amount of recognition and respect of the individuals involved balances with the concept of partnership.”

    Yes, Amanda, that is exactly how it works. Dave (my husband) and I have that kind of marriage which is why it has worked for so long (24 years).

    “Once we realise that on a fundamental level, others rarely choose us but instead the ‘traces’ and ‘signatures’ we emit – in other words how we shape up in this world, how we measure up and fit in, how we stand out in worldly terms – then part of us knows that a person will be ‘with us’ largely because it fulfills a bunch of criteria that have absolutely nothing to do with who I actually am.”

    Alexander, that is so true. This is because most people never really question their social programming. Many females are (currently) programmed to be practical and for nesting in order to raise children; no one ever socializes women to be mothers that live on the go like your friend yet in our human past, women did that. Many men are (currently) socially programmed to believe they must support a family and buy a home (at least in America they have been programmed this way) so they may never consider any other track for themselves. With this social programming in place, people really don’t pair up to individuals; they pair up to the criteria their programming says they should.

    “All you can do is try to charge your own cosmic magnet with maximum attractive polarity – and wait, and maybe pray!”

    This statement (above) still assumes that pairing is the only way to live. There’s this push to pair-up and being unpaired is seen as a negative and unhappy thing. Yet millions of people don’t pair-up (by choice) and live happy and fulfilled lives. In our social programming, pairing-up is seen as the default model when in fact it isn’t. We have to get past this programming.

    As a long-time married person, I can only say that for me it works because my partner is just as committed to being individual and honoring the individual in me as I am about myself and him. This was a happy accident born of therapy (we both had been to therapy before we met) and luck. I came to the relationship laden with a lot of social programming and emotional damage but through self work and with his gentle wisdom, I have been able to sift through those and find myself more and more. He also had social programming and baggage but he also has worked on himself through the years. We have changed, he and I, and both of us are enjoying the people we have become. It is amazing that the more authentic we both become, the closer we feel to one another and the more freedom we have within the relationship.

    The amazing thing is, when we met, both of us had come to the point that we preferred living alone and enjoying that to being paired-up. We both had seen the positives of being single and were not in any hurry to get into a long-term relationship, much less marriage. I think this made a difference because we each approached the relationship not from a feeling of needing someone to be normal but from the point of “what do I have to share with this person?” That we did marry was a decision we made after much discussion and fleshing out our programming and beliefs and expectations. We talked marathons before making that decision and we were friends before we became lovers; that seemed to make a huge difference because friends don’t hide things like prospective lovers tend to do. So we knew each other’s flaws, issues, programming, and pitfalls and we went into this marriage thing with that knowledge and a commitment to work on ourselves and our partnership. We still work on ourselves and the marriage we have.

    One thing we have both realized about ourselves is that when we disagree, neither of us is wanting to win; we just want the other to understand our position and validate our feelings about it. Then we work out a compromise. This sounds very unromantic but any partnership is work and romantic ones are no exception.

    Neither of us wants the other person to sublimate themselves; we both want each of us to be as real as possible. Why have a relationship with a shadow? We both had already done that and it was not what either of us wanted. It is far better to have a relationship with the real person; even if that real person is different from what each of us is comfortable with.

    I will say that in my experience, living together and marriage are different (I have done both). Astrologically the seventh house is about partnerships but living together is not the public statement of intent that marriage is. The stakes are higher in the minds of the participants when it is a marriage and society reinforces this with the divorce legalities marrieds must go through to dissolve the partnership. Living together has less social legalities and it isn’t the public statement of intent to pair-bond for the long haul. Living together makes the statement that the pair bond is only for as long as the participants wish it to be; that’s a totally different statement from marriage (as it is programmed and defined in our society).

    Each choice (marriage or living together without marriage) affects our internal unconscious. Subconsciously, we make choices, take actions, live differently, based on our perceptions of the type of commitment we have made. People around us in society also look at each relationship differently based on the social programming about each. Living together (in our social programming) says “not permanent” and also says “each is available.” Marriage says “permanent” and “not available” in our society because of that same social programming. So it is not the same to live together as it is to be married in our society because of the social programming surrounding each.

    If that social programming were different, the perceptions of each arrangement would be different. This is the social programming that also affects the perceptions of poly living.

    Religion and a lot of other things have defined marriage and partnering. It would be a welcome change if that were to end.

24. We would have to ask what the ‘works’ part means in ‘marriage works’. It ‘works’ if many of the parties involved contort themselves into strange positions, and invest a lot of energy into denial of various feelings, desires, ideas, impulses and so on. I have sat and listened to the stories of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of marriages dissolving, falling apart, and so on. The thing is, it’s the same couple of stories all over again. It’s always the story of ‘what I thought this was supposed to be’ versus what it turned out to be. It’s always the story of wanting some finality and stability at the expense of potential and flexibility, based on the belief that both are not possible at the same time (which may be true, but I don’t understand finality and stability as end goals, as they don’t leave much room for creativity).

    Over and over again I hear the story of people who did not know one another when they got married, did not understand themselves, or consciously subverted their own desires. I hear the one about pleasing grandma and grandpa fairly often. I am thinking marriage ‘works’ for about one couple in a hundred, and even then you really have to get a definition of that word for the people involved. It would be different for everyone.

    Then there is the future. If someone grows, why does that mean the marriage stops ‘working’? Where is the concept of flexibility, of a collaboration designed to grow or expand, and where is the conscious choice of what to do with all these other human encounters other than deny, ignore or go underground with them?

    Why does ‘respecting one another as individuals’ as a function of a ‘healthy’ marriage have to be in the context of marriage, per se? What about respecting one another as individuals, just because?

    Where are the other models of relationship and why are they still so taboo??

25. Mystes – LOL at KH dream, that is pure brilliance. I love that when one gets to a certain point in life, one just can’t pull the wool over one’s own eyes anymore 🙂

    Alexander – I have an ongoing on-off relationship with a traveller, who comes to stay with me on average a few days every 6 months, as he’s passing through. We share a wonderfully intimate connection, on all levels, and I’ve often wondered how my life would pan out if I embraced his lifestyle. What I’ve discovered about me is that I like my creature comforts too much, but me liking that and him not being remotely bothered about it (in fact, being uncomfortable in central heating) does not preclude us having a relationship. It does mean that when we share space it’s understood to be temporary sharing. The relationship is built on trust and respect, and we communicate with absolute honesty where we can, and challenge the other when we feel that what we’re receiving is not perhaps the highest truth (very often we don’t know that what we’re giving isn’t our highest truth, and it takes someone else to point it out). Therefore, what happens is that we follow the energy. If we’re wanting sexual intimacy, we declare it respectfully and go with it if the other is willing (if not, no embarrassment felt and no harm done). If we just want companionship or friendship, we do that. If we want to go out and experience something together, we do that. The key to it is respecting the other’s autonomy and where he/she is in his/her being. Mark will likely always be a part of my life as long as we enrich each other, in whatever way, and there are no notions of possessiveness or need to assimilate. The connection just IS.

26. HA! I woke this morning dreaming that I was singing to my mother in my best, most powerful operatic voice….”I do not want to marry……I do not want to marry!” This followed my dream of interning with 30 Rock and somehow their set was on a ship upon the ocean. I insisted on taking my lunch in the ocean. Frank, from 30 Rock, joined me and we swam in the ocean with out little lunch plates bouncing about. I love how the Cosmos is gifting this energy to all of us! I like to believe we have the capacity to enter partnerships that honor our love, respect and commitment to each other yet allow each other the freedom and energy to express ourselves as an individual. Though honestly, I don’t see many examples of that sort of partnership.

27. Alexander! Great to know such beings as your friend are out there! One of my consorts was a peripatetic for a year – and though it wore on him physically, it was a essential for his spiritual process. I plan to go into Wander mode in my 60s, across the Andalucia and Compostela into the south of France, and ultimately to a cave on Thera.

    The process is a little different than pure vagabondage, since I am getting to know persons and families in my path. I will be something of a modern Beguine, assisting in households where I will take respite, but largely on the road, field, lot.

    Companionship is part of the process… Loneliness is too.
    ***
    Dreamed last night that I was making a movie with Katherine Hepburn. In the movie I played her daughter. We were making a circle with other members of our ‘cast family’ and when she held out her hand, I took it and burst into tears. Waves of anguish rolled over me, and I began to weep so hard that I woke myself up, still sobbing. I could see back into the dream (like a screen next to my bed) and KH was watching me, a little bemused by so much emotion. “I’m not acting,” I sobbed. “The hell you aren’t,” she laughed.
    ***
    **
    *

28. omg how could I leave out the biggest hinderance to self actualization here in Ireland but the destructive indoctrination by the institution of the Catholic Church on my people. That is the biggest strangehold on the souls of so many here. It’s perverse to see how so many lives are destroyed by their doctrines yet still the people cling and adhere to its bullying and punitive ways. It’s weird. One house that I am staying at has religious iconography *everywhere*. The legacy of that institution the most damaging entity that I feel I must expose at every turn, and I am doing just that. As far as I am concerned it has choked the life out of my people and my immediate family. All my siblings attended catholic boarding schools (which ressemble in many ways the residential schools for the native north american) and the damage they have wrought enrages me. Such a lot of unnecessary suffering.

    ………and as I just wrote that a rainbow was formed right outside my window against the backdrop of the hills of Belfast and I take it as a sign of hope. Through sunshine and tears, something beautiful can be formed.
    Magnificent.

29. Alexander writes: “The more ‘real’ you are, the more pain you experience. You come to realisation that in our Western civilisation most people are too busy with their own stuff to have the basic orientation to look outward in a consistent, meaningful and life-transforming manner, that may birth genuine exchange between equals (there is simply not sufficient spare energy). That’s what we are dealing with, official marital structure or not.”

    I appreciate the truth of this statement; nicely said, Alexander. Also, the part about how the business of our lives hinders opportunities for “genuine exchange between equals.” I’m hungry for those exchanges and while I’m not sure it’s out there for me at the present moment, I choose to remain the eternal optimist! I am feeling and knowing that more and more people are choosing to do the work involved to first of all become more honest and true to themseves, which in turn provides the space for those healthier relationships to realise themselves, *communication* in both instances being of vital importance. Communication is for me the fertiliser that makes it all grow — spoken like the gardener that I am, huh?!!!

    I have a natal Pluto/Venus conjunction that squares my Moon and Saturn and do I ever know from very painful experiences that I feel my emotions on a deeply transformative level, experiences that truthfully nearly put me over the edge several times earlier in my life. Now that I’ve reached middle age and knowing that I’m lot wiser about the ways I tick, I have come to accept those periods of suffering as part of my package of living authentically 100%. My suffering just is. As I let that fact sink in and accept it, as I try and learn from my painful lessons of the heart, I know I would rather be this person than not.

    Being back in my country of origin these days, I am struck by all the various methods people work hard at busying themselves as they avoid going inwards to say hello to themselves and heal their fractured souls. The list of addictions is sooooo long. Sports, alcohol, shopping, reality shows (with such seductive commercials). Most people walk around in their busy bubbles stressed to the max. Pass the alcohol please; who won the match?; let’s go shopping; I used to find this lifestyle more soul destroying in the past, but now that I know myself better and have planted myself on my own inner terra firma that chooses a much simpler lifestyle, I know to be constantly vigilant at maintaining that my piece of sacred inner turf and I look at how life is expressed here from an observant, detached stance. I find I have more compassion for others that way and that some of the people I luck out meeting who are also searching and who also see a change in me, let me know that there are the meaningful exchanges to be had, even if they are few and far between.

    So off I go now to do some charging of my “maximum attrative polarity” (again, nice one, Alexander!) into the brisk, cold, yet sunny outdoors of Norn Iron in search of meaningful exchanges!

    Loves yas all 😉

30. I once had a friend who actualised himself by forsaking the comforts of living in a house. He had deep difficulty in forming satisfying and lasting bonds and the ‘pain’ of conforming to social expectations of living in a house left him feeling hemmed in. Eventually, after holding various tenancies for short periods of time and moving around the country (UK), he committed to the life of a ‘tramp’, ‘bum’, ‘vagrant’. This freed him tremendously in himself.

    For a while when we would meet (I gave him a base to store seasonal changes of kit and sometimes stay at mine a few days) he would speak of how he would love a partner who would embrace the sharing of this lifestyle with him – this would give him the same sense of companionship that most of us desire on some level, no matter how ‘introverted’ we happen to be.

    This picture was very stark to me.

    Human beings like the comfort of what they ‘know’ and have always ‘known’ – that is their unique vision of happiness, their personal ‘normal’ – fulfilling their primary socialisation templates.

    Nevertheless, I could see that the percentage of women who would accept him was ridiculously small. This guy is more at home under canvas or relaxing under a tree than sprawling on leather sofas with mod cons and central heating to keep him toastie.

    Which person, whom you would regularly meet in your daily life, would see HIM and respond lovingly to HIM and in practice align with that?

    Once we realise that on a fundamental level, others rarely choose us but instead the ‘traces’ and ‘signatures’ we emit – in other words how we shape up in this world, how we measure up and fit in, how we stand out in worldly terms – then part of us knows that a person will be ‘with us’ largely because it fulfills a bunch of criteria that have absolutely nothing to do with who I actually am.

    This produces all kinds of cognitive dissonance that can’t be resolved on any mental level because it is a social fact. Various attempts at denial all fail, but as long as we don’t notice then we retain vestiges of hope – and the fairytale survives under the radar.

    People with hard moon/Pluto contacts understand this better than most! That’s because life ultimately denies them the scope to hide. All their false props tend to get nuked and they are forced to deal on a karmic level. It is no surprise that such people have incredible emotional acuity in penetrating the emotional complexes of other people – they feel their own so very deeply.

    The more ‘real’ you are, the more pain you experience. You come to realisation that in our Western civilisation most people are too busy with their own stuff to have the basic orientation to look outward in a consistent, meaningful and life-transforming manner, that may birth genuine exchange between equals (there is simply not sufficient spare energy). That’s what we are dealing with, official marital structure or not.

    In prevalent manifestations, relationships are like two icebergs colliding. It’s the stuff under the surface that combines – so often discordantly – while above the surface, the two structures have zero meaningful contact and connection.

    Of course, I am not saying that some people don’t get past this and into something real but that is more of a cosmic joke. And that has nothing to do with prevailing cultural conditions; more like the serendipity and synchronicity that mercifully allows the occasional success story! All you can do is try to charge your own cosmic magnet with maximum attractive polarity – and wait, and maybe pray!

31. “I realize that for many, marriage works. From what I can tell, those are the marriages in which a fair amount of recognition and respect of the individuals involved balances with the concept of partnership.”

    Your statement above stood out for me, Amanda. I think that in order for marriage to work, this has to come first – and it’s an ongoing commitment, just like marriage. I’m agnostic about marriage, but it is incredible just how much pressure even the most well-meaning assert on others to ‘do the right thing’ and get married. It’s at times like this that I remind myself to look at their own marriages – and often I find that they are on shaky ground in terms of this idea of individuality and balanced relating. So we also get pressure from those who want to address their own marriages by proxy: “Just get married. We’ll all be all right.” Does that make sense?

    The paradox of relationship is the simultaneous giving of yourself fully to something while still acknowledging you are a whole person. What a challenge, and yet what liberation there is to be had in the experience, even if it is just for moments.