Editor’s Note: Due to a work situation, Maria Padhila’s column will not be appearing today, but it should be back next weekend at its usual time. So we’re taking this opportunity to share one of our favorite articles on sex, sexuality and relating from the Planet Waves archives. It’s a multi-part series called, “It’s not about sex. It’s about Self,” first published in February 2008. You can continue reading with Part Two here.
RECENTLY, I visited the Grandmother Land with Hannah, one of the Book of Blue models I photograph. It was sunny and warm for a winter day, but still chilly. I wasn’t expecting her to work nude, but she has a Capricorn Sun and Moon — she’s winter’s child, confident and present in the world.
Determined to make good pictures, she peeled off her layers and stripped down to a thin pair of sweats. In the photographs, I blended details of her body into the magnificent winter landscape till the goose bumps took over. Noticing them vividly through my lens, I suggested she get dressed. In those 15 minutes, we got some earthy photos of an earthy girl.
Then we wandered around the woods for a bit. I spontaneously started collecting bits of kindling from tree branches, and suggested we make a fire. This we did, and sat in the cold January sunlight for hours next to the flames and slow-rising smoke, eating Five Fruits Lifesavers and talking about everything that came up. This of course included sex. After we had gone far enough into the discussion to appreciate the complexity of our subject, she said some words that fairly well stunned me and would have been cheered at any human potential workshop in the 1970s, long before she was born — “It’s not about sex. It’s about self.”
What she had observed, mainly through observing herself, is that when you follow sexual awareness into yourself, you’re taken to the core of self-awareness. The psyche on its deepest layers is so closely intertwined with sexual consciousness as to be one and the same with it. Because it accounts for how we come into the world, which is the only world we know, sex is cosmic. Yet discussion of sex is a kind of ruse for the real discussion, below the surface, and that is about one’s sense of identity and existence.
This makes sense. Assuming they are not cloning people yet, we all come into existence through sex or at least sex cells. Half of us start as a sperm cell that experiences an orgasm and then takes a big ride on an ejaculation, carried along in an ocean of whatever feelings are present. The sperm cell who became us personally went up to that enormous egg (our other half) and kissed it, surrendering its prior form and identity into a new entity. That is how our existence begins, and that memory is, I would imagine, directly in our DNA, along with the instructions for how to do it again.
Sex is what creates us, so it’s sensible that eroticism (that is, all the feelings we have about sex) will have the potential to carry our creative impulse into life, and throughout our lives.
It also works the other way. When someone is conditioned to either not think or experience sexuality with full awareness (or any awareness), or if they are programmed to respond with guilt and fear, self-awareness becomes blocked. If there is a sexual injury or the perception of one, it can block much of our creative energy, potential and happiness.
Our relationship to sex and sexuality is our relationship to existence. If we feel good about our erotic experiences, needs and feelings, we tend to feel good about life. If we are bitter, if we don’t get what we need, if we feel guilty or ashamed of our sexual feelings and experiences, that is most likely how we’re going to feel about life. This can manifest some strange ways, such as violence and manipulation, just like feeling good about sex can manifest as a passionate, creative person who creates their existence consciously every day.
Why don’t we see the connection? Well, we’re conditioned not to, principally by religion. Notice that this thing we call religion takes credit for our existence at the same time it makes sex bad. You also can’t be aware of something you cannot feel, have no experience with or don’t know exists. For 25 years, Americans have grown up with something called Abstinence-Only sex indoctrination, which in effect denies the existence of their natural sexuality (Europeans who know about this think we’re on crack).
Our biology does not give up so easily, though. The psyche’s hunger for sex (which is the hunger to fully exist), for a while, pushes through this resistance. What we find then is often a lot of programmed people who themselves fall for the deception, and it can become very difficult to get our needs met. Honesty can be met with rejection. Wanting anything unusual can be met with a weird look. Even equating sex with deep vulnerability, such as in a relationship, is frequently avoided. How often do we have the feeling that someone is just not going as deep as they can, not calling themselves present?
Imagine, then, all the thought and discussion we have about sex and issues that stem from it — and substitute the word “self.” Imagine the need, the fear, the anxiety, the desire, the deep craving, the judgments we fear and the ones to which we’ve fallen prey. Imagine everything ever said in a church sermon. Imagine the jealousy and the drama and the secrets. Imagine everyone we’ve ever fucked or wanted to. Imagine sex education, the birds and the bees, masturbation and all of those orgasms. Imagine all those sexual relationships wherein we tried to find our Self.
Replace the concept “sex” with “self” and see how the world looks through that lens. How would it feel if somebody said to you, “Hi, I really want to have Self with you”?
Or, translated: “I really want to be myself with you, and have you be yourself with me.”
Locked-In Syndrome
THE OTHER NIGHT at Upstate Films, I saw a film called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It’s the true story of a man named Jean-Dominique Bauby, once a prominent writer and editor in Paris. At the age of 42, at the peak of his success as editor in chief of Elle, he suffered a massive brainstem stroke, losing all mobility and sensation except for his hearing and use of his left eye.
He could think; he could see; he could hear. His memory and imagination were intact. But he could not move or express himself — except for one eye. This is called “locked-in syndrome.” It is consciousness locked into a body that cannot respond; it is the ultimate mind-body split.
think that sexually, we are a society of people suffering from a variant of locked-in syndrome. We may have our erotic imaginations, we may have our memories and we may have our desires. But we have untold thousands of reasons not to act on or even speak about our experiences. To some extent, nearly everyone in the current version of Western culture is erotically paralyzed.
We can have liberal values, but are often trapped in groups of people who don’t share them or don’t reveal it if they do. We can have progressive ideas about relationships, but are only able to find people who have traditional values, or with those who seek some freedom but who don’t speak up.
We might be locked inside of fear, of insecurity, or the cocoon of lies that we have told in the past — or more probably, the lies that we were told. We might be trapped inside fat, or the feeling of being ugly or undesirable.
We might have ideas, images and feelings, but lack the words and concepts to express them: trapped in a kind of seemingly imposed silence. This silence can come with the feeling that we will be struck down if we dare to open up and speak.
We might be trapped inside a sense of vulnerability so acute it feels like walking around a city naked. For many, this would translate to naked in the winter.
Some are trapped inside a sense of injury from a sexual assault, incest experience, or growing up around shifty boundaries as a kid.
We might be trapped inside a wall that was put up when we were told that masturbation is wrong.
Or trapped in the inability to ask for what we want.
Trapped inside of any version of the mind/body split — “caught in one’s head.”
Trapped inside of embarrassment, unable to speak or even feel because of the shame associated with doing so.
Trapped inside of being gay when everyone thinks you’re straight or straight when everyone thinks you’re gay. Trapped inside of being bisexual when the people around you…just don’t get it.
Trapped in a monogamous relationship when we’re really polyamorous.
Trapped inside the need to be in love, and otherwise being unable to express sexuality.
Trapped inside an image we must maintain, of wanting to seem pure and upright. Trapped inside of pride; a closely related theme.
Trapped inside religious conditioning, even if we don’t think we have it.
Trapped inside of tradition or family expectations.
Trapped inside of not knowing what we want. Trapped inside of a lot of people telling us what we are supposed to want, even though they have no clue.
Trapped inside of not trusting people. Trapped inside of not trusting ourselves.
Trapped inside the feeling that we don’t exist.
Trapped inside a parent telling us we’re ugly, even once.
Trapped inside of having been raped or molested, and having had that wound fester.
Trapped inside a myth of what monogamy is supposed to be, even if we know it’s not that thing.
Trapped inside not being able to find a lover, or a sex partner. Trapped inside of seeking the perfect person, and not letting anyone else in.
Trapped inside of feeling “dirty” and terrified of being found out.
And on, and on.
I think that in many ways, though we are walking around, many of us here are in considerably worse shape than Bauby. He at least was fully conscious of being alive. He was able to write a book communicating by blinking his one eye. Most of us are far less articulate about our erotic and emotional needs than this.
I would ask: where are we going to learn? Where is the place that the conversation is welcome? If it’s not about sex, where is the place that you can really be your Self?
Held Hostage by Jealousy
ON THE GRANDMOTHER land that day, Hannah mentioned that her boyfriend would be jealous if he found out that I was photographing her topless. Then she added, “I don’t know if I agree with that.”
Her objection was phrased tentatively and non-threateningly, but her voice was firm and carried a hint of pain. She knew that somebody was trying to take over her life in a way that they were not entitled, and that was only covering up their own insecurities.
“Well, it’s your body, right?”
She agreed with this, but described some of the control issues involved. We weren’t having sex — she reserves that for him. We were just taking pictures. But in his mind, only he should photograph her — nobody else. Nobody should even see her, just him. It occurred to her that under these rules, she would be laying herself on the altar of sacrifice to cover for his insecurities.
We mused over this for a while, and then she said: “People aren’t monogamous, they’re jealous.”
I understood exactly what she meant, but asked her to explain in her own words. Here is the idea: Monogamy for most people is less about fidelity and more about not wanting to make one’s partner jealous. Or, it’s about being good, whether out of guilt, or so they don’t do anything that makes you jealous.
“So if your partner wouldn’t get jealous, you would do anything you wanted?” I asked.
“My jealousy keeps me monogamous. Seriously, what other reason would there be?” She admitted she didn’t want him to do anything that would make her jealous, either. I call this kind of deadlock gunpoint monogamy: if you move, I’ll shoot. If I move, you’ll shoot. We both better be good. Note, I don’t believe this has anything to do with love.
I wonder how many people she speaks for. Maybe not everyone all the time, but certainly for most people most of the time.
This explains cheating: someone does something behind their partner’s back to “save them” from their own jealousy. Or they don’t reveal what happened in order to save themselves from being confronted by that jealousy, and thus addressing the insecurity and attachment behind it. Or, we would “rather not know” and look the other way when we have a feeling our partner is involved in extracurricular activity.
Many people — again, not everyone — feel entitled to share their sex with someone, but not obliged to bear the brunt of their partner’s possessive rage and potential revenge that would likely follow. So most people keep quiet, well versed in what usually happens when they tell the truth.
As misguided as jealousy of this type may seem, and as unethical as it may be to cheat (which really means to lie), there’s a grain of truth inside the deception: and perhaps a more important issue lurks in there. If we’re not another person’s property, what are we then? Alternately, if we’re not free, then what does that mean?
We know inside that we’re all responsible for our own jealousy. Yet typically we either make it everyone else’s fault (“he made me jealous”), or take on the burden of shielding others from what might stir up their rage (and this is often a convenient, deceptive excuse). Projection takes many forms. I’ve noticed that the people who pour on the jealousy tend to be the most likely to cheat.
We know that being alive grants us the right to make choices; we know that “it’s my body and I can do what I want” and that “I am free to care about who I care about,” and that nobody has a right to dictate our emotions. We know that most erotic desire is biological. It’s difficult to miss how sexy people are, and that feeling comes from deep down.
But we tend to walk around inside a contradiction of desire that we can’t honestly express, and of feelings we can’t honestly share, because we fear we’ll be out on the street.
Relationships in our society and in many others are trumped up as the pearl of great price, the most valuable thing in the universe — and to many, it makes sense to avoid the one thing that could threaten this, at any cost. The result is we can gradually come to live lives of total deception. As a result, the emotional subject matter that we need to open up about in our relationships goes unaddressed. We avoid jealousy and thus avoid what it has to offer us as a growth tool; as a cosmic mirror. We avoid truth, and erotic energy dies.
Much of that unaddressed emotional material involves insecurity and lack of self-esteem. A relationship can cover that up for a while, and jealousy can quickly expose the emotional void we lived with all along. If someone wants someone else, we must be unworthy. For most people, jealousy is so painful and so entirely debilitating that it makes sense to avoid it, just like you would not intentionally put your hand on a hot stove.
The idea that one’s lover could be with someone else is often viewed as the ultimate betrayal, and the worst form of abandonment. The supposed solution is to avoid the feeling and anything that can lead to it at all costs, though without recognizing what that cost really is. Taken unconsciously, the cost of jealousy is loss of the right to exist, or the denial of your partner’s right to exist. Usually, both happen together.
Few recognize that jealousy, taken as a conscious experience, is a teacher. But sometimes the pain gets so intense that people finally get curious about what’s causing it. An enduring article on Planet Waves called Jealousy and the Abyss by William Pennell Rock consistently gets 600 unique visits every month, most of them directly from search engines. The article proposes that jealousy is an existential crisis. In other words, jealous episodes threaten the ground that a relationship stands on; and because most of us view a relationship as existence itself, threatens our own sense of existence in the world.
Jealousy, the author reasons, is a cover-up for the fear of non-existence, or death. If we can sort out all the things that mock for jealousy (envy, attachment, guilt, fear and anxiety) we can learn something about our relationship to existence. “The core is an existential problem; it has to do with illusion and the essentially fearful nature of the ego,” he writes. “In possessiveness, ego defends itself against nothingness. When we come to know and accept the nothingness at the core, jealousy and the pain of obsessive attachment cease.”
Continued Monday with The Role of Guilt, and Too Hot: Another Theory of Jealousy.
Yours & truly,
“The most terrible thing of all is happy love, for then one fears everything is determined to steal it. ~ Cosima Wagner.”
That is a sad statement indeed. I have experienced happy love for a long time and I do not fear that “everything is determined to steal it.” What an awful way to live.
Carrie wrote: “Not all jealousy is based on insecurity either. Some is based on the feeling that I like what I have with my mate and I don’t want to lose it/share it/change it.”
My experience is that insecurity is the very heart of jealousy. I refer to Cosima Wagner’s statement: “The most terrible thing of all is happy love, for then one fears everything is determined to steal it. ~ Cosima Wagner.
This from the woman who had the Wedding March written for her. Who slept with her husband’s corpse for a fortnight. And yet, no real love. So sad.
***
**
*
Spectrum: ‘interested-in. . .committed-to’
“There is only and ever true love. The stuff wrapped in jealousy and fear is not even a close cousin.”
I want to make things clear. I am not experiencing jealousy and neither is DH. I am just saying I understand why some people experience it. Dawn expressed things way better under another blog post farther up.
Ok, I’m not actually back, but I am here for a minute or two.
“Consort” is a term used in several spiritual traditions to mean ‘the person that supports your spiritual practice.’ My (evolved) definition is that the Consort exists on the spectrum between interested-incommitted-to* your full Awakening. And you, his/hers. (*In the old axiom about breakfast, the chicken is interested but the pig is committed.)
I have several – I believe Balzac recommended 7. But I have been intricated with the principal for an astonishing period of time… (‘Loyal’ sounds like to have sex with someone else would be disloyal; same with ‘faithful/unfaithful.’ That’s not how it works out for us.). I am not monogamous, haven’t applied that label to myself since I left the Philosopher Husband in 1983.
Traditionally the Consort has been a ‘secret’ – the term in Tibetan is Song Yum or Song Yab (secret mother or secret father), but I know two Song Yab/Yum couples who hold that covenant despite being married. I am a stubborn bitch, so I decided early in the game that my consorts would be in no way ‘secret’ and fought/loved/talked hard&soft to keep it that way.
Now, looking back over the last 30 years or so, what we have and have not accomplished, I can see the function of ‘secret.’ You don’t wind up spending years trying to explain the inexplicable.
Well, maybe not ‘inexplicable’ – just so non-standard that you have to invent a language and hand gestures to communicate what is not monogamy, polyamory, celibacy, ethical sluttiness or monastic tantra – but is *deeply* sexual. And then some.
More on this in a bit.
***
**
*
Mystes,
Thank you very much. I know you’re going through a lot right now, and have been enjoying your perspective. *Whenever* is fine, I was just wondering, since you’ve used it a few times recently and I am not sure I understand your meaning 🙂
Yes, CaraS, I have to ferry teenagers around right now, but will happily come back to the topic of the Consort after the New Moon in a few hours.
Thanks for asking!
Yes, the blog is on hold. I have been going through an *enormous* set of changes (as have we all!), wanted to let everything reorient, even that. Will shift it over to my home web site later today.
***
**
*
Mystes, can you explain what you are intending when you say Consort? Also, I have tried your website and cannot connect, in case you didn’t know it’s not 100% accessible.
when I think about jealousy the best example I know is of a chunky 1m26+ donkey stallion who could not bear it when his third wife had her foal. (We finally concluded that he was the baby of the family and couldn’t bear to be usurped completely by three foals. It was made worse by the fact that the three jennies regarded him as some superior being). So he attacked his favourite consort. day and night. We left them for several days hoping they would stop and after that separated them. Nothing worked. Separate fields, separate fields out of sight, Distance, a hobble, different groupings. Finally we tied him to a tree and moved him every few hours. They would break out/break things to continue their argument, day and night we would hear his bray that had a certain note and leap to our feet. At night he was free in a stable until he started jumping out of it, and then we had to tie him at night too. After a year we castrated him. The vet said if it was habitual, his behaviour would continue, if it was merely sexual it should stop. We thought about selling him ‘entier’ but couldn’t bring ourselves to risk not telling the buyer, or risk it and risk jeopardising his chance for a new start. We thought about putting him down but couldn’t bring ourselves to. He bit my husband once. I tried to make friends with him. Told him he scared the hell out of me and he’d have to make allowances for my fear. Every day I brushed him and picked out his hooves and spent half and hour being friendly. Spent time with him. As it happened my (lack of) height enabled me the best to get his head down and stop him running, sometimes he dragged me and I would sit on the ground dragged along until he stopped. It is quite something to have the jenny hide behind you and have half a tonne of donkey bearing down on you in a rage. If you moved back he would chase you too. you had to move forward waving your arms and shouting and throwing stones at his feet.
After he was castrated everything calmed down except when the female searched him out when she was on heat. But the event which broke his habit was when we found them grazing, she had 2 foals by then, so we put all four in front of the house where we could keep an eye on them, and the oldest foal stayed between her parents. When he was overcome by rage and went for her mother she would turn smartly and kick him hard in the ribs. By the end of the day he had let it go.
I’m not suggesting anything radical like castration, only that it is important to understand the patterns, try to find them and find what needs to change or be different, or what is lacking etc. I never thought of dominating him, only that he had to respect me enough, that I endeavoured to respect him also.
When I say ‘no’ I meant that that doesn’t stop the freedom of the other person, just that signals it is not a neutral topic or a ‘green light’, that I have my reasons (expressed too). If important the other will do as they think best. if I can incorporate it I will if I can’t I do what seems real to me. But it isn’t a rebellion, or casual. it is aware.
Mystes,
Interesting your mention of time and circumstance. For me now in my (very early) middle years that my mind is most opened up, ‘simpler’ and accepting. For me it has almost been the opposite, as you say, “As people get older and more attached to their furniture, their titles, their real estate, it becomes harder to delineate.”
But the fact that i am not attached in marriage is perhaps what has taken me in a completely different direction from the more traditional societal ‘norm’ frame of mind.
Although, free it would seem… i have noticed and experienced my lifestyle choice and status can be uncomfortable for others. I believe I am often seen and treated as the ‘outcast’ in my society- a single mom at 40ish, beautiful even, can be very threatening to woman who are insecure in themselves, their choices and, or if there is any bit of insecurity in their relationship/marriage. “Why did you choose to not marry?” (in other words, what’s wrong with you?) So yes, jealousy I have felt from the other side. Feels alienating even when is unwarranted.
Maybe i would fare better in a society like yours…any available Consorts, Kings, even Prices about? Then i may marry one day, but would have to be to any/ only a man who understood and equally lived ‘self’, the balance in relationship well and mutually encompassed this passion for what is of truth and value. And, I thank you dear Mystes for your gift of words here, which so eloquently describe these same feelings and sentiments.
“As for time, love brings its own. The time I have for those whom I am impassioned – my son and for dear friends and for the Beloved are all worked into the day like a fragment of for(n)ever stitched into Now.
P. Sophia… Oh, I’ve been married and still remained in union with my principal consort. In fact, it was a condition of the last marriage. The relationship isn’t polyamory (although both spouses were in the loop) because he is a consort and not a lover.
It’s a distinction that we have spent many hours (um, years) trying to make clear. When we were younger it was simpler. As people get older and more attached to their furniture, their titles, their real estate, it becomes harder to delineate.
Oh well. The Beloved is the Beloved.
***
**
*
Carrie,
Carrie,
“That is like choosing the whole life-nourishing feast or the piece of chocolate cake.” Great line.
Your right what “real” is a matter of subjective personal interest and values, I’m not married, so I am happily ordering feast and cake both…Yum!
Carrie, it *is* possible to be faithful or focused on one person without jealousy. My principal consort has been married to two other women during the whole of our 33 year long relationship. I was friends with the first wife, loved the fact that they doted on one another. My relationship with the second wife is more complicated; I have watched her treatment of him with increasing chagrin – but never ever ever did I want her to be anything but a loving partner to this man whom I adore beyond all imagining.
I know what I am *in* him. There’s no questioning it – we have proved this through decades of light and sky and earth and silence and surprise. There’s simply no reason to worry about anyone else being in “my” place. That just isn’t possible. But I have to say: the fact that I was sexually-focused on our bed for more than a decade still perplexes me.
As for time, love brings its own. The time I have for those whom I am impassioned – my son and for dear friends and for the Beloved are all worked into the day like a fragment of for(n)ever stitched into Now.
If you are well in your Beloved, so be it. But Cosima Wagner once said that the person happy in love had to be guarded on all sides from those who would steal it from them. I found this terribly sad the first time I heard it, and I have found it to be High Folly in the century since.
There is only and ever true love. The stuff wrapped in jealousy and fear is not even a close cousin.
***
**
*
I agree with a lot of things here. Yet for some reason, I keep seeing a message in this that seems to be saying that if we don’t act on every sexual feeling we have or if we experience jealousy, we are somehow not being real.
Being real means a lot of things. It means both knowing my feelings and desires and knowing which ones are more important to me. For example; I value my deep loving and sexual relationship with my mate more than I value the sexual feelings I have for another person I may have met. With my mate I have not only vows freely made but also a long history of interdependent love and caring and children we are raising together. With the person who turns me on what do I have but a sexual attraction? So denying myself the sex with that person is not a matter of not being real or even of fear of my mate’s feelings of jealousy; it really boils down to what I value more. The former has a web of intricate and wonderful parts and pleasures and love and comfort to it and the latter only has a possibility of pleasure. That is like choosing the whole life-nourishing feast or the piece of chocolate cake. I will take the feast.
Not all jealousy is based on insecurity either. Some is based on the feeling that I like what I have with my mate and I don’t want to lose it/share it/change it. This includes the time I have. Even if I knew for certain that my mate would not leave me (and our children) for another, I would lose some of his time and focus and energy. If he is placing energy into another relationship, I am getting less of that time and energy. And it has been established that most people see time as love (we focus our time and energy on things or people we love) so the change in dynamics will feel like a loss no matter how you try to deny that. In fact, denying that the change is a loss for the original partner is what I call not being real.
Sometimes I get fed up with the mantra that says to be real means expressing every sexual desire we have even if it is hurtful to the mate we have. Choosing to be exclusive with my mate isn’t about denying myself something; it is about allowing myself to trust in what we have together and deepening that. I have had sexual feelings and even emotional feelings for others while being with my mate. I told him about them but I chose not to act on them because I value what I have over what I might have and I value his feelings more than I value what mnight be a 30 second orgasm. I don’t see how that is not being “real” or true to myself. I am monogamous by nature; each time I got emotionally involved I didn’t want another for the most part and if I did feel want I chose not to act on it.
I think the definition of what being “real” is differs between people.
Wow, I just dug this out and read it not two days ago. Great minds, huh.
Such food for thought here…In my opinion, jealousy is considered normal, so normal infact we tend to bow to it…its the elephant sitting at everyones kitchen table, yet we keep changing our tableclothes hoping we can morph it into something tangible. It’s not jealousy, its his/her way of expressing love…give him/her a couple of days…they get over it, they always do. It’s the weed, choking out the most magnificant flower in the garden. Failure to express it, leads to a hostile takeover to where all thats left are the weeds…(hey, remember those things in the yard Ma?…what were those odd looking things…(flowers dear..but don’t tell your father}. I sappose we could play the blame game… Cain and Able certainly did, my thought is…they were unable to communicate emotion…leading to neuroses…or maybe a better analogy for the thereputic defunct…thoughts gone amuck. I remember in my early years in one of my relationships I was convinced my best friend and my lover at the time were having a sidebar relationship…It consumed my thoughts to the point I became an undercover agent for the jealously insane. I thought for sure I could figure out their lovenest….almost losing the both of them in the hunt. The feeling faded over time, and over the years I learned to communicate my fear of abandonement by simply stating…”I’m feeling jealous and this is why…pat my bum, give me a kiss…the feeling will pass.” I found a way to communicate my feelings, that worked for me. Also, I spent time disecting the object of my jealousy, and absorbing my feelings of inadequacy, for whatever reason, usually getting to know the person or thing or pasttime, resolved a huge portion of that feeling of unrest. I think that those in teaching roles need to incorporate communication skills as a top priority…without bias. Deny that you feel only leads to a clusterfuck….the changing of the tableclothes. I am all about getting the word out. Where do we begin?
Peace,
Patricia
Ok with the sense of self. But then what about branching out to being aware of the self of the other and after that the relationship (I typed real) between you.
Is there a paradox, and then it isn’t as simple as either or.
I am who I am and I feel what I like and I do what I like. True. But who do you feel for and where are you going to put that depth and energy. That awareness. is it just physical or if it is towards the other and between you and awareness of your self and some acceptance/awareness of the life direction of the other and your own, there is more than just a sexual encounter. And if either is in a relationship it isn’t about two it’s about three or four and those who aren’t present being denied a voice or a viewpoint. Attraction is not the only reason for saying yes or no…
And then there is appropriate and inappropriate. And that comes back to what is real and what is superficial, what is your call and what is not, who else is implicated in the scenario etc etc.
Self and jealousy is one angle, and a valid one. There are other reasons for fear than jealousy, other anguish than possessiveness, other ambition than to have sex at every opportunity. Each set up is different and specific. Impossible to generalise possibly. or say of all lines – that is jealousy. No, sometimes it is a line. For a reason. No. i don’t agree. Is that not allowed. To disagree. To be real if that means disagreeing?
Again. Everyone is completely free. Where do you freely give your allegiance your trust your commitment to make a difference. Each person knows when they are being honest or not. Sometimes another can see it too, or see something the other hasn’t seen. That is a big plus in a friendship or relationship – another pair of eyes ears etc, another heart, another brain
And again, with my mother who had worked within her lack of freedom all her life, I happened to witness her embracing her prisons and freely pulling them over the edge with her, or my experience of being ridiculous which was somehow like coming up from Davy Jones’ locker – down is up and rise. There is an elastic line between prison and freedom that is a pivot if you can stumble on it. A viewing point (rather than point of view)
About dancing – it is also the question of choice – what art are you making how long is your longterm view, what are you working towards. (credit for the following to FF:) lives and spaces being ugly or beautiful, how artists often find radical solutions (large or small), because they can come at a problem from any angle. Where they master ‘transition’ their work can have enormous transforming impact on the lives their art touches – for ugly or for well. A choice.
The oracle this week said (for me) to breathe in trust breathe out (let go of) fear. You could equally say breathe in openness to becoming the freedom and reality of who we are, let out ignorance and fear etc
We are not victims!
Still working on incorporating humour!
i’ve thought a bit about the root cause of jealousy- and one thing that i’ve pondered is its biological roots as i watch my two female dogs….the lead dog, a husky mix and the younger follower a phenotypical german shepherd type sturdy little gal (just going on looks since they’re both rescues with no pedigrees). question- is jealousy an ancient reaction to insuring the right to breed and feed one’s own offspring and suppressing the rights of others to breed/birth their own young, thus diminishing resources? perhaps a case of jealousy being deeply lodged in the reptilian part of our brain that constantly cries out for more resources despite having plenty ( a bit like husky rule of law–if i see it and its yours it’s still mine ) and eons of evolving? like an emotional prehensile tail?
just thinking out loud.
great piece as always eric
Amen.