I thought it was appropriate on Valentine's Day to talk about love. When I was growing up I was very suspicious of those 3 little words: I love you. I knew even as a child that there was something else going on there. The words almost never seemed to be a spontaneous outpouring of love and affection and I never used them myself. I didn't want to have anything to do with them until I had some sense of what they actually meant. Because what I heard was "I love you...(expectant pause...don't you understand what that MEANS?? You're supposed to love me back.)" or "(I really can't believe how stupid and selfish you're being but) I love you (anyway I guess because it's what I'm supposed to do.)" or "I love you (but I'm going to sigh now and be a martyr because you're not turning out to be who I wanted you to be.)" It rarely sounded like, "I love you (because you are such a fabulous over the top incredible person that really who wouldn't love you just for being you?)"
Even as I got older and got some experience at falling in love, I didn't feel like it was a terribly practical emotion. And I had to empathize with the folks who sent me the mixed messages of my youth once I had a few of my own under my belt. Here are some of my own personal favorites that I trot out periodically: "I love you (you asshole! You can't do this to me!)" and "I love you. (Don't you dare leave!)" and "I love you (and I need reassurance that you're still here.)" oh and here's a good one "I love you (even though you're being really shitty, because I am a better person than you are.)"
Even with all that craziness, I still do have a sense of a deep and abiding love that I am connected to, and that connects me to all of these other people, somewhere deeper than these frantic emotional blips on the screen. But how to find that part and express it clearly? You know how Air Supply (oh, come on, admit it...you LOVE these guys too!!) sings about being Lost in Love? Well, sometimes I feel like it's more like the love gets lost underneath all these other things that seem to come along for the ride.
But recently my journey has taken me to some interesting stops along this particular ride. I had begun taking meditative walks at the turning of the seasons, opening to the energy of the earth and sun and sky at the times of solar holidays. On one of my walks on Samhain, I had a sense of something saying to me, "Nothing is required of you." And I kept waiting for the "except....", as in "except to be loving", "except to be nice to people", "except to go organize your basement", or something along those lines. But nothing else came except my own thought...does that mean that I am enough? Exactly as I am?
Around that same time, I had an assignment to write some sort of affirmation. I was very focused on human limitation at that time because a friend of mine was dying so I was trying to find something endless and infinitely large to hold on to. And this is what I wrote: I am created of divine love and my capacity for joy is endless. And you know I actually believe the damn thing.
I just read a book called Lovingkindness by Sharon Salzberg and began adding meditation on this Buddhist principle to my other thoughts on love. And I realized two things (well, three if you count the fact that my basement really DOES need to be organized): One was that I believe that the universe wants me here, that it has organized all its energy and its molecules to make space for me, and that it rejoices in my presence, and two was that almost always when we say "I love you" it's bound to be more about the "I" than the "you", simply from the construction of the sentence (subject/verb/object). But when I thought about the people whom I love, but with whom I have these very human difficulties, I realized that I also believe the universe rejoices in their presence, too, and that the world is better off with them here, and that regardless of what happens between us, I'm really glad they're here, on this earth, in this life. It doesn't get rid of the difficulties of "I love you" but it's good to know.
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Monday, February 12, 2007
Gem City
Gem City is the beautiful name of the third chakra, located in the region of the solar plexus. This is the seat of personal power, where the self comes into its own. I am particularly attached to the name of this chakra because it brings up an image for me of many facets, polished and gleaming, turning to reveal its different aspects at different times, and all of them shining out like my own personal sun.
When I was younger it used to confuse me that people would form very strong impressions of me that all seemed quite true and yet were conflicting. My grandmother would say, "You are just so stubborn. Even when you were a baby, people would come up to you and smile and baby talk at you and you would just fix them with a glare. You were always very definite about what you liked and didn't like." A friend would say, "You're so easygoing. Everything that comes up you just say okay and follow along." In high school I was a bookish stressed out workaholic, while my college buddies couldn't believe how mellow I was about exams. To a co-worker at one point in my life I was the "Queen of Calm". I particularly enjoyed that one because I never really FELT all that calm, and especially in that particular work context, so it was a revelation to me that I came across that way. At that same workplace, another co-worker made me a pin that says "Gentle Spirit" because to her that's what I was. A lover later saw the pin and couldn't stop laughing; she thought the pin should say "fiery vortex of passion and fury". I didn't think it was that funny myself.
I've always thought of myself as a patient person, having spent a huge amount of time in my life waiting for buses, trains, and subways, and coping with plans and schedules gone astray, but when I described myself as patient to my partner, she thought I was out of my mind. "Patient? Really???," she said.
And maybe she's right. But so am I, and so is everyone else. What I finally understood is that I contain all of that within me and there is no contradiction. Contradiction is what we see when we look through human eyes. But I am formed of the universe and there is star stuff in me. I contain both chaos and order and all the possibilities. The more I look within the more facets I can find and polish and show to the world. It's all just more evidence that we don't actually live in a binary either/or world but in a we've got it all both/and world, where contradiction lives and is held sweetly by continuity. You can never get lost in Gem City.
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
When I was younger it used to confuse me that people would form very strong impressions of me that all seemed quite true and yet were conflicting. My grandmother would say, "You are just so stubborn. Even when you were a baby, people would come up to you and smile and baby talk at you and you would just fix them with a glare. You were always very definite about what you liked and didn't like." A friend would say, "You're so easygoing. Everything that comes up you just say okay and follow along." In high school I was a bookish stressed out workaholic, while my college buddies couldn't believe how mellow I was about exams. To a co-worker at one point in my life I was the "Queen of Calm". I particularly enjoyed that one because I never really FELT all that calm, and especially in that particular work context, so it was a revelation to me that I came across that way. At that same workplace, another co-worker made me a pin that says "Gentle Spirit" because to her that's what I was. A lover later saw the pin and couldn't stop laughing; she thought the pin should say "fiery vortex of passion and fury". I didn't think it was that funny myself.
I've always thought of myself as a patient person, having spent a huge amount of time in my life waiting for buses, trains, and subways, and coping with plans and schedules gone astray, but when I described myself as patient to my partner, she thought I was out of my mind. "Patient? Really???," she said.
And maybe she's right. But so am I, and so is everyone else. What I finally understood is that I contain all of that within me and there is no contradiction. Contradiction is what we see when we look through human eyes. But I am formed of the universe and there is star stuff in me. I contain both chaos and order and all the possibilities. The more I look within the more facets I can find and polish and show to the world. It's all just more evidence that we don't actually live in a binary either/or world but in a we've got it all both/and world, where contradiction lives and is held sweetly by continuity. You can never get lost in Gem City.
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Get on the bus
I've never really trusted buses. Not in comparison to other forms of mass transit. Some history: I've never actually owned a car so I probably have a little more experience than most with various forms of transportation. And since Seattle is a bus town, that's been my favored mode of getting around for 17 years.
But back to my trust issue. My theory is that trains and trolleys and subways are on tracks or lines or in tunnels and therefore can be trusted to get from point A to point B as anticipated. But buses? They have no such restrictions and are subject to the call of the open road. I know they have signs on the front and schedules and such, but the point is they have the POTENTIAL to go astray. You never really know. You can't be sure. And that makes me a little nuts.
And the thing is, you could really just put this all down to paranoia except that it's happened to me. Bus drivers do get lost or re-routed occasionally, or maybe they forgot to put the express sign up. I've even had the experience of being absolutely certain that I saw a particular route number on the front of a bus, and then looked up from a 20-minute absorption in my book to find that I'm nowhere recognizable to me. And the little printed maps aren't always meaningful. Once in Edinburgh, my flatmate and I studied a particular bus route to get out to the airport to reclaim our luggage that had gone astray a couple of days earlier. The map seemed clear enough, but, once on the bus, we spent an hour doing a scenic tour of Edinburgh without ever getting anywhere near the airport and finally landed right back where we started in front of our flat. There was nothing to be done but disembark, eat a tuna sandwich and re-group.
But over the years I've made a kind of peace with buses and their vagaries. I figure I never really quite know where I'm going either so we've got something in common. We can work together on this. And I've developed a certain amount of skill in accommodating all of the different possibilities inherent in riding buses. It's like we've both got this idea of where we might be going and when we'll get there but we're flexible about it. And in an odd way after spending so much time on them, they have become a second home for me. Something that fits me and is comfortable and feels safe.
One very early morning I caught a bus on a very foggy day. The fog sat all around us down to the ground, enclosing us in a bus-shaped space, and I had this sense of a sequence of bus-shaped spaces opening and closing as we moved through them in the fog. Each one existing as a clear place for us to be and yet not clearly seen from the space before. And I thought about how each of us exists as a long, flesh-colored worm through time, from birth to death. And I had the sense of all the me's who came before the me right in this moment, and of all the me's who come in the moments after the me right now. And I have this sense of all of us together, all of us me's, holding the space open for the me right now, holding it in the very shape of me, cheering me on to BE me right now, having had my place in the line of the future and on my way to the line in my past. And the thing is, despite this sense of a line of self extending out before and after, I don't have the feeling of being on tracks. I'm more like a bus, with a sign on the front and a schedule, but with the POTENTIAL to go astray. You just never know. But right now, here I am.
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
But back to my trust issue. My theory is that trains and trolleys and subways are on tracks or lines or in tunnels and therefore can be trusted to get from point A to point B as anticipated. But buses? They have no such restrictions and are subject to the call of the open road. I know they have signs on the front and schedules and such, but the point is they have the POTENTIAL to go astray. You never really know. You can't be sure. And that makes me a little nuts.
And the thing is, you could really just put this all down to paranoia except that it's happened to me. Bus drivers do get lost or re-routed occasionally, or maybe they forgot to put the express sign up. I've even had the experience of being absolutely certain that I saw a particular route number on the front of a bus, and then looked up from a 20-minute absorption in my book to find that I'm nowhere recognizable to me. And the little printed maps aren't always meaningful. Once in Edinburgh, my flatmate and I studied a particular bus route to get out to the airport to reclaim our luggage that had gone astray a couple of days earlier. The map seemed clear enough, but, once on the bus, we spent an hour doing a scenic tour of Edinburgh without ever getting anywhere near the airport and finally landed right back where we started in front of our flat. There was nothing to be done but disembark, eat a tuna sandwich and re-group.
But over the years I've made a kind of peace with buses and their vagaries. I figure I never really quite know where I'm going either so we've got something in common. We can work together on this. And I've developed a certain amount of skill in accommodating all of the different possibilities inherent in riding buses. It's like we've both got this idea of where we might be going and when we'll get there but we're flexible about it. And in an odd way after spending so much time on them, they have become a second home for me. Something that fits me and is comfortable and feels safe.
One very early morning I caught a bus on a very foggy day. The fog sat all around us down to the ground, enclosing us in a bus-shaped space, and I had this sense of a sequence of bus-shaped spaces opening and closing as we moved through them in the fog. Each one existing as a clear place for us to be and yet not clearly seen from the space before. And I thought about how each of us exists as a long, flesh-colored worm through time, from birth to death. And I had the sense of all the me's who came before the me right in this moment, and of all the me's who come in the moments after the me right now. And I have this sense of all of us together, all of us me's, holding the space open for the me right now, holding it in the very shape of me, cheering me on to BE me right now, having had my place in the line of the future and on my way to the line in my past. And the thing is, despite this sense of a line of self extending out before and after, I don't have the feeling of being on tracks. I'm more like a bus, with a sign on the front and a schedule, but with the POTENTIAL to go astray. You just never know. But right now, here I am.
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
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