How can we love beyond common sense?

Love is a mystery. It cannot be explained or rationalized. It does not obey reason, logic, cause or effect. It cannot be controlled or directed. Love IS.

Being so, of course it directly dethrones Ego-self.  ‘What do you mean I did not create or destroy love from free-will? What do you mean that love is an external force that does not depend on what I say or do?
My late husband and I met half way between a falling angel and a rising ape (I needn´t say who was who!). We had a totally different understanding of life and love. Where I was always yearning with an instinctive longing for fulfillment from Love at a higher realm, he was proudly bragging the love he could generate. One lived an ethereal reality, while the other was earth-bound and totally physical.
Those who identify with the capacity to see beyond what the eyes perceive,  sense a reality yet un-manifest, understanding Love as absolute. Those who limit reality to tangible truths, proved by deeds, need bodies to love.
Of course, experience integrates multiple realms of: a physical, psychological, rational and spiritual nature. Love encompasses all. It cannot be fragmented, though our limited perception distorts that subjective understanding of it. But even so, it is ‘lovable’. It rings a bell as if tapping into our unconscious knowing that love IS, far and beyond our experiencing of it. So when I love, I am isolated, separated from other’s experiencing of it and yet merged into a flow where I lose my self-conceived identity and become ONE with others. I can feel totally alienated, when I perceive such unfathomable love.
Common sense cannot contain love. It cannot understand it. No matter how it tries to define love, it ends up limiting it. Love cannot be held or contained in the present; nor in the past. Only the future can hold the ethereal possibility of love, held in HOPE.
The challenge is not to give way to doubt but Be-LIVE it.

Patching, Packing, P’aching- to Love:

Trying to Learn to Love, through consciousness, I have realized that it can only be done a step at a time, inch by inch, day by day. That’s why God gave us Time, with the promise that we have eternity to get it right. And yet, we are relentlessly pressured by the shadow of death.

Now that my loved ones are making amends, patching up old wounds, packing their life-acquired goods before saying good-bye, I can only love them, by aching. It should come to me as no surprise, since, when the coin of awareness was tossed, in my life, it fell- pain-side up. Pleasure lost.  I learned to love through pain.

Early on, I learned that to ache was to love. As a child, every time I hurt, I was cared for; when I cried, I was embraced; when I was sorry, I was loved. Christ on the Cross, exemplified the Supreme act of Love by dying for us. So at this late age in time, I love by ‘aching’. Thus, when I hurt I tend to want to caress others´ pain away lovingly, knowing I am hurting from love. However sharing others’ sufferings with them, is not enough. It may lead to understanding and empathy, but it does not transform reality.

For a while now, I have been trying to change reality by ´praying’. I try evoking and breathing in, God’s Goodness, while exhaling all tension, anger and ill feelings. However, as I do it I am aware that I am releasing, all my negative feelings unto the world. I should rather, be taking in the world’s wrongs and ‘righting’ them, through Love. Thus, I could transform negativity, into blessings and ‘p-ray’ them back out, into the world. That requires transmuting pain into love.

We are all individual drops of water making way into the sea. When we unite with other droplets, we fuse our individuality to become one with them, as we gush together in the flow of life. Merging with others, I lose my subjective experiencing, and expand awareness through their experiences. My pain ceases to be mine when I expand my feelings, to perceive those of others and then give myself up, to be transformed into a ‘oneness’, altogether different. Thus, pain ceases, when there is no one to ache. Only then, can it be transformed into compelling Love. That is how I have come to understand that pain is just another way of perception. Stepping out of my experience of pain, I can become that added little drop of intention and become part of a greater flow of Love. Perhaps trying it, I could release the pain I feel for others and transform it into Love.

I was thinking how this century has brought about hopelessness, with the ill omen that menaces it-being the end on the world. But when I see my daughter elate into bubbles over a boy and be transformed into joy as she prepares for a party, I realize it must be a feeling that comes only as ‘our worlds’ get closer to their own ‘end’. Life seems to go on, as does the experiencing of it. So, with this renewed awareness, I chose to live what is left of it, transforming pain into love. Only then can I experience the pleasure of enjoyment and the grace of gratitude, for having a new day.

Learning to LOve: Families

Families are containers for re-latedness. To relate (lat.: re-again; latio-side/beat) is to re-establish contact from a different side; to re-establish timing to a re- newed  ‘beat’. Both acceptions require the containing framework of an encompassing family. Thus, I can break away from my personal ego-centered stance and shift to the perspective of a loved one within the safety-grounds of a trusted environment. Change and ‘development’  is easier within this ‘envelopment’.

While in the Mexican Association of Sexology, we did a research on ‘families’, establishing up to 29 different structures: nuclear families, extended families, divorced…with ‘your’ children; ‘my’ children; ‘our’ children; adopted children; grandparents, uncles, aunts etc .It included indigenous structuring of families, where twins share wives;  where father and son share wives; even villages with a shared ‘wife’. They all hold love. ‘upholding strongholds as holdings’ held together by relatedness.

This Spring I invited my ex-husband to our family town house. I did it for him to get away and have a break from the hardships of everyday life (and aging), he started the year with. I was surprised, however at everyone’s reaction. Despite our having dinner together once a week, for over the 11 years we’ve been divorced, my daughter’s reaction and that of my step-children and sisters was one of ‘shock’. No, we are not planning on getting back together, again, but what is  wrong with ‘caring’ for each other, beyond the marriage vows? As Western society would have it, love is only allowed in marriage. We like to believe we divorced out of love. If we had wanted to hurt each other we would have stayed married to continue making our lives miserable!!!!

The experience was interesting. My parents shared mutual enjoyment with his presence, perhaps from the wisdom, borne of time, that values everyday as if it were the last. No strings attached; no false expectations; just ‘living the moment’ gratefully. I enjoyed the old comfort of knowing each other well, making it all, relaxing and easy-going. However, there too, were surprising changes. He opened the car door for me! And even thanked me for making his bed. ’Change’ is ‘strange’…both, with a hidden ‘angel’ within.

 In my understanding it confirms that love can be extended beyond what is socially acceptable. But it needs family.

 

Learning to Love: Order

The popular aphorism, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”, reminds us of the importance of counteracting the entropic tendency of everything going to chaos. We have to consciously, put effort into reverting this disintegration, by putting order. It dispenses energy and continual effort.
I have kept myself busy (and out of trouble) cleaning closets, painting walls and doing spring cleaning, these last days. It is not only good for the house, but good for my body (Reverend Mother always said, that the best exercise was doing housecleaning!) and my soul. It discharges dirt, disorder and negativity, depression or guilt, making way for singing!
My Mother’s Puritanical upbringing got me into the healthy habit of keeping everything clean and orderly; of arranging and re-arranging things for everything to have its place; of picking things up immediately after use, so as to avoid cluttering; of continuously giving things I don´t use, to someone who may need them. However, I don´t obsess about it.  I like to think our home is clean-friendly, where my rat-like nature has me saving everything; the cat and dog get on the furniture to share with us and eating is allowed in the ‘living’ room. Ceremonials on Christmas, Halloween, Easter…bring change to our daily life with re-organization of the furniture and routines.
Making a ‘home’ in a house is a full-time job. It hopefully, makes your loved ones want to be there. So it is important to keep a stress-free ambiance to allow them to relax. Not only dirt, but screaming and fighting have to be actively avoided. I was shocked when the sex-workers I gave HIV tests to, told me that husbands who bought their 'favors', frequently blamed the conditions they lived at home, for their wanting to avoid it. Rituals from shamanistic and religious settings help cleanse such negativity. In the Carmelite Monastery we would cleanse every room before sleep, going through them in choral prayer with a lit candle, incense and bell. It holds true for homes. Peace has to be borne from the heart.
Not only the home, but the body has to be cherished and cared for. Even the astral aura can be cleansed (not necessarily with shaman flowers or eggs!) but a simple shower after a nightclub or a rough day. One always picks up negativity, from people in angry or stressful situations such as traffic or endless queues.
In loving, it´s always good to shower together before love-making; perhaps a bath. At least wash your hands before touching!
I feel so ‘re-lived’ when I clean. It´s even better than confession, because you are left with tangible ‘ordi-nation’ and makes you feel ‘good’…worthy of being loved.

Learning to Love: Keeping Busy

Gloria Ornelas

There are two types of people: those who love and those who ‘think’ about loving..(guess which one I am?!!!). The first ‘act’; the second, ‘re-act’, ‘enact’, ‘subtract’….
Reverend Mother, in the Carmelite Monastery used to remind us constantly, that the ‘father’ (she actually said ‘mother’, but I changed it!) of all sins was ‘boredom’…doing nothing (not the same as ‘leisure’, which is the ‘time-out’, necessary for meditation and contemplation).
Those of us who go around moping and complaining about how unjust ‘life’ and ‘love’ have been to us…aren’t loving. Even those who go around ‘re-membering’ the broken pieces of heart, or proudly trumpeting their ‘ideal come true’, are merely re-flecting..not ´living´love.

I recently asked a Nun what love was for her, and she sat down, took my hand and was silent. I was immediately engulfed with an upsurge of warmth and energy. I sighed, unexpectedly, as I heaved with relief.
“What are you doing”, I asked. And she looked straight into my eyes ‘lovingly’. I had an image of a flower whose petals were opening up as she began to share her secret.
“I breath Love in, as I evoke Eternal Grace ; plead for forgiveness as I assimilate its ‘Goodness’; and exhale a blessing on all I know, all I come in contact with, and all who may need it” .
“You do that all the time?” I asked horrified, as I realized that it would imply having to ‘let go’ of inner dialogue. I would have to stop analyzing, judging, comparing, self-justifying, let alone have to set a distance with people and their luscious gossip.
“It is Living Love, every minute of the day” she answered, peacefully, and continued.. “When I pray consciously, I use my imagination to take me into the ‘Heart that Loves me, Unconditionally’ and let myself  feel embraced and lulled. It is from that Higher Loving that I ‘p-ray’  ,‘raying’ it onto others”.
“Take the Rosary,” she continued  “..when I pray it, I imagine myself imbued by Mother Love, and feel ‘im-pregnated’  with Higher Loving, so that I can embrace souls that may feel lost, using imagery to envelop them  in an Imaginary Womb, while I wish them  protection and Love”.
I was shocked, half thinking she wasn´t  ‘all there’….but she went on, disowning my doubts.
 “Use your imagination to make Love happen. It’s like magic. Imagine you have a ‘wand’ and bless everyone who comes across you during the day, wishing them all kinds of goodness. If anything, it will keep your mind busy, free from idle thoughts and out of trouble”, she said  laughing.

I’ve been thinking about it ever since, even trying it. I don’t know if I’m loving any better, but it certainly keeps me mind busy.

Learning to Love: Dying

Gloria Ornelas-

In these days that celebrate either, the Christian Easter, with the 'passing' of Jesus from this world into the next; or the Jewish 'Passover', from enslavement of the Jews in Egypt to the Promised Land, we are the wiser to reflect on 'loving'- as the choice to be willing to leave life as we know it, so as to be transformed into something Higher. That´s what Love is about: dying to EGO-self to be reborn into a Higher form of Loving.
Love then, becomes a conscious choice where we are willing to choose death, for our loved ones’ welfare. However, it´s not about suicide, self- flagellation, sabotage of our right to pleasure and happiness, or ‘suffering’ for others (been there, done that!).
Our ‘personality’ (from Latin: per-for; sonare- to be heard) is our outer ‘persona’, created to relate to others. It is a protective mask-formation that must be outgrown and set aside, for us to let go of external attachments and internalize our focus for inner development.  ‘Death,’ as a passage towards personal transformation, is an abstract projection of our own dying and letting go of ‘old ways’, to re-new internal Life. Our ego’s  outer ‘shell’ molded by our upbringing in family and social culture has to be peeled away, for us to develop inner awareness and make ‘conscious’ our ‘unconscious’.
It’s easily said, but painful, especially if our external reality is all we know. To break away from everything that we have created 'co-dependence' with, is a type of dying. It requires blind faith, courage or having the personal despair of having ‘touched bottom’. The pain comes from letting go of our Ego’s false reality, when cracking out of its protective shell, to expand our conscious awareness of who we really are. This may come as a ‘heartbreak’, when our most tender hopes, knit around a projected illusion of desire, are shattered.
We will never find fulfilling love in external outreach. It is our inner spring that satiates our thirst for Love. It is from there, that we Love others, freely, flowing with gratuity.
The steps we must take to break through our Ego shell are:
1.       Cutting off attention, on what is perceived through the external  senses.
2.       Looking inward.
3.       Stopping time. Being still. Leaving the fast track as we race for objectives projected in a linear future.
4.       Breathing…inhaling deeply, assimilating and exhaling slowly..(This will draw awareness to the physical ‘here and now’)
5.       Turning thought-processing ‘OFF’…with the mind in blank…cancelling the screening of ideas and cutting the thread of internal dialogue.
6.       Focusing on perceiving: body, feelings and inner stirrings.
7.       Inhaling ‘goodness’, ‘life’ and ‘peace’ with every breath.
8.       Filtering all ‘darkness’, ‘tightness’, ‘knots’ or blockage and expelling them, with every exhalation.
9.        Recognize and follow Inner Truth, even at the expense of 'disobeying' rigid expectations from the outer world.
10.     Honor Self.

It’s easily done, for a couple minutes, but to live every day in that state, disregarding the immediate, and disengaging our emotions from expected outcomes requires sustained awareness and self-control. Practice makes it easier, till slowly, a re-newed sense of Self transforms our consciousness of what is really important.
Practice makes change…not ideas. So die to ‘thinking’ and flow with your inner feeling.

Learning to Love: Illusion

Gloria Ornelas Hall-

Illusions (lat.: absence of light) glow from the reflection of wishful thinking, much as the moon, having no light of its own, reflects moonshine from the sun. They can be deceiving, oftentimes desirable, but in the end, fantasy. Romance builds expectations from such phantoms. We see the attributes we assign our loved one, wishfully.

There is scientific evidence that validates optical, auditory or tactile illusions, as cerebral distortions of perception. However, their ‘reality’ does not make them ‘true’. Such is the differentiation that Hinduism makes of their term, Maya, which is an illusion, but neither ‘false’ or ‘true’. The sympathetic and parasympathetic response elicited by neurotransmitters stimulates or antagonizes pupil response, sensorial attentiveness, focused concentration and stimulates sensations that define our perceptions. Consciousness integrates these isolated memories giving them meaning.

I have lived deceived, and in self-deception all my life. Perhaps that is what differentiates subjective experience and makes us unique. I tend to project what I want to see on to others, displacing my imagination onto the images I perceive. It works for me, because I invariably validate my own reality in self-justification. It is a commodity that excludes all I wish to delete. So in romance, my lover is as I want him to be…smart, funny, hard-working, creative, kind, understanding….But is he really? I don´t think I want to know….and yet loving him with such subjective distortion perhaps only reflects my self-love, leaving him untouched.
To love another we must first see him/her in truth. Only then can we reach and touch them. However, in so doing, we have to face dis-illusion. The ego hurts when we don´t let it have what it wants, or let it have its way. It requires disenfranchisement from our right to vote or give our opinion. We have to peel off all wishful thinking and protective sheaths to face the stark-naked truth. Only then can our loving shine of itself, and not as a reflection of our desires and imagination.

So much for Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How do I love thee?”
Let me count the ways:

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Risking sacrilege, perhaps with ‘dis-illusion,’ I would say:
I love your depth, breadth and height dispossessed of idyllic grace.
I love you, not to meet my dire need, but freely;
Not for praise; not in faith; not in wishful relatedness to saints.
I love your breath, your smiles and your tears in my life,
and in my living today and tomorrow.

Learning to Love: Spiritual Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

The Bible’s Song of Songs, attributed to Solomon (though it clearly describes a woman’s way of loving) starts with a first verse that seems to talk about two different types of Lovers: one physical, and the other, spiritual:
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.

Your love is more delightful than wine.

Delicate is the fragrance of your perfume,
Your name is an oil poured out,
And that is why the maidens love you.
Draw me in your footsteps, let us run.
The King has brought me into his rooms,
You will be our joy and our gladness.
We shall praise your love above wine;
How right it is to love you.

(quoted from the Jerusalem Bible)

 Not all versions of this verse are the same, but it clearly talks about the physical love bestowed by the King and the joy with which loving God, enriches their romance.
 
Traditionally, these verses have been interpreted to be the love between a mystical Bridegroom (God) and Israel (the Bride). Erotic symbolism has been described in its metaphors such as “Let my lover come into his garden and taste its delicious fruits”. It describes the ‘innocence’ of enjoyment lived in Eden, later missed as ‘experience’ drew man away from God.

The profound yearning and dolorous longing for the Love once known, is painfully familiar. It describes our way of loving today, after a broken heart. Strangely, it is only the woman (Bride) that talks to her mystical Beloved (God-Bridegroom), while her physical lover praises only her physical qualities. It is as if only women dialogue that intimately with God, merging their sexual arousal with their mystical yearning. In the verse, it is plain to see that while kisses are good, God´s love is better. Man’s love cannot quench the thirst for greater spiritual satisfaction.

Having been betrothed to God in a Carmelite ceremony where temporary vows to poverty, obedience and silence are made, I can relate to this type of loving. It is as a sigh that takes  a deep breath, gasping in need, for that Loving we have felt, but lost in the ‘dark night of the Soul’. Santa Teresa, St John of the Cross, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz all have erotic poetry loving God.

I wore my mother’s bridal gown and walked down the aisle alone, as my family bid me farewell with a song. I crossed the threshold of ‘life’ as I entered the cloister and died to social life. I lay postrate, face down, on the floor with my arms extended in the shape of the cross. My ‘sisters’ shaved my head and put my habit on…then I lay in an open coffin, to meet with My Loved One in contemplation of death. It may sound eerie to disbelievers, or those who haven´t been exposed to Catholic tradition, but it is really quite romantic.

 Bernini's statue of Sta. Therese in 'orgasm' as she is struck by Love

Later lovers and husbands, have filled an important aspect of love…but my spiritual Lover does the rest.