The dark side of Love

Love spreads its wings and casts a shadow

To Amos Oz

She lay barren in the night…hopelessly calling unto death.

She lay listless, hoping to seduce death into believing, she was ready.

Then suddenly, she got hungry. 

Mary was that way. Her wick was short…both for patience, for focus, for desire.  During the day she was a patient at Londonberry Psychiatric Home. At night, she lit her wick and just for a flicker, she was brilliant.

She got up and walked over to the small refrigerator in her dorm. As she opened its door, light flooded in and lit the shadows all around her. She was accustomed to them as she walked in darkness, being born under the moon´s shadow. She reached in for the left-over hot-dog, she had started eating, earlier.

She hurried the door shut. Mary was reluctant to light. Her slight figure was more elegant at night. She was a shy and somber young lady…At daytime, just a profile. At night an enticing black hole. 

She went back to bed.. and continued bemusing the fact that she had so much to give..but no one to give it to, and chewed her tough hot dog.

Her ideas were so short that despite their depth, despite their intensity and fathomless desire, they seemed trifle. But her life was built on those fleeting moments…on the broken pieces of her shattered light…that glittered every now and then.

Replenished, she stretched and spread her wings. She only unraveled them, under the shelter of the night. She actually sat up and expanded her chest, as she unfolded the weight on her shoulders. She was majestic as she cast her shadow under the moonlight.

Where would she go, tonight?

She took a deep breath as she inhaled a hail Mary, invoking wind under her wings..

Whom would she love tonight?

“I’ll just trust the silent call that beckons”..she thought to herself, as she actually stood on the window sill, preparing to let go.

Love is a type of madness. Letting go like that, fearlessly trusting the gaping abyss of all, unknown. It requires generosity to take the leap. But Mary was fearless that way. She felt she had nothing to lose.

Every night she would go through this ritual before flying off to someone in need. It was much more than prayer.

Tonight, she envisioned a nearby hospital. She flew in the pediatric ward´s window and hovered over the sleeping children. One was awake. He was a seven-year old with severe burns.

“What happened, baby?” she asked tenderly as she flew down by his bedside…

The little boy just stared. He seemed to have been expecting the visit, but was heartless. He had been playing with his brother as they prepared festive fireworks for the town’s patron saint. They went off in his face. They also reached his heart because he felt nothing. No fear. No excitement. No expectations. No hope. No pain.

He too, wanted to die…but he didn´t know it, she felt.

They didn´t have to exchange words. The shared memory was gruesome, enough. She took him in her arms and cradled him in her wings. Suddenly she began to sing. The notes echoed from heavenly orbs moving to destiny’s partiture. Every stave had a tune, deep in rhythmic repetition. It seemed almost like a soothing mantra, rocking the boy to sleep.

She prayed down ointment as she sang, endearingly spreading it to soothe his wounds.

She enveloped him in her wings, all night. Then she placed him back on his pillow, listless.

Daylight.

Back in her bed, she curled up, tucking her wings ‘neath her covers, just in time, before the morning nurse walked in with her pills. Shadow-time.

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.

Learning to Love: Higgs Boson and Love

The 4 of July, 2012 the CERN particle accelerator in Geneve announced the discovery of the Higgs Boson, the fundamental particle of the Universe, from which ‘energy’ is transformed into ‘mass’. Apparently, it is a moving particle that is slowed down by the resistance of an invisible surrounding ‘field’ of ‘energy’ from which ‘mass’ is generated.
The idea of a surrounding ‘field of energy’ in which the universe itself, floats, is awe-inspiring. Just visualizing its gentleness, as a heaving sea of potential, gives me peace. In my understanding, this surrounding ‘field’ in which everything stirs, is much as the encompassing field of Love that envelops Life.
Making an analogy of the creative process in ‘energy-into-mass’, with the creative process of ‘ideas-into-their manifestation’, this enveloping field and its resistance become vital. Higgs’ fundamental particle, could then be compared to the initial impulse of an ‘Idea’, as it stirs ripples of movement and change through the ‘waters’ of potential. Higgs field of energy could then be compared to that of a sea of Love, that shapes everything into life ‘manifest’. Its counteractive effect in the slowing of energy into mass could be compared to the counteraction of hardships in love, shaping life into existence. Such is the creative process. Ideas generated, are made manifest, as this field of Love shapes them into their manifestation. I like to believe that everything that exists is due to such expression of an ’Idea’. It is this initial impulse that generates the tangible/visible embodiment of everything that becomes ‘manifest’. This ‘causal’ impulse, would seem to ‘effect’ soft ripples of creativity in such a ‘sea’.  The resistance of Higgs field of energy builds mass much as the resistance of ‘Love’ counteracting ideas with chaos, and everyday problems shapes reality.
The creative process would then involve projected ‘ideas’ shaped by a sea of Loving resistance into manifest existence. Something like Higgs particles of energy, that are turned into mass with the resistance of a surrounding field . Thus, ideas are like these generative impulses whose energy is ‘slowed’ down be the resistance of a field of Love

Learning to Love: Feedback

Does communication depend on the lover’s capacity to ‘send’ his message of love? Does it depend on the loved one’s capacity to ‘receive’? Is it the message of love, itself, that determines the quality of mutual ‘communion’ in their communication? Is it the code, .. the ‘decoding’, or the ‘channel’ ? It is clear that all are important: the lover, as sender; his message, coded to his ´loved ones’ understanding; the channel used to transmit it with fidelity; and the willingness of the ‘loved one’s’ open reception to accept the message of Love.
Much of loving is about communication. Hence, the importance of analyzing all the elements involved, to try to solve the difficulties in the relationship between ‘lover’ and ‘loved one’.
We were talking about it the other day, while catching up on family gossip. We debated over Dr. Gary Chapman’s five codes used in close communication between loved ones:
·         -Use of kind words
·         -Touch
·         -Gifts
·         -Quality time and
·         -Service

These five codes were identified, after studying the problems of thousands of couples who reported these as their main dissatisfactions.

“The gist is..” we all agreed, “..that both, the lover and the loved one, should speak the same language, for fluent communication in a good relationship”.  We came to this conclusion, when we each admitted that our problems communicating with our respective partners, stem from differences in the codes we used;  one partner, trying to show love in a language, misunderstood and rejected by the other. I, for example, show love as my mother did, through ‘service’. However, my ex-husband ( who is still part of our extended family), joined in admitting that the  ‘service’ given as love, made him feel  it was ‘duty’, tending, rather to reject it, because it made him feel guilty.

However, later, while my ex-husband and I walked on the beach, alone, we both agreed that it was not enough for the sender to try to code his message with fine fidelity to his inner authenticity; nor was it enough for the partner to ‘receive’ the message with open acceptance…both had to share their mutual perceptions, distinctly identifying subjective differences, in the exchange. This ‘feedback’ allows for the ‘thesis’ and ‘antithesis’ of their interactive discourse, to re-create synergy in a ‘synthesis’, both can identify and share.

I don´t think this is the only emotional alphabet, in love. Maybe these 5 languages are really ‘channels’ used to transmit our personal ‘coding’ .

 Everyone develops their own alphabet in love, as they each assign personal ‘meaning’ to different ways of transmitting it (channels): the way we touch, the emotions we express, the words we transmit or the  gifts we give. What is important is that love cease to be the abstraction of our mere intention, to become ‘real’ with our manifest ‘actions’, in the present’.

 

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: Loopholes

Gloria Ornelas Hall-

Complexity, as its name implies is opportunity unraveled, flexed over, plicated, folded upon itself. It is potential to be unfolded. That’s what I tell myself when things get tough and uncertainty and loss of control make for chaos in my life. Inevitably, epiphanies let the light in and shine with sudden understanding, opening portholes that seem to loop through time. Then, Einstein’s notion of time as warped unfolding, seems to make sense.

I had one of these ‘eureka’ moments the other day, as I had coffee with my dear High School teacher. In itself, our meeting after so many years is a loop in time, with a sudden gushing in of forgotten memories that refreshed ‘my today’. I presently understood the simultaneity of things related to the soul. Loving is made of such things.

Re-creating reality with the awareness of parallel synchronicity opens a network of channels giving us opportunities of simultaneous input and output in all directions. (A bit like this blog, that opens portholes to other lives, tapping into parallel realities that share same interests). Consciousness itself, expands with such bizarre notions as the possibility of understanding human behavior in two or more dimensions. As if the physical reactions of chemical and electrical stimulation, now uncovered by scientific probing into the brain, were connected to one’s own ‘integrating soul’ at another plane. This would explain that consciousness is not limited to the brain but is integrated and given meaning, by a parallel mind. Plato’s description of reality as mere shadows reflected on a cave wall, and Freud’s description of consciousness as being an ‘iceberg’ where part of reality is seen while the other goes unperceived, comes to mind with such a possibility. Man could then, be described metaphorically as a lipid protruding through a cell membrane, on both the inside and the outside of the cell. Meaning then has expansive qualities that readjust understanding to a re-newed concept of self and others.

In the light of time, as having these ‘trans-membranic qualities’, with simultaneous contact between this reality and another a-temporal space, the injunction of past and future within today’s every moment becomes onerous. Imagine yourself, fixed on the limited self-concept of being a mere finger, and suddenly expanding awareness to realize that you are also the hand, the arm and the whole ‘being’ of life.

In love, such expansive awareness comes when we broaden conscious integration of our ego-self, to include another; and another; and another till we realize we are all one. Such an epiphany includes new ways of loving: forgiving; accepting; understanding or not; letting go and trusting that ‘it’ll be alright’. We are all interconnected by this matrix of loopholes to and from each other, not only today, but from the past and the future, simultaneously!

So, ‘what the hell!!!!!’ Stop trying to control, holding on to fixed ways that only limit our way of loving. Open up and let go.. Flow with the gush of love.

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: Rage

L´earning to Love-

Gloria Ornelas Hall.

 Rage

My Dad is sick and loving him can only come from Dylan Thomas’ call to: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”.

 Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Learning to Love: Transmutaion

L´earning to Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

 Transmutation

Life’s a bugger (that´s an understatement!). Nobody ever teaches us to handle the hardships we encounter, so we are ill-prepared for difficulty. Yet, it is unavoidable.
By nature, everything tends towards disorder, dissolution and disintegration. This is called ‘enthropy’, a basic principle of Physics. To revert it, we must dispense effort and energy. In life, this process of continual re-creation stems from Love. The very desire to change this destructive principle and transform it into order and re-construction requires loving. This is transmutation (lat: trans-through; mutare- change). The cost is self-sacrifice. We must counteract egoism and selfishness to re-construct life and love.
Mothers are perfect examples of this. Take pregnancy. They gain 11 kgs, and duplicate bodily functions, pumping up to 40% more blood, to have a baby. They normally postpone personal satisfaction till their caring for others is done and often, are willing to give their lives up, for their loved ones.

Approximately, a third of the population has this intrinsic selflessness, with a natural tendency to care and help others. Their protective factors give them a resilience that makes them resistant to risk. As Salvador Diaz Mirón says, in his poem ‘A Gloria’,  “They fly over swamps without soiling their plumage”. It is they who carry, not only the responsibility of their own personal welfare, but the weight of those who damage themselves and others. So some of us come to learn and try to ‘get it right’, while others come to help. Having been helped, myself, over, and over again, I know the need we all have for each other.

Chaos cannot be re-created with dependability without this help.
Transmuting dis-order into order requires the desire to help others, a basic principle of love. Caring enough to be there for others, at the cost of dispensing one´s own selfishness is the first step. Feeling their pain and keeping them company as we walk alongside others, sharing their lives’ path, is a second step. Holding their hand when asked for help, is the third. Thus, the pain of living becomes an opportunity to hurt together in love.
Transmutation is not about changing or resisting reality. It is about transforming the experience of pain into love.

 

Learning to Love: Destiny

 

L´earning to Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

 Destiny

In today’s society, man´s pride has imbued in us the notion that we each forge our own lives. However, as mine unfolds, the idea of ‘destiny’ makes more sense.
In Greek mythology, three ‘Moirai’ thread the canvas of fate, the inevitable destiny we each have when we are born. Nietzsche goes further with his ‘Amor Fati’, the acceptance of this predetermination, through ‘choice’. The unpredictability of life, with its creases and folds, more of the time, depends on variables that have nothing to do with us. That is fate. We may choose or not, to go where fate leads us, rebelling and resisting that which we most dread, in fear of losing control over our lives. Sooner or later, we will end up where we began, anyway.
 Love is inevitably interlaced to fate. We think we choose our life-long partners or children, naïvely pegging reasons and qualities that earn our favor, ignoring the fact that our souls respond to another call. We are beckoned to live out our soul’s longing, either to learn or repair, or help others into awareness. We can try to ignore this path, laid out long before we are born, but that is only fooling ourselves. It is not merit that earns us love. Sometimes it’s need from imperfection; sometimes it’s desire to help, entwined with co-dependence; sometimes, it’s inexplicable. It is  not about choosing what 'cross' to bear or what sacrificial penance to accept. It’s a call, an ‘e-vocation’.

Love is not indiscriminate or dispensable. It does not overflow from abounding generosity or virtue. It is intricately nestled in our lives’ design, for reasons we may not understand, till we do; most of the time, near death. We must play out the role love deals us, acceptingly. I should have learned that in the Monastery when I pledged a vow of obedience. I thought it was to obey Reverend Mother; later, I thought it was about obeying my superiors in the Navy; later, obeying my husband, much as I had obeyed my parents…..I had never realized that the obedience, expected, was to fate. Love is not about being kind and dispensing compassion over those, ‘less benefitted´. It is not about charity from pity or compassion. It is about loving him or her, next to you; him or her, you most reject; him or her, fate had you be born with. It is not about pleasing or satisfying our will’s desire, but about fulfilling our destiny. In the light of this truth, fidelity makes sense.

The other day I was reminded of this, as my ex-university-classmates and I met after almost forty years. I was so grateful for them reminding me who I was, as we remembered outrageous scenes from our youth… It was one of them that pointed out that I had always been different (as we all are) and always set a sense of duty before me. It was she who reminded me that I had a destiny to fulfill, maybe even yet.

 

Learning to Love: Closure

Is this really the end of the world? Much has been happening, that keeps reminding us of our imminent mortality. The question is…are we ready to die?
When asked what I would do, if life were to end in five minutes, I said: “Rejoice. Death has been my loyal companion, giving my life purpose and relevance”.  I’d welcome relief from stumbling through life in spiritual blindness; relief from being severed from God-ness. I´d definitely welcome death and thank life for its unconditional embrace and its endless opportunities to love.
A patient of mine, living with HIV/AIDS taught me that death is not our enemy but a close companion in life. He said his guru had been the Human Inmunodeficiency Virus (HIV). It had taught him to value every second of his life, as if it were the last. It helped him to set his priorities straight. So he left his medical career and built a half-way house for terminal patients whom he has been caring for, since. It is death that has given his life, meaning.
The only thing we all have in common is living and dying. We don´t all have health, wealth, intelligence, food, opportunities…but we all will, at some point, die. Whether we go into another life or just disintegrate is irrelevant. However, how we die is important. To die in peace and gratitude, with no regrets or misgivings is the fruit of a life well lived. Have we repaired damage done? Have we asked for forgiveness? Have we forgiven those who have wronged us? Have we thanked everyone who has loved us? Have we thanked everyone who has hurt us? Have we fully enjoyed every moment, given? Have we shared all we have to give? Have we loved all the love we have to give? Have we fulfilled our destiny? Are we happy? Can we face pain with serenity? Can we let go?
My ex-husband lived in bitter pain, for his son’s suicide. He frequently thought of ending his own life. We came to an agreement: I would respect his right to freely end his life, if he so chose, but I would never help him. I tried everything to make him happy: dressed as the pink panther; set the Christmas tree in Summer; made plays with his grandchildren for him, but to no effect. I finally called his ex-wife and had her forgive him. They got together again. I was left listless, with broken wings and no feathers on my back. But he wasn´t mine, nor was the pain they shared.  I still believe it was the right thing to do.
Death like closure has to seal open pathways of energy exchange. We have to close all debts and retrieve the energy dispensed. We are ‘ours’, no one else’s; so it is up to us to put an end to things, clean up and tidy our life’s mess.
A survivor from Auschwitz impressed me with his testimonial on the day the war ended. His job had been to clean de latrines. (Ugh!) So when the Allied troops marched in to set them free, he went back to first, finish washing up the latrines! So much for closure.

Learning to Love: Independence

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Independence

In his marvelous book “The Prophet”, Kahlil Gibran talks about Marriage, giving the following recommendations:

“But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea
between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup, but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread,
but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each one of you be alone.
Even as the strings of a lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping,
For only the hand of life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress
grow not in each other's shadow”

Not much else to say after that.

Independence gives us the stance to stand upright. Together by a lover who himself is independent, we can carry the world.

 

 

Learning to Love: Get a Life

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Get a Life

Loving is not about making others ‘your life’ or as Joyce C. Hall, creator of Hallmark cards, would have had it back in Kansas in 1910, be  “a reason for living”.

Relationships have changed throughout the ages as gender and sex participation evolves in society and politics. The rules for relationships for my parents and their parents are totally different, to the rules in relationships today and even different from those among younger generations.

The Lost Generation born between 1883 and 1900 describes those who fought in World War I, with relationships working side by side in the mills and mines to build a country from immigrants. The G.I. Generation, born from around 1901 through 1924 includes the veterans who fought in World War II, during the Great Depression and describes relationships that eloped to break away from Puritanical limitations. The Silent Generation, born between 1925 and 1945, includes those who fought during the Korean War, much more aware of social acceptance as radio and cinema created  ‘popularity’. The Baby Boomers, from 1946 to 1964, marked an increase in birth rates after the War, rekindling hope in relationships as existential nihilism ended. In the 1960s, young adults and teenagers started the Hippie movement, making free love their banner with the introduction of ‘the pill’. The Generation X , from the early 1960s to the 1980s included those targeted by financial markets for sales, with relationships related to alcohol and fashion. The Generation Y, also known as Millennials, describes those born in the turn of the century, ranging somewhere from the latter 1970s to the early 2000s, accelerated by ecstasy and artificial ‘uppers’, as ADD and ADH became popular, with no commitment in relationships . The Generation Z  are those born after the early 2000s, with relationships identified with ecology, equity and a New Age order.

So when young adolescents today, try to develop their independence and still have their parents ‘fussing over them’, they often say “Mom, get a life” and they’re right. Where traditionally, we as parents devoted our time to our children, having had them be part of our bodies in pregnancy; having had them need us in childhood to survive; and having had them as learners in adolescence, as they become independent, they require us parents to shift the axis of our priorities, re-taking our own lives. The same holds true for our lovers. We cannot make them ‘our life’.

‘Getting a life’ requires retaking everything that spurs our inner passion. Physically: sports, dancing, travelling; emotionally: music, movies, art; rationally: studies, writing, teaching and spiritually: reading, contemplation and 're-learning how to love'. With it, however, we must also exact respect for our own right to independence.

 

 

Learning to love. Friends or Lovers?

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Friends or Lovers

Friends are about loyalty; lovers, about fidelity. Friends are about confidence; lovers are about trust. Friends are about secrecy; lovers, about intimacy. Friends are about sharing; lovers are about mutuality. Friends are about numbers; lovers, about exclusiveness.
The origin of the word ‘friend’ comes from the Proto-German, meaning ‘freedom’. Friendships set us free, since they accept us unconditionally; but drop the second letter ‘r’ and it turns to ‘fiend’!
‘Lover’ comes from the Latin: luber, meaning ‘desire’ (de-sire- pertaining to the master?).
Where ‘friendship’ implies ‘freedom’, ‘lovers’ imply ‘commitment’.

Last night a friend of mine was going on about ‘men’, and how happy she was without them. “They are so different from us” she said. And of course, we all know she´s right. Men and women are different. Our perception on life and our experience of it, have been proven to be reactions from different parts of the brain, as seen in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI’s). Even orgasm is integrated with different sensorial responses! A study we made in the Mexican National Autonomous University proved young boys initiated their sexual lives at around 14, with a ‘friend’; where young girls started at around 16 years of age, with a ‘boyfriend’. Boys don´t necessarily relate sex with emotions; girls, do. It is a physiological response.

Male erection is an autonomic response with a neural loop round the spinal cord. Women´s eroticism excites a response from the spinal cord, through the emotional mid-brain in the hypothalamus, to the rational cortex, before deciding to respond, sexually. One responds instinctively, for a couple minutes; the other, with an unconscious response to what could end up being a 9-month pregnancy.

Such differences make for different interpretations of what a ‘friend’ or a ‘lover’ implies. Nowadays, with ‘free’ open relationships among teenagers, sex is not a negotiated right. It is as freely given, as it is, taken away. Mutuality or exclusiveness are not conditioned. The effect of open pornography in marriages is just making sex a sport, covered up in lies. Truth and fidelity are now obsolete. So what is the difference?

I have come to believe that the difference is 'commitment'; not only contractual or social but in soul. We are bound by soul, to love, being responsible for each other´s spiritual growth! Sexual intimacy with a lover is a binding spiritual commitment. If women's awareness of inner consciousness is more developed, we are responsible to help our lover grow. 
As life turns the spiral of chance, lovers return. We owe each other a kind word; reassurance, in failure; memories, to keep the cold nights warm; gratitude, to lessen the burden of failure. They may need help or council. It is no longer about sex or possessiveness; but about ‘loving’.
Lovers get to know the soul where friends only touch the surface.

Learning to Love: Cut the Crap

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

 Cut the crap
My daughter was upset I wrote about her in the last post, asking me to respect her personal intimacy. So I publicly say I´m sorry. She’s right, loving exacts privacy. However, she did add that loving is not all about smooching and kindness. She said “it requires balls” (please excuse my French). If they want you, “boyfriends have to be true, and prove it. Intentions are not enough. If lovers don´t value you enough to take you out, give you the best and cherish you, they are not worthwhile”. Beyoncé put it this way in the Super Bowl: “If you want it you should’ve put a ring on it”.
Her differing perspective about my believing that her father and I had actually worked out a constructive divorce, faced me with the stark truth. It’s hasn´t been a bed of roses and she has had to buffer our differences. That made me aware that I tend to overlook the flaws and weaknesses in lieu of romantic relationships, replacing facts with illusion. I love her strong-willed, clear outlook on life. She´s going to be alright. As for me, I have plenty of food for thought, as I check with reality.

Illusion and deception are fantasy, with wishful thinking being a way for denial. It´s always easier to go soft, giving others the benefit of the doubt, rather than have the courage to face things as they are. I have to justify less and ‘cut the crap’. This self-appraisal sets me on much more solid ground. It´s hard to accept you have been wrong, or in self-denial. I tend to lower the standards for others so as to look better in the picture. This is cowardice and it is a way of covering up for my errors. Worst of all, it is setting a wrong precedent for my daughter. She is right. We have to expect the best from others and ourselves. Relationships should grow together with this in mind. I have to focus not only on giving, but on expecting just as much. It’s hard for me since I have played the ‘sacrificial heroine’ all my life.

If your husband blames you for marriage, because of pregnancy or deceit, leave him. If you are harassed or abused physically, emotionally, economically or are always being put down and criticized, leave him. If your lover doesn´t take you out, or has you pay the bills, or hides you from his friends and lies about the relationship, leave him. Cut the crap.

Then you can work on your self-esteem.

Learning to Love: Impotence

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

 Impotence

How can I blog about loving and not be able to help my 22 year old daughter when she asks “How can I get a boyfriend?”
Beautiful, smart hard-working, good grades in the University, responsible and very loving…but 22, when boys her age are still playing around and older boys are thinking serious. Her girlfriends and their relations describe the gory scenario youth is confronting…one-night stands; abusive affairs with married bosses; desperate efforts to rank in beauty competitions, with extreme risks such as anorexia. Just in her generation they have had to deal with abortions, AIDS, clinics for AA, abduction and violence and chronic states of depression and hopelessness. Now, it´s not everyone. There are those who have travelled abroad to help out in Africa and Asia; those who have won international recognition and project financing; those who are working in the International Court of Justice, in the government; those who have written books and poetry and started their own recording and DJ companies. What makes the difference?

My psychoanalyst, Honorary Founder of the International Association for Mental Health, Louis Feder, said we can always expect: a thirty per cent of the population to have to deal with risk, whether potential, triggered or occurred; forty per cent will be mediocre and go with the flow with no self-determination or conscious awareness; and the upper thirty percent will be resilient and work to help others.

 

By definition, this differentiation, determined either by genetic, congenital, or early learning conditions makes a difference as they unfold as adults. There is also their cerebral maturation process, which in the early twenties, develops abstract- reasoning in the frontal lobe. So they will begin to think for themselves, questioning their parents, social mores and their very reason for living… And of course, there is also Freud. We repeat patterns set by parents in our relationships, selecting and molding our lovers according to our parents’ early modeling. So, one finds oneself establishing co-dependence, whether it be as an addict, or as ‘rescuer’ of a partner in need; or choosing partners who are aggressive and abusive, or weak and submissive according to the roles we learned as children. That's when helping a daughter implies not damaging her.

The feeling of impotence is wrenching. You want to help a loved one avoid unnecessary pain, even bear it for them, but love is made of such relentless soul-tearing. Impotence renders us needing Higher help, as we deal with the mystery of destiny and fate. We may never understand why things happen as they do; we just have to live it.  It is the way we bear that which we cannot change, that makes the difference. We must develop the bulwark of virtue (lat- vir-inner strength) to deal with life´s reckoning with staunch integrity.

But that doesn´t answer my daughter’s question. All I can do is love her and walk the way of life by her side, as she blossoms and is rejected for fear and insecurity of others. We are living times in which we have to take a stance: Life or Death; Right or Wrong and be willing to fight for it.