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: Laughter

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Laughter

Laughter is contagious and is therefore a wonderful way to share happiness. It is kind to smile, laugh and find humor in senseless contradictions and self-importance so as to make others laugh. It releases tension. You don´t have to explain it for it is an expression in itself. It makes thoughts real, as they physically unchain the chemical release of endorphins and their analgesic qualities. MRI’s have proved that a smile stimulates the centers of happiness and enjoyment in the brain, even if it is done un-wantingly!

Laughter is a universal expression as Charles Darwin reported in “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals” in 1872, recognized by humans all over the globe. The zygomaticus muscle pulls the corners of the mouth, across the cheeks, from the eyes with a contraction that makes a smile.The best face-lift we can have is a smile! Scientists initiated the study of this human response in Stanford University under William Fry, in Gelotology (Gr.: gelos-laughter), being a therapeutic complement for Medicine. Paul Ekman, world expert on expressions, says there are eighteen different types of smiles. True smiles of enjoyment are symmetrical, with genuine spontaneity and a sparkle in the eyes. The ‘laugh lines’ that crinkle the skin around the eyes are definite signs of authenticity. It´s a shame we pay to have them removed!

Humor is cultural, dependent of levels of education. Subtle associations may differ from comedy to cynicism, depending on the outlook of life. Bitterness and pain may ridicule innocence and folly. So what someone may find amusing may offend someone else. But it’s still funny! We have to be able to laugh at ourselves first, and shift the frame from which we observe and judge ourselves and others, to minimize self-importance.  Take for example, an “opinionated” blogger who uses black comedy to make difficult or prohibited subjects lighter, in his blog Harsh Reality, http://aopinionatedman.com/. Humor ranges from innocence to cynicism, but in all cases it must start from being able to laugh at ourselves. It diverts seriousness to a ‘here and now’ response.

Loving is made fun when you can laugh together (not laughing at each other, unless you laugh at yourself, first). Difficulties in a relationship are smoothened with a smile. Even love-making, that often entails nervousness and fear of being ridiculous, can be made lighter if you can laugh at yourself as you try awkward positions, or gasp for breath or are unable to get out from under him!!!

When in doubt, laugh. When in problems, laugh. When stressed, laugh. When worried, laugh. When in love, laugh. Life can only be explained through humor!

Babies remind us that laughing is loving.

 

Learning to love: Hate

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Hate

Learning to love requires reflecting on the inner movements of the soul. We have to develop spiritual literacy to ‘read’ significance into every day. ‘Reading’ actually means ‘piecing together’ and it is the associations we make of everything that happens, that allows us to thread a single pattern of meaning for that day.

Take yesterday. A friend told me of an inexplicable atrocity: an adopted daughter stabbed her adoptive mother to death. I was horrified and shocked at the evil we are capable of, as humans, as we destroy the very love we are offered. So I chose to contemplate on the meaning of ‘hatred’, questioning my Higher Self, as I looked for answers throughout the day.

Where does evil come from? Is it a natural quality in man or is it only some men who are evil. Does evil come from an external force or ‘d’evil’? Do we learn it? Is it inherited? Is it ‘payback’ for social injustice? If God created everything, did He also create evil? Perhaps it's all the above.

Undoubtedly we need Evil to know God-ness. Neale Donald Walsch wrote a lovely parable for children in “The Little Soul and the Sun”, where two little angels decide to play out a human saga where one has to hurt the other, for them to know and experience forgiveness and love.

“..But please, promise me you won’t forget who I am, when I hurt you”, pleaded the one who was to play out ‘the evil one’.

Hate is not the opposite of love. The opposite of love is fear…fear of being unloved, or worse still, unlovable. Such desolation (lat: without sun) renders us hopeless, unable to love and be loved.

Hate (which etymologically came from fate) is the end by-product of a growing chain of destructive attitudes, behavior and distorted interpretations stemming from anger, rage, wrath and envy. It is the shadow side of love. Evil is born of meanness  (stingy) and cruelty.

 I remember bearing a deep grudge with self-piteous resentment against my life-long sworn lover, when he left me. The passion of Eros (Life) he had enkindled turned sour into Tanatos (Death). I felt dead. Life wasn´t possible, without him. My soul was amputated and my heart literally torn out; so much so, that I couldn’t feel anymore. I became hardened and insensitive clamming my soul shut from love, much as a child throwing a tantrum and saying ‘Well, if this is the way it’s going to be, I’m not playing’.

Time, with its blessed drips of eternity, heals everything. Now, I thank my lover because he added a string to my heart and the music I now play is richer and infinitely more beautiful. So what we hate passionately, may be the pain of love.

However, the evil of this child, was still inexplicable.

By night, I saw a documentary on the different cerebral wavelengths registered in Functioning Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI). They tested someone in deep anguish and compared it to that of a Tibetan monk in contemplation.  When he was asked to meditate on the word “Compassion”, the nervous itching of the spikes on the cerebral encephalogram stopped and regular long, lasting curves traced the paced register of peace. Suddenly, the answer to my plight struck me.

It’s not about extremes: Right /wrong; good/bad; evil/kindness but about the neutralizing effect of a third integrating attribute- Love. We have to recognize and dialogue with our shadow-selves to fully accept and understand our dual nature, in Love.

 

 

 

Learning to love: Freedom

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

 Freedom

True commitment comes from freedom. If we are not the masters of our own ‘domain’ we have no ‘choice’. And the value of true loving is that we ‘will’ it. We should all be free to decide. Unfortunately, history is teeming with shameful evidence of the scarring possessiveness of man over woman, master over slave, and the strong over those more vulnerable.

Anthropology tries to ‘apologize’ explaining that, as nomads settled with the development of agriculture, man had to guarantee the legitimacy of his children to validate their inheriting his land. Thus he took women into possession, making them an extension of his reproductive organs. For centuries women have taken on men’s name, having to feed them, give them children and pleasure, with no right to inheritance, or freedom over their bodies. There was a time, when even religious councils posed the question of women’s having a soul! It was as late as the 1900’s that women fought for their right to vote, to have fair conditions at work, to have a right to education and, with the introduction of ‘the pill’, right to sex for pleasure, rather than for mere reproduction. Still today, women´s bodies are overseen by the State, as laws on abortion are passed determining the fate of their pregnancies, and their right or not, to heaven. Today, we can aspire to look our lover in the eye, from the basis of equality and not possession. Though we are not the same, we both have the right to love from our freedom of choice.

Glen Close’s magnificent representation of Mr. Nobbs, exemplifies the saga of women in the eighteen hundreds, as she plays the part of a woman and her plight with survival, when refusing to marry. She ends up dressing as a man, to work for a living. The drama unfolds when she tries to establish a personal relationship in a commitment of marriage and ends liberating the choice for same-sex relationships.

It is not only history that makes freedom difficult to attain. It is the need for personal mastery over fear, weakness, and self-complacency that takes its toll in our fight for freedom. It requires self-governance and full responsibility over our needs and deeds. It requires courage and endurance to live out the consequences of our decisions.

In freedom we realize that there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. It’s ‘why’ we make our choices and ‘what we do with them’, that matters. Commitment made in freedom requires integrity and honor. To honor a decision made over a relationship, is to recognize the personal dignity in ourselves and in our lover. It requires being true to ourselves and to him/her.
In the Bible it specifies that we must undo a commitment made, before acquiring an added responsibility, whether it be to love God or man. It´s OK to change our minds, but we must undo our commitments first, honoring dignity. Such respectful recognition of our lover or ex-lover’s Higher Self, sets love above casualties.

In freedom I choose to love, through sickness and despair. In freedom I accept my limitations and respect my potential. In freedom I chose to forgive and continue loving.