Learning to Love on my Birthday

With the poet Dylan Thomas..I can say:

It was my sixtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from Acapulco seas and neighbor bees
As the turtles pooled and the NGO priested shore set them free
While the evening beckons
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of time on my net webbed memory
Sets Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping realization that I have little time left to learn to love.
My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the hats and huts and violence..
And I rose
As the sun set on my rainy autumn
And I walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border of time
And the gates Of chance.
There could I marvel my birthday away ‘fore the weather turns around.
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
with the sun.
It was my sixtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the autumn eve
Though the town below lays leaved in blood.
O may my heart’s truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year’s turning.

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’.

 

Leaning to Love: Meaning

In the beginning was the “Word”; the “Alpha” and “Omega”; the Idea…of God/Love. Then, there was the ‘receptor’ (lat.: re-again; capio/ere- capture); the container; the concept.

If the first idea is God/Love, the conceptual containers are ‘Mothers. This stem-source of Ideas and their manifestations (or better said ‘woman-ifestations’), through concepts, is then divided and subdivided into ‘mesh-words,’ that state shared positions, opinions and stances. Families would be these existential ‘position-statements’. As ideas continue their fissions and fusions into the multiple interpretations among families, we create communities of inter-relatedness. They all require understanding in a common code.

This Spring break, my sisters and I spent time with our Mother, who is still the conceptual mold within our family. If ideas are liquid, she is the container that determines their shape. I confirmed, that the beliefs and meaning that she has given to her ideas, have molded the vessels of understanding in our homes, their rules and the interpretation we all assign, to  Love. It would seem that ideas conceived and spelt out by our Mothers, are the ones that give families their conceptual alphabet. My Mother taught my sisters and me to speak, to listen and to understand both inner and outer dialogue. It is her definitions that give us understanding of life. Even as I teach, I repeat such molding. Thus, mothers are the direct first-line-meaning that we give to words.

During our visit, my Mother urged us to teach our children to read.

“The new generations aren’t reading” she said. “We must insist that they read, so that they can develop the capacity to re-create images and project them in the imagination”.

Reading, undeniably, stimulates neural activity and opens mental maps to new ideas. But I would add…we must teach children to think..to question…to want to ‘know more’; ‘why’; ‘what for’… We must teach them to read ‘vertically’ between the lines, to see what is unseen, to intuit. We must teach them to contemplate and meditate so that they can ‘read meaning’ into their lives and not just read words. We must teach them to contact ideas first-handedly so that they can appropriate their meaning and make concepts of their own.

‘Re-cognizance’ comes when we break out of the molds that define ideas with the concepts created by mothers, and reach out to ideas, first-handedly. When we develop introspection and explore our own understanding, reassigning personal meaning to the ideas we contact, we create new concepts.  Blogs allow for such liberal exploration. They set the matrix for ‘re-presentation’ of ideas, their shared understanding and the possibility or re-creating joint meaning through interactive synergy. On internet, this networking through the ‘web’  creates cohesive bonding within communities of shared understanding.

Although ‘Ideas’ are absolutes, their experiencing is relative and individuated. Blogging gives us each, the opportunity to broaden our outlook to conceive a fuller Truth, through  shared kaleidoscopic ‘realities’. Thus, ideas become more important, even, than ourselves. You and I, and others like us, are all re-creating ideas through our imagination, our subjective interpretation and our personal experiencing, as we fill in the cells of this conceptual ‘Mother Matrix’, in the web. Finding and assigning new meaning to ideas is the revolutionary way to transcend both the literal ‘here and now’ and the local ‘me’. On the blogger, I cease to worry about the roles I have to play and the ‘persona’ I have to be, for acceptance….When I blog, I feel more authentic, because of the freedom to express my ideas.

The meaning we each give these transcendental  ideas, will allow us to re-create concepts and network through bridges of significance, to reach others. Shared understanding is the cohesive link that will transform the world.

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: Change

Yesterday, we had a memorable dinner to celebrate my parents’ sixtieth wedding anniversary!!! (…talk about learning to overcome everyday hardships, to distill love, borne from patience).
Anthropologists argue that man is, by ‘’nature, monogamous, but only for an approximate seven years at a time (corresponding to those, needed by children to develop to the point of no longer needing taking-care-of). Anyone aspiring to a marriage “till death do us part”, requires ‘supernatural’ help, hence marriages, before God. My parents thusly, learned to muscle virtue and have lasted sixty years together! Of course it hasn´t been easy. Challenges, worth overcoming, never are. However, it is these daily conflicts that give us opportunities for growth. To wrestle with them we have to ‘change’.
The debate about ‘change’, whether it be ‘immanent’, ‘permanent’ or just ‘potential unfolding’, has been going on since Aristotle through Hegel, Kant...to the present day. Do we actually ‘change’ or is it just the unraveling of personal development? Can we ‘change’ our essence? Does ‘change’ depend on free will or is it conditioned by ‘nature’? Can a loved one actually ‘change’ to overcome his innate shortcomings and transcend his ‘natural’ imperfection? Can we trust that our giving second and third chances to those who have let us down, will actually make a difference? What does ‘change’ depend on?

We all have loved ones who have collapsed the inflated expectations we had of them, through disillusion. Can we ever expect them to ‘change’? If so, how much longer must we wait? (I would like to believe God would say “Forever. That´s why I made eternity”…but it may just be wishful thinking).

I was impressed with the number of people asking these same questions, at a workshop in self-growth, I gave, recently. Their main concern was not about themselves, but about loved ones caught up in mediocrity, ignorance and self-deprecation (or should I say ‘de-prickation’!). These innate ‘care-takers’ have been trying, over and over again, to love loved- ones who feel unworthy of ‘ being loved’ and just end up rejecting  help. It is this dejection that seems to have them ‘give up’ and harden to loving, cynically responding to it with sneers of disbelief (I know, because I have been there!)
My parents have mutually let each other down, over and over again, but have both held tight to their ‘ideal’, confident of change. It is this ‘unwitting trust’ that Love is made of. It’s about ‘believing ’patiently, over and beyond evidence, in the potential of our Higher Selves. It is about trusting ‘change’.
My tendency to ‘doubt’, till Science and evidence proves ‘otherwise’ , strongly objects to such belief in ‘change’. People ‘are’ as they ‘are’ and their acts speak for themselves. Such doubting renders  anything else, a ‘wishful projection’.  However, having myself, been one of those loved ones who rejected loving, for whatever reasons  and ‘changed’, I now stand up for the silent dis-believers, confident that they too, will ‘change’. My parents’ example is my avowal and evidence that proves change is possible.

 

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.