love language. Everyone has a different love language, how they express affection and emotion, and what they need to feel love and affection from others.
Some people express themselves with sweet talk, compliments, and words of love and admiration. Others express their affections with gifts and tokens and trinkets to their beloved. From material luxuries to flowers, to more practical and mundane seeming gifts, it is their way of showing they care. Still others show their feelings with service, doing things like favors, errands and tasks for the ones they love. This person will fix things that are broken, and go out of their way to find a particular item, or reinstall software on ones computer, taking loads of time to do tedious tasks. But still others need more direct interaction, companionship, shared humor and a sense of mutual intellectual stimulation and reaction to feel bonded.
Some people need an open door to verbally process every thought and emotion with thier companions , friends and beloved, while others need space and quiet mental distance, or intense privacy and extending this same courtesy is their way of showing love and respect. Still others need quiet contact, little touches, and caresses, they are sensory and need to feel the hands and body heat of others to feel connected, to express affection, and to share their love. We are all different, and while most of us are some combination of these and other styles, finding a partner that has the exact same love language is rare.
This is often a complex and overlooked aspect of relationships. But a very important one. Vital I would say. Partners with different love languages may both be doing everything THEY feel expresses love and devotion, and completely miss the other persons ques and signals for the same thing. With out an understanding about each others primary love language and an effort to identify and learn the primary language of the beloved, each person may feel neglected, empty and resentful. A sense of being alone in their intimate relationship, and that their lover is removed or indifferent can destroy any good sentiment.
While we are each very different, touch is a powerful component to affection for most of us, but not everyone. I have dated more then one man for whom touch is strictly reserved for sexual gratification and any other kind of touch or physical contact is almost non-existent. Perhaps this is a "man thing", and the psychology and obvious lack of closeness this suggests, seems lacking and broken to me, and is heart wrenching. But they feel that they are fine as they are and call me clingy. (Incidentally I have also dated men that are far more "clingy" then I).
Still, as a massage therapist and someone who has dedicated my life to sharing safe, positive, non sexual touch, and educating people about the importance of touch and physical expression of compassion, it is a huge hurdle to be in relationship with someone who is NOT touch oriented. Babies die with out touch. Human beings need contact with each other. 8 to 14 hugs a day is considered necessary for good mental and emotional health and well being. This is far more then most of us experience, but I have to think that if we all had this the entire world would be a calmer, happier, safer place, just due to the endorphins and physiological effects that touch produces in the mind and body. Can you imagine it?
Safe, positive touch should be part of everyone's love language in my opinion, for the physiological benefits alone, but the most important thing is that each participant in a relationship feels a sense of reciprocal respect. That they are loved, valued, appreciated, and that their beloved feels the same. Ultimately it is the responsibility of all participants to create a mutually conducive atmosphere of love and loving. This requires openness, communication and willingness to expand ones own language and learn additional forms of expression and interpretation. Unfortunately we cannot make this choice for another, and cannot do it indefinitely alone.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
giving up & starting over
You just don't reach 40 something, as a single person with out dragging some baggage. I think when a person finds themselves at this crossroads a certain amount of self assessment is very necessary. Not everyone is cut out for intimate relationships, despite the fact that our society and culture tells us that this is what we are "supposed" to want, do and have. With out the actual Capacity for intimacy no real relationship with another person will be possible or successful.
What is success? Many feel that a relationship that has ended is a relationship that has failed, but that is not always the case. In time, all things end, and we take the gifts and lessons we have learned and hopefully we have changed and grown into a deeper understanding of ourselves as well as humanity and relationships. If we are lucky we heal our wounds instead of becoming bitter or resentful and suspicious, and move forward at least holding the keys to our own baggage if we must drag it in our wake. And sometimes, after a period of integration and processing, a relationship can renew itself and its participants and begin anew with freshness and vitality. Ebb and flow is a natural phenomenon in the cycle of life and death and renewal.
We are a complex species with intellectual knowledge, and the power of conscious thought combined with education, information, and the freedom of choice. And for all our longing, yearning, questioning and fantasy about a significant other, and the ultimate companion, we must each face the truth that we are born alone and will die alone. And while relationships and other people are the most significant thing we can give our lives to, it is a painful journey if undertaken with expectations of anyone other then ourselves. People, men and women both, get some very definitave messages about themselves and each other, and their personal identities that create a lot of problems we spend out lives sorting out. While there was a time when strict gender role identities were a significant part of survival, we have mostly evolved past the need for such hard limitations on our person hood and planetary coexistence.
This becomes even more complex if a person is able to realize they do not resonate with these messages and that they in fact might be gay, or trans, or asexual. The punishment one experiences from society and their own psyches for going against the Normal and perpetuated status quo creates issues and problems for everyone that should not have to happen. But all of that aside, just being a hetro sexual that is 40 and single and hoping to find a real connection with another human being is a difficult thing. By this time we are less flexible, less open minded and less willing to adapt ourselves or our lives for the sake of someone else's comfort or well being. By this time we have been hurt and have regrets. We may be jaded, cynical, and untrusting, with little or no motivation to "fix" or heal this condition, or indeed even see anything wrong with it. Our defense mechanisms are at an all time high, and our capacity for true intimacy is greatly diminished from what it once might have been.
Although these statements are utterly preposterous, it is mind boggeling how many of us internalize and actually live by these kinds of messages in daily life and expression and decisions. "Women are the nurturers." "Men don't talk about feelings." "Women are hormonal and emotional." "Men don't cry." "Women are angels or tramps". "A good woman thinks only of others, never herself." "A good man has to be the provider." "Men are never soft or vulnerable." "Women are the weaker sex." "All men are children". "All woman are crazy" "men don't express their emotions." "Women are not logical." ... all of these messages are a part of mainstream society and our daily thinking and belief systems, and ALL of them are preposterous and extremely damaging to our collective psyches. So, what can we do about it? How can we begin to change these ideas for ourselves and our children and the betterment of the world.
http://thisibelieve.org/essay/45586/
What is success? Many feel that a relationship that has ended is a relationship that has failed, but that is not always the case. In time, all things end, and we take the gifts and lessons we have learned and hopefully we have changed and grown into a deeper understanding of ourselves as well as humanity and relationships. If we are lucky we heal our wounds instead of becoming bitter or resentful and suspicious, and move forward at least holding the keys to our own baggage if we must drag it in our wake. And sometimes, after a period of integration and processing, a relationship can renew itself and its participants and begin anew with freshness and vitality. Ebb and flow is a natural phenomenon in the cycle of life and death and renewal.
We are a complex species with intellectual knowledge, and the power of conscious thought combined with education, information, and the freedom of choice. And for all our longing, yearning, questioning and fantasy about a significant other, and the ultimate companion, we must each face the truth that we are born alone and will die alone. And while relationships and other people are the most significant thing we can give our lives to, it is a painful journey if undertaken with expectations of anyone other then ourselves. People, men and women both, get some very definitave messages about themselves and each other, and their personal identities that create a lot of problems we spend out lives sorting out. While there was a time when strict gender role identities were a significant part of survival, we have mostly evolved past the need for such hard limitations on our person hood and planetary coexistence.
This becomes even more complex if a person is able to realize they do not resonate with these messages and that they in fact might be gay, or trans, or asexual. The punishment one experiences from society and their own psyches for going against the Normal and perpetuated status quo creates issues and problems for everyone that should not have to happen. But all of that aside, just being a hetro sexual that is 40 and single and hoping to find a real connection with another human being is a difficult thing. By this time we are less flexible, less open minded and less willing to adapt ourselves or our lives for the sake of someone else's comfort or well being. By this time we have been hurt and have regrets. We may be jaded, cynical, and untrusting, with little or no motivation to "fix" or heal this condition, or indeed even see anything wrong with it. Our defense mechanisms are at an all time high, and our capacity for true intimacy is greatly diminished from what it once might have been.
Although these statements are utterly preposterous, it is mind boggeling how many of us internalize and actually live by these kinds of messages in daily life and expression and decisions. "Women are the nurturers." "Men don't talk about feelings." "Women are hormonal and emotional." "Men don't cry." "Women are angels or tramps". "A good woman thinks only of others, never herself." "A good man has to be the provider." "Men are never soft or vulnerable." "Women are the weaker sex." "All men are children". "All woman are crazy" "men don't express their emotions." "Women are not logical." ... all of these messages are a part of mainstream society and our daily thinking and belief systems, and ALL of them are preposterous and extremely damaging to our collective psyches. So, what can we do about it? How can we begin to change these ideas for ourselves and our children and the betterment of the world.
http://thisibelieve.org/essay/45586/
All things end
"Reece" and "Byron" had been together forever. Well that is how it seemed to most of us. I myself had been married and divorced twice, and raised a child in the time they were still going strong, living the dream. When she came to see me the other day and said they were breaking up I was floored. She had been my model for how to make it work.
They were both fiercely independent loners, and had no children. I was closer to them then most and had watched as they lived the dream in their twenties traveling around in a big converted bus. And in their thirties, when she realized he was never gonna want children and that she had to make a choice. They lived "off the grid for a few years while she got her Bachelor of Arts and secured her dream job. In their forties they had saved for several years and bought an adorable three bedroom house in a prime location just before the economy collapsed around us all.
I was partially responsible for introducing them, and our old group of friends had all looked to them for an example of how to be happy, healthy, loving, long term partners. They were the last of the old group still together, the rest of us had wandered away in search of ourselves and fairer weather. Once, about a year ago, I had asked Byron how they did it, how they made it work and stayed happy and together for so long. He sort of started, and said in all seriousness "Its all Reece. She's amazing." I knew it seemed like she did everything in their relationship, but I figured there is always the side of things one doesn't see between two people.
Her amazing patience, and tolerance and ability to detach and let go of his moodiness and distance was awe inspiring. Her little way of sighing and laughing with a somber little smile when I asked her anything about the two of them and making it work, led me to believe that perhaps I had unrealistic expectations of men and relationships. It wasn't out of the question. After all, our culture does not provide us with realistic positive examples of men or of women. Sitcoms are filled with snide and sarcasm, and dramas are emotionally distant from real loving between couples, seeming to center around work relationships instead.
There is no workable model. Old world relationships seem based on strong gender roles that leave both people unfulfilled and women feeling empty and taken for granted. And the men of my own generation all seem like broken, overgrown children, waiting for mommy to clean up after them, and make them cozy, while they fantasize about threesomes with porn stars. It is easy to see why so many people are queer, NOT that I think its really a choice, but the clean slate of less rigid rules and expectations would seem easier. I know it is not. As my own daughter said: "All relationships end, and everyone has dirty laundry. If you're gonna have sex, you will have to wash the sheets."
Relationships are complicated no matter how you look at them. If we are in one we seem to want to change it. If we are outside of one we seem to think we can tolerate anything for the right other, just to not have to face eternity alone.We want a lot from our relationships these days and its got me wondering if arranged marriages might not be healthier and more realistic. True partnerships based on communication, respect, politeness and discreet love affairs. Why make sex a part of that?
Because in today's world we want more. We want the freedom to choose who we love, and who we marry or spend our lives with. We want a lover, and a best friend. We want passion and kindness, we want someone who will make up for how our parents didn't treat us right, but uphold all the ways in which they did. We want EROS and AGAPE. We want a companion, and a confidant and a sexually exciting human plaything. Perhaps we are all unrealistic and delusional. Yet our society and culture reinforces this desire in each of us, constantly searching for that one person who can complete us.
The truth is no one can fill that void. Once we've been through some stuff, and had a few relationships fail, we begin to realize this. Even without being particularly introspective of completing years of therapy most of us are aware. Yet we are compulsive and occasionally obsessive and continue to seek it on some level anyway. Sometimes I wish I did like women so I wouldn't have to face being let down by men. Even if my expectations are unrealistic how can I change that? How can I find that one other person on the same wavelength in the vast sea of modern stress and coping in which our country is swimming?
I realize that its time to reassess what I want, what I can give, and where to draw the boundary lines that protect and nurture myself, because I have begun to wonder if any of us is really cut out for a healthy, loving relationship that lasts. If romantic relationships are even meant to last or just a part of the biological mating dance. Most people say their kids are the loves of their life. I can't argue with that, but who wants to only ever be second best to someone? Perhaps being alone is healthier, and certainly for as complicated and unromantic as it seems, a lot of my poly-amourous friends seem a lot less miserable.
I still want to believe in the fairy tale of true love. that a commitment sets one free in ways that being alone or poly-amorous never can with trust, personal growth intimacy and vulnerability. But who writes these rules? its just the expected Norm that we have been fed by a puritanical society based on their fears and religious ideals. An ancient form of crowd control that got way out of hand. "So we sit here in our storm and drink a toast to the slim chance of loves recovery".
And I watch in awe once again, as "Reece" draws a line in the sand and begins the long slow process of separating from her partner of twenty years, to reinvent herself and finally focus on her own life instead of being a caretaker for a man that needs a mommy maid to run his life, and household; and I think maybe my inability to put up with it was not so far fetched after all. It's all about choices. Choices and timing. Its not really about how much love. The truth is we can learn to love anyone with kindness, consistency and proximity, but taking care of ourselves and doing our real work on the planet cannot wait till were dead.
Without my role model I am floundering without a map, and wondering where to go from here. Once again I get to step up and figure it out. In the end I find out that Reece had "had enough" of her time and care and energy not being reciprocated. And that seems a lot like justice to me. Not for Reece perhaps, at least not now, but in the grand scheme. Justice, fairness and reciprocal respect are vital for relationship success.
They were both fiercely independent loners, and had no children. I was closer to them then most and had watched as they lived the dream in their twenties traveling around in a big converted bus. And in their thirties, when she realized he was never gonna want children and that she had to make a choice. They lived "off the grid for a few years while she got her Bachelor of Arts and secured her dream job. In their forties they had saved for several years and bought an adorable three bedroom house in a prime location just before the economy collapsed around us all.
I was partially responsible for introducing them, and our old group of friends had all looked to them for an example of how to be happy, healthy, loving, long term partners. They were the last of the old group still together, the rest of us had wandered away in search of ourselves and fairer weather. Once, about a year ago, I had asked Byron how they did it, how they made it work and stayed happy and together for so long. He sort of started, and said in all seriousness "Its all Reece. She's amazing." I knew it seemed like she did everything in their relationship, but I figured there is always the side of things one doesn't see between two people.
Her amazing patience, and tolerance and ability to detach and let go of his moodiness and distance was awe inspiring. Her little way of sighing and laughing with a somber little smile when I asked her anything about the two of them and making it work, led me to believe that perhaps I had unrealistic expectations of men and relationships. It wasn't out of the question. After all, our culture does not provide us with realistic positive examples of men or of women. Sitcoms are filled with snide and sarcasm, and dramas are emotionally distant from real loving between couples, seeming to center around work relationships instead.
There is no workable model. Old world relationships seem based on strong gender roles that leave both people unfulfilled and women feeling empty and taken for granted. And the men of my own generation all seem like broken, overgrown children, waiting for mommy to clean up after them, and make them cozy, while they fantasize about threesomes with porn stars. It is easy to see why so many people are queer, NOT that I think its really a choice, but the clean slate of less rigid rules and expectations would seem easier. I know it is not. As my own daughter said: "All relationships end, and everyone has dirty laundry. If you're gonna have sex, you will have to wash the sheets."
Relationships are complicated no matter how you look at them. If we are in one we seem to want to change it. If we are outside of one we seem to think we can tolerate anything for the right other, just to not have to face eternity alone.We want a lot from our relationships these days and its got me wondering if arranged marriages might not be healthier and more realistic. True partnerships based on communication, respect, politeness and discreet love affairs. Why make sex a part of that?
Because in today's world we want more. We want the freedom to choose who we love, and who we marry or spend our lives with. We want a lover, and a best friend. We want passion and kindness, we want someone who will make up for how our parents didn't treat us right, but uphold all the ways in which they did. We want EROS and AGAPE. We want a companion, and a confidant and a sexually exciting human plaything. Perhaps we are all unrealistic and delusional. Yet our society and culture reinforces this desire in each of us, constantly searching for that one person who can complete us.
The truth is no one can fill that void. Once we've been through some stuff, and had a few relationships fail, we begin to realize this. Even without being particularly introspective of completing years of therapy most of us are aware. Yet we are compulsive and occasionally obsessive and continue to seek it on some level anyway. Sometimes I wish I did like women so I wouldn't have to face being let down by men. Even if my expectations are unrealistic how can I change that? How can I find that one other person on the same wavelength in the vast sea of modern stress and coping in which our country is swimming?
I realize that its time to reassess what I want, what I can give, and where to draw the boundary lines that protect and nurture myself, because I have begun to wonder if any of us is really cut out for a healthy, loving relationship that lasts. If romantic relationships are even meant to last or just a part of the biological mating dance. Most people say their kids are the loves of their life. I can't argue with that, but who wants to only ever be second best to someone? Perhaps being alone is healthier, and certainly for as complicated and unromantic as it seems, a lot of my poly-amourous friends seem a lot less miserable.
I still want to believe in the fairy tale of true love. that a commitment sets one free in ways that being alone or poly-amorous never can with trust, personal growth intimacy and vulnerability. But who writes these rules? its just the expected Norm that we have been fed by a puritanical society based on their fears and religious ideals. An ancient form of crowd control that got way out of hand. "So we sit here in our storm and drink a toast to the slim chance of loves recovery".
And I watch in awe once again, as "Reece" draws a line in the sand and begins the long slow process of separating from her partner of twenty years, to reinvent herself and finally focus on her own life instead of being a caretaker for a man that needs a mommy maid to run his life, and household; and I think maybe my inability to put up with it was not so far fetched after all. It's all about choices. Choices and timing. Its not really about how much love. The truth is we can learn to love anyone with kindness, consistency and proximity, but taking care of ourselves and doing our real work on the planet cannot wait till were dead.
Without my role model I am floundering without a map, and wondering where to go from here. Once again I get to step up and figure it out. In the end I find out that Reece had "had enough" of her time and care and energy not being reciprocated. And that seems a lot like justice to me. Not for Reece perhaps, at least not now, but in the grand scheme. Justice, fairness and reciprocal respect are vital for relationship success.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Hunger -part ll
SO WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DON'T GET FED? When we are unable or unskilled at knowing how to feed this different kind of hunger, when we do not have the support, or resources to help us grow to point of exploring and figuring it out we suffer. I has been referred to by Shakti Gawain as a Spiritual Emergency. Falling together can feel an awful lot like falling apart.
Ultimately the human spirit will triumph, and growth, evolution, and expansion of out understanding or consciousness will occur, but in our tiny, impatient human time frame, this journey that has no directions, or road map and for some, no mentors can seem like and intolerable or nearly impossible interim to navigate. Depression seems a natural response.
With out a way to identify or feed this different kind of hunger, many will turn to food in an attempt to fill the aching void, the ever increasing hole inside them selves that no food will ever really satisfy, but the emotional sensation can be the same making it harder still to identify. Especially with no framework or vocabulary in place, and no references to this kind of growth in our popular culture. So we eat and eat because our hunger is real, then we perpetuate the problem by obsessing about our weight, our looks, and the unrealistic, unattainable, media induced standards we have set and perpetuated for ourselves and our children keeping us in a constant state of feeling inadequate and unable to ever measure up.
The result? A lot of overweight, or weight obsessed, and unhappy people, who seem emotionally detached and indifferent, and mentally preoccupied with seemingly trivial ideals. an entire culture or subculture of addicts, be it drugs, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, electronics, porn, or just plain rude and sarcastic behavior. Perhaps the greatest danger is the normalization of these behaviors, this particular state of existence. An entire culture or society so warped into their painkilling behaviors and lifestyles, that our children are growing up in a society incapable of true intimacy. Who suffers? We do, us, Everyone. The entire world suffers when so many souls are lost to oblivion, and our children are born and raised into this intolerable and dysfunctional way of living.
To those of use who have unknowingly helped shape this unfortunate society with its loose morals and lack of soul nourishing values, this situation is more tolerable. After all, we have been part of the problem, and who wants to wake up, own up and admit to that? But our children are suffering. To them this artificial satisfaction that we perpetuate is less tolerable, and unrealistic, and unachievable, they are starving. The result is an increase in childhood disorders from A. D. D., to depression, to cutting, to crime, to suicide. Our children are under so much pressure to conform to unrealistic, media induced standards of artificial normalcy that they are literally killing themselves trying to fit in with it. It is our fault, and all we can do is be gentle with ourselves and each other, and begin to make different choices as often as we can, supporting each other along the way.
( some sources: Harvard University Study: "Dying to Fit In", New age speakers Patricia Sun, Melody Beattie, Marianne Williamson, "Women who run with the Wolves" by Clarissa, Pinkola Estes, Living in the Light, by Shakti Gawain, and multiple digital media sources.)
Ultimately the human spirit will triumph, and growth, evolution, and expansion of out understanding or consciousness will occur, but in our tiny, impatient human time frame, this journey that has no directions, or road map and for some, no mentors can seem like and intolerable or nearly impossible interim to navigate. Depression seems a natural response.
With out a way to identify or feed this different kind of hunger, many will turn to food in an attempt to fill the aching void, the ever increasing hole inside them selves that no food will ever really satisfy, but the emotional sensation can be the same making it harder still to identify. Especially with no framework or vocabulary in place, and no references to this kind of growth in our popular culture. So we eat and eat because our hunger is real, then we perpetuate the problem by obsessing about our weight, our looks, and the unrealistic, unattainable, media induced standards we have set and perpetuated for ourselves and our children keeping us in a constant state of feeling inadequate and unable to ever measure up.
The result? A lot of overweight, or weight obsessed, and unhappy people, who seem emotionally detached and indifferent, and mentally preoccupied with seemingly trivial ideals. an entire culture or subculture of addicts, be it drugs, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, electronics, porn, or just plain rude and sarcastic behavior. Perhaps the greatest danger is the normalization of these behaviors, this particular state of existence. An entire culture or society so warped into their painkilling behaviors and lifestyles, that our children are growing up in a society incapable of true intimacy. Who suffers? We do, us, Everyone. The entire world suffers when so many souls are lost to oblivion, and our children are born and raised into this intolerable and dysfunctional way of living.
To those of use who have unknowingly helped shape this unfortunate society with its loose morals and lack of soul nourishing values, this situation is more tolerable. After all, we have been part of the problem, and who wants to wake up, own up and admit to that? But our children are suffering. To them this artificial satisfaction that we perpetuate is less tolerable, and unrealistic, and unachievable, they are starving. The result is an increase in childhood disorders from A. D. D., to depression, to cutting, to crime, to suicide. Our children are under so much pressure to conform to unrealistic, media induced standards of artificial normalcy that they are literally killing themselves trying to fit in with it. It is our fault, and all we can do is be gentle with ourselves and each other, and begin to make different choices as often as we can, supporting each other along the way.
( some sources: Harvard University Study: "Dying to Fit In", New age speakers Patricia Sun, Melody Beattie, Marianne Williamson, "Women who run with the Wolves" by Clarissa, Pinkola Estes, Living in the Light, by Shakti Gawain, and multiple digital media sources.)
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
hunger
There is a place within each of us that burns with hunger. Not for food, but for recognition, for challenge, for support, for discovery, and for a chance to shine.
Often we don't get a chance to indulge or explore that facet of ourselves because of other, more basic demands: food, shelter, protection, and a sense of belonging or of family at a base chakra level of existence. To be replaced with a need for expression, recognition, connection, intimacy with another and finally sexual gratification at the second chakra level of consciousness.
Some people spend most of their lives and attention on these things, by circumstance or training, by Nature or by Nurture, missing the whole picture of other realms of existence. Many people living and existing at this level of understanding about reality, are often doubtful that "higher realms" of consciousness can have value, because their capacity to comprehend what is valuable hinges on ideals framed by the level of comprehension they are unknowingly trapped at. They seek concrete material evidence. Material reality of houses, ho's, cars, and shiny toys, yet even with this treasure trove they are not truly happy. The feeling persists that something is still missing.
To someone who knows No other possibility of reality, or satisfaction this is the only thing that CAN make sense: Better MUST be more, bigger, stronger, faster, harder, or have a larger price tag. period. There is simply no other possibility to this person. Until their ability to comprehend has a chance to evolve organically through insight or experience, argument is pointless since it only threatens their sense of reality and what is possible to the point of seeming unrealistic and fool hardy.
Perhaps I am awful, and I am indeed arrogant, because I truly pity these people. I pity them, but it is no longer with anger, or judgement, but with compassion and a desire to open a window and share a wider sense of possibility. I want to bridge the gap, to open the door of understanding and turn the light on for those willing to consider that there is more to life and reality than anyone can know, even those of us who pride ourselves on exploring and expanding our own understanding of potential and possibility. I cannot make anyone Choose more, but I hope can help them see that perhaps there is more to consider and to choose from, if they are willing. This is my calling.
At some point in life, when the time and conditions are right, we all get an opportunity to see beyond tribal and family mind. Eventually those basic needs are sated, or fulfilled and still we yearn. We hunger for something we may not even be able to identify. We long for something more, and with out an example to strive towards or a language to identify and placate these unformed desires we are at a greater risk of doing something dire, or unintentionally propagating avoidance and numbing behaviors which contribute negatively to the self, the family and society: like drug abuse, depression, cruelty, aloofness, shutting down, bitterness, sarcasm, inventing drama, picking fights, or projecting our own unidentified limitations onto others and persecuting them for not living with in our own ill-defined parameters of "how it should be". We become a part of the problem in our struggle to be free of it.
This is a struggle with the self. Basic third chakra identity issues that we must all come to at some point in our journey. A common place for most of us to get stuck and to flounder. A place where our greatest strengths might prove to be our greatest weaknesses, and these traits we've never developed or given voice to, might be the very ones that lift us to a new level of insight or understanding. Confidence might become arrogance, compassion may become victimized, and being reserved may become apathetic. It is a place where everyone else seems to be "doing it wrong", when really it is our own ceiling of understanding and insight that is cracking up and getting ready to expand. Ultimately we can only change our selves and our own point of view and ways of looking at and relating to another or an experience. Something we are trained earlier on to resist at all costs.
The tribal or family mind teaches us to adapt our selves and our desires, beliefs and behaviors to get along for the good of the tribe. But self hood and self actualization comes at the cost of rejecting not only some of the families values but the closed way of viewing outside information, of judging "others"; be it lifestyle, choices, motivations, belief systems, which might look like politics, religion, or gender identification. All hot buttons to humans struggling with base chakra level issues. But a vital place of open mindedness and exploration, compassion, and consideration on the road to whole person-hood, and self
actualization.
Often we don't get a chance to indulge or explore that facet of ourselves because of other, more basic demands: food, shelter, protection, and a sense of belonging or of family at a base chakra level of existence. To be replaced with a need for expression, recognition, connection, intimacy with another and finally sexual gratification at the second chakra level of consciousness.
Some people spend most of their lives and attention on these things, by circumstance or training, by Nature or by Nurture, missing the whole picture of other realms of existence. Many people living and existing at this level of understanding about reality, are often doubtful that "higher realms" of consciousness can have value, because their capacity to comprehend what is valuable hinges on ideals framed by the level of comprehension they are unknowingly trapped at. They seek concrete material evidence. Material reality of houses, ho's, cars, and shiny toys, yet even with this treasure trove they are not truly happy. The feeling persists that something is still missing.
To someone who knows No other possibility of reality, or satisfaction this is the only thing that CAN make sense: Better MUST be more, bigger, stronger, faster, harder, or have a larger price tag. period. There is simply no other possibility to this person. Until their ability to comprehend has a chance to evolve organically through insight or experience, argument is pointless since it only threatens their sense of reality and what is possible to the point of seeming unrealistic and fool hardy.
Perhaps I am awful, and I am indeed arrogant, because I truly pity these people. I pity them, but it is no longer with anger, or judgement, but with compassion and a desire to open a window and share a wider sense of possibility. I want to bridge the gap, to open the door of understanding and turn the light on for those willing to consider that there is more to life and reality than anyone can know, even those of us who pride ourselves on exploring and expanding our own understanding of potential and possibility. I cannot make anyone Choose more, but I hope can help them see that perhaps there is more to consider and to choose from, if they are willing. This is my calling.
At some point in life, when the time and conditions are right, we all get an opportunity to see beyond tribal and family mind. Eventually those basic needs are sated, or fulfilled and still we yearn. We hunger for something we may not even be able to identify. We long for something more, and with out an example to strive towards or a language to identify and placate these unformed desires we are at a greater risk of doing something dire, or unintentionally propagating avoidance and numbing behaviors which contribute negatively to the self, the family and society: like drug abuse, depression, cruelty, aloofness, shutting down, bitterness, sarcasm, inventing drama, picking fights, or projecting our own unidentified limitations onto others and persecuting them for not living with in our own ill-defined parameters of "how it should be". We become a part of the problem in our struggle to be free of it.
This is a struggle with the self. Basic third chakra identity issues that we must all come to at some point in our journey. A common place for most of us to get stuck and to flounder. A place where our greatest strengths might prove to be our greatest weaknesses, and these traits we've never developed or given voice to, might be the very ones that lift us to a new level of insight or understanding. Confidence might become arrogance, compassion may become victimized, and being reserved may become apathetic. It is a place where everyone else seems to be "doing it wrong", when really it is our own ceiling of understanding and insight that is cracking up and getting ready to expand. Ultimately we can only change our selves and our own point of view and ways of looking at and relating to another or an experience. Something we are trained earlier on to resist at all costs.
The tribal or family mind teaches us to adapt our selves and our desires, beliefs and behaviors to get along for the good of the tribe. But self hood and self actualization comes at the cost of rejecting not only some of the families values but the closed way of viewing outside information, of judging "others"; be it lifestyle, choices, motivations, belief systems, which might look like politics, religion, or gender identification. All hot buttons to humans struggling with base chakra level issues. But a vital place of open mindedness and exploration, compassion, and consideration on the road to whole person-hood, and self
actualization.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Trashing The Dress
I recently received this letter from my pen pal...
Hello, Autumn is in the air here. The evenings are getting darker, the trees are changing colour and some are dropping leaves. The apples and fruit are ripe and ready to pick, the harvest has been gathered. Frost cannot be far off now, the nights are already feeling cold.
Still, the autumn ploughing, which has just started has got it's interests. I have just got back from a cold, wet field nearby, watching it being ploughed and a rather strange local event. A Trashing the Dress party.
This is a very odd sort of celebration. So far as I know it is a tradition particular to the very far north of Scotland. I have never heard of anything similar elsewhere in the UK. The tradition is strong here though and seems to be growing more so. If you look in the windows of local photographers shops you will see the usual wedding, baby and other photos, as well as trashing the dress pictures.
It seems that, once a woman is well and truly married. Once she is sure she will never again need her wedding dress. She has the choice of putting it away in her wardrobe, never to see daylight again unless she can pass it on to her daughter. Assuming she has one. Assuming the dress will fit the girl. Assuming the dress is still fashionable. Assuming the daughter wants to wear it. Or, she can trash it!
This seems to be then a public statement made by a young married woman, but never explicitly expressed, that she is now happily married and will not be seeking another husband. So, she gathers her friends and relatives together as witnesses, as well as a photographer. Then she puts on her wedding dress and goes and does something that will utterly destroy it, so that it is fit for nothing but the 'rag and bone man'.
Today the young lady arrived wearing a lovely, full length gown with a short train. She had a little posy of flowers in her hands an a veil, thrown back over her head to reveal her face and held in place by a simple band. She had a pair of pretty white shoes on, with dainty high heels. Also white stockings, a baby ble garter and a little white thong. I know, because she posed for us with her skirts lifted high. Just for the photographer you understand.
Anyway. The field was being ploughed. It was rough, since the ground had only just been turned. It was also very wet, since it was raining overnight. The tractor pulled up alongside the young lady. The plough had been unhooked. In it's place a heavy, knotted rope had been fixed to the tow hook. The bride picked up the knotted rope and hung on tight as the tractor set off slowly across the muddy field. The young woman had no choice but to follow. In moments she had lost a shoe, stuck in the mud. Moments later she broke the heel off the other shoe, so kicked it off and continued barefoot. Her dress by now was getting very muddy around the skirts whilst the tractor wheels were throwing up mud all over her bodice. Soon her stockings were shredded as she walked through the foot. Finally she staggered, falling to her knees in the plough furrows. The tractor continued it's slow progress though. So, a moment later, she was pulled onter her chest, to be dragged slowly through the sticky soil for some 20ft or so. Finally, she let go of the rope. She struggled to her feet and, amidst loud applause and the flash of camera flashguns, she stumbled to the edge of the field.
An odd ceremony. Great fun to watch though. I couldn't help feeling it was a bit kinky too. There were elements of public humiliation, exhibitionism and messy play in all this.
Or perhaps that is just seeing things from my kinky perspective. Perhaps it is in fact simply an endearing pagan ritual.
Do you have anything similar in nature on the far side of the atlantic? Is this simply a bit of British madness?
Hello, Autumn is in the air here. The evenings are getting darker, the trees are changing colour and some are dropping leaves. The apples and fruit are ripe and ready to pick, the harvest has been gathered. Frost cannot be far off now, the nights are already feeling cold.
Still, the autumn ploughing, which has just started has got it's interests. I have just got back from a cold, wet field nearby, watching it being ploughed and a rather strange local event. A Trashing the Dress party.
This is a very odd sort of celebration. So far as I know it is a tradition particular to the very far north of Scotland. I have never heard of anything similar elsewhere in the UK. The tradition is strong here though and seems to be growing more so. If you look in the windows of local photographers shops you will see the usual wedding, baby and other photos, as well as trashing the dress pictures.
It seems that, once a woman is well and truly married. Once she is sure she will never again need her wedding dress. She has the choice of putting it away in her wardrobe, never to see daylight again unless she can pass it on to her daughter. Assuming she has one. Assuming the dress will fit the girl. Assuming the dress is still fashionable. Assuming the daughter wants to wear it. Or, she can trash it!
This seems to be then a public statement made by a young married woman, but never explicitly expressed, that she is now happily married and will not be seeking another husband. So, she gathers her friends and relatives together as witnesses, as well as a photographer. Then she puts on her wedding dress and goes and does something that will utterly destroy it, so that it is fit for nothing but the 'rag and bone man'.
Today the young lady arrived wearing a lovely, full length gown with a short train. She had a little posy of flowers in her hands an a veil, thrown back over her head to reveal her face and held in place by a simple band. She had a pair of pretty white shoes on, with dainty high heels. Also white stockings, a baby ble garter and a little white thong. I know, because she posed for us with her skirts lifted high. Just for the photographer you understand.
Anyway. The field was being ploughed. It was rough, since the ground had only just been turned. It was also very wet, since it was raining overnight. The tractor pulled up alongside the young lady. The plough had been unhooked. In it's place a heavy, knotted rope had been fixed to the tow hook. The bride picked up the knotted rope and hung on tight as the tractor set off slowly across the muddy field. The young woman had no choice but to follow. In moments she had lost a shoe, stuck in the mud. Moments later she broke the heel off the other shoe, so kicked it off and continued barefoot. Her dress by now was getting very muddy around the skirts whilst the tractor wheels were throwing up mud all over her bodice. Soon her stockings were shredded as she walked through the foot. Finally she staggered, falling to her knees in the plough furrows. The tractor continued it's slow progress though. So, a moment later, she was pulled onter her chest, to be dragged slowly through the sticky soil for some 20ft or so. Finally, she let go of the rope. She struggled to her feet and, amidst loud applause and the flash of camera flashguns, she stumbled to the edge of the field.
An odd ceremony. Great fun to watch though. I couldn't help feeling it was a bit kinky too. There were elements of public humiliation, exhibitionism and messy play in all this.
Or perhaps that is just seeing things from my kinky perspective. Perhaps it is in fact simply an endearing pagan ritual.
Do you have anything similar in nature on the far side of the atlantic? Is this simply a bit of British madness?
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