So Much Gratitude

A wondrous four day drive from Phoenix to Vancouver, BC...

A month in Yaletown...

 

. 

And a beautiful trip to Saltspring Island

(thanks so much

Catherine)

 

Bell Hooks On Romantic Love

 More Bell Hooks...

           

To have the love we want but are not prepared to give, we seek romantic relationships.

We think these relationships will rescue and redeem us but true love only has the power to redeem if we are ready for redemption. Love saves us only if we want to be saved. So many seekers after love are taught in childhood to feel unworthy, told that nobody will love them as they are. They construct false selves. In adult life they meet people who fall in love with their false self but that love cannot last. At some point glimpses of the true self emerge and disappointment ensues. Rejected by their chosen love, the message received in childhood is confirmed. Nobody could love them as they really are.

Few of us enter romantic relationships able to receive love. We fall into romantic attachments doomed to replay familiar family dramas. Usually we do not know this will happen precisely because we have grown up in a culture that tells us that no matter the extent of our sorrow, alienation, emptiness, no matter the extent of our dehumanization, romantic love will be ours. We believe we will meet the one of our dreams and often they show up just as we imagined they would. We wanted the lover to appear but most of us were not really clear about what we wanted to do with them – what the love we wanted to make was and how we would make it. We were not ready to open our hearts fully.

Toni Morrison in The Bluest Eye identifies romantic love as one of the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. It's destructiveness resides in the notion that we come to love with no will and no capacity to choose. This illusion perpetuated by so much romantic lore, stands in the way of our learning how to love. To sustain our fantasy we substitute romance for love.

When romance is depicted as a project, or so the mass media especially movies would have us believe, women are the architects and the planners. Everyone likes to imagine that women are romantics, sentimental about love, and that men follow where women lead. No doubt it was some one playing the role of leader who conjured up the notion that we “fall in love,” that we lack choice and decision when choosing a partner because when the chemistry is present, when the click is there, it just happens – it overwhelms – it takes control. This way of thinking about love is especially useful to men socialized by patriarchal notions of masculinity to be out of touch with what they feel.

Thomas Merton in his essay “Love And Need” contends, “The expression to “fall in love” reflects a peculiar attitude toward love and life itself. - a mixture of fear and awe, fascination and confusion. It implies suspicion, doubt, hesitation in the face of something unavoidable, yet not fully reliable.” If you do not know what you feel, then it is difficult to choose love; it is better to fall. Then you do not have to be responsible for your actions.

Even though psychoanalysts from Fromm in the 1950's to Scott Peck in the present day, critique the idea that when we fall in love, we continue to invest in the fantasy of effortless union. We continue to believe we are swept away, caught up in the rapture, that we lack choice and will. In The Art of Loving Fromm repeatedly talks about love as action, “essentially an act of will.” He writes “To love somebody is not just a strong feeling – it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other. Feelings come and go. Peck builds upon Fromm's definition when he describes love as the will to nurture one's own or another's spiritual growth adding “The desire to love is not itself love. Love is as love does. Love is an act of will – namely both an intention and action.Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.” Despite these brilliant insights, and the wise council they offer, most people remain reluctant to embrace the idea that it is more genuine, more real to think of choosing to love rather than falling in love.

Harriet Lerner shares that most people want a partner “who is mature and intelligent, loyal and trustworthy, loving and attentive, sensitive and open, kind and nurturant, competent and responsible.” No matter the intensity of the desire, she concludes “Few of us evaluate a prospective partner with the same objectivity and clarity we might use to select a household appliance or a car.” To be capable of critically evaluating a partner we would need to be able to stand back and look critically at ourselves, our needs, desires, and longings. 

She says "It was difficult for me to take out a piece of paper and truly evaluate if I was able to give what I wanted to receive. And even more difficult to make a list of the qualities I wanted to find in a mate. I listed ten items. And then when I applied the list to men I had chosen as potential partners, it was painful to face the discrepancy between what I wanted and what I had chosen to accept. We fear that evaluating our needs and then carefully choosing partners will reveal there is no one for us to love. Most prefer to have a partner who is lacking then no partner at all (not me) What becomes apparent is that we may be more interested in finding a partner than in knowing love.

People believe that approaching love with will and intentionality will bring an end to romance but this is simply not so. Approaching romantic love from a foundation of care, knowledge, and respect actually intensifies romance. By taking the time to communicate openly with a potential mate we are no longer trapped by the fear and anxiety underlying romantic interactions that take place without discussion or the sharing of intent and desire.

Women rarely choose men solely on the basis of erotic connection. Females are socialized more to be concerned with emotional connection.We know about having great sex with men who are intimate terrorists, men who seduce and attract us by giving just what you feel your heart needs then gradually or abruptly withholding it once they have gained your trust.

All relationships have ups and downs. Romantic fantasy often nurtures that difficulties and down times are an indication of a lack of love rather than part of the process. In actuality true love thrives on difficulties. The foundation of such love is the assumption that we want to grow and expand, to become more fully ourselves. There is no change that does not bring with it a feeling of challenge and loss.When we experience true love it may feel as if our lives are in danger; we may feel threatened.

John Welwood in his book Love And Awakening: Discovering The SacredPath of Intimate Relationship makes the useful distinction between a heart connection and soul connection. He says “ a soul connection is a resonance between two people who respond to the essential beauty of each other's individual natures, behind their facades, and who connect on a deeper level. ”This kind of mutual recognition provides the catalyst for a potent alchemy. It is a sacred alliance whose purpose is to help both partners discover and realize their deepest potentials. While a heart connection lets us appreciate those we love just as they are, a soul connection opens up a further dimension – seeing and loving them for who they could be, and for who we could become under their influence." 

Throughout our lives we meet many people with whom we feel that click that could take us on the path of love. But this click is not the same as a soul connection. Often a deeper bonding with another, a soul connection, happens whether we will it to be or not. Soul bonding is not necessarily simple. Sacred relationships require work.

Notes on Bell Hook's All About Love

 7/18/22

Bell Hooks

A few notes

Thinking of love as an action not a feeling is a good start. It generates accountability. Actions shape feelings. Love is as love does.

The heart of justice is telling the truth and seeing ourselves and the world the way it is not the way we want it to be

In our culture lies are told about the most insignificant aspects of daily life. People lie to avoid conflict and / or to spare someone's feelings. Many learn to lie in childhood to avoid punishment or disappointing or hurting adults. We're taught that telling the truth will cause pain. Lying becomes a way of preventing being hurt or hurting others. Lying fascinates kids because it has power over adults.

In The Mermaid And The Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements And Human Malaise  Dorothy Dinnerstein says that when boys feel powerless over their mothers, lying enables them to manipulate her and that boys learn to lie to obtain power. Of course women lie too and also we lie to pretend powerlessness.

Harriet Lerner says “Men tend to lie more and with more devastating consequences. Often men who would never lie in the workplace lie in intimate relationships. The Patriarchy helps them get away with it. They are taught that to be honest is “soft.” (tragic)

Victor Seidler in his book Recovering Masculinity says “When we learn to use language, boys quickly learn how to conceal themselves in order to master the world. Often in a trance state estranged to feelings, men utilize strategies they learned as boys. Their inability to truly connect causes an inability to be accountable for truly causing pain. Many men see themselves as victims of lovelessness and lying expresses their ongoing rage at the failure of love's promise.

“Where the will to power is dominant, love will be lacking.” CJ Jung

Men use lying and omission to subjugate women. 

Trust is the foundation of intimacy. When lies and omission erode trust, intimacy cannot grow or live.

(Personally I find this terribly sad and trust with all my heart that it will not end here)

Justice between people is perhaps the most important connection people can have.

Thanks Pronoia

 MIRABILIA

What are mirabilia? They're phenomena that inspire wonder, winsome curiosities, small marvels, eccentric enchantments. Here are a few:

* The National Center for Atmospheric Research reports that the average cloud is the same weight as 100 elephants.

* The average river requires a million years to move a grain of sand 100 miles.

* With every dawn, when first light penetrates the sea, many seahorse colonies perform a dance to the sun.

* A seven-year-old Minnesota boy received patent number 6,368,227 for a new method of swinging on a swing.

* Clown fish can alter their gender as their social status rises.

* In the Hindu epic the Mahabharata, the hero and heroine fall in love without ever gazing upon each other, simply by hearing tales about each other's good deeds.

* Twelve percent of the population believes that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

* The closest modern relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex may be the chicken.

* Kind people are more likely than mean people to yawn when someone near them does.

* Singing Gregorian chants can cure dyslexia.

* All the gold ever mined could be molded into a 60-foot bust of your mom.

* The moon smells like exploded firecrackers.

* The most frequently shoplifted book in America is the Bible.

* Black sheep have a better sense of smell than white sheep.

* There are about 60,000 miles of blood vessels in your body. Every square inch of your body has an average of 32 million bacteria on it.

* The seeds of some trees are so tightly compacted within their protective covering that only the intense heat of a forest fire can free them, allowing them to sprout.

* Anthropologists say that in every culture in history, children have played the game hide and seek.

* Robust singing skill is correlated with a strong immune system in songbirds. Male birds with the most extensive repertoire of tunes also have the largest spleens, a key measure of immune system health.

* In an apparent attempt to raise their volume above the prevailing human din, some nightingales in big cities have learned to unleash 95-decibel songs, matching the loudness of a chainsaw.

* There is a statistically significant probability of world-class athletes and military leaders being born when Mars is rising in the sky.

* Some piranhas are vegetarians

* In the pueblos of New Mexico, bricks still measure 33 by 15 by 10 centimeters, proportions that almost exactly match those of the bricks used to build Egypt's Temple of Hatshepsut 3,500 years ago.

* Bees perform a valuable service for the flowers from which they steal.

* Revlon makes 177 different shades of lipstick.

* Scientists believe they'll be able to figure out why cancer cells are virtually immortal, and then apply the secret to keeping normal cells alive much longer, thereby dramatically expanding the human life span.

* Thirty-eight percent of North America is wilderness.

* There are about nine million people on earth who were born the same day as you.

* Your body contains so much iron that you could make a spike out of it, and that spike would be strong enough to hold you up.

* Very few raindrops are actually raindrop-shaped. A far greater number take the form of doughnuts

Yaletown June

 

Let's Talk About Death with Michelle Dante

 

Puerto Penasco Birthday Celebration

 

Kissing In Vietnamese

Kissing in Vietnamese 

My grandmother kisses

as if bombs are bursting in the backyard,

where mint and jasmine lace their perfumes

through the kitchen window,

as if somewhere, a body is falling apart

and flames are making their way back

through the vessels in a young boys thigh,

as if to walk out the door, your torso 

would dance with exit wounds. 

When my grandmother kisses, there would be no flashy smooching, no western music 

of pursed lips, she kisses as if to breathe 

you inside her, nose press to cheek 

so that your sent pearls into drops of gold inside her lungs, as if while she holds you, death also, is clutching your wrist.

My grandmother kisses as if history 

never ended, as if somewhere, 

a body is still falling apart

Ocean Vuong