A letter of love from me to you

If I were to try and tell you everything that’s in my heart and in my mind, I’m afraid I’d pass out from exhaustion and emotion.  Besides, why would I want to share those things that are so sad and so tender, they would dampen and weigh down even the most brilliant spray of sunlight on a magnificent spring day?

So, I’d rather tell you about some of my dreams, ones I have for myself and for you and for the other people that I have known and loved in my life thus far.

Standing right at the top of this heap of dreams is my dream of unceasing peace and joy for each of you.  Oh yes!  There is nothing more worthwhile than a heart and mind that is simply bursting with peace and joy.  Everything else, if there should be room for it, is just by-product.

Yes, just by-product, I say, and yet, it’s important to us who have been conditioned into human beings, though we are, above all else and ultimately, formless, limitless, eternal life, spirit, energy, love.  How do you describe something that cannot possibly be captured by words?  Best, I think, to leave it unspoken. 

Still, without these words, I have few other symbols or prompts to offer as clues to that which I wish to bring to your attention.  So please, accept these meager offerings and know that they point to something infinitely grander and more delightful and powerful than any word could purport to describe.

I also desire for you and me the dream of remembering.   

Yes, remembering who and what we truly are.  Oh, please, do look carefully at the self you see in the mirror and the self that engages with friends and family and the self that does things that you regret and lose countless nights of sleep and days of punishing guilt over. 

Do look ever so thoroughly at this self that you believe is defined by its thoughts and words and actions, none of which in fact defines it. No, never!  I beg you, do look at this self that thinks it is unworthy or imperfect or unlovable or doomed.  

It is but a projection of your thoughts and your beliefs, nothing more and nothing less, I assure you, for you only have to change those thoughts and beliefs and the projection is altered.  Another self materializes!  I assure you.  I have done it myself.  Many times.

Just as certainly as you have materialized one projection with your thoughts and beliefs, so you can materialize other projections with other thoughts and beliefs – the possibilities are endless and this is, in fact, the adventure of life that you signed up for!  Yes, my love, this is what I so want you to remember!  

I know, I know, that one, critical memory is buried under all the conditioning into human beings that you and I have inherited through our individual and collective ancestry.  But do not let it remain buried.  Unbury it.  Believe me, it’s easily done.  Much more easily than you dare believe.  

All you need to do is desire it!  

Yes, that’s all. 

Simply desire it.  

Don’t waste a moment pondering the nature of how it will come about for the infinite and inexhaustible and powerful source that you are will draw on its flawless intelligence and limitless possibilities to guide you on a path.  Yes, desire it and remain open to its guidance.  It could not be easier.  Seriously.

Change is but a thought away.  

With one new thought, held in faith and openness, in joy and unchecked desire, your whole world can change and you give birth to a new projection, one that you choose consciously.  Not one that you’ve been conditioned into and that you helplessly feed and reinforce and try and breathe life into.  

It is, in essence, lifeless, for it is a projection that has materialized from fearful beliefs, beliefs that deny who and what you truly are,

Oh, my love, every now is a moment of possible change.  Make this now your moment of change.  And the next and the next.  There is no limit to where you can go with this.  There is no limit to what you can be with this.  There is no limit to the adventures you can embark on with this.  

There is no limit to what you can choose. 

So, why wouldn’t you choose fun and excitement and joy and love and peace and laughter and dance and music and apple pie and romance and countless smiles and youthfulness and real power and comfy shoes and gorgeous dresses and amazing friends and fearless living and mind-blowing ideas and global harmony and perfect health and wisdom and genius and ravishing beauty and quietude and…

Oh, don’t fuss over how these must come about and what they will look like or feel like other than ‘wonderful’ for beauty takes all forms as does comfy shoes and amazing friends!  Just desire the joy of all of these and more and you shall have it!

And do not let the old projections cloaked in guilt, rage, unworthiness and helplessness define you even a moment longer, dangled by your false beliefs and erroneous thinking.  Let the memory of your true nature awaken with your joyful desire for it and let it create the YOU that you truly desire!

I swear to you, it couldn’t be simpler.

With all my love!  Now, my love, now!

Unconditional commitment - it's a four letter word

This thing called Risk
I just can't handle it
This thing called Risk
I must get round to it
I ain't ready
Crazy little thing called Rissssssssssssk.

(With thanks and 'You're welcome' to Freddie Mercury et al)

To be honest, this is not a word or a concept or a 'thing' that I enjoy. Nope. I like my life risk-free, buttered all around and served on a bed of brilliant crystal, soft to the touch and shatter-proof.

And, to continue in honesty, I really deplore the claims that you cannot grow or progress or gain anything you value without taking risks.  Either the world is inherently flawed in its creative process or we, I, have failed to master its true machinations. I'd prefer to believe the latter.

But how do I sustain such a belief against what appears to be an overwhelming body of evidence to the contrary?  A body of evidence that seems to give support to the claim that I so deplore?

I think I can do it my redefining what I have thus far thought 'risk' to be.  No more shall I see it as the treacherous wilderness I must navigate, fraught with endless possibilities of attack, pain and despair.  No more will it be the loathsome suitor that I must court as the torturous means to the rainbow's end.  No more shall I hide in its ominous shadow, afraid of being noticed and summoned to undesired action.

Instead, I shall redefine risk as love.  Love? And what might that be? Or passion. Oh? Do tell.

Unconditional commitment. According to Kiekegaard. Whose work, Either/Or was mentioned to me by C.Bosco.  That's what passion is - unconditional commitment.

Can you imagine that? To be unconditionally committed to something so that notions of risk and failure and pain and disappointment have absolutely no room, no meaning in your worldview?   What kind of life would that be?

Perfect. Passionate. Wondrous. Glorious. Truly beyond belief for it would supersede all beliefs and all need for beliefs.

Actually, to me that would be the only worthwhile meaning of life. That life would be love.

Give it to me baby!

Better still, I give it to myself.

My confession today is that I...

I realized something today, something that I'm afraid to admit but that I want to. It will be one more inhibition to liberate myself from.

I happened to watch The Notebook last night. I should say early this morning, after I had finished a couple of writing assignments.  It was well after 3am and although I could have easily gone to sleep, I just felt I'd rather watch a movie.

I enjoyed every bit of it. Every bit. The charm, the innocence, the longings, the desires, the laughter, the poetry, the scenery, the music, the beauty, the sadness, the thwarted affair.

No, no, that's not true. I did not enjoy the sadness and I certainly didn't enjoy the cruel turn of events nor the pain before its eventual resolution.

Oh, you might say that it was Hollywood doing what Hollywood does best - sell you a fistful of unrealistic dreams that you can lose yourself in for an hour or so. So what? What's the harm in losing yourself and all your stuffy and starchy beliefs and proclamations about the 'real' world if only for an hour of your life'?

As far as I'm concerned, nothing.  Nothing at all. On the contrary, it might actually reignite your dying imagination, release you from your self-imposed exile from LIFE. True LIFE. Not the life that you've become conditioned into but the life that glows naturally within you like a flame that refuses to die no matter how hard you or anyone else tries to snuff it out.

Isn't this the reason why we are so drawn to such 'flights of fantasy'?  Because they have an inimitable ring of truth to them?  Because, surely, this is what we most desire?  Because, let's be completely honest, this is what makes us happiest?

It might help you realize what it made me realize, or should I say, admit - that I do want that pure, shameless love, the kind that you would devote your life to. The kind that makes everything else pale into oblivion because it is so fulfilling, so nurturing, so life-giving, no needless of explanation or reasoning.

The reader of the notebook says, at one point, something to this effect:

I have not achieved anything of significance in my life. I haven't acquired fortunes or invented anything. I haven't done anything that might be considered noteworthy. But I believe I have fulfilled the purpose of my life because I have loved another so fully and completely.

I'm a bit of a cry babe. Typing that just brought a lump to my throat and the tears all but fell. For goodness sake, can there be a more beautiful purpose for one's life? I certainly can't think of any. And my confession today is that I do want to experience the complete joy and awe and pleasure and rapture and beauty and freedom of being so completely devoted to one other.

How Do I Love Thee

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
for the ends of Being and ideal Grace,
I love thee to the level of every day's
most quiet need, by sun and candle light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
in my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
with my lost saints,-I love thee with the breath,
smiles, tears, of all my life!-and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I fell in love last night

I fell in love last night.

From the moment we laid eyes on each other, our separate worlds collapsed into one, sending shock waves of desire and anticipation into its stratosphere. Would we survive dinner? Could we wait that long? We both knew the inevitable was...inevitable.

But first dinner.  All too excruciatingly slow in its arrival, it was, nevertheless suggestive of things to come.

Roasted caramelized aubergines appeared on a bed of silky leafed organic lettuce. They were accompanied by a pair of lightly baked tomatoes, plump and firm to the touch, the fragrance of Italian basil swirling around them.

Next, a plate of bright red prawns arrived with a lemon and dill dressing. Strip, dip and devour. Could anything be more straightforward? Or more revealing ? Or more fatal?

And so it continued, this meal that would take its time in satisfying some, but by no means all, of our cravings, teasing and taunting us all the way through.

When at last it was over, we found ourselves locked in a gaze that would later remind me of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony's fateful love affair. Right then though, the moment which our every thought, utterance and action had feverishly anticipated was but a final sip of wine away.

Distance dissolved and in its place was silk and satin, hair against skin, soft touch following soft touch, trembling and turning. I didn't want it to stop. Nor did he.

More intoxicating than wine, our evening affair left me drunk with the heady possibility that it wouldn't be our last. When it was time to go, I left with his smell all over me.

PS I know what you're thinking: I should've said 'lust' not 'love'. Well, go on then, tell me the difference, why don't ya!

Post Script: There'll be no shortage of gifts I can get him from Amazon :)