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song of praise

Monday, September 15th, 2008

(I just returned from attending a full-weekend wedding. This morning, I dive back back into my archives, but thought I’d post my reading in the ceremony, as Love is, after all, the most foreign, enticing, challenging and exciting of all the countries I have travelled.)

I’m really honored to be here today. To be a witness of one of the most beautiful and sacred days in the life of this couple. And to share, just a few words, of blessing, upon their union.

I think everyone in this audience will nod with me in agreement when I identify these two people as remarkably strong and independent individuals, each of whom constantly recognizes, supports and respects the other in their partnership, not as “the other half,” but as the other, “whole.”

This is a relationship that is grounded; grounded in the earth of respect and compromise. Tilled by sacrifice, flexibility, exchange and experience. Watered by the tears of loss, labor and joy. And rooted in family, community, and especially, one particular and beautiful little boy.

This is a couple that is not ignorant of the challenges and pains inherent to the path of shared growth, but braver for the fact that they are both aware and consciously accepting of the responsibilities and rewards of facing life, from this day forward, together.

And so it is with these strengths of this couple in mind, that I find it most fitting to share the wisest advices on marriage and love I have yet found, from the favorite poet, Kahlil Gibran.

On marriage, he says,


You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
You shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make NOT a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink NOT from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat NOT from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone; Just as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but NOT into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together — yet NOT TOO NEAR together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

And on Love he says,

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you — so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth — so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.
But if IN your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure — then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor; Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh — but not all of your laughter. And weep –but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught BUT ITSELF and takes naught BUT FROM itself.
Love possesses NOT nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook — that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Kahlil Gibran (born Gibran Kahlil Gibran bin Mikhael bin Saâd; Arabic جبران خليل جبران بن ميخائيل بن سعد), (born January 6, 1883 in Bsharri, modern day Lebanon, which was part of Ottoman controlled Syria at the time; died April 10, 1931 in New York City, United States) was a Lebanese-American artist, poet, writer, philosopher and theologian. He is the third-bestselling poet in history after William Shakespeare and Laozi. – Wikipedia

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arranged love marriage

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

IMG_5263, originally uploaded by seekingsol.

One of my students recently quipped, “…arranged marriages give me faith in marriage.”

And as quickly as I agreed with her, I wondered, “what a once-foreign idea with which I have so naturally nodded my head in agreement!”

It’s one of the subjects on India of which I find to be the fullest of misconceptions and unfounded, ethnocentric judgments. But I never wag a finger at a new student of India when he or she comments, “Can you just imagine?! Not marrying for love?!”

Because I know my students will soon enough be living with Indian families, surrounded by Indian brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers. And that each of these family members will have his or her own story to tell which will illustrate that there’s a lot more hidden variables in marriage math. I have enormous faith that my students, too, will not just learn, but witness that Love, in the East or the West and regardless of method, is still just as likely to find itself on the other side of the equal sign in the wedded equation.

My first Hindi teacher is 24 years old and was married last year. Aside from a 1×1 inch passport photo, he did not see the face of his bride until after his marriage to her. My second Hindi teacher has been happily married for 41 years. He didn’t glimpse even a photo of his wife until hours after the wedding rituals were completed. What do these two men and generations have in common? A respected cultural tradition that accepts and pursues (with great faith) a committed and self-sacrificing investment in the lifetime partnership of parenthood.

I’ve visited and shared meals with both families. The young couple is no less caring, loving, and challenging-yet-functional, than any of my friends’ young married relationships. The older couple has not a single less story of compassion, sacrifice, tolerance, perseverance or tender love than that of our own Western parents.

What my student was saying is, “if people here can have perfectly successful and loving (arranged) marriages with someone they don’t even know, doesn’t that mean that opportunity exists for ANY two persons?”

(Whether we actually have an advantage in being able to choose our partner is then what becomes debatable!)

Let me provide two interesting linguistic examples that illustrate some of the differences on East and West perceptions in regards to their definitions of two of life’s most important social pillars; I’m going to start with “religion,” but stay with me as I’ll then return back to, “marriage.”

Hinduism in India is actually not as much a religion as it is a culture and way of life. Even the name, “Hinduism” was originally only a term created to characterize the, “people of the Indus Valley.” So essentially, it was a name invented by outsiders to categorize a group of people with a different “way of life” in order to differentiate it from their own.

If you you keep this definition in mind, it begins to make sense why there is no word in its scriptures or pressure within the “religion” to cultivate the spread of Hinduism. Nor can one, even of his or her own choice, really “convert” to being a Hindu. And finally, this would also perhaps provide logical reason for why there are no historical accounts of war or violence in the name of “saving” or “forcing” a group of non-Hindus to convert to practitioners of the “faith” of Hinduism.

For that would, plainly, be silly. It would be like Italians invading Montana and forcing them to make their pasta from scratch and drive scooters. Silly. And so if you translate religion to “culture” or, “way of life” then it makes perfect sense why on, more than one occasion, I have found different Indian persons challenging me with…

“What do you mean, you have no religion? Do you not have parents? Were you not born in a country?”

Because despite my soft claims that, “I chose to stop being, practicing and calling myself a Christian when I was 21,” this sentence is no more rational to an Indian than me saying, “I stopped being an American when I was 21.”

Let me interject my disclaimer now that this understanding is only my own; it’s a subtle and simple (and perhaps opinionated) observation that I’ve only hypothesized from the confused pauses before, after, and between sentences.

But what I was getting back to was the topic of marriage, and the link between the above example and the next, is only the similar confused pause at the end of the sentence…

“What do you mean you’re not sure you believe in marriage?”

For just as religion equates to culture. The term “marriage” is easily transferable with the words, “life” and “family.” And to challenge the existence or desire of marriage is quite equivalent to denying the existence of life or desire for love.

Now I can hear someone in the audience stirring in their seat and raising their hand with the following question: “But what about dowries (a type of early inheritance or investment paid to the groom’s family by the brides), and the fact that not only is the marriage arranged, but that the bride is little more than sold, for a price, to the most appropriate bidder?”

Well. I certainly do not doubt the likely correlation between the social construct of dowries and the social norm of preferential sex selection and even female feticide. But as is often the case when I investigate a stereotype or preconceived idea and begin to explore the more intimate details of the (Indian) relationships near me, I hear quite interesting stories.

Like that of my best friend here in India who, even as a Brahmin (the highest caste and often demanding of the highest dowry), accepted only a single symbolic rupee (equivalent to about 2 US cents) in dowry for his arranged marriage to his wife. And of his and his wife’s relationship, I can say that I would truly be tried to find a more accepting, self-sacrificing, committed and loving relationship than theirs on any continent. (Would you know by witnessing the tenderness in the above photo that there’s a 3-year old screaming for a toy in one corner and a 1-year old trying to eat Vaseline in the other?)

I’m not out to prove anything. I only want it down for the record that, from my experiences here in India, I have gathered absolutely NO evidence that would lead me to believe that a “love marriage” has any greater chances for “success” (which would take an essay of its own to define) than that of an arranged marriage. And if you have any doubt or questions, I challenge you to find any Indian couple who’s been married for a few dozen years, and sit down and have chai with them and hear out their stories; of anxiety, of fear, of desire, of bliss, of routine, of duties, of immaturity, of overwhelm, of challenges, of loss, of self-sacrifice, of commitment, of pride, of trust, and of the continuum and construction of love. And I challenge you to see if that story is really any different from those of the elders of the country where you were born. And if you come to any interesting conclusions, I’d like to have tea with you too.

Posted in culture, india, on love | 7 Comments »

india is an arranged marriage

Monday, January 28th, 2008

Village Faces, U.P. India, originally uploaded by seekingsol.


(This is an excerpt from a personal journal entry from the first week when I arrived in India. I sometimes cringe and curse at the weird way my sentences wrap around each other in odd-measured rhyme when I get writing. So know that it’s unintentional, but just the way my thoughts get scribbled. You see. A curse.)

india is an arranged marriage

There is no courtship with India. The face peering back at yours from behind the curtain does not bat her lashes or bite her lip. It is the lack of fear behind her stone stare that makes your heart race with unnamed emotion. The sterile passport-sized picture of her given to you does not invoke the vision of her as the mother of your dozen children. Yet your story with her seems dimensionless and pregnant with a million incarnations that could be conceived of the union. India is not coy. Nor is she shy. And you sense a thousand secrets, hidden millennia deep, when she finally chooses to give your gaze relief. India does not rank high by conventional standards and comparisons of beauty. But her features are sharp and distinguished and clues of a character that will not fade when fairness and years are incrementally dismissed. India does not flaunt, but neither does she hide. She does not rely on the skin she shows, but that which she doesn’t, to tantalize. India lowers her eyes. Not in feigned defeat, but in respect to that which she knows hides under the shadow of Earth’s own sari. India does not pretend — to know you, or that you know her. She knows that those worlds will take exponential lifetimes to explore. India hasn’t the time to, without prompt, monologue an explanation of herself to you. But she will reward each individual and invested question with her most straightforward and simple truth. For although India is a young bride, she feels no rush to attach herself to only one of her multiple lives. India dreams. And she trusts. She still calls it fate and questions those who say it’s not. India raises a candle to the sun. She feels no need to draw the theories when she can see the likeness clearly. India knows not what, but, that she doesn’t know. She doesn’t guess, but answers the biggest questions, honestly, with her silence. India knows she will grow old and, with time, wrinkle, but that is not how she remembers the line of women that came before her. She’s comfortable with her youth being shed and only hopes to inherit the pride of those whose footsteps left the path before her distinguished and well-tread. India trusts her ancestors. She counts on their mistakes to give merit to the wisdoms they pass along, even if the logical connection is ages lost or forgotten. India has great heart and hope. She sees no advantage in allowing herself to wander the fantasies of failure. India did not choose you. Neither did you choose her. Someone, something — above, older, wiser — of this proposal, was the organizer. And yet, the plank over this apparent divide, was the subconscious consent stated in the silence from both sides. One can insist on free will and draw a line. But, as India points out, fate can always draw another one, just an inch behind. Yes. India is wise. She’s an old wife, who has outlived her partner but lives on to share the recipes — for food, in love, of life — to any of those who bother to lean in and listen to the creaking treasure chest of her whisper. Perhaps you are circling India now, taking your wedding vows as she follows your steps around the sacred fire. You may not have ever seen her face, but you know she is there, a step behind you. Waiting for you to gather your courage, take her hand, lift her veil, and finally face her.

Posted in culture, on love, prose & ramble | 5 Comments »

love, picasso, parades & pilgrimage

Saturday, September 16th, 2006

So for the record, I am now officially giving exact change, correctly ordering vegetarian food, and making it three or (sometimes!) even four sentences deep into conversations. It’s probably not particularly exciting for anyone else, but these are achievements I’m eager to lean over the cake and blow candles out over.

When I was about seven years old, my older brother and sister came up with most ingenious idea to rid themselves of their pestering younger siblings; they made a fake “treasure map” that plotted out the forest behind our house as well as the locations of a number of secret, buried surprises. I’m pretty sure that our subsequent absence was barely noticed (as the nature of discretely disappearing annoyances usually is) until the day, months and millions of holes later, that we actually DID find a buried box, and to my mother’s horror, and our dogs delight, unearthed the bones of a former pet.

The digging stopped that day, but not my fascination with maps. And so I still, perhaps out of habit, ripped one of Paris out of a guidebook and delicately taped it into my journal. But out-out-of-habit, I haven’t taken a single glance at it in my three-day wandering walking tour of Paris. And this is what I have learned; to “stumble upon” the Royal Palace, Bastille, Opera House, Louvre, Notre Dame, Pointe Neuf, Eiffel Tower, Arc De Triumphe, Red Light District and the thousand other bridges, cathedrals, parks, museums, fountains, playgrounds, markets, tunnels, walkways, etc., is to add miles of magic and majesty to the unearthing of a destination. Paris is a gold mine of mind-blowing beauty. One would be challenged to dig anywhere without hitting. And, in three days aimfully wandering, I have yet to find a dead cat. ;)

If Paris and Parisians have the reputation for being arrogant, it’s only because they are rightfully so. They have mastered the recipes for the most aesthetic courses of architecture, food, drink, pleasure and love. Ah love. Today alone I must have seen a thousand thoughtful kisses delicately distributed to the foreheads, fingers, cheeks, noses and, finally (because I think the French know everything is done better in five courses), lips. I love lovers. For this reason I snuck up on a few…

I couldn’t help it! I spent only one day with my camera before I quickly and miserably resigned myself to agreement with the Mayan philosophy that, “taking pictures steals a piece of the soul” and since poor Paris, with all its too-obvious beauty, has had every angle shot more times than Kate Moss, it has resultantly been left flatter than the super model herself. But Paris would never stand for such pity; so I’ll stop. My point being only that the above shot was the single vision I captured with any warmth (still, I added a few lackluster attempts to the new France Photo Album).

I snuck up on a few more lovers at the Picasso museum.

Museums and churches, by the way, are generally not my up my agenda alley, but back when my imagination was bigger than my body, a particular Picasso hung in my bedroom that inspired a wave of reoccurring nightmares. And as is my approach to all fears – even those under the thick dust of years passed – I investigate. What I found in Picasso, was a passionate man with a mission in accord with all great artists, teachers, prophets and musicians; “to recreate the complexity of reality.” The question, as I see it, that we’re all struggling to recreate with either note, curve or word is, “what is it, the single element, the essence, that defines?” For if we can isolate that element, we will find it to be a single letter of the language of the divine. Picasso, by my interpretation (only), put the hologram of objectivity on canvas. He saw the multidimensional, and summarized it in a few, but scattered the pieces as to provide us only clues to the enlightened view. A scavenger hunt of secrets are our scattered perspectives, at best clumsily pieced together, as Picasso, a humbled man, knew.

A more modern glimpse of Paris blew a whistle in my face, when the ground started shaking to the tune of a mid-morning Techno Parade. The partakers had quite obviously started at least a day (or two) earlier in clubs that gathered their crowds while I was busy sleeping off my jet lag…

If you didn’t notice the headbands, Mohawks, legwarmers, colored hair, piercings, hi-tops, legwarmers, mesh gloves, day glow, ribbed leather jackets, rattails, shredded shirts, and plastic jewelry; let me just officially report from the front line that Paris is leading the charge on bringin’ the 80’s back. And I wave a jelly sandal in FULL support of this movement.

Now I kiss Paris’s two cheeks adieu, as my pilgrimage calls.

I will not be carrying a computer, or have regular internet access for the next five weeks, so please be patient with responses to any emails. I will have a journal to which I’ve committed to jotting my every observation and revelation down; these I will share here, at each opportunity afforded. Along with the pictures to match.

Now would be a very good time for me to send out some gratitude and good karma to WorldNomads Travel Insurance, who, thanks to their continued sponsorship of my travels, have so kindly replaced the camera that I had stolen during my last adventures in Guatemala. Pictures and video over the next few months are compliments of a Cannon S2, of which I’ll eventually give a review. She’s shiny, new, full of optimism and has no idea what’s become of the nine digital cameras before her; shhhh…

I leave with a quote from the one book I’ve chosen to bring with me on this pilgrimage;

“Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.” Joseph Campbell, Hero With a Thousands Faces

Thanks for embarking on this journey with me.

sol

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*sol bows her “namaste” and gratitude to World Nomads Travel Insurance, ThinkHost and Merc for their ever-supporting roles in the realization of her dream.

Posted in gratitude, on love, on pilgrimage | No Comments »

soft spot

Tuesday, June 27th, 2006

(Evening update follows the original post.)

*****

The surgeon’s assistant finishes his explanation of the procedure and asks, “So do you have any final questions, concerns or requests?”

“Yea. My family knows me for having a tough heart and I’m concerned about what you’re going to do to it. Don’t put any soft spots in my heart, okay?!”

The doctor cocks his head quizzically as the joke threatens to make a dash over his head. The rest of the room, however, snickers, giggles and laughs loud enough to create the first echo of a ruckus that will later ignite the complaint of a neighbor and messenger nurse to “keep it down.” But if there’s one thing my father is known for not doing, it’s “keeping it down.” Not even the six valium he swallowed from the small paper cup can curb the adjective that the nursing staff have attached to the name and fame of the patient in Rm. 634; “ornery.”

Having been prodded and poked every hour throughout the night to gauge insulin levels, monitor rates, and prep the surgery, he hasn’t been allowed a sequential thirty minutes to sleep. My father looks gray and frail in the pale hospital gown and narrow bed, but the fiery resiliency of his spirit flares as he mumbles with eyes half closed to the 200 lb male attending nurse, “Let’s go out to the parking lot. I’m going to kick your ass.”

The audience (my family) goes off task and bursts out laughing again; It’s hardly the first time. While other waiting families clutch tissues and pat swollen eyes, my family turns a white laminated “heart healthy” menu around and proceeds to play “hang man” using the medical terms from the “Guide To Heart Patient Recovery.” The stick man is pathetically underdeveloped as my sister-in-law just recently replaced “Mrs.” with “Dr.” and I only get a head and one “X’ed” out eye before “Incentive Spirometer!” is correctly shouted out. But it’s during our tour of the CRU (Cardiac Recovery Unit) that we really begin to appreciate having a doctor in the family. While watching a myriad of machines assisting with the breathing, beating and bodily functioning of a recent patient yet to awaken, my sister-in-law swiftly cuts across our group to position my brother on the ground upon recognition that the color of his skin (green) was a go-light indicating that’d he was on his way to finding a much quicker and less conscious way to the floor. We find the space for seriousness when after reclaiming his normal color we agree to my brother’s request to, “not let Dad know that I *almost* fainted in the CRU until AFTER the surgery.”

Both of my father’s parents died while he was a still a young child. Raised an orphan, he dedicated 67 years to creating the family he never had while growing up. Right before my dad is wheeled through the double doors, his four children and wife pat his shoulder and whisper words of support and love. And I feel the recognition of his ultimate life achievement warm him.

In the waiting room I fall asleep. I dream of my dad. We are outside of the hospital and we’re surrounded by the dark and crisp freshness of a day before sunrise. He looks confused and stares through the dark to the horizon. “Dad, aren’t you supposed to be in the hospital?” I ask. He is completely calm. But he doesn’t answer my question. He just keeps watching the horizon. And it’s apparent that he hasn’t decided on the answer to that question yet.

I wake up.

It’s now 9:45am. The nurse just stopped by and told us that my father is on bypass and both his heart and lungs are officially on their first vacation in life from beating and breathing. Our own hearts skip as we too hold our breath – and wait.

*****

4:30pm

One visitor is allowed every two hours for 10 minutes in the CRU.

My father is awake and as I come closer he rolls his eyes, groans and chuckles.

The attending nurse says, “You know. He’s been giving me a hell of a time.”

I try to tame my laugh noticing that my father’s recently cut chest plate is heaving up and down in a motion only made possible by a sizable shot of morphine.

The nurse continues, “but you can give him some ice cubes if he’s nice to you.”

I pick up the plastic cup and select a few of the larger ice cubes and with a spoon move towards the parched lips of my dehydrated father.

He hesitates only long enough to say, just loud enough for the nurse to hear, “got any vodka for this ice?!”

He doesn’t drink. And he won’t remember this conversation.

But we all laugh out loud.

And the question in my morning’s dream is answered.

*****

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*sol bows her “namaste” and gratitude to World Nomads Travel Insurance, ThinkHost and MercuryFrog for their ever-supporting roles in the realization of her dream.

Posted in gratitude, on love, on tears & loss | 4 Comments »

to be made and unmade

Sunday, April 30th, 2006

“I have no desire for one life partner.”

“I feel most inspired and alive on my own.”

“I don’t believe in marriage (or any other sacrament that needs a government’s stamp of legitimacy).”

There are things that I say that often elicit gasps, hushes, disbelieving “no’s” and disapproving nods. The above statements are such.

For this reason I kept quiet for many years. I took especially serious the comment, “Oh, you’ll grow out of that.”

But you know what I’ve recently realized?

I’m not going to grow out of it; I’ve grown into knowing it; I LOVE being alone!

I love waking up in bed alone. I love walking alone. I love chasing my life path alone. I love making my self-realizations alone. I love owning my accomplishments alone. I love how open I am to all interactions when I’m alone. I love retiring and retreating alone. I love taking responsibility for all my mistakes alone. I love the communion with nature that I find when I’m alone. I love being able to choose when I don’t want to be alone. I love the appreciation for food that I have when I eat alone. I love the quality of space and silence that surround me when I’m alone. I love how sensitive I am to my sources of inspiration when I am alone. I love navigating the solitary space of meditation alone. I love choosing my adventures alone. I love the lightness of being alone. I’m closest to being the person I aspire to be when I’m alone. And I think it’s time for me to come out of the closet on my love of being alone. (Or, maybe, stay in it?)

Maybe I’m unhealthily introverted. Maybe I’m just selfish, shallow and self-absorbed. (I’ve certainly been accused.) Maybe I fear commitment and responsibility. Maybe I’m just naïve. Maybe I’m afraid of people or deep relationships. Maybe I’m avoiding pain. Maybe I’ll never know the depths of truly self-sacrificing love. Maybe I’ll change my mind when I’m old and ugly. Maybe I’m made for the monastery. Maybe I just have cold heart. Maybe. I’ve considered them all, but have decided that these are question marks I’ll take on individually if and when they snake their way into my reality. I’ve learned that dedication to a life of Presence means shelving the “maybes” to a proper place of consideration, but never as justification for a position of inaction.

But I do agree that this attitude might not be healthy if I didn’t like people. Fortunately, I really like people. (In fact it’s often for the very purpose of meeting more people that I love to be alone.) I love people! And anyone who knows me knows this. In fact, many times I have to play down just how much I like people knowing how the way I “enjoy and love” people can sometimes be misinterpreted when transposed upon the laws of love as they have been defined by the greeting card industry. Equally I feel misunderstood when my love is defined by level of attachment. I really appreciate the people in my life who know me intimately enough that I am able to confidently sign my letters with, “Not missing you, but loving you. And knowing you know the difference.”

It amazes me how taboo it is to not be seeking a life partner. It seems like this is simply an unquestionable assumption that defines life progress and accomplishment. The societal conditioning is so thick that the question never has the chance to even arise. And it took me a full quarter of my life to realize, “Wow. The last six years of a solitary life path have been a perfect combination of challenge and inspiration. I feel great right now.” (And since I judge my future to be a perfect reflection of my present), “ So why not another six years? And why not the rest of this lifetime? Just me and you Life. Why not?”

I’m not saying that I’m going to define my future (no, no, no) by this or any other expectation (especially in light of the fact I don’t know much, and what I do know is constantly being looked back upon as being stupid); only that I release another socially constructed ideal and open my life to the very real and exciting possibility of walking, and taking responsibility for, my life path on my own.

The smirk on the face of the divine is inspired by the punch line of one of life’s cutest little pranks; that the minute an individual lets go and finds and centers him/herself freestanding, people seem to suddenly flock to that person. This just makes sense; that people love the essence and lightness of unburdened being and are attracted to those who internally and independently generate (and share) their own energy without dependency or borrowing. So while the advice of, “Find yourself, and then find another,” has a tone of truth, I’d also chime in with, “But if you find your relationship with life a challenging and exciting enough match of wit and emotion, then consider making a commitment to that partnership.”

As for love, I don’t know why, but I think I do feel it — not better or worse — but differently than the majority. Although it rationally makes sense to me; intuitively I simply can not define love by level of attachment, physical presence or time. I have felt the depths of my love plunge when looking into the eyes of people whose names I don’t know. And I’m actually scared by how my love does not flinch at the absence, departure and even decease of those I’ve loved for years. Perhaps it’s because I feel hardly constrained to this one little lifetime; that I’m confident and comforted by the opportunity of many more to reunite and exchange again. Even my romances I take on like sandcastles; mythical, magical little creations to be made with playful aim, but without purpose, and in full blessed consciousness of the crashing waves to which we will inevitably surrender our foundation for a fresh slate; on which we can begin again. And aren’t the waves benevolent? For what they know (but a truth which we often desperately resist), is that there is little joy in a dry and standing sandcastle. The point of a sandcastle is to be made and unmade. And a divine plan indeed has been devised to make this life a colliding and cascading collage of exactly such endless opportunities.

But enough of my rant and ramble; Rumi said it all better in eight little words;

“No better love than love with no object.”

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*sol bows her “namaste” and gratitude to World Nomads Travel Insurance, ThinkHost and MercuryFrog for their ever-supporting roles in the realization of her dream.

Posted in on lonliness, on love, single/white/female, travel philosophy | No Comments »

one love

Sunday, July 31st, 2005


There is a quote that scalded my reality when I touched it and has left a scar that continues to be sensitive to my touch.

In, “The Secret of St. Francis of Assisi,” Christian Bobin speaks of the look between lovers; you know, that unflinching stare that breaks the padlocked virginity of all social scripts and sends us diving into an invigorating pool of momentary union and sinking bliss.

I think (and hope) we’ve all swam in the pond of a loved ones eyes before. And Christian Bobin says of this stare:

“…with the full light of your eyes, you will endow me with the certainty that I exist.”

Somehow the first part of this statement baits me with the vision of a calm, romantic and ripple-less lake when suddenly a comma belly flops the sentence by following with a terrifyingly accurate accusation that sprays stinging saltwater in my eyes.

My eyes tear up and as I rub the sting away — I see it — but still don’t believe it.

He’s right!

Perhaps I am exceptionally egotistical in comparison to my fellow love-questing comrades, but I think Bobbin has completely nailed me on this one; a good portion of my ache for attached love walks hand in hand with a craving for those moments when someone (mother, lover or child) looks at me with such confirming eyes that I finally feel certainly (but oh too temporarily) to exist!

But what a terrible realization! To love only to be loved? To imagine our most intimate, soul-speaking and unblinking wordless exchanges broken down to annoyingly bantering:

“You exist.”
“No silly, YOU exist.”
“No you exist!”
“No you really, really exist!”

Oh, groan. That’s one mad-hatter merry-go-round I don’t want a turn on.

So where else to turn?

The mirror? Where a merely two-dimensional vision measured by only one of six (or more) senses suddenly holds the gavel to determine my being as not-guilty of existing?

And if indeed (as I believe) the face in the mirror is only representative of a wink in the eye of my lifetimes, then is it any wonder that I walk from mirror to mirror, tapping on the glass to ask, “And just WHO are you?” with answers constantly revolving, but never sufficing? Why don’t I as well ask the pimple on my forehead what it is? Perhaps it would say, “Nothing but a present and passing expression of long line of pores come and gone.”

(I really must be stopped when I start speaking for pimples.)

So what’s left of this rant?

I look back and choose two words: “momentary union.”

Perhaps the repetitive bantering and mirror-tapping will stop if I simply step out of the tunnel vision of my life…
to bask in the full light of any and all others’ eyes…
where I might there be endowed…
with the certainty that we exist…
and are, in fact…
(timelessly and simultaneously)
one.

*****

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Undressing Love

Sunday, August 1st, 2004

(An immitation of a piece by Ecuadorian Oswaldo Guayasamin that I painted on our window.)

> A Few (Last) New Pictures

(My digital camera has officially Died…or at least changed to another form of existence that chooses not to turn on. Does anyone have a used digicam they are looking to sell for cheap or donate to a wandering pilgrim who likes to share her captured visions? solbeam@gmail.com)

*****

Q: You state, “It means I cannot attach myself to any one love as greater, more passionate or more true than another.” This statement seems to allow for different kinds of love. Do you feel different kinds of love for different things while still recognizing that different love doesn’t mean unequal love? Or do you believe in one kind of love and share and experience that love with all things? Is there another explanation?

Such a good question. And one I have only just recently set myself to the task of exploring. So I can only speak from my understanding of it right now, which really could change at any minute. But with disclaimer disclaimed, I step forward.

My current suspicion is that there is only ONE essence of love.

If I strip the love I feel for my father, my sister, my cat, Gandhi, Ralph Waldo Emerson, or the woman that gave me a free sweet bread this morning, I find that when it stands naked of its relation to me, it is all the same. And not only that, but it’s also the same as the love I have newly recognized for the terrorist, the president and the man who ripped me off on papaya at the market yesterday.

Seems to me that when we define Love as falling into different “levels” or “types,” it is not the Love itself that we are classifying, but the level of attachment that we have for the object of that which we direct the love.

“I want to be with him all the time, therefore this is True Love.”

“I don’t want to be near her, therefore this is not Love.”

“I miss them, therefore I love them.”

“I don’t know them, so how could I love them?”

Does the actual Essence of my love change from person to person? Or do the definitions of Love change simply in relation to how much I would miss that person if they were gone and our relationship no longer existed?

As a result of my travels (physical, emotional, spiritual), I have come to some startling realizations about my reality. I uncloaked Death, and found Change travelling incognito underneath. I dissected Time and found the Future and Past as the same momentary glimpses of Now. And I stepped away from Distance, to realize that what I see is only a reflection of the Perspective from where I stand. In my reality (and by no means must anyone share it with me!) Death, Time and Distance are now lackluster and dusty tales that not even the Fairy would bother to present.

So without feeling confined to these counts and measures of the physical world, I suddenly realized that my attachment has nothing left to attach itself to.

I do not miss my mother. Not because I don’t love her or want to be close to her, but because I already feel like she’s standing by my side.

I am not sad to say goodbye to my friends. Because I do not recognize it as any kind of ending, but only a turn in the cycle towards a new beginning.

I do not count the days, months or years till I am with a lover. For it was five minutes ago that we were together, and five minutes till we reunite.

And I do not long for my family, because I feel absolutely surrounded by the familiar relationships that I share with each and every form of Life with which and whom I interact.

And now, left with no means to attach myself, I am left only in my Love; Engulfed in its equanimous essence.

And that is why I believe in One love. One love that is all Love; Its essence as the vibration of energy that underlies our shared existence.

Love that wears the silly clothes that we dress it up in because It is as amused with us as we are it.

But naked, it is Love.

As naked, we all are.

*****

If you’ve sent me a comment/idea/criticism/question, please be certain that I’m entertaining it, (perhaps even getting a little drunk together), and that we’ll be both be back at you, (perhaps even stopping by Answer’s house?) as soon as we deem ourselves presentable.

Because I consider every reader comment and question essential to my (and our shared) search and understanding.

(sol’s travel photos) (about sol) (some sol stories) (LeapNow.org) (travel disclaimer) (packing list)

Posted in on love, on spirituality & religion, travel philosophy | No Comments »

Fire My Spirit

Monday, July 26th, 2004

Earth my Body

Water my Blood

Air my Breath

Fire my Spirit

(From the window of the “Planet Drum” Volunteer house in Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador.)

***********************

Dear Ev,

The day you left, I had to walk in large circles around the city for hours. Cause every time I stopped physically moving, the grief of your being gone would catch up and so overwhelm me that I’d topple over in the hunger of heartache.

Do you remember when we were walking on the beach and you asked me, “This is going to hurt isn’t it? This lesson in Love is going to be really painful.”

And I replied, “Only if you want it to be. If you seek pain, if you think pain will make it meaningful, then yes, this lesson will hurt. But Life is gentle in her lessons if we let her be. Yes, if we resist, she’ll probably resort to a sludge hammer, but if we listen attentively, consciously, she might only tickle us with a feather. And I hope I can graciously choose to decline Pain in my life just as I do guilt, shame, and anger. It’s as easy as saying, “No thank you” to redefine our reality, and our lesson in Love, as pain-free… “

I know those words are still true. The strength did not seep from them, but from me.

And I suppose it was exactly that seeping of strength from our individual paths and persons that was our feather. But we were too busy with the moonstruck motions of lovers to be bothered to notice the threat that Life was dangling over our toes with a smirk.

So we unconsciously opted for the sludge hammer didn’t we? We glided by on the bliss of the union of our being until your subconscious left you awake in the dark for a week with a case of insomnia that would leave you no option but to confront consciousness. Till after a final fight with that which you did not want to admit, you waited for me to wake and when I did, took my hand to your heart and said:

“I have to go. I love you more than anything I ever have in this world. But I have sacrificed my path to walk with you along yours. And now I’ve lost myself in my love for you. But now my Truth, MY path, calls. So urgently that it keeps me awake through the night. I have to go. And I would ask you to come with me, but I already know the strength of your pull to your path. You must continue. And I must go find my own way again. And if you love me, you’ll let me go. Because this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do and I don’t have the strength to do it on my own. I need your help. Please. Help me go by letting me go.”

And so we let each other go — in the most bitter but beloved lesson of Unattached Love.

But still the sledgehammer’s bruises mark my heart.

And the tears continue to make trails down my cheeks.

And I feel the vacancy your hand left in mine.

Yet in the center of the heartache and under the swollen eyes of overworked tear ducts – I feel strength seeping back in. For in embracing my pain, I think I have somehow embraced my humanity. And perhaps it was THIS lesson that Life needed a sledgehammer to show me; That Love humbles us.

And that there is nothing more worthy of our humility.

And so in my empty hand, I clench onto my vision of you; On the top of a mountain, at the summit of YOUR path, at eye level with the eagle and its flight of freedom that inspires you so. And in seeing you not lost in love, but in your Inspiration, I suddenly understand. I instinctively and immediately throw my arms into the air and free also the creature of flight that I hold onto. And this time, my hand does not feel empty, but full of the freedom that it has released. And I clutch my heart instead in shared joy.

Ah ha.

Letting go of my attachment.

And ALSO my desire to hold on.

So THIS is unattached love.

…..

When I made the ring for you, I wrote this into my journal knowing that at some point I would give both to you;

“Just as this silver has melted and changed from one existence unto another, so has and shall our love; Born in one form – melted into another – re-birthed into yet another new shared existence. Eternal is that, as is all, Love. Continually intertwining like the very Knot of Eternity that brought us together. Having listened to our hearts and followed our unexplainable intuitions, our souls found and walked the paths that would meet in each other. And in this manner will our essences continue to weave, intertwine and dance. And these paths will naturally stray, for the space in the Knot is just as important as the Knot itself – balancing the dance and keeping the cycles of life and loving fresh and flowing. But always will these forms curve back toward each other. For we are not individual and straight lines living out solitary and linear existences, but momentary glimpses of a divinely chaotic and united cycle of love. In the Knot, there is neither end nor beginning, just as we knew each other before we met and know each other without end. And through each other, we shall not understand only one love, but Know all love, as each and every crossing of Life has the capacity to inspire. May we continue to listen attentively to the guidance of the inner voice of Truth, so the sooner that we may follow our individual paths to reunion.”

with undefended, and unattached love,

sol

(sol’s travel photos) (about sol) (some sol stories) (LeapNow.org) (travel disclaimer) (packing list)

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At Her Feet

Saturday, March 13th, 2004

> More India Pictures

Journal Entry

Feb. 13th, 2004

Varanassi, India

The Mother Teresa House for the Destitute

I walk into the house thinking I have offered to volunteer my time and hands, but what I quickly learn is that it is my humility and touch that outstretched arms reach out to receive.

I manage my way through the maze of cots in the dimly lit room. Dark and slim bodies dangle, rock, cry, bang, mumble, laugh, smile, scream, sing and sway — their definitions merging into the shadows themselves.

This is a house for the destitute. And the haziness of my 8th grade vocabulary class gains suddenly sharp clarity as I find myself confronted with a room full of example forms.

Destitute: lacking all money, resources and possessions necessary for subsistence.

The cots and bodies are all only a few feet off the ground and as I make my way through the room, I feel too tall, too strong, too tanned, too fed, too foreign, too full, too different, too BIG.

Who am I. and what place do I really think I have here?

A bony arm reaches out and tugs on my apron. The small bundle of bare life turns desperate eyes up to me and pleads in Hindi for a favor that I do not have the language to understand. There is an impression in the bed that indicates that this body has spent a lifetime depressing the form of its meager shape into it.

She reaches out a frail hand to me. I shy away and struggle with hand signals to explain to her that I don’t understand. That I don’t speak her language. That I don’t know what she needs. That I can’t give her what she wants. And then I scan the room desperately for one of the Sisters to assist me.

But with another low groan of demand, both my hand and attention are grabbed. She pulls me down.

Without any other option, I squat down onto the cold floor and, for the first time, really look at her. Her kind eyes soften my stiff hand. And as my disinclination dissolves and I allow myself to settle into her smiling eyes, I begin to wonder what it was that I was so afraid that I would see in her eyes. Having finally hurtled the last of my hesitations, I sigh my relief. And she, satisfied with finally assuming all my attention, smiles.

My anxiousness melts and my hand warms as I sink into this comfortable place at her feet. And as I do so, I notice with sudden relief how much more comfortable it is down here, looking UP into her eyes, offering myself not from above, but from below.

My eyes take rest in hers. Having stopped searching, stopped seeking, stopped speaking, my shoulders and the worries of the world they support, drop into the shadows around us. And in the silence and space of this moment, she speaks to me. Not in Hindi, and not in English, but in the universal language of shared humanity.

And suddenly, I get it.

I put my other hand on top of the one she has put on mine, and hands embraced, reflect all the warmth in my heart back at her.

How simple. How easy. How obvious. How could I be so silly as to think that I was not familiar with the alphabet of this universal language? Did I not speak this language through the wordless years of my infancy? Is this not the language that still peacefully fills the silence when the clutter and clumsiness of idle and formal conversations inevitably fail and finally fall mute?

The shyness of my hands step aside from the arrogance they hid behind and I cup both her hands in mine and gently massage into them my new understanding of our shared being.

To be touched. To be recognized. To be loved. Are these not my own needs? Are they not the needs of every human being? And did I really think her above receiving them? Or I below giving them?

Recognition is all she asks of me. Recognition of our similarity. Recognition of our shared humanity. Recognition of not only her humility, which is physically obvious, but of MINE, which ALSO rests hidden in a dark corner, but under the heavy cover of good health, youth and opportunity.

To look into my eyes and see herself reflected. To look into her eyes and see myself reflected. And to know that aside from a shade of skin color and a seed of sickness, absolutely nothing differentiates these two images. Stripped of our identities, and both humbled to the floor, in each others eyes, we find our shared existence.

And if I had one wish in this world it would be that every single person in this planet have the opportunity to sit on this floor, at the foot of this woman, to look into these eyes, and to find shared humanity held in these hands.

The dark hand gently releases and pats my hands a silent thank you.

I smile, stand up, and feel smaller.

(sol’s travel photos) (about sol) (some sol stories) (LeapNow.org)

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