Category Archives: on love

one love

Posted on by
Reply


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.

*****

Share

Undressing Love

Posted on by
Reply

(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)

Share

Fire My Spirit

Posted on by
Reply

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)

Share

At Her Feet

Posted on by
Reply

> 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)

Share

love story

Posted on by
Reply

*tap, tap, tap*

All work, and no time off, makes Sol an uninspired blogger.

*tap, tap, tap*

Seven days of shooting without a day off, and six more to go. An inbox full of unanswered emails and a conscience brimming with guilt over an uneventful and outdated blog. I finally find a few minutes to type…and all I can do is stare at the screen and *tap, tap, tap* my pencil on the desk.

*tap, tap, tap*

Anyone out there believe in love?

I may have little to say today, but let me introduce you to an inspiring piece by Kahlil Gibran that shot an arrow straight through my heart…

“…He felt an ardent, powerful love encompass his heart and take control of his breathing, the love that divulges the secrets of the soul to the soul and by its poetics distinguishes true intellect from the realm of measurement and quantity. We hear that love speaking when the tongue of life falls silent, and see it as towering pillars of light when gloom envelops all things. That love, that god, descended at that hour upon the soul of Ali and awakened in him emotions both bitter and sweet, just as the sun causes flowers to blossom next to thorns.

What is this love, and from where has it come? What does it want of Ali, distracted from the world by his sheep and his flute? Is it a seed cast by his bedouin virtues amoung the broken pieces of his heart without the knowledge of his senses? Or is it a ray of light that the mist had concealed, which has now become manifest, illuminating the recesses of his soul? Is it a dream striving in the tranquillity of the night to toy with his feelings, or is it a reality existing from all eternity, which will remain until the end of time?

Ali closed his tear-filled eyes and stretched out his hands like a supplicant seeking compassion. His spirit quaked within him incessantly, unleashing staccato sighs composed partly of abject suffering and partly ardent longing. In a voice indistinguishable from a sigh, save in the faint resonance of the words, he said: ‘Who are you who are close to my heart, remote from my gaze, who separates me from myself and binds my present to a distant and forgotten past? Are you a vision, a houri come from the world of eternity to demonstrate to me the vanity of life and the frailty of human beings? Or the spirit of the queen of genies ascending from crevasses in the earth to dispossess me of my reason and make a fool of me amoung the youths of my tribe? Who are you, what is this captivation that grips my heart, which kills and then revives? What are these sensations that fill my bosom with light and fire? Who am I, and what is this new essence that I now call “I,” though it be strange to me? Has the elixir of life been mixed with particles of ether, transforming me into an angel who sees and hears recondite mysteries? Or is this the wine of delusion on which I have become drunk, that has blinded me to the reality of intelligible things?

He grew silent for a moment, then his feelings grew and his spirit rose, and he said: ‘You are the one whom the soul makes evident and to whom it draws near, who the night disguises and sends far away. Beautiful spirit, who hovers in the heavens of my reveries, you have awakened within me feelings that lay dormant like flower bulbs buried beneath layers of snow. You passed by like a breeze bearing the scent of fields, and you brushed against my senses, which trembled like the twigs of a tree. Permit me to see you, if you are clothed in matter. Or pass by in my sleep, once it closes my eyes, that I might see you in a vision, if you are liberated from mortal clay. Let me feel your touch and listen to your voice. Rend this curtain that cloaks me in my entirety. Destroy this structure that veils my divinity, and grant me wings that I might soar beyond you to the mead of the heavenly host, if you be of its denizens. Or caress my eyes with enchantment and I will follow you to the hiding place of the genies, if you are on of their brides. Place your invisible hand upon my heart and possess me, if I am worthy of being your devotee.’

Ali whispered into the ears of the darkness his words, which followed the lilting melody echoing deep in his breast. Between his eyes and his surroundings, phantoms of the night proliferated like vapors given off by his hot tears, and on the walls of the temples appeared magical forms in all the colors of the rainbow. In this manner an hour passed, as he rejoiced in his tears, delighting in his anguish, listening to the beating of his heart, gazing at what lay behind existing things as though the outlines of this life were slowly fading before his eyes, replaced by a dream wondrous in its charms, terrifying in its apprehensions. Like a prophet contemplating the stars in the heavens in expectation of being struck by a revelation, he awaited the arrival of each minute, his quick sighs interrupting his gentle breathing. His soul would leave him and swim about him, then return, as though it were searching among those ruins for a lost loved one.”

– “The Ash of Centuries and the Immortal Flame”, Kahlil Gibran

Share

juan pedro the creep

Posted on by
Reply

*****

Two days ago, Juan Pedro CLEARY violated our agreement by inviting his friends over to our apartment. Not only that, but one particularly obnoxious friend had the nerve to use my shower. With no intentions of reenacting scenes from Arachnophobia, I finally decided that it was time for me to lay down the law…in the form of poisonous bug spray. BUT, to my most pleasant surprise, upon inspection (having not seen my uninvited guests for two days) I noticed a small birds nest built right outside the top of my door…also conveniently located right outside Juan Pedro´s crack. Gotta love the food chain. *dusts hands off* Case closed.

*****

When I walk down the street, people now smile at me, wave and say things like, “Hey bartender!”. Yup. I´m local.

*****

The majority of men in Guatemala take their relationships with one main entree girlfriend…and an assortment of lovers on the side.

*enters the confession booth*

Okay, I have to admit here *although I´m not sure I should* that in the name of trying my damnest to assimilate into the Latin culture *nice bullshit excuse, eh?* … I gave my best shot at dating two guys at the same time this week. *sighs* I gotta say, I give big props to all those double-daters, because this game is more difficult than Jenga on Jack Daniels. Not only did I not have any time to blog *guilty lip bite*, but it only took me about seven days before the little white angel on my left shoulder laid the smack down on the devil on my right, and I broke down and came clean with all. The moral of the story is: Do whatever you want. I don´t believe in story morals.

And if you´re wondering where the “EU” (“Emotionally Unavailable”) status went, no worries, it´s still very much there. The beauty of relationships on the road, is that they are sugary sweet…and conveniently short. They say that the three lines that sum up the travel romance experience: 1. “I´m not drinking tonight.” 2. “I love you.” and 3. “Í´m leaving tomorrow.” No. The fact remains firm, the only thing I can fully commit to, is life…and dating it, occupies the the high majority of my time, energy and heart.

Share