October 15, 2008
Moab, Utah

Sometimes you hurt the people you love... sometimes you try to find the right way, only to find the wrong way, back to the right way.

Let’s get honest… I’m really good at acting as a mirror but when it comes to my own reflection the image apparent to me is anything but clear. I’m good at pointing fingers at people, but I often forget the four pointing back at me. I’m good at convincing myself that everything is ok and going according to plan, when in fact, I have no idea what OK even means anymore or even if there is a plan???

I’m good as long as no one challenges me, cramps my style, makes me take a hard look inwards, or refuses to settle into my personal settlement.

But the fact is… I have issues J Don’t we all.

Any woman I’ve ever been with will tell you I love to let them in, but only so far. I love to love them, as long as they don’t have any expectations, or insist on loving me back. I love to get deep and metaphysical, as long as the lens is focused outwards and involves pushing boundaries that aren’t necessarily mine.

…

Ok, maybe I’m being a little self-deprecating here. I do listen, I do look inwards, and in fact I’m rather addicted to personal growth. But there comes a time and place when you can’t break through things alone. In these moments you need someone you love to give you a boost, a push, or drop you on your head, push you off the plank, not back down, be strong… or all of the above and beyond.

What you need in times like these is someone to help in an Assisted Spiritual Suicide. Someone to help you confront and kill off a side of yourself that’s been holding you back. Someone to administer the lethal love injection that brings old patterns and machinations to the light… and once in that light, any darkness within us has little chance of survival.

My brother says it should be Assisted Ego Suicide since it’s really a matter of confronting and killing the ego… I agree but feel my way rings better… and I think it’s ok to kill off unhealthy spiritual aspects through a spiritual death of sorts.

So you may be wondering what the hell I’m talking about… really. Well I’m talking about love and my own personal fear of love, a fear that I’ve had to take a hard look at recently with some help from a crazy beautiful woman.

I told someone recently that you can’t pick your healers in this life, you can’t choose your teachers, and it seems that they usually blindside you when you’re not looking. A select few come into your life and throw you off balance, and once off balance the healing work comes easy. I think there’s something here… I’ve always strived for balance, aikido, meditation, healthy living… but all of this balance I’m finding these days is just another way of approaching control. If I’m balanced then I’m not off balance, and if I’m not off balance I can assume everything is fine and ignore the imbalances that may still exist hidden in an air of balance.

Anyways, back to teachers. Who would’ve thunk… that one of my greatest teachers would come in the form of a beautiful, petite, delicate, raven-haired flower with a jersey accent. A woman whose power, strength and wisdom lay well hidden behind youth, joy, hugs, smiles, and her own personal issues and imbalances.

Frankly, I never saw it coming. I don’t think either of us did.

After Burning Man when I headed back out onto the road I dropped Liz on her head. I left her not just physically but spiritually. We had been through a lot, and as usual, my way of dealing with the overload was to isolate myself, cut myself off, and work. I withdrew my love… told her and myself it was over, and carried on alone. But I was lying, the master of illusion in me had created the perfect combination of smoke and mirrors… but I wasn’t only deceiving others, I was deceiving myself. In fact, my love was still heavily vested in togetherness.

Liz did as I had asked her… she let go. The way I did things didn’t give her much of a choice but to break apart and move on. I broke her heart and she responded with I love you. But she did let go… In letting go she now tells me she found something else, a realization that she was ok, a realization that she was strong, and a realization that although she loved me, she didn’t need me.

I in the meantime had been out working and walking and realizing how my fear of love had shaped my reality. I came to a point where I fell apart in the face of the realization of how our patterns fed into each other. I broke down, into and through with crystalline clarity the reality of how, as perfect mirrors, we had been hurting each other. Our personal histories intertwined and became entangled to the point of something beautifully disastrous. The disaster became the catalyst, and the catalyst sent us both reeling through personal pain and destruction to the point where we alone had to do the work to put ourselves back together. And as we ourselves came back together we found ourselves as a couple finding our way back together.

Aunt Betty once asked me what love is… I didn’t really have an answer back then, only a feeling. Having been held back for a lot of my life by a fear of love, I’d say my experience is somewhat limited, but as I see it now,

Love Is… letting go while holding on, confronting yourself so that you may work to become the best version of yourself while helping others around you to do the same… teaching, learning, growing, being patient, being supportive, being human… hurting, crying, laughing, being joyful and free both with yourself and with those you love… Trying, understanding, listening, and communicating to the best of your human ability… Being honest even when it hurts, trusting yourself in another’s hands, and being willing to lay it all on the line even if it feels like it’ll destroy you… Cuddling, caressing, and sometimes careening completely out of control only to find your way back home to each other…

“… the Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them; there ought to be as many for love.” – Margaret Atwood

peace,
d