Emotional Portkeys and Gaia Friends

My dearest friends! Thank you!

Samme, what a delicious video! The images perfectly illustrate the words and inspire me. Yes, I'm alive, and it's great!

Rachel, thanks for your empathy and support. It's been a joy to see you as a new member of Gaia so quickly integrate into the life, love and flow here.

Zennie, you always touch me so with what you say, thank you. As you know I really loved your newest poem In The Joining - it eloquently expresses the beauty and purity of your love for others.

I am deeply privileged to have you as my friends. You enrich my life daily. Warm love and mega hugs to you all!

Kathy, as you know, I hope, you are one of my most important mentors here on Gaia. I eagerly read each of your blogs and follow the discussions with joy because they open up into many possibilities and explorations. I feel very encouraged to get your confirmation about my energy because you are so sensitive to the energy of others, perceptive and clear.

Eric - yes, he's been there, consistently there in an amazing way since we met in mid-May, so much so that I realised while chatting with him last night that I rarely feel the distance between us, it seems he's right here, not miles and an international border away.

So it is with Gaia friends, just a few keystrokes or a phone call away, with spirits that resonate together and seem to continue the conversation when we aren't aware of talking.

For me one of the best and easiest ways we have of connecting with Gaia friends is the grapevine. We didn't have that on Zaadz when I first joined. For example, Zennie and I have been back and forth a number of times on the grapevine sharing songs, and Samme embedding that awesong song in his comment, and lars is always so cool with the music links.

 I've been having such a grand time with all this that I decided just now to add it to my status line to see if any of my other friends want to swap links on the grapevine.

In the meantime, here's one for you, Kathy, and for my dear buddy Eric:

Queen - You're My Best Friend b/w '39

thank you so much, star! i feel your energy around me dancing, you always bring joy and delight in your wake. it is good to feel it all, and let it all heal… it means a lot to me that you understand so well.

since writing this and being able to move through it, I've been meditating on what it is that I miss so much when I'm not in a relationship. Seeing it, I realise I tend to miss it more when in a relationship. It's intimacy, and I always feel that being in a relationship will provide it, but it never has, quite. On Mike's blogs we have had great discussions about how intimacy is usually shorthand for sex but sex is not often the intimacy we are truly seeking (or running from, depending :) ).
INTIMACY: THE FINAL FRONTIER
INTIMACY: Or Deep Understanding

And of course the foundational intimacy is with oneself and the ground of being, so this is a perfect time for me to deepen that intimacy in the hopes that at the right time I will at last be ready to find true intimacy with another. These real and at the same time more limited and physically distant deep conversations we have everywhere on Gaia are all an important part of the process for me.

thank you star, you have so eloquently expressed what is in my heart.

 yes, i have high standards now, and know it may be much more challenging to find someone, but there is no hurry because I have so much beautiful exploration to do, it could last the rest of my life, and that would be its own form of delight.  Of course, I hope it won't take that long :) but I cannot cling to expectation or try to control the results, only live the process, remembering I always have everything I need, and am not in lack as fear and desire would sometimes lie to me, and try to convince me.

I was very moved and humbled by your detailed comments yesterday, my friends - and prevented by work, then choir practice then internet problems from responding.

Now! So grateful for Tuesdays off, so I can give your responses the time they deserve.

Star - healthy vs unhealthy feelings. Yes. There is an important part of our exploration. Do we ever stop learning? I hope not. But I was focussed in on the kind of fear that lies to me that I am alone. I could look at it in terms of all the wonderful Gaia friends, my church communities here, my other friends, family, all those at the learning centre I run and in the association - and of course I am surrounded on all sides. I am deeply blessed. But at the deepest level, at my core, I am never alone. So, learning to stay connected on that level.

Similarly desires, sure, they are often healthy, but the desire that says I am in lack, I need you to complete me, that one lies to me. There is an incredible joy that comes from sharing more and more, so that I can meet each of you, my friends on deeper and deeper levels. So in a way I don't feel that it takes courage to share my journey with you, rather it is a delight of a certain level of intimacy that is satisfying, though I know I have to go much farther on before I get to the level I seek. There is so much more of me, of you, of life than I am even beginning to understand. Warm love and bows to you!

Mike - The Tonglen is an excellent practice, and I hope to learn much, much more about it both from friends of mine here like Jon and Peggy J who are a lot more familiar with it than I and most of all from the practice of it. There are other energetic means of intimately meeting others that go far, like Reiki. It seems I am meeting more and more people who are practictioners, for example here on Gaia michaelsits and ananda, and my own aunt! It fascinates me and I believe there is great unexplored potential there for me too.

You talk about an intimate encounter with another without the need for 'bodies' to interfere, as bodies do tend to interefere at times (though, of course, they can be conduits as well). We have talked often enough about this that I feel that I am starting to understand what you mean. Also and my own experiences with it this year both glorious and disastrous (sometimes with the same person :) ) have given me a much better context for it. Each kind of exploration of intimacy, with and without the physical, presents its own challenges and rewards. Without the physical, one of the biggest dangers as I perceive it at the moment is not being grounded sufficiently in reality. With the physical, there are so many distractions and the tendency to focus overmuch on one embodiment of love rather than on Love.

I agree that the intimacy we are seeking is at the core being level, so the body at best can be a conduit but not the res in itself (if indeed we are seeking a res, probably Buber's I-Thou is more germane here).

You're also right about the way the Tonglen helped me take another step at becoming intimate with that part of my self that began at a very young age to believe itself abandoned and needing to cling to others, though it is less forgiveness that my current self offers and more love and the truth of not-aloneness.

I was intrigued by what you said just after that, would you please expand on that? I.e.:

 Maybe this helps loosen the distinctions we tend to make which we often refer to as past 'baggage.' (I want to consider this more later).

And here is where others, all others, come into play - in a spirit of oneness we move from the concept of intimacy through intimacy with self to intimacy with more and more aspects of self as we experience many interactions “good” and “bad” (of course, they are all good :) ) through to intimacy with as many as possible, as their levels of permeability permit. Otherwise it's solipsism.

I am slowly, slowly starting to get what you mean by we either enter 'heaven' together, or we remain alone, together. This will require the deepest of understanding or intimacy between people then we can even currently comprehend (I speak personally).

Then you say - This is not to deny spiritual practices as long as they are the catalyst to a bringing-together of the parts we refer to as selves. In fact, meditation may not get you to 'heaven,' or 'pure bliss' but may help bring us together so we can all get there.

It seems an acid test for spirituality - does it lead as to or away from oneness?

Peace angel! Warm hugs.

Zennie - how glad I was to see this morning that you had added your comment. I knew it was going to be really good. And you exceeded my expectations. Again! :) Daily.

I am learning  that love (emphasis learning) is not something I do, it is what I am. It is the falling away of my separate self in the sense of attachment to my ideas of how things have to be in relationship. Specifically, my conditioned viewpoints and requirements that she needs to do x for me to feel loved and secure.

Wow. That has been a biggie for me. And you are one of the best teachers I have right now in this skill, as you open yourself through your poems and blogs and in every way to those around you, in the most delightfully trusting way.

Just when I think I'm getting this lesson because being love is going well in my friendships, I get a reality check in terms of how I still revert back to the neediness in a relational setting.

The problem always began when I believed the other person has done Love to me. Let the games begin with me trying to get more love, and the trying to be more secure in that love based on what she said or did. Truthfully, it unfairly makes her overly responsible for my happiness. At a minimum manipulation arises from this and can proceed from there. Closer to the truth in my experience is I am love the love I seek.

I couldn't express it better. Thank you. What you go on to describe, the joy of learning more and more about the other, of letting go the conditioning (as per your great blog I referenced above) and all the other stuff I tend to dredge in with me as I move into a relationship.

All the barriers, including expectations and yes, my attachment to how I experience him, have to fall if I am going to experience intimacy in this setting. I think you're right, life is for us to grow - into Love. Control is an illusion which alienates us from each other. It seems like a very healthy approach to keep questions assumptions and patterns and taking time off from relationship at times.

I know what you mean about not wanting to be Ann Landers :) One of the biggest gifts my last mentor gave me was showing me that no one needs advice from anyone because each of us has all the answers within. So, I tend to resist giving advice too, and ask a lot of questions instead when people ask for counsel.

I do try to be aware of the positions I take because within every position is an inherent limitation. If I miss in that awareness, then life has several built in mechanisms for kicking me in the ass to get my attention.

Yes! This is so true. Every time I take a position, I lose the other perspectives and thus risk painting myself into a corner, emotionally and psychologically and spiritually.

I love you so much, Zennie. I thank you again for all I am learning from you.

Deep bows to all of you…

Thanks, my dear Janie. I'm glad I'm me too :P

I'm glad you're you! Big hugs.

thanks, martha. you always inspire me too, you know. huge hugs!

thanks Samme, that's so beautiful! Hugs

i think so too. this was one of my early acquisitions not long after i first joined Zaadz (now Gaia). Thanks for stopping by!

thank you! you are always so supportive and warm… well, i am wrapping up my time in Tokyo, so that will be a whole nother blog! :) Big hugs and lots of love, my dear friend!