IV Inspired Relations

I Knew a Lover Named Raven

Raven was a jester, much too energetic in the morning,

Like the sun was bright. Let me stay blind, or in the dark,

Eyes tight, cracked just enough not to fall on my intellect.

For my head was important. I would need it today.

But my body was cold, and I was in a mood, warmed-up

To stay asleep, and not to feel it, and to keep bundled

Tight, up tight in my heavy coat, scarf tugged as a noose,

Thick gloves. Dreaming of coffee. Let me steep

In remaining dreams from my bed that threatened

To escape when Raven perturbed me, leashed as I was

To the spontaneous pull down the drive, and to the right

On the trail that she could never see as straight.

Let’s get this over, here and back, not Here and Now,

on the familiar path; and be on with it. My day laid out

before me. But she just laughed in her way, such a furry

disrespectful retriever, who I would dearly miss after

her death, more than I ever wanted to admit. She was,

in retrospect, a black-coated trickster, retrieving

too much about myself in her curiosity and her play.

 

The Lover

External/Relational Energies of Powerful-Work Creates the Lover

Painting: Safe in the Arms

The Lover

I carry your heart. I carry it in my heart. e. e. cummings

Mammals, different species, safe in the arms of the other, in whatever fur they wear on stage, as beast or beauty, the true Lover is defined by her ability to move in, slant towards the other, open to the mutual leaning in and heart-felt influence of the beloved. Lovers are Awakened Children and master Artists embracing the larger rhythms around them and in them, sensitive to the dichotomies of life, keeping space for differences rather than weaponizing them in the service of me, me, me. Seeking joy but not avoidant of suffering.

Mindfully flowing in the attuned spaces of intimacy, we see that undeniable tilt forward in their physiology, feel their Heart, the music of their voices, their infinite kindness joined with the courage to speak what is uniquely True and to share what is Beautiful, and to fully listen. Each maintains their unique vision and yet co-creates a world between, a mutual landscape that never previously existed. Self-regulating and co-regulating takes extraordinary Inspiration.

Why this painting?

We continue with our story of lifelong development, moving from Artist to Lover. Here we are still focused on the external landscape but moving into a unique relational and intimate paradigm. This requires shifting from the energy of Loving-Work, rechanneling the capacities of Negative Capability and Fulfillment, focusing them into close bonds and interrelationships. This is a very distinct experiential dimension, moving from what makes our individual Work worth doing to the domain of connection.

Whereas the Child gifts us with the ability to dip in and out of our inner domain, to be with her own suffering and joy, to know internal disturbances without getting completely flooded or caught up in loops of negative self-appraisal; Whereas the Artist gifts us with the ability to step out the frantic energies of the ego, to be with our Work, creative and intentional, and to more readily see and admit when we lose the path, resetting as the art requires; the Lover gifts us with a capacity for a connection that is deeply heart-felt and mutual, interdependent, the ability to imagine the other’s world, while maintaining her own desire path, her unique vision and goals, to assertively say “Yes,” and to say “No,” “This is a problem for me.” Setting boundaries that protect her. Recognizing her limitations.

As the relationship dimension becomes prominent in the Lover, she doesn’t lose energy. She grows into Powerful-work.  She adds. She multiples. States of Mindfulness and Flow extend now into a state of Attunement, and she expands in the mounting energies of Love and Play and Work. In these wild fields of this beloved landscape, Inspiration builds this identity that I call the Lover, a way of being-in-the-world, who can now ask the question, “Who will go with me?”

Powerful-work?

With limbic practice and compassion, she slowly raises the threshold of what she can tolerate without losing her ground, building relational resilience. She can see others more clearly, and, with her own increasing freedom, she naturally works to let others live freely; this is the defining characteristic of Powerful-Work. There’s some evidence that even very disturbed attachment patterns can be improved in this way, in these unconditional (less conditional) relationships. We gain “earned-secure” attachment from heartfelt connections. This is far-reaching, game changing. It means, even if we have been mired in the Fallen world, there can be a way for us as adults to repair the wounds left from our most difficult life experiences.

Being an Artist and still having the Heart of an Awakened Child, our Lover will seek out people who share a felt sense of Loving-Work, (and a capacity for Loving-Play) and, over time, these relationships deepen, become more intimate. Astonishing new places open in the Heart, as she fully imagines the beloved, traveling beyond herself, moving from one meadow into the far fields, and into the intimacy of another’s skin. I-thou.

Though Power, like Love, Play and Work, can seem slippery to define, here I highlight Power as the sense of agency in relationships, the ability to make something happen that’s both loving and authentic. Such Power is overcoming, not overlording. It is the potency to serve others, the vigor to manage triggered states in the service of being a healing force. Becoming synchronized with another, connected yet willing to lay down our weapons and take off the armor, this is a state that’s hard for mammals to achieve, not to mention exceedingly difficult to maintain. Only the safest relationships invite us to turn off these force fields and to be freely exposed; but even then, it takes courage to stay attuned, especially if what we hear sounds like criticism or anything that seems patently unfair, cutting, and harsh. It takes guts to stay present and be willing to face our worst fears, our deepest worries that we have been found to be inadequate to the person we love, or unworthy, or unlovable.

Felt Sense

In my twenties, this third “sense” felt a bit like coming out of lonely dark trees into the morning of a warming meadow. My family of origin was emotionally detached, cold. My parents were always secretive, cut off from others, from extended family, from neighbors. They had no friends.

From such a distance, they no doubt seemed normal, average.

The father worked full time and spent off-time on home-repairs.

The mother worked part-time and worried about the kids.

The children all went to school, and no one got into serious trouble, though they failed to excel.

But chaos was hidden beneath the outward surface. Undeniable tension cut off my appetite at the dining room table. My father’s stony silence, the random acts of violence. My mother erasing herself and speaking openly only late at night, drunken and whispering.

As for many of us, Powerful-work was not something that was mirrored in our family.

It seems in retrospect I would have been much safer to stay hidden in the forest (staying isolated, and less anxious), but that was not what my heart ached for.

Exploring the world of friendships, first with peers, driven to this relational landscape even sometimes against my will, I began to learn that there could be moments of deep connection. Attunement is how as a therapist I would describe it to clients, moments when fewer words need to be used, and heart-felt understanding is conveyed in the eyes, sometimes a touch.

Such Inspired Power is Work. It requires commitment, as courageous as any Artist devoted to the craft. We grow only as we tend the soil of our most intimate life with another who is also aware of their own Power. In time we develop some trust. We then can cultivate new ground. We can then increase trust. Develop further. It is like the seasonal cycle of attachment and of flow. In our ongoing work, we cannot control the outcome, yet we must make courageous efforts. It takes sweat and certainly tears.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all the time. Rumi

As our story goes, naturally, the Lover becomes wise in her use of Power, more spontaneously on-point, intuitive, sensitive. She recognizes the ability to injure and the strength of the Heart to heal those in Pain and Self-deception. What she perceives is Beauty expanding beyond her love partners, to include more than her family, her tribe, her nation-state, to include a larger and larger ring of life, encompassing all the other mammals and other creatures of the planet, until Inspiration grows her into a Lover to the world.

Unconditional Love: Capacity of the Lover

To be in harmony with the oneness of things, is to be without anxiety about imperfection.

Zen Master Dogen Senji

Of course, this is not a description of limited human lovers. The “lovers” we find around us, and in the media, can be full of themselves, over the top with egoic desire and lust, while presenting themselves as “a giver,” willing to do anything for their partner, unless they get irritated, then they will do nothing. Or they may be pestering, intrusive of the one they supposedly cherish.

But everyone has the potential to step into this ideal of Lover. Like the Child and the Artist, the Lover is a Self-construction: Inspiration working through the relational medium (state) of Attunement, to create a way of walking in the world that can make a difference. What is Attunement?

Like Mindfulness and Flow, Attunement is a Heart-state. Here we’re extending the word further than the mother-child’s attachment. Attunement can be nurtured as a mature adult as we extend this into all our relationships and connections. Such Attunement is not just about the surface appearance (physical attraction) but an apprehension of a surplus, the depth, the promise of this unique being (human or otherwise), your potential beloved. It’s an apprehension that goes beyond what we’re usually prepared to see, and so we normally don’t. But in an instant, when we finally attune, the veil drops.

When we’re Attuned, as in Mindfulness and Flow, we lose time. The ego moves aside.

Not Logical

In an Attuned state Lovers defy the common belief that everyone is out for themselves. I’ve seen loving partners immediately ask for forgiveness when they have caused pain (apologizing even when they have not meant to cause pain). Why in the world would they do that?

In the energy of Attunement . . . if we have wounded, acted out in selfish or manipulative ways, we apologize, not because we’re trying to gain something, but because we’re wired by evolution to shift from being a self-obsessed individual when we feel safe enough. We’re also endowed with a potential—the central capacity of the Lover—for what I would describe as joyful multitasking, the ability to focus on both our own aliveness and our beloved’s, in the same moment. This is the Inspired Self working through our connections, a boon is bestowed, a libation is given that pours over us as we cultivate our ability to stay present with all that is on stage.

The most sublime act is to set another before you.

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

The Lover can step into the other’s shoes (their body, their being), to extend awareness beyond egoic notions, to be aware of giving and taking great Joy. All at once. I’ll name that Unconditional love. But there is another Capacity beyond which I will call Discernment. The ability to truly know who is in front of you, without projections. This is an ability to form judgments that matter while not losing Unconditional love; in fact, the perceptions are grounded because you Love.

The Beginning that is Desire

 I’m powerless in this storm as your closeness flings me

Out of complacency into those recurring sensations of longing,

Threatening the integrity of my tiny self.

Is this the panic of house dogs,

when someone penetrates their safe night’s silence?

And stands unexpectedly on the threshold?

Just a disorder of physical energy, a chaos of tingling.

an upset stomach and palpitations?

No. There’s something balanced too, and welcomed,

not an aversion to an intruder but rather Joy, cutting sharp

through the circumference into the heart. I’ve tried to think

the attraction through, containing it. But there’s not an object

to be measured. There’s more of the opposite, a paradoxical

complement to death: life on the precipice, shifting, changing,

with every movement, every loving glance and breath.