“We can’t connect unless we are already separate; and we can’t separate unless we are already connected. Such is the apparent paradox of relationship. Real intimacy is the art of balancing togetherness and apartness so that they are not so much polar opposites as they are dance partners. The relationship is the dance floor; what we don’t like about each other and ourselves the wallflowers; and the music and movement Life itself, at once outlasting us and appearing as us. In the liberating bondage of real intimacy, our separateness is not a problem but rather a ticket to real freedom, providing more than enough dissatisfaction and disillusionment to push us toward what we really need.”
—— Robert Augustus Masters (Transformation Through Intimacy 2007)
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How’s THAT for a quote. Masters says it better than I ever could, so I might as well, eh?
Anyway, so I was on the phone with my sweetheart see… and the conversation got to that place where we were talking about the relationship itself see… and suddenly I was just overcome by this odd feeling see… It was an uncomfortable feeling. Like a kind of dissonance. Like separate aspects of my consciousness were vibrating at discordant frequencies.
Yea, yea… I know that just sounded a bit like some fuzzy bunny crap you hear at the high-end vegan yoga camps. You know, when they all circle up after the ecstatic dance and share approaches to authentic transformative practice? Just before they needle you to “Like” their professional FB page and register for their next spoon-bending seminar.
I just called it a “brain fart”.
Works for me… anyway, it got me thinking about things n stuff…
Like how it is that electrons don’t even exist until they interact with other matter. Or how can trauma be transmitted over many generations via genetic memory. Everything really does exist within relationship, doesn’t it? Or how about time? Is time even a thing anymore? I mean… I saw the movie Arrival. Dude! that flick rocked my world!
I guess it’s all part of holding that uncomfortable space between the dual and the non-dual. The yes/and/either/or/individual/universal/duality/dichotomy thang!!
Anyway, I explained all this to my sweetheart. That my little brain fart was just some residual residue from those lame old days of less awareness on my part that always used to get in the way of my happiness. Now I’m so much better, now I’m just so damn happy.
Hey, that’s a Loudon Wainwright III song!
Wouldn’t it be cool if Brian wrote a song like that? Of course I don’t mean exactly like that since the Loudon song is about the end of a relationship and my happiness is about the beginning of one… but the beauty of it is that the song captures how it is the awareness of the truth about relationship itself, that leads to happiness.
Relationship simply is, whether one is aware or not.
So the awareness that comes from open and honest examination of those truths, and the corresponding behavior that demonstrates intimacy… these are primary to happiness in relationship. The status of the relationship is secondary.
What might I title a song about my situation, with my sweetie?
Hmm… well I guess that’s Brian’s department.
