With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Today is one of those days, oy, one of those days, where cards and candy, flowers, and schmaltz flow like tidal waves, and at the speed of light, yet.
I will freely admit, I am not fond of Valentine's Day. I feel it is so artificial, so contrived,and worse, shallow.
People spend so much time and money on cards, candy, and other ready-mades, and so little time and energy on the real thing.
Love is hard. It is work. Love requires things of us we are so often unwilling to give. A piece of paper with a sentiment? Please.
Couples grow, relationships change. Sometimes they deepen, sometimes they remain stuck in romantic notions of by-gone times. Love requires a willingness to risk living in new growth. It requires a recasting of ideas, thoughts, and behaviors.
We love our partners and are committed to them. But this love is dynamic and changes over time. and because this is so, the nature of the relationship must change. Often deeper, sometimes in different directions, we work to hold on to an ever-changing ground.
The test of a relationship and the people in it is their willingness to release themselves from the bondage of history and step into a deeper, more satisfying present. Love is not two dimensional, it is incredibly multidimensional with surfaces facing in all directions.
Today I vow to open my heart to all those dimensions and directions..
Be well,
5 comments:
Yes!
All true, but did you still get your wife a card?
No.
HH: I wouldn't try to convince you of course, :) but I think that if ritual is still used in zen and religion, then certain other stylized acknowledgments of the bond between of two people should be smiled on also. It's all ritual after all even if one form is esoteric and the other crass..
As Master Dogen wrote in The Eiheiroku, "When we speak to others in genuine love-expressions such as we use to our babies, we are practicing love words. When we are anxious to give the love words, their enlivening power will gradually expand. Then will come forth such precious love words as are usually hidden from us so long as we remain indifferent strangers to them. When we use love words while we live in this world of ours, we shall be adamant to any change of destiny. Even a deadly foe will be made to yield to the power of love words."
Dogen is correct. The problem isn't the message exactly, but more the medium. No card. However we did spend the day together, hung out in the bookstore, and so on. It is the shallow and silly nature of the mass expression that I protest.
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