A Heart of Stone

"True love and prayer are learned in the moment when prayer has become impossible and the heart has turned to stone."

- Thomas Merton

Solar Adoration

Extend thy light that I may see,
but dim thy glory that I be not blinded.

- Solar Adoration Practice: Aurum Solis Order

The Weakness of God

"... the weakness of God is not the last word but the first, coming as a call or provocation that solicits our response, our witness to the call, which is what comes next, like an “amen” or a second yes. For it is we who have mountains to move by our faith and we who have enemies to move by our love. It is we who have to make the weakness of God stronger than the power of the world".

- John D. Caputo

Too Young

They're not mindbending lyrics, but this song has been coming and going like an old friend for many years now. It came back again tonight, and as always, it ignites youth in me. I needed that.

Can't you hear it calling
Everybody's shakin'
Tonight everything is over
I feel too young
Oh rainfalls and hard times coming
they won't leave me tonight
I wish I knew what I was doing
Just do let this spirit survive

Robert Masters on Deepening Trust

I don't think I've read a thing Robert Masters has written that I don't resonate with. This is him at his best.

 

Deepening Trust

 

For me to trust you means that I, having consistently witnessed your integrity and reliability, have an abiding confidence that you will continue to manifest such qualities. Trust as such is not an a priori stance, but a result.

 

The deeper our mutual trust, the deeper our relationship can go, so long as that trust is rooted not in naiveté — naive or blind trust is not really trust, but just a cocktail of foolhardiness and hope — but in a mutuality which is anchored in transparency, integrity, and love. Trust should not be automatically given; it must be earned.

 

In the beginning, we may be enamored by another's better qualities, and want to give that one our trust — especially if there's an intoxicatingly romantic infusion of hope and lust — but we'd do best to withhold giving our full trust until enough time has passed to see the other in action in a variety of circumstances.

 

If our bullshit detector is turned down to too low a volume — perhaps because we don't want our romantic trance to be interrupted — we will probably get sloppy in giving our trust, selling it for a few baubles of feel-good attention.

 

Seeing how our partner operates when things get rough provides a clear indicator of their trustworthiness. Are they worthy of our trust? We need to find this out, rather than just believing it from the start, out of some naive or romantic notion that we should thus believe. Without strongly anchored mutual trust, intimate relationship remains stranded in the shallows, regardless of its excursions to deeper territory.

 

When I ask most couples if they trust each other, there is usually some hesitation before they say yes — that is, if they even say yes. A hesitant yes is not a full yes; we may be saying yes because we want to trust our partner, or think that we should. But a yes that is animated by any form of "should" is not a full yes.

 

Part of building trust is an honest, in-depth sharing of how we have been less than trustworthy in our past. This is not about re-shaming ourselves for old transgressions and stupidities, but rather about sharing what's happened openly, vulnerably, and in the spirit of establishing a healthy foundation with our partner. No secrets.

 

This can be a painful process, but it is necessary. Not every detail is needed, but enough need to be provided so as to provide a sufficiently clear picture and sense of what happened.

As we do this, it is crucial that we uncover — perhaps with our partner's assistance — the prevailing patterns underlying our past behavior. Some of these patterns may truly be things of the past, but others may still be very much present, however much they may be under wraps. These must be revealed so that they can be worked with; this is not about shaming each other, but rather is about not keeping anything from each other. Doing so is an act of deep trust.

 

Another part of building trust is to openly share our mistrust. We might be tempted to act as if we trust our partner with something or someone, but if we don't, to whatever degree, we need to share that. To thus share our mistrust is actually an act of trust. If we are on the receiving end of this, we need to remain as open as possible; if we shame our partner for daring to mistrust us, they will be less likely to want to share their mistrust with us in the future.

 

Without mutual trust, there will not be enough safety in the relationship to go truly deep. For example, a couple may, regardless of their love for each other, get sloppy when anger arises — becoming hostile, sarcastic, passive aggressive, blaming, and so on — thereby becoming less than a safe space for each other; they may still open to each other, but it will only go so far, simply because there's not enough safety, or well-rooted trust, to go further.

 

We don't want to be at a relational edge, and not know if our partner can be trusted to hold the line secure. This is why it is so crucial to identify any cracks in the container of the relationship. Even occasional sarcasm can generate such cracks, however thin or slight they may be. Aggression

cracks the container, as does contempt and a lack of integrity. Infidelity all but destroys the container, as does violence.

 

Mature couples are deeply and consistently committed to keeping their relational container free from cracks. The container can be transparent, permeable, infinitely expansive, but it is nonetheless still a container, a protected space wherein freedom is found not through escaping the container, but rather through viewing and treating it as a sanctuary of love, awakening, and transformation.

 

If I am untrustworthy in certain areas, do not override your concerns just because I am so wonderful in other ways; that is, do not let my good points obscure or marginalize my not-so-good points. Relate to me as I am, rather than having a relationship with — or being seduced by — my trustworthiness potential.

 

The better the relationship, the deeper the trust, and vice versa. When I trust you fully, I can open with you until I am but openness, sentient openness. When I trust you fully, then our relationship becomes a dynamic crucible for healing, awakening, and relational deepening, so that no matter what arises, it is workable. When I trust you fully, I become more alive, more fleshed-out, more conscious, more brave, more curious and caring, letting our relationship carry me beyond what I have taken myself to be.

 

When we are truly connected, even the arising of disconnection is okay. In fact, trusting each other with our disconnectedness only deepens our mutual trust. The deepest trust of all is but lucid opening to reality in the raw, at once rooted in and generating a sublimely solid faith, a faith that holds steady in even the stormiest relational times.

 

When it is clearly time to trust — as when our partner has consistently demonstrated his or her trustworthiness — do so even if you are afraid to do so. Better at such times to have trusted and gotten hurt, than not to have trusted.

 

THE CRUCIBLE OF AWAKENING

Issue 27 July 2007

Genpo Roshi and Bill Harris in dialogue

Thomas Merton on Love

 

"Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone-we find it with another."

Thomas Merton.

The Price of Admission, Alone

". I want people to bow as they see me and say
he is gifted with poetry, he has seen the presence of
the Creator".
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Allen Ginsberg.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Berkeley, September 8, 1955

. I want to educate in public so people can see me and say
he finally proclaimed like Ginsberg, his words admit the presence of
their Creator.

- Berkeley, 4:22 AM, Thursday 7 August 2008.

The Portable Thomas Merton (a stream of consciousness conspicuous only in the San Francisco Zen Centre bookstore)

I write everything for you.
Every key clicks your every name
of a memory we’ve all had of
your absence, writing these
wretched loops to your memory,
and hope inscribing
itself a retrospect of your
every name forgotten but for a trace
of ether and pencil swirling every
wretched looping day you’re my lost
companion calling a forgotten name found
in every name I call in these wretched
words who practice their howl in
every looping click of your every name
posted in binaries across webs of ether
and codes of your name looped behind
every forgotten roar I scribe in second person
to the only person I am forgotten to remind
us all of the binaries we aren’t when you
arrive, my companion.

Rolfing and Physical Reality - Ida Rolf

Rifling through the bookcase in our Berkeley pad this morning, a book of quotes from Ida Rolf found its way into my hands. It opened to this great little excerpt, which sits in perfect harmony with my bodywork experiences over the last eighteen months. (I nicked this from google books by the way).

Memories and Dust

But in the morning I can smell you on my pillow
I need to know we won’t get wrung out in the wash
I need to know there’s time for us
I must believe there’s time for some of us

’cause i saw two fall before they were ready to
And I found no sense or gain to bear the cost
Comfort comes to those with faith in mysterious ways
But for me faith don’t make up for what we lost.

- Josh Pyke