In haste as usual, I’m paying the bills at 7 a.m., with the baby tied on my chest snoozing. Enclosed are photos of the new babe, and the “old babe” hiding under a towel, just for fun. We’ve been told by our inner Voice to allow our lives to be run by this new child, since he’s a higher spiritual being than we are, and the practice of submission will be good for us, as in the future we will be better able to listen to and submit to, our own inner Voice all the more. It is hard, submitting one’s own independence to a baby’s needs, but it does pay off. It pays off in the moment, because you (I) get to see the sweetness and love of the other side which still fills the new ones so completely. And it pays off in the long run for reasons not unknown.
We all would stand on our heads to receive one of his beautific smiles. I have been reminded frequently of the phrase, “O come, let us adore him,” as we stand around watching him sleep, waiting for the heavenly sleep smile to drift across his face. Of course they went to adore Jesus when he was a newborn! Of course we must adore all our newborns in the same way. You see what’s closest to my heart these days.
I meant to write to say thanks for Lorenzo Milam’s letter — it’s history, and it touched us. And having done the Course in Miracles, I enjoyed, and was moved by, Prather’s Games. Lots of love.
P.S. I don’t know if this is a letter you want to print or not. I don’t know that people will understand what I mean about letting a baby run our lives. Do they know that new babies have needs, not wants? Do they know that we are intelligent people, too, and that all this has nothing to do with the strange old concept called, “Don’t spoil the child?” But maybe we could open an interesting dialogue on the topic. I think how we perceive and care for our babies has a lot to do with how we perceive and care for ourselves.
Please stop playing with your cosmic mirror (flipping in and out) long enough to hear me clearly. Please try not to interpret, edit or rearrange, or even understand this statement: I love you.
For several reasons, I am sure, but the one that is most present in the foreground of this kaleidoscope of consciousness now is that in picking up THE SUN #78 just now with a mind cloyed and surfeited with “New Age Truths” and “Higher Consciousness Affirmations” you again managed to rock me back with such a blast of honest soul music it makes me weep.
You have done that many times you know. Every time you seduce my mind that way, I figure I’ll be ready for you next time, know where you will be coming from, have my intellectual shit together so we can have a pleasant discourse. You invariably tap me on the shoulder from behind with a breathtaking statement of my own awareness so well expressed it leaves me feeling naked. Then you casually scribble “Sy” and toss it into the hopper. Jesus Christ! How am I ever going to keep my dignity and ego safely wrapped around if you persist in this kind of rapacious mind-reading?
Did Ram Dass leave you some pills last time? Have you found a new John Lilly sort of meditation? Have you plugged your mini-terminal into some cosmic source? Or, have you just really permitted the total flow of awareness that comes from surrender to unspeakable Love?
Thanks for being. Thanks for struggling, not for taking the easy ways. Thanks for letting me use you as an example for myself of the beautiful and potent possibilities available through patient perseverance and particularly Love.
P.S. I am male like you and firmly heterosexually oriented so nothing physical is implied or sought herein. I am also a loving human being so affected and stroked by your mind and efforts that some effusive response is necessary. Thanks.
Your Valentine SUN was quite moving.
Romantic love as it appears in its early days, when our hearts burst with energy, does die, like a fresh splash of scent fades from the skin and disappears. Romantic love is that fragrance which draws us together, irresistibly, often despite the cautiousness of our minds. When the fragrance has passed, the couple remains, each affecting the life of the other. We are spiritually paired. Every love relationship, no matter how difficult or easy, helps us to grow. Sometimes when the perfume has vanished and we have fallen away from someone, we have no regrets. Sometimes regrets abound. What is ours forever is the lesson(s) which the other person has brought to us, and the joy, if we will recall it, of being close to another human being.
The difficulty is in relinquishing that satisfying sweet quality of life which is ours in the early phases of love. Love evolves past its young days of fondness, of physical craving, of self-doubt and longing mingled together, of adulation of your lover which can border on the religious. Love evolves past the days of comfort, of delight in shared meals and bedtime, of shared remembrances. Suddenly there is nothing left to tell or discover. For some this loss is itself the end.
But for others, it is when these young phases have evolved into the less passionate that you can resume the application of your energies to the tasks at hand, the tasks of your lifetime. It takes courage to accept this phase of love, for you are alone again. What an incredible pairing it is when two people can begin to live alone together.
People who use their energies creatively often find that their work is interrupted, even hindered at times, by the intrusion of early love. Others may find that the peculiar floods of passion and feeling which spring forth during early love feed their own creative processes as if from the very center of the universe. The point is that love and creativity are intrinsically related and each must discover how their relatedness matters. Pragmatically, the adorations and fondnesses of love capture so much time that one’s work falls to a position of lower priority. Hungry and shy new lovers often do not understand the face which turns back to a book, or a painting, or a room full of strangers, instead of delving more deeply into their own.
Old lovers may regret the passage of romance. The challenge is to release the old days, accept the present, and have faith in the future, whether it holds the continuance of your union or not. At present, your work is with yourself alone. You have been brought to this moment by all that has gone before. Owe nothing and desire nothing, channel your energies toward their most appropriate ends. Despite the different face love is showing to you, it is still love. And what if this is the love of the highest order, the love which exists without appetite, which measures without self-interest, which admires without possessing?
It is always a pleasure to read THE SUN. Radiating from its pages is a personality which has decided to know, not that it does know. An open inquiry into matters germane to Self and Spirit, that is what THE SUN seems about. For as long as it is what you feel you are supposed to be doing, we will benefit from your labors. (Notice that I do not say “don’t ever stop doing THE SUN. Sy, we need you.” This is the mark of discipline acquired, kicking and screaming all the way, while enrolled in this university for the past 37 years.)
This is a helluva good time if we let it be. I was given a natural propensity towards having a good time and don’t intend to stop having a good time until The Big Transition. I wish everybody did. Maybe they do.