Love is a cycle of meeting needs. I’ve said you can’t actually love someone without knowing what they need. In this case, love is a verb. Many times, we use love in a more selfish way. I “love” him means I feel good around him, my needs are being met, etc.

But love is really the dance of having a mutually beneficial relationship with one’s total environment.

Your house benefits from you living there because you take care of it and keep it from rotting or being abused or taken over by weeds and nature. It loves you back by providing the structure you need for privacy, to keep you comfortable from the elements, etc.

When we become unbeneficial to the people or things in our lives, we start draining the “trust” account. Reciprocity is the sign of a thriving relationship. Both parties are cared for. When the scale tilts too much in one direction, and needs are not being met, the relationship approaches an empty trust and the brink of failure.

Some relationships are designed to end. Mothers stop producing milk, and children move on to new relationships.

So what’s love got to do with it?

When we find ways to nurture our environments and relationships, we build them better for ourselves. Real love is inherently also self-care, as none of us lives without relationships.

Devotion/commitment is the energy that makes love keep cycling. Trust is the currency of love.

It takes more energy to interact with a single person than with a social media platform (or simply just being on the receiving end of pushed information). Posting something often requires much less thought than engaging a single person. And when a person is tired, it takes less energy to just post something generally and respond to the reactions to that post. It, then, could also be considered lazier, cheaper, and less valuable.

Things I’ve been wondering about…

Class inequality, rich vs. poor.
Are the poor complicit in keeping themselves poor? Or is the power and education differential too great?
What are the responsibilities of the wealthy to support the community and its infrastructure?
In a world of international trade and resource movement, how does loyalty work? Do you care for your home country or let it fall into chaos? Who are the caretakers? What’s in it for them? Who supports them?

My notes, thoughts, and paraphrased information from a talk at the San Francisco Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center tonight, entitled: Spiritual Activism: Awakening the Heart to Transform the World with Swami Ramananda

Act with that feeling of connectedness—brings peace and compassion to our actions.

If you protest with the feeling of separateness, the “other”, hatred, you will only be adding to the divide and the unrest. Not helping solve the problem.

It’s important to keep a regular practice of re-centering yourself, so that you can keep your peace, and respond peacefully.

When you interact with the world, it helps expose your weaknesses, so you know where to improve.

EASEFUL – PEACEFUL – USEFUL

It’s important to bear witness and be present to what’s happening in our world. Not to pacify, or isolate ourselves.

It’s important to experience the emotions of loss, etc. without getting lost nor letting the behavior be governed by them.

BE INVOLVED – BEAR WITNESS – BE TOGETHER (NOT SEPARATE)

Resist the urge to judge or blame anyone – the fault and good lie in all of us collectively.

Have compassion – know that those who are causing suffering are suffering themselves.

Bury insult & injury. Forgive.

Chant and pray. Prayer is an underestimated force in the age of science. Send your peaceful energy into the world daily.

The workplace is where Got put us to cultivate our spiritual values.

Do small things with great love (Mother Teresa).

When you listen to someone, they don’t need to fight anymore.

Lasting change does not come from wars or treaties, but from small groups of dedicated people all over the world who are committed daily.

1. Grow our roots with spiritual practice – so that we can be aware of ourselves, know when to extend and when to withdraw.

2. Practice spiritual principles (non-violence, compassion) in every day life (eating, sleeping, traffic, work, etc.)

3. Look for ways to be of service & take action.

Makes as many mistakes as you can as quickly as possible. We learn by doing.

In keeping with the reason I started this blog – to write down things I discover that are kind of neat/worth remembering – I figure I ought to recommit myself to daily blogging.

I’ve reached another very interesting junction in my life. I asked a student I met on the Amtrack last weekend to tell me about the sun. He explained that every 6 years, the sun completes a kind of cycle of the interplay of its double magnetic fields. The fields become sort of gradually twisted and warped, and every 6 years they “snap” back into place dramatically. This year, 2013 is a fresh start for the sun. And it feels like a dramatic and fresh start for me too.

I’m recently playing around with the idea of “Want nothing, and everything will want you.” (-some Yoga Swami). It’s a continuation on my last year’s decided theme of “Stop Striving, Start Thriving.” As of a couple weeks ago, I decided I have had enough of the “piece it together & try a bunch of part-time things” lifestyle. I’m ready for a whole ‘nother chapter. And I think this chapter will be an education in really using community to get stuff done, rather than “look what I can do!”

It’s also about manifesting what has been now a couple years in the making…my intention to stop living in survival/crisis mode and instead experience vast wealth and abundance. This, of course, is not an overnight process, because one does not shift 30 years of thinking overnight without any fallback into old patterns. Let’s suffice to say I’m making great progress on some of the key principles so far, which I ought to start writing down if I know what’s good for me.

My housemate complimented me on my bold sexuality again today, and let me know that I ought to be passing it on to empower other women. I shall attempt to do so, with the full understanding that many will not understand. He met me about 3 years ago, on a day that I chose to wear mascara, maybe even eyeliner. Perhaps this is significant given my profession at the time as a track & field coach. My “putting myself out there” had such a profound impact on him that he monitored me the next 3 years, as I navigated dating anew, just as a 9-year relationship had ended.

Now that he has had a chance to live with me for several months, and sees my lovers come and go, he tells me his is struck by my boldness in “choosing whom to sleep with.” That is, I think, not accepting society’s (outdated) norms for how a lady “ought” to conduct dating relationships. I’ve certainly learned to follow my own instincts rather than relying on shoulds/should-nots, though that has been a constant process of evaluation and soul-searching. Whevener one takes their world from following black and white standards to navigating shades of grey, they take on a very large burden of responsibility for their actions, choices, consequences, etc. I have found that I can get my needs for physical touch and sexual experience and intimacy and partnership (and reproduction!) met in several ways, all the while maintaining respect for myself and for others. I do not claim to be good at it. I’m still learning. But it’s nice someone notices the effort I guess ;-) I’m still not quite ready to write about more specific experiences, but I trust it will all come out in due time as needed.

I’m also feeling caught in this weird space between eras, like we are all heading toward one superbrain, where we all have access to each other’s thoughts (at least the ones we choose to upload onto the internet). The only thing that makes me want to express myself at all in writing is the fact that, even though I feel very (almost too) interconnected and eternal and one with the universe, that there are thousands and thousands of years of human experience before me, and may be thousands and thousands after me. And there have lived characters, such as Jesus, who have affected many generations with his thoughts and words.

It is true, that, no matter where we come from before we have consciousness in our human bodies, and no matter where we go after, that at least it matters to other humans what we think and feel and experience. I know this because I care about what others think and feel and experience. It helps me orient myself in the cosmos, on this planet, etc. It lifts my mood. It entertains me.

I have to say that my limited psychedelic exposure really challenged me in terms of what we are capable of experiencing with the chemistry and electricity that make up our bodies and consciousness. The hyper-intense feeling of being totally separated from “myself” (body/mind/etc.) was unnerving, to say the least, and ultimately drove me to wanna camp out in “myself” in a sober way and just live my “self,” as silly as she can be at times, more fully and presently and gratefully. Every once in a while, I am tempted to slide into the apathy and oblivion that accompanies feelings of ONENESS. We are all so, SO similar to one another – we are, at the core, a piece of DNA that just happens to look and act slightly different depending on how we find ourselves replicated in a new body. We have a lot of the same thoughts. We bathe in the same seas of oxygen, emotions, and energy. While the feeling of being a totally independent and separate creature in my ego is so strong, my experiences have revealed to me just how inaccurate of a worldview that is. I am not promoting drug use in any way, btw. It is very, very dangerous and I believe in living 99% sober. But in the end, I have gained a little in perspective, and think I’m coming back into a place where writing things down seems fruitful again. We are not ONE just yet, in access to each other’s thoughts, and perhaps someone, someday, will find something I said or thought of interest or use. Even if that’s just the kids/grandkids!

I know I sure enjoy looking back and seeing what I was thinking 6 or 7 years ago…on the last sun cycle :-)

Onward…