|
Sundown... Sharing the Shore
Old Orchard Beach, Maine
She and I played together
well past midnight last night.
At one point, I was rolling
all over the floor, laughing uproariously,
while she tickled me under the arms.
She likes to hear me laugh, uncontrollably -
Then, resting against her breasts, I heard her say,
"Brian, don't let them bother you so, they're just jealous
that you and I have so much fun making love together
in Here."
* * *
All aspirations to love flow out of Love. In many ways, we can love Life and Life us. Our whole life can become this sharing of love with Love - more, Love with Love.
Presence projects itself outward into form to realize itself. This projection is like the Christian scripture from the Gospel of John, "And the Word clothed itself with flesh." Matter is means of the holy, wholly conjuction. Intangible Spirit realizes itself in and through the meeting of tangible with tangible: face with face, body with body, bone with bone, blood with blood. The Word incarnates toenail and toenail, earlobe with earlobe.
* * *
In the Christian scriptures, the Gospel of John has Jesus saying, "I and the Father are one." See? This is the principle. And it is true of all living-in-communion. "I" is the man Jesus. Born at a certain time and place, with a body. "Father" is the formless; the Unborn unborn.
Jesus is still Jesus. He does not lose his face. His bones do not disappear. His penis is not turned into a halo. Jesus still walks, sleeps, eats, pees, poops, and is entirely a man who can be attracted to another person's body and feel the desire for a romp in the bed with the girl next door.
That Jesus was fully man says he felt all a man feels; that he was human means he felt all a human feels. Otherwise, there is no meaning to the Word is flesh. Jesus was not a partial man appearing as a full man. Jesus was earth, water, fire, air, space, and consciousness. One can say he was more, but one cannot rightly say he was not all this. Jesus models how the Intangible becomes tangible.
* * *
Life clothes itself with faces and places to create communion. This communion is grounded in the elements. We fall in love with bones and eyelashes, together. Just imagine someone saying to his lover, "I love you, but not your face." No, he says, "I love you." You includes every part, and seen and unseen.
Our role is to learn to open the heart - the innermost, intangible aspect of ourselves. Not simply for a feeling of love. For a presence more subtle than a feeling of love.
* * *
When you meet someone, you can be sensitive to and join with what is inside the skin and face. This seeing happens when you engage in a regular practice of joining with what is inside your skin and face.
We have been so trained to relate to others as only bags of meat, we need a practice to learn to see more. This is insight: in-seeing. We retrain from seeing only appearance to see the non-appearance. This seeing can be felt, but it is more than an emotion.
Then, you realize, presence is meeting presence. Your life becomes an act of spontaneous love-making. Possibly, more accurately, love-sharing.
Presence, even apart from your doing or saying anything, can be expressed through your quiet being-with. Your mind-body can be an opening to others of pure presence while you stand in a room among them.
* * *
A crisis point can occur when you work with this practice long enough. You realize no person as person can fulfill this capacity to share and receive love. You may recognize how you experienced failure in relationships, for you were seeking something no one could give you. And sex may lose its attraction, for such no longer fulfills, only hides your true longing. Not that you would not enjoy sex, but sex alone is no longer enough for you. Very good!
You are fortunate if you enjoy a relationship where both you and the other share this inner communion. If you have such a relationship with one or more heart-with-heart, you cherish it. If not, that, too, is part of your practice. Either way works. Regardless, you find it within yourself, for it is all there. You experience the presence in others, whether or not you sense a reciprocation of the seeing.
* * *
We are all like blinds before a window, capable of the Light entering our world of form. Some persons communicate much Light, and some communicate little to nothing. Our role is to grow in how much of the Light can express through us; that depends on how open we are. The Light is already present. No one opens the blinds so the Light will show up: it already is.
In this receptivity, which is openness, the Light acts freely, apart from manipulation or effort on our part. Such illuminative presence is natural, spontaneous, and bright. Natural, for this is who we are. Spontaneous, for it shines of itself. Bright, for it is inspiring, uplifting, and transparent.
The Light does not decide to shine; the Light is the shining. God does not decide to be God. You feel the lightness of the Light when in attunement with the Light, in attunement with yourself. As the Christian scripture says in the Book of James, "Draw near to Spirit, and Spirit will draw near to you." The drawing near is the drawing near. Not two acts. One motion. Intimacy attracts intimacy, yet it is one moving toward, one recognition. You are fingers reaching for fingers.
* * *
(C) Brian K. Wilcox
|
