Living Well: One Two One

 

DRAWING BY DAN MAZUR ©

I love February. It holds both my birthday and Valentine’s Day, and I usually think about the idea of “twoness,” the notion that there’s more than one of us here, though I don’t believe it for a moment. There’s only One. It is playing a love game with Itself, and each one of us is Its favorite beloved. Here’s how it all began:

In the beginning was the Infinite Intelligence of the universe. All was peaceful, until the One had a desire to know Itself. This was the first universal problem, because the one and only thing impossible for the One and Only to do is to know Itself.

Like seeing into your own eyes, you simply cannot do it without a mirror, even if you’re omnipotent. So duality came into being, and then infinite variety: all faces, forms, emanations of the original Idea of Life—each one a divine mirror of the One, so that it could know and love Itself.

As the chapters of Life’s story unfolded, many lovely things came into being. Shared pleasure was born: kissing, hugging, eye gazing, hand holding, sighing, swooning, yearning...you name it. Love songs, passion, couples wrapped in each others’ arms in deep surrendered slumber, their breathing synchronized in the wee hours before dawn. So much beauty! I’m not naïve. I know the coin has a flip side. Duality also brings tension, conflict, fear, a sense of separation. The same line that connects the center points of two circles—or two hearts—can also become a dividing line.

But the two-sided coin—and the ever-present possibility that it can flip—makes the whole game more precious. The heat builds combative friction only to the degree that we hold onto our separate identities as empirical reality. As long as I am me and you are you; and I need to know I am separate in order to feel safe with you, I have a lot to defend. As long as you do the same, we have a bit of a stand off. But it’s Valentine’s month. Let’s look at the other side.

This heat also has the beautiful potential to build into passionate surrender and ecstasy. All it takes is a willingness to let go of the little idea of “me” for an awareness of the original One as our real identities, and the courage to allow that “me,” with all its willfulness, to become a servant to a bigger idea—trusting in an awareness of that One, knowing It is the base of all.

This is an ongoing practice for me.

My current chapter began with a little pre-midnight kissing after a three-and-a-half hour Valentine’s dinner at the Inn. I told you all about it in March 2012. Then a year-long adventure of courting, exploring, trust building...time together...time alone. All on a solid foundation of resting in the Oneness when twoness becomes too much to bear.

One weekend we drove to San Diego in the thick of a painful conflict. Two seemingly unreconcilable perspectives created a cool wall between us.

Our only possible connecting point was that magical place Rumi so aptly describes as the space “out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrongdoing.” I find this space in silence, so I asked if we could get still before driving.

We looked for a patch of earth, my personal and literal reminder that we are always on common ground. We found a bit of grass outside of a corporate complex, closed our eyes, and entered the sanctuary, the inner space of oneness residing in our hearts and at the heart of us all. We shared sincere words of gratefulness for each other, blessed our trip, and gave thanks in advance for a miracle. Then, we got into the car, and, to decrease the odds that I would muck it all up while he drove, I napped.

About an hour later, I felt the car slow down. Time for lunch. The place: Au Lac, a restaurant, an oasis, where Chef Ito has taken a vow of silence and serves “Humanese” food, a term he coined to remove man-made borders and ethnic labels which appear to separate humans from one another.

Outside the ladies’ room, I marveled at a beautiful painting of nature and the words the artist has written upon it: “Live each day like it’s our last...it might be. Breathe...love...forgive & let go.”

Berto offered to buy me one of their lovely essential oil pendants, which Chef Ito held up and blessed before placing it around my neck. Ito then hugged us both and gifted my angelic man with a tiny bottle of his own—Love Potion 33. I smiled. In the peace of this place, and after our prayer, a quiet drive, and so much love and generosity, we’d received our miracle. The ice had melted.

Life is fraught with adversity, surrender, fear and joy. Each moment is more sacred because of its precariousness, fragile and new like a flower. Each day is so short. It will all pass: your mood, your conflict, your life—and your other. This month I invite you to enjoy the One in each moment, in each person.

Live in a playground of love in that field out beyond right-doing and wrongdoing. Find a way to enjoy it all.

Your life is a holy lover’s kiss on the mouth of the Divine. Enjoy it with the full pleasure of one who knows that while you are unique, you are never, ever separate from the One, but the answer to It’s deepest desire—to know and love Itself, http://aulac.com/

Tell them I sent you.

Sage Knight is an inspirational author, speaker, and Literary Midwife with a background in spiritual counseling and holistic health. Please visit her at www.SageKnightWrites.com.