Note: This piece originally posted on February 23, 2012. I’m re-posting it because I find myself far, far behind on my writing and blog communication. In fact this morning a reader wrote to me with a number of valid concerns. She needed to let me know that I’d hurt her feelings and she was wondering if you all are “just” readers to me; was she, in particular, not meaningful to me?
I want each and every one of you to know how deeply important you are–how meaningful you are. In the midst of this illness that has taken so much of my time and energy (see previous post An Antidote for Pain) you give me, daily, a reason to write–a reason to create! You listen and you share, offering me connection. You give me hope every single day that this dream I’m living and the parts of it I’m still stretching for are real and can come true. So please know, you are VERY meaningful to me. Each one of you matters.
Why Does Love Matter?
I’m not so tough. I’m pretty sure most of you don’t think of me as tough anyway, but the fact is, I do. By that I mean I like to believe I can make it on my own—do everything for myself—that I don’t need anybody else for my life to work and be full.
I take great pride in living out here against the land grant, isolated and on my own. I revel in my silent nights, wandering in the dark, out under the stars. I drink in the solitude as if it were nourishment and, in many ways, it is. I carry in my own wood, light my own fires, keep myself and my animal family warm and well.
But last night I faced something of a crisis and, deep in the midst of it, I asked myself what makes my life meaningful? And all I could come up with, once I had run through my usual dogma about finding it within, was that I find meaning from others—from outside of myself. From loving others. And as natural as this may be to the rest of you, to me it was a shock, the polar opposite of my closely held belief system.
I cuddled the dogs on the floor. I wrapped myself around the cats. I thought about Anna and Bill and my friend, Kathy, in Massachusetts. They are what bring meaning to my life. And you. The level of communication we share in this blog community is precious to me. In fact I have come to need them and you. Another shock.
In those moments I understood that I can be an artist or a waitress, it doesn’t really matter. But what does matter is that I have connection outside of myself—that I have love. Beyond self-love (which has always been a struggle for me), this is something I can’t do for myself or by myself. For this, I have to extend myself beyond self. I have to need the other. I must be willing to admit there is something I can’t do on my own. And I must be willing to stand in the truth of who I am, speak my name, and be seen.
In the David Whyte tape I’ve mentioned to you before, that I’ve been listening to lately, he says life is constantly telling us we’re larger than we think we are. He suggests that we should get very tired of the small stories we’ve been telling about ourselves; that we stop leaning on our wounds as a kind of dyke against experience. Instead we must open to the actual experience—open to the the wound. I have spent so much time and energy doing the opposite: living as a self-contained, closed unit, confirming me in the small hole I’ve made for myself.
He also says the flawed human hope is that we’ll get to a place where we cannot be touched. But that we’re all just like everybody else and no exception is being made for any of us. The hope for safety is that we don’t have to follow the path where we would have to claim our powers in the world because it would mean belonging, and belonging on its own terms, not on ours. Belonging and being vulnerable would mean that we could be hurt. He adds that it is surprising how much of our identity is predicated on not being hurt.
He poses this question: “How much will you rest into your own experience?”
And he makes this observation: There is a coal still burning inside each and every one of us, that can be fanned into a flame, if we are only willing to be broken open.
The Buddha said the heart will be broken again and again and again until it stays open.
This is all very new to me and terribly uncomfortable. The controlled systems I have lived within are expanding. It is certainly simpler to live out here on my own, needing no one. But I have seen the truth and there is no going back. Love doesn’t make me weak and vulnerability can actually make me stronger. I am more, not less, when I am open to loving and being loved.
Standing on the edges of breakage and wishing it for all of us.
Love to you all,
Jeane
Indeed, living that paradox is scary when loving means being open to new strength and new breaking. And so is this often uncomfortable journey of learning how to be more–to know more and feel more–by letting go of what holds us to our “small stories” in order to understand the bigger one.
So beautifully, perfectly put. Thank you. Precisely what I was hoping to say. Thank you for hearing me.
One pulls in to observe what is unseen…one then bear the heart with new understanding of a bounty to share. Cycles of living are as natural as breathing, a new star being born in the cosmos, as our cells innate ability to heal. So gratefully we live in a world awesomely temporal and infinitely seated in heaven.
It is such a beautiful, perfect whole. Lovely to be alive.
You ARE strong and in that strength is vulnerability to prove its presence.
Again, a perfect and balanced system. Yin and yang, dark and light, joy and sorrow… and each giving exactly what we need.
Dear Jeane,
I met you last April at the Hines gallery. we were with our friends Suellen and Ed Shapero, for our vacation. I have recently subscribed to your blog, as we are feeling called to the west from our own wild territory here in Maine. I was very close in understanding you and your words this afternoon as I read this post and then I came to the David Whyte part and decided I had to write to you. i have been listening to What to Remember When Waking in my spare moments, or in the car while driving to work. His words make such meaning and nourish me deeply. The building of your own robust vulnerability come through so genuinely. I hope we will meet again when we come to Truchas in May with Suellen and Ed.
With love to you,
Susan Richardson
Hi Susan–
I remember meeting you, but at Hand Artes Gallery I believe. It’s nice to hear from you here. So glad to know you’re a regular on the blog. Thank you. I haven’t heard Whyte’s What to Remember… Perhaps something I should buy. He is deeply inspiring to me as well. Please let me know when you all are coming back to Truchas. I’ll be sure to make myself available. I would very much enjoy seeing the four of you again.
Lovely to hear from you.
I’m curious, Susan, where do you live in Maine? I have a friend from there and he’d love to know…
Ahh, yes! I can say easily I embody that – the feeling of being tough and able to take care of myself….and the exhilarating opportunity to share and pull to me, all that I am – simultaneously!! XOXOX I will break out my David Whyte mp3s…they ARE as close as my phone after all…
… being able to take care of myself while acknowledging that, even so, I need others. For me it is an interesting line to walk.
I am not sure how your reader expressed her doubts about your allegiance to her as a fan, but if she has been following you I am sure her truth is empathy, but perhaps she was speaking to her momentary fragile nature, with her inquiry of you.
I think that is, perhaps, true Grace. Her heart was open and she was feeling everything but was unsure how vulnerable she should be being with this someone she didn’t know. Having given her vulnerability, she needed to be reassured that I was trustworthy.
I love the “un-zen” parts the most; the wicked children, the unruly wretch that won’t drink the Koolaide of silver linings. “the cracks are where the sunlight gets in,” Leonard Cohen said it better, but I first heard it as “the cracks are how the sunlight of the spirit gets in.” Your posts are a silver lining, and real as real, so priceless. As if I have a friend now, in New Mexico, to share this living with. Thank you again. xo
Ahhhh, thank you so much Delia. Your words are a silver lining of comfort just when I need them most. I LOVE the idea of loving “the wicked children, the unruly wretch,” that being most of us. You could just simplify and say, artists! 🙂 And the thought of the cracks being the goodness. I hadn’t heard it said that way before. Thank you. I love that. We are all “cracked” and it is impossible and presumptuous for us to try NOT to be…
Dear Jeane,
Thank you for your beautiful blog that you give to us readers freely. You gift me every time I read it and view your lovely photos. You are a healer of people, in spite of all the sickness and pain you have been through with the shingles. I wish you a fantastic, healthy 2013!
Ah, Sunday, I so appreciate that you are reading the blog with your heart open. THANK YOU! That you feel I am “a healer of people” touches me more deeply than you can know. Thank you, thank you, thank you.