This story isn’t for everyone. Only those who know (deep within) their partnership IS NOT serving their highest good (you do know). If a wise intelligence inside you is whispering This ain’t right, LISTEN UP.
I spent 10 years in a relationship I logically should’ve never started. Within the first few weeks it was clear I was the fool headed for the cliff. But at that time (and probably still now — but with more discretion) I’d pick the fires of poetry over fact — any day.
Hail beauty! Those 10 years brought exquisite romance, adventure, and deep communion into my life. One night. Riding in a taxi, looking out at Lake Michigan, intoxicated by the moon and his laugh, I remember resting my head on his shoulder and thinking I couldn’t be more grateful or happy. I remember moments so pure and open, as if we had become the light swimming through itself. Honestly, I still don’t know if a man will ever bed me the way he did. BUT I haven’t a clue who my husband is, yet. The truth is: Our love will always be irreplaceable in my heart AND IT FUCKING HURT when I finally awoke, admitted, and honored my knowing that there was a better love waiting out there for me.
But here’s what I want you to know. Every great love is irreplaceable. That doesn’t mean you should stay.
I’m going to say it differently — Every great love is irreplaceable and because it is, it makes it replaceable.
I don’t say that to diminish the love we shared or your love. Or even to make light of love. In 1984 when Tina Turner sang, “What’s Love Got To Do With it”? She wasn’t making light of love either. What Tina knew, and what I would later understand, is that there is a much bigger, consistent, more life-giving intimacy and adoration waiting for you — some call it unconditional love. I prefer, All That Is. And when you find it and make it your main partner in crime, your capacity to love is going to make you cry.
Love IS the essence of life, and it’s got a hell of a lot to do with it, but it’s UNCONDITIONAL LOVE people.
So cliché! you’re sayin. NO! Listen up.
Think of your relationship. It’s likely you or the other person only offers/expresses love (intimacy, openness, kindness, respect, physical touch, praise, support, strength, admiration, happiness) when the appropriate conditions are being met (on their or your terms).
Ex.
They can’t express emotion, it affects your love capacity (your capacity for self-love &/or your ability to flow love through your being to them).
You flirt with someone else, it affects their love capacity (their capacity for self-love &/or their ability to flow love through their being to you).
They lie, it affects your love capacity (your self-love &/or your ability to flow love through your being to them).
You vote for Donald Trump, it affects their love capacity (their self-love &/or their ability to flow love through their being to you) … etc. etc. The details are unique to your relationship but the shutting down of one (or both) of the partner’s love capacity is not.
It doesn’t matter, you say, BUT I LOVE THEM. Baby, that’s when you gotta turn on Tina, Love’s got nothing to do with it. Receptivity does.
If both or one of you cannot keep yourself connected to your ultimate capacity for love — to both give and receive wellbeing, intimacy, and joy regardless of circumstance — then, I want you to know, whoever can’t, has more learning to do; has more self-love to allow; and has a better lover waiting for them. I know this, because in my case, it was me.
I couldn’t flow love to my lover in an unconditional way, regardless of the actions he was choosing. I couldn’t show up and love him unconditionally because I didn’t love myself yet. The deeper into the relationship I fell, the more my love for myself was dependent on his love for me. When he would choose unloving actions, I would cut myself off from All That Is. That felt shitty. When he would make a choice for the benefit of him, I would take it personally and try to change my truest self and expression to accommodate his needs. That felt inauthentic. My lens for my life had become his lens. When he would behave in ways that were unloving to his true self or mine, I would behave in ways that were unloving to my true self or his. This cycle got nasty, taxing, and even self-hating.
Look, I could’ve NEVER seen this from an objective, healthy, or spiritual P.O.V. at that point in time. I was in it. I loved him. He loved me. We could make it work. And we totally could’ve made it work. I still believe that. BUT in reality our partnership was not going to call forth our highest self-awareness, self-expression, evolution, or self-love. What I now know — we are both better, more loving, healthier human beings with someone else by our side. Even if that’s not what I thought I wanted, my inner guidance did. Inside me there was a consistent voice, a feeling, a knowing, and loving call that, even though my heart was going to break, I should leap.
My heart was already broken. So I leapt.
And surprisingly, the person who caught me was myself.
In moments when I couldn’t hold me, my mom never wavered. I can always count on my sister for humor. And my two best friends showed up for the ugly, snotty parts. The healing was long. They say it takes 1/2 the time you were together to heal fully. The good news, I busted that myth, you can do it quicker or it might take you longer (like me). I’m not promoting that it’s going to be easy. Know this: the process will irrevocably change you — in ways you don’t even know you want to change. But trust me, you do.
You WANT to feel All That Is flowing to you and through you. You WANT to feel complete freedom from the conditions/expectations/and judgments of someone else. You WANT someone to let you be free to choose what’s best for you. And you WANT to let someone else be free to receive their higher guidance. You WANT to both give and receive unconditional love from your highest being. I promise you that.
Soul mates come to alter your soul when you need it most. To make you grow and flower on a spiritual plane. Like alchemy, they transmute your state of being. For most of us we need that one wild soul mate, that blazing fire, to transform us, to wake us for our next great love.
Will my next love be water, earth, or air? Will I choose to walk through the fire again? I believe, when the man and the time is right, I will experience it all. So I’m waiting for the man in the mirror, the one that reflects to me my highest worthiness because he knows his own. I know that love exists and will be in perfect time.
But the greater truth is the timing doesn’t really matter. Nowadays I know I am unconditional love and I am always available to me. That doesn’t mean I’ve lost sight of the poet who desires flames in my soul, chemicals in my skin, and wonder in my mind. I cannot wait to fall in love again. I still want a love that’s full of magic and rare. But this time, I want a man who’s been through the fire and come out the other side. I don’t just want one type of alchemy, I want an entire alchemical zone, and I want to be a part of his magic zone, but only if he has already become his own alchemist.
I WANT SELF ALCHEMY. And I want to share each of ours together.
In the wisdom of the tarot, the cups (water) represent the emotions; the swords (air) represent the intellect; the pentacles (earth) represent stability and support; and the wands (fire) represent the passions.
Look at the fool card — He holds that wand, he’s touching fire. He’s turned his back to the sun (the light of his source). He carries his life experiences behind him but they’re baggage yo, they have yet to be transformed into the air of wisdom. He’s still holding the white rose of innocence. Fool’s going over the edge. Not even his animal instincts (his bodies intuition) can get his attention. Fool’s still got more to learn.
Now look at the magician — He has all the tools for magic before him. A cup, a pentacle, a sword, and a wand. And because he posses all four, he has been gifted a fifth tool. It’s still a wand, but this time a pure one. An infinite wand, that never looses it’s magic. Whenever I do a tarot reading for someone, I always offer the idea, that the magician’s raised arm is an extension of that wand. In other words, he has learned that he IS the fifth tool, and he had himself all along.
Tina Turner sang we don’t just need passion, we need the tools of infinite love too. Clarity of mind. A giving and receptive heart. Firm grounding and support. Heat. When we posses these tools we can see someone as they really are because we can finally see ourselves — fully worthy of the best life has to offer, with an infinite capacity to love and receive love. I believe we were all born with the magical tools of unconditional love, but most of us lose them somewhere along our way. Then comes a tipping point when all our tools are gone. A new journey begins. The journey of finding them again. I know the only way I rediscovered mine. I took the fool’s fall.
If you hear that whisper. Don’t be afraid to leap, because after a hot blaze of fire what your heart and soul might really need is the ground. And hell, maybe you’ll land in a lake or swim in the air. When you are the magic anything is possible.
P.s. A little TT (if you need it):
Art by Kate Rabbit