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Jan 20
Dear Kat,
There’s nothing to report – we just continue to get on magnificently.
WAIT! That’s the weird thing – how does this happen?
Firstly I want to distinguish between disagreements and arguments. The former is possible, the latter unimaginable. Why would I want to persuade you to do something against your will? It may improve my lot in some way, but the cost of your compliance must be deducted from the benefit.
Let’s say that I see my benefit as M and the cost to you as Y. Then I should go ahead if M > Y.
But you may see the benefit to me as M2 and the cost to you as Y2, so I shouldn’t do it if M2 < Y2.
For this clash not to take place, either
- Our assessment of each others’ states must be accurate.
- If not accurate, our assessment of each others’ states must be generous.
- We believe the reporting of the other.
This may be overly intellectual and abstract, but the point I want to make is that we fully accept the reported reality of the other and do not discount it as less important than ours. This requires two things: that we accept the other as fully equal to ourselves, not in skills and desires but in rights and consciousness, and that we trust the other to be truthful.
Oh, I see I riffed on this a couple of posts ago. Read the rest of this entry »
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Jan 17
Its been a while since I’ve posted. However, I am dedicated to continuing. I am still absolutely convinced that what you and I share can serve as an inspiration and give informational support to others. Let’s keep writing this blog back and forth. I find it really helps in the process of finding words to talk and write about our union.
There are paradoxes associated with how we are with each other. We do not experience our union as something that takes work or that we have to consciously apply techniques to achieve. And yet it is something that we have to actively do. It is something that we have gotten better at. Our togetherness seems more mature and deeper. At the same time that seems impossible, as each experience is the best anything could ever be. The way we are is joyous and smooth. It is so very full of peace and comfort on an abiding spirit level.
If I were to list what we have to offer, the primary thing would be peace. Indeed we have found a way to coexist in a place of balance and harmony, that both supports and encourages each of us in our own personal development. We are not contributing to discord and dissonance. I do not find that I am ever pushed to respond from my lowest of reactions, from the animal parts of me that are lurking below the surface. Instead, I feel that I am living in my best part, in my higher realms of personality actualization. Your very presence and the experience of the kind of relating that we do so easily and naturally, has landed me in a world colored by meaning and value. We have the experience of relationship filled with peace, harmony, joy, love, truth, beauty and goodness. We are manifesting our core values, that which feels real to me. We do this without any energy going toward the illusory, the imagined energies of anger, conflict, fear. And yet, there is no struggle involved. As actively as we live this together, it feels as though it is the easiest thing possible. And the most attractive.
The attraction toward harmony and lack of tensions is a critical component in being together as we are. It has to pull you toward it. You have to want to leave the juice of conflict behind you. You have to find a way to allow peace to occur.
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Jan 09
My Dear Kat,
We don’t argue. Realisation of that was the genesis of our exploration of our relationship. We’ve said “Oh, we don’t argue because we don’t want to”, and that is part of it, but in addition to that, we are able to come to a mutually agreeable decision every time.
Now that is no doubt made simpler by our having similar opinions on tidiness, money, work, politics and more (though anyone who picks a seriously mismatched partner is either inexperienced, masochistic, or working through issues), but it’s not that we always make the same choices initially. Instead, we each put out our position and then start looking for something that works for both of us. We don’t defend our position, and we’re not overly attached to it; instead, we want to find something that works for both of us because we recognise that the other has equal rights to their needs, that their desires have equal validity, reality, importance.
It’s not that we’re equal in our desires, but that we see the other as having as much right to their position as ourselves, and that we are affected by the happiness (or otherwise) of the other.
Another thing is (to steal your term) the celebration of difference – that the other introduces a variety into life that would not otherwise be there, and we welcome change rather than fearing it. Doing so is easier because of our mutual benevolence – that we don’t want to take any course of action that will harm the other, so in the light of that, it is easy to trust the choices and suggestions of the other.
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Dec 26
My Dear Kat,
I want to write about union. It’s a difficult subject, especially for me, because it flies in the face of everyday experience, but time after time we have this experience of union, of oneness. It occurs most often when we are sexual, but plain physical contact can bring it out, too. I want to be clear on one point: there is no loss of self; instead, the experience is of myself and of us simultaneously. I don’t mean a sense of you and your body. It’s a sense of a third autonomous center that only comes into existence (or is perceived, don’t know which) when my own ego and intentionality are quietened.
Sounds strange, right? But here’s the next strange thing: that when you or I talk about this, the other says “Uh-huh … yes … right” and there is no disagreement on the experience. I cannot imagine that much agreement happening were we having separate hallucinatory experiences.
So what is going on here? Two factors come into play for me. Firstly, I want to point out that experience trumps theory, or as I put it in my youth, “the fact precedes the explanation”. Any theory has to accommodate the facts; if it doesn’t, it is deficient. Of course, illusions may exist — the car wheels caught on film appear to be spinning backwards — but the entire body of theory exists IN ORDER TO explain our experiences, so they must have a certain validity. Secondly, I like theories that explain the facts of my world; they organise it, make sense of it, and have useful predictive powers.
Bearing these two in mind, I propose that both realities are true: that we are both separate and one. This contradicts Aristotelian logic. Tough. Light is both a wave and a particle, which doesn’t make sense, either, but the evidence for it is overwhelming.
In order to make this more palatable, let me offer a metaphor: we are like pages in a book. Every page appears unique; it has its own number, its own words, its own meaning, yet we more easily see the book as the unit. Is there a similar one-ness to the world that we are failing to see?
Just as we can come up with a list of differences between you and me, so we can come up with a list of equivalences: culture, nationality, race, DNA, and the very atoms of which we are composed. So maybe we are both an individual and a species; an individual and a life-form; an individual and a collection of atoms. Our culture emphasises individuality, especially in America, so our upbringing teaches us to only see that fact.
But what constitutes an individual becomes less clear-cut the more it is examined. For instance, a single person is not just an arrangement of 10 trillion human cells, but also contains ten times as many microbial cells that are essential to well-being, for instance see here “some researchers think of our bodies as superorganisms, rather than one organism teeming with hordes of subordinate invertebrates.”
In the West, our belief system is built on an egocentric framework. To admit the experience of union it is necessary to expand that framework to allow for its possibility, otherwise any experience of union will be overlooked or dismissed. Having made room for it, we also need a non-egoistic situation where it can emerge. Sex is one such, but it can be found in intimate conversations or communing with nature.
In the West, we use words for explanations and answers, but they fail to satisfy in answering the Big Questions because language works best as a divisive tool. Words classify the world into this and not this, which makes them very unsuited to describe union, or one-ness. Additionally, a word is not the thing; we can only use a word like a pointer, so expecting words to guide us to union is optimistic. Instead, the opposite is true: silence, listening, observing, being open to the present, can guide us there. The knowledge of one-ness is experiential, not verbal.
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Nov 29
Its been years and we still walk along holding hands. I love the way I find my face lighting up when I see you in the evening. We’ve been through a lot together already; illness and health issues, death in the family, marriage, travel, deep recession, working together and apart, living in two houses and in one, and so many other of life’s challenges. We have never had an argument or a conflict. We talk all the time. We are intensely connected lovers and experience the joys of union getting better all the time. Each of us feels supported and appreciated and free to be our total natural selves. There is sweetness and joy and an abiding sense of peace. Your mind challenges and stimulates my mind. We grow as a couple and as individuals. We don’t feel separated from each other when we are not physically together. We are both completely present with each other. I know when I encounter you, you will be you and not some stranger masquerading in your body. I know you will be completely available and that you do this with pleasure. We do not try to change each other. We support each other in all ways. Being together is always new, different and better than ever.
Having given peace a chance, we have discovered that it is a supreme and extraordinary experience. Can we share this with others? It feels like we need to give back to others this great blessing we have received. I know that for us this has not been a process. This has not felt like work, although it is certainly an active state that each of us maintains. This has been an almost immediate reframing, a transformation. Perhaps we can describe it well enough that readers or listeners will be able to ‘get’ it, be able to find their own version of what we speak of.
Before we talk of the details of our experience, we should share our core values. Most of what we do follows from our shared core values.
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Nov 29
According to my world clock on my IPhone, it is 4:01 PM in London, and as you were leaving by noon, you are perhaps in London by now. You may even decide to go to a computer and you may think to look at Kit and Kat! If so, hi there lover!!
I have finally reached Sunday morning and plan to stay in all day without leaving except for a small foray around 2:00. I plan to write more here and to list tons of things on eBay. I’ve had a number of Listomax inquiries that I’ve handled but a few I wasn’t sure what to do with. I stalled until Tuesday when you can help.
Its been sunny, windy and cold. Of course nothing like the cold you are probably experiencing. We are indeed blessed here in SB. Still, London must be great fun and I’m enjoying thinking of you there, out on the town.
Kat loves Kit!
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Nov 28
As we have been talking and thinking about how to share this experience with others, we seem to have come up with a three part concept;
the intro, with a flavor of the kind of relating we are sharing and promoting,
then core values and what they are for us
and in the third part, the review of the main themes we have discovered by writing our blog and synthesizing those writings into related areas.
I was sharing about our project the other day and used the expression ‘passionate peace’ to describe our togetherness. This met with a lot of enthusiasm, so I have been thinking that it might be a good descriptor.
Whenever we talk about our lack of conflict, I always feel compelled to add that we are passionate. This is because I have so often encountered people equating discord, anger or tension as being necessary to feeling strongly and being engaged, and peace with a kind of neutral blah kind of energy.
Perhaps ‘passionate peace’ is a way to speak of this without lots of words.
So, in the beginning there was passionate peace. And this brought a wonderful state of being. There were no angles or sharp corners. There was the ease and comfort that comes of knowing you are not going to be attacked. You are not going to be preconceived or rearranged. Gentle joy pervades your day. Your person, and the special nature of your person is not only respected but celebrated! You are free to be a complete and separate person, while at the same time enjoying a most intense experience of union. When you come together with your partner it is always new, always unique. The time together is full and creative and is always better than ever. This seems impossible and yet it is so. When you come back together with your partner after a day apart, they are the same person you left hours ago. They are still fully present and available. They haven’t turned into a one-eyed monster or a complete stranger. There is great constancy and a deep abiding sense of well being.
You ask if this is possible. Is this just some unrealistic dream? Is this just some saccharine sweet fantasy? Not for us. We are living this wonderful relationship. We think many relationships in the world could be like ours, full of peace and joy. It is not really a process or something that you have to work on. Its a way of being. So come join us on our journey into passionate peace.
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Nov 28
Good morning sweetie. I hope you are doing well with the time travel experience. It was quite strange to sleep here last night! Strange, but also good. I woke up quite early and have been eBaying a bit before I go to Katie’s.
And then, a day and a half without leaving the house. That should be amazing!
Kat loves Kit!
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Nov 27
Hi my darling,
I thought I could use this method to communicate with you while your in England. I hope mom had a good birthday and you are settled and enjoying your sisters. I wish I could hold you to me and plant some sweet kisses on your lovely lips, etc!
Today was pretty broken up with traveling and clients, but after I finish Katie tomorrow, I should have a day and half of time here in the house without much interruption and I hope to get lots of work done…hope…hope…hope!
I will be writing and blogging so check in again on Sunday before you leave for London.
How sweet it is and how grateful and thankful I am.
Know that you are cherished,
Kat
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Nov 05
Dear Kat,
We both awoke this morning from a especially restful sleep, and gave thanks to each other for the joy of each others’ company, then had the following conversation, which I want to capture before it escapes me.
Me: How come this happens?
You: Because we’re open to the present.
Me: So we are not yearning for how it formerly was, or wishing for some future state. But if that is the correct approach, suppose you’re with an unsuitable partner – complaining, abusive, whatever – doesn’t accepting the present remove all motivation to change? Isn’t the future ideal a great motivator?
You: But by being fully present, you see the behavior for what it is, and have the choice to change the situation.
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