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Jun 06
It has been awhile since we’ve written. With the trauma of the fires finally subsiding now, I find myself missing our notes back and forth.
Let’s begin anew to write of our special relationship and search for words to communicate about it; to find ways to offer the experience to others as well.
It has been almost half a year now that we have been sharing our evenings, nights and mornings, sleeping at Victoria house. I am amazed at what a profound difference it has made. I am astounded that we have grown so much closer, when I felt we couldn’t possibly be any closer than we were. I love your flexible style of living together, your willingness to experiment, your openness to change. Perhaps it is easy for both of us to be open to new growth and new ways, because we have such a solid core between us, one which is absolutely unchanging, plugged into the eternal and exuding gentle permanence.
We have been moving, be it ever so slowly, toward that place we envision where we have more time to step into that wonderful space we create together. I love the weekends as we have been living them in the last 6 weeks or so. We have been plugged into the world of family, friends and community, to our work and progress, and at the same time we have set aside that precious time to be with each other and to honor our wonderful union. I rejoice at this progress and am so pleased to feel us moving ever steadily in that direction.
…and I am so thrilled to be back to writing to each other!
with love
Kat
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May 12
My Dear Kat,
Last night we came together late and just hung out, did the crossword, talked. We both said how delightfully cosy it was, and so the question arises again, how do we do this? The scientist would say that we each adjust our expectations and behavior to synchronise with the other, but look as I may, that is not what I see, for if that were the case, I would expect to see compromise, trade-offs, weighing the pros and cons. I don’t. Instead, I see a process that is non-verbal, that I don’t “make decisions”, but instead, the activities “come to me”. But it does feel intentional on another level. It feels as though we eschew words and thoughts and planning and allow some natural balance to take place. It is like trusting the us and not letting “words with charge”, to use your memorable phrase, take over.
The result is a feeling of incredible lightness, airiness, freedom, liberty.
Many years ago I had the opportunity to ride rear-seat on a tandem. I was used to steering on a bike, and I jerked the handlebars so fiercely that the forward rider could not keep the machine in balance. Neither of us are doing that now.
Kit.
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May 09
Hi Kit,
I can’t say that I have the same response to the word commitment. I think this is probably a gender issue. I don’t really see the difference in The 100% Factor that you are making. 100% accepting refers to being accepted and giving acceptance. What is the difference in the commitment issue?
As you know, I really rarely see the negative side of an issue, so I’m less involved in what to avoid, than I am in how to describe what we mean.
I think when people invest words with charge, they are actually eliminating some aspect of the ability to be in the present, and be with what actually is. When you have areas that are filled with previous charge, you bring along mind stuff which will lead you to imbue the present with something other than what is there.
love Kat
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May 09
Dear Kat,
Using the term “100%” reminds me of the phrase “100% commitment”, which has undertones of being trapped, of loss of freedom. Criminals are committed. It doesn’t sound fun.
I’m not questioning my commitment, but I am saying it can be a hard sell to many people. When I’ve talked about 100% before, I was talking about 100% acceptance. Although there are similarities, it’s not the same as commitment, and we should make this difference clear to avoid commitment phobia. Our focus is elsewhere.
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May 07
We have coined a phrase recently that I think includes many of the aspects of our togetherness that we would like to share and offer others seeking to have harmonious and joyful relationships.
The 100% factor alludes to the element of being together that enables total freedom from the need to withdraw and to defend, and consequently to separate. The importance of 100% cannot be underestimated. 100% is nothing like 99.999%. Anything less than 100% offers measurement, division, in and out, good and bad.
I always love your example of a dance floor. If you know that there is nothing on the dance floor, no tacks or other dangerous items, you can be free to dance about, flying freely through the air, unmindful of where you come down. As soon as you introduce one thumbtack onto the floor somewhere, you are no longer free to leap and prance freely. You must always be careful you don’t come down on the thumbtack and injure yourself. It is the same in relationships. If you have 99.99%, you know you may still sometime come down on the thumbtack. This very knowledge inhibits you all the time , even if its just a little bit.
This is the same within relationships. The more thumbtacks that appear in the exchange, the more you must be careful, defended, withdrawn, on alert. Once you pass the threshold of 100%, there is peace and joy and no busyness in the mind about whether you are in or out, or whether the person is right or wrong, or needs changing or adjusting. You accept yourself and the other and go forward in the freedom that this way of being brings.
This is not a process. It is a transformation. You either move into 100% or you don’t.This way of being does not take work. In fact, it is quite effortless. You don’t work on it, you just do it.
We have found that when we come togther we are fully present, not experiencing the other through our preconceptions, rules and ideas, images of what should be or could be. We are there in comfort with ourselves and joyfulness in the other. We are not trying to make the other anything other than what they are, but rather rejoicing in what and who they are as it unfolds. There is a desire to share that which is; joy, beauty, goodness for example. There is no desire to make a point, to be ‘right’, to remake the other.
There is no identity mix-up. Oftimes when people are coupled, they confuse their identity with the other. They think the other person is supposed to say what they would say and think what they would think, because the identities are merged. Union sometimes brings this misunderstood or misplaced identity fusion. Functioning as two distinctly separate individuals, gives freedom to merge and truly experience union. Functioning as two individuals who are united with The 100% Factor, creates a joy which surpases understanding!
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May 02
Dear Kat,
We have been struggling to put one of the fundamental issues into words. You used the phrase “100% solution”, meaning that we accept each other 100%, and that this is qualitatively different from 90% or 95% or 99%. The complete absense of criticism, attacks and control attempts from the other gives a wonderful sense of liberation, of the possibility of being oneself, of acting naturally.
A partner who is only ninety-something percent accepting gives the feeling of being on a leash; you can run free most places, but at some point, a violent tug will occur, so the response is to run cautiously, or not at all. But at 100%, a transforming quality occurs.
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Apr 30
My Dear Kit,
At the same time we were having our talks this weekend, I was sharing with Catherine over things happening in her relationship.
She had come to the same conclusion we had. The specifics of a particular situation are not what is important. Rather it is the meaning and value that are of consequence. She added humor and kindness to that list.
We also talked about the issue of lists and list making. It seems we all have our lists, things we note about another person, things we’ve been right about, where unfairness or injustice have taken place, or where we haven’t been acknowledged or … all the big and small transgressions.
We may not even be aware that we have these lists. However, in the moment when we are faced with something negative about ourselves, criticism or someone else’s list, our list comes popping up full of things and ready to go!
The moral? Lists never do anything but bring forth other lists. List making is to be avoided. Let the lists and the specifics go. Look for harmony, truth, beauty and goodness. We can develop our attraction to that which is Real, of meaning and value. The rest are merely creations of the mind. If we are not attracted to discord and disharmony, we won’t give life to those parts within us. It can be as easy as developing your appetite, your attraction.
Love Kat
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Apr 29
My Dear Kat,
Last night, when we came together, we once more embarked on that extraordinary sexual journey.
We go into a place of sexual ecstasy that seems independent of what we are actually doing physically; we can arrive there by lying, touching, holding, kissing, and it seems we can remain in that state indefinitely, or at least until we collapse, totally sated.
But here’s the peculiar aspect of it: that it has its own unique quality; it is different every time we’ve made love, and this happens again and again; it is as if there is a huge space there to explore, and each time, we start off with the knowledge of our previous experience.
This may not qualify as erotic writing; there are no bodily fluids, no licking or sucking or stroking or moaning, but it seems appropriate because what we share seems to transcend the simply sexual. Calling it that doesn’t begin to capture the experience, and though I struggle for descriptions, it is so far beyond words that afterwards, the details are lost to my verbal brain, like a dream that vaporises in the morning. But my body knows and remembers.
Kit
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Apr 28
I’m still very wrapped up in that conversation we had over the weekend.
In one of our explorations of us, with an eye toward sharing with others, we were looking at what normally causes discord and disharmony between couples. At the same time, we looked at what we do instead, as neither of us is attracted to d or d.
The specifics are rarely important to us. Therefore, neither of us is attached to specific outcomes. We do seem to have a lovely flowing dance by which we come to decisions, make plans and act together. Lack of attachment seems to be part of the entrance ticket to this altered state of union we experience; lack of attachment to the specifics, to being right, or to having the present altered by a predetermined image.
What is clearly very important to us is meaning and value, truth, beauty, goodness and love. As we are in harmony in these areas, we find our way through all the specifics without attachment, with joy and lightness!
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Apr 25
My Dear Kat,
We talked yesterday morning and night about our agreement on things both big and small; whether it’s making love or watching a movie, going for a drive or separating and working, we reach a mutual decision without effort. This happens so regularly that it is a statistical impossibility that we should always want the same things. What must be happening is that we weigh the importance to ourselves against the importance to the other person and just flow with that, but it happens so naturally and rapidly that we do not notice it. This sounds like Choice blindness in action.
But how, exactly, are we able to do this when other people can’t? It does feel like it is a conscious action in some way. I don’t say that other people are intentionally choosing to disagree, but there must be some pay-off for them; the situation of pain or anger must be, at some level, comfortable and familiar. So I think the process must be one of seeing that fact, and choosing not to go there.
Another way of phrasing it is to say that neither of us are attached to particular outcomes; there are no sticking points, no areas of friction. This, of course, is Buddhist non-attachment.
Kit
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