Robert Frost Tag

May 12, 2017 In Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

By Your Side

By your Side 2 Plato said that Love is a kind of madness. I imagine he was describing the heated arc of light that wraps its comet’s tail around our heart when we tumble into Love. That ferocious Love that ambushes us, unbuttons and unbolts us, throws us on the floor. It’s in a Love like this that we drink from the elixir of youth. It’s in a Love like this that we are re-birthed in the font of forgetfulness, swaddled in the white robes of Hope. It’s in a Love like this we become adolescents, young and energetic again, despite our age. It’s in Plato’s kind of Love, that we’re radiant, filled with the sweet green sap of confidence. Utterly mad.

In our fast food culture, we expect instant gratification. Yet, like the weather, the outcome of our quest for Love is hard to predict or even to define with any certainty. Qualities like devotion, allegiance, dedication and loyalty, are often shadowed by a sense of what’s in it for me? And we find, to our disappointment, that it’s hard to give and receive Love that lasts.

Our definition of relationship has shape shifted in the twentieth century. We can love, but never live together. We can uncouple, and still remain good friends, co-parent our children across continents. We can enter into a spiritual partnership with the intention to use our relationship as an incubator for our own spiritual growth and self-awareness. We can fall in love with the same person over and over again as our relationship cycles through the Life-death-rebirth spiral.

By your Side 4 Our Love relationships may require periods of spaciousness, solitude, emotional or physical distance. They may demand acceptance of the aberrations, a baring of warts and all kinds of foul-smelling bits. Our relationship may end in literal form and yet continue in our dreams, in the fragments of memory that float like dust motes across the lyrics of a song.

Relationships are supposed to deliver love and happiness…aren’t they? Yet over the years, the Love that settles into the sofa near the fireplace, the Love that parents children, moves to a new home, euthanizes the family dog, visits the bedside of a dying parent, is a Love that is so often is tinged with sadness or disappointment. It’s a Love that lies forgotten, rusted, tarnished by years of neglect. “Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new,” writes Ursula K. Le Guin.

By your Side 23 There’s a nobility in loving despite fortune and circumstance. It takes courage to reclaim disowned feelings, modify behaviours that wound and flay. It takes courage to revision our own life and take back the projections so easily screened onto someone else’s life—“she has too many issues”, “he cannot do emotions”, or the classic cop out—I’m not “in love with him anymore”. Love is a paradox, a labyrinth where we may meet the Beast in the centre.

There’s nothing glamourous about resurrecting Love. There’s nothing glamourous about starting over, fixing the cracks, battling the urge to run. There’s nothing easy about reassembling those parts of yourself that you have hidden away for so many years. There is nothing as painful than repairing a heart that has been broken. The pathologies of love are portals into a rich landscape of vibrant colour where the soul can spread wings of splendorous colour. Re-pair, healing, forgiveness so often take time. But perhaps we can leave behind the notion of work and repair. Perhaps we can replace our Puritan work ethic, our stoic fortitude, with a stillness that comes from some immensely powerful immutable loyalty to the sacred space in-between our relationship.

By your Side 3 Robert Frost wrote in his glorious poem “the best way out is always through…” And, as we prepare to engage our energies for the long haul, as we clear away the thorny brambles that obstruct our path, our hands will bleed and we may thirst for something sweeter, cooler, easier. Our impatience will be tested. We will become discouraged and disheartened. And yet, when we stop looking for the epiphany, we may feel that with each new day, with each new awakening, with each new stumble, we are moving a little closer.

8bc293e23a0ea66c67e149e4111f7fef When we fall into Love, we fall into the imagination. Modern psychology echoes this belief and scientific research now “proves” that our nervous systems are not self-contained.

Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini and Richard Lannon write in their collaborative A General Theory of Love: “from earliest childhood, our brains actually link with those of the people close to us, in a silent rhythm that alters the very structure of our brains, establishes life-long emotional patterns, and makes us, in large part, who we are.”

We can reduce Love to synapse connections and scientific observation, and yet Love, in all its permutations remains a Mystery, a Many Splendoured Thing.

In the 13th Century Rumi knew that “both light and shadow are the dance of Love. Love has no cause, it is the astrolabe of God’s secrets” …

We are relational beings. The plethora of new apps on the market are driven by our need to connect with one another. To talk, to tell our stories, to listen and to be heard. In our so often over-whelmed, over-committed lives, apps and social networking sites offer a substitute for the soft eyes and tender touch of a lover. Touch sensors in paired devices allow wearers to “feel” one another wherever they are in the world. Androids and operating systems simulate “reality”, yet may still lead us through Love’s labyrinth, where we must take the final turn in the pathway and find that it is our Self we meet bare-faced, soul naked without the artifice of appeasing smiles, without the heavy jacket of excuses we have worn for so many long years. In the kind of Love that’s made and re-made, we embrace all our human foibles. And we celebrate our very human longing to be seen and accepted, just the way we are. By your Side 100

Sade—By Your Side

Upcoming: Bonded by Blood. The Astrology of Siblings. Cape Town, July 22nd 2017.

Please email: ingrid@trueheartwork.com for more details.

August 6, 2014 In Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

By Your Side

Plato said that Love is a kind of madness. I imagine he was describing the heated arc of light that wraps its comet’s tail around our lives. The kind of Love that ambushes us, unbuttons and unbolts us, throws us on the floor. It is in Love like this that we drink from the elixir of youth. It is in Love like this that we are re-birthed in the font of forgetfulness, swaddled in the white robes of Hope. In Love like this we become adolescents, young and energetic again, despite our age. In Love like this we are self-absorbed, radiant, filled with the sweet green sap of confidence.

In our fast food culture we expect instant gratification. Yet, like the weather, the outcome of our quest for Love is hard to predict or even to define with any certainty. Qualities like devotion, allegiance, dedication and loyalty are often shadowed by a sense of what’s in it for me? We find, to our disappointment, that it is hard to give and receive Love that lasts.

Our definition of relationship has shape shifted in the twentieth century. We can love but never live together. We can uncouple and still remain good friends. Co-parent our children across continents. We can enter into a spiritual partnership with the intention to use our relationship as an incubator for our own spiritual growth and self-awareness. We can fall in love with the same person over and over again as our relationship cycles through the Life-death-rebirth spiral. Our Love relationships may require periods of spaciousness, solitude, emotional or physical distance. They may demand acceptance of the aberrations, a baring of warts and foul-smelling bits. Our relationship may end in literal form and yet continue in our dreams and in the fragments of memory that float like dust motes across the lyrics of a song.

Love that settles into the sofa near the fireplace that parents children, moves to a new home, euthanizes dogs and visits the bedside of a dying parent is a Love that so often is tinged with sadness or disappointment. It lies forgotten. Rusted and tarnished with years of neglect. Relationships are supposed to deliver love and happiness…aren’t they?

There is a nobility in loving despite fortune and circumstance. It takes courage to reclaim disowned feelings, modify behaviours that wound and flay, revision our own life and take back the projections so easily screened onto someone else’s life – “she has too many issues”, “he cannot do emotions”, or the classic cop out – I’m not “in love with him anymore”. Love is a paradox, a labyrinth where we may meet the Beast in the centre.

There is nothing glamourous about resurrecting Love. There is nothing glamourous about starting over, fixing the cracks, battling the urge to run. There is nothing easy about reassembling those parts of yourself that you have hidden away for so many years. There is nothing as painful than repairing a heart that has been broken. The pathologies of love are portals into a rich landscape of vibrant colour where the soul can spread wings of splendorous colour. Re-pair, healing, forgiveness so often take time. But perhaps we can leave behind thoughts of work and repair. Perhaps we can replace a Puritan work ethic and stoic fortitude with a stillness that comes from some immensely powerful immutable loyalty to the space that surrounds our relationship.

Robert Frost wrote in his glorious poem “the best way out is always through…” as we prepare to engage our energies for the long haul. As we clear away the thorny brambles that obstruct our path our hands will bleed and we will become discouraged and thirst for something sweeter, cooler, easier. Our impatience will be tested and yet when we stop looking for the epiphany, we may feel that with each new day, with each new awakening, with each time we stumble we are moving a little closer.

Freud believed that Love involved a transference of our early childhood and family relationships to the preset relationship. That our parents and our siblings influence the way we love and that when we love we stir memories and images of an older love. When we fall into love, we fall into the imagination. Modern psychology echoes this belief and scientific research now “proves” that our nervous systems are not self-contained. Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini and Richard Lannon write in their collaborative A General Theory of Love:“from earliest childhood, our brains actually link with those of the people close to us, in a silent rhythm that alters the very structure of our brains, establishes life-long emotional patterns, and makes us, in large part, who we are.” We can reduce Love to synapse connections and scientific observation and yet Love in all its permutations remains a Mystery, a Many Splendoured Thing. In the 13th Century Rumi knew that “both light and shadow are the dance of Love. Love has no cause, it is the astrolabe of God’s secrets”…

We are relational beings. The plethora of new apps on the market are driven by our need to connect with one another. To talk, to tell our stories, to listen and to be heard. In our so often over-whelmed, over-committed lives, apps and social networking sites offer a substitute for the soft eyes and tender touch of a lover. Touch sensors in paired devices allow wearers to “feel” one another wherever they are in the world. Androids and operating systems simulate “reality”, yet may still lead us through Love’s labyrinth, where we must take the final turn in the pathway and find that it is ourself we meet bare-faced, soul naked without the artifice of appeasing smiles, without the heavy jacket of excuses we have worn for so many long years. In Love we must embrace our human foibles and celebrate our very human longing to Love and be Loved in return. In Love we discover Compassion.

Sade – By Your Side

June 20, 2014 In Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Crossing the Rubicon

Crossing the Rubicon was an act of rebellion punishable by death in the winter of 49 BC, when Julius Caesar defiantly led his men over the icy red waters of the Rubicon River towards Rome. So often in our lives we reach our own red river, our own point of no return. There is an impetus that propels us to spur ourselves into the churning waters of change. And without hesitation or vacillation we must make that decisive choice. There is no question of stopping. No turning back.

When we start from scratch we make unambiguous choices in our lives because we have nothing more to lose. We are compelled through debt, divorce or disaster, to find a new way. When we bear down, irrevocably commit to a course of action, we set in motion a train of events that unfurl like the standard-bearer’s fluttering flag.

Choice is a spiritual gift. And when we choose to change the trajectory of our lives, we must trust our instinct, settle more closely into the warmth of our bodies, listen to the rhythmic beating of our hearts. We can accept or we can refuse our destiny. And even if this choice is a choice of insurrection that leads us to self-destruction, ultimately there are no wrong choices. We stand at the crossroads of two roads, and can only choose one to travel on. As poet Robert Frost wrote, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travel both…”

As we traverse a monochrome landscape of black and white, right and wrong we will never know what it is like on the other side of the river until we have crossed over the water and began to live that choice.

The poetics of language add subtly to the word, choice. In Hebrew the word, “timshel” is translated as “thou mayest” or “thou shall govern or rule” which suggests a sense of opening a portal into something that requires us to step into the vestibule of change by our own volition. We take charge; we choose to take that step. Or we choose to stand on the bank and stare at the churning red waters.

By not choosing we allow others to decide for us. Submissive acquiescence is an act of choice in which we step out of the way and live other people’s lives. In choosing not to choose we dangle limply like mannequins, and go through the motions of living an anesthestised life that is not our own. The thirty pieces of silver that clatter heavily in our pocket remind us of the Judas kiss by which we betray ourselves when we choose old ways of thinking, hold on to old patterns, nail our own hands to the cross of mortification.

Like many of our great spiritual teachers, the life of Jesus celebrates the power of choice. When he relinquished his will to God, not to the Tribe, he placed his trust in Divine Reason and accepted the inevitability of his crucifixion with the final words, “Father unto You I commend my Spirit. It is finished.”

Most of us avoid choices because we fear taking charge of our own lives, and resist surrendering our will to a Higher Level of Consciousness, balk at the effort it takes to change our perception. Suetonius depicts Julius Caesar as being undecided as he approached the Rubicon. The crossing is attributed to a supernatural apparition. Like Caesar we attribute our crossings to circumstances that “leave us no choice” or deftly assign our puerile acts of self-destructive behaviour to forces outside our control. We use powder puff words that cover the truth with rapturous excuses. We play bingo with our money, our relationships, our health, listen to others who always have their own agendas and world views. As we leave the room we let flutter, spent, to the ground like autumn leaves: “I’ll try to”, “I promise,” ….

Choices are both conscious and unconscious. They influence our tomorrows, and will keep us steady as we wade through turbulent waters of change. Katharine Butler Hathaway wrote “the change of life is the time when you meet yourself at the crossroads and you decide whether to be honest or not before you die.”

The choices we make from our hearts and souls are Grace. Events that seem unjust and incomprehensible may be Divine Intervention that we can only appreciate in hindsight when we have unwillingly unclasped the old and opened our hearts to the new. And when we accept the consequences of our choosing, we begin to move again, one step at a time.

So often we seem to walk through the dark woods and find ourselves circling round to meet ourselves again at the same place. This time perhaps we will return to our starting point older, a little more conscious. Through soulful living we celebrate the delicate preciousness of this human experience. And through choosing again and again to breathe out, surrender and Trust, we may have the courage to cross our own Rubicon River and make the journey Home.

The Sounds Crossing the Rubicon