Sunday, June 03, 2007

There in Dreams, What About Real Life?

Someone found my blog with the search term, "To know someone is to love them."

I knew someone once, and I woke up today and realized my love failed them.


As Shameless pointed out, this latest full moon was a Blue Moon, and this is the kind of dream that happens about once that often. In the wee just dawn hours as I was sleeping that last stretch, I dreamed about that last one. I was at a retreat of some kind, some kind of meeting-getaway combo in almost a resort kind of facility where friends from my volunteer life and family life and past career life all came together. There in the midst was my former s/o, returned in full thought form, laughing, making friends and trouble, happy. The feeling exchanged with the thought form represented itself as contentment, peace, adjustment, a new place.

I wish that were so in the waking world. This is a person who had his share of problems, formidable ones, but who still tried hard to be a good friend, up until the time I tried to very gently pry him out of his house to meet my sister and he failed to materialize. Things quickly deteriorated after that. I guess I felt hung out to dry. He ultimately was still in love with someone else -- and probably still is -- and gave me the poetic heave-ho.

Had I been more open minded and aware at a critical point, I would have been better able to swallow my humiliation and accept defeat gracefully, better equipped to extend the friendship I know now was badly needed. But I denied him that. The hope that I might mean something to him was more important than being the person he needed at that particular moment.

My friend Jawbone and I exchanged some insightful emails about the nature of love last week. He is a very wise person. He wrote that, why is it we cannot love others as we love flowers? We love flowers but we don't try to own them. Despite my ability to recognize the importance of detachment, and recognizing it intellectually, when it comes to knowing what to do in the moment, sometimes I fail to let go gracefully. We've been contemplating a saying I found from the 14th Dalai Llama: "Practice kindness whenever possible........Kindness is always possible."

Easier said than done.

But I still have hope that someday I will be more able to summon the right kind of love when it is most needed. Who am I to try to own my friend the wind? I didn't put that flower there, so it's not mine to take.

I hope he really is happy and that his life unfolds as it should to good things. I hope he is able to find peace and forgiveness in his heart and make room in it for real love and friendship.

I'm sorry I wasn't there for him. Here's a song from Tony Rice and Pete Rowan's last effort (I'll be blogging soon about their new release, Quartet, with Sharon Gilcrist and Bryn Davies, a superb sonic experience). It's a beautiful hymn to love and friendship. I hope when the time next comes for me to release someone I love or to help us move to a different place, I'll remember this lesson.

You Were There For Me

When all my dreams were broken
I was down on bended knee
Through my pain I called your name
You were there for me
You were there for me

I climbed the highest mountain
I looked down in the deep blue sea
The sky it cries, for love sweet love
You were there for me
You were there for me

I will always love you
No matter where you may be
I'll be there for you, baby
You were there for me
You were there for me

And I will always remember
How you set me free
With kindness and affection
You were there for me
You were there for me

You were there for me
You were there for me

3 Comments:

At June 03, 2007 8:36 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

A simple little poem I wrote down in New Orleans with Slim back in '96 or '97. This is what the flowers and the trees teach if you really listen. At some risk I place it here for all who come to hear.

A flower doesn't try
a flower doesn't think
a flower never worries
when it needs a drink

A stone doesn't care
about the weight of yesterdays
A stone doesn't talk
but speaks a thousand truths

A river doesn't worry
about where it's gonna go
a river just flows


Like love

 
At June 03, 2007 9:09 PM, Blogger Shameless Agitator said...

it's so hard when our egos are caught up in what *we* need from someone else and what *we* need the other to be for us to realize that the tighter we hold on, the more we lose the other. i know this has been rough on you, Mando. i am amazed at how well you process things, and how well you make amends. i am so proud to call you my friend.

much love,
shameless

 
At June 04, 2007 5:34 AM, Blogger Mando Mama said...

Good morning friends,
Flowers, that is a beautiful and thoughtful poem, and true. Thanks for sharing it here.

Shameless, thanks. Suddenly I am aware in a new way what role Ego played in that transaction, and it's hard not to feel ashamed. I'm grateful for the visitation that showed me this. Now I just have to practice, practice, practice. As Flowers' poem said, love flows like a river, and when we try to change the course of something that big and powerful, well, we get what we ought to, I suppose.

Thank you both for being such good friends and loving me despite my many hidden "opportunities to grow" :-)

 

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