At War with Love, a Philosophical Exploration

There is a dichotomy in the center of our souls, and it is perhaps the essence of transcendence versus humanity – as though that battle cry should even be uttered let alone fought.

I always say that I am – we are – here not to transcend our humanity but to transform within it. To embrace that which makes us real and raw, whole and wholly human. We are spirits in human form for a reason, and transcendence is most often not that reason.

Perhaps the times are changing, now that we’re in Ascension, becoming higher dimensional Beings more able to carry light and love, more fully embodied with forgiveness, compassion, and those super cool intuitive and energetic tricks that once only belonged to mystics. Perhaps now we are expected to overcome our humanity in some way; but I would rather believe that we get to take the humanity with us as we rise.

In any case, I digress.

The dichotomy – the battle within us – centers most certainly around love.

Brené Brown says, “We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don’t function as were meant to be. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache … The absence of love and belonging will always lead to suffering.”

And yet, we upon The Spiritual Path are to strive for non-attachment, to anchor our joy, our love, our very essence within ourselves and know that we are whole – alone. Yes, community is great and we are free to connect with and embody love to others . . . but, the always-present Spiritual Truth is pretty staunchly rooted in the belief that we must – and will, upon “doing our work” – find bliss within our very own selves. That is true happiness. True love lives within, already, always present and available if only we seek earnestly and purely.

Unfortunately, in this moment, tonight, I am being called to do a very human thing and disagree with that philosophy. Even though I teach it – and even though I do believe it.

Yes. Bliss, peace, love, wholeness, divinity, and light DO dwell within each of us. We ARE, in fact, whole on our own. Our spirit, which we embody, is overflowing with more love than we could even fathom.

But, my dear loves, we are here in our human bodies, on our very human planet (let’s not delve too deeply into that right now), with a raging dichotomy that is literally screaming out from our heartspace for love and belonging. We are whole and enough on our own . . . but we were never meant to BE on our own, not down here, not like this.

Perhaps the most beautiful part of our humanity is our capacity – and longing – for love. We are able to love, forgive, nurture, connect, embody . . . so, SO deeply.

So deeply do we crave this love that it breaks us when it is denied.

But love is never denied us – it lives within . . .

Yes. Okay. It does. And we can access it, if we look for it and can manage to clear out all the brokenness, pain, lethargy, negative self-talk, and utter despair that inconveniently gets in the way when we are shattered by suffering.

But the fact that heartbreak and a sense of not being loved, or belonging, or connecting, can so shatter us speaks to the depth of our humanity, I think.

In other words, the very fact that our hearts can (and do) break makes us even more human. Which is kind of the point of Spirit wanting to become human in the first place, isn’t it? To grow capacity for love?

I’m writing about a deeply troubling snag in spirituality in a really detached way right now, ironically, in order to think through heartbreak rather than continue to surrender to it.

But that’s the issue, isn’t it? How to detach from attachment in order to surrender to the spirit within when the heart is begging for connection (that feels a whole lot like attachment) and is so deeply nuanced in subtle programming that every cell in the body becomes burdened and blocked by the psychological war of trying to “spiritual” our way through this very “human” thing.

It’s awful. To be honest.

How truly baffling to be so “hard wired” for connection that the very denial of it “breaks” us, and yet experience that while on a path toward “wholeness” that can only be embarked upon “alone” and relies on non-attachment to outcomes, others, or even the idea of wholeness or attachment.

I leave you with this description of the madness that is a certain kind of love:

Loving you was throwing an anchor into a tornado
and expecting not to be broken

Like holding onto the wind
amid a dust storm
in a field of thistles
driven mad by itching
welcoming the taste of blood

Believing a lie
that feels like truth
and, in fact, is true
despite the sentiment of the liar

Walking unarmed into no-mans-land
on the day of surrender
with the terms in hand

Loving you is trusting a dream
that was real
but not yet

_______

…. P.S.
See my video “Connection vs. Attachment” that I made back when I had a bit more reason and a bit less emotion between my shoulders. I do understand that there’s a difference . . . and, yet – hearts break. They were meant to. There is more to this whole thing than what I’ve laid out tonight, but sometimes it’s best to just sit with our questions and be in the humanity of it all. Or so I hear.