Relationships by Notre Dame des Arbres
I
have long understood that in a good, balanced (or shold I say, balancing) relationship between two humans, there exist three entities, separate, but linked. Him, me, us. Like personas energing in the psyche, the needs and urgency of any one of these may manifest most strongly at times and be regarded and accepted. But each of the three need be respected. Understanding holds the key to that respect that contains and enfolds the volatility that is the power of love. It is the huge cement container for the nuclear fission of love. It was Paracelsus who wrote “Videre est intellegere est amore” (“to see is to understand, is to love”). Not so diferent from the New Age writings of Carlos Castenada who urged us to the discipline “of looking until we can finally see, of listening until we at last hear.” Late in life I read post-Newtonian physics, subatomic and chaos theory. If Newton got anything really “wrong” it was perhaps a failure to see that the position of the Observer is crucial…and better able to account for the multi-faceted nature of truth. This has made me reflect on the ups and downs of my own relationships. Initially a huge fan of the concept of “merging”, of the fusing of hearts, minds—bodies almost—of two separate beings. Fusing into something like “us”, greater than the sum of the individuals; lit-up, made irridescent by loving explodation, sharings, openess, vulnerability and humble, worshipping exploration. This in a sense remains, but it is a part of the narrative of my past—of younger love. The older I become, the more I accept that there’ll always be something unique about me, Notre Dame. However, marching alongside of this, also a deepening understanding that a vast past (literally an almost fathomless depth) of “me” that is composed of all my forebears, tribes, communities. This includes their traumas and joys, their genetic material- the building-blocks that was the technical handbook when I emerged from the womb. I’ve learned to respect and cherish that little part of unique individuality in its wider context. I do not feel threatened by the enormous shared hinterland which “I” inhabit. This has taught me to cherish and respect the same in a partner- his difference. Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in essays Love and 46 RFD 156 Winter 2013
Other Difficulties “that partners should become guardians of each other’s solitude, thus in this way afford each other the greatest possible respect”. He was a great poet, but a funny, “difficult” man, but I get it, even if he makes his point in an extreme fashion in an extreme fashion that appears calculated or cold. The Landmark Trust gave some advice: “The secret of a good relationship is doing what you love doing and supporting your partner in what they love doing” (not THAT dissimilar from Rilke’s stance, though less literary!) I was originally going to write a long, intense article, but decided not to. The most important thing, I believe is to try, to learn as you go along and apply the lessons and remember that you need to work at it for it to succeed. This means both (or all*) of you working at it: “Every relationship should be at least basically emotionally reciprocated as opined my late brother, Robin. He died aged 35 in 1986 of AIDS was blessed in the last four years of his life by being in a relationship, by having a partner. It did not matter that I found his partner difficult, flakey, annoyingly absent when Robin was hospitalised- I was glad for my brother’s sake he had someone. It made him feel affirmed and validated. I can see however, the other negative side of that coin- that maybe many of us seek relationships and are less discriminating about who we have them with, or work less hard at them, simply out of the presumed social or peer pressure that one “should” have a partner. A great friend of mine who is also a faerie, Bloom, rightly gets annoyed when in the media after some tragic death the commentator says “he was a family man.” Bloom is (happily) single, but he insists he is also a family man—he has his mother and siblings and a huge family of choice acquired over a lifetime—his friends—whether faerie or close work colleagues. This raises the question of being “in relationship” with a group of people- like a single man maybe in a faerie Sanctuary. I used to beat myself up somewhat for not having a partner, a relationship since around the mid1990s, before I started to enlarge the sense of that word. I had a 14/15 year closeness to a “fuck buddy” and it dawned on me that there was much much more than the good sex between us over that period Continued on page 61