This is for the one night lovers.
For the chocolate covered fingers tasted under the stars. For the flirtatious eyes and dances amidst the trees. For the dusty kisses by twilight, and the synchronized chorus of giggles; the unexpected chemistry, and the moments forming memories to last a lifetime.
This is for the nights that changed my life, and the nights that changed yours- an entire tapestry of being encapsulated into a few hours, this is for the magic that is unlocked when two people can be present and share their entire being with one another.
This is for the medicine of Love shared with no expectation, no locking in to future modes of relationship.
That one night was-is– perfect.
This is for the soft hesitant kisses lying together naked in a hotel room, knowing that sex isn’t in the cards, and that we may never meet again.
This is for the joy of embracing my own personal erotica and undoing a lifetime of sexual shaming.
This is for throwing caution to the wind, and moving that dance floor connection from vertical, to horizontal, sans clothing.
This is for the mystery of the desert sands that set us free from our inhibitions and allow us to discover one another without judgements.
This is for the stolen passionate kiss that blew my mind and woke my heart up again.
This is for the rarely encountered sides of myself you reflect back to me.
Though we shared sexual intimacy for just only one night, I have great love for you in my heart. Each of you. There is boundless gratitude for the willingness to share yourself with me, and for your ability to welcome my authentic self to be shared with you.
Like wings caressing the breeze, when we meet, we soar.
You bring in the textures that punctuate the tapestry of my other relationships. Breathing inspiration, sharing new ideas, catapulting my sensual expression to previously under explored dimensions. You teach me how profound it is to give my full presence and focus to someone without fear of what tomorrow might bring. You remind me that I don’t need a partner to complete me, that freedom and love are states of being whole within ourselves.
And this, this is also for the one-night lovers who turned into many-night lovers when I least expected it, who dared to join me in the longer dance of intimacy, even if we only shared that rhythm for a short moment in space and time.
In Limbo Lies the Love Languishing
“The ultimate state of love is freedom, absolute freedom, and any relationship that destroys freedom is not worthwhile. Love is a sacred art. To be in love is to be in a holy relationship.”~ Osho
My heart feels heavy as I write this, aching in every direction. The self chatter in my mind talks about being foolish, rash, and irresponsible, and it’s fighting the deeply romantic part of my personality that wants to keep my heart open.
In every relationship, there’s a moment- well sometimes, oftentimes, it’s a recurring moment- where I find myself gazing with love and want to utter the words, “I love you”. But, I don’t. I hold back. I wait.
Why? Because we make such a big deal about the meaning of the words “I love you.”
I want to create a new way of dialoguing about love. Casual love is a thing. In the Greek language there are multiple means of expressing “I love you”- I remember vividly my grandmother tucking me into bed at night with the words, “kourichakimou, cartholamou, yagapoulamou, agapemou”.
Love is such a vast, transcendant, spiritual experience, why limit ourselves in the expression of it?
Sometimes I want to just use the Greek words directly. I am in Eros with you. I am in Phillia with you. I am in Ludus with you. I am in Agape with you. I am in Pragma with you. I am in Philautia with you.
Even just taking the time to think about what kind of love I’m experiencing can help me find clairty. It’s so enriching to engage in a way of appreciating the many layers of love that are possible.
I find that for myself, Eros (sexual passion) and Ludus (playful love) often give way to deep experiences of Phillia (friendship) and Pragma (Universal love).
I wonder if part of the reason I am Solo is that the way I love people tends to involve increasing levels of trust and connection until- I have to let go. When I hear of two people confess “unconditional love” for one another I wonder what that really means. To me, unconditional means without ownership, without expectation, and freely. I look at how my relationship with Orion has transformed- and I can honestly say that for both of us, our ability to love one another increased when we stopped dating. We dropped expectations of one another, and grew deeper in our friendship. It’s a really beautiful connection, one cherished greatly.
When you love someone in entirety, when you decide that they are someone you want to grow and evolve through knowing, there comes a breakthrough point where the next stage of loving them means letting them go, and remembering to stay true to your own self, your wants and desires, your own evolution. It’s a moment of selfishness that challenges how we are told to treat our relationships. We are told to be self sacrificing in service of a partner, when actually a healthy relationship starts with us having a healthy relationship to our self first.
“Love is not as powerful as trust and acceptance; those are so much more specific in their ingredients. To me, acceptance is everything.”
Acceptance. Seeing another and being seen by another; seeing and embracing the shadows and not just the light. I feel like that’s the profound journey that love offers us.
I love in such a way as to feel free and to set those I love free. In other words, I want to experience love that is a celebration, and not an obligation. And sometimes that celebration means that, in freedom, they and I dance on, without attachment. I do not love seeking to own that which I love.
I’m in love with love, with feeling and sharing and expressing love, and I don’t believe that should be restricted to an expectation of behaviors. Love is something infinitely delightful to explore- whether self love, friendship, romantic, erotic, familial, or universal: the more we commit to engaging and being fully present to love (in whatever form it exists) the healthier we become.
Love is the four lettered glue that holds us together- as a community, as a species, as a collective of conscious beings sharing space and time cooperatively, love is the essential molecule. Without it we’d self destruct.
And so it hurts so much when I find myself second guessing or trying to stop myself from loving out of fear that I’ll risk too much, and be broken hearted again. I fear being taken for granted. I fear being not seen. And that’s why my heart is heavy as I write tonight. Several months ago a beautiful young man told me he was falling in love with me. And I dared to give myself permission to let that experience deepen, and to allow myself to fall in love with him too. As distance appears, as new chapters emerge, and uncertainty hangs over the evolution of our journey together, I’m looking for the courage to not just keep loving, but to be open again. To trust, believe, and share again. To live from a place of fearless authenticity, and trust that those around me are doing the same.
Breaking the Boxes
Right now, I’m supposed to be working on my resume. It is about as bizarre and eclectic as the rest of my life is. Can I include “blogging about my sex and dating life” as a job?
Apparently, I like variety. I seem to change jobs every six months to a year. It’s a little like my dating life.
I like to do things my way.
I’m itching to travel again too. My daydreams are filled with ideas of returning to Europe, travelling the Middle East again, adventuring through North America. I grew up travelling, and want so much to travel again. As much as I love where I live right now, and have amazing friends in this community, I will need a change of scenery in the next year.
I’m finding myself frustrated with a lot of narrow minded views in the poly world around me. That attitude of assumption that ‘poly is this’ or ‘poly is this and this’, and I just can’t find myself in those assumptions. I know, the scientific mind has an easier time understanding things if it can define them as singular and finite things, but hey, even science is now finding that, when you get down to a quantum level, the universe is constantly fluctuating and changing.
art by Alex Grey http://www.alexgrey.com
When the human mind is allowed to process things with ambiguity and uncertainty, holding opposing ideas and notions in equal balance, it expands.
This is one of the reasons psychedelics have been credited as inspiration for so many artists, musicians, philosophers, and inventors of the last century: they aid in expanding one’s perspective. And I make no secret that this has been a huge part of my own path, just as much as meditation and yoga.
We are a society trained in holding on to fixed ideas, and maybe we need those fixed ideas to find order within the chaos. We learn from early on to categorize the world around us in boxes. For me, being Poly is not about living life in just a different box. It is one aspect of me living out of the box, all the way. Living life my way.
In the back of my mind I have been processing some of the incompatibilities with poly styles I have come across in some people I have gone on dates with, or dated, and I realized today that a big difference between myself and the poly-majority is that I do not seek life-partners.
It seems that a lot of people in the Poly world approach things with the idea that all relationships will be long term and long lasting- or be strictly recreational and casual. I’m somewhere in between that. Seeking friendtimacy that can have longevity- or not. I have discovered that I can love without desiring ownership over that which I love. In fact, I can love more when I do not desire ownership over the subject of my affections.
Whereas a lot of people- poly or not- seek life long relationships and commitment, and (as much as some will deny it) seek relationships that contain a dynamic of ‘ownership’, I’m committed to me, and that, ultimately, is the only commitment I am willing to make. I love to share my love. And will continue to share it. And sharing that does not mean that I own you or that you own me.
It is how I feel free.
This is the only healthy way for me to be.
Polysingleish 