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Re: ...Starting with the person in the mirror...

Whitewave said Feb 14, 2007, 3:57 PM:

This is good. I'm glad that these things integrate with one another. And I'M SO GLAD THERE IS SOMEONE ELSE WHO CAN RELATE!! YAY! YAY! YAY!!

I have some really tough questions that I need help with really urgently. I'll post them where I think they'll be most appropriate.

My first question actually belongs here, so I'll jump in:

I am with a partner right now who is very much grounded in the Personal level of relating. I love him. I adore him. And I want to love more. Both more of him and more people. I don't believe that this is bad, however, because he is in such a Personal place, he feels threatened - my loving others diminishes my love for him. I'm trying to 'splain to him that my love is not grounded in the Beloved, but in something much less changable and temporary - in the Infinite, which then comes through me to him. The Infinite also comes through him to me, which is what's so great about all this. It's not about the temporal little me and him. It's about the Infinite contractng and circulating through flesh. Is there anything I can do to help him understand?

He hasn't really been motivated to understand until the last week or so. Actually less than that. I had pretty much given up on him ever understanding and was ready to let him go because I didn't want to torment him with this. There's lots of pressure on me to dump him for two reasons: 1 I'm just leading him along and so I'm a bitch, and 2 he's just trying to change me and keep me on his leash and he's a jerk. These things are only true in the Personal realm of relating. He has asked if I know of anyone else who he can talk to about it, someone that isn't a woman, or just someone who isn't me in case he just can't hear it from me.

LOL Well, you're not “a woman”… Actually, it might help if you're both/neither because then you could speak for both/neither, and that's kinda the point. The point seems to be that separation, exclusion and isolation don't necessarily serve transpersonal love, but can be a barrier. I don't know. Whadda ya tink?

The polyamorous stuff would prolly be relevant for this, and I want it to be grounded in my relationship with the Infinite within myself, and then the Infinite in all of creation.

What would you say to him, if you could?

~Ww

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Polyamory vs. Monogamy vs. Personal vs. Transpersonal

savanni [no longer around] said Feb 15, 2007, 11:41 AM:

I will start, I think, with a little relationship nitpicking, specifically on the Personal vs. the Transpersonal. Or, maybe this is not nitpicking. Or, shoot me down if this does not work for you.

Based on descriptions, I know that you used a monogamous example for Personal, but I do not actually see that as necessarily monogamous. I view my own relationship structure as a set of Personal relationships. By this, I mean that I am in a physically and emotionally intimate relationship with each of my partners. We support one another, build each other up, share space, provide aid when needed, provide aid when not needed, create shared experiences, discuss shared experiences, have and resolve arguments, and do many additional things I have not listed here.

I think (but am not sure) that I would still apply the term “Personal” even if the people involved formed a tight empathic connection.

Transpersonal, though, seems to me to be a relationship with something that is not an individual human, but more of a collective … something. A collective conciousness? I am not sure exactly what because I have never been able to touch that, but I wil speculate a bit.

Perhaps somebody who is sincerely doing pathworking on the Tree of Life could be said to fit your definition of forming a Transpersonal relationship. Kabbalistic teachings (the little that I know) state that all is God and God is all and that the two cannot be separated nor are they even two. Pathworking would in this context be developing a intuitive or experiential relationship with all of creation.

Maybe I see Transpersonal as developing a set of relationships that softens the boundaries of identity which prevent me from sharing conciousness or even really feeling myself as part of a larger whole.

All of this means that I do not view a polyamorous relationship as Transpersonal, or a monogamous relationship as Not Transpersonal; or that view Monogamy and Polyamory as being a separate categorization system.

I would like to hear your comments on these thoughts before I address anything else. Especially about your boyfriend. Addressing that is going to be really hard, even if I do understand your terminology.

Re: Polyamory vs. Monogamy vs. Personal vs. Transpersonal

Whitewave said Feb 16, 2007, 10:08 AM:

This deserved a much sooner response, but I've just been too busy. You're suggestions are great and we're gonna discuss them today. You're stretching me as well. Wonderful. I will respond more specifically when I can. Hopefully later tonight… not sure..

Thank you, so much!

~Ww