love school with sumi
last month i ended a very loving and challenging relationship.
i learned a lot about my patterns in love and i anticipate that the hard lessons are only beginning (#saturnreturn2018). love is a revolutionary teacher for me. and by revolution i mean it literally uproots and evolves me. it pulls me along on my life path and grows me to be a more beautifully strange person. it slaps me back on course when what i'm doing is not working. eventually.
but a bitch needs a love education. i may love relationships, but i am not radically in love with myself when i'm in one. for many of us, relationships seem to be the place where we contort ourselves, ironically, for the sake of feeling fully loved. in this way, it seems we are just trying to survive love. and we could continue to, but what about the place in us that whispers for more?
in my last post, i shared how - astrologically speaking - my life purpose is lived out through being in committed relationships. commitment is a place i crave and feel instinctual in. at first i thought this was a curse. commitment to work or a person has often coincided with loss of myself.
staying with it a little longer, i thought about how relationships are something i can be passionate about. i love witnessing people's bond to each other. i love therapy, which has supported me in having healthier relationships. i am naturally curious about other people's lives beyond what they present to the public. when i read books, i always scan the acknowledgements for clues of the person's love life. 'this person has great thoughts on feminism, so how did that translate to her relationships?' i believe our relationships are where we practice the juiciest politics. the complexities we are grappling with behind the scenes - our full love story, too nuanced for social media world.
so how can i embrace this part of my emotional self?
enter chiron.
chiron is the story of the wounded healer. he was a healer who could heal everyone but himself. he dies.
the asteroid chiron in our natal chart signifies our deepest spiritual wound. and it sits in my 5th house of children, erotic/creative energy, and romantic partners. i love love, but it's also where i struggle to have my own back. romantic love enters my life and what it is that i really need to feel happy and secure starts becoming foggy. it's harder to identify and express.
i know i'm not alone in this. but like a good friend (coincidently the meaning of sumita), i tend to be better at spotting this red flag in other people's houses of romantic and erotic love. i also love witnessing the connection, growth and nourishment i see between folks who's relationship expression feels like the future we want to be living in.
unfortunately, we rarely have a roadmap of how to get there. or the insight that love, like any other art form, lacks satisfaction when it's not in tune with what's real for us. and no one's road map will look the same. romantic/erotic energy/sex/pleasure comes out of your body, and the incredible way you do you. the lies about what happiness should look like are not serving us. who we are and our coiled inner truths get denied and the oldest part of ourselves are told the things we want are wrong or impossible.
i am kind of a fool for love. but i'm writing this post because i am tired of being a fool in the self-sacrificing way. rather, i'd like to be a fool who believes in the possibility of love to make our deepest truths realized. that to love means to be so radically honest with ourselves (and each other) that it actually does create new worlds. that love is so special, we would risk being our biggest selves in it.
so i began to wonder if i could understand, even heal, my relationship to romantic relationships by engaging people about their curiosities, questions, and wisdoms in love. if writing about love for people of color, our queerness, and our connection to the earth could heal my wound. about how we do and don't center in love. about where we want to grow in our knowing of how to love each other really well.
help me by sending your ideas, questions, queries, and dreams about love and relationship (see form below). what are you trying to figure out about the art of love and relationship? not restricted to romantic relationships or relationships to humans. i will write a post that is in conversation with your question, go deeper into a specific theme, or ask you to collaborate with me on a post.
hopefully it's clear that i'm no expert in love. nor am i a therapist. but i am someone who writes to understand and communicate the meaning of things. and i really can't think of a better subject to begin with.