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We always feel connected.  When you leave physically, I don’t feel that anything has changed between you and me, and when we come together again, there is no need for any adjustment.  This happens after sex, too; there is no break in intimacy.  All this contrasts with former relationships, which interleaved connection and alienation.

So what are we doing differently?

I think with others, I withdrew to regain my sense of self, because I had lost it in several ways.  One was the limitations on behavior that many people impose.  Another was the need for silence; as an introvert (and I was more so in those days), too much company too long was exhausting.  Lastly, the experience of merging with another, though ecstatic, was a different unfamiliar world, and maybe after a while I had to return to the familiar.

To stray from the personal a bit, I think many people connect from a sense of incompleteness; they want the other to assuage their needs, substitute for their inadequacies, fix their sense of loss, grief, pain.  This only works for a while, as the underlying needs reappear; they must be confronted on their own, not salved by taking from another.  For the partner, the constant supply of support can become a Sisyphean task.

With you, none of these happen.  I do not have to watch myself when I am with you, because you let me be who I am.  Oh, thank you!  I cannot say it enough.  You have your own need for space and silence, as do I, and because we remain connected, it is effortless to separate, and to rejoin afterwards.  And lastly, I welcome the ecstasy and experience it as an addition to myself, not as an alternative.  Whether this is due to knowing myself better or how you take part, I cannot say.

So to summarise, we remain connected, yet I always feel completely myself.  It is paradoxical, yet indisputable.

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One of the remarkable things about you is how much I am drawn to being present when I am with you.  I attribute that to your total acceptance: you offer a place for me to be myself — more than that, you encourage and rejoice in it.  This is so rare a quality in this world that I joyfully respond to it.

I am present when I respond and react to what is actually happening, rather than using what the past has taught me, or reacting in order to bring about some future outcome.  I don’t claim to be anywhere near perfection in this; presence is a matter of the degree to which we are focused on the events in front of us.  Neither do I claim that being present is always the most desirable state.  Sometimes the future needs attention, too, so we try to control the world in order to make our imagined future come to pass.  There are times when that is appropriate, but often it’s like always ordering the next meal while you’re eating the current one.

Being present is an important part of non-interference.  By being present, the world just is, so I can let you be who you are, which in turn gives you the opportunity to be present.  It’s a virtuous circle, and having experienced it, why would either of us ever want it to be any other way?  That is why I was so sure early on, even though I could not articulate the reason, that not only hadn’t we argued, but that we probably never would.

There is another aspect of being present that we have both remarked on, which is the experience of newness that it brings.  Nothing is ever the same, and it is very mysterious and counter-intuitive.  You would think that settling in for a movie or walking around the park would become drab through familiarity.  They don’t.  I surmise that they are intrinsically different – there is no Groundhog Day.  The walk I am taking on Thursday is never confused with the walk I took on Tuesday.

Another way to put this is that we are not constrained by our past, which gives us an extraordinary sense of potential, change and growth.  By being open to what is present, we are open to change.  It is not suppressed in favor of what has been, nor rejected in fear of what might happen.  The result is a sense that we always have more to do and more to explore.

P.S. In writing this, I really enjoyed some of our earlier posts on the subject:

• Union…Principles…Guidelines on 3/19
• The Path to Peace on 1/21
• Why do Things Always Change? on 6/11
• Being Present In The Moment is Celebrating It All! on 6/12
• Presence and Union on 6/15
• Spontaneity and No Rules on 7/14

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Dear Kat,

The other night, you talked about what happens when both of us are present – that it allows something to be created.  I know you wrote about it, but I wanted to try in my own words.

So what do I understand by that term?  That what we do together, whether it be sex or words or mute hanging out, is different from ever before, is completely unique in some way that hasn’t normally applied in my life.*  Here, I struggle for words.  The personal experience is one of power, of centered-ness, of balance.  Additionally, there is the joint experience of we, the sense that you and I are experiencing the same thing, and I don’t just mean sitting on the edge of the canyon watching the same sunset together, but a much stronger connection, as if we have joined circuits and the energy flows through us in a circle.

OK, I’m mixing metaphors and I don’t know if anyone else can follow this at all.

Kit

* I use the past tense because by being with you, that sense of presence is more and more in the rest of my life.

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