hey Barry…

(for some reason today I couldn’t post this on my practice log. Must be it needs to come out here.)

I have really fallen down the rabbit hole now and is it any wonder the practice I am utilizing the most is Yin yoga, the process of hanging and passively stretching the connective tissue with little muscular involvement. Opening the joints, those transition places because I am in an inner traffic jam.

One not just of resistance to what is happening now but old old ones hidden in the tissues and swept under the lobes of the brain. In the recesses of the descending colon. The deeper chambers of the heart buried like an Egyptian tomb. Light enters and the night bugs scurry.

After deciding on a wedding date- after a year and a quarter of moving towards this story- in the quietest of the pre dawn deep, with the aid of a long distance friend, I accepted I cannot do it.

The body rejoiced, the shen clapped, happiness and relief were the moment’s delight. I had warded off the resistance as a weakness, it had gotten me here, a transplant from another country, another lifestyle, another family of friends- but on that morning it became as clear as the dawn’s early light there was only one patriotic thing to do.

Now in the world of normalcy where Alice eats scones and goes to school I would tell Ali, pack my things and head back ‘home’ to a past creation, a refuge. And it began like this. The first two days after declaring myself, she let go, in deepening quiet, and we both struggled with contradictions and not knowing.

I was on the internet searching for plane fares to escape hurting her more- as I was seeing it then…but oh how that has shifted in the ocean of emotion- what nights I have bent over my heart’s inner chambers in supplication, on my knees to places where laughter and tears lose distinction- where grief and joy burn away all the storied plot lines because they coexist and the mind cannot bear the tension.

She walked in soaked in her conscious embrace and we agreed to wait and see.

It has been a week since then.

I could be very flippant and just say sex has been better. Or talking easier. I could say that living without the weight of the story gave us both breathing room to live in the place we truly meet. The ‘I don’t know’ places that keep us on the edge.

I say flippant because the brain gets it, can make sense of it, but it then makes it into a destination, a thing, and it is a process and there are places underneath getting dislodged I don’t like and am not happy about and I feel them rising in me as I hang in passive stretch or stand rooted in the tree pose.

I am getting more in touch with inner dictators and gatekeepers of the heart. In touch with the Lost Ones whose mantra is “I cannot do it, don’t make me.” In touch with hatred.

So in the rabbit hole the destroyed relationship of commitment brings us closer. The failed thrust out of my past becomes a graduation process. And the ‘gradua-l’ essence of that word goes against my Aries ramminess. Am I allowed some control here?

But of course how beautiful. It was my choice all along the way. My choice to end a long marriage when my wife was content. My choice to end my business when I could earn a securing wage. my choice to dive into romance and longing and deeper intimate connections and initiations with friends and Ali and my choice to reduce my belongings to 6 boxes and two suitcases and no debt.

My choice to move to England, meet Ali’s world who love me and the story we have. My choice to set my sights on new expressive work as I immerse in self practice and cultivation.

ANd now my choice to break this story wide open.

I felt the initiation of Kali in the fall of ’05 when all this came to choice. Kali who is fiery. Kali who continually cuts off heads of false ego. She is a hell of a guide.

Sometimes resistance is her sword. Resistance to a marriage so soon after my long one. Resistance to living with a 7 year old boy after raising my own. Resistance to the big city of London. Resistance to starting over from scratch with no model at hand but struggle in an expensive city where I am to stay put.

The sword had always been there above my head but veiled in longing and as Michael wrote, ignorance. It was a gift. It got me here. In this new rabbit hole.

SO what is my new story?

Barry- world traveler (after living out this upside down relationship with Ali drinking tea in mad hats).

Oh..and Steven and anyone else my e-mail is meherbaba8@gmail.com your response had nothing to do with my need for privacy this past week.

This is a young man’s site at best to bring consciousness to a deep choice where one loses control on a lot of levels. At worst it is misogynistic, speaks not to the heart or soul of a man’s journey but to the need to hold on, on many levels.

This is an elder males site ( or a younger man’s need to hear only this form them) to bitch and moan in some twisted form of mentoring over choices made and the subsequent projection of all his problems on the stereotypical American woman. I hear no responsibility shared nor even a sense of the many many dimensions and contradictions in marriage.

As for me, I get along just fine with my ex-wife after a year of separation grief and renegotiation of the heart and the home. I speak to my kids weekly or more and am more aware of the blessing they are to me and me to them now that I am an independent soul and not part of the team.

I don’t regret my marriage and my choices at this age may appear to be a rejection of marriage but is part of a much bigger picture. Barry