Enlightenment at the Blue Dot

Love initiates me over and over

I wrote this piece fifteen years ago and just found it again. Love is many things. For me it is ALWAYS A TEACHER. Thank heaven for all who bear love. For those who know us intimately, sometimes love is the most challenging path of all. May we bow to our limits as lovers and dancers.

“Think of a Magic Week,” invited the leader at the Weight Watchers meeting, then she summoned each person there to choose an underlying intention to empower our practice. My husband and I were both in attendance, side by side on the journey.

After the meeting, we crossed the street to the farmer’s market. I suggested we choose an intention for the day. By luck, we landed on the same word: love.

Not five minutes passed and irritation popped up.

My partner tried to pay but his hands were full. Mine were wrapped in shopping bags. You could almost hear the silent growl of two territorial dogs.

Ten minutes later, heading to the car, I asked, “How are you doing?”

“Irritated,” he said.

I said, “It's funny we chose love and then zap…in flew the opposite.”

I recalled that intentions often work this way. We seem to manifest the opposite before we get to the desired outcome. Intention is a serious teacher.

“Remember the first time you felt loved by God?” I asked, wanting to get to our deeper knowing.

“Yes.”

“What did you feel?”

“Surprised. Relieved.”

I countered, “Those aren’t feelings. They’re reactions,” trying to center us in love’s memory. After all, we both have a Master’s of Divinity.

Pow! He reacted. We both froze. Tears rolled down. In less than 30 minutes, since stating my intent to love, I was in trouble. Hadn’t I also agitated two friends that week, unthinkingly assessing their core challenges. Both reacted.

In my heart, I heard, “Make amends to people wherever possible, except when doing so would injure them or others.”

As I was dancing in the studio the day before, I imagined a “Q” tattooed on my left arm, to signal a new practice. Q stands for ask a Question and then be Quiet.

Driving away from the farmers market, I felt defensive, but shut my mouth. In tears, I somehow agreed to go to breakfast at our usual haunt, The Blue Dot Café. The café’s inspiration rose from an astronaut’s view of Earth. We enjoyed its playful, cosmic perspective, dark coffee, poached eggs, wilted spinach, toasted levain, and warm servers.

As my husband placed our order, I found a place by the window and looked around. I witnessed a dignified, elderly couple who couldn’t find a seat. They asked a pregnant woman and her six-year-old daughter if they could join them. The mother smiled and nodded yes. A few tables away, a middle-aged man fixed the collar of a guy in a wheelchair whose muscles were tight with dystrophy. I felt the tender vulnerability in the interactions in contrast to my lack of sensitivity. Young adults behind the counter moved quickly to help customers. I looked out the window again. At a table I saw a woman who held a book titled, “A Faithful Place.”

Then it happened. My awareness altered. With tears of discomfort, I saw each person being held. Loneliness, suffering, disease, beauty, effort, and warmth were all supported by a vast, neutral life, one that required nothing of me. I felt a disarming, exquisite pain as I witnessed the human condition on this blue-dot morning.

The movements of powerless, limitation, love, and gratitude flowed in me. With surprise and relief, I knew the gift of the moment would quickly dissipate. Later that day, I cleaned the house, walked in the woods, and tried not to tamper with the experience. I wrote it down to savor, and take it in. An old ache in my tired solar plexus reappeared, reminding me, “not my will, by thine be done.”

At dinner, I shared all this with my partner, humbled by how invasive my comments had been. I let the day's truth tattoo my soul to help me remember.

The following day I apologized to my love and bowed to my intention.

Love, teach me to love,
but let it feel like a dance,
not a belief or a idea.
Love be love to me.