2003-01-23-Multiple Sessions 1-8
Costa Rica #030123
Topic: Multiple Sessions
Group: Costa Rica TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Alana, Legion, Devina
TR: S. Butterfield
Session 1
David’s Question : Please give me, and us, some help as to why we experience these ups and downs. I want things to be smoother.
Alana. Yes, my friends, I am here to respond, along with Legion and Song, advising me. We will speak to you, Sir David, alone, allowing our beloved transmitter to know that we will speak to her as well in this correcting time in your marriage. Indeed, it may be best to communicate this way for a time, allowing each of you to communicate with us and receive our response in a manner that allows you as much personal privacy for absorption of the information given before any attempt to communicate with each other ensues.
We will speak now, my friend, my beloved Sir David, a spirit revered, this to your distress over the incident of the violation of your privacy. You must make the distinction between privacy and secrecy, in which privacy allows for the sharing of information in time, whereas secrecy creates fear that what must be hidden can not be shared, or will not be shared in time to relieve fear and doubt. You have determined that your beloved entered into your privacy without your permission, and this is true. You also attribute lack of trust as her motivation. This is not true, as you understand it. She was motivated by a pattern, one deeply understood in her life experience, and one that conflicts with a pattern of your own.
You have been given a model for the relationship between husband and wife. You believe, as with your father and mother, that a woman, especially the wife for whom you are held responsible according to custom and to your home family pattern, must be protected. As in the manner with children, information must be selective, given, offered, allowed, or censored, if you wish, according to the ability of the child, girl, woman to “handle it.” This pattern was reinforced with the mother of your children because, indeed, she was unable to handle your truth telling. Her emotional reactions created imbalance. Furthermore, her pattern was secretiveness. This meshed, you might say, with your pattern. Thus you remained “innocent” of the causes of your inability to please her.
Now you are married to one with similar patterns in her home family constellation to your own, but different patterns as well. She has been taught to serve her man’s wants, and to remain silent, but she has not been protected. She has learned from painful experience, the truth will set her free. She values her freedom, as you value yours. She is not perfect, but she, like your self, values privacy. Your beloved has acknowledged her indiscretion, humbly asked forgiveness, and it has been granted to her by you. So that is a thing of the past, but you must understand the conflict that created her violation.
Your mother accepted and allowed much to pass, in silence. Her devotion to your father was total, from your perspective. You did not learn until later that she could have the kind of anger that would prompt her to throw away his love words. But she did. She trusted your father in every facet of her life. He responded with equally devoted love, and as the one responsible for her lifetime care. He meted out justice as he saw fit, and guided her in her perceptions. If he witheld information, it was, in his opinion, for her own good. This was a pattern you followed, and, as we have already said, you received confirmation that it was appropriate.
There are many gradations between silence and hysterics, but the gradations are lost to you in the activation of patterns. Thus, although you do not dismiss women for their emotions, you do have difficulty listening when the emotional expression comes from the woman you have attached to your personal patterns of identity. (These patterns are often largely made up of “inherited” patterns, assumed in the home family with little thought until the spirit of independence begins to sort out, and experiment with, conscious rebellion. In the most benign sense, you begin to choose small rebellions with your development into maturity. The fruits of these rebellions may be new patterns chosen and practiced with devoted discipline, or choosing “old” patterns “newly, having determined their validity.)
Your beloved trusts you, my friend, and has followed you to “the ends of the earth,” but your concern to “protect” her from a truth you thought she could not handle, accepted for a time, became “the hidden truth,” in her mind. According to pattern, she felt your “protection” as a lack of trust. Combined with a privacy that had certain elements of secrecy, and supported by a homing-pidgeons’s sensitivity for truth, she stepped over a line, and what was hidden (as your protection of her), was seen. We tell you, she handled this truth with love. The emotional conflict that followed from her transparency, does not refute this.
Meanwhile, my friend, you are involved in giving love to one whose patterns of love can not be allowed to bring disharmony into your relationship with your beloved. Yes, I have said “allow this love,” but you can not use my guidance as permission to do as you please without the discipline of love. When you are (in truth, my beloved) being self-protective (of the physical self, as well as ideas, dreams, wants and desires), you will be more likely to let your discipline “slip.” (Unless that “discipline” includes commands contrary to the usual pattern of survival, as, let us say, with the soldier.) In reaction to “survival,” human beings, and you are one, tend to self-deceive. The mind rationalizes to the heart.
The heart pleads to the mind. Desire becomes demand. Listening becomes programmed according to fear and doubt, and what you hear is accordingly shaped. It is not uncommon, when serving others, to experience a temporary imbalance. The balance is restored, steadily, as a daily discipline for example, or when that is disrupted, as a conscious retreat (as in taking a day of rest). You are thoroughly capable of restoring balance to the situation with your beloved. Listen. Your temporary imbalance has afflicted your listening; that is, you do not want to hear what your beloved has to say, and so, you do not hear it. Thank you, we shall return.
Transmission stopped so that transmitter might go to breakfast with her beloved. 🙂
Legion. We are pleased at your progress. Your strength is in your vulnerability to love, only when you are willing to learn from errors in love. The love never disappears, but the behavior of love may change, and more often than not must change. A “hardened” heart, or “cold” heart, is the product of refusing to learn the lessons of love. Learning requires flexibility of heart, and thus your term, a softening of the heart, to describe the change in behavior, or change of direction, that follows learning. Thus, your beloved Christmas tale in which the tight-fisted scrooge is given another chance through his confrontation with the truth, spoken and presented to him with love.
You should understand that you are involved with addictive behavior: this applies to what you call recreational drugs, cigarettes, and love. You want more, even when satisfied. Or, you turn to your “supply” when disappointed. In the case of love, this would mean turning to others when your “main squeeze,” as you put it, is, shall we say, “out of order.” Addiction to love (you might call this an imbalance of dependence, as well) makes one vulnerable to errors of love. I would not say you are addicted to your friend, but her supply of adoration is plentiful, and not at the level an intelligent daily partner can provide. Over time, adoration must be tempered by truth, and truthfully tempered, adoration becomes certainty of loving respect. The inherent quality of a well-tempered relationship is to be attractive to others, thus the necessity for the discipline of love, for even well tempered relationships come across bumps in the road. (To be continued.)
Session 2
Legion. You are doing well, my friend, speaking the truth with love. You can understand the problem of Eve, impatient to bring such love into the world. You understand the comfort we bring, strengthens, also. On a love-starved planet, we must, with your guidance, learn how to give our love away, and you must learn how to receive our love without drowning. It is a co-operative effort, yes? Not restrictions, but the humility of respect for love. Not the freedom to follow your desires, but the far flung freedom of learning how to love with discipline, so that your joy in and of the Father, our Mother, may pour forth abundantly.
Sexually handicapped, a condition of wide varieties of expression, you must learn to touch with absolute focus upon the will to love, and to allow love to flow freely. Thus we teach you strength. The strength of focus required for learning how to love is comfort in discipline, the reward of joy, the fullness of freedom. Faith brings you to the door, but you must open it, and sometimes close another.
Closing the gate to life is tempting in the throes of pain, and when there is no hope for the body, the spirit should be set free, and is, as you allow this to be. We bring that same rest to you in our compassionate comfort, a reminder of love fulfilled. Speaking the truth with love, we strengthen your ability to listen, receive, rest with, and eventually give away this love in your own truth fullness of living. The discipline, the discipline of love, strengthens your focus. It supports your path toward joy. It does not limit, but allows, which is to say it welcomes change with love.
Be not ashamed to express your desire to your beloved. Allow her to rest in the comfort of your love and express her desires without fear. Continue to work with her toward the fulfillment of your sexual love, co operating with her in that inner intercourse, as well as in every coursing of love that pours into and through that large open space of your love for each other turned outward. You are learning to work together. Continue to practice expressing your love and receiving love in return. Fear not to interrupt for love, which allows for learning how to receive. Fear not to offer the perspective of love, for in that are lessons in giving love away.
You have chosen a brave path, and it is made smooth, not by wearing down, but by faith. Have faith in your partner, as you have faith in me, my friend. She is wiser than her malaprops and kewpie doll behavior, sweet but mute like a doll, eyes revealing an emptiness of space. When you fill that space with fear, you will not hear her wisdom.
Have faith in your own kindness, my beloved and beautiful friend of love. Do not cringe before her pain, but look through the tortured expression, shamelessly, without guilt, to see her inarticulate love crouched in a corner, only needing a hand. To remember our Father’s, our Mother’s love when you see pain brings the mercy of compassion. Allow love to lift you up, with her, hand in hand, as stepping into my pool of love and forgiveness washes you clean of confusion. Trust her. The certainty of trust is known in that ecstatic moment of release and surrender into the fullest acceptance that you are loved, embraced so fully by love you are one body without dimensions, simply breathing each other.
Remembering Michael’s love and the love we have for you, His teachers of the humility of respect for the Love that permeates and resides within each one of you, be not in a hurry. One gesture of love has the power to erase ten wounds, if the errors are not repeated. Twenty, when the redundancy of learning becomes more painful and subject to the fears of “time running out.”
Do not get hung up on the numbers, I made them up to give you this: you live to love. You live to bring in to your life, by choice, the joy that love creates. Loving another brings pain. Do not fight this, but accept, and respect the truth of love contained therein. You are children, but love is not a game, it is a discipline, a discipline of life. Like a game, a master player teaches.
Session 3
David: Thank you dear teachers for coming to us, for your dedication and patience with what appears to be our incomprehensible slowness. But as you said, Alana, we get double points if we have to learn the same lesson twice. Thank you for giving us perspective, the wonderful perspective of ethical purity. The way has been so marked by incredible love, it has been a pure experience, something we can follow with respect, is what I am trying to say.
Alana. Yes, this is Alana.
David: Welcome, beloved.
Alana. Thank you.
David: My beloved is beginning to adopt some of your speech patterns in her every day communication with me. I find it delightful.
Alana. Your beloved and I are closer than perhaps you have imagined.
David: I’m beginning to imagine it. It’s wonderful to see the invisible effects of your ministry, the inner effects of your ministry. In her behavior toward me, instead of some usual response, an automatic response, a learned response, conditioned response, I feel her coming from this other space of unexpected response, of gestures of kindness, like she receives a word or two from you, another way of looking at things, and is able to give to me wonderful gifts of attention and love that feel like real breakthroughs on the path of love.
Alana. And in your perspective and behavior towards her, yes?
David: That is so. That is so.
Alana. There is the same osmosis, if you will. Alana’s lessons of love, the equality of love in its capacity to bring joy, the humility of respect for love, the joy in love. Yes, (unclear what her last word is)
David: Thank you. I was disappointed the other day when our session ended early. I wanted to thank you for the wonderful experience of serving Chris, and the Sullivan’s through our ministry to him and bringing some loving healing into their relationship. I wanted to tell you, Alana, there was such joy in my heart when I received Chris’ letter thanking us for what we had done the day before, the fact that he felt he was not alone when he left here, and that when he came home there was peace and he was listened to. It felt like we are learning the paradigm a little bit more clearly: receiving this love from you and learning how to give it away in a way that conveys the purity of the love. I want to thank you for teaching us how to do this, and for being with us in this endeavor.
Alana. Yes, you are expressing the gratitude that comes from the joy in service.
David: Yes.
Alana. We have said, the discipline of love is the discipline of joy. And so it is, service is joy serving love. Love is a single spirit. When you serve, even in the most humble circumstances, even under the most horrible of circumstances of human errors of love, you experience joy. For joy is love serving joy. You dish it up, so to speak, yes?
David: Yes.
Alana. This love and joy is served for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It would be an evolutionary leap for the human race to decide that serving one’s country, going into “service” so to speak, or serving one’s neighbor (one’s God, so to speak, the love that resides in each one) should be the service of love, not war. As you have discovered yourself, as you have been sorting out the complexities of, shall we say, more simple relationships, by which I do not mean to say simple-minded, or lacking in complexity, but in comparison to the conduct of, what do you call it, “national security,” or preservation of the individual nation-state, your individual relationships and difficulties in expressing love and allowing love to guide you in your conflicts, does somewhat pale in comparison, yes?
David: You’ve undoubtedly been listening to us express some of our fear and trepidation about the crisis that the world is in about the issue of the U.S. going to war against Iraq. In addition, we read the transmission from George Bernard from the midwayer chief Bzutu…he painted a rather dark picture of this planet…so….you have described yourself as a prophetess in the past, so I’m wondering if you have a word to give us to comfort our souls.
Alana. My beloved, always my word is love. Love thy neighbor as thyself: this wisdom is yet to be understood by human beings, collectively. Do not succumb to fear. See the possibilities, understand reality, and with the power of your imagination of love’s will, fill the darkness with light. That has been the challenge for human kind, to fill the darkness with light. We have opened the circuits, we have allowed light to flood them. Keep your eye on the balance wheel of love, yes? You must balance out this darkness with light. Do not succumb to fear. Hold high the mission of love. Love brought to you from our Father-Mother in One Single Spirit of Love carried through many, many voices. Do not shy away from the truth. You must learn to welcome change with love.
David: You want me to welcome war with love, if that change comes down, Alana? That’s what I’m imagining you are saying at this moment. Please inform me. It’s a hard thing for the mind to grasp at this point.
Alana. No, my beloved. I am asking you to welcome the change of perspective, the shift in paradigm, you might say, from the “service” of war to the service of love and joy. Each person must welcome this change in their own lives, in their own hearts. You have experienced the power of choice, to choose love, and suddenly you see differently: you hear with love, see with love, listen with love, understand with love, speak with love.
Now, you must discipline that knowing. Discipline that love and joy, that it may continue to sustain you in a world of terror, such as yours. Each one who masters the ability to carry this light, sheds light upon others. And they, in their turn, give the light away. We work to provide voices at the level of a world listening, but do not forget, my beloved, as we work with those, so we work with you. Every step you take, directly feeds love and the movement of love to our work with them. Do you understand?
David: I think so. I will have check it out in written form, too.
Alana. So, is there something else you wish to discuss with me?
David: I want to thank you for your gesture of love in turning my attention to beloved Song. It seems like I’ve had a breakthrough in understanding in why he asked me to keep the peculiar journal he assigned me to do, an insight into something of what the effect this is going to have on my life, and so I want to thank you for that. I find myself turning to him more frequently now, when my natural inclination has been to always turn to you, I am getting closer to him. So thank you for this new friendship, his steadfastness, I have an exceedingly deep sense of appreciation for anybody who has been trailing me for the last 74 years. So thank you.
Alana. Yes.
David: Also, something I’ve been noticing recently…it seems that every time I have a wish of some kind in my mind that has to do with love, or the communion of love…it seems that pretty soon it comes to pass. Things are just going click, click, click…just like that. I don’t think I’m imagining things…it just seems to me that the path is smoother. So thank you for that, too.
Alana. We speak of the movement of love, yes? You will grow in compassion, my friend. Your beloved Song is, you might say, a master of compassion.
David: Well, I picked up previously very clearly that in some ways where I was stuck in my story about Jesus…he seemed to think that was perfectly all right, and that there might be some things I needed to learn about my Master before I proceeded with my story. So I even began to feel that today as I was writing in my journal, speaking to Song…I saw a definite connection with the Master that’s opened up my mind to a great dimension of his compassion with his own family problems.
Alana. You must come to know the Master within you, yes? Very well, my beloved…
David: I have one more comment I would like to make, Alana.
Alana. Certainly.
David: As our teacher of our original group you encouraged us to include you in all of our comings and goings and decisions. We are presently at a juncture at which I have spoken to Chris and Sonja about a regular meeting, and I’ve spoken to our beloved transmitter, and to Sandy. And Sandy has sent out a plea for a meeting on Sunday. You have indicated in the past there is benefit to holding regular meetings. So I wanted you to know that we are proceeding in this direction I’ve just outlined, and would like your blessing upon this direction, as our lead teacher.
Alana. My beloved, as you know my blessings are upon every gathering of those who seek to know love and to know God’s will is love. So, my blessings upon you.
David: Thank you.
Alana. Allow the commitment to grow.
David: Yes. I understand that.
Alana. Perhaps a series of three or four, six or eight meetings would be a wise parameter to establish, within which persons can establish directions and perspectives they hope to accomplish. Yes?
David: Um-hmm.
Alana. We will work with that, yes?
David: Yes, that’s a wonderful idea. Thank you. Thank you.
Alana. It is a co-operative effort, you understand…this teaching mission, yes?
David: The whole journey seems to be a co-operative effort, does it not?
Alana. Yes. So, let us create the heart room now.
David: Thank you.
Alana. Opening your heart, opening your mind, stepping into the heart room with me, gently surrendering into the pool of love and forgiveness, floating with me embracing you, cleansing your heart and your mind, giving you love. Allow that love. Accept that love. Know that you are loved, and love your self as loved.
Open your heart now. Open your mind. To bring your world into the heart room: your loved ones, those known and unknown, the leaders of nations. Fill that world with the living waters of the love and forgiveness that we give to you to give away. Rest with me now, deep in the heart of the heart room, in Michael’s love. Know the deep joy and peace of our Father-Mother’s love. It has been a service of joy to be with you, my friend.
David: It has indeed, beloved. Thank you for coming.
Alana. Thank you.
David: I appreciate the willingness of our transmitter to be available for this service, and all the services she has rendered to me and to our friends in this circle of love. I feel so, lucky as some people say, fortunate to be the recipient of your teachings, along with my friends. Thank you for your ministry. Your ministry of joy, your ministry of depth, your ministry of teaching and correction. I send love to all of the occupants of our heart room, and I send love to this world and all of those who are down and out, or perhaps even heart broken. The love that I feel from you I send out to the world and all of these. I pray for peace. I pray that the desire for peace shall grow in the hearts of these men who have it in their hands to create peace. Thank you for coming again. And thank you for your abiding presence with us.
Alana. Know peace in your heart, create peace among men. Thank you.
Session 4
Dear Alana, Devina, Legion, anyone who can help me please help me NOW! I can’t believe it! I have been told all morning how insensitive I have been toward David’s pain, and then, as he sits down to join me, Chris and Sonja on the porch, the first thing he does is go over to her on the swing, lean way down close to her and in a whisper he carried on a conversation about something she was wearing.
The next thing he does, cutting off Chris mid-sentence, is to lean over to her and whisper for a cigarette. When he returns from getting her purse, she made a flirtatious/teasing comment, “Well!
At least this time you didn’t rifle my purse!” Ha-ha. He said, “I’ve never done that!” She said, “Oh yes you have!” Ha-ha. And of course I know this is true, because in her Christmas Wish letter she said something about keeping cigarettes in her purse especially for him. Then suddenly he tells the story about his aunt, and rifling her purse when he was a boy. When his aunt chided him for that poor behavior, he said he thought it is was ok BECAUSE THEY WERE LOVERS!! What a perfect memory for the occasion! What a butt head! I faked hunger and went into the kitchen to fix something in order to calm down.
Shortly after my return, Sonja remarked that he was being feisty with her. He turned to her and said, “YOU ARE TOO BEAUTIFUL TODAY” not to tease. This from the mouth of the man who says he told her they have to be more responsible for their behavior around this compelling attraction? in front of me? She beamed at him. Then she looked directly at me. Her eyes were blue and “dreamy.” Very attractive. And cold, as she looked at me.
I could see how beautiful she looked, as she was swaying in the swing absorbing all David’s compliments, smiling at him. She’s dressed up…make-up, jewelry…I wondered if I was missing some information and there was some plan to go out to dinner or something. Most likely, however, she dressed up for David. She was finally going to see him! There was pressure to meet today because for three days she has been calling him to get us to go over there and take the walk through the jungle. I’ve heard him say over the telephone each time, “I miss seeing you.” Three whole days, wow, what a long time to miss your “lover.” I managed to get up as discreetly as I could while shaking, and go change my clothes, to give myself some space.
Please understand, it is the public nature of this flirtation (as opposed to his habit of putting me down in public) that is causing me so much pain today. Also the immediacy of this flirtation, right after two hours of telling me how insensitive I am to his pain, and the need for my co-operation. I’m losing trust in him, dear teachers, and respect. I don’t think he can help it…not just with Sonja, but with all the other women he can’t keep his eyes (and hands) off of, or keep from being the gallant gentleman, the flirt, the exciting new person, the one who gets them chairs. If a man were as aggressively flirtatious with me (in front of his face, no less), all hell would break loose.
He was devastated, wounded, “bruised” when I looked up in alarm and asked him about the words he used in his conversation with Sonja about responsibility. He insists my untimely interruption was such a blow to him that he felt bruised the next day and the next, just couldn’t say yes to me because he was so depressed. This from a man of words? This from a man who corrects my English, jumps on me if I use a word incorrectly, calls me stupid in front of friends if I don’t express myself clearly? He says he didn’t really mean what his words implied, and if I hadn’t interrupted him I would have found out that was so. Is today’s example supposed to convince me?
He lectured me about my lack of co-operation! How I’m not pulling my oar. How about our sacred Friday? “Our” sabbath day! Our day to be alone! When I have allowed someone to enter into that day without first getting his permission, he has been outraged, but yesterday, at dinner(when I thought things were easing up, thawing out, because he actually left his private room to join me at the dinner table), he announced that he had already offered our Friday to Chris as a day to come over and fix the steam bath.
Oh yes, he had also offered Sat and Sun (which I am sure he would immediately point out here), but somehow it was clear (because he made it clear) that Friday was the day of choice. I try not to object when it comes to Chris and Sonja unless I absolutely have to because he gets upset with me, and so I didn’t say anything, just hoped for the best. Then, this morning on the telephone, I hear him ask Sonja, “Are you ready to play?” My head jerked aside, I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. He explained, “Our sabbath day is our play day.” Oh really? Who gets to play? (I got to cook, of course.)
After Chris got on the telephone, David finally gave me a “choice,” whether they would come for breakfast (made by me, of course) or later.
Sonja has walked into my space. She came back from her walk with David, straight up the porch and into the house, moved aside the bamboo screen, sat down and began talking to me without asking permission. I have to admit, I wondered if David had just said to her something to the effect, “We can’t go for a long walk together,” in accordance with the new “discipline” of being “responsible” for their attraction to each other. She made a point of saying to me that it was a “fast” walk to see a special “red” plant. (He hasn’t shown it to me.) She began to talk about how Sandy has problems with Rog, (girl talk, dontcha know) without so much as a flicker of consideration for the fact that she just moved the bamboo screen aside, sat down, and began talking, without asking whether I wanted to talk.
Now, Richard is here. Too much is happening. Right now I see David walking out wearing Sonja’s sunglasses! When he came back, I asked him directly, “Where did you get the sunglasses?” Sonja immediately said something placating about leaving them on the table. David said something to her (I forget what). He began insisting that I try on the glasses, (as if I have no idea what it is like to wear good sunglasses, and these are just the best, well wouldn’t they be, they belong to her!) I must try them on, he said. “Maybe you’ll see something.” So I looked through them, twice, the second time asking you to help me to see the beauty in the garden.
He knows something has upset me, because after I had been gone for awhile earlier, he came into the bathroom to find me and asked if I was okay. I told him the truth with as much love as I could muster. “I am still very sensitive right now. I’m going to my computer. Maybe the teachers can help me out. Can you handle that?” So, the men have gone. Sonja is still here
A few last rants. It seems to me that David, entranced with Sonja, approaches me, or reacts to me, as if I was his enemy, not his friend. So often he takes something I am trying to say about Sonja as if I was trying to diminish her, or criticize her, or…. Sonja just interrupted…as I say, she’s pushy…intrudes without hesitation…well, the squeaky wheel gets the attention. She’s got my husband’s attention all right!
I don’t know what to do when David denies my reality. Denies that I’ve approached him. Denies that he is being distant, it’s me. As in immediately hitting back with “it was only once!” when I said that he had fallen asleep several times this past two weeks while being sexual with me. I must be paying attention/in the sense of keeping count, he says. My despair is actually good, he says, because now I will understand how hard it has been for him to be horny and have me not want sex. He really believes I’ve never had that experience with him! Only he has suffered such fear and shame! What about those two months when we were living on the farm and he just couldn’t keep his hands off Kat and Cari! Oh Davina, I just feel he doesn’t respect me.
Davina. Be still my love and allow my love to enter into you and bring you peace and calm.
S: This just makes me want to cry, Davina. He’s not stupid. What does he think I am, a cretin? He would be a squashed snail if I behaved the same with men, as he does with women.
Davina. Be still my love. You are not so afraid of speaking up. You are not so afraid of his anger or judgment. You are not afraid he wants to leave you. You fear that you have turned your life over to him in your faith. When you experience the depth of pain that you feel with him in this matter, you fear that you must leave him.
You think this fear means that you do not love him enough. You have the belief that if you loved him enough he would be content. You think that if you loved him enough, and he you, he wouldn’t humiliate you in public, for you do feel humiliated, my beloved. You think that if you loved him enough you would never have to make a fuss. You think if he loved you enough, and you loved him enough, he wouldn’t flirt the way he does, and wouldn’t be having this fatal attraction with this friend.
You have done well. You have been patient, and you have worked hard at listening when you were not feeling heard. You ask yourself, “Isn’t he asking too much of me?” But it is you, too, my beloved, who asks too much of yourself. There are times when it is good to make a fuss, to be that irritating, uncomfortable, inconsiderate “squeaky wheel.” Be still now. I will love you. I will help you to be with your friends without fear. (To be continued.)
Session 5
S: You got me through the day, Davina. I am grateful. Is there more you can say? I know this subject has me so emotionally exhausted and distraught that it is hard for me to T/R, but it is morning now and David is still in bed, so I’m here. I surrender my thoughts and fears to you.
Alana. What is your fear with me, my beloved?
S: You are so loving, Alana. And you caress him no matter what. For a long time he thought you gave him permission to “love” Sonja. It’s as if he can take your love and throw your words at me to show how right he is and how wrong I am. I’m afraid. It’s as if I’m not really in the picture, I’m just the t/r. He can sit next to Sonja and hold her hand while I’m surrendering everything to be a pure channel of your love for the two of them to lap up and he won’t even give me comfort. I think I have allowed him to use me. He complains and sulks if I don’t T/R…he says he’s “addicted” to you and suffers if I don’t t/r for him on a regular basis. I feel trapped. What would happen to the marriage, to our relationship, if I stopped T/R-ing?
Alana. My beloved, you must speak to him, perhaps show him what you have written. Yes, this will be most difficult. Yes, he is likely to respond with sadness and what you call depression. But you can not hold these thoughts and feelings inside without damage to the relationship. It is time for him to listen. It is time for him to read your words and contemplate just how true they are.
S: Alana, I feel like he takes me for granted.
Alana. This is not uncommon among human beings. They take love for granted, even as they seek it, and long for it. His patterns of behavior with women fit into your family patterns of rejection. No one flirted with you, so you learned to flirt, but think it is a fault.
S: Alana, how can I t/r when I have these conflicted feelings. I keep wanting to say I WISH THAT I COULD HAVE ONE DAY IN WHICH I DID NOT HAVE TO HEAR YOU MENTION SONJA!!! SONJA THIS! SONJA THAT! FUCK SONJA!
Alana. This must hurt you, my beloved, to listen to such words of the mind. You do not wish to hurt anyone.
S: That’s true. And you know that I remain friendly, kind, considerate, loving toward Sonja. I know he spoke to her, three times now, about being responsible for their behavior. In the process, of course, she received confirmation that there was this compelling attraction between them, the attraction she wrote to him about way back in the beginning, and then again at Christmas, that this attraction was reciprocated. It just hurts so much, Alana. I just want it to go away, and it doesn’t, and won’t.
Alana. My dear, she knew this attraction was reciprocated long before he spoke to her about responsibility. Your difficulty is with acceptance. This hurts your heart, and sometimes your dignity.
S: I understand, Alana, that I must accept, that acceptance comes first. Accept and allow, allow and accept, then welcome change with love. I am stuck. I don’t think I can accept David’s relationship with Sonja, and, which is even worse, I don’t think I can accept his public flirtations with women any longer.
Alana. And what is the basis of this?
S: Humility of respect for love. I do not feel respected by David in public. This morning, for an example, he gave me a gardenia. This was such a beautiful and loving gesture. I felt complimented by him. I told him, I felt like he was saying that he thought I was beautiful in some way, if not physically, then in some inner heart felt way he was still saying, “You are beautiful.” His response was to say, “I’m glad you noticed.” One of his “reminders” of my failures of the past. We spoke of other things, but basically he was on his path of discipline, as defined today by “I was inspired when I woke up to go water my plants.”
He reminded me that discipline was a choice each day, that maybe I would combine my understanding of discipline with the choice to make love each day, as well. He left me with a kiss upon the head, which was repeated two more times when he returned to me sitting in the same position, holding the gardenia, and focusing upon a patch of light on the floor as I talked to you and asked, “Why does he always get to make the choice?” I was thinking, of course, how he defined our Sabbath day this last Friday.
Yes, I know, I have to speak the truth with love. I tried, and was at least able to say, “I am still fatigued from Friday,” in relationship to the subject of having group. Not the complete truth, “I haven’t recovered from last Friday, and I don’t think I could manage to be around you and Sonja, much less transmit for you.” I didn’t think I could say that in a way that he would receive with love, understand with love, and not turn it into another “bruise.” I need help with this, Alana.
But what I wanted to say to you was how the event of Friday, his compliment to Sonja, “You are too beautiful today” has shaped me today. After he left, I looked at the gardenia and felt my disappointment. I couldn’t change anything, I understood that, so I chose my body discipline, as I have been choosing it each day, disappointed or not.
I went to find a place to keep the gardenia, and suddenly, I thought, “It’s no big deal. He didn’t mean all those beautiful things you thought. Those were your thoughts, not his. He just saw the beautiful gardenia and brought it to you. Yes, it was a loving gesture, but if Sonja (or Sandy) had been here he would have given it to her. He does this kind of beautiful gesture all the time for women. He likes beauty. He likes women. End of story.” I felt my disappointment, Alana. I choose my discipline again, but I felt my disappointment as sadness.
Legion. I was counting! (Smile.) Yes, I am with you. If I am with others, I am still with you. I am with you in your strengthening program. We are shaping it together. Follow your inspirations, because I am with you, and I will bring you comfort in your struggle.
S: Sometimes I feel very lonely, as if something is missing between David and me, like Chris speaks of when he talks about Sonja. I feel he just doesn’t listen to me, and uses his “reminders” as a means of lecturing to me about my deficiencies, as if he so is far ahead of me and he has to bear my “bruises,” my “bumping him off the road” with extreme patience for me to catch up.
Yet, at the same time, I have to accept his reminders, his lectures, his direction, because he is always right from that perspective. So I am learning to say thank you, and not rebel. But why does he get to make the choice, “our sabbath day will be a play day with Chris and Sonja,” or “discipline today is getting dressed and gardening, not making love?” The frustration and pain was beginning again, Legion, so I chose my discipline. Thank you for being there.
Legion. Good girl! (Smile.) Yet you allowed for another interruption?
S: Yes. I remembered I had told Sandy I would send her something from Alana, and that brought me to the computer.
Legion. This is good. Do so, then go back to your strengthening discipline.
S: When I have finished, I think choosing to love would mean that if David is still in the garden, I would go be with him.
Legion. Yes.
S: This is hard for me in my mind. Do I have to ask him permission to stand near him? Like he “reminded” me in the shower? That hurt, Legion. I knocked on the door, and he gave me permission to enter. Then he is telling me that permission no longer extends to entering the shower stall. I stepped into the shower stall to thank him for the gardenia. My robe was part open. His “reminder” felt like a manipulation to prevent me from being intimate. He said I was welcome, later, but too late, like, “OK kid, now that I’ve cut you off at the knees, you can come in.”
Legion. Yes.
S: So I have to accept that, but how is that different from “creating distance?” He blames me, saying I am the one who creates distance, bumps him off the path of joy, but how could I have done anything other than say, “thank you,” for his “reminder,” and back away?
Legion. Did you back away?
S: Not really. I didn’t move any closer to him physically, but I stayed with him, listening. But I feel so lonely, Legion, like this loneliness has been with me too long. How can I tell him, “I don’t want to be with Chris and Sonja today,” and have him understand that we need to become lovers again before I see her?
I am afraid he will get depressed again, from yet another “bruise,” and his disappointment that I don’t get over this business about Sonja and get with the program, “our ministry with the Sullivans.” He “reminds” me, as in lecture, of my commitment to this ministry, that Alana said we would work with couples.
Alana tells me to welcome change with love, but I find it hard to welcome this change of direction that keeps sitting in my head, going apart from David. I looked at him as he jumped in the shower, and he is so beautiful. I can’t blame him for wanting beauty. I listen to him and think I can’t bear the thought of not being with him, but I’m not sure I can love him enough to live with this kind of pain again, and yet again.
Legion. Go do your discipline, my beloved. Alana and I will be with you.
S: Do I have to tell him No Group Today?
Legion. No, my beloved, but you have to respect your self. (To be continued.)
Session 6
S: So now a knock on the door and a not quick enough reply of “Yes?” and the explanation is that he thought he was interrupting me and so he went away. But he had already interrupted me, and going away only made the interruption more disturbing. And you have to interrupt in order to knock on the door and ask permission to enter. Nothing new about that. So am I to take his “explanation” as never to knock on the bathroom door again to ask permission?
I went down to him in the garden, approached softly, I thought, and when he turned toward me and looked at me I asked, “How are you?” He said he was fine, but also did not greet me with a smile, so I went on to do some walking up and down the driveway hill. Oh Legion, why does he have to take all comfort away?
When I was coming up he said, “When you are ready to come back, please move the hose.” It was clear he was finished. We talked about having the group, I told him there was a busy signal on the machine, he was frustrated with Sandy’s reason for not driving, saying the bicycles were all gone. He took exception to my saying the bicycles were still going by, said they weren’t, he hadn’t seen any and he had been down there watching.
He started walking away toward the house as I was speaking. I said, “Excuse me?” And he turned back to look at me. Then I finished saying, “in smaller numbers…the large group has certainly gone by.” “That’s what I said,” he replied and turned around and walked on up toward the house. But that isn’t what he said, and if I were to have commented on that, he would have said I am being “pugilistic.” I think that description of me comes from you, Legion.
Legion. It is difficult to share the holy communion of love.
S: Well, I suppose it didn’t make any difference that some stragglers were still going by. I still didn’t want to say that I didn’t want to be with Chris and Sonja today. But that’s not quite it, Legion. I feel like Chris isn’t saying something…I don’t know…maybe it’s me who wants to ask Chris, “What triggered your attempt to take your life?” Legion, this spiritual group therapy is very difficult, and very intimate. I don’t think I’m ready to handle it.
Well, I was just interrupted by David asking me for an answer, group or no group, it depends upon me, as he made clear earlier, “we don’t ordinarily have a group without the t/r.” He pulled away when I said, “unless Chris said he really wanted to have it today.” But that’s where I’m at, Legion.
Chris needs to make the commitment. Actually, so does Sonja, in the sense of participating with you teachers, but I feel it is Chris who is sensitive to undercurrents of feeling that neither he, nor I, feel safe talking about in the group situation. In other words, this attraction is something that only David and Sonja talk about, and David and Susie talk about, not David and Sonja and Susie, not David and Sonja, and Susie, and Chris. This bothers me. I need help with this.
Another interruption: David called, Sonja says Chris said it was OK for us to come over, and that she says we will get an added bonus because she is fixing dinner. I said yes. Realized I had to, because I said that if Chris really wanted it I would do it. This will be very difficult, a challenge, because David still relates to me like I’ve got halitosis. Which I do, apparently, at least in the morning. So I I have to work at my physical well-being. I will draw on you, Alana, Davina this afternoon.
Legion. Yes, we will be with you. Have faith. (To be continued.)
Session 7
Alana. You are not a finished product. Fear not, my beloved, we are here.
S: I want to thank Legion for bringing comfort to me. When he spoke to Chris about comfort, David put his arm around my shoulders, and kept it there.
Legion. Thank you.
Alana. You are being squeezed.
S: Yes.
Alana. You are confused between “allowing and accepting” vs “being a doormat.”
S: Yes.
Alana. You fear that to “welcome change with love” will mean giving up your self respect.
S: Well yes, I hadn’t realized that. I thought it would mean that out of self respect I would have to leave this relationship.
Alana. Do you have that much self-respect to lose? My beloved, you have just begun. You are in the initial stages of learning how to love; loving your self, having humility of respect for the love that dwells within you. You are just beginning to learn how to speak the truth with love, and you have only a small glimpse how this ability transforms relationships. Yes, this is another time for patience, and endurance. Speak the truth with love and join the adventure class in the university of love. You have doubts and fears, but you must confront them and overcome them with love. Legion would speak to you.
Legion. You have done well, my beloved. We are pleased. The patience you fear you do not have shall be yours, for I am with you. One day at a time, my beloved, and we shall overcome this fear that has you so confused. Allow us to love you. Thank you.
Davina. Sweet one, go to bed now. We shall speak in the morning, yes?
S: Yes. (To be continued.)
Session 8
So this morning he announces, “I’m going down to water my plants. That’s my ministry now a days.” Once again he gets to decide, yes? I just feel abandoned. Then he said, “I would like a session with Song today. If you can manage to fit that into your busy schedule.” The last said with his so-called smile, as if he is teasing. Yeh right. And if I say no, it will be one more mark against me, one more proof that I “control” him because I’m the t/r. Like when he said about Sunday, “Of course, it’s really up to you because we don’t usually have group without the T/R.”
Last night he knocked on the bathroom door, after a few seconds (no problem for him this time), I said, “Yes.” He opened the door. Said he didn’t know where I was, and that he gets anxious when he doesn’t know where I am. Oh really? Hour after hour he was in his private room today…I doubt he even noticed that I had gone. I went to the only place I find privacy now, out of the house, up on the hill. I was there for at least three hours. He didn’t express any anxiety, as far as I know.
So he just came in and pretended to knock on my bamboo screen. So cute. I am not very welcoming. He kissed me on the head. Now he’s off with the New Yorker and, obviously, Gordo’s. Well, it hurts, but it is also true, why go with him? We don’t talk, and he isn’t being my lover, so…big deal, yes? So why do I feel like crying all the time? Why am I crying now? I’m thinking of leaving. I feel he has left me, even when he gives me these kisses, he is so far away. Two Sundays in a row, we have group, he sits next to Sonja, holds her hand.
Last Sunday I had to work hard to surrender to let Alana come through, because I had opened my eyes and saw his hand holding hers resting on his knee. What good is it to make agreements if he decides he doesn’t have to follow them, or remember them. He doesn’t play fair. He changes the rules, or perhaps they don’t matter to him because after all, I’ve started doing “group” and so everything must be ok, right? Like, if I t/r for the group, which is David, Sonja, Chris, and maybe
Sandy, then everything is fine. Several times I’ve seen him stroke her arm. That was an agreement, too, that I wouldn’t have to see that because he wouldn’t do it…at least not in front of me. So ok Suzi, you fell for it…how compassionate and caring he was when you were crying in front of the fire…how meaningless it is weeks later, sometimes just days later.
