Max and I have moved out of his chamber. Max's 3 glittery M A X letters came off the wall. I would feel like I am leaving something behind but by now I know that we always are. Sentimentality is a very slippery slope. Places are like people in the way that they carry a certain energy, but hold onto anything to tightly and you will squeeze the life force right out of it. I am living in 300 square feet. I call it the "Bamboo Tube", not much wiggle room except for the narrow passageway to the light. I like it this way. Intense containers with no place to run.
I suppose I too am an intense container or so I have been told.
People say the most incredible things to me. It is all well intended, or not... it actually doesn't matter. Please don't waste your time trying to figure out if people are well intended. I am more interested in how we walk and what actually comes out of our mouth. At this stage in the game it is all grist for the mill and yet I have learned something that I believe is worth sharing.
Very clear people have said to me, " Heather it has to get easier, nothing can be more difficult than loosing a child". Although endearing, "getting easier" is not Max's teaching. Here is his basic teaching, "love is radical, love is our birthright, love is not an economic equation, love doesn't get you anything, and yet the act of loving and ripping open is what we are here to do, be both shameless and vulnerable, stay triumphantly heartbroken and accessorize it with red lipstick and heels." Of course there is the advanced course in playing planetary marbles but let's stick with the basics.
This practice of staying open and saying "yes" is not bias. Staying open is saying "yes" to life. But saying "yes" to death is also Max's teaching. Things will end. Love will kick your ass. You will loose it. Sometimes love is a moment, a month, a marriage, or a total miss, no matter we get a taste. My teacher Max is all love and no bullshit because all that "love" means to my teacher is that you do it anyway. Trust me we are going to loose it in the form that it found us. So when it finds you, when it comes knocking on your door, make room, write your love haikus, move the furniture because it has a tendency to flood, make friends with it's container but please remember that love is only a current a content of sorts that has no bias for it's container. The best we can do is become a vessel and let it move through us.
Here is the new piece and one that has taken me a few weeks to understand, an incredible part of loving is also knowing when it is not. Please listen. Vessels must have valves. They are vital. Saying yes to life does not have to mean saying yes to everyone or everything. Discernment is the most powerful weapon a warrior can hone. Letting love out is as important as letting love in. Listen to your instinct.
Sharpen your skills.
And please do stay "too intense".
