Menstrual Cycle Wisdom

How might it have been different for you if, on your first menstrual day, your mother had given you a bouquet of flowers and taken you to lunch, and then the two of you had gone to meet your father at the jeweler, where your ears were pierced, and your father bought you your first pair of earrings, and then you went with a few of your friends and your mother’s friends to get your first lip coloring; and then you went, for the very first time, to the Women’s lodge, to learn the wisdom of women? How might you be different?

-Judith Duerk, Circle of Stones

Read more here. (Although, I must say... the article looks "cut"... it talks about the beginning and middle phases of the cycle and forgot to talk about the ending phase...)

Open Relationships

his hurting bothers me, especially since i understand almost perfectly where it's coming from. if the tables were turned, i'd be the same. im as passionately jealous as he is. : ) and i love it that way.

still, i wondered how other people dealt with this stuff. im not exactly an expert in long-term good and loving relationships and i just wondered how other people successfully managed this. so i google-searched for "jealousy" and the first article i came to was on jealousy in open relationships.

i've always understood open relationships to be those kinds of relationships where there is no commitment to a future together, but in this article, it was defined as a relationship with a commitment to at least take each other seriously and even build a future together, but with an openness to non-monogamous sexual relationships! : O

i've always prided my self in being very open and liberal-minded (although still very oldfashioned in values), especially when it comes to how other people live their lives, but i have to admit, this one article actually shocked me, even offended my basic sensibilities!

i guess it works for other people, but i don't think it will ever work for me. i love too much when i love, and it's an all or nothing kind. i am not good at sharing and distributing, when it comes to romantic love...

or maybe i am just too out-of-touch idealistic, still stuck in visions of knights and fair maidens who inspire even as they distress... : )

the article talked about it logically, presenting open relationships as a whole new, more loving way of living, based on abundance of love and not the scarcity of it. it likened it to having a new baby, more people to love, more love to go around with.

intellectually, i could agree to the proposition, but heartfully and soul-fully the very idea violates my very being.

maybe im selfish, maybe im greedy, but i want my man to know me intimately and i, to know him as intimately, in a way that nobody else knows, because that is the kind of beautiful and magical world that we create and try to nurture.

my man is not a baby, although i like to baby him, and i am not a baby either, although i like it when he babies me, so i don't buy that BS about the new baby analogy! having my man have a sexual relationship with another woman at the same time he has an emotional and sexual relationship with me, with my full knowledge and tacit agreement, would be tantamount to my agreeing to sharing my bed and my house with her (and all her lovers, too, past and present)!!! : O i just don't think i can be intimately loving with that many people, all at the same time! : O

i don't know how they do it, live and let live i guess, but im happier with the kind of life im crafting now.

he thinks

he encourages me
to talk to other people
to enjoy my self with other people
as he can't be with me yet.

so sometimes, i do
although, most times, i don't
as i enjoy my self best
when with him.

but now that i'm talking
with other people again
he also hurts
though he tries to hide
by keeping quiet.

he thinks
i don't know.

he thinks.

he thinks
i can easily
replace him.

he thinks.

J

he is good for me in many deep and soulful ways, even if current circumstances in our lives are not exactly perfect for our being together yet.

he moves me, not just bodily and mentally, but deeply too, in ways of the heart and soul. he knows me inside and out, accepts all my idiosyncracies and strange eccentricities with love and tolerance and amusement, and even celebrates who i am at each moment, whether im being wild and stubborn and mad, or whether im being sweet and humble and innocent, or sulky and clinging and unreasonable even.

sometimes, when some innocent remark he makes sets me off and pushes my red alert buttons, dredging up old wounds and ancient pain, and i become less of the beautiful self i'd like to think i have become, he even wallows with me in my misery and ugliness and takes all the blows for me, too... sometimes, when i get like this, i start hating my ugliness and act as if to leave, but he begs me to stay instead, saying he needs me in his life, when all i've done to him was hurt him unfairly even.

how can you still fight and resist in the face of that kind of loving?

J never ceases to amaze me.

i feel that i am finally in the presence of something great and timeless and holy, and each day i am awed and humbled at my good fortune... what have i ever done to deserve this kind of blessing?

sometimes, i think now, that even our present circumstances which prevent us from being together forever at last, is good for us. maybe, we need to grow into this blessing we have stumbled into until we are able to handle it well, when we are physically together at last.

finally, here is a man who loves me with all his heart, mind, body and soul (and loves my children even as if they were his own!), a man who can love me as much as i love, too, match for match, in all ways... at last.

i think i have found my own Big Jar, too, at last. : )

God is sooo good!