Deborah Anapol

https://s3.amazonaws.com/womenspiritualleaders/Deborah+Anapol+Interview.mp3

Her blog:

http://www.lovewithoutlimits.com/

Photo, from her blog/website, is unattributed. If you know, please contact me so I can award them the immeasurable credit due. It's great! (though I took the liberty of cropping it.)

Fidelity

Early on, even before any awareness of

polyamoury, fidelity seemed a senseless term.

Dependant upon a view toward the future, it

smacked of yet another of the questionable ideas

Buddhism was purported to cure. I credited it, in

the (alleged) contemporary mind, to Puritanism

and the general influence of christianity. Nuff said.

31st Anniversary

 We celebrate on April first.

The poem is by Anne U. White.

                  I WOULD BE WITH YOU

I have said only that I

       would be with you 

Wherever you go

      and you with me.

There is no time or age

      to this one promise,

      nor any place except the

      one you are.

Knowing this, let it give

      you strength,

      and strength to me,

To make what life brings to each of us

Lovelier than before.

1965

Postscript:

It started at my sister's wedding. Her high-school art teacher came up to me and said if I wasn't doing anything, her daughter could use some help getting her art work out there. That was maybe 1993 and I was Marketing Director of New Mexico Central Credit Union...the clearinghouse for all the other Albuquerque credit unions.

Well, I went to see and by the next Spring we decided to combine households. 

In the interim between my inviting her up to my apartment for some brocolli and us not being exactly sure when Sophie (my cat) and Antoinette, the tortoise,  were fully settled, it all had the feeling of a wonderful event that fit perfectly with All Fools Day. And so it's been.

Magic Is Alive

The angina woke me at 2:00.

I thought it'd only been a couple of hours since I last took my meds, but it'd been three. I took 'em again. It's worse at night....I wonder why.

I picked up Harold Fry.

It's completely ridiculous...she, Joyce, has a vague affect similar to Gaiman's (there's a hint of Stardust)...what do they call it, "Magical thinking?"

I had wanted to return to a lake in northern California around now. I think it was after we parted in the Sierras (was that last summer?) that I camped one night at the far end of a lake and the coyotes' songs echoed the way they did the time for us in "Coyote Canyon." It was magical! And I hoped to hear them again.

And the last section in Cured ( I read around midnight b4 going to sleep)

was about Barbara Fredrickson recognizing that every little moment of real interaction, even with strangers, is, or can be, an act of love.

And he, Jeffrey Rediger, writes about how her research shows that these "micro-moments of positivity" are like stars lighting up our vagus nerve...the connecting channel between the three brains....the one in our head, our heart and our gut. It sounds pretty woo-woo, but Rediger (link is to Rediger's website) manages to contextualize it in a way that shows how her idea fits with the other things he's previously presented.

Then here comes Harold Fry. So maybe you need to read at least through Cured up to Frederickson (p.186) b4 you start The Unlikely Pilgrimage.

But it substantiates our fairy tale. And THAT's what's so wonderful. I was telling Adolph (former CVS pharmacy tech) how much each relationship moved me further along...and as I write this I can hear The Liebestod playing in my head.

Link to Sir Georg Solti conducting

the Weiner Philharmonic

And I know that's the gift Walter (my Dad) gave....a belief in the power of Wagner's music....that those myths it revolved around reminded people of the magic of pre-paganism and stories like Stardust and Beauty and the Beast. And you and I went there!....shared that.

So now, at 3:27 a.m., it's my turn to take Jane Einhorn's (a couples counselor Michelle & I saw some years ago) advice and "hold" this moment. As the pain in my chest eases slightly but refuses to subside....and I know....each day I'm moving just a little closer to the edge as, I guess, we all are.

And I think I probably told you of Laura Huxley telling how she disclosed to her son, as she was dying, that she was afraid of death. And how he reassured her (I can't recall which book) that it was as with the baby swallows: that when they finally leaped from the edge of the nest and plummeted toward the ground, as they got near, their wings opened and caught the air and they soared up into the sky. And you can hear the "peak" of The Liebestod" in his tale and the joy of their effortless flight. And I like to think Laura was able to feel a little relief.

   I love you.

Additional Readings:

          Brainpickings on Barbara Fredrickson

Love

Sati....apana




It might've been 2016 when I wandered in at Sir Branson's Spaceport America Visitor Center in T or C.

Sukhi was staffing that day and I made a couple of videos of her talking about things. There was a moment when she leaned close to look at the image on my camera that I've looked back upon as a possible missed opportunity; the moment was playful, and I pulled away in jest as if to keep her from seeing. She moved closer and as she leaned to see, her awareness of the "play" evoked a response that was open and enticing.

European born and raised, I wait for clear signals before making a move. But now, years later, I wonder if perhaps that was one of those times when I should've transcended my upbringing. Might I have been one of the recipients of her poem?

Help! (Updated 7/27/14)

It was the Spring of 1970 and I was traversing the sward in front of the Denver Museum of Natural History on my way to the Idaho wilderness. There, under a tree, sat a young (16) red-haired woman (Irish, no less) who, three days later as she was enthusiastically leading me by the hand to my friend's apartment where we were going to make love, said, "I have to tell you, I'm a virgin." Unsure how to respond, I acknowledged I'd never made love with a virgin before. Her reply was, "Well, there's a first time for everything."

1998

She lives in Palmer, Alaska and has been a paralegal with the Alaska Office of Victim's Rights 
(domestic violence and other crimes) for almost a decade. Today (4/2/14) she called and said she'd started a new, 12-week treatment to cure, not mitigate, but CURE the hepatitis C that has plagued her for years. She doesn't have medical leave and is determined to keep her job, but the medications are debilitating and she had to pause to vomit before closing the conversation. She was leaving for work in Anchorage, 45 miles away.

She used up all her medical leave last year when she went under the knife for 9 hours to have a painful, spinal deformity corrected; Bob, her husband, helped her through that one, but now she doesn't get paid except when she works.

Bob is a self-employed auto-body repair person and underwent back surgery three weeks ago. He'll be laid low for at least three months if not longer. He'd put off the surgery as long as he could in order to help keep them afloat, but we're all getting older and it was time. 

Michele (One El, as she's known), a major love of my life, once said, after I'd made & served Thanksgiving dinner, that I'd have been a good wife. I took it as a compliment although Michele (one el) has never expressed a high opinion of domestic bliss. 

When I suggested to Canice she could use a wife right now she went silent. She's one of those people, like many of us, who's reluctant to ask for help. When I asked if I could interpret her call as an invitation to visit, her enthusiastic response left no doubt.

I'm gonna put the travel expenses on my credit card, but it'll take all I have just to get there. I'm concerned that working and "taking the cure" might actually kill Canice. You know how much a day off here and there can help. Please send what you can to Canice Bryson, POB 4039 Palmer, AK 99645-4039. This is one instance where your support *will* make a difference. And if you would, please add a note to let her know she SHOULD cash the check, otherwise she might not.

My journeys all have titles. This one is Marbled Summer. It'll look good on the subject line of your check, don't you think? Here's where it came from...

On the back of the card

The card was part of the celebration of Michelle Cook's (two els) and my 22nd anniversary of being together.  

Nutrias in Love

We celebrate on April first.



The poem is by Anne U. White. Here it is a tad more legible.

                  I WOULD BE WITH YOU

I have said only that I

       would be with you 

Wherever you go

      and you with me.

There is no time or age

      to this one promise,

      nor any place except the

      one you are.

Knowing this, let it give

      you strength,

      and strength to me,

To make what life brings to each of us

Lovelier than before.

1965

I leave tomorrow for Palmer.

Thanks!!

7/27/14
Canice called yesterday. She's had two blood tests since her treatment ended and both show her free & clear of the virus!! Along with this wonderful news she shared that a friend that she hadn't heard from in 20 years had seen the blogpost above and sent a check for $500.00. It came while she was on leave without pay and helped tremendously. She didn't tell me your name, but whoever you are, Thank You!! 

It's coincidences like this -- the post and you reading it -- that bolster my confidence in Jung's collective unconscious.