To open oneself to a vicarious experience, be it laced with joy or grief, fear or ecstasy, one needs to let go of desire and sentimentality. We just breathe in the other, be she near or far. To see my mom with an infant, child or youth was to experience a love light without boundaries. Somehow it always seemed and seems that staying bound up in oneself and then selectively, judgmentally picking and choosing what aspects of another one is willing to engage with has always seemed a fruitless and exhausting endeavor.
Before we've learned the hard way to be defensive and withheld, being in the presence of one whose empathy and contentment in simply being with you is more than enough. This presence has a radical effect. Our baby self, our toddler being, our child having new experiences and onward... all of us, feeling disarmed, knowing that we are in the presence of unconditional love and acceptance, encouragement and safety, all this is an enormous gift.
I am glad I have travelled up the trail far enough to recognize and celebrate this gift that I formerly took for granted. This innate knowing and expression of our connection with one another, the unbroken ties that bind humanity together, can there be any more valuable primary life lessons to make one's own? We listen to Lennon's Imagine and what?.... feel nostalgic? sad? or does this anthem still sound encouraging, perhaps even still a rallying call?
Learning to let go of judgment, go with the flow, and forgive one's past mistakes so that we may stand open and vulnerable with one another, lending a helping hand and allowing others to help us, cultivating the patience that's born of the flow of loving attention we each can open to in ebb and flow.... all this I believe is how we're born. Life can be so tough. How are we to carry a loving heart into adulthood when met with such myriad troubles and hardship?
Through no special effort on my part, my innate perception of oneness with you, dear Reader, has not only survived into my older years, this unadulterated flow of empathy only grows stronger. When you post a photo of your baby, of your wedding, of your visit with your family, of your internship in Belize, of your long departed grandfather, I feel I'm there with you, watching your eyes tear up with joy, seeing you pour love forth unstintingly. And yes, I am a sentimental man. Gratefully so.
The story goes that once, when Laurence Olivier, early in his career, was struggling to find out how to play an unsympathetic character, Tyrone Guthrie gave him the simple, powerful advice to utterly love every character he'd play. Learning by loving is much more than my hippie-dippy slogan for this day. It is what you were born to do. When you come up against a blockade or a pit or a stumbling block, open your iris wider. You will see that love light beckoning you forward.