I feel this essay mirrors biases and paranoias of our society. The essay seems to me to round loving someone other than our partner up to being infidelity. Why? Life is short. What's wrong with loving many people?
It defines "real" love and tells us what's "real" and what's "fake" love. Whatever doesn't fit the author's love definition is labeled fake. Maybe the author is speaking what's his truth, applied to him. But, what gives anybody the right to tell other people their feelings are fake? That's shaming! How people experience love can be very different from individual to individual.
Love is not a pizza. Love does not run out if you share it. There's not only two buckets, the friend bucket and the lover bucket. In my experience there's an infinite number of buckets. I love so many people, many sweetly, many dearly and my spouse is free to do the same.
I think love is what we should be embracing and not fleeing from. Our world needs more love, not less love.
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Reflections on a Three of Swords Day
Yesterday was a Three of Swords day for me. Cards and days like that are a gift for me. Grief is an opportunity for love to shine through. Suffering is the first noble truth. We all have lost and we all suffer. Impermanence is the nature of everything. When I grieve I am also recognizing the sacredness, the beauty, the fortune of that which was and how lucky I am to have that as part of my life story. If what I am grieving was good, I smile over the memories and love. If it was bad I appreciate the lessons learned. I am changed for this grief. What I grieve is part of me. That's the awen. The heart bleeds and the heart beats still.
Sunday, January 20, 2019
About Soulmates
In our culture we talk about soulmates like there is one, and only one, person who is meant to be your everything partner in life. But, what if we have many soulmates? What if our soulmates are our village? What if each soulmate has a unique place in our soulmate constellation and no one soulmate replaces or takes away from another? What if in our quest to find the one soulmate, we are missing out on our many soulmates? What if we are not seeing the forest in our quest for the tree?
Monday, December 3, 2018
Many loves creates a village
When my first wife died tragically in 1991, it was my sweet friends who were there for the kids and I. Having relationships outside of the box created the village we needed to survive. One friend, Judy, came and stayed with us for weeks. Some folks were aghast that this "other woman" was staying with me.
A niece also flew out and stayed with us awhile. My niece and Judy were a team. Given that I was making funeral arrangements and dealing with two kids in intensive care I really didn't care what other people thought.
My sister was also a huge huge help, but she was not local. I could not have done what had to be done without each and every one of them.
A niece also flew out and stayed with us awhile. My niece and Judy were a team. Given that I was making funeral arrangements and dealing with two kids in intensive care I really didn't care what other people thought.
My sister was also a huge huge help, but she was not local. I could not have done what had to be done without each and every one of them.
Saturday, October 6, 2018
About Labels
We have a whole long list of labels that we attach to relationships: lover, partner, friend, family, etc. In my experience these labels are just approximations. These are all loving relationships. Each individual relationship is unique, intimate in its own way and changing over time. There's danger in drawing assumptions and creating hierarchies based solely on labels. I have found the greatest loss is not allowing yourself to love and enjoy the awesome people in your life as much as you can. No one type of relationship is better than another. It's okay to be in love with who you love, no matter what label, no matter how that love manifests. Love is love.
Monday, August 13, 2018
Book Review: Many Love, A memoir of Polyamory and Finding Love(s)
Many Love, A memoir of Polyamory and Finding Love(s)
Sophie Lucido Johnson
ISBN: 978-1-5011-8978-4
What I love most about this book is Sophie Lucido Johnson's holistic approach to polyamory. What she offers is not just polyamory as a way to structure relationships, or even polyamory as a relationship orientation. Her book (to me) offers polyamory as a way of being, living and loving. Her book's holistic approach expands the concept of "many love" to encompass the loving intimate space we call friendship, and the loving intimate space we call romance and also the loving intimate space in between.
My first wife and I opened our marriage in the late 70s. There was no Internet. There was not any narrative for what we did (that we knew of anyway.) Lacking rules, there were some negative experiences as we experimented and found things that didn't work. But, there being no rules was also a positive. We explored the "loving intimate space in between" as well as having other sexual partners. There was nobody to tell us we were "doing it wrong." There were no poly police. We went outside of the box and found things that worked that would have been unconventional even in the poly community that emerged much later. Over time we rolled our own version, our own way, of what has since come to be known as polyamory.
Decades later, as I learned about this thing called polyamory, I still found little out there regarding that space in between. Now there were rules: there were friends, and there were partners; and those were two totally different buckets. In a podcast years ago (2016 I think, not sure which episode) I recall the folks at the Multiamory Podcast referring to the "separate buckets" with friends being one bucket and "partners" in another bucket. I said, "I need more buckets."
Gracie X (author of Wide Open) spoke about it (and wrote some about) what she called emotional polyamory. She contrasted this to what the mono-normative community sometimes calls "emotional affairs." But, mostly it has seemed to me, many in the polyamory community then heavily privileged sexual relationships. The good news is the community seems to be evolving, incorporating more concepts from relationship anarchy. That's a very good thing!
So, I especially appreciated Johnson's chapter on "Just" Friends. It's nice to now look back and feel that those loving intimate "no label" relationships in between, that I so fondly still treasure, are finally being seen as something as amazing as they were. Sophie Lucido Johnson did that!
Sophie Lucido Johnson
ISBN: 978-1-5011-8978-4
What I love most about this book is Sophie Lucido Johnson's holistic approach to polyamory. What she offers is not just polyamory as a way to structure relationships, or even polyamory as a relationship orientation. Her book (to me) offers polyamory as a way of being, living and loving. Her book's holistic approach expands the concept of "many love" to encompass the loving intimate space we call friendship, and the loving intimate space we call romance and also the loving intimate space in between.
My first wife and I opened our marriage in the late 70s. There was no Internet. There was not any narrative for what we did (that we knew of anyway.) Lacking rules, there were some negative experiences as we experimented and found things that didn't work. But, there being no rules was also a positive. We explored the "loving intimate space in between" as well as having other sexual partners. There was nobody to tell us we were "doing it wrong." There were no poly police. We went outside of the box and found things that worked that would have been unconventional even in the poly community that emerged much later. Over time we rolled our own version, our own way, of what has since come to be known as polyamory.
Decades later, as I learned about this thing called polyamory, I still found little out there regarding that space in between. Now there were rules: there were friends, and there were partners; and those were two totally different buckets. In a podcast years ago (2016 I think, not sure which episode) I recall the folks at the Multiamory Podcast referring to the "separate buckets" with friends being one bucket and "partners" in another bucket. I said, "I need more buckets."
Gracie X (author of Wide Open) spoke about it (and wrote some about) what she called emotional polyamory. She contrasted this to what the mono-normative community sometimes calls "emotional affairs." But, mostly it has seemed to me, many in the polyamory community then heavily privileged sexual relationships. The good news is the community seems to be evolving, incorporating more concepts from relationship anarchy. That's a very good thing!
So, I especially appreciated Johnson's chapter on "Just" Friends. It's nice to now look back and feel that those loving intimate "no label" relationships in between, that I so fondly still treasure, are finally being seen as something as amazing as they were. Sophie Lucido Johnson did that!
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Many Love: A Memoir of Polyamory and Finding Love(s)
I have finished reading Many Love: A Memoir of Polyamory and Finding Love(s) by Sophie Lucido Johnson. I have yet to review it. I will have more to say. In short, I loved it. It's not just a poly book. It takes a different perspective on polyamory than many books I have read.
It's about love, infinite love. It's a book about how love (and poly) transcends sex and even romance and embraces, and fills the gaps between, other forms of loving emotionally intimate relationships even friendships.
I get that. I really get that!
It's about love, infinite love. It's a book about how love (and poly) transcends sex and even romance and embraces, and fills the gaps between, other forms of loving emotionally intimate relationships even friendships.
I get that. I really get that!
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