Relationships
I was looking on Gwyneth Paltrows website GOOP and I discovered some lovely and poignant views on love and relationships. Just what I needed during my rather boring day at work. Especially the part about perspective.
I hope you enjoy. The questions underneath are posed by Deepak Chopra.
Which choice is more loving?
What will bring peace between us?
How awake am I?
What kind of energy am I creating?
Am I acting out of trust or distrust?
Do I feel what my partner is feeling?
Can I give without expecting anything in return?
On any marital journey, it always helps to have perspective at your fingertips. It’s the thing that allows you to look out the windows, see where you’ve been, and where you’re headed. And most importantly, enjoy the scenery. Because that, after all, is the reason to be on the road to begin with.
PERSPECTIVE.
And by engaging in some honest introspection, I managed to discover a few things that were necessary for sustaining a relationship. For what it’s worth, they include (but are hardly limited to) patience, empathy, humour, adventure, romance, and of course, a little luck.
Excerpt from A Pretty Song
And I say to my heart: rave on.
– Mary Oliver
For Eros
When you love,
May you feel the joy
Of your heart coming
As your love’s gaze
Lands on your eyes,
Holding them,
Like the weight of a kiss,
Deepening
May slow sequences
Of kisses discover
Your secret echoes.
– John O’Donohue
I must begin with an excerpt from a poem by David Whyte:
The Truelove
There is a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours,
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand
held out to you this way.
I Corinthians 13:
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
A Wedding Sermon
It is a privilege to have two roles at this wedding: mother of the bride and wedding preacher.
It’s easy to look at marriage as the culmination of love – the end point of the journey that begins with “falling in love.” But as all of you who have ever been married know, and as you yourselves, Gwen and Rod, are beginning to discover – marriage is not the culmination of love, but only the beginning.
Love remains and deepens, but its form changes. Or, more accurately, it renews itself in a different way. Less and less does it draw its water from the old springs of romance, and you should not worry if over time these dimensions fade or are seen less frequently. More and more, love draws its replenishment from love itself: from the practice of conscious love, expressed in your mutual servant-hood to one another.
In making these vows of marriage, you become disciples on the path of love. It is a powerful spiritual path and if you live it and practice it well, it will transform your lives and through its power in your own lives will reach out to touch the world. What you really do today is put your own selves – your hopes and fears, irritations and shadows, your intimate jostling up against each other – become the friction that polishes you both to pure diamonds.
Joseph Campbell, in discussing marriage states, “That is the sense of the marriage vow – I take you in health and sickness, in wealth or poverty; going up and going down. But I take you as my centre, and you are my bliss, not the wealth you may bring me, not the social prestige, but you. That is following your bliss.”
Kahlil Gibran in his essay on marriage states, “Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup, but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping; For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together; For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” – John F. Kennedy
A long-term relationship between two people is an ever evolving organism. Some stay the course, some fall, all stumble.
I hope you enjoy. The questions underneath are posed by Deepak Chopra.
Which choice is more loving?
What will bring peace between us?
How awake am I?
What kind of energy am I creating?
Am I acting out of trust or distrust?
Do I feel what my partner is feeling?
Can I give without expecting anything in return?
On any marital journey, it always helps to have perspective at your fingertips. It’s the thing that allows you to look out the windows, see where you’ve been, and where you’re headed. And most importantly, enjoy the scenery. Because that, after all, is the reason to be on the road to begin with.
PERSPECTIVE.
And by engaging in some honest introspection, I managed to discover a few things that were necessary for sustaining a relationship. For what it’s worth, they include (but are hardly limited to) patience, empathy, humour, adventure, romance, and of course, a little luck.
Excerpt from A Pretty Song
And I say to my heart: rave on.
– Mary Oliver
For Eros
When you love,
May you feel the joy
Of your heart coming
As your love’s gaze
Lands on your eyes,
Holding them,
Like the weight of a kiss,
Deepening
May slow sequences
Of kisses discover
Your secret echoes.
– John O’Donohue
I must begin with an excerpt from a poem by David Whyte:
The Truelove
There is a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours,
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand
held out to you this way.
I Corinthians 13:
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
A Wedding Sermon
It is a privilege to have two roles at this wedding: mother of the bride and wedding preacher.
It’s easy to look at marriage as the culmination of love – the end point of the journey that begins with “falling in love.” But as all of you who have ever been married know, and as you yourselves, Gwen and Rod, are beginning to discover – marriage is not the culmination of love, but only the beginning.
Love remains and deepens, but its form changes. Or, more accurately, it renews itself in a different way. Less and less does it draw its water from the old springs of romance, and you should not worry if over time these dimensions fade or are seen less frequently. More and more, love draws its replenishment from love itself: from the practice of conscious love, expressed in your mutual servant-hood to one another.
In making these vows of marriage, you become disciples on the path of love. It is a powerful spiritual path and if you live it and practice it well, it will transform your lives and through its power in your own lives will reach out to touch the world. What you really do today is put your own selves – your hopes and fears, irritations and shadows, your intimate jostling up against each other – become the friction that polishes you both to pure diamonds.
Joseph Campbell, in discussing marriage states, “That is the sense of the marriage vow – I take you in health and sickness, in wealth or poverty; going up and going down. But I take you as my centre, and you are my bliss, not the wealth you may bring me, not the social prestige, but you. That is following your bliss.”
Kahlil Gibran in his essay on marriage states, “Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup, but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping; For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together; For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” – John F. Kennedy
A long-term relationship between two people is an ever evolving organism. Some stay the course, some fall, all stumble.
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