Partnership

Here’s a triad of terms that I’ve been thinking about for the past eighteen months or so: Lust, Relationship, Partnership.  I’ll put it right out there and say I’ll be doing a series of classes on this idea on Fridays at 6PM in February at South Mountain Yoga in New Jersey.  For the sake of the flier, I’ve swapped the word ‘attraction’ for ‘lust’, but you get the idea. 

After seven years of studying this tradition (that’s a common-law marriage where I come from), with a few more years of practicing in the tradition of ‘gym’ thrown in, I’ve realized the value of gaining a bit of knowledge and holding it for some time before I actually know how to use it in a sentence.  Well, a teaching sentence at least. 

In the beginning, all the new ideas were coming at me through the fire hose, and I took what I could and it was all so beautiful and magical.  But, through time, I felt at home with more ideas than not, and the sparks just didn’t fly as fast and furious as they did in the beginning.  There’s still practice and commitment, and it works and it’s sweet and healthy, but it’s also all those things that are regular, everyday, normal, and can dull you out.  I could go days and go through motions and not look directly at what I’m doing.  I know what that looks like.  I’ve seen it a million times. 

Some days, though, I find myself meeting eyes in the mirror with that same commitment.  We’re just brushing our teeth together, same as every day, but then there’s that moment of silently saying to each other, “I’m so glad you live with me.”  And then there’s that other, shockingly electric part of the feeling, where you react in the way you imagine you would to an illicit lover.  Really?  We can still do this to each other?? 

That this is lust, which implies a sense of going out and getting something external and taking it.  Oh, yeah.  Lust is at its most desirous when the thing you’re taking is not yours.  This is not problematic in and of itself.  None of us would be here without the power of attraction, of urgency toward something we want. 

But it turns problematic when we think that that’s all there is.  We become like the god Indra, whose successes always come from conquering something external.  When success is only externally-generated, all there is to do is to repeat, vicious-cycle style.  Materialism applies to people, things, even spirituality.  Regardless of how many trainings you do or lovers you have, if you’re only taking – not receiving – you’ll just end up doing the same thing over and over.  No matter who else is there, if you’re taking it’s always still just you, all by yourself. 

Beyond lust lies relationship.  If lust is taking, then relationship is give-and-take.   It’s you and the mirror, which tells you something about how to align, how to make the sacred.  It’s all of the drawing of boundaries and learning “This, not that.  Here, not there.  Now, not then.”  Relationship is the generic term that we use any time two people (or a person and a thing) are in close proximity to each other.  Sometimes, relationship is there regardless of whether any lust is or not.  It can be dessicated and still be a relationship. 

But what it does do, juicy or not, is show us more about ourselves.  We can learn and grow and reap value.  We become successful at what we’re doing, but the peril is that we might get to the point where we go, “Oh, I get it.”  There can be a tendency to look at something in the mirror and see what we think we already know.  Everything fits, nothing more to see here. 

This third term in the triad is partnership.  This is the model of getting up and feeling and aligning again today and knowing that you’ll do it again tomorrow.  It’s not one party taking, it’s a mutual taking.  By receiving another person, we are received.  And sometimes it’s not until the millionth-and-one-time of hearing something that you actually know how to use it.  It becomes wisdom.  For instance, I’ll enter my second decade of marriage with my spouse this year.  It’s been only since just last year that I figured out that he loved me unconditionally.  He’s always been doing it.  I just now knew that I knew it. 

I’m real proud of how far we’ve come as a greater community with ending friendships and marriages and ties to schools of yoga.  I see a lot of great co-parenting and blended extended families that have dealt with divorce.  My parents’ divorce in the eighties was the classic nightmare – my dad lived three miles away but he might as well have been across the country.  When people go separate ways these days, they write beautiful letters to each other and stay friends on Facebook and make business collaborations.  And maybe that’s a certain way of being a good partner, too. 

Partnership firms things up by enduring.  It makes us more powerful by making us more than ourselves.  The partnership model invites us to not just acquisition and success, but to greatness, which is a demanding place to be.  Whatever you want, whatever you align to, there you will find success.  Greatness is the opportunity to savor that success, day after day.