Summer is drawing to a close over here in the UK, though August’s brassy overtone is doing a good enough job hiding the roots of winter. But, its sharp glint is soon to arouse my favourite season – autumn, in which light remains, and everything reboots into action. January, by contrast to September which I think of as the proper start of the year, is just so meh (though it is a month of celebration for my daughter was born!).
I have been away from Substack for summer, having been equal parts occupied, experiencing the intentional intensity I call a life, and also for becoming quite disenchanted with the silence to be found here. But, I know there are some listeners and readers here, and no way do I invalidate your presence - I thank you for resting attention here, even with my inconsistency.
To the life being lived away from here, also known as ‘the practice’, each day serves up its configuration of need, desire, and aversion. The challenge markers of being in the world, its points of rub. Being intra-relationally anchored means I find myself increasingly less disturbed by aversion. Yay to this. And, need is need - so what can a human humaning do man, but extend compassion towards the self in need.
Desire, however, is no easy reckoning, and can leave me scattered about my self. Literally; imagine a tidy room. Then exit to come back into it, and see: mayhem all over the floor, walls and ceiling.
Intra-relational contact is to have an embodied knowing of the deliciousness of calibrated spaciousness, and to be able to clearly discern dysregulation as it begins to takes hold of the self. P-IRTY being this intimate intelligence, clarity of a self whose shape out in the world is experienced as flexible and robust, able to give, but not fold in on itself.
For this Sunday VN, I am thinking aloud ON INTIMACY AS AN ACTIVE AWARENESS PRACTICE. I offer this as a hand extended to past, present and future selves struggling with finding stability in the presence of a desired object. If attachment, love, desire derails you in some small or significant way, this could be a good listen.
In Portuguese, the word for alone is sozinho, and the word for lonely is solitario – I used to get these mixed up often, in fact, I still do, owing to the root word which gives English speakers solitary, isolation, and of course solitude. Loneliness and aloneness appear to sit quite close together, but in fact, they are two distinct experiences. One possibly experienced as depletive, and the other as restorative.
Is it possible to be in contact with another in a way that meliorates loneliness, without giving up, or, be displaced out of solitude of being? To be in contact with another without your own self scattered about? Is it possible to engage a contact that nourishes the intra-relational subject? And if so, how might this be done?
From the summer silent retreat I recently attended, the concept of a challenging other as ‘practice object’ was discussed during a Dhamma talk. This resonated greatly with me, and I imagine it will be a great awareness tool to reach for when faced with those that bring out the Croydon in me; i.e. objects of aversion. I am also appreciating that it can also be beneficial directed towards objects of desire.
Intra-relationality is a practice of awareness, and it is easier practiced alone, like most pathways for cultivating awareness and easing suffering. But, its beneficence is best enjoyed in the world, in contact with those found in the world. Though the work to develop the intra-relational self is solitary, it is not a path of aloneness. Rather, this is an embodied pathway towards full-ness, a spaciousness enough to invite the world into, knowing you can't be pushed out of what you wholly contain.
The world no longer an unsettling place, the other no longer an object of terror, and the self no longer destabilised by the world. Not swallowed up by the other, nor afraid of self.
I will stop here, and let you press play on the recording. The hope with these voice notes, where I think aloud on intra-relational themes I am rubbing against in my own practice or that clients turn my attention to, is that there is something of utility I can leave here, for those seeking liberation, from suffering in wrappers of need, aversion, and desire, to encounter so as to move closer to this knowable experience that I deem a life that feels better than good.
RH17 INTENTION
with the clarity of becoming
a shape that does not fold
in on itself, i am able to stay,
rooted in reclaimed ground.
This is #positiveintrarelationality
As always, my radical heart is turned towards your radical heart.
