"In the faces of men and women, I see God."---Walt Whitman

"Why should I wish to see God better than this day? I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God's name, And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go Others will punctually come forever and forever."
---Walt Whitman

"Except for their genitals, I don't know what immutable differences exist between men and women. Perhaps there are some other unchangeable differences; probably there are a number of irrelevant differences. But it is clear that until social expectations for men and women are equal, until we provide equal respect for both sexes, answers to this question will simply reflect our prejudices."
---Naomi Weisstein

"Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then."
---Katherine Hepburn

"Set your expectations high; find men and women whose integrity and values you respect; get their agreement on a course of action; and give them your ultimate trust."
---John Akers

"By friendship you mean the greatest love, the greatest usefulness, the most open communication, the noblest sufferings, the severest truth, the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of minds which brave men and women are capable."
---Jeremy Taylor

"Men and women are equal in love. They are equally vulnerable and equally powerful."
---Elizabeth Rapaport

"The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a growing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing; it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of divine accident, and the most wonderful of all things in life."
---Hugh Walpole

"Relationship means something complete, finished, closed. Love is never a relationship; love is relating. It is always a river, flowing, unending. Love knows no full stop; the honeymoon begins but never ends. It is not like a novel that starts at a certain point and ends at a certain point. It is an ongoing phenomenon. Lovers end, love continues. It is a continuum. It is a verb, not a noun. And why do we reduce the beauty of relating to relationship? Why are we in such a hurry? - because to relate is insecure, and relationship is a security, relationship has a certainty. Relating is just a meeting of two strangers, maybe just an overnight stay and in the morning we say goodbye. Who knows what is going to happen tomorrow? And we are so afraid that we want to make it certain, we want to make it predictable. We would like tomorrow to be according to our ideas; we don't allow it freedom to have its own say. So we immediately reduce every verb to a noun."
---Osho

"Forget relationships and learn how to relate.In a better world, with more meditative people, with a little more enlightenment spread over the earth, people will love, love immensely, but their love will remain a relating not a relationship.If you enjoy being with somebody, you would like to enjoy it more and more. If you enjoy the intimacy, you would like to explore the intimacy more and more. But it has to be a commitment from one heart to another heart. It has not even to be verbalized, because to verbalize it is to profane it. It has to be a silent commitment; eye to eye, heart to heart, being to being. It has to be understood, not said."
---Osho

"As soon as the love relationship does not lead me to me, as soon as I in a love relationship does not lead another person to himself, this love, even if it seems to be the most secure and ecstatic attachment I have ever experienced, is not true love. For real love is dedicated to continual becoming."
---Leo Buscaglia

"A powerful connection between two people is a potent psychic factor that exists regardless of either person's opinion about the relationship."
---Sarah Ban Breathnach

"Relationship is a mirror in which you can see yourself, not as you would wish to be, but as you are."
---Jiddu Krishnamerti

"You didn't come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here."
---Alan Watts

"As the ocean 'waves,' the universe 'peoples.' Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated 'egos' inside bags of skin."
---Alan Watts

"Rare indeed, is the relationship in which the other is not cultivated for what one can get for oneself."
---Anthony De Mello

"To relate is to react. To react is to understand oneself. To understand oneself is to be enlightened. Relationships are schools for enlightenment."
---Anthony De Mello

"Oh soul,you worry too much. You have seen your own strength. You have seen your own beauty.You have seen your golden wings. Of anything less,why do you worry? You are in truth the soul, of the soul, of the soul."
---Jalal al-Din Rumi

"Create a life that fits your dreams and you realize your true soul path and embark on a spiritual journey that nourishes the sacred and embraces the immortal."
---Michael Teal

"If we identify with the soul we awaken the authentic self , inspire the spirit and fuel the fire of transformation."
---Michael Teal

"The Buddha's teachings on love are clear. It is possible to live twenty-four hours a day in a state of love. Every movement, every glance, every thought, and every word can be infused with love."
---Thich Nhat Hahn

"Wouldn't it be powerful if you fell in love with yourself so deeply that you would do just about anything if you knew it would make you happy? This is precisely how much life loves you and wants you to nurture yourself. The deeper you love yourself, the more the universe will affirm your worth. Then you can enjoy a lifelong love affair that brings you the richest fulfillment from inside out."
---Alan Cohen

"We've shared intimate moments. Allow me to become your mystical lover."
---Arthur Tugman

"Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves, without any insistence that they satisfy you."
---Wayne Dyer

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."
---Louis De Bernieres

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."
---1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

"Don't look for perfection in me. I want to acknowledge my own imperfection, I want to understand that that is part of the endlessness of my growth. It’s absolutely useless at this stage in your life, with all of the shit piled up in your closet, to walk around and try to kid yourself about your perfection. Out of the raw material you break down you grow and absorb the energy. You work yourself from inside out, tearing out, destroying, and finding a sense of nothingness. That nothingness allows God to come in. But this somethingness— ego and prejudices and limitations— is your raw material. If you process and refine it all, you can open consciously. Otherwise, you will never come to anything that represents yourself...The only thing that can create a oneness inside you is the ability to see more of yourself as you work everyday to open deeper and say, fine, ‘I’m short tempered,’ or ‘Fine, I’m aggressive,’ or, ‘Fine, I love to make money,’ or, ‘I have no feeling for anybody else.’ Once you recognize you’re all of these things, you’ll finally be able to take a breath and allow these things to open."
---Swami Rudrananda

"Only in an open, nonjudgmental space can we acknowledge what we are feeling. Only in an open space where we're not all caught up in our own version of reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly."
---Pema Chodron

"We are all one. Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way."
---Neale Donald Walsch

So, yesterday I just hit a point where I was like, "How did I get here???" This week I have been encountering women who are in insecure relationships so they themselves come across as insecure and suspicious. I have encountered men who cannot imagine what the female species is saying or doing. I have been dealing with concepts of sexuality: heterosexuality, homosexuality, and everything inbetween and seemingly outside the realm of possibility.

Ugg! I am frustrated.

I feel life should be simpler and much more satisfying...filled with love and honor...truth that transcends the moment...power that bolsters all people to be all that they can be and to me that IS LOVE.

First, let me say that as beings that ARE love we must wrap our heads around the reality of our deepest and highest selves. Preferably sooner than later. As long as we sell ourselves short as "this or that" or NOT "this or that" we will know great confusion and quite possibly great suffering. I have known both.

I grew up in a house full of men. I was the youngest child of four. I lost a lot. I developed coping skills that would enable me to "succeed" in some sort of goal making. [I was, after all, a Type-A personality.] Often, by default, my goals were to make my "perpetrating" brothers rue the day they dominated me. This usually meant being the most annoying, aggravating, irritating person around! It wasn't much but it was something. I mean, at least I felt some productivity.

As I intersect with mid adulthood, there is an ironic twist to my childhood. My brothers are now all married. Their wives and their girl children are succeeding where I could not. My brothers, in the name of marriage and commitment, accept the equalizing measures between the sexes (i.e., speaking with consideration, giving and sharing their space with others, conceeding that more than one opinion counts, etc.). They often bite their lips in strain as they cope with the fact that they are not "king of the hill." [It is a small vindication for me, but it is something!]

When I was young I knew very little about love relationships. I had a strong understanding of friendships, but connections between men and women were delicate to me. My childhood had been saturated in relationships with boys. Much to my chagrin,puberty washed all that away. Body chemistry between peoples was volatile and often non-understandable. As a result, I went through a series of relationship phases. And I think I have said it many times in many blogs that to have love that endures between two people there must be strong love for the self in each of the parties.

I didn't have much love for myself. I was taught to please and give. I expected boys and men to give me great difficulty. That is what I knew from my familial experiences. I frequently felt overwhelmed by the vibrations males would emit. I believed in caring for people with my whole heart. Most boys and men wanted nothing to do with caring unless it came in some sort of physical form. This was devastating to me. I felt horribly rejected and misplaced.

In college, out of confusion, hurt, and self-neglect, I accumulated many young men and expressed myself physically as much as possible. And at some point I began to merge over into the perceived male mind set. I openly chose to disregard my true nature to care in place of a plethora of male-female physical interchanges. And at some juncture I snapped.

One summer I got involved with a young man named Mark who was known for being a "player." He cajoled, charmed, and convinced me he had changed. He acted sincere and earnest. My caring (broken) heart opened and let him in. So, I got emotionally close to him---or at least it seemed to be that way. We talked on the phone incessantly, we spent the summer playing in the sun and having fun, we enjoyed sleeping in each other's arms at night. Our physical interaction was not completed because I had heard that men lost respect for women if the women expressed themselves like that physically. So I held onto myself and held out with Mark day after day after day. And then one night I gave in a little.

Mark and I had spent a few months being together, and in the flash of an eye and with a tad bit of "my weakness," our "relationship" halted. He did not call me after a pitcher of beer and a passionate interlude. He waited and waited and waited. Over a week went by. And as it turned out in the big picture, Mark never stopped being that "player."

Later I discovered more hurtful information. I was under 21. I couldn't go to clubs. Mark was of age. He had been hanging out with many other young women that summer, some of who were in my sorority. I felt trashed and I wanted vindication.

Yes, vindication is an ugly little, unloving aspect of my persona that crops up from time to time. It used to happen a lot as a young person. I had anger and hurt I didn't know how to deal with. I continue to work through anger that wells up in me when I get hurt. I think I am much more communicative now. I have learned to please less and honor myself more. I feel whole.

I drove myself so hard when I was in school. I desired something real and tangible in the world of love. But I wouldn't get that for many years to come. Looking back, I feel happy that I experienced a lot of connections rather than just one. In other words, I am thankful I didn't find a commitment to engage in. [I almost did, but my illness broke and sent the relationship flying out of the ozone layer. I can't tell you how glad I am about that.]

I have seen so many marriages and commitments falter over the years. I believe that we begin to really know ourselves between the ages of 35-45. I can't imagine trying to grow with someone else when I haven't finished growing myself. That is a lot to ask.

I love Osho's view of relating versus relationships. I like the continuum. The trick is that mainstream society does not think this way. Mainstream society focuses on the family and "stability." I am 38 and I have never been married. I can't conceive of the notion of marriage, pregnancy, and family stuff. Certainly I have visited my brothers and their families and the families of my friends, but it is all so remote to me. For me, life is about recognizing my own love and then mingling that love with all mankind. I have to think of me. That is the way it is. Families can't think this way.

Last night I was interacting with an ex-boyfriend and friend of 20 years. We have had our moments. But, I am really about non-violent communication at this stage in the game. He can often try my communication skills!!! Yesterday, I had to end the conversation because he was getting aggressive with me after a day at the office. I had to explain that when my brothers speak to me like he was speaking to me that it was time for a nap. He wasn't thrilled with my response but it was the best statement for both of us. We went our separate ways and there was "no blood shed."

I do not understand why I can have friendships that are fluid and beautiful but when it comes to relating with members of the opposite sex there is something devastatingly hard between us. Now let me explain. I have tried a variety of people to love and be loved by over the years. I changed the types and the temperaments whenever I found a distinct incompatibility. But it drives me nuts to be so unsuccessful.

My good friend said I should not look for "emotional je ne sais quois" with men, leave that for our girlfriends. I feel this is selling men down the drain. Men are capable of strong emotions and great deepness. Men are more loyal than any woman I have ever known. Men can open up and be excitingly real. I have experienced men with these valuable traits. My most recent ex-boyfriend was all of those things and more. The reason we failed as a couple was that neither of us was whole when we met. That deficit caused many difficult scenarios to manifest. In conjunction we were living in separate countries and we were both quite poor.

When I meet interesting people I see their very best. I expect that best to be groomed and brought forward in each of our lives so that an amazing life will ensue and be maintained. [To me that is the ultimate form of commitment.] I get very far with this formula. But, so far, destiny has not revealed a match for all time. This disheartens me; but I rarely quit. I am persistent and determined. [And I complain when I get beside myself!]

I believe in the love that we all ARE. I choose to seek the face of God in everyone I meet. It is important to me.

I find that most people are locked into the mundane world of "wax on, wax off." This saddens me greatly. I am a dreamer, an idealist, a leader, a visionary in a broken body. I have achieve huge dreams throughout my life. We are each filled with the most unimaginable greatness.

When we don't see this, know this, be this the universe suffers.

We ARE LOVE right here right now. We can be and must be authentic to live fully and robustly. To settle for anything less is Godlessness, and I have no desire to be God free. I exist in God and God exists in me. This is true for everyone. [It doesn't matter whether people believe it.]

If I can find extraordinary traits of love in one man, I can find extraordinary traits of love in all men. We are all ONE in the Web of Life, the Divine Matrix. We must believe this and live it every second we can.

Men and women can blend in the pallette of LOVE and LIFE. I have experienced it. It is totally possible and completely plausible. My great frustration lies in the wait and the where and the who of the "land of inbetween."

Men have huge hearts. Men can communicate effectively in the boardroom, on the football field, and in privacy. Women can love without insecurity, laciviousness, and hovering. LOVE is bigger than any issue that any of us have. It IS. If we commit to practicing true love we will not need to possess and dominate. We can be heart centered and free. We can be safe and trusting with our deepest selves. That is what LOVE is.

Don't accept anything less. If you have already, start today to learn what real LOVE IS. It begins with you. Look inside your heart to the Divine within. Find what IT has to say. You do this by getting still and listening until the quiet comes. Then you trust the message.

Men and women can make the "impossible" happen. Every man is LOVE. Every woman is LOVE. LOVE+LOVE=LOVE. It is just that simple.

Mankind is used to subscribing to the law of scarcity. LOVE is infinite. LOVE is abundant. LOVE is GOD. If we believe, if we practice what we believe, we will know great empowerment in our relating.

Yesterday, I was exhausted from the diatribe of people that don't get how special we all ARE. [I was feeling impatient.] I miss the man that filled my life with all those things that many call impossible. I miss the active emotionals currents between us that electrified my soul and set my spirit in flight. That man knew the mystical world I crave to share and have deep inside my being.

My journey has made me weary; but, I know my dream exists.

Men don't think scarcity thoughts about women. women don't think scarcity thoughts about men. Believe in real tangible LOVE that springs eternal. IT IS!!! Open your hearts, feel your spirits come alive. Trust that life is bigger than what you see. LOVE created the universe. Give yourself to it. You ARE LOVE. Believe it and receive it.

You can. Yes, you can!