Week 6 Argonauta-Gift from the Sea

 I've got a very busy weekend ahead of me...and here I sit with the book, "Gift from the Sea."  I've heard it said that taking time for yourself normal about a half hour of meditation is good daily. But when you're busy you should take an hour...crazy for a type like myself. But I do, do it and feel so much better for gracing myself with that extra quiet time.   So this morning I share my readings and quotes with Anne as my Guide.


Argonauta (Paper Nautilus)

Another stage of relationships, when we outgrown our Oyster bed of home...Questioning our middle-aged lives. Anne is questioning this part and point in her life when all the experience of the other shells and relationships with family and friends is now at a point where their might be more freedom to move around and take some time for personal adventures and grow still yet in the second half of life.

Anne describes sharing a life with loved one as not to be limited exclusive one or not as functional and dependent one but a meeting of two whole fully developed people as persons.  Scottish philosopher, MacMurry shares...a fully personal relationship, that is "a type of relationship into which people enter as persons with the whole of themselves, no ulterior motive.  And to carry on with German poet, Rilke, "it is a state in which there would be space and freedom for growth, and in which partner would be the means of releasing the other."   A binding and releasing with grace and dignity.

A relationship like this doesn't come easy it is something that has to be grown. Firm and rooted slowly.

To understand this fully in my own words is the middle-aged or second part of life can give us a renewed freedom to explore area or things in our lives separately with out strings of emotional garbage.  That the individual in the relationship is secure enough to enjoy the happiness the other is taking part in  and excited enough to be there when the adventure is over, listening and embracing the experience with them as they share their story.

Also what I'm gathering is it's time to really grow up and to not be so depend on another, learning to stand alone, it's not a competitive stand or a proving of strength.  Anne shares from her time about the swinging of ideals of Victorianism and Feminism...Pick one...Both extremes throw her off balance' neither is the center, the true center of being a whole women. She must find her true center alone. She must become whole.

This is something to question that both Man and Woman might need to look at as becoming the whole person the are to become...this realization and allowing each other to have the space to do that is a gift to the relationship in my option.

Anne shares, Perhaps both men and women in America may hunger, in our material, outward, active masculine culture, for the supposedly feminine qualities of heart, mind, and spirit-qualities which are actually neither masculine nor feminine, but simply human qualities that have been neglected. It is growth along these lines that will make us whole, and will enable the individual to become world to himself. 

Could a couple at this point in their relationship grow apart?  sure they could...but like a tree Anne shares, the trunk grows and spreads into limbs, branches and leaves. But the tree is still one, and it's different and separate parts contribute to one another. The two separate worlds of the two solitude will surely have more to give each other than when each was a meager half. 

"A complete sharing between two people is an impossibility," writes Rilke, "and whenever it seems, nevertheless, to exist, it is a narrowing, a mutual agreement which robs either one member or both of his fullest freedom and development. Here's the just of it....once both are accepting of it and the distances that it creates...wonderful living side by side can be part of a growing up if it is succeeded in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against the wide sky!"

Personal comment...how our social media of TV Drama show, really screws our young minds about what growing up and being an adult and having a relationship is all about...now not that I've got this all down and perfect but really how this book can be such an inspiration a simple short guide book.

We must use are signposts that exist to help us through the wilderness.

Work is not deformed by pressure... Relationship is not strangled by claims. Intimacy is tempered by lightness of touch.

Anne shares a good relationship has patterns like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern.

The Joy of such a pattern is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation it is also the joy of living in the moment.

How do we learn this?   Fear can make us clingy and be greedy for the next one and only moment.  Fear destroys, "the winged life"

So if you love something/someone, let it go....isn't there a quote about that?

As in all of life....there is this swinging back and forth for the balances...nature has taught us well with Ebbs and Flows...the sharing and solitude.

Anne shares...We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb.

Learning to live through the ebbs and flow is to stay present.

Each cycle of the tide is valid, each cycle of the wave is valid, each cycle of the relationship is valid.

Well that was a typing handful....and I have to be honest its part of the relationship that I feel the husband and I seem to be in...me taking trips/work related...on my own and him doing the same.  I know I've always enjoyed to hear when he gets back about his adventures and how excited he is about his experience.  I've tried hard to work on my  part of the relationship is to be happy for his happiness.

Paper Nautilus