Love’s Journey Divided Into Many Stages

“For one human being to love another, that is the work for which all other work is but preparation.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

There is a wonderful children’s story, by Jack Kent, called “The Caterpillar and the Polliwog.” It goes something like this:

A youthful caterpillar brags to turtles, ducks, fish and finally a polliwog: “When I grow up, I’m going to turn into something else.” After she leaves, the polliwog says sadly: “How horrible for me. I won’t turn into anything.’ A wise fish corrects him: “You’ll be transformed. Just be patient.”

Time passes. The caterpillar starts spinning her cocoon. The polliwog watches. Closing her cocoon around her, the caterpillar says, “Soon I’ll come out fully transformed.” The polliwog watches. Much time passes. Then the cocoon stirs, it opens, multicolored wings emerge. Out rises a beautiful butterfly!

The polliwog jumps up and down, calling to the butterfly who is now flying away, “Show me, show me how to change myself!” He jumps up, he comes down, he jumps up, he comes down. He’s acting, he realizes, very much like a frog. A frog! Looking himself over he realizes he has become just that.

He awakens. He calls out to his winged friend, “I was so busy watching you, I didn’t notice what was happening to me!”

And the story ends with two new awakened creatures in it. Both creatures began their journey in their own forms of spiritual ignorance - one manifesting it in boastful pride, the other in a lack of self-awareness. But now, transformed and conscious of themselves, they enter the next stage of their life-journey. Each has “become himself,” “become herself.” What a wonderful feeling!

In my new book, “Love’s Journey,” I begin chapter 6, “Refined Intimacy,” with Kent’s story. The wisdom I see in it is that we do not develop as individuals or couples to refined, effective intimacy without first having “become who we are,” that is to say: without first developing a solid identity, something that so many of us do not accomplish as fully as we’d wish.

Think of how much energy we spend bragging, either to others, or in the mirror, about what we own, how beautiful or rich we are, how intellectually or emotionally smart we are, while really we feel very insecure. The best clue that we don’t have a solid sense of our own adequacy and identity lies in recognizing how we seek to control those around us.

Think of how much energy we spend watching others who appear beautiful, rich, intelligent, and emotionally secure - envying them, focusing on them, but missing the beautiful changes and potentials that are really our own. How difficult it is to be intimate, either with ourselves or others, when we can’t see how we ourselves are growing.

“Love’s Journey” is about the 12 stages of relationship. Our human history is filled with wisdom stories about the search for love and mystical knowledge about how love works. “Love’s Journey” tries to capture those stories.

The story of Adam and Eve is a beautiful rendering of stages 1 through 3 - Romance, Disillusionment, and Power Struggle.

Adam and Eve begin their existence in “perfect love” - we might call this romantic ardor, infatuation, true desire.

Then the serpent comes and Adam and Eve learn disillusionment - that the garden has been an illusion. Now they are naked, unprotected by the illusions of perfection. Now they must seek what mature love is.

Then they bear two sons, Cain and Abel, who embody power struggle to such an extent that one boy kills the other.

Everywhere we look in the world we find stories like this one that just wait for us to discover hidden knowledge about human loving. Those stories live in our own relationships. Each one of us has been Adam or Eve, Cain or Abel.

This Saturday, Feb. 10, I’ll lead an all-day workshop in Spokane on Love’s Journey. We’ll hear and tell stories, from mythology, mysticism, and our own everyday lives. We’ll work together to celebrate love as a spiritual discipline, not just a place for romance, disappointment and power struggle. We’ll explore the middle stages of relationship - Awakening, the Descent into the Self, Refined Intimacy. And we’ll explore the later stages: Creative Partnership, Radiant Love, and the Elder’s Solitude.

Whether you are a single person or a couple, I’d enjoy meeting you at this Valentine’s event. For more information, call 624-1436.

, DataTimes