Surrender Value

There is perhaps an aspect of arrogance in starting a blog. I agonized for a long time what my topic would be... would it be based on something I have personal knowledge of, a passion for, or an experience I have had? Would it be a medium for poetry, prose, a kind of shout into the void like my previous online adventures on livejournal and the now-defunct but loved in memory diaryland? What to write about? What is it that drives me, what is the seed that is germinating that I share with the world? What is my higher purpose? I am blessed to have so many different sources of loving community-- The Red Tent Temple Movement, more recently the Earth Spirit Community and Rites of Spring, the Human Awareness Institute, and via HAI the Shalom Community, my spiritual path of 20 years ago that miraculously returned to me, Blue Star Wicca... it would seem like in the course of two years of personal growth that started with things as various as Weight Watchers and reading The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron I have found a treasure trove of communities so different but all centered around the idea of tribe, higher love, integrating male and female, Eros and Agape, sexuality and spiritual, nature and nurture.

So with so much in the mix where do I begin? With hobbies, like my eclectic and painstakingly collected music mix of over 65,000 tracks on Itunes? I briefly toyed with a music blog, but I could not take the stick pin of critical analysis and stab it into the butterfly of what music is for me. With new passions of which I have little skill but great enthusiasm, like tribal belly dancing lessons with Aepril Schaille ?

The old adage says "write what you know" and so I am doing just that. Perhaps what I want to address with this blog is how to integrate all of these light and dark aspects, how to heal myself and heal the world by shedding light on the cobwebbed corners of my soul.

Right now I am coming to realize that what inspires me, what breaks and expands my heart are the complex interweaving of human beings in relationships- whether they are traditional married couples, gays and lesbians, all of the many spectrums of polyamorous relationships-- and I have been a student and a spectator of relationships from when I was very young. So I want this blog to talk about relationships, from as many angles as I feel called to explore-- most especially for the time being the relationship I am forming with myself and my own needs in the long journey out of the shadow of codependency which has led to the downfall of my most recent long-term relationship.

As I was contemplating how to let go with love and good will I became pressed with the financial realities of uncoupling, how crippling it can feel when your long-term plans suddenly evaporate and you are left with sorting out the massive debt involved sometimes in the end of an assumed life partnership even when it does not end with marriage. I have been divorced before, and I know there is always a "price to pay to get away" and when the time comes I am not afraid to pay it just as in the high of new love energy I over-give and under-plan. Perhaps we need to re-think the future, and while I was lying in bed not sleeping struggling with these survival fears I heard a phrase that sounded like the voice of an angel whispering over the quiet waves:

Surrender Value

There is nothing mystical about this phrase- it refers to the amount you get back when you cash in an annuity, as I am planning to do. But I thought about the emotional cost that I have paid, and how I can pay that forward as much as I can have the maximum taxes withheld so this emergent need won't penalize me next year.

As I surrender this love, I know what I have given, what I have saved, I know what I wanted my future to look like and that what I have now is peace and serenity but not the happily-ever-after story I craved. I also know what I am willing to pay for it-- in order to find that peace and serenity I have given up holding onto anger, resentment, and hope. All forms of attachment

So here in the wee hours, feeling at the brink of emotional and financial Armageddon, I am blessed with this one little phrase I will hold as a mantra through my first lonely nights and my early-onset triggers.

Surrender Value

I will pay it

I will let go