Friday, January 9, 2015

The man I married, and the man I almost married

To See Within
16 x 20
Oil, cold wax on paper


A wild time in the late 1980's and I was fiercely in love with two men - the man I would marry and the man I almost married.

I learned many things during that gloriously, exhilarating time. Perhaps, the two most important were; love opens you in deliciously unimaginable ways, searing between the extremes. You feel as if you carry the entire Universe within yourself and all you want to do is give, give and give. 

And, that we are capable of deep, multiple loves. One not taking away from the other. Canadian author, Merle Shain, likened it to knowledge; when a teacher shares her knowledge with a student, she doesn't have less knowledge to give to the next.

Love and knowledge are not finite, they are endless, and like a spring, continue to flow, when fed. These gifts are not borne to us as  limited vessels, full upon birth, and as we share them, slowly trickle out of us until we have no more to give.

Perhaps that is the lesson of the biblical story, where Jesus feeds 5,000 people with seven loaves of bread and two fish; love is infinite abundance, if we open ourselves and share.

I do know, if I would have chosen the man I almost married, I would have wondered what life would have been with the man I did marry. I would have escaped into a fantasy of lost love and regret.

Instead, I crossed over the threshold into the unknown; for the man I almost married was a safer, known choice and the man I did marry was a mystery; one I wanted to be caught up in, embraced by, loved by, be with.

All these cascading years later, my spirit heart chose the right threshold to cross over.

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