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Readers: Please note
that I did not write this article. It was written by Tom
Kenyon. I reproduce it here for the benefit of clients that I
find are
searching for deeper meaning to their relationships. In all my research, I
have not found a better article that resonated my thoughts about sacred relationships. A link to
Tom's website can be located at the bottom of this article.
***
Many of us do relationships the way we play
poker.
We do everything possible to get the upper hand. And if that fails, we
bluff. We pretend to hold cards we don't have. We cheat. We lie.
And while this is the model for many a relationship in our post modern era,
it is not the model for Sacred Relationship as described in the Manuscript.
Let me be very up front here. Sacred Relationship is not for everyone. In
fact, I suspect that there are far fewer persons capable or even willing to
undertake it than there are those who prefer to play emotional card games.
This type of relationship demands utmost honesty both with oneself and with
one's partner. Instead of hiding our cards, we lay them all out on the
table. All our hopes, all our fears, all our petty and jealous thoughts, all
our conniving: all of it gets laid out in the clear light of awareness for
our partner to see. And he or she must do the same. It will not work if
there are back doors unlocked with mental escape in mind. It will not work
if both partners are not absolutely impeccably honest with each other.
And the reason for this radical type of honesty is that without it, the
Alchemy of Relationship cannot take place. Now this may be a new term to
many, even students of internal alchemy, since the dynamics of intimate
relationship are rarely discussed in the four major alchemical streams
(Egyptian, Taoist, Yoga Tantra and Buddhist Tantra).
So I think it might be good to define what I mean here, and to lay some type
of foundation. Like all types of alchemy, this type of work is about
changing one form into another. The form, in this case, is the
inter-dynamics that have become habituated between two people. After a
while, people tend to get into ruts. The liveliness that existed at the
beginning of the relationship begins to fade. Both people become more or
less unconscious. The harsh reality is that it takes continual vigilance and
effort to keep a relationship conscious and alive.
Many relationships drop by the wayside because the partners are either
unwilling or unable to make the efforts required to sustain them. Instead of
experiencing the newness of each moment within the relationship, a kind of
dullness seeps in over time; what used to be exciting is now boring. And
worse, a kind of psychological and emotional lethargy sets in, and both
partners succumb to the dulling effects of unconsciousness.
This type of unconsciousness is a death knell to psychological awareness and
insight; and although it is rarely mentioned, this type of unconsciousness
has a negative effect on one's spiritual life as well.
So the form that needs to be changed within a relationship is literally the
form of interactions that habitually take place between the two partners.
Like all types of alchemy, there must be a container for the reactions to
occur. And in this case, it is the container of safety and appreciation that
provides the reservoir for transformation.
If there is a lack of safety or appreciation, this type of alchemy cannot be
undertaken. And if you have decided you wish to try this type of alchemy in
your relationship, I suggest you do an analysis first. Honestly assess if
you feel safety and appreciation in your relationship. If you don't, you
will be wasting your time trying to undertake this type of alchemy with your
current partner. I suggest you focus your efforts, instead, on the solitary
practices mentioned in the Manuscript. If you still want to give it a try,
get your partner to talk about these feelings of danger and lack of
appreciation that you are feeling. Only if and when they get resolved,
should you consider taking on this type of alchemy.
So now we have two of the three elements needed for alchemy: something to be
transformed (the habitual patterns of interaction) and the container (the
safety net, if you will, of the relationship itself). A third element is
needed; and that is, of course, energy to drive the reaction. There is
usually plenty of energy in relationships in the form of neurotic patterns,
hopes, fears, and desires. We'll get to those in a moment, but for now I
want to talk about steel.
Our psychological selves are much like swords made from steel alloys. They
have been forged in the hot searing foundry of our childhood, in the
formative pressures of our early experiences. It is this early period of
life that bonds the elements of our psyches together. And like steel, this
was done under immense heat and pressure. Some of us were abused by
overbearing or downright hostile or even destructive parents. Some of us
were left to our own devices without any kind of support or guidance. And
every kind of parental/child relationship falls in between these two
polarities. The possibilities of childhood pressures are virtually endless,
and so too are the psychological alloys that result from these types of
experiences.
There is a lot of talk about the child within in many personal growth
groups, and while there is certainly value in making contact with this
younger self, it is not always pretty. Our cultural myth is that childhood
is a time of innocence, a time in which everything is right with the world.
For some children this is true; for many it is definitely not.
I remember being at a fellow therapist's house for a party quite a few years
ago. Most of the adults were practicing therapists, psychologists or
psychiatrists. I had plopped myself in a big oversized sofa, and, sipping my
Pepsi, I noticed a remarkable event. One of the therapists had brought his
son and his son's best friend to the party. It was clear that the two boys
were buds. They were playing some kind of card game and respectfully giving
each other a turn. There were no attempts at cheating, and they seemed to be
in a bubble of camaraderie.
Then the boy's father came into the room and asked both kids if they needed
anything. They both looked up with cherub faces and smiled. No they said, in
the cutest little boy voices. The father patted his son on the back, and as
he walked off, he nonchalantly patted his son's friend on the back as well.
For a moment, his son looked at the incident in abject horror. You could see
that he could not believe his eyes. And then as his father turned the corner
into the other room, his son pulled back and hit his best friend in the
face!
This was not childhood innocence. This was childhood rage. He was not
willing to share affections from his father, not even with his best friend.
This type of jealousy is typical of higher mammals, and we are, for all our
self-righteous self-congratulatory delusions, still mammals. No matter how
high we get spiritually, we will, for as long as we live, share traits with
our mammalian brothers and sisters.
The inner life of a child is often far different than those around him or
her imagine it to be. Surrounded by both dangers and opportunities, the
psychological life of a child is directly shaped by how he or she chooses to
deal with them. Whether it is something as life threatening as a deranged
parent or a child molester, or seemingly innocuous as whom to go to the prom
with, does not in some ways matter. While the impact of fighting for one's
life may very well imprint a child's behavior well into adulthood, the
little decisions of life, like who to socialize with or not, also have
impact. All these major and minor decisions create internal psychological
heat and pressure. The alloys of one's personality get bonded together or
burned away. The sword has been tempered by the time we reach adulthood, and
the alloy of our personalities has been set.
Some of us emerge from this childhood foundry with rock hard edges; others
of us are blunt. Some of us hold our edges, and some of us can never seem to
hold anything.
The thing about steel is that it tends to remain in its original form once
it leaves the foundry. And one of the few things that can ever re-configure
the alloy is if the steel gets as hot as it did when it was first formed.
In the alchemical work of Sacred Relationship, we voluntarily put ourselves
back in the foundry. The heat that arises between two people when their
neuroses rub against each other can get quite intense. If both people can
find the courage to be radically honest with themselves and with each other
in these searing moments, the psychological alloys can be altered. A new
type of aliveness then enters the relationship fueled by the energy of
psychological truth.
The thing is--most of us will do almost anything to avoid psychological
heat. When we get uncomfortable, many of us get the hell out of Dodge. Now
for some of us this means literally packing up and getting out of town, or
at least out of sight. For some of us it means that we are physically
present, but no longer emotionally present. We numb up. We become
automatons. We move and talk, almost like normal, but we have retreated far,
far inside. Others of us numb ourselves with alcohol or drugs. And some of
us do it with television. We humans are, after all, quite clever and
creative. We can find all sorts of ways to avoid facing ourselves. In fact,
they are far too numerous for me to list here. But I suspect you get the
idea. I guess the real question here is this--what do you do when things get
psychologically too hot for your taste? What do you do when you are on the
verge of feeling something that you don't want to feel?
For those in Sacred Relationship such feelings are a call to presence. It is
a time to be radically honest, and for both partners to express their true
feelings no matter how embarrassing or scary they might be. By speaking
their truths to each other, an enlivening element enters the dynamic.
Psychological honesty results in psychological insight. And with insight
there is hope for awareness, and with awareness there can be change.
This chapter is hardly a manual for the Alchemy of Relationship. It's
mainly, I think, a warning. Magdalen alluded to this in the Manuscript. She
called it obscurations to flight. That sounds wonderfully exotic doesn't it?
Well, it isn't very exotic when the obscuration is clearly in your face. And
it isn't very exotic feeling when the foundry of the relationship gets so
hot that you feel you are dissolving (psychologically that is). It takes
courage and fortitude to stay in the foundry when the heat begins to weaken
the stability of one's self-perceived image. Few of us care to look foolish,
scared, petty or jealous. And we will often go through elaborate means to
hide these feelings from ourselves or others.
But in Sacred Relationship these things invariably float to the surface like
mud that has been stirred up from the bottom of a barrel. The thing is to
realize that this does not mean you are doing it (Sacred Relationship)
wrong; it means that you are probably doing it right. As Magdalen said in
the Manuscript, the power of the alchemy extrudes, or pushes out, the dross.
This can be fascinating when the dross is being pushed out of your partner,
but it is truly horrific when it extrudes out of you.
What makes Sacred Relationship sacred is that it is truly a holy way of
being. The root of the word holy actually means to make whole. So… when we
do something that creates wholeness (in this case psychological wholeness),
we are engaged in a sacred or holy act.
In the crucible of mutual safety, honesty and appreciation, it is possible
to forge a new kind of self. This new self is psychologically more honest,
more aware and freer than its counterpart before entering the foundry of
relationship. And like the phoenix that arises from its own ashes, this self
has wings. It can fly places that it could only imagine before.
There are mysteries here, and treasures that await those who have the
courage to enter the depths of themselves and their partners. It is not, as
I said, for everyone. You will probably know if you are a likely candidate
because you will feel it in your soul, your heart.
If you enter this path, know that there are no manuals. There is precious
little guidance out there. The path to spirituality has traditionally been
one of solitude. And while times of solitude may be necessary for those in
Sacred Relationship, something has turned. They agree to walk the path to
godhood together, side by side, through both heaven and hell, through the
brilliant summits where all things are suddenly crystal clear, and through
the dark valley of psychological death where it is hard to even see one's
foot in front of the other. And yet through the darkness of not knowing, a
deep primordial force begins to rise up. It requires an unusual type of holy
trinity - three things for it to do its most holy task- mutual safety,
psychological honesty and appreciation of the Beloved.
Have a good journey!
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