Renewal Sixty-Six : Imprint Turned Prophecy

In my early teens it had seemed to me that I would always be single, that there would never be a woman for me. It was very clear, felt on very deep levels. It never occurred to me that it was a creation, it seemed far too much like a discovery, a destiny. I fought it, I was going to have nothing to do with that destiny. But I didn’t realize that my attempts to will a relationship into being were being undermined by that clarity of youth. That clarity of aloneness seemed almost noble. Even my attempts to circumvent it offered an experiential basis for that clarity. My destiny, despite my attempts to prove it wrong, would stand, would prevail, until I finally, nobly, accepted it.

I had seen it in the movies, heard it in song and in the sanctuary, felt it in music, lived it with my parents and the parents of my friends, read of it in books and papers, studied it in history and politics and philosophy. Happiness was the hope and the essence of another time, another place. Happiness did not much reside here on this plane with these people. Inadvertently it instilled in me my “destiny,” a love of unrequited love. It was destiny because it was imprinted, it was believed, it was felt as real at the deepest levels of my being.

I was lucky in my early 20s to feel a love of the earth, to let go of my resentments toward my parents, to have cleaned the slate. But I did not know that one item remained, one that would again contaminate me and mark my energy. Still, I set out, influenced I think, by that which I was not consciously aware of. In all three relationships I wanted equity, I wanted that interaction of independence and interdependence, I wanted to provide the basis for growth, I wanted to overcome what appeared to be my parent’s fate. And I wanted to include a woman and a relationship that were as safe for me as were those feelings I held for the earth.

But I was not safe for me. I carried into those relationships the push-pull of wanting that which I did not believe could happen. And I was interacting with people who were similarly afflicted.

Perhaps my first love believed it could happen, but she thought it would happen by osmosis–she did not realize that it entailed paying attention and creating meaning. My second love created a demeanor of longing designed to attract a savior. Her job was to clearly be in need, while searching for that sense of specialness that would mark her above others. But the reality of a savior and the idea of salvation are not good bedfellows. When one grows used to salvation being external and in the future, the gifts of the present tend to lose their allure. And the woman in my last relationship, the one who knew the most about me, who could see into other beings, was so unaware of her own identity and so expecting, in fact entitled, to the belief that things would just work out, that she would be provided for and cared for regardless of what she did, that her resentment in being shorted boiled over onto those whom she loved.

In all of us, the shortcomings were to be found in others and not much found in ourselves. Oh, we did some appropriate genuflecting as was deemed humble and courteous, but the real culprits were those who did not appreciate our gallant efforts to become one. And now, in my wanting, I face my beliefs. It is not just about self-worth, it is about imprinting, and I find that I have followed my own created, and not just discovered, imprint-turned-prophecy.

I find it ironic that there is a strange measure of comfort in that knowledge, in that awareness. It does not rock the world or bring the gods to their feet, but it is glorious and elegant in its simplicity. And, like all good energy, that knowledge offers everything and asks only to be shared.