The Fire Of Love

The Love Intensive I attended February 15-18 was wonderful. My friend Osha who was to master the Intensive had come down with the terrible flu bug that's going around and it had turned into bronchitis. Jon, whom I had taken the master's training with in 2006 had stepped up to walk in her golden slippers, mastering his first intensive and did a fine job.
Jerry had two gigs that weekend so he wasn't able to attend. But he drove me there on his way to the Bay Area, which added 2 hours to his normally 3 hour trip. On Monday he worked from 7:30 to 3:00 and then drove the 3 hours to pick me up and another 3 hours home. What a guy. He is so good to me.
Opening to the truth of love is an incredible thing. More of what I've already been working on in my life right now just continued coming up for me. That, and some new stuff too. I tend to get lots of images during the Intensives and I had this thought to eventually tattoo all of them on various parts of my body. I have none just yet but that will change soon--I have been planning on getting a tattoo for at least 12 plus years now and one of these days it will happen!
One of the new images that arrived this time was a wild horse that I'm riding bareback--Love, taking me for the ride of my life. With no reins I'm hanging on for dear life to the horse's mane. It's a beautiful golden color like the fields and mountains in the summer when the grass is dry.
I also saw images of the sacred heart. Love was piercing me deeply and pulling out wooden stakes and chards of glass from old wounds, exposing raw vulnerabilities that were dripping blood. It hurt, but the pain was a good pain, like when one is receiving a really deep massage on very sore muscles and it hurts so good you don't want it to ever stop. The sacred heart had a sword through it, and wings. I was flying in love, bleeding life force and leaving traces of my pain behind me.
I had some fun memories such as the one of my first love affair. I was in sixth grade, away for a week or two at summer camp. I met a boy named Larry and we hooked up. He was an eighth grader who gave me his really cool silver and black onyx cross to wear. It symbolized pretty much the same thing as a guy giving a girl his ring-- we were going steady. This was my first foray into the world of monogamy, promising myself to a guy as his one and only. We hung out together and kissed a lot, enjoying each other's company. When our time at camp was ending and everyone was lining up to get on the buses that would take us home to our respective cities, Larry came up and asked for his cross back. I know he still liked me but he didn't have the skills to part ways with me gracefully. We lived in different cities, were probably never going to see each other again, and he wanted his cross back. I was sad but I understood, kind of. We called each other once or twice and talked long distance on our parent's phone bills before it was completely over.

A month or so later the letter arrived. It was from a boy named Steve. He was Larry's best friend at camp and I remembered him vaguely. Unbeknownst to me, Steve had fallen head over heels in love with me at camp. In his letter he reintroduced himself and explained the pure hell he had gone through, refraining from interjecting himself into my and Larry's love affair. But when Larry had basically broken it off with me at camp, Steve's heart soared, and then later when he and Larry spoke on the phone and it was confirmed that we were no longer a couple, he felt released from his bond of loyalty to his friend and decided to write me. To this day I still remember the words with which he ended his love letter to me:

Adrienne, I want to throw myself down at your feet and tell you how I feel about you. I love you and God bless you. Steve

We corresponded for several years. He lived in the Petaluma area and one of his neighbors was Charles Schultz, the creator of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts characters. He even sent me a couple of the Peanuts books along with other trinkets of his affection. Now I try to remember if they were actually autographed. I think they were. Darn, why didn't I hold on to them?



I had memories of the unconditional love of my grandmother, Mary Jane and my grandfather, Ivan. I have so many memories of my grandfather who died when I was only two years old. He was holding me when he had his heart attack--first gently placing me down on the floor before falling out of his chair and dying. I remember this event vividly.

My mother had moved home to live with my grandparents when I was a few weeks old. She laid me in my crib at night to sleep but I would have none of that and neither would my grandfather. I would cry and he would rescue me, putting me to bed between him and my grandmother. I slept between them until he died and then I slept with my grandmother until my mother remarried and we moved away when I was six. My grandmother was the first true love of my life and Jerry the second. He even sang me that song the day we were married...true love is hard to find... My grandmother moved back in with us when I was ten and shared a room with me. Later, when she had dementia, she went to live in a care home. I would visit her often and sometimes take her for drives. She would always sing to me--songs with words like:

Silver streaks upon the gold, darling I am growing old...

And:

Oh my poor Nellie Mae, they have taken you away, and I'll never see my darling anymore, they have taken you to Georgia to wile your life away, while I toil in the cotton and the cane.

I was seventeen and pregnant with my first child when she died. She was ninety-two.

Love was melting me. I felt like yellow butter in a pot on a low flame. I was slow cooking and all my impurities where rising to the top to be scooped off. The fire of love was transforming me into golden amber colored ghee, a wonderful ingredient for cooking with powerful medicinal qualities.
I imagined myself fire walking. I shared this with my dyad partner explaining, You know, those long fire pits where people walk on the hot coals and don't get burned--but sometimes they do! I laughed and said, I don't have any blisters yet.

Lots kept coming up about the Anam Cara, soul friend. I was raised in Christian churches where we sang lots of gospel songs. I remember one that seemed to relate to the Anam Cara:

What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and hopes to bear. What a
privilege to carry, everything to the Lord in prayer.

This hymn reflects much of what we do in the dyads, meeting with a soul friend and sharing whatever arises a a result of our contemplation--bearing our sins and our hopes. It's a privilege to participate in such a prayer.

Once, before slipping into sleeping contemplation for the night I thought, Adrienne, you are playing with fire and you might get burned. Yep, I answered, I sure am. And I won't stop. Let the Fire of Love burn me but I won't stop. I'll never stop. Let it burn me to ashes if it must.