PART TWO
Notes on Love
The body is finer than it seems. The nervous system is a subtle barometer for how we are doing in relationship—with ourselves, and with our real, imagined, and symbolic environments. When I’m unsure of myself, feeling disconnected, a tension arises in my shoulders. My tongue presses into the roof of my mouth. The corners of my eyes feel inelastic.
With practice, with observing and allowing, and in the intrapersonal space opened by this, an embodied softening happens. However rigid or controlled, however heavy and disappointing our conditions. However boring, or mundane. In this softening, what we sensitize to is how changing everything is, and how mysterious our seemingly straightforward lives are.
It’s not an idea or an image, it’s dimensional and multisensory. It’s possible in your mouth, and hands, in this moment. It can’t be preconceived because you’ve never done it before in the way you will in the next moment.
In this series of chapters on love, Michael explores love as an energy that flows when we’re not trying so hard to be another image we’ve made up about ourselves that is anything other than what is arising right now. What opens up then is the whole field of life, a field of love. An abundance that gives you to yourself, to others, and to life.
—CARINA STONE