Love and Marriage

i've had a lot on my mind over the past year, so much that i haven't even had the proper processing time until recently. you know what they say about hindsight. so on to marriage, or rather the divorce rate that signals the end of an institution that once belonged. of course, human beings want to couple and will find a way to relate if only procreation DNA fuels them. But this primitive drive for procreation, that hasn't changed in 10,000 years, has become an insufficient reason for men and women to get together and stay together. First of all, we obviously don't need to 'spread our seed' and multiply our numbers on the earth. The ecological imbalance on the planet testifies to that fact. So if we are still drawn to marriage by an outmoded drive to multiply, then why come together at all?

Now I say all this with two kids presently eating breakfast at the kitchen table. I experienced the drive to have children, an aching, a longing so intense, it was as if my body was demanding, "You must have children!!" And so we did. Gladly. And since then, I would say that my personal and spiritual life has multiplied tenfold. And perhaps this is the true internal voice that beckons us to procreate. It's not so much for populating an over-populated planet; it's because the breadth and depth of our beings expands so much through parenting, that the whisperings of God/Source/Spirit/Biology propel us to take on this greatest of human challenges.

A challenge that is topped only by the difficulty of maintaining the relationship through which these children emerged. Children teach us to serve through a lifelong commitment to their wellbeing, a responsibility few mothers can walk away from. In that way children are the one fool-proof way to keep humans standing in the fire of love, a fire that burns away all self-interest, all vain ambitions. Relationships we can walk away from, and we do! At least 60% of the time with divorce! But children, it's the one relationship we can't walk away from when the going gets tough. And in that way, children are supreme teachers, and parenting is a supreme catalyst for evolving. So perhaps i've answered my own question about why we continue to have children in an over-populated world....

But the marriage relationship? Is it best for facilitating this evolutionary process? And if so, what kind of marriage is flexible enough to withstand the maelstroms, the tsunami's of our internal worlds? Each of us is complete with the full spectrum of light and dark, strength and weakness. We get married in our strength, our virtues, our shimmering brightness, with no real anticipation or knowledge of the shadow that is married to our light. So we coast for a time on the dwindling fumes of romantic love, which is simply our biology at work, the chemistry that makes us have sex on every surface in the house and defeat any obstacle that would threaten the freshly formed embryo that is young marriage.

But there comes a time, inevitably like the seasons, when the embryo is full formed, enough at least to start taking its first steps. And this is when true marriage begins. The romance is like some cruel joke by the divine, an eating of the desert before dinner...These first feeble attempts at really walking in marriage, of attempting to utilize muscles have hitherto been coddled, protected by the warm embrace of romance. Now we begin to flex the muscles of our individuality, and as individuals distinct from the halo of marriage, we find our dirt, our shadow, the undressed wounds, the unconscious needs that compel us to run when we should just try our...first....steps....tenderly. "YOU fell down?! How could you fall down?" Imagine saying that to your one year old who is taking his first steps! But this is essentially what we do in relationship. We cannot comprehend the atrophy of the shadow and it's debilitating grip on our own growth, let alone our partner's! How do we stand apart from our partner's process as an impartial witness to their development, just as we do our children? Can we be whole-heartedly committed to our partners in the same way we are with our children? Our children fall down, lie to us, yell at us, stomp around, go out into the world and make lots of "mistakes"...and our love NEVER falters. Now that's love. That's marriage. On the path, growing, learning, always changing and discovering new things. We've been fooled by the size of our adult bodies into thinking that the same childhood processes no longer apply.