The Hazel Project

Hello Everyone.

Happy Valentine’s/ President’s/ All my fellow Aquarian being born/ -Days. There’s a lot of them.
I wanted to share this with everyone during this long weekend surrounding February 14th.

It resonates with me on a profound level. Particularly because of how I found this book one evening scanning Timmo’s bookshelf. It’s a book called, ‘Dancing With The Beloved,’ By Paul Ferrini. It’s a book I’ve seen a thousand times but for some reason jumped off the shelf into my hands this particular evening in early January.

‘Bleepers’ understand how these things happen!

It just so happened a new friend of mine, that I hardly knew, had shared some very personal information with me and in turn I wanted reciprocate. Instead of doing this in a light-hearted way, because admittedly, my intention was unclear; I sent off a rather heavy email involving metaphysics and my own views of how relationships and friendships should work.

Hardly subject matter for e-mail but it was the only medium that presented itself so I pressed ‘Send,’ and regretted it immediately.
As soon as I read back over what I had sent, I realized that it was the first time I had tired to articulate those things. I had sent off the equivalent of Metaphysical Jello. I needed more clarification, do a lot more reading, thinking and writing about these ideas before sending off ’stream of consciousness’ through the ether.

Humbled and embarrassed, I read over my email and asked myself;

“Where did this stuff even come from?”

“What brought these ideas on?”

That very night I found this book by Paul Ferrini. I picked it up and it fell on this page and I was awestruck. I had to sit down. Tim asked me what was the matter and all I could do is point and utter non-sense.

This guy, Paul Ferrini had figured it out. What I was trying so desperately to understand and come to grips with, he had articulated beautifully, and at the same time, was calling me out on. I realized how much I had been holding back from everyone. Friends, family, potential relationships, and potential friendship, even my own work. It all pointed to metric barge loads of fear and self-sabotage.

It broke my heart into ten thousand pieces.

So now the day of, ‘All lovers are in negative territory, so buy stuff or suffer,’ has past.

I wanted to share something that has a little more depth and when practiced with courage, I believe, could reshape and heal how we (humans) interact with one another; particularly with our significant others.

May you all have peace and be at ease for the remainder of this long weekend. And that you can find the space to create with someone else, whether it be a lover or a friend, something larger than what you’ve brought to the table by yourself. And do it without fear. My 2 cents is we have enough fear.
a small addition 2-16-09

Regarding FEAR.
Knowing I just missed the point of Paul Ferrini because Fear is so ingrained in our day to day lives and how we interact with each other. Paul Ferrini suggests there’s a way to hold that fear in a place that’s compassionate. It is acknowledging that fear exists but we can learn to hold it and let it be, instead of acting on it. It is a feeling and projection. We make it up, therefore we can move beyond it.
Be Well,

Stephen

THE HEROIC JOURNEY  -Paul Ferrini

We all want to merge into something greater than ourselves. That is the fiat of love.

We aspire to go beyond ourselves, to overcome our separateness. But in order to do so, we must give up the ways in which we hold each other back. We must give up the very boundaries that we have always looked for self definition.

An insecure person cannot do this. S/he needs those boundaries to feel safe.

Love isn’t something that happens when we are fearful or insecure. Because love means taking a risk. It means reaching out with the possibility that we will be denied or rejected. It means crossing over our safe zone and becoming vulnerable.

The Movement of love offers a new engagement with life, a new possibility for growth and transformation.

Love puts us right out on a limb. It is exciting. We see things we have never seen before. But it is scary too.

Love is the movement from the core of self to the periphery. Love expands our sense of self to include others.

When we love, we become bigger. Our little soap opera reaches epic proportions.

As lover, we become a mythic figure: not just man or woman, but god or goddess. Love helps us step into our divinity.

When we love, all this great energy stands behind us supporting and encouraging us, pushing us forward.

How, in the midst of this great energetic phenomenon, does fear manage to get a foothold? How is it able to twist and turn the natural spontaneity and expressive of love inward, making the creative neurotic and self-absorbed?

Of course the great fear of the lover is his love will not be requited. He will not be loved back as much as he loves. Indeed, his love may be spurned!

If we are afraid of failure, rejection or looking foolish, we cannot love. That is because love is, after all, completely foolish.

Anyone who has been struck by cupid’s arrow will attest to the fact that foolishness is  the mark of love.

The question is not “what would love do?’
The question is “what would love not do?”

Love will not hold back. It will completely embarrass and compromise itself in its need to make itself known.

Where is the lover who is restrained in his expression of love? You won’t find him.

Love may know excess, but it does not know restraint.
The one who loves must be willing to play the fool.
He must be willing to embarrass himself. He must be willing to make mistakes. He must be willing to love even though there is no guarantee he will be loved back.

If he is not willing, fear will turn his energy back. He will seek safety and guarantees. He will contract.

His chance to become greater than himself will cease to be. His opportunity to become heroic will pass.

For what love can do, fear can undo.

There is no way around it.

Though fear is powerless in the face of love, love’s power cannot be experienced as long as we listen to our fears.

Fear says “no.” Love says “yes.”

Fear says, “It can be done only this way.” Love says, “It can be done any way it needs to be done.”

All life is a poem about separation and joining. Fear separates. Love unites.

We aren’t going too make fear go away. It’s part of the dualistic fabric of life.

We just need to learn how to hold it. When we can hold our fear in a loving way, it no longer has the power to undermine us.

Fears come up, but we don’t assume that our fears are true. Nor do we try to make them go away. We just allow them to be held spaciously in consciousness.

When we hold our fears lovingly, there can be no neurotic knee jerk reactions. We don’t have to abandon our lovers at the first sign of difficulty.

We can acknowledge our fears without embellishing them or falsely empowering them. That way we never give them the power to turn our love back on itself.

When our fears have been acknowledged, the space in consciousness opens up again. We stop being contracted.

We just let things be. And in this open space, love is rediscovered.

We don’t have to try and turn fear around. We don’t have to try to make fear go away.

Fear does not have to be opposed. It needs to be held compassionately.

Fear only holds us back if we let it: if we believe it at face value, or if we are afraid of it and try to push it away. But if we meet our fear compassionately, it is no problem.

It is like the wind picking up before a storm and dying down after it. It comes and goes.

In a life of love, there is room for fear to come and go. And whether coming or going, it does not stop the lover from loving or the beloved from receiving love.

Those who cannot love or receive love because of their fears need to stop listening to their fears.

It’s that simple.

They can justify those fears, put them up on a alter and worship them, but they will just be taking themselves further and further from the Source of Love

Only when they start loving in spite of their fears will they turn the page on an old story and open to a new one free of the pain of the past.

- From, “Dancing With The Beloved” by Paul Ferrrini

ISBN 1-879159-47-3