The Original Gift: A Meditation on Sacred Reciprocity and Relationship

It will be no surprise to you when I declare, that throughout our lives we have many relationships. We are in relationship with ourselves, relationship with others, with God. We have a relationship with the barista at our favorite coffee shop, as we do with our neighbors, and our freinds. These are the obvious. But, do you have a relationship with the blade of grass as it bends under your careless weight? Do you have a relationship with your lungs as they work endlessly to provide your body with the vital and sacred oxygen molecule, to literally expel your waste? And yet when is the last time you talked to your lungs? Thanked them? When was the last time you asked the blade of grass how it's day was? Did it enjoy the rain last night? Do you know if it smiles as you caress it with the sole of your foot? You know nothing of the grass!! And still, you have relationship. 

We are in constant relationship with everything around us and everything within us. This is the sacred existence. We must come into relation. We must relate. Relationship therefore is the act relating to other. To see the other, to impact other, as it surely impacts you. We can play with relationship. I can choose to tread lightly on the blade of grass... And, I can choose to rip it from the earth. I can choose to honor my lungs, my body, or choose to ignore it's needs. I can hurt you, or I can protect you. No one may witness my decisions, and yet they exist and have impact. For those in relation must always have an impact on each other. This is the truth. I may crush the blade of grass, but the blade of grass too will leave green chlorophyll behind on my foot. I may hurt you, but in hurting you, I've wounded myself. Not only do we happen to the other, the other happens to us. This is sacred relationship. 

We are masters of relationship. From the moment we exist, exiting the womb, we take a breath and fill our lungs with air. Our lungs have yet been a stranger to air... They do not know air, but they were made for air. Air is as familiar as home to them. And they fill... Deeply. Then the most curious thing happens, they expel the air with force, rejecting it, banishing this first breath in a scream of life. For anyone who has been present for the birth of a child, you will know that this is a powerful and sacred cry. The first declaration of the miracle of life are we know it and the painful scream of being ripped from unity, the simultaneous powerful call to return to it. For what does this scream do? It brings to us the other... It calls. As unity is lost, there is a frantic desire to return into relationship. So, though we existed on this planet for only a moment, we are wise and cunning tricksters. We were blessed with the ability to call out and demand response. Our original gift. 

How is it then that we have forgotten this gift? Is it so easy to toss aside? We seem to think that we have figured out how to manage ourselves, how to manage in aloneness. Survive without relationship. And indeed many choose this existence. Was it the many wounds we collected from the being other which taught us to avoid relationship? Was it the realization that we are different? Did we self judge and find ourselves unworthy of relationship? When you were and infant, you knew the truth. You used your gift without shame and without greed. It just was. It was the gift that you had and you used it joyfully. You screamed, you cried, you cooed. And with it you found relationship. You moved toward sacred unity. And you began your journey back to oneness. The place we must all return. 

Would it be acceptable to rediscover this gift? Could you call to the mountains? Just to hear the echo.

Could you cry to the skies during a thunderstorm? Without fear of not being heard.

Could you reexamine yourself and find yourself worthy?

Could you softly whisper to another and tell of your pain?

Could you scream for love?

Could you name your needs? Throwing them out without caution, without being afraid that they may not be met.

This is the path to relationship. 

We must be, we must be seen, and we must make noise. With our mouths, with our eyes, with our bodies, and with our hearts. 

Call out like the newborn! Your call will be heard. Your call will be answered. You will grow and your relationships will be stronger for it. 

When we are dealing with inter-human relationships, it is important to keep in mind the divine complexity of our existence, of our spirit. There is a thousand possibilities in a glance and an infinite number of outcomes. I'm not sure even the most expansive mind can comprehend the complexity and vastness of the dance of only two humans, not to mention all of humanity. And yet, we know. We know because it is the original gift. The gift of coming into relation, having needs met, existing. 

Someone may ask, why did my relationship end? And I'll look back at them with curiosity. How could relationship end? It is eternal.

You have been marked by every relationship, you are not the same today as you were yesterday and neither is your relationship to any other. Relationships change! It is constant. Each moment they are reborn as newborn infants crying in the night. But alas, they do not end. They can not end. They live in you, they are apart of you. You are marked. Even in the absence of the other which you have known, your relationship prevails. It smolders, or it burns brightly. It hides, or it shines. But it does not die, for the absence of immediate connection is still relationship. If you move to a far away land, my relation to you is now physically more distant but the relationship persists. And if your physical body fails, my relation to you is now memory and spirit. We are always in relationship. It is the inevitable truth. 

So, we cherish relationships. We collect them and organize them and display them. We water them, fertilize them, and harvest them. And, we may also damage some, forget them, disrespect them. Our attention feels limited to those we deem most relevant to our current situation. So we choose, often without thought. And our choices too are only a shift in the river, a brief turbulence on our return to oneness, to being One. 

The true mastery of relationship is not in the number, or quantity of, or even quality of our relationships. We can not hold them up and say, “look at my relationships, I must be doing something right", because relationship happens to us even as we exert great energy to manage them. We are not the master. We may only wish to focus on the relationships we deem positive, but this is a fool’s tasks. For today's desirable relationships could easily be tomorrow's undesirable relationships. Again, we are not the masters. For every relationship we foster because of our own positive assessment, there is an equally important relationship that withers. This means that there is a natural balance. We must see that to attempt to label a relationship as good or bad is folly. Relationship only exists.  Our focus creates the relationship we need.

So I say, be gentle! Be kind. Value all relationship as sacred. Close your eyes and feel the breeze as it dances around you. The wind is not offended that you are in its way. It laughs as it tickles your skin. That same air is not hurt when you alter it's course and chemistry as you breath it in your lungs. You have changed the air, and it thanks you for the gift you have given it. It dances now in your blood stream awaiting its return to the sky. It now knows what it is like to be human. What a gift! And in return, if you listen, the air will show you how to fly. 

The real experience of relationship comes with allowing. Allowing ourselves to be in sacred relation. Just like the air, allow yourself to be changed by each relationship. Receive the gifts! Observe the blade of grass and let it bless you. Respecting the sacredness of our relationships as we move forward on the path to our return to oneness. The greatest relationship of all, the relationship to all.