loverboy letters #4: the gift of surrender
hi lovers, it’s been a while huh?
when i pick the topics of these letters, i’m usually writing about lessons that i am actively learning. i’m never trying to come off as some sort of guru here. i don’t have all the answers. consider these my reports from the field, in my ongoing experiments in radical loving. so when i picked the topic of surrender, i knew it would be an undertaking… but it took a lot longer than i thought. which pissed me off. i wanted to get this letter out there, but i was fighting for the answers that would only come through the sometimes arduous process of… surrender… ironic.
this concept is one that seems to elicit a lot of semi-unidentifiable negative feelings. when interviewing people around me for this topic, the mere uttering of the word made everyone moan and groan and dread and shut down. which is understandable in the era of a dumpster fire world where we all have to fight for survival, and the only idea of surrender seems to be steeped in being made to ‘give up’. but what if in some circumstances, surrender is a gift you can give yourself, and one that continues to bear fruit?
circumstances of surrender
when i was little and couldn’t fall asleep at my dad’s house, i would stare at the cross stitch my grandma had made him of the Serenity Prayer, sounding out words i didn’t understand until i fell into dreams, surrendering to knowing that when i was older i’d understand what it meant… “god, grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can, and the wisdom to know the difference…”. seems i already knew more than i knew.
my usual routine to create a piece of art is to make it most of the way, stop, and then stare at it. for days. weeks. months. some might say it’s a bad habit. sometimes these pieces end up in a drawer, to be finished months later, but never forgotten. to create is to enter into a conversation with creation. sometimes when we ask hard questions, it takes a while for creation to respond. creation will not give up the answers within a stranglehold. thoughtful contemplation rarely happens in impatient atmospheres. but sometimes, when we sit and let creation contemplate, surrendering to the silence, we will hear when it again whispers itself into existence.
when i turned 18, i received my first tarot deck. i would ask it about everything incessantly, and ask the same questions over and over if it was giving me answers i didn’t ‘like’. the oracle grew weary and began to spit out only one answer: the hanged man. always picked, always falling out of the deck, popping out during the shuffle, and again there he was when i cut the deck. the only answer available? find surrender in the unknowing, find comfort in the presence of a perspective change, find strength build in volunteering for some discomfort.
while discovering kink, i learned of a knot which grew tighter with struggle, and relaxed in mirror with you. the further you relax into rope-bliss, the more you realize you are not trapped in a web but cradled in a cocoon of care&intention&desire. i think the threads of the universe are often tied this way.
similarly, when i started to learn yoga, i began to really learn to embody surrender. yogic practice doesn’t give you a lot if you are just trying to push yourself into a bunch of postures to prove you are strong and flexible. sure, you might able to do crow pose or walk in a bridge posture, but how mindfully can you mountain pose? it could feel like you’re literally just… standing there. how is this a workout that could build strength? surrendering to the presence of your body, you can begin to feel how hard it actually is to, all at once: stand in all 4 corners of your feet, push your pelvic bone forward without clenching your ass and stomach, straighten your spine, roll back your shoulders, tuck your chin to lengthen, relax your jaw and brow, shut your eyes, and breathe long, and let your thoughts pass by like leaves on a river. surrender the tension you’re holding onto.
to love is to continually give the gift of surrender to another… to surrender attachment to the outcome in profession. to surrender your defense mechanisms in order to allow them to come close. to surrender your masks and allow someone to truly know you. to surrender your perception of them in order to learn to love their truth. to surrender to the trust it takes to truly commune with another person when our interpersonal wounds are touched, to trust that their hands are gentle and healing. to surrender that though you may feel the barriers between them melt, they are always an autonomous being subject to change.
tidbits
“this flash drive is for a memory i haven’t yet created, but live and breathe every day…”
“our whole economy is built on buying ghosts”
“it’s mostly luck and crying, you just have to keep praying and be nice to everyone”
media
here are 3 poems on surrender :)
David Ignatow
“what i have learned from arcana #12” by me :)
to crave the sympathy of the beast, is, at the very least, something to live for-
you can only turn away from the crisp light of sunrises for so long.
remember that crows too ride the morning sun.
when scavenging becomes cumbersome, a belief in
solace is essential-
colloquially, what is life but a hope and hope a fallacy?
accept that any dream can become insatiable desire.
and if the humors of this life turn to a banshee's scream in dreams, consider the harpy-
but one man lived to describe their song without madness.
ponder the phantom's intent.
to say you fear being hurt is to speak only a half truth in the age of entitlement-
pain is often a reaction to losing grip of the reigns.
forfeit the idea of any absolute.
when you are made of lavender stuck together with pitch, there are choices to be made-
nervous love strikes nervous ailments in the sensitive.
consider your unseen strengths.
and if your eyes still flash wild in the dark, remember that passion is a tough horse to break-
there is a tightrope between mania and penchant appetite.
let your ardor out to pasture.
to demand total order in this suspension of turmoil is to spit in the face of miracles-
chaos allows for the redistribution of energy.
wish occasionally and with sincerity.
when you discover divination and ability you must remember to starve your ego-
one could believe they have lifted the veil between worlds.
become aware of the obvious instead.
and if Entropy still grips you restlessly in sleepless nights, receive them as a lover-
they will whisper possibilities unfathomed.
destroy your tenets of ethics.
////
thanks for reading…
-i give up!!!
<3 munchy