The photo is from our course on leadership. We created a human installation of an institution and the hierarchy of people. It wasn’t my favorite teaching, but it was fun. (Notice I am at the bottom of the totem pole. I am a student at this institute, yet, as my fellow students at the bottom there discusssed, with out us, there is no school. So we hold more power than our rank in height may show...)
We also looked at our personal history of power, how we have used it and how we want to use it in the future. In a small group discussion we started a dialog about who holds the power in the relationship? My classmate Eileen brought up the idea that every time we step out of relationship (out of eros) there is a power struggle. And isn’t it the power struggles in relationships that cause the suffering? Which brought me back to my thoughts of a couple days ago about the difference between being IN A relationship and being IN relationship. From this it seems that when we are IN A relationship, anything goes. When we are IN relationship with each other, the other has as much importance as the me. The we is as important as the me. Like healthy narcissism. If narcissus could look into the water and love his image, and then turn and offer that love to others. But he couldn’t, didn’t he drown trying to get closer to his image in the water? When we don’t truly love ourselves, then there is nothing to give the world. We withhold our love because there is not enough for even the I. What happens then if we act as if. If we act as if we love ourselves by offering acts of love to the world around us? Does the love grow inside us? Can we then stay in relationship with the “other”? Granted, I may be talking out of my ass here. But this is the musing that has come to me today, and I am fascinated by how it ties together with the last days themes.
That is it for me tonight. I am tired. My brain is tired of asking questions and trying to find answers. I am looking forward to a great night’s sleep. No class until 4:00 tomorrow, so I get to sleep in!!!! I will end with a quote that totally aligns with my state of living these days…
“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves... live everything. Live the question now. Perhaps then, some day far in the future, you will gradually without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. “
-Rainer Maria Rilke
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