― Hermann Hesse “Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.”

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree.

When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farm boy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.” ― Hermann Hesse

Hi Rhys

Its normal in relationships to worry and experience jealousy… That said the anxiety and panic attacks are your ways of coping with uncertainty, worry and concern. From that perspective the attacks are not connected to your relationship.

The first task then is not to ‘fix’ your relationship but to find a better method of coping with uncertainty, worry and concern. These issues belong to you so be mindful if you start to project them onto your partner. For example, giving your power away by making your partner responsible for your feelings.

If you can try to find a way to create some space where you can ‘detach’ yourself from the experience of panic – as in not attach your sense of ‘I’ to the experience/emotions. (you are not your experiences or your emotions or your relationship…) Here you feel what you feel without becoming what you feel – a difference between ‘I feel sad’ and ‘I am sad’

By ‘detaching’ your sense of ‘I’ from the experience and emotions you will be better able to de-escalate the anxiety creating the space where you can better deal with the concerns you may have about your relationship .

Correction on my initial post – detachment is not indifference or stoicism

Just another note on forgiveness

When a person says they will never forgive, perhaps because they associate forgiveness with letting someone off the hook… The danger is that subconsciously they may be saying “I refuse to let go of the pain that was done to me. As long as I hold onto the hurt… I hurt and punish the one that hurt me… and I blame myself…

Anita is right, you don’t need to consciously go through the process of forgiveness. It may not even be advisable if you are unclear as to what forgiveness means. Anita will help you learn what you need to learn from the experience and so hopefully move on… which can also be an important part of the forgiveness process.

It is my hope that when you do find your way past the experience that hate and anger your feel will have dissipated as the danger is to become bitter.

Joseph Campbell Tells the following story. It may not appear to be about forgiveness however it does I think point to why the process of forgiveness is important to becoming.

A samurai warrior had the duty to avenge the murder of his overlord. After some time, he found and cornered the man who had murdered his overlord. As he was about to deal with him with his samurai sword, when this man in the corner, in the passion of terror, spat in his face. In this moment the samurai sheathed the sword and walked away. Why did he do that?

Because he was made angry, and if he had killed that man then, it would have been a personal act, of another kind of act, that’s not what he had come to do.

The samurai’s mission was not simply to kill the murderer, but to honor his master and fulfill his duty. Killing the murderer out of anger would not have fulfilled the intrinsic call of his duty. To an observer, whether he killed the culprit motivated by honor or anger, it wouldn’t have mattered. The murderer would be dead either way.

But to the samurai, his own motivation made all the difference. He needed a crystal clear answer for why he was taking action, and a reactive response out of anger would not only be dishonorable, it would negate the reason for his quest.

You can choose your response. You can observe an unhelpful emotion take hold, but you don’t have to react. You always can choose to act in a way that honors the vision of the person you truly want to be.

Nothing is just a means to an end. Every action is an end in itself. The path is the destination, right? It’s the journey that matters.

Hi Talia

Your creating a great deal of suffering for yourself. As you have had affairs in the past that did not work out and that this man is married something else is going on which has nothing to do with what this guy does or doesn’t do. Getting to the bottom of that before involving yourself any more may be helpful.

I don’t mean to be cruel but you need to stop contacting married men. I don’t think  “just friends”works for you or that your ready for that.  You like the attention and validation you get from good looking guys however until you discover that such validation isn’t required for a strong sense of self your going to recreate the scenario repeatedly until you learn the lesson.

You might want to create some space, with no men, and really look at what you want for yourself and what you want from a relationship.

David Richo books on relationships might be helpful for you.

How to Create Emotional Freedom by Setting Healthy Boundaries

I am 35 and I want a marriage. The worst part is that I know I won’t find anyone ever as I am “too old” now.

“When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?”  ― Chuck Palahniuk

“Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing.” ― Rick Riordan

The word marriage, what does it mean?  Why does a word hold so much power? Do we mistake the map for the territory and miss the experience?

It is to easy to create what we fear so difficult to create what we hope for… though the process is the same.

Neil wrote a great short story – October about a woman who finds the magic lamp and gets three wishes only she refuses to make any. She’s good she tells the genie. At first the genie can’t understand but as time goes by a relationship forms with the genie doing things for the woman and the woman doing things for the genie all without wishes or the like. Later the woman asks the genie what his three wishes would be. He’s good he tells her.

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Peter.

There’s a Zen story about an eager young monk who checks into a monastery and is rearing to go get this thing called enlightenment. “How long will it take?” he asks the abbot.

“Ten years,” replies the abbot.

“That long! Why so long?” exclaims the horrified young monk.

“Did I say ten? I meant twenty.”

“Twenty?”

“So sorry, I think it will take you thirty years.

Asking “How long?” will get you ten. Three strikes will get you thirty. As soon as the expectation or imagery of awakening or inner peace pops up, you get thirty years.

When we measure experiences, the experience starts to disappear and become something else.

It is not calmness or inner peace we have when nothing is going on around us. It is when one’s actions and thoughts are calm, detached from outcomes and judgments (not indifference or stoicism), while engaged in the chaotic world around us that inner peace is “realized“.

It is a paradox of enlightenment (inner peace) that to become… we work to get to a place where  we  stop giving a darn about it… this, I suspect, is why the Buddha is seen so often laughing…  we work for that which no work is required.

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Peter.
• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Peter.