Icing on the
Cake
by
Aluna Joy Yaxk'in
I
consider my sister Connie to be a very wise woman. Once
in a while she will say something that triggers deep
introspection and this introspection usually changes my
life.
In my
recent conversation with her I was sharing the state of
my life. I told her that I realized that I live a life
most people would envy. I live in a very beautiful place
of my choosing. I travel all over the world. I have very
interesting, like minded friends and 2 beautiful
daughters and a new grandson. I work when I want to, and
play when I want to and I answer to no one but the
creator. I have had many magical and mystical
experiences in my life. The best of it was that I have
and powerful and intimate relationship with the
creator.
I should
be really happy to be in charge of my life, to live the
way my heart calls me to. But I also told her of the
emptiness I feel now, in spite of the seeming full,
interesting and down right adventurous life I lead.
There is something missing, and this year it has become
painfully clear, not just for me but for so many. I feel
emptiness because I do not have a deep and intimate
personal relationship. Victories and adventures are
dulled when there is no one home to share them with.
When I was finished, Connie said, "Sounds like you
have all the icing without the cake."
Now
Connie has led a blessed life with very little chaos, at
least from my perspective. She married her one and only,
and still to this day glows from the love they share.
They have raised 3 sons together who are all exceptional
adults and delivered Connie, and husband Pete, with a
house full of beautiful grandchildren. The respect they
have for each other is amazing and the glow of real deep
intimacy shows.
Connie
knows what cake is, and she works hard to keep cake in
her life. What they have, I feel most are searching for
and darn it, I want my cake, icing and all, and get to
eat it to! And why not! Why can't we have everything our
heart desires and feel fulfilled? And what stops us from
having it all! Why do so many on the spiritual path
endure traumatic relationships or have no relationship
at all?
This
conversation -- cake icing theory -- led me into a whole
process of thought over the next few weeks. I looked at
where I was not fulfilled and where my extended family
felt unfulfilled. I knew of some who had lived the
solitary life for many years were now coming to a place
where they were beginning to feel a deep loneliness, and
I had to ask myself why. I looked at the world in
general and looked at how we try to fill those empty
spots inside of us. And I had to ask why the empty spots
seem to be getting larger, rather than smaller, with our
spiritual growth. Maybe this has something to do with
the Star Elders statement this past March about this
being the year of the HEART!
I began
to see a pattern in various groups. First there are
those who crave the depth in life, but seem to have an
abundance of sweet icing. They want the home, the
intimate family and loving partner, the garden in the
back, and a kitty in the window still. It isn't that
they do not appreciate the icing, they do, it's just the
icing has no home base, no roots in which to rest after
a great adventure or victory. The icing doesn't fulfill
the spirit and these ones know there is more to life
than they have been getting. They are open to the
experience, but for some reason it does not appear. They
have tasted cake on occasion and they know what they are
missing.
Then
there are the ones who would rather grab the easy fix
and go for the icing. They feel if they get the new car,
the big house, the perfect job, or Barbie Doll girl
friend or Prince Charming, that they will be happy.
Let's face it -- the new car will get scratched, the
house will have to be cleaned over and over, and the job
will become a boring routine once again... and Barbie
doesn't have a brain, and Prince Charming never gets off
his white horse. It's all icing, very sweet upon first
taste -- but it will make us sick if we eat too much of
it. But it is the sweet stuff many keep going back for.
We are so addicted to it, and yet we still feel so
empty. We run from fear of being hurt and from the hard
work it takes to bake the cake that is the very
foundation for the icing we crave.
Then
there is the really sad group who forgets there is cake
at all. They are like squirrels on a treadmill going
around and around working night and day to keep the
icing up high. These ones have no idea what they are
missing. They have only tasted icing and the cake has
eluded them completely. My question is, if you never
tasted the cake how do you know what you are missing....
Maybe you don't.
Then I
discovered conflicting spiritual teachings.... Marianne
Williamson in her book "Enchanted Love" shares
that the coming together of two people is a magical and
mystical experience and something that we should dive
into it with total abandon to receive the gifts the
creator is giving us. But the collective consensus out
in the world is saying to be careful... be discerning...
Watch out! Isn't this approaching relationship with fear
and not love? And if we approach relationship with fear,
will we manifest the relationship we want? Is it true we
get what we give?
Don
Miguel Ruiz in his book "Mastery of Love" says
that we need to fulfill ourselves first before we can
fulfill ourselves in a relationship. I believe we need
to know ourselves to be able to draw in the right
person, BUT still in nature nothing exists without an
intimate connection with something else. We are part of
nature. Do you see anything under the sun that does not
need something else to survive? We are not autonomous
beings, as much as we would like to be. Are we using
spiritual new-age concepts and teachings to avoid
intimacy? Are we using them to protect ourselves from
getting hurt? Are we using this kind of teachings to
build a wall in which to protect our wounded hearts and
to avoid possible future pain, instead of risking and
opening ourselves to God's magical gifts of Love?
Now
don't get me wrong here, I love Marianne Williamson and
Don Miguel and other teachers like them. Without a doubt
they are opening us to look at ourselves in new and
expanded ways. These teachings are profound yet they
also seem to create a lot of confusion about
relationship -- relationship to ourselves and each
other. We are torn between living in the idealism of
spirit and the reality of being human. And darn it! ...
we all want our cake and eat it too! And no cliché
saying is going to tell us otherwise. Right?
Christ
said to go into the kingdom of heaven as a little child.
Children do not approach life with fear. They don't
worry that if they take their first steps they will fall
and hurt themselves... and when they do fall, they feel
it, get up, and go do it again and again until they get
it right. They live with wonder, curiosity, and LOVE.
Most of all their hearts are not yet closed, their minds
not programmed with limiting concepts. They take life as
it comes to them.
Do we?
Have life's challenges closed us down? Have our painful
experiences made us jaded, cautious, and overly
discerning? Are we missing on the big cosmic cake
because we go for the safety or the instant
gratification of a little icing?
Let's
face it, a blob of icing without the cake underneath it,
is just a blob of icing. Icing needs cake! Cake needs
icing. And we need each other, so let's quit pretending
that we don't. Let's quit twisted profound spiritual
concepts to hide behind. Let's quit professing
everything is wonderful, when it isn't. It is time to
get real. It is time to feel the heart not just speak
about it. It is not codependent to desire a deep
relationship with another human being to feel fulfilled!
It being human, it is being real, it is natural. Many
spiritual teachings forget that we are human! And how do
we bring together the spiritual and the humanness that
we are in a fulfilling way?
I began
to think in deeper terms about relationship and how it
relates our planet. If we can't get real with each
other, how can we assume we can get it right with
humanity and manifest harmony! If we can't be
vulnerable, intimate, and committed to our girlfriends /
boyfriends, husband / wife, mother / father, sister /
brother how can we with humanity as a whole?
But we
know it takes a hot kitchen to bake these kinds of
cakes. If we can't stand the heat, we run for the icing
and at the end of the day we feel empty. It is time to
honor our humanness and honor our heart's desires. It is
time to quit using spiritual concepts to mind trip
ourselves into denying ourselves of what we truly want.
Being a human on earth is a spiritual experience and all
that it offers us as experience in body, mind, and
spirit. We crave relationships and community that will
support us on our worst days and that will be there to
celebrate our victories. We are human, but we are also
spirit, and we need to honor both sides of our beingness.
This
progression of thought might have been triggered by the
recent passing of both my parents or even the abrupt
departure of my long time partner last year. It might
have been triggered by a 6 month classic imitation
relationship I endured. Six months of "nothing was
what it seemed". It was this illusion's thick icing
that gave me a real deep, but new, perspective and
understanding of what icing really is, and why we are
all still so hungry, me included. Maybe our addiction to
icing or the fact that we only have icing, comes from
deep woundings or the simple fact we do not recognize
that there is a cake waiting for us at all. Maybe we
forgot that the heat created in the kitchen to bake the
cake is worth the sweat.
One day
all that we have owned, created, and done here on this
plane will pass away. It is a fact. All that we will
take with us is the love we shared, the connectedness we
have experienced with one another, and the lessons we
learned. This is the real stuff -- the stuff that makes
life rich. It is the soft and crumbling cake we need --
to gobble up every crumb while it is still warm from the
oven like it was the last crumb and to lick the plate
like a child when we are done. We need deep and intimate
connection with others, and with God. What we crave most
is eternal.
The Star
Elders say this is the year of the Heart. They didn't
say it would be easy. Opening the heart and living with
love takes work and the kitchen gets hot when you bake
an eternal cake. If we look to nature and God's creation
all around us, nothing under the sun can survive without
a intimate connection with something else. We are all
working together -- to deny this fact is to deny nature
itself. I am beginning to see that the days of the
spiritual hermit, the lone seeker are over. We have all
done the hermit thing. We have fasted on the
mountaintops and we have gone to the desert. We have
isolated ourselves from each other because of hurt and
trauma. We have learned who we are.
Maybe
the loneliness many are beginning to feel is a universal
push to bring us together once again. First a partner,
then community, country, and planet. The heat in the
kitchen is getting too hot to do the baking alone. The
desire to share deeply with another is not
dysfunctional, it is natural and healthy.
The Maya
have a saying, "In Lak'ech - A La Kin". It
means, I am you and you are me. It reminds me we are
simply wanting to re-connect the other parts of
ourselves. It is time to recognize that we need each
other to create our dream and to feel fulfilled, because
we are a part of each other. In fact we have never been
separate. It has been the greatest illusion.
I don't
have any more answers than when I began this quest for
understanding relationship. In fact I seem to have more
questions. I have shared many things I have been
feeling. Sometimes it scares me to do this, but I try
with all my heart to live open and be vulnerable. I know
things are changing and we are not really sure how
things are going to end up. All we know is what we have
been doing is not working anymore and we are all looking
for the answers, the new path. But the one thing I am
sure of it that the answers can only come from our open
hearts.
 Recommended
book:
A
Heart As Wide As The World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness
by Sharon Salzberg.
Info/Order
this book
About The
Author
Aluna
Joy Yaxk'in is an internationally known Speaker, Author, Photographer,
Clairvoyant, and Sacred Site Essence Formulator. Aluna's work has been
influenced by a life long interaction with the Star Elders combined with
a series of shamanic experiences that accelerated over a decade of
travel in Mexico, Guatemala and Peru. She now acts as a cross cultural
guide on spiritual pilgrimages and offers unique Star Elder Sessions.
Aluna is author of Mayan Astrology, and her articles
have been published worldwide. Aluna Joy Yaxk'in, PO Box 1988, Sedona,
AZ 86339 Ph: 520-282-6292 Webpage: www.1spirit.com/alunajoy.
| Comments () >> |
 |
 |
