How are things today? Things are harmonious and happy. Things are moving along. Yes, I can still affirm this, this is the way it is. There was a time in the past when I felt I might not be able or want to live in Russia without Ivan by my side. But he is not going anywhere, and even if he were, I now feel safe and secure enough to go on living here without him. I can still not imagine living in a place where I could not hear and speak Russian every day. I still have the feeling that I am standing on the edge of a precipice ready at any moment to step out into the unknown and willing to accept all it has to offer. I have no fear, knowing I will not fall, but rise to the occasion, I will fly. This is because I am learning how to reclaim Knowledge and becoming aware of my true foundation in the world. I now have a Russian passport and am a bone fide Russian citizen with all the ensuing rights and privileges. I have freed myself inwardly from my attachment to my British passport. I do not need that passport any more because I do not want to live anywhere else, nor do I particularly want to travel anywhere anymore. If all the borders throughout the world closed tomorrow and everyone had to remain for the rest of their lives in the country they are living now, I would be very happy in the knowledge that I would be staying in Russia for the rest of my life. It is my country of choice.
I can even say more, I think it was Knowledge, without me being fully conscious of it, that brought me to Russia in the first place. I think it is here that my mission will unfold and I will find my true purpose in this world. It was more than just finding a husband and finding a life that drew me here, it was some deep inner calling that I could not fathom at the time, but which I felt unerringly bound to follow. My gut feeling was stronger than any doubt, fear or uncertainty that might have swayed me from my path. I was following some internal cue and it led me boldly on.
Living with Ivan is no longer a challenge because I have learned to deal with so many issues that caused friction in the past. We have survived the hell of drinking and alcohol is no longer part of our lives. And we are managing famously without it thank you. Why I ever thought it brought us closer together is beyond me. Maybe it used to on one level, but that level is false. Now we see each other as we truly are and are even closer than ever.
Perhaps I have become more tolerant, less insistent on having my own way, more flexible, more ready to see the merit of what he has to offer, and more willing to admit that I may be wrong, that my thinking may be erroneous, that I do not know what I think I know and that what I believe may not be the way things really are at all. When I approach life from this standpoint, of feeling that I really know nothing, it is much easier to know what is true. And my husband has many of his own virtues and knowledge and insights that help me to work out my own situations.
Every love union has a purpose, but only those last in which each of the souls in the union receives precisely what it needs from the other soul in the union to evolve. Some souls may come together for a while to evolve part of the way. This had been the case with Jason, but we exhausted our need for each other at some point, so had to part ways. How this is described in Relationships and Higher Purpose seems to put it in a nutshell. It says, “Stage two is about independence. Marriage in stage two is more about people discovering and differentiating themselves by learning to think and act independently. This produces personal growth but makes the prospect of attaining real union and commitment in relationship very difficult to establish.” This applies to my marriage with Jason.
It goes on to say: “The third stage is the stage of interdependence. Here you come to realize that no matter how free and independent you have become, you can do nothing alone. Alone your life has little meaning and promise. Alone you are only a potential. To find your gifts, you need real relationships in your life, and they must be built upon Knowledge. Here surrender becomes the natural expression of your desire to give your life to those people and to the higher purpose that are meant for you. Here you do not really surrender yourself. Instead, your Knowledge surrenders you. Here you do not need to struggle over whether you want to give yourself to another. It is simply known.” This applies to my marriage with Ivan.
Kindness is also a major element. I had not been kind to Jason. I had not been magnanimous toward him, I had felt and seen his pain, but I had not wanted to show him the kindness he deserved. I had been impatient, irritable, frowning, and short-tempered with him. His acquiescence had irritated me even more. If only he had shown his anger, risen up against me, instead of always agreeing and being obsequious. But if I had loved him, I would have been kind. There are many things about Ivan that irritate me and rub me up the wrong way, but when it comes down to the bottom line my heart always fills with kindness and compassion for him, a gentleness that passes all understanding. So we are still together to this day.
I still cherish my dream of a house in the country. Ivan had a small painting in a wooden frame of a small snow-bound house, smoke curling from the chimney, on the shore of a lake with a forest in the background. He had shown it to me after I returned to Moscow the second time in 1990. If I stayed this time, said he, he would find a house like that for us to live in. I had stayed.
“’Come to the edge,’ he said. They said, ‘We are afraid.’ ‘Come to the edge,’ he said. They came. He pushed them, and they flew…”
- Guillaume Apollinaire
So the journey to self-realization and the reclamation of Knowledge continues.
I can even say more, I think it was Knowledge, without me being fully conscious of it, that brought me to Russia in the first place. I think it is here that my mission will unfold and I will find my true purpose in this world. It was more than just finding a husband and finding a life that drew me here, it was some deep inner calling that I could not fathom at the time, but which I felt unerringly bound to follow. My gut feeling was stronger than any doubt, fear or uncertainty that might have swayed me from my path. I was following some internal cue and it led me boldly on.
Living with Ivan is no longer a challenge because I have learned to deal with so many issues that caused friction in the past. We have survived the hell of drinking and alcohol is no longer part of our lives. And we are managing famously without it thank you. Why I ever thought it brought us closer together is beyond me. Maybe it used to on one level, but that level is false. Now we see each other as we truly are and are even closer than ever.
Perhaps I have become more tolerant, less insistent on having my own way, more flexible, more ready to see the merit of what he has to offer, and more willing to admit that I may be wrong, that my thinking may be erroneous, that I do not know what I think I know and that what I believe may not be the way things really are at all. When I approach life from this standpoint, of feeling that I really know nothing, it is much easier to know what is true. And my husband has many of his own virtues and knowledge and insights that help me to work out my own situations.
Every love union has a purpose, but only those last in which each of the souls in the union receives precisely what it needs from the other soul in the union to evolve. Some souls may come together for a while to evolve part of the way. This had been the case with Jason, but we exhausted our need for each other at some point, so had to part ways. How this is described in Relationships and Higher Purpose seems to put it in a nutshell. It says, “Stage two is about independence. Marriage in stage two is more about people discovering and differentiating themselves by learning to think and act independently. This produces personal growth but makes the prospect of attaining real union and commitment in relationship very difficult to establish.” This applies to my marriage with Jason.
It goes on to say: “The third stage is the stage of interdependence. Here you come to realize that no matter how free and independent you have become, you can do nothing alone. Alone your life has little meaning and promise. Alone you are only a potential. To find your gifts, you need real relationships in your life, and they must be built upon Knowledge. Here surrender becomes the natural expression of your desire to give your life to those people and to the higher purpose that are meant for you. Here you do not really surrender yourself. Instead, your Knowledge surrenders you. Here you do not need to struggle over whether you want to give yourself to another. It is simply known.” This applies to my marriage with Ivan.
Kindness is also a major element. I had not been kind to Jason. I had not been magnanimous toward him, I had felt and seen his pain, but I had not wanted to show him the kindness he deserved. I had been impatient, irritable, frowning, and short-tempered with him. His acquiescence had irritated me even more. If only he had shown his anger, risen up against me, instead of always agreeing and being obsequious. But if I had loved him, I would have been kind. There are many things about Ivan that irritate me and rub me up the wrong way, but when it comes down to the bottom line my heart always fills with kindness and compassion for him, a gentleness that passes all understanding. So we are still together to this day.
I still cherish my dream of a house in the country. Ivan had a small painting in a wooden frame of a small snow-bound house, smoke curling from the chimney, on the shore of a lake with a forest in the background. He had shown it to me after I returned to Moscow the second time in 1990. If I stayed this time, said he, he would find a house like that for us to live in. I had stayed.“’Come to the edge,’ he said. They said, ‘We are afraid.’ ‘Come to the edge,’ he said. They came. He pushed them, and they flew…”
- Guillaume Apollinaire
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