Awakening

Again these are just my rambling thoughts and this one more than any will be my experience. Awakening might be a grandiose and possibly austentaious title but this is really how it felt for me. A moment where my world view shifted. 

I can to polyamory through my spirituality. When I realised that I was full of love and this might mean physical intimacy with others. I did not know the word polyamory, but understood what it meant to me with mind/body/spirit. 

For as long as I can remember I have been searching for my spirituality something that spoke to me. Christianity definitely wasn’t it, there seemed too much conflict and belief. Buddhism, came closer but again it demanded a level of belief, the same was true of Daoism as well. With these two I would pick the elements that rang true with me and discarded the rest. Which I have come to appreciate are the areas that make it a religion and require belief. 

Through a martial arts podcast I stumbled across the shamanistic podcast “the woven energy.” This tied all my ideas of spirituality together in a beautiful way. I didn’t need to believe anything, I can just exist and be aware of everything around me and how I am with it, and how to be actively involved in understanding my place in the universe. 

The place I feel my chalicity come the most easily is when I am wild swimming. There in the cold water my mind is quieted and my body and spirit become much clearer. Probably as my mind doesn’t have the chance to get too involved while I am working on not drowning and breathing and keeping warm and the beauty of the surroundings and the weightlessness of being in the water. I like wild swimming. 

During one such swim in a state of chalicity it was like all my boundaries were blown away. As if I had been living in a box and suddenly the walls, floor, and roof vanished and I could see and feel a vast expanse all around me. I realised that I had a love for so much around me. 

It was so obvious that I could love people as well as love my wife. It was so obvious. How could I have not known it before? My love for her was just that, and my love for others was also just that. I did not immediately talk to her about it though as I was unsure of how it might make her feel, especially when I didn’t have the words to adequately express myself. 

I did a few weeks of thinking and reflecting. Possibly for the better o didn’t do any research, I carried on moving forward blindly and intuitively letting Nature be my guide. I followed the steps that felt right and moved away from what felt wrong. 

For instance I knew that this was not about sex. Much to my sadness at myself I have once cheated on my wife. It was a drunken stupid mistake that I regret deeply. It did teach me though that sex is not important and attainable but not worth anything without real emotional connection. This for me was about feeling a spark of connection with anything and everything. With some people that spark would also potentially contain mutual physical attraction, be it cuddling watching a film, sharing a kiss at sunset or possible sex. 

I wanted the opportunity to explore these feelings. Now it felt like if I didn’t at least talk about it then I would not be living my truth. Which just seemed like the worst thing. 

Let’s look at the butterfly alagory from the book of Chuang Tzu which is very well known however often misunderstood in our culture. I imagine you all know it Chuang Tzu, dreams he is a butterfly and then he wakes up. In our culture there is then the question is he man dreaming he is a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he is a man?

This question doesn’t even enter the mind of a Daoist. He is in face three separate things at three separate times. When he is a butterfly he is a butterfly. When he is a man he is a man and when he is a scholar writing his book, he is a scholar writing his book. Three separate things that in their own time are all true.

I was like this. Before I was ignorant of these thoughts and feelings I was a monogamous hidden bisexual man. Then I was a polyamorous bisexual man, which is where I am still at. Despite not having the language still to express this change, this was what I was and still currently am.

Now that some understanding of self was achieved the next step was learning how to express this to others, starting with the person this would impact the most, my wife. Our miasma is very heavily biased towards monogamy for multiple reasons that are beyond the scope of this part too discuss, needless to say I didn’t look forward to this task.

However, this fear was a fear of how my wife would react. Something that is beyond my control. No one can control how someone else will react. This fear was just an imagination created by the mind. The mind and the strength that we give it in our culture though allows it to bleed over into the realm of body and spirit. I felt butterflies in my stomach, and didn’t seem to have the ability to move forwards the way that my spirit wanted. 

Enter another wild swim. Chalicity at the fore. Mind quieted to a more natural state, body and spirit able to become master of themselves once more. With this the fear was lessened, I am not going to pretend that there wasn’t any as that would be nothing but a lie. 

I shared my new self with my wife, like I had done countless times before, and like the countless times before she listened to my new truth. She heard me which it turns out was the main thing I needed. She didn’t make me feel bad or less or like a monster or anything like that. She heard me and accepted my new truth and took time to process how this would impact her truth. 

I am very aware that I have a very special partner in her. That I am so privileged to have such a space and such an amazing best friend. She constantly blows me away with her compassion and empathy. I am very lucky. 

Without Shamanism I would not have had this experience of awakening let alone the courage to talk to my wife about this shift in self and how I relate to the world.