Love and mixed mud wrestling are the same.
That I could believe.

Dan,

We look forward to the poem.

Aikido, Love, Dancing and Flying

Aikido
“the essence of Aikido is invisible. In order to see the invisible essence of Aikido, we need to use "Shin-gan" ("eye of mind)".

Aikido … does not require much physical power, but instead relies on performing the techniques smoothly and flowingly, almost like flying and dancing.”

More God revealed than man elevated --
having done a moment's good we remain men --
training, like life, at its best God's reflection
seen in humble, thankful, resolute souls.

Paul Schweer, Aikido trainer, Orlando FL

" .... all disciplines, involving pain"

Jinnderella.... You are doing it the wrong way.

Joe K, because you asked:

Mud is Beauty in the making,
Mud is melody awaking;
Laughter, leafy whisperings,
Butterflies with rainbow wings;
Baby babble, lover's sighs,
Bobolink in lucent skies;
Ardours of heroic blood
All stem back to Matrix Mud.

From Mud, by Robert William Service

.
Im still pondering Marcus and his Being essay.

For me it was affirming, but what i really like about it, is the way he had me jumping up and down.... blurting things like ...

" YES, you SEE, .. Yes you FOOL. thats what others have been attempting to show you, YES, keep going, there are moral demands for judgement in your discovery, will you be Honest with yourself enough to accept them?"

A moody child and wildly wise
Pursued the game with joyful eyes,
Which chose, like meteors, their way,
And rived the dark with private ray:
They overleapt the horizon's edge,
Searched with Apollo's privilege;
Through man, and woman, and sea, and star,
Saw the dance of nature forward far;
Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times,
Saw musical order, and pairing rhymes.

Olympian bards who sung, Divine ideas below,
Which always find us young, And always keep us so. Emerson

When i read Joe's post on Aikido, it really reminded me of what one of my ballet teachers used to say..."the good pain, the beneficial pain--if it doesn't hurt, you are not doing it right."
How can pain be a good thing? When it instructs, when it teaches? From the poem,

the pain of longing is a good thing

. This made me think of wabi sabi.

According to Leonard Koren, wabi-sabi is the most conspicuous and characteristic feature of what we think of as traditional Japanese beauty and it "occupies roughly the same position in the Japanese pantheon of aesthetic values as do the Greek ideals of beauty and perfection in the West." Andrew Juniper claims, "if an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi sabi."

Yes. Pain teaches.
And one of the things I believe it has taught me is that life is pain and suffering.

But there are, I believe a few lights in the darkness.

One of them is science, which has taught us to relieve some of the pain and may yet teach us much more.

Another one is love. That has taught me that a pain shared is a pain reduced, or sometimes eliminated altogether, where the other has the solution that you lack. Or where you find that together you have the solution that neither of you had alone.

One more thing about love and pain.
I believe very strongly that if a person causes me pain, deliberately and gratuitously
- then that is prima facie evidence that the person does not love me.

In that case, under no circumstances do I allow myself to love that person.

To me love that causes pain deliberately is no love at all.
It may be neurotic dependency on my part.
It may be parisitism by the other.
BUT IT IS NOT LOVE
And I don't need it.

This is an absolute and non-negotiable axiom of my entire life.

What a beautiful poem you have. I like that simple but powerful poem. Simplicity is a vital aspect of love and relationship. When you love someone, you don't have to find the things that she can't afford to give it to you. Acceptance and simplicity is required so that a good relationship may grow happily and harmoniously. One must accept the flaws and imperfections of you partner. Love is kind, forgiving and understanding.