The Icing on the Cake
by Aluna Joy -
4/8/2001
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 seaming 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 lead 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, too! 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 - lead 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 full 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 seam 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 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 face it the new car will get scratched, and
house will have to be cleaned over and over, and job will become a boring routine once
again... and Barbie doesn't have a brain, and prince charming never gets off his white
horse. Its all icing, very sweet upon first taste but 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 the hard work that 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 up the
icing 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 approaching 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 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 build a wall in which to protect our wounded hearts, 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 seam 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? Has life's challenges closed us down? Has our
painful experiences made us jaded, cautious and overly discerning? Are we missing on the
big cosmic cake because we go for the safely or the instant gratification of a little
icing.
Lets 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 lets quit pretending that we
don't. Lets quit twisting profound spiritual concepts to hide behind. Let 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 to we bring together the
spiritual and 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 girl
friends/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 end the day we feel empty. It is time to honor
our humanness and honor our hearts' 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 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 addition to icing or the fact that we only have
icing, comes from deep woundings or the simple fact we do not recognized 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 owned, created and did 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 one 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 mountain tops 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
reconnect 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. Over this year I have shared many things I have
been feeling. Sometimes is 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 in 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.
Copyright © 2000... FREE RIGHTS to
E-MAIL UNCHANGED ANYWHERE YOU WISH!
CENTER OF THE SUN NEWS
- May 2001
In Honor and Respect for ALL Perspectives, Cultures, and Dimensions
CENTER of the SUN - Aluna Joy Yaxk'in, PO Box 1988, Sedona, AZ 86339
Website http://www.1spirit.com/alunajoy -
E-mail alunajoy@1spirit.com
Ph:520-282-MAYA (6292) Ph/Fax 520-282-INCA (4622)
