The Love of a Woman – The Writings of Tom Grasso

Imagine for one minute you are sitting there completely devoid of feelings. You feel nothing, not contempt, not anger, not hate, not worry, not joy, not love. You are still living, but you truly can’t experience the life you are living because you are unable to feel it. Think about it, if you could not feel the moments, would you actually be able to experience those moments? Would they have any meaning? If the answer is, as I suspect, a resounding “no”, then it must be that feelings are not only the translation of life’s experience into thought, but also the translation of thought into a life’s experience. They interact with one another, with one molding the other so completely as to change the fabric of reality within the artistry. Both are that powerful and that necessary.

I was taught a lot about my feelings in the anger of a woman. I was taught a lot about my feelings in the sexual deviance of a woman. I was taught a lot about my vision of self in the pain of a woman. I was taught a lot about who I am in the rejection of a woman (in case you haven’t guessed by “woman” I mean “women”). Yet despite all of these experiences and lessons, I learned the most about myself in the love of a woman. Interestingly, I can no longer see these events as separate unto themselves. Fear (anger, jealousy, hatred, contempt, etc.) is not a separate entity to love. Rather, it is an opportunity for love to know itself, to express itself, to show itself and to understand. Love is known because fear is known, fear is known because love expresses itself so perfectly that fear is allowed to be. In fact, it must be.

It has been my life’s experience that pain is no small substitute for love’s understanding and that fear is not the absence of love as some may suggest. I have looked at many moments of supposed lack, pain, anger, sorrow, etc. and can see the light of love beneath the basket of fear. Love is like the tapestry to which fear is the seam, like a great masterpiece where love is the canvas and fear is the paint. These things are not separate, they are one, unable to honestly exist without one another. It is us who assigns “good” or “bad” to them, who separates one into the “good” pile and the other into the “bad” pile. We create the idea of separation in order to feel special about ourselves when we spread love and demonize ourselves when we act in fear. Yet, without this need for praise or rejection, love and fear operate within the same circle, allowing the expression of one through the experience of the other. They are, in essence, perfect until we create them otherwise.

For me, I experienced fear most of my known life. I was taught it from a young age and it was reinforced throughout most of my adult life. I magnified the rejection of my peers in fear, the loneliness I experienced (often self-created) was enhanced by fear, I expressed fear in womanizing, in sexual deviance and in inflicting great pain on those who would dare get close to me. I fought fear with violence, spread fear through anger, and basically created a universe of fear around me. That was how I gave meaning to life.

Yet now, through the love of a woman, I experience love. The sun has risen, the spring is upon me, and the thaw is creating vast rivers flooding my soul. With no effort on my part, I magnify the acceptance of all things, feel equal completeness in being alone or in a crowd, express my love to all things and wish to be a vessel of warmth for anyone who would grace me with their presence. I embrace love with open arms and allow it to spread around me in order to provide light, warmth and shelter wherever it is necessary. Sometimes those things manifest themselves as a smile on the lips of a stranger, or an embrace of an old friend, or in one of a million ways love can show itself. That is the goal and intention of each moment at least, the success of which I will leave to others who wish to do the separating.

And that is love, or at least the feeling of love expressed to me. It speaks a word I cannot speak myself, describes a beauty that is indescribable, so therefore I realize I am probably not doing a very good job of describing what I feel. Yet, I believe that once we experience love, we need not have it described to us…we can just allow it to be. My goal here was not to describe love, but describe the perfection of fear as it relates to love. I no longer hold the concept that they are different, or separate, or “good” versus “bad”. One is not perfect while the other imperfect; they are simply One perfect expression of the Whole, completely reliant on one another because they are not separate from each other. At their quantum levels they are the same experience expressing itself differently or the same expression of a different experience. The are the white light we can see as blue and red.

At the end of the day, I was shown fear by a woman and shown love by a woman. Yet, the choice of which to express and experience resided solely with me. In fact, the choice resides solely with each of us. If we blame another for our actions, we fail to recognize that we solely made the choice of the expression. We fail to realize the wholeness of the stimulus to the response and the fact the we alone are responsible for the choice of mindfulness or forgetfulness. Which do YOU choose this very moment? Of course that question’s rhetorical, that answer is known long before you can express it. Yet, if you can recognize that you are the soul Creator of the expression of who you are, you can become mindful of who you are. It’s not a trick, or a gimmick, it’s a time-tested and verifiable way of expressing your Oneness regardless of the choice you make in how you experience the moment.

Enjoy in joy the moment, and your expression; and who you are.