Admit, Commit, Submit: Relationship: The Perilous Path of Loving a Person, a Path or a Place takes place September 7th, 21st and 28th.
All paying Subscribers receive $30 off the full price of $65 when registering for the Three Sundays Series. To find out more, or receive the discount code, write to support@davidwhyte.com and someone will be happy to assist you.
We tend to think that commitment is the ultimate attainment in relationship, but what lies beyond commitment and what keeps commitment alive, is the mystery of submission to what continually arises from that relationship, and therefore our possibilities for real happiness.
In our day and age, ‘submit’ is a controversial word, but in this context it does not mean submitting to a person, a work or a place: it means submitting to the invitational and always surprising mystery that arises between myself and the person I love, between myself and the work I love, between myself and the place I love.
The essence and intimacy of relationship is always an ever-changing invitational edge between what we thought we wanted and what we actually, and to our continued amazement, find. ‘Submission’ may be one of the ultimate forms of vulnerability, but refusing ‘submission’ always undermines any on-going commitment.
Arriving at a deeper intimacy in any of these three relationships involves the difficult task of first admitting to our love; then committing to our love: only then does the door of ‘submission’ open, uncovering why we might be together as a couple, (or why we might need to part) - why I am working so hard at something that seems to take everything I have, or why I have chosen, at this stage in my life, to live, and live wholeheartedly in this particular place.
Hi David, I'm glad the Stafford line stuck with you from my comment on your poem the other day. "The forest strokes your fur, the fur you no longer have".
Incidentally, I saw recently someone making the word forest more clear, in that it's for-rest. Not that it helps as a pneumonic device. I often have to look up forrest and dessert, ha!
I had my doubts about joining this one, as I've been to all of the Sunday talks since power of now, but it appears this is the invitation I'd been waiting for.
Briliant, David. Essential and timely to participate with you, now over many years, now more than ever. Thank you. Blessings abound.