Commitment: The Holy Rite of Love

Sometimes I wish for time to stand still.

Is there ever really enough time to absorb the pleasure of laying by a river? Picking nettles for tea? Daisies for the kitchen table?

I don’t believe there will ever be.

I want to become the river, the daisies. 

Since being a little girl I’ve daydreamed of metamorphosis.

I love fantasizing about the worlds that occupy the cold river stones, the wholeness of every natural process or object that simply is. This confident glory that animates it all makes one feel all of life’s intensity and passion at the core of the heart.

The emotions activated during this deep presence with nature is similar to the beautiful existential dew of commitment. 

Commitment feels terrifying and consuming to our identities that are attached to the safety of isolation. 

Commitment feels like a dance once we realize it is by nature metamorphosis because it is nothing without the process of change.  

Commitment asks of our highest intelligence, our sensual engagement, our keen ability to transmute and transform, to stand bare fleshed in front of beauty and truth.

I believe most of us crave the feeling of rootedness commitment provides when we persevere. It is a fruitful feeling that isn’t superficial like most other pleasures we experience in the modern era. Whether it is commitment to one partner, a business venture, a friend, or a plan, there is something about Western Culture that steers us away from the faith and meditative state required to fully commit to something.

My speculation as of lately and based on my own self-observation is that commitment is a scarier prospect for those who lack trust in themselves.

Commitment is the ultimate revealing of truth:

You commit to something fully- you find the truth. You know what I am talking about here… maybe you have had a friend or partner in the past you gave your all to and came to a point where you realized your needs weren’t being met, appreciated, or reciprocated and there was a break in connection that led to a re-evaluation of your own needs and what is/isn’t working for you.

Commitment has this amazing way of bringing you closer to your own heart, which in turn inspires you to open up more with others, making the sweet devotion of commitment easier and easier.

Modern culture promotes excess. It tells us we can always have more, and we should want more even though we are perfectly content. It inflates us with hyper-individualized cravings for the transcendental experience— what about collective transcendence? Well, that doesn’t sound as pretty and appealing to us because that would take work, that would require we step outside of ourselves, that would take commitment.

I dream of liberation daily. Liberation to me means coming back to the root, the natural way of things, the natural way of things being in relational flow. I think we have been brainwashed to think that commitment inherently means constricting, when in reality, unity can’t happen without commitment. Embodied freedom can’t happen without commitment. Revolutionary change can’t happen without commitment.

Think of how committed the trees are to producing oxygen, the kitten to jumping from the nightstand next to your bed to your plant across the room, what about all of the animals that live in herds? They are committed to one another, reliant even.

aahh, reliability. Almost as scary as commitment for us reserved, busy humans.

Many who struggle with commitment also struggle being reliable. It seems a common dilemma comes from the conflicting beliefs of

“I can do it myself”

and

“I want it all”.

Desire inflates into insatiability…dissatisfaction begins to show up, leading to burnout and loneliness.

We need a collective reframing of commitment. A reimagining of the potential that lies in the resilient meat that sustains it.

Last night my love Ryan and I were laying in each other’s arms for hours, crying, talking, worrying about the next part of our journey together. We just moved in together and within a week have found ourselves faced with every challenge and financial setback imaginable. Challenges that would break a lot of couples. The clarity of our love and commitment to one another is being faced with obstacles even the most creative parts of our minds combined currently cannot see a way out of. There seems to be a twisted inheritance that comes with cosmic love, almost like the universe is saying “deep, passionate, sacred love isn’t given without pressure. Isn’t given without darkness. Without initiation.”

And so, him and I continue on loving each other, believing in each other, while being in the dark. This feels like commitment.

The grace of restraint is sometimes needed for accessing the abundance of overflow that lies at the core of our expanded capacity. Focus and precision meet inside of common visions that fuse into earth membranes so they can birth new life. For those of you in a partnership, creating new ways of living outside of the system know this feeling in your bones. There is an array of different challenges when you follow your own inner authority, leaving the matrix paradigm will have you feeling existential on the regular. But it’s really quite delicious at the same time.

Commitment offers us honey in an age where sweetness and tenderness are lacking. It offers us the lesson of slowness, patience, perseverance, and resilience— the ancient wisdom echoed through many different cultures and religions around the world.

With love and pleasure,