Day 9-Profoundly grateful

i am profoundly grateful for my colleagues. today, while the students were checking-in in their project teams, the faculty rounded up to also check in.  this is always a sweet time for me because i have such feelings of warmth toward all my colleagues.  by the way, it is true that not all of us were there and i do miss those who weren't.

pete and i recreated a conflict that we allegedly "had" during the day. it turned out that it was a live conflict, rather than one that we were "over."  in the end, i found myself crying quitely to myself, really for the poignant beautfy of the acts of love and kindness that were so subtley ocurring.


act 1: by liz, ginger and nina...listening patiently, lovingly and intently to the gorey details of a conflict that did not at all involve them.
act 2: by pete, to bravely state with humor, how he was mad at me today, and then more bravely stop and listen with deep caring, when i interrupted him with my announcement that i was really angry at him (i was not previously aware of this anger...i am actually not good at all at sensing my anger).
act 3: by roger, in humorously and compassionately intervening in my monologue to potentially protect pete, but also to waken me to my use of force, to my attachment to particular ideas.

people don't often see, i believe, the kind of love that we are enacting toward one another.  i hesitate to use this word "love," because it has become so misused in our culture. but i believe that love is actually the essence of what is happening in our collaboration together.

roger has a radical love. it knows no limits and draws no lines between what one might imagine is friend and foe. it always protects, always trusts. his love does not favor one over the other...it simply emerges whenever it is needed and for whomever it is needed.  it is hard for me to describe the beauty of this kind of love--it is the kind that makes one cry, that makes one grateful.

i have been breaking things lately...a range of things...my computer trackpad, my bicycle tire, my electric bicycle tire (interesting), my daily health, and very importantly, 2 ancient runes.  all of these have been "accidental" occurences.  i don't believe in accidents, by the way.

roger offered an interpretation,...these breaks point to my tendency to use force when things do not meet my expectations. they were warnings about this tendency.  this was a severely loving and quite true thing for him to say and i really am slowly dying to this part of myself. i have outgrown it, but my habits are so very ingrained.

pete is doing so beautifully in his ability to see into his and others' feelings, as i liz. wow, i can learn so much from these, my dear friends.