yesterday i saw 
a remarkable thing in the sky
and i took a picture

today i'm surprised
to find there is nothing remarkable
in the picture i took

tomorrow i'm going
to go shopping for a camera
that'll capture my hallucinations

the day after tomorrow
i'm going to be content
with the direct experience
- forget the picture -

amour inconditionnel

would you be willing to tell your love
you love them conditionally?
or do they, as you, expect unconditional love?
it can only be one or the other

if your love's love is dependent on conditions
how does that make you feel?
are you even-balanced because 
your love for them is conditional too?

of course these conditions get enshrined
after serious negotiations, 
for everyone wants it all but at least
compromise ensures us enough

a zero-sum game going into love from either side
itches us the wrong way in that out-of-the-way spot,
although we still see how the total sum might be right for us 
so we're open to negotiating more for our side

zero sum or compromise?
and if we choose compromise,
that's conditional, leaving us no option
for an unconditional love

if you go ahead anyway and tell your love
you love them unconditionally,
what exactly do you mean? 
chances are, people define it differently

is it -- ?
-- loving someone unselfishly, caring about their happiness and doing anything
    to help that person feel happiness without expecting anything in return
-- loving the other person despite their flaws, but also loving them because of them
-- loving someone for who they truly are, even when they are unlovable 
    and in spite of their imperfections and mistakes
-- never ever questioning if you'll feel any other way toward a person. It will always just "be"
-- loving someone without boundaries
-- caring about the happiness of another person without any concern for how it benefits you
-- putting someone first and prioritizing their health and happiness 
    with no expectation of reward for yourself

So, what exactly do you mean
by unconditional love? 
do any of these definitions apply?    
you might answer unconditional love
is all of that and more --
if so, then you'd need to explain
how the love you show is any match for all of that,
and saying it's only an ideal one aims at, not expecting to achieve,
is a pale excuse for not really delivering what is promised
and while you're grappling with that
you might try coming to terms with the variety
of divergent viewpoints on unconditional love,
for the nature, realism, and practicality of the whole concept
is not as self-evident as one might expect

About unconditional love some also say
-- it's a naive romantic illusion, reflecting a love that's immature, one that's ignorant of life's stages  
-- it's unrealistic since the real world is conditional with reactions to actions and consequences too and you can't escape at least one condition unless you don't care about fidelity, honesty, loyalty, truth
-- it's a denial of the real work that love entails where there's much skill and practice involved supported by a commitment that must be tended and reinforced along the way
-- it's a problem to a relationship since it enables the idea of "being loved for who you are" but this too often becomes validation from outside oneself in order to feel OK, whether or not it's always prudent, wise, or healthy to give a pass to our faults or neglect our potential.
-- it's a problem because it fosters a belief that a perfect relationship will result from it
-- it's a dangerous sentiment because it's impossible for something to exist without attached conditions and an attempt at love under this delusion is nothing but slavish devotion
-- it's a backward concept since putting conditions on love doesn't weaken it, it makes it more honest, thus stronger - everyone represents who they are to another and this may be a partial or mistaken display or the total of it may change as what once was presented is suddenly withdrawn
-- it's a denial of the freedom one should have when expectations on how another person treats you and how they act are in play - it isn't horrible to walk away from someone who treats you poorly, you're just being honest about the fact you want a strong and abiding foundation for love
-- it's ignoring the fact that love is a verb, it's something you do, not something that just happens, thus conditional love can last because it's built on a foundation of realism, not fantasy
-- it's simplistic and errors in not recognizing that loving ourselves is primary before we can love another and a huge part of that self-love is establishing boundaries and conditions around what we'll accept and not-accept
-- it's setting up blind subservience if one manages to practice it while the same isn't reciprocated
-- it's an altruistic goal but breaks down under numerous conditions and for good reason - as much as you might love an alcoholic, a liar, or a cheater unconditionally, this isn't healthy for you as a person
-- it's incomplete and "unconditional positive regard" is closer to the truth -  treating the other person with love and respect while maintaining your boundaries and protecting yourself. You don't have to be everything to the other person. The mature version has you recognize that your only obligation, in the face of the other's behavior, is to communicate your message with love and respect. It also means honoring the requests of others when you are able to do so without harming yourself.
-- it's loving someone regardless of circumstance, but not regardless of how they treat you - sometimes loving someone also requires making tough decisions and letting them go.
-- it's counter-intuitive because boundaries are important for one to know their self worth - and those boundaries keep one's self love and self worth healthy
-- it's deceptive because it means one doesn't know what love is -- love is a condition in and of its self -- just as you can't hate someone unconditionally - condition is reason, something to bond you, there has to be a common condition that keeps you together and a limit to what you will take, for what we "won't" do also bonds us 
-- it's a depersonalization since it means being loved NOT FOR who i am -- one person is chosen to be with over all others primarily due to conditions, otherwise everybody would and should love everybody all at the same time equally in all the same ways
-- it's a nice concept but not possible as long as the ego-mind is involved
-- it's true as far as love is concerned but trust and respect are still conditional

Granted, much of this nay-saying about unconditional love
centers exclusively on romantic love,
that messy domain of feelings, expectations, and super charged desires.
In areas where there's love without romance,
like the biological, hormonal imperative of a mother's love
or the transcendent love of a martyred saint,
the concept is much more easily accepted,
generally since it's seen more as a maternal instinct without choice
or a lofty virtue to aspire to or emulate in approximate ways
rather than a daily practice to be realistically expected in full.
People have no problem discussing and accepting
that which seems too hard for them to achieve but is conveniently out of reach,
it's only when it's presented to them in -- say wedding vows
that cognitive dissonance and hurt feelings may result.

In Christianity, unconditional love is thought to be part of the Four Loves; affection, friendship, eros, and charity.  The main use of unconditional in Christianity is the assertion "That God so loved the world..." In other words, God loves the world enough to suffer for us without preconditions. I can't help but wonder if this applied to romantic unconditional love prescribes as necessary our acceptance of whatever suffering our love manifests to us.  Suffering is good, otherwise, no doubt, there should be guilt.

In Buddhism one of the most important concepts is called Bodhicitta. There are two kinds of Bodhicitta. They are Relative and Absolute Bodhicitta. In Relative Bodhicitta one learns about the desire to gain the understanding of unconditional love, which in Buddhism is expressed as Loving-Kindness and Compassion. The point is to develop Bodhicitta for all living (sentient) beings. Absolute Bodhicitta is a more esoteric Tantric Teaching. At every moment one has the opportunity to make a choice how to act, and to be completely mindful of one's actions means that in every interaction with another being one will consciously act with Loving-Kindness and Compassion toward every other being no matter what the nature of that interaction. This seems to say, more often than not, we're attempting Relative Bodhicitta but only the holiest of yogis ever manage the Absolute form, which would be the actual practice of unconditional love.

In Islam, unconditional love can only be directed to Allah.  Enough said.

There has been some evidence to support a neural basis for unconditional love, showing that it stands apart from other types of love. In a study conducted by Mario Beauregard and his colleagues, using an fMRI procedure, they studied the brain imaging of participants who were shown different sets of images either referring to "maternal love" (unconditional love) or "romantic love". Seven areas of the brain became active when these participants called to mind feelings of unconditional love. Three of these were similar to areas that became active when it came to romantic love. The other four active parts were different, showing certain brain regions associated with rewarding aspects, pleasurable (non sexual) feelings, and human maternal behaviors are activated during the unconditional love portions of the experiment. Through the associations made between the different regions, results show that the feeling of love for someone without the need of being rewarded is different from the feeling of romantic love. This points out biological indications that romantic love falls short of having everything that true unconditional love entails -- three attributes out of seven, to be precise.

Going for the proof, some have developed a logical equation to explain unconditional love based on credences, a term used to measure the degrees of belief rated on a numerical value scale between 0 and 1 - where 1 is being completely certain. Here's the equation based in part on Bayesian probability theory:

From Cr(e∩p)/Cr(e)
To Cr(e)/Cr(e)
To 1 (as anything divided by itself equals 1)
Since Crupdated(p)=Crinitial(p|e), where we have just shown that Crinitial(p|e)=1, then it will always be the case that Crupdated(p)=1 when Crinitial(p)=1, for any e where Cr(e)≠0.

Of course, there are some clever psychologists
and progressive sociologists who spin things
with creative compartmentalization,
resulting in a distinction between
unconditional love
and unconditional relationships.
they claim love (feelings) and relationships (decisions) 
can have separate rules and expectations,
thus, it is possible to love someone without limit, 
yet still have contingencies placed upon 
continuing a relationship with them.

Other researchers measured relationship sanctification 
(the perception of the relationship is sacred) 
through an individual's rating of their relationship on nine dimensions: 
holy, inspiring, blessed, everlasting, awesome, heavenly, spiritual, religious, and mysterious.
From their results it appears that relationship sanctity/sacredness perceptions 
do indeed help to buffer against stress, promote positive behaviors between partners, 
and result in greater bonding, commitment, and satisfaction too.   
Mahoney and associates (1999)

Still others don't feel a need to look that deep
into unconditional love, instead they sum it up by assuring us --
unconditional love may not save your relationship
but managing realistic expectations will -- 
and so, i guess if we simply keep our expectations low enough
we'll be satisfied and happy and feel loved.  Yeah, sure.

From all of this, it appears
universal unconditional love ironically
is more approachable as a concept
than romantic unconditional love.
One wonders why this should be so?
Why should it be easier to envision 
unconditional love for all of humanity
than for the one person you're closest to in every way?
Is it because universal unconditional love is nebulous
whereas romantic unconditional love
is down-in-the-trenches, rubber-meets-the-road,
in your face and steeped with specifics and details
moment by moment that are too real
to make into abstractions? 

What wisdom is there to be found?
So many quotes one can find are clever, or sentimental, or reasonable
if taken as a sub-set of the reality we actually experience,
but do any of them answer the fully explored question?

"A successful marriage requires falling in love 
many times, always with the same person." 
- Mignon McLaughlin

"The best and most beautiful things in the world 
cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt 
with the heart."  
- Helen Keller

"To love for the sake of being loved is human, 
but to love for the sake of loving is angelic."  
- Alphonse de Lamartine 

"Love loves to love love." 
-- James Joyce

"Love bears all things, believes all things, 
hopes all things, endures all things." 
-- Corinthians 13:4-8

"To love is so startling it leaves 
little time for anything else." 
-- Emily Dickinson

If that last quote is correct, then I wouldn't have time
to contemplate any of this if I were truly in a loving state,
and yet I do not feel as much startled as perplexed.

Maybe I should be studying dogs --
much of the love-literature recommends observing dogs 
to see true examples of unconditional love.
To expect it anywhere else seems miraculous.

Perhaps I'm too much in my head and not my heart
and the witty advice from Audrey Hepburn might apply --
"Anyone who does not believe in miracles is not a realist."

Oh yes, I've heard the call to pursue unconditional love,
by now it's an archetypal meme of a society
that loves to delude itself ---
unconditionally.

the unacceptable truth

i can see 

how many of my reactions

don't make common sense

and yet i have them anyway

i can reason

how many of my behaviors

don't serve me in this world

and yet i do them anyway

i can measure

how many of my sensitivities 

don't maintain expected balance

and yet i feel them anyway

i can process

all the methods and methodologies

to help set things different

and yet the same deep feelings remain

i can read

all the affirmations and aphorisms

that abound from self-appointed wisdom sources

and yet their truth is partial and superficial in light of something core

i can wish

for something else 

for my life

and yet i am what i am anyway

i can pray

for deliverance from it all

and yet i find

no refuge from the essence i know as myself

am i stuck in a pathology

or entrenched in something quintessential to my spirit?

am i plaqued by a neurosis

or blessed with knowing an unshakable truth?

am i condemned to not being normal

or aligned with my higher self?

there's no way to explain such a feeling

no way to justify what is deemed aberrant

no where to go to have the nonsensical understood

there are only my reactions, my behaviors, my sensibilities

everything that others tell me is not acceptable

the thing is - i don't have them to be accepted

i have them because they feel like me

i can hear them say 

i'm stuck in pain and refuse to change

i will not be so presumptuous to say what it is

only that when i clear everything from me

and i listen to my soul

my unacceptable truth

persists

WHAT IT ISN'T

wrapped in who we are, questions arise --

what to remove, what to add

   so we can be intimate?

where is our energy, our intention

   when we engage with one another?

how do we believe

   what we're feeling is true?

is this a feeling that's shared

   or merely exploited?

what exactly is this thing called intimacy?

   is it merely what becomes of the comfort of friendly engagement 

     when enough time gives rise to a surface bloom of the agreeably cozy?

   is it sharing our superficial then deeper secrets with one another in measured steps?

   is it slowly dissolving the boundaries of personal space as one is allowed closer?

   is it in prime evidence when removing our clothes for someone else?

   is it allowing the other to access parts of oneself

     otherwise shyly reserved, stoically hidden, vigilantly defended?

   is it allowing the other to see the real us?

     and what portion of that "real us" is shown?

     have we even shown this "real us" to ourselves?

     how can we be sure we're showing what we think we're showing?

     how are we sure what we're showing is being seen the way intended? 

to be unsure is to be unguarded, exposed, susceptible to who knows what.   

is there no intimacy without vulnerability?

is there no vulnerability without making mistakes?

are these to be our mistakes or simply experiences

   hampered by our lack of an omniscience

we shouldn't expect of ourselves?

   even if we don't blame ourselves for our leaps 

into pain out of naive vulnerability,

   nevertheless, there is still the pain.

lost in feeling, how can we ever know

   how many stages and levels there are

  on the way to true intimacy?

   maybe there are no stages at all.

   perhaps intimacy either exists or not

   in an alchemical, magical, archetypal way

   and you'll only be fooled by talk of stages,

   fooled into successive approximation away from the truth,

   fooled down the road of being taken for the fool,

   open to being used, a road leading only to more pain.

it has been said in song -- they tell you not to sleep in a strange place

   or sleep with somebody else, but either way is OK,

   you wake up with yourself --

   on the surface this is quite easy to sing,

   it can even sound like an affirmation, but the 

devil-in-the-details catch is,

   the self you wake up to 

   can't help but be changed by the encounter

   and once seen, the fall from Eden,

   the fall onto forbidden fruit,

   the fall into greater knowledge

   can't be unseen, and the sight of it can't help but change us,

   from then on changing who we are when we approach

   new vulnerabilities, new possibilities of intimacy.

whatever true intimacy is,

it isn't explored behind the veil of who we think we are

it isn't expressed behind the veil of what we wish to have

it isn't exchanged behind the veil of engendering, self-serving behaviors 

it isn't exalted behind the veil of simple carnal desire,

intimacy is something more ineffable, more revealing,

more consuming in a boundary-dissolving way,

and once dissolved, isn't thought of that way.

and so, here we are,

wrapped in the who we are, 

and the question still arises --

what to remove, what to add

   so we can be intimate?

first we must ask ourselves

but only ask if we answer with the truth --

is intimacy really what we're after

or is it a means to an ends?

yes, we spend accumulated time with one another,

we invest our energy and awareness and consideration,

we smile, we are kind to one another,

we hug, we kiss, then embrace,

eventually, buoyed by the flow of the progression 

of the close and familiar,

in due course we take each other's bodies in full,

we release a cascade of pent-up desire onto each other,

we extract peak pleasure and the facsimile of completeness

we are driven to seek,

in turn we ignore how fleeting, how ephemeral both of those are.

it is too easy in the moment of overwhelm

to content ourselves that this must be intimacy.

but in reality, the true portal into intimacy rarely opens,

and hardly ever due to the way we approach it.

what's the chance we're as yet

still kissing with veils on?

is it all merely lip service to the notion of the intimate,

a convenient excuse to gain access to the other

while ginning up some dispensation for our conscience?

the religious intention of a veil 

is to cover a part of the head or face 

as an object of some significance.

the questions then becomes,

what exactly is this special significance

and why do we feel a need to hide such a significance

from all except the rare one we deem intimate?

why place a private, personal, specially restricted nature on it?

is it because we don't dare risk such a precious thing with just anyone? 

or can it be we gain some advantage in concealment,

in hiding our cards, so to speak?

what exactly is so precious, anyway?

what makes it precious?

do we become a bit like Gollum chasing the precious one ring to rule them all,

an object external from us that wields a power we can't resist?

what power is this, this power of intimacy?

 is it simply the most profound power over others

to get them to open up to us -- for good or bad?

if so, then intimacy by itself is neither inherently a plus or minus
but can be used as both a pathway to the divine
and just as easily a tool of the predator.

maybe love is a pathway to the divine

and lovemaking a means to embody this cherished yearning,

but it's not that simple, is it?

our animal and spiritual natures wrestle

in the moment of passion and what appears as love

may not be as noble as some exulted yearning we whisper to ourselves.

to not risk is to give up the possibility of finding true intimacy.

and yet, to risk intimacy is to experience the unexpected,

for the experience we get is always more or less somehow

because by necessity it involves someone else

and that other will always have their own veil,

their own mix of intentions and drives,

their own blend of wrestling natures.

it's an old tale told with passion,

the terrible nexus of our deepest joys and most bitter tears,

it's the realm of intimacy, the mystifying.

when it's genuine there is no way to approach it with strategy,

it magically shines forth when we're in its presence
and the i's becomes we
then the we is subsumed 
into the one beyond us.

it's our transformation without explanation or method.
in all of it 
perhaps we need to take a step back
to see how the inception of true intimacy
occurs at the point we become 
truly intimate with ourselves,
and this is the most difficult aspect of all,
but it's critical and must precede 
any vulnerable engagement with another.
mostly we attempt the latter without the former
and in denying our honest engagement with ourself first
guarantee something less than intimacy with another.
this may be the crux at the heart of true intimacy.

everything else is simply talk

about what it isn't.

SET AFIRE

bathed in a trance set afire 
by an enchantment of cobra spirit

stretched to an awareness of hidden wisdom
shining forth in phases of phainesthai

knowing the hope of engagement
among eternities of soul obsession

this is the moment out of time, the sudden infinity
showing us what we became instead

a whispered offer of regeneration from potentials thriving
when the best versions of us beckon 

STAGES WITHIN STAGES
There are so many painful and pleasurable experiences offered by life.
So how to choose?  What a question, as if the answer isn't obvious.

Or is it? The natural instinct, the psychological "normal" favors selecting pleasurable experiences. But in fact this may not be good for us. It appears natural to choose the no-pain option but everything in life seems to model "no pain, no gain." So are we ensuring no gain by accepting the easy no pain way? Should we choose the painful way because that's the way to gain?

Even when working with the sacred plant medicines, and especially during the integration process, the popular vibe always stresses doing the hard work, facing our worst fears, going into the pain, taking the most difficult shamanic journey through the underworld -- in order to gain, in order to heal.

"No Pain - No Gain!"
So choose pain?
So many aphorisms say so --

- the pain you feel today is the strength you feel tomorrow
- sometimes we need to be hurt in order to grow. we must lose in order to gain. sometimes, some lessons are learned best through pain
- everyone wants happiness, no one wants pain - but you can't have a rainbow without a little rain
- you've got to go through the worst times in life to get the best
- endure the pain, enjoy the gain
- life's a climb but the view is great
- struggle today, strength tomorrow
- it's not going to be easy, but it's going to be worth it
- no goal was ever met without a little sweat
- it hurts now but one day it'll be your warmup
- no struggle, no progress
- it's supposed to hurt
- sometimes it takes the worst pain to bring about the best change
- the truth is like surgery, it hurts but cures. a lie is a pain killer, with instant relief but side effects forever
- sometimes we have to be broken to awaken the greatness within
- your best teacher is your last mistake
- if it's not hurting it's not working
- great things never came from comfort zones
- it is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. where you stumble, there lies your treasure. - joseph campbell
- losing is essential to success - the more you lose, the more you want to win
- we either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong - the amount of work is the same - carlos castenada
- do not pray for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a difficult one - bruce lee
- change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change
- there are two types of pain, one that hurts you and one that changes you
And even Carl Jung said, "There is no coming to consciousness without pain."

How exceptionally odd.
How strange.

What does that say about the whole thing
-- about us, where we are, and all of being itself?
The purpose of this place seems intent upon extracting
meaning and the continually-improved from ongoing pain.
Pain, then, is necessary to achieve something better
(and better is good),
to grow, as they say
(and growth is good).
And we're growing everyday just by being here,
that is unless we don't believe becoming conscious
through experience is growth.

So why should something good be the cause of pain?
What would be so wrong about the way-to-the-good causing pleasure?
Or having the way-to-the-good easy?
Wouldn't they be better inducements for going toward the good?
And should we then assume conversely that something bad causes pleasure?
Or, maybe cynically conclude no matter what we do,
good or bad, we'll get pain?
There isn't much symmetry of dualism in that.

Pleasure is good. Pain is bad.
No, as it turns out. That's wrong.
It's far more complicated than that.
Perhaps, in fact, there is both
good and bad pleasure
and good and bad pain.
But that's a problem
for how does one decide
which pleasure is good or bad
and which pain is good or bad?
Should we ask simply - which one makes our life better
and which one makes our life worse?
But how do we measure better or worse?
By our values?
But what if our values can also be good or bad?
Then it's possible to select the wrong better or worse
from good or bad values.
That's a pickle. And not a sweet one either.
It's part of a drama played out on stages within stages
where we are both actors and audience
and ultimately our best and worst critics,
which is probably what is meant
by the final judgment.

Butterflies...how crazy they fly,
an yet we never see
two butterflies
in a mid-air collision.

take the magenta pill
because the truth is somewhere in between

"I always get to where I'm going
by walking away from where I have been."  
   -winnie the pooh

In the next season of the social network
everyone is in danger of getting cancelled
by Mob Law and banished to the digital ghetto
by virtue algorithms of weaponized shame.

consciousness is the desire for being
 -j.p. sartre

evil plays

a mysterious role

in delivering man

from darkness

and suffering

-jung

"People get obsessed with things 
they won't even be obsessed with a few years later, 
like 'hey man, I got obsessed about that thing 
you were obsessed with and now I'm like you' 
- 'ah, no man, I'm not even obsessed about that anymore,
I'm on to some new shit.' 

"Get obsessed with life improvement. 
Find things that you enjoy doing 
that are difficult. 
Do them and get better at them. 
It seems so simplistic. 
It seems like a ridiculous, 
idealistic point of view 
but it's effective. 
And be nice to people. 
It's not so hard."  
   -J.Rogan

Logic is one thing,
the human animal another.

You can quite easily
propose a logical solution
to something and
at the same time
hope in your heart of hearts
it won't work out.
  -Luigi Pirandello

what we truly value is near to us

in ways that defy logic

in ways that change us

in ways that whisper eternity

and in ways that may fly away

but never will be forgotten