SoulTending.com

By Petra Prensky

The sweetness of your fluid embrace is lingering on my skin. Your scent is mingled with mine. I can still smell you. You gracious, strong, tender being you. Moving in unison, not being afraid of my own body’s reaction. Instead marveling at it, creating stillness, inwardness, so I can feel the reaction to your touch in my body. We are like lovers dancing in harmony, sometimes stepping on each others toes, getting thrown off balance.

What if I told you that I loved you. Would that spoil everything? Would it make the magic stop? Please God, don’t stop it, never stop this. This careful dance of two souls softening. I am melting, melting into my being, my uninhibited self. What if I told you that I wasn’t afraid anymore? What if I told you that it is alright now? What if I told you that God’s love is so abundant and always ready to be tasted? Would you bring your cup, emptied by everything, and let it be poured over by the divine love in each and every moment?

“….The masculine evokes a response and I, as a woman, in dark stillness, silently attentive, await the call, which initiates the dance, which spirals deeper and deeper into love, in all its myriad forms and expressions.”
“For many women, romantic love is often our first taste of divine intoxication. But this is a great paradox – that a man offers us a taste of divine love, and yet he is just a man! Can you hold that paradox? That through this person you touch some deep core of the Mystery and yet he doesn’t change his socks! Can you stay with those conflicts and still stay true to love? And not just today, but day after day, year after year?”
“Loving another human being is such a magnificent test and trial. For even as you love him completely, you will never be fulfilled! Because there is always the emptiness inside that belongs only to God, that only God can enter. So time after time we are drawn into love only to be left with nothing!”
“If you stand in this paradox you put yourself into the fire, the fire that burns away this lower nature. For every time you feel that human impulse to reach out for what you want – what every cell of you wants – what you find is the emptiness that has always been there. Then you are tested. You are confronted with your own desires and all your attachments to this world. You want, want, want, and yet the reality is that you will not get what you want. Not from a man on whom you project your desires. And so you can be angry, you can be hurt, you can be rejected, you can stay in all that still binds you and keeps you from His embrace, He who is the King of Love. Or, you can give in, and let go, and love without wanting anything, and in doing so wait patiently for what He wants you to have!”
“If you stay in the fire, true to Love, true to the deepest longing of your heart, a strange alchemy happens. Your expressions of love deepen and become more inclusive; an unfettered love starts to permeate all your relationships; your love becomes more and more selfless. This is mature love, love that wants nothing for yourself, love that is not confined to you and your lover. It is the real love that burns away the ‘you’ so that love can move through you into the world.”
“The ‘Yes!’ in your heart consents to this process, to everything this process includes. And the suffering can be tremendous, the ‘not getting’ sometimes more than you think you can bear. But this ‘Yes!’ will suffer anything in the name of love, all for His sake! And one day you understand that there is really only one relationship. And it is nearer when it is truly absent.”
“Eventually this storming of love, the agony and torment, becomes your most precious possession, the sweetest thing that you would never wish to relinquish. The hunger is somehow like being present at a great feast, the pain full of baffling tenderness. His absence becomes full of His presence, the longing His ‘HERE I AM!’”

By Petra Prensky

“You can recognize a

true practitioner of any religion

by the kindness in their eyes.”

A few days ago I saw a documentary on television. In it someone said:”There are way more people dying of starvation and of treatable diseases than through terrorist attacks.” “IN GOD’S NAME, a primetime special produced in association with the acclaimed French filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet, explores the complex questions of our time through the intimate thoughts and beliefs of 12 of the world’s most influential spiritual leaders. These diverse and powerful voices offer provocative, compelling and enlightening perspectives on myriad issues in our post-9/11 world, including the rise of terrorism, fanaticism, intolerance and war.(1)”

The person in the documentary went on to say:”It would make more sense to focus our attention on feeding and curing people than to rage war on terrorists.” This remark deeply moved me and I had two main thoughts.

1. When I think of starvation and people dying from treatable diseases I immediately have images of the poorest of poor in Africa. Yet I realized that even in the amazing country of freedom, the United States of America, there are men, women and children going to bed hungry every day. I also personally know people who are suffering or have died of “simple” diseases here in the U.S. because they could not afford the medical bill and preferred to not bother going to the doctor.

2. If a country truly takes care of their own citizens and major world problems, that country will fill needs no one else is meeting. If people’s needs are met they tend to be peaceful, generous and sharing. By raging war we are feeding the hatred and amplify it. If after 9/11 our government would have chosen to do some soul searching, confront its own shadowy past, figured out what the root cause of the terrorist attack was and taken compassionate action, our world would look much different now. Instead of wasting billions of dollars and the lives of many bright young beings, instead of fueling the hatred and getting into an impossible mess, the American Government could have used its resources for the real problems within its country and around the world. Hatred begets hatred, caring begets caring. As the land of the free, we did not have a government that was free to choose to break the cycle of violence. Instead it was corrupted by greed, fear and revenge, which are never good decision makers.

So what can we, you and I do? I practice the very same thing that our government failed at so miserably, breaking the cycle of violence within myself. I practice to make decisions when my head is clear and I refuse to be reactive, greed, fear and revenge driven. When I am steeped in negative emotions, I disengage from discussion and confrontation. I take some time out, create space and regain my equilibrium. I step out of the circular thinking of negativity into calm, clear thinking and a state of common sense.

Sounds too simplistic? Maybe. I believe though, that all the universal truths are simple and easy. We are just so used to making life complicated. That’s all, it’s just a bad habit. Peace, unity, caring, compassion need to be cultivated in our own hearts first. How can we expect our government to act more compassionately if we allow ourself to have self-hatred, ignorance and doubt rule our life? We first need to break the cycle of violence within our own thinking habits. Once we are grounded in an internal dialog of caring, compassion, self-love and acceptance we will be a true source of peace to the environment and the people around us.

When we are at peace within, it will reflect on the outside as well. My wish for 2008 is that we all choose the courage to face our inner torments and transform them into strength, that we honestly look at the messes in our lives and start to clean them up. In this way we set the example for responsible, compassionate living which will get reflected by governmental choices that are enlightened and create a better global future for all its citizens. May peace, love and compassion prevail now and always.
(1) Excerpt from alpha.cbs.com/specials/in_gods_name/

“Find your true weakness and surrender to it. Therein lies the path to genius. Most people spend their lives using their strengths to overcome or cover up their weakensses. Those few who use their strengths to incorporate their weaknesses, who don’t divide themselves, those people are very rare. In any generation there are a few and they lead their generation.”
By Moshe Feldenkrais

“Like an ability or a muscle,
hearing your inner wisdom
is strengthened by doing it”
Robbie Gass

By Petra Prensky

Afraid, I am afraid to let the touch happen,

The sweetness of your fluid embrace is lingering on my skin.

Make the magic stop; no, never stop it.

Careful dance of two souls softening,

What if I told you that I wasn’t afraid anymore?

By Petra Prensky

Let me be known
As the belly hugger
Who leaves you satisfied
More deeply, than the best
Gourmet meal ever would.

Let me be known
As the dancer
Who shares in the
Deepness of soul
And leaves, herself speechless.

Let me be known
As the beloved friend
Free as a butterfly
Yet solid and present
As a rock.

Let me be known
As your mirror
Who reflects and absorbs
Your deepest heart’s desires,
and keeps them safe.

By Petra Prensky

What arrogance of mine
to think, that
what has been,
is the way it will be in the future.

When the brilliance of your palette
has only left
one small dot of color
on the page of my life.

By Petra Prensky

The drunken state of love
is no match for the
prudent working man.

Let the trumpets sound
and shake the earth
to announce the beginning
of the gathering of lovers.

The accountant on his desk
will but scratch his nose
as a promise of future participation.