Close Relationships of many kinds

Source: liuhonghezhengsji/Pixabay We each have resources available to us. Internal resources, such as our genetic potentials, developed talents, memories, personality styles. Motivations that animate us intersect with external resources — including time, money and energy — accessed through or heavily influenced by our environment at any moment. We constantly make decisions, consciously or unconsciously, about ways in which we use our resources. When we choose to use them in the service of a relationship or of someone we care about, we are showing [...]

Thou shalt not - Photo by aitoff/Pixabay One of the five Buddhist precepts is “Do not take anything not freely given”. The same commandment appears as “Do not steal” in the Hebrew Bible (Exodus 20:15 and Leviticus 19:11) and the Western religions that grew from it. One way of thinking about that commandment is to realize that taking what is rightfully in one person’s domain is theft unless done with that person’s explicit permission. Showing love means to [...]

Offering earth's finest - Photo by Hietaparta I asked a granddaughter to describe her favorite gifts. They were those that led to discovery, that made her smile, or that helped her feel recognized and understood. She described receiving two clean mayonnaise jars for her birthday, one labeled “Quotes” and the other “Happiness." Inside the “Quotes” jar, her friend had placed 100 handwritten quotations on brightly colored post-it notes, each folded in half. The “Happiness” jar was empty.  An [...]

David and I had been living in different cultures.  Twenty years ago, what were peripheral holidays in France were major occasions in the United States, thanks in part to Hallmark and other corporate marketing strategies.   When he visited me in the United States and I observed celebrations with food and festivities, he enjoyed them and I (wrongly) assumed he understood how much joining in such national or religious rituals meant to me.  (They still do - see my initial post [...]

"Le Cri" by Auguste Rodin, Musee Rodin, Paris This morning my husband and I had one of our rare fights.  He asked me if I had seen anything interesting during my online skim of The New York Times  morning  headlines. I began to describe my reaction to an Op-Ed piece written by Alexa O’Brien about Amazon’s use of the helper technology that shares her name, a reference to the Greek goddess who defends and protects.  I was explaining what [...]

A Swedish proverb promises: “Shared joy is double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.”  Experiences of sharing — anything from a troubling dream to an ice cream cone — can show “I Love You” across cultures, gender, age.  A two-year old will reach out her hand to offer a turn at a toy to someone she trusts and wants to see smile; a romantic relationship takes a step forward when one person offers a sip from his or her drink to the other [...]