MY ACHING HEART

Apprenticeship to Love: The crooked path of sacred marriage (July 16, 2026)

TODAY'S QUESTION

What, if anything, are you learning here? Is it helping you love, and to live, with a heart more willing to break open?

TODAY’S MEDITATION

Perhaps most of all, I am learning to surrender. Only surrendered do I become sensitive enough, slow enough to know my way.

The lesson I am given as I continue to learn how to dance tango: I lead by following the follow.

The lesson I am given in life: I learn how to love —and to live— by feeling into what the world offers. Not only the woman I love, but especially the woman I love.

And so –whether on the dance floor or in marriage or in my own heart– I must be trustworthy. I must be trusted to hold this tender moment, for the release of beauty, flow, love.

...

”But I don’t want to lose control!” a woman telling me how afraid she is, as she began to unravel the knot of her life.

She begins by finding her limits, and her fear of surrender. Her practice leads her to an edge. She cannot see past the strange and the dark unknown that lies beyond.

She has no one to stand with her, so she stands for herself. She, without support, confronts the limits of her capacity to hold the strange and unknown, to the best of her what she believes are her abilities.

She is alone. She stands at the edge of the unknown and feels her aloneness, acutely. She also feels her fear of the unknown, and with it, a deep ache: this is her unwillingness to surrender, in this moment on the edge, into the full blooming of who she is.

It's what she yearns for. It's what she, today, in this moment, is not allowing to happen... I listen. There is a tragedy here. I wait. She may choose to deny herself. Or, with practice, she may choose herself, blossoming.

...

What am I learning from my practice, my daily ritual of postures and breathing and mantra and meditation? That this is the only way I know to strengthen my self confidence, my sacred capacity to create and hold safe space for surrender. More able to surrender, I am more able to receive the wonders that wait for me, beyond my edge.

I am learning that, as I become more confident, more trusting of myself and my capacities, the illusion of control is less attractive than the losing of the illusion. I become more true to myself. More trustworthy. I begin to see the world, and life and love, more clearly. I feel myself to be a deeper presence. I am more able to be the heart and the arms of the lover to this life, to those who love me.

This is why I practice. I want to experience more blossoming. I want to feel myself more freely receiving the flow of beauty and love in my life. I want my world to be the garden that is always about to "lose control" —about to burst in colour and movement and the unimaginable.

...

The art of allowing myself to feel my heartache is my gift to my beloved. Now, I am ready to feel vulnerable enough to receive her gifts.

I used to mistake this ache in my heart as something to avoid. I would do everything to not feel it. Now I know.

This is the tenderness of breaking-through to the always-losing-control garden of love that is here for me to enjoy.

I ache, and I am amazed. Every new ache brings me to the edge tears. In tears, at this edge, I begin to know unimaginable and indescribable joy.

TODAY’S INSPIRATIONS

🌀Offering your very best is an outright act of courage; the word courage means the time in your heart.
Our prayer is that you are heartily challenged to be courageous. (Guru Singh and Guruperkarma Kaur)

🌀It feels good to give to others because, as Ramana Maharshi said, There are no others.
At all times and in all places, we are giving to ourselves, receiving ourselves, and seeing ourselves. This is the Absolute truth. (Preston Bryant)

🌀Recognize that the other person is you. (Aquarian Sutra 1)