Adahlia,
Bonds between you and everything else, everyone else, expand and contract in concentric circles depending upon levels of energy, awareness, and authentic communication.
All relationship moves through phases of growing towards (spring), fruition (summer), pulling away (fall), and separation (winter). Every relationship starts with the excitement of spring, builds to the joy of summer, experiences a falling apart during strains of autumn, and comes to a place of more or less separation, as though, dead, in winter.
These cycles will repeat themselves over and over, as long as you live, in all relationship. If you pay attention, you will see that you fall away from your partner when the time is right to grow individually again, and separation can be on many levels. If you are both working towards your soul or self actualization, when you come together again, the relationship will be on a higher plane, and spring and summer will be as wonderful as before. Knowing this, you will be able to let go in fall and still love from a respectful distance during winter.
Some people claim pride in bring together with the same person their whole lives. Others adhere to the principle of moving on with new folks, to start “fresh.” Neither way is important. You will always be stuck in the same relationship if you don’t give yourselves the chance to grow and evolve. The face, whether new or old, doesn’t matter. The relationship will simply repeat at its old resonance and patterns with the same or new person until you begin to see your relationships in this way. Going into fall and winter is sad and scary. Those are the emotions of fall and winter, and they are natural, because it is a death of sorts, and there are no guarantees about your next spring. Fearlessness, not the aggressive sort, but the courageous, honest, simple sort, is required if you wish to germinate the seeds for spring on a higher plane.
Challenges will continue to come as long as you are in relationship, the cycles continue as you move onto higher planes, and the challenges will likely become more intense. If you are experiencing it, it is because you are ready to try to handle it. If you do not succeed, do not worry. The challenge will simply repeat itself with that person, or with a new person in a slightly altered form, until you figure it out.
No, there is no such thing as not being in relationship. You are always in relationship with the world around you. And you are ultimately responsible only to yourself. You cannot blame others (they are on their own journey and its up to them how consciously they want to, or can, live any given moment) and it is not helpful to blame yourself. You are learning. It is pointless to toil over independence or dependence. You cannot do anything alone, and at the same time, you always do everything alone. It is up to you to create healthy relationships, and that means recognizing when it fall or winter.
You can choose whether or not to actively be in partnership. At its worst, if you let it, partnership can be very destructive, restricting your ability to be your highest self, and at its best, if you let it, it can be a shining mirror and springboard for self-realization.
The energy associated with a brilliant love connection is a fire energy. There are many people who create shifting bonds that never mature beyond the first fire. They think they are living “in the moment” as they move from new passion to new passion, but they do themselves disservice, for they lack the understanding of that moment’s connection to the larger fabric of universal time and space, which exists irrespective of form (or person).
A state of relationship exists where likeness of self is recognized in another, and sensual, romantic caring can blossom without limiting the autonomy of either person. Mutuality coupled with autonomy is the realization of the potential of human relationship. A relationship can only exist at this level with dedication and love in both parties for their own and each others evolution of self into highest being.
Clearing and creating space in partnership for this sort of cultivation and understanding is vital, for it is in this space that soul lessons are learned and evolution of self – illumination of self in other – occurs. Using relationship to develop such understanding is the true power of partnership. (It is the story of Devi and Shiva.)
Consider this: there is one god, one holiness, that flows through all. But how can god know god all by himself? He must divide into two, into three, into ten thousand things. Then, in each of those vastly different things, he can see and recognize an aspect of himself. In relationship, be it with plant, mineral, animal, or person, god is manifested, reflected, and realized.
The bodhisattva only exists because he hears the light in the unenlightened, and in assisting their transformation, is transformed himself. He cannot be without a mirror. This is why all teachers are actually taught; all students are simply unaware masters, and each true teacher is in deep awe and love for each student.
Namaste, little one. Thank you for being.