An Arrow Through Polyamory

I have been an advocate of the polyamorous lifestyle since I was 17 years old and had never even heard of polyamory at that point in my life. The term was introduced to me by my history professor my senior year of college when I was 21. I had been talking to him while we were riding a boat up the Niger River in Mali about relationships, why I sucked at them, and how my concept of love just seemed so different from that of my peers. He promptly informed me that I was simply reaching adulthood and no longer a child, and that such feelings were understood by many other adults, that it was just a difficult concept for young people who were “playing” at relationships for the first time to comprehend. He explained that many people were capable of loving many people, and that just because a person wants to have many lovers, doesn’t make them unworthy of relationships or a bad person, it just means they think of love and sex a little differently than the people who have defined such terms in our society. He told me about friends he had in France that were in their late 40s and happily polyamorous, with many loving relationships. It occurred to me that I was already polyamorous, and that now I had a word to go with my emotions and actions.
For three years after learning about polyamory I actively sought to define and live it to the fullest extent. In my “Polyamory in Practice” blog, this path and the discoveries it brought me are explained, so I won’t get caught up in the details of those years here. Suffice it to say that after years as a swinger with my partner, I discovered that swinging was just about sex, whereas I was looking for love with other people, which led me to realize I am not a swinger, but simply truly polyamorous with so much love in my heart.
I have spent the last year single and in relationships that I would try out for a while, working hard to fit the person into my definition of “the one” though I had not believed in finding “the one” since I was 17 years old. I hooked up with my close friends, taught lessons that needed teaching to boys on the verge of manhood who needed that extra boost of confidence and knowledge, and then ended up in a relationship with a guy because unlike most of my hookups, he lived in the same city as me and it was impossible to not hang out all the time, which makes it impossible to avoid a relationship.
This relationship prompted me to write my “Relating to Ships” blog, because I was in awe of being polyamorous and in a relationship with a guy who is not polyamorous and wanted so badly for me to just be with him. I tried. I tried really, really hard. Not just to be monogamous, but I tried hard to devote myself to him and make him “the one.” But he wasn’t “the one”. I didn’t believe in the concept, but he definitely wasn’t it, so I cheated on him and told him immediately (polyamory will make you unable to lie about such things, as there is no reason to be ashamed or upset that you have loved someone else, though it hurts the other person, which is incredibly sad). I remember not wanting to tell him because I knew he wouldn’t understand (he thought it better for a person to hook up with some random person than someone they have emotional ties to, which is the exact opposite of what I do). We almost broke up then, but I was so lonely and tired of the polyamorous hussle that I forced him to take me back, which only led to more problems.
What is so funny about my previous concepts of polyamory and monogamy, is that although I finally grasped what polyamory was all about, I did it in lieu of ever understanding monogamy. Now, monogamy is NOT something I would advocate under ANY circumstances other than one similar to what I am about to attempt to put into words. I will always believe that polyamory is the way to go… unless your soul walks up to you in the flesh and you both realize that there is no choice or decision to be made, just that you have to spend the rest of your physical existences together.
So, last February I met my soul in the flesh. I didn’t know it then. I just knew I had seen him around the show scene for a while, and that we had a mutual best friend who introduced us. I could barely speak to him because he was so beautiful in his enigmatic love of the Grateful Dead and his sexy dreadies and aura of soul traveling. We were introduced at a Dark Star Orchestra show in Asheville just before Valentine’s Day. I had NEVER liked Grateful Dead music, but the weekend before I had snuck into a DSO show in Atlanta and GOT IT for the first time, sealing my new life-long obsession with the Grateful Dead. When I met Jon, all he could talk about was how DSO really brought the true Dead experience to those of us who never got to see Jerry, and I agreed with him completely.
The night we met Jon invited us all to the concert after-party, but one of my friends wanted to go chill with a dude she was crushing on, so naturally I turned down Jon and took my friend to see her dude. Subsequently, the man of my dreams and I did not meet again for another 6 months, as a variety of insane situations occurred in both of our lives that kept us apart (I even got arrested on my birthday a month later which would not have happened if I had pursued our connection that first night.) We were even at some of the same events and around the same people at festivals and shows, never seeing each other once. It was as if fate had put us in each others way, watched us both drop the ball and not be ready, so she led us apart and hid us from the other’s view until the time was absolutely perfect.
We were finally reunited at the Trinumeral festival, which had been my first music festival ever last year and my introduction to my new way of life, and which many of my friends were playing at in 2009. Last year it was held on 08/08/08, this year it began on 09/09/09 and he showed up on the 11th, exactly 1 day shy of 6 months since we had first met. And the funny part was that I had watched him and his friends at Trinumeral the year before because they were dressed as deviled eggs (you have to see it to believe it) and raged SO hard but I didn’t speak to them then because it was my first festival experience and I was overwhelmed with myself, unable to communicate much to strangers. This was before I let go of my concept of “strangers.”
When he showed up in our camp this year, I was immediately comforted. I had not slept in 2 days at that point, was emotionally worn by my man and the dude I cheated on him with since we were all camped together and could not really take much more drama. But when he sat down across from me in camp, I was instantly relieved. I didn’t even remember his name, but I didn’t care. He said he had just returned from months on the road following DSO, which made me so happy because it was all he had talked about the first night we’d met. He didn’t recognize me from 6 months before until I said something about it, then he looked at me a little different. Throughout the weekend, he flirted with one of our mutual beautiful girl friends, and I dealt with the mess I had made of two of the most beautiful boys I had ever met while still trying to rage my balls off at the festival.
I left the festival even more confused than I had been when I went there. Something about the air in Asheville, NC will do that to a person. All I knew is that I needed to go back to Asheville that next weekend to figure out what it all meant. By it all I mean EVERYTHING. I was on a mission to determine if I was to be polyamorous for life or stay with the guy I had cheated on and keep trying to make the relationship something it could never be. I was trying to determine my life path, once and for all, because I seemed so close to being on the perfect path, yet somehow I still felt only parallel to it. I tried to think of who I could call in Asheville to hang out with (hippies are REALLY hard to get a hold of), and got a ticket to a show my DJ friend was playing that Friday, so I would have an excuse for my man to let me go to Asheville alone. The only person I wanted to see was Jon. So I got his number from our friend who had introduced us half a year before, and was encouraged when Jon seemed eager for me to come hang out.
So, like I had many times in the last year, I drove to Asheville on a mission of self discovery. The night before I left I had dreams of Jon and I standing in limbo in a sparkling grey room, just starring at each other all night. During the drive there, I kept asking myself why I was driving all this way just to see this dude, telling myself that by the time I left to come home, I had to have a resolution of what to do about the guy I was with and what to do with my life right now. When I arrived, Jon and I instantly began a conversation that lasted until about 3AM. We didn’t make it to the show. I discovered we were both born in 1984, and that we had both been dating people 5 years younger than us for the last year or so… casualty of being in the music scene where almost everyone is college aged. In talking with him and hearing him talk about how he just wanted the “real deal” and wanted a “girl of his own” so badly, I realized that I absolutely should not do ANYTHING with or about this guy because I could not stand the thought of hurting him, and since he was obviously not down with polyamory, I figured Asheville was trying to show me that I needed to stay true to my current man and just find a way to make it work, because polyamory was quickly losing its appeal due to drama being created around it, which there had been none of up until that point in my life. When Jon and I went to bed that night, we tried hard not to touch. Eventually, he scooped me into his arms and we breathed together for what seemed like an eternity before he finally lifted up my chin and kissed me.
Electric energy, chakra bubbles growing up my insides, the feeling of being a tiny spec in the unimaginably large and uncaring universe, and an overwhelming sense that “this was right” kept us kissing for hours. But I had a boyfriend back home, which Jon knew all about, and soon I had to smoke and turn the light on for a minute, before I became lost in the flood of emotions we discovered between us. As soon as the light was on I stated, “okay, I guess I have to break up with him when I go home,” and the decision was made, no questions in my mind.
I knew my man would be deeply hurt to know I had cheated on him again, so for the first time in 8 years I lied about it and made up a dream about my polyamorous lifestyle and broke up with him on the pretenses of following that dream. At this point, my intention was to do exactly that. I figured Jon would be one among many of my lovers in this life, and I was excited when he talked about our friend he had spent the festival with because I wanted him to find what he was looking for. I broke up with my man using lies, which he found out were lies shortly thereafter, and which we have discussed and hopefully will be able to remain close friends… those lies were the hardest words I had ever said, and I am glad he found out the truth and we talked about it honestly, as that is my preferred method of communication.
Jon came to chill with me in the middle of the week that week, and a million heavenly, synchronicitous moments unfolded between us. That weekend I had tickets for a show in Atlanta, and was eager to see the guy I had cheated on my ex with because we could finally hook up again with no guilt, but somehow the idea just didn’t seem that fun. I was already making up excuses to tell people in Atlanta I wasn’t coming when I got a text from Jon as I was getting in my car to leave Columbia that he had been kicked out of a festival and was headed back to his friend’s house in Boone. I jokingly texted that I would rather come see him than go to Atlanta, he jokingly said that would be awesome, and as I drove up to the exits for 20 West to Atlanta and 20 East to Boone, I drove east as if on auto pilot. In the same way I drove to Asheville to see Jon the first time, not even knowing why I was so drawn to see him, I sacrificed my almost $30 ticket, sent it to a friend to use, and showed up at Jon’s doorstep.
By Saturday night, we were both thoroughly confused, continuously talking about “what is this happening between us” because it was so new to us both. We had both been in love many times before. We had both met soul mates in this world. But neither of us knew what to think of the messages we were sending into each others hearts and minds by looking into each others eyes, or what to do about the fact that when we held each other and took deep breathes together, our bodies would both quiver and tremble with some indescribable force that felt so very good and so very right. Finally, I just said it, and told him I thought we might as well be together, since, after all, there is obviously something happening between us that we both not only wanted, but probably deserved.
So, we decided to be in a relationship. There was not a question in my mind that I would never want to sleep with any other person ever again. It did not occur to me to go thru the “I am polyamorous” story of my life with him as a warning that although relationships can distract me for a time, it is only temporary. It didn’t occur to me, because all I could think about was that THIS was what older happy couples had always told me to hold out for. THIS was what the fairy tales were trying to explain. THIS is the feeling that inspired the most amazing music ever composed and THIS is what poets have been trying to define since the beginning of language itself.
I was devastated when I looked back at the path I had been walking. There were so many mistakes, so many forgotten trails and dead ends that I grieved deeply for all the time I had wasted not believing in any love other than the love between us all (which is valid and real and amazing, but qualitatively a completely different animal than that of love between cosmically tied souls). Somehow, without me even noticing, Jon had shot an arrow straight through every preconception I had ever had about relationships and every concept of polyamory I had laid out in my head. I couldn’t imagine how I had ever even lived without him. This realization led me to see that he had actually been with me the whole time. When I looked at him to tell him he was my soul mate, I realized he was not just my soul mate (as we both had many of those) but that he was my soul itself, in the flesh and told him so. He felt the same about me. We spent most of the weekend grinning at each other like the fools in love that we are, communicating volumes in our glances and stares into the other.
We spent a lot of time discussing the ties between us, and trying to remember where and when we had met in other lives, because it was so obvious to us both that we had spent almost EVERY past life together, especially those that were very, very ancient, and those that were very, very recent. After a series of various realizations, we finally looked up our connection in the Cards of Destiny, and in addition to being each others “cosmic rewards” almost every connection card cited past life ties that would finally culminate in this life. The book told us nothing we had not already discussed because we had seen the connections between us for the amazing rainbowed spirals they were. We had talked about saving the world together since we had gotten together, and that night after reading our Cards of Destiny I asked him where he was going to live and what he was going to do… he told me in a shaking voice that he wanted to start our lives together immediately and move in with me in Columbia. I was overjoyed. So the next day, which happened to be the first of the month, he moved in with me.
We fall deeper into each other every day. That weird, uncomfortable, nagging feeling that creeps up in the base of your brain telling you, “this will not last, this is not right, you are meant for something more”, was now a beaming light of energy dancing and singing that I never had to fear anything again now that I have experienced this, that I am now whole. Communication is easy because we have very little to explain to each other about our points of view that lead us to whatever conclusions we are expressing, and when we don’t agree, the resolution comes to us almost immediately and no time is wasted with sad or angry feelings. We nauseate all of our friends when they are around us because we can’t stop starring at each other and at least holding hands everywhere we go.
One “friend” who fancied himself my man though we had only hooked up a few times many months before even left a knife with a note on it at my house stabbed into the ground with an ominous I-Ching pattern on it (just discovered this last night, though he left it over a week ago!) and a psychotic note because our love hurt him so deeply that he now apparently wants us dead, not physically but metaphorically, because he can’t stand to see me with a man who makes me a real woman, since he would rather me stay polyamorous so he can pretend I will one day hook up with him again. Ah, the sad things that happen when love is not communicated and shared in the proper ways. Hopefully, this is the only friend we will lose, and maybe one day this friend will even understand that just because you have sex with someone once, doesn’t mean it will EVER happen again. He even accused me of “picking favorites” and was hurt I had been with the other dude so long, which deeply hurt me because it meant he viewed my body as a thing to be owned by either himself or others, though my body and my vagina are most definitely my own, mine to choose “favorites” with. And I had once thought him one of my most enlightened friends… he’ll get there, one day, for sure.
So, the whole point of these 5 pages of run-on sentences and long winded stories is that TRUE LOVE DOES EXIST. Sure, I am thankful for my lessons in loving without needing love to be returned and thankful that I finally understand that I am in love with every person and object I have the pleasure of experiencing on this plane, but now that I have found my soul, all I can think about is sharing the love we have with everything we come into contact with, because I know that this is the way to save the world. I can’t do it alone. I thought I could, and because I worked hard to do so, my hard work and self-sacrifice were finally rewarded in a way that I could never even imagine before it happened. When you meet your soul in the flesh, you just KNOW. There is no question, no trying to make it right, no wanting to change the person, no real effort at all. True love is the easiest and the simplest thing in the world because it just IS. All you have to do is accept it and follow its path.
I always tried to choose between monogamy and polyamory, asking myself in the Castaneda way, “does this path have a heart?” and always the answer was yes, loving everyone and experiencing physical love as it arises is a path full of heart. Now I understand that you do not choose between polyamory and monogamy, you don’t have to ask yourself, “does this path have a heart?” because though polyamory does have a heart of silver that is strong enough to hold your pieces together, absolutely nothing in the world compares to finding the path with a heart of gold that is soft, shiny, and timeless. Polyamory makes sense to me. It is the loving of all and the loving of self enough to share your all with those around you. Monogomy still makes no sense to me and never will, because simply “choosing” to forsake others for one when that person could just as well be one of your polyamorous lovers is silly and a waste of time. However, I do now believe in true love, which spans through every other emotion we feel and see and transcends our realities in ways we cannot imagine until it appears in our life. So, please, stay polyamorous and free! It is the only way to not hurt those you cherish most. BUT, if the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will, and when that song comes crying like the wind, you must look and listen and simply BE what you are shown.

Jon and I dosed some beautiful love when he came to see me at my house for the first time. We stood to dance on the porch to Shakedown Street, then Stella Blue came on Sirius Radio. We fell into each other. He said, “I have always wanted to do this with someone,” as we danced and clung to each other, dripping with sweat in the midday sun, literally melting into each others arms, rainbows flying up through and off of our bodies in all directions. I said, “me too,” and from that moment on we just followed our hearts, straight as an arrow, piercing through us both, waking us from a dream and brining us into a waking world that is full of more spiraling strands, sacred geometry, emanations of light and rainbows of love than any dream we could ever imagine. So I leave you with the lyrics to that song, and hope that for a moment in reading all of this you felt just a fraction of what it is to find true love.
“All the years combine, they melt into a dream,
A broken angel sings from a guitar.
In the end there’s just a song comes cryin’ up the night
Thru all the broken dreams and vanished years.
Stella blue. Stella blue.
When all the cards are down, there’s nothing left to see,
There’s just the pavement left and broken dreams.
In the end there’s still that song comes cryin’ like the wind.
Down every lonely street that’s ever been
Stella blue. Stella blue.
I’ve stayed in every blue-light cheap hotel, cant win for trying.
Dust off those rusty strings just one more time,
Gonna make them shine, shine
It all rolls into one and nothing comes for free,
There’s nothing you can hold, for very long.
And when you hear that song come crying like the wind,
It seems like all this life was just a dream.
Stella blue. Stella blue.”

Thank you Grateful Dead, and thank you universe, I don’t mind the joke that has been played on me all these years, because the reward is sweeter in finally laughing at the joke.