The Sanctuary of Value & Love

​Compassion & Kinship​
I vow to:

1.  Be a source of strength and help us both grow.
2. Be kind, caring and respectful.
3. Ask for help and share selflessly.
4. Brave the hardships together and value the relationship over all.
5. Balance awareness and understanding with humor and humility.
6. Continue to be flexible in the conscious decisions of the partnership.
​7. Remember that there is a greater plan to our existence.
Compassion

There you sit, miles across the table.
And yet, as you breathe, I follow.
​As your heart beats, mine echos.
As feelings rise and fall, I ride with them.


I change from the watcher to the experiencer.
We share the joy and sadness together.
We sense and feel in union. 
“I” becomes a plural, a multitude.


Compassion is the passion
for being together and one in beauty and light.
Dancing in the joy – you, me, we, one.
Hand in hand, spirit in spirit.


Sharing our joy and comforting your sadness.
Expanding the essence of peace around us. 
I am your sanctuary.
You are my passion.
Compassion has become an answer without a meaning to everything that seems to plague us. But at its root is “passion”, the fire about the spirit of you, me, us. To have passion is to see the fire of the spirit in someone, knowing that it is the same as in yourself.  
There can be no compassion when there is the false perception of me being separate from you. This illusion of our existence deceives us into believing that compassion can be expressed toward others only by the exalted few. 
If, in sitting with you, I pause for just a moment and forget my “I-ness” and become unconscious of self, then a miracle happens. My awareness is open and totally focused on you. The “I” separates us. So we relax it for a while so the truth of connectedness comes through. 
You find, as you sit with someone else, that you hear more intently. You start to feel what the talker feels. If you let yourself, you can slowly drift consciously into the presence of the other person. You begin to see the world from their point of view. 
Your role is to hold this space of com–passion, common passion, in a sacred sanctuary. Just for this moment you hold this space for the two of you – the one of you both. Then compassion becomes the air you breathe, the feeling running through you.
Kinship

You disagree. 
Bless you, we are one.
You judge.
Bless you, we are one.
​
You separate.
Bless you, we are one.
You complain.
Bless you, we are one.

You dishonor.
​Bless you, we are one.
You deny.
Bless you, we are one.

Like raindrops on a mountain, 
my compassion erodes the illusion of separation.
My feeling of kinship
flourishes and grows to new heights.
The action that results from a feeling of compassion is kinship. The breathing in of compassion brings the understanding that you and I are simply just small variations of the expression of core natural harmony. This natural harmony lives in the core of all of us.
We learn to take the giant leap of having compassion for ourself. As we feel the natural passion for the beautiful fire of our own spirit, we relax our judgement of ourself and our need to fix anything about ourself – the self that needs no fixing. We begin to bless ourself and honor our own spirit. We bring ourself into the beautiful kinship of other souls. 
It’s critical to start with yourself. For without being able to bless yourself, you cannot bless others. When you understand that you can make errors but still be a soul of compassion, still learning its pathway to harmony, you begin to wrap the arms of blessing around your own personal existence. 
You begin to understand that it’s OK to feel good about yourself, to bless yourself, and to feel passion about your own spirit. Let go of the disguised self hate that blocks compassion for yourself. Break the chain and then discover that it is so easy to express that internal feeling of compassion to others by letting them feel the kinship of your thinking.