Building through Devotion
My town is considering the site of my home for the new courthouse building.
My neighbors are upset, because the building is going to appear five stories tall, and this considered-site is in a quaint little neighborhood.
I’m just a renter here.
My only issue lies between these two statements, in the fact that there is a building which has been designed while the site remains unchosen.
This alone is an incredible violation of the natural world which occurs with almost every modern act of building.
It's also a violation we bring into relationships, when we have a preformed design in mind.
We are encultured to have a vision of partnership before we know the person we will partner with, without any regard for their humanity, or even our own.
We imagine a building, and then seek a site to put it, without any regard for the site.
In The Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander offers what he calls “a pattern language,” by which we may arrive at a building site and create a building which serves life purely by conversing with the site and applying the language.
He says plans and blueprints are unnecessary, that we assemble the physical patterns here and now which make sense for the space and the patterns of life it will serve, because every building is an assembly of patterns of life which keep on happening there.
Most modern dating puts the building before the site. Modern dating practices ask:
"How do I form a projection of this connection that will make me feel good about investing in it? How do I invest in my projection to the exclusion of the other person's interests, desires, and experience?" (Sometimes even to the exclusion of my *own* interests.)
This way of partnering starts by centering projections and continues to center projections, dehumanizing everyone involved, the same way pasting a preformed building into a landscape violates it.
This is what's happening when someone is "dating for marriage." The marriage is the projection which is centered, and the prospective partner's humanity, desires, and availability is de-centered. They are either complying with my vision or being problematic in some way.
If I find *I* cannot comply with my encultured vision, maybe *I* am problematic in some way.
Devotion offers the way of natural growth of relationships. It centers the here and now, building relationships out of the things that naturally keep happening as a result of the way we feel connected and excited about our connection.
There are patterns of relating which are in integrity, the way there are patterns of building which are in integrity, such as the strength of the triangle or the squared edge, the way every house has an entryway.
When we learn these patterns, relationships emerge through our engagement in the patterns. The relationships form themselves, because all relationships are an assembly of specific patterns of relating. The strength of the triangle is like the strength of sovereignty. The entryway is like the way we greet each other in reunion, the way we represent how we are feeling, the way we declare desires and identify the ones we mutually share with others, the way we adjust—every relationship contains these patterns.
When we center the projection of the relationship, we probably have some of these healthy patterns but we also invite a toxic pattern of relating. Toxic here means destructive to the relational system, entropic to the relational system, inefficiencies which cause the system to lose energy over time and eventually fall apart, possibly damaging the components (aka you and your love).
The same way dropping a five story building into the wetland that is my backyard would represent a problem, deciding my partner is surely someone I'll share my bed with every night represents a problem.
The problem is "how do I conform the sacredness of life to my plan?"
How do I fill in the wetland so this building I decided should be there can be there? How do I change myself or my partner so we are able to share this bed every night?
The pattern is one of control, shaping, and dominion which asks the sanctity of life and reality to bend to my delusion of how it ought to go. You can see how this is a system that loses energy over time.
Relationships which emerge through Devotion have healthy patterns of relating, because that's the only way they form.
They form BECAUSE the connection we feel calls forth excitement to engage in these integral patterns of relating. They keep happening because we remain excited to keep engaging in integral and enjoyable patterns of relating.
Relationships which are dictated, pre-formed, planned, have both integral and toxic patterns of relating, because they formed to serve something other than the mutual desires of people with exquisite relating skills.
"The mutual desires are beside the point," we say, "who will deliver me the elements I know to be part of life partnership? I have standards, you know..."
Wherever it ends up, it's gotta be a five story building.
Real standards of relating are about the here and now, about what *I* have to offer, and where offering the sacredness of my offer represents a wise investment.
The standard of how I will behave is all the discernment required to know who belongs in my life. I hold myself to exquisite standards of offering love through integral practices of relationship, and therefore only offer it where that's exciting, easy, and eminently wise. I keep doing it when it keeps being enjoyable and generative.
Devotion allows healthy relationships to emerge effortlessly, but it may take effort to overcome the enculturation that asks for a blueprint before choosing a site. It may take effort to learn the integral patterns of relating which allow us to walk forth with confidence that relationship will emerge.
These patterns, like the patterns of building, are something that has been largely lost through our enculturation, so they must be preserved and taught.
The good news is, if you have the will, the way is here and now.
