Lives Entangled
Waterbuck Babe
Entanglements
Abandon your most holy endeavor riddled with fear
Loosen up your grip upon the reins overcome with thorns
Open up the heart to a loss spawned by a career
Delve into the depths and reminisce: held while she adorns.
Speak of things now labored displaced for circumstance
Release the woe within your heart born of old romance
Soften now the strident word struck with tearful rants
Sharpen the aim of the arrow poised: forgotten in happenstance.
Portend a life given in grace softened for many years
Savor a portion of innocence regained in beauty
Storm the castles of arrogance robbed – whispered in your ears
Surrender innocence once again: tasted with sugar and tea.
Sweep the soul of entanglements unrefined of impediments
Nourish the heart of reflection awakened in the night
Elevate the mind given for magnificent undertakings, shaped by spirit
Weave the threads for posterity: enlightened deliberate entanglements.
Janice DeCovnick
July 13, 2015
Delicate Maneuvers
I woke up in the night in a panic. What was that sound? It sounded like metal rubbing against metal. It grew quiet. There it was again. It sounded like it was coming from the front door. I crept down the hallway to have a closer listen. The sound stopped. Then it began again. It sounded like someone trying to key the front door. Then it stopped altogether. I waited awhile and then returned to bed. I was just settling in when my eyes flew open. There it was again. I crept down the hallway again. Now the sound was at the back window, a metal against metal scraping sound. I hurried back to the bedroom and called the police. The 911 dispatcher had me stay on the line. Fear erupted as I heard the sound again, this time nearer my daughter’s bedroom. I walked back and forth as far as the phone cord would reach. I wanted to run and swoop up my daughter into my arms to safety. The 911 dispatcher was quite insistent that I stay on the line. When the police arrived, the sounds stopped. When the police entered the backyard, they found no one and suggested that the noise was from animals. Animals! My foot! The next day, I found scratch marks at several of the back windows.
Our lives are profoundly entangled with one another. Who was the intruder who came in the night? I do not know. But my children and my husband, who was gone that night, are profoundly entangled with one another and with me. Strong emotions entangle us with one another. Strong emotions entangle our energy systems. When our energy systems are entangled, we sometimes do things we do not expect. When our energy systems are entangled, emotions can run very high. My daughter is precious to me. So is my son. Often at that time in life, I was quite busy with my career. But when an intruder endangered us, our entangled emotions received a strong boost. I could not ignore how profoundly I loved them even for a moment.
What do you do when a black widow spider bites you? You make a beeline for your nearest emergency room. That was exactly what my husband did. He was cleaning out the garage at his parents’ house. He reached in to pick up a pile of something and was bitten immediately. He saw the spider’s red hour glass and knew he was in deep doodoo. He sped to the hospital and was treated at once with the antidote. But it took awhile for it to work. The doctors and nurses put marks on his ever reddening arm as the venom climbed higher and higher. If it got to his heart, he would die. The venom came up past his elbow. Now he was deeply concerned, terrified in fact. Finally the venom stopped climbing, and gradually his arm and hand returned to normal.
On the Wing
That night he called me and told me all about it. I could scarcely believe my ears. This man I loved so much had nearly died. We were not married yet but knew we wanted to spend our lives together. My world spun inside my head. My dear one, my beloved was almost killed, almost died of a black widow spider bite. I had not been there to protect him, not there to help him. I would have done anything for that not to have happened to him. My mind retraced the marks on his arm as time went on before the antidote worked. In the end, all I could do was be grateful that he was alive. Our lives were so entangled that if something happened to him, it inevitably impacted me.
Entanglement is a concept that is used in physics to describe how two particles respond to one another in ways that are otherwise not predictable. It is a good concept for understanding human relationships also. We do not act on logic alone. We are triggered by one another to act in certain ways that are unique to that relationship. We are also triggered by one another to feel in certain ways that are unique to that relationship. We are triggered by one another to think in certain ways that are also unique to that relationship. An interchange of energy occurs that affects thoughts, feelings, and actions. An energy interchange that we consider to be love entangles lives. Energy interchanges that we consider to be anger or hate also entangle lives. All human relationships, regardless of the sentiments therein, contain a degree of entanglement.
The Owls
We who are quite capable of learning something new tend to repeat both the problems and the successes in our relationships. How does that happen? It makes sense that we would repeat successful interactions in our relationships. But what sense does it make that we repeat the problematic interactions? Human beings have energy systems, and these systems encode experiences, including emotions. When two human beings or more interact, their energy systems interact, each with their encoded experiences, and those energetically encoded experiences can sometimes create conflict or problems. Did you ever walk into a room with a really happy person in it and find yourself feeling happy, regardless of how you felt before you entered? Or walk into a room with an angry person in it, and find yourself feeling angry or irritated, even though you did not feel this way before you entered? When we encounter another person’s energy system, we become easily entangled in one another’s emotions. If we spend enough time together, we can become entangled in one another’s thoughts and actions too. There are times when this entanglement between two or more people creates flow, and other times when it creates conflict.
Sublime the Forest