The Good Winter and Polyamory

I think a Good Winter, is one that can be enjoyed in the warmth of the indoors, nude. An easy way to do this is by heating up the house with a little batch of brew on the stove! Yesterday I brewed an oatmeal stout called Duckbeliever. It's a variation on our Duckbeaver recipe, which has won first place at the state fair. This version should be a bit more intense, it might even bring in some coffee notes, along with a little more maltiness. I'm really looking forward to trying it!

This blogging thing seems to lend itself quite readily to rants, venting, and straw man arguments. Well, I will not except myself. I've been feeling a rant coming on about polyamory. I have been reading about this subject recently, and find the ideas to be revolutionary and amazing. When talking about polyamory I just mean having more than one intimate relationship, sexual or not. Many of us do this without knowing it, but others restrict themselves unnecessarily.

This morning I was reading a chapter from Polyamory: The new love without limits by Dr. Deborah M. Anapol. She makes an analogy between the early pioneers who sailed to "the edge of the world" back when it was supposedly flat, and the people who choose to explore polyamory now. I think this analogy could not be more appropriate. I think that polyamory is way of loving or existing whose time has come. We need to drop the old models of relationships, and sail to new lands, leaving the old behind. Or, we could believe that the world is flat... But it isn't! The world is round, and we don't love in a bubble. Everywhere we go we love people. We talk to them at the store, the street, a friend's house, online, and anywhere else possible! It's hard to have an interaction with someone without some bit of Love sneaking in there. To deny that love exits everywhere is to die, and to sell ourselves VERY short. Love is what Paulo Coelho writes about in The Alchemist as "the language of the world". It is in all things, and through it all things communicate with each other. Some folks might refer to this as God, or Energy, or any other term you wish. I realize Deborah is referring to "intimate relationships" in her book, and that what I am talking about here is perhaps a little different. Oh well, sorry Deborah.

What if there were no intimate relationships? What if there were only intimate moments? I mean, really we only have the term "relationship" to distinguish ourselves in society. But does this really make an accurate representation of a life lived in exclusive intimacy? I don't think it does. I think intimacy just happens, it may be consciously sought out and created by people, but I don't think that it is an exclusive thing. It reminds me of this place my parents would take me as a kid on Thursday nights, called The North Woods Inn. It was a restaurant with fake snow on the roof in Pasadena. Every Thursday night they would give free "all you can eat" peanuts out to everyone, and let them throw the shells all over the floor. The whole floor was just covered in peanut shells. I used to love it. I thought it was so much fun. Peanuts shells were everywhere, no one would deny that. But would some deny that love was everywhere? This was many years ago when I was just a kid, but I am certain that love was everywhere back then too. Once you start to think of love being everywhere, you start to envision it everywhere. It is what holds all cells together. It also enforces our social connections. It bonds us to things we may not even be aware of. If only everyone could see Love so clearly as they do the peanut shells on the floor! Then we would be getting somewhere!

One more analogy for the road! It's like that old expression "When a tree falls in the woods...". Does it make a sound? Does love make a sound? I think it does, sometimes louder than others, but it always depends on our ability to LISTEN. I want to hear. Do you?