Ripe Relationship

Ripe Relationship

by Linda Heron Wind, Ph.D.

We are always in relationship, with ourselves, each other, the Earth and all her children. I laugh when people tell me they feel alone. How can you be alone when you are always there? But perhaps we experience loneliness when the relationships we have with ourselves and others are not ripe. What makes a relationship ripe, juicy and nourishing? Just as ripe fruit must be savored in the moment, relationships are ripe when they exist in the present moment.

The saying that life is what happens when you are thinking about something else applies here. One purpose of life is to have experience. It is not to hold on to experience or to think about what kind of experience you might like to have. The purpose is to actually have the experience and be fully present for it. Ripeness is when we are fully present for the experience in this moment without bringing in past experience or wishing for something else. Notice how much of the time you think about what has already happened or what you hope for or worry about happening in the future. And how much time are you really just present for what the moment holds?

With couples almost all the relationship problems that come up are about the past or future. Either they still are holding on to the past experience or they want the other person to be different than they are in the present moment. Past experience makes good compost material, just like over ripe fruit does. If you hold onto it too long it gets a bit stinky and it does not nourish you. Its nutrients are valuable in nourishing new growth if we extract the essence from it and allow it to change us. We grow from our experiences of the past but we cannot take them with us and continue to grow. The future is not here yet and we can never know what exact form it will take. A flower that buds does not always turn into the fruit we expect. We can tend it and nurture it, but until the fruit is ripe, it will not nourish us. Only fruit that is ripe in this moment can do that.

Likewise, our relationship with ourselves must focus on the ripeness that is here now. I am not the same person I was 10 years ago and neither are you. If I am holding onto who you were then, I limit the possibilities in our relationship. If I continue to chastise myself for what I did then, I limit who I can be now. I am always changing but I cannot live today wishing I could be now who I might become 10 years from now. I must be fully present for who I am in this moment, accepting that this is the present ripe expression of who I am.

I think it is interesting that in the line in the Lord's Prayer that is often translated, "Deliver us from evil," when translated directly from Aramaic (the original language of Jesus), reads, "Keep me from unripeness." So being unripe, or not fully present in the moment, whether it is over ripe or not yet ripe, is the definition of evil. When we look at what we call evil in the world it appears to me that it is where people have been caught in the past and it is that past not the present moment, that dictates their actions in the world. Likewise evil may be those who are controlled by their hopes of the future. The exploitation of the Earth herself, is done by those who seek happiness in what the future holds, rather than in the present moment.

It strikes me that since the word "evil" is simply the word "live" spelled backwards, "live" is what the present is, while "evil" is what the past and future are. EVIL-LIVE-EVIL or PAST- PRESENT-FUTURE Neither the past nor the future are alive. Yet how hard it is for us to be fully present in the moment with no thoughts of the past or future! In that sense, evil lives in us all to the degree that we are not fully present in this moment. Try being fully a-LIVE! Savor its juicy, sweet flavor and aroma! Let it nourish your soul!

Ripe relationship
Juicy and sweet this moment
There is no other

If you have comments on these articles or ideas for future topics, call Linda Heron Wind at (585) 924-5620 or send e-mail to LHWind@aol.com.

Page last modified April 18, 2005 by RMC