This cycle of producing troubles and then preparing against them is very much like pulling a thread that really should have been left alone - the more I pull the more the fabric unravels.

A more subtle form of this revolves around the struggle to accept that, much like a moth to a flame, some relationships burn brightly only to burn out as quickly. Feeling unworthy or insecure we create a goal in the hopes that achieving that will make our love more secure, more equal. Then we're off scheming, preparing against failure, stirring the water in the hopes that it will go clear.

All the while the very deep resources of heart and spirit are being misapplied. Isn't this how we enter relationships that really don't embrace us? The mind is a spider that, if allowed, will tangle everything and then blame the things it clings to for the web it wants to be free of.

I have done this recently, in the hope of love, wanting so badly to see myself clearly in the water while I kept stirring and stirring. Perhaps the hardest thing I've learned and struggle with is that I don't have to be finished to be whole - I just have to turn away from the flame.

We are all frail, we all make mistakes, we all fall prey to a thousand emotions and exaggerations. But these things make us rich not weak, if we are willing to face them squarely. In truth it is not the tissue of our humanity that defeats us but rather our refusal to accept who we are and to live accordingly, limitations included.

Underneath it all, this blindness, in its many recurring forms is the cause of most cruelty. For it is during those moments when we think we see so clearly that we break things that are irreplacable not even realising they were precious.

After breaking many things in my life, hearts and heirlooms, I am humbled to admit that the only differene I see on Earth between being strong or weak is the honesty with which we face ourselves, accept ourselves and share ourselves, blemishes and all.

I believe that each of us is born with a natural leaning toward looking or not looking - unsurprisingly I lean towards the looking and in that looking she cracked me wide open.

This keeper of secrets and discoverer of truth makes me feel like sunlight. I catch her looking at me, hear my name on her lips and in come the rays. But, like staring into the sun too long there are times we musn't, to preserve our sight; more often I look to stay alive.

Like all of us I struggle; though no one can tell me how. We have to work this battle again and again, to leave the underworld, to not harden, and to make our way to back into the land of the living - into her light.

Perhaps this friendship is a methaphor for another kind  - that of our lifetime kinship with truth and love? If so, does the inner task become how do we make a lasting friendship with the unities that are larger than us? How do we keep their light in our heart when no stars appear in sight?

These words resonated 'What is the use of talking and there is no end of talking. There is no end of things in the heart.' How can fear and love sit so comfortably inside such a small space? Is she a star in my constellation, a brief but enduring point of light, that forever flickers in my deepest fears?

The difficulty then has always been how to make it across the dark; from point of light to point of light? Is this the province of faith, the preservation of presence when we are not light hearted. She, my point of light.

We've opened up to each other and been hurt in the process - the distance between us seemed easier - and now it appears we're in the corners of our minds - quietly huddled in safety - wanting to reach, wanting more, but within the constructs of our consciousness and within the safety of not being hurt again, or more.

But the reaching and growing doesn't offer us that comfort. The nature of the reaching and growing offers us nothing but the promise of freedom because, just as fish can't see the ocean they swim in, we can't see the spirit that sustains us.

In life, as in water, when we curl up we sink but when we spread and go still we are carried by the largest sea of all; the sea of grace that flows steadily beneath the turmoil of events. Again and again the onset of pain makes us cluth and sink. But life has taught me that how we first open after doubling over is crucial to whether we heal at all.