SEEING YOUR SOUL FOREST

I was wondering what kind of hook I could hang this second instalment on when a former colleague commented "I don't think there's a single person that knows me as well as you do."

Okay, there's a few things you need to know here. One, I have spent fewer than ten minutes in this person's direct presence, ever. Two, I've talked to her online...maybe an hour all told. 

Yet she's not the first person to say such a thing to me. Not by a long shot. And many of the people who have spoken similar sibilant sentiments are not the people  you'd most expect would.

I'm willing to wager almost everyone who knows this woman at all knows her a hell of a lot better than I do. All I had done was post a meme to her wall referencing this song. She responded, "I have people in my entire life who don't know these things about me. You pay attention in such [a] sweet way. I appreciate you."

There's nothing magical about this, honest. If somebody mentions something more than once and I notice, I'm going to make a mental note of it. If somebody states that a song, a place, or a piece of literature is important to them, I'll remember that, too. And if I then see a meme that reminds me of that thing that's important to them, I'll share it with them. 

I said "somebody" and of course you know "somebody" can't be just anybody, or my brain would fill full of flotsam concerning the personal preferences of strangers I'll never meet again. No, I'm talking about the people in my Soul forest.

I have not run across the concept of a soul forest anywhere, which isn't to say many people didn't get to it before I did. It's something that to me is every bit as fundamental is "I'm special, but no more special than you are" (and in fact follows from that proclamation).  It's nothing less than a complete rethink of the ties that bind us together as human beings...and to me, at least, it makes so much intuitive sense, and has such a persuasive logical power, that I couldn't very well live any other way. 

It's certainly not traditional. As such, it is often misunderstood. 

So let's start with soulmates.

I hope at this late date I don't have to tell you that that world should always be in the plural. Then again, I probably do: the cultural conditioning otherwise  is so, so strong. From earliest childhood we are informed by our cultural myths (expressed as "fairy tales") about some rigid expectations. We each have a soulmate, we're told. If we find our "other half", we can be "complete".  You have a soulmate: they must be of the appropriate gender and sexuality and above all there must be only one of them. You and your soulmate are simpatico; any problems you run across with a soulmate are indications they're not actually your soulmate after all.

This is, not to put too fine a point on it, batshit crazy. And yet it's so pervasive! It's such a strong and common cultural precept. Every love song reinforces it. Every love triangle must resolve into one lovely couple and one plot device. Friendships are consciously minimized because if they get too close, they're seen as a threat to the one acceptable relationship.

I have never understood this. I came into this world not understanding this. 

Where others see a soulmate, I see soul leaves on soul trees in soul forests. Those distinctions correspond to, for lack of a better framing, primary, secondary and tertiary friendships. 

I hate ranking them like that because unlike actual forests, the souls in soul forests get to choose on which twig, branch and tree they'll grow. And this is the part of me that is most difficult to explain in words that make sense to other people, but here goes.

If I believe you to be in my soul forest -- to share my tribe and my vibe, so to speak -- I will make that effort to see you. The extent to which that effort to see is returned dictates where you are in my forest...and where I am in yours. You may choose to be on a different tree on the other side of the forest. You may choose to be on my tree, my limb, my branch, or my twig. And you get to make that choice every day, just as I do with you. It's a mutual choice, arrived at between us and anyone else important to us. 

So that's the first critical thing that has to be hammered home for you to have a hope of understanding me here. It's always and forever your choice to be my friend, my fellow traveler, my partner, or anywhere in between. Any one in any circle of my life can choose at any point to come closer, to fade, or to keep their distance exactly where they are, and that can make different choices at different times. To the extent you make a choice, I'll endeavour to match it. 

In declaring you to be part of my soul forest, I am telling you, and hoping to show you, that I love you. Yes, even if you're on a different tree on the other side: you have the qualities I deem loveable, and you challenge me to be a better person. How could I NOT love you? This is true of Kathy and Eva. It's true of Craig and Jason. It's just as true of friends like the one above whom I can barely be said to have met. It's just as true of friends I have yet to meet at all. Any one of you could be a partner if you chose to be.

You choose what form that love takes. Always. I'll follow your lead. Always. Your freedom is absolutely essential to me: if I seek to love you by enclosing you in a cage, I am denying your ability to grow. That's not love. That's love's opposite. In this way I seek to embody a principle I've best seen expressed by Franklin Veaux: "THE PEOPLE IN THE RELATIONSHIP ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE RELATIONSHIP".

Veaux is a figure first famous, then infamous in the world of polyamory. He co-wrote what used to be considered the "poly bible" with his partner Eve Rickert: More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory. It only came out later that he'd perverted his own principles to live a life of very UNethical polyamory (see link). I thought long and hard about destroying my copy, but kept it on the grounds there really is a lot of good information in there. The trick, which I seem to have little trouble with but which evidently bedevilled him, is applying it consciously and conscientiously in every relationship.

For those of you who may be perplexed -- polywhatsis now? -- here is my best receieved exposé on the subject.

I want, right here and right now, to distance what I'm about to write from what I just did. Because what I am writing about here is not polyamory at all, at least not the way most polyam people define it, and if I had a nickel for every time I said I believe or live something wholeheartedly, just not the way most people define it, I'd be able to gift my friends with lavish experiences all our own. I keep finding labels, then realizing they're starting points, not ending points, in self-exploration.

IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO BE POLYAMOROUS TO HAVE A SOUL FOREST OR TO FULLY ENGAGE WITH IT. 

It helps, I can't deny that. The mindsets for ethical polyamory are very helpful in negotiating a world of soul forests. But it's not necessary to reap the benefits of the life I'm describing.  What IS necessary is the recognition and respect of different sorts of relationships and the willingness to expand your own in mutually beneficial ways.  Like Cuba has already said, ""Different family structures... are created among relatives, whatever the nature of the relationship". 

Queer marriages, polyamorous families, platonic arrangements - imagine a legal code that says you determine your protected legal family unit.

I love so, so much about that code. It states that parents have "responsibility for", not "custody of" children, and that aligns with my worldview. To steal a recent Facebook meme: "teaching your children something you disagree with is not indoctrination. Teaching them ONLY things you AGREE with is the very definition of indoctrination."  I like that the code bans child marriage; I like that it stipulates people have a right to "a family life free from violence, one that values ​​love, affection, solidarity and responsibility."

That's my world, right there. Chosen families, which may or my not incorporate people in your biological family. People who may choose to live together or apart, who may choose to have sex with each other or not. You may choose to have children together or not, and raise them with multiple parental figures. People who may choose to share finances, or not. A different way of organizing society that doesn't supplant the biological familes that always have defined us, but complements them. 

Idealism? Of course it is. Pie in the sky? Without a doubt.

Skypie is delicious. 

There are a number of people whom Eva and I consider to be on the same branch of the same soultree who have been made aware they're welcome on the farm with us should they choose to come. No obligations to make that choice or define what that might look like ahead of time. They've been encouraged to bring the people most important to them should they choose to take us up on that -- and that's where I dispense with the notion, often expressed to me, that this way of life is at all selfish. How could it be, when every partner I have is utterly free to explore themselves and their relationship(s) with others? 

Other people who are not currently on our soul branch, should they choose to be, would garner the same invitation, which they can accept or decline.

What I'm describing has a name, a name I don't like overmuch: "relationship anarchy".

I get that it looks like anarchy from the outside. I get that it embodies the positive concepts of anarchy (freedom, evolution). The negative aspects of that word (chaos and confusion) have poisoned it such that it's lost any appeal it might have had to me. It does, however, explain why people find this so threatening. They think it's a life of carnal excess, of "anything goes". At least in my case, I swear to you this is not the case. If anything, I have a pronounced  carnal deficit and have had for some long while now. Which is hysterical because I've been accused of heading a sex cult. I snicker every time I remember the levelling of that accusation. If I'm in a sex cult, I'm doing it ALL WRONG. 

But it's threatening to people, the idea that we can CHOOSE what our relationships hold. I think it might be because they can't see the intentionality that goes into it all. Part of it is definitely the disbelief that I will respect the boundaries of other relationships. Mine have boundaries too...believe it or not. 

Here's the buffet. 

As it says, you mutually pick what parts apply to each relationship you have. They will look bizarre to people who don't get it: you'll take a lot of flak. Anyone who violates cultural norms (no matter how much the norms just beg to be violated) gets scorn for doing it. But really, ask yourself. Is there some reason why, after a certain age, you're all but required to have sexual intercourse with the same person (and only the same person) with whom you share a residence?  Is there some reason a group of friends can't get together and raise each other's children?  Where is it written that emotional intimacy must lead to sexual intimacy? Who made all these rules?

I took a good and hard look at those rules and I decided to make my own. The freedom is cherished, and whenever I cherish it, in the same breath I remind myself of its attendant responsibilities: to be the best person for the person in front of me, and critically to allow them NOT to be the best version of themselves. 

 Almost paradoxically, it tends to make stronger bonds. If someone's with you even thought the have a myriad of other choices, you can pretty much rest assured they're there because they want to be.  If you respect the person more than the relationship, your relationship with that person stands a good chance of deepening. It's only when you try to steer people that things go crashbangboom. We all have our own rudders, thank you. People in the same soul forest will tend to adhere to you to some degree on the important stuff (of which there's probably less than you think). But not always and where they don't, you mutually decide whether it's a big deal or not and whether or not it constitutes a change in relationship. Sometimes, in the interests of love, it's best to take a step, or a hundred steps, back. That doesn't lessen my love for you one bit.

Cuba has codified relationship anarchy into law. I sincerely hope other places follow suit someday. It hearkens back to our tribal ancestry, while representing a stable and productive alternative to the traditional family structure. Where finances are shared, either  little or wholly commingled, it represents a safety net. Where love is shared, it represents a whole other type of safety net even more important. It really is a sort of personal communism: from each according to her ability, to each according to their need.   Communism will never work on a grand scale...unless it's built from the ground up, as a collection of soul forests in which each tree is loved within its own forest, and can relate cordially with those in other forests entirely. 

To reiterate: if I see you, it means I love you. What you do with my sight of you is up to you.