Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More

St Valentine's Day

Cowboy Cottage, East Napa, California, USA

St Valentine's Day, February 14, 2013


"Always be open to being related to everyone you have been related to."
...   speaking with Laurence Platt in Visits With A Friend VI II (Open To Everyone) 
"When you've said all of the bad things and all of the good things you haven't been saying, you will find that what you've really been withholding is 'I love you.'."
... 
"You don't have to go looking for love when it is where you come from."
... 
"Love is giving someone the space to be the way they are and they way they are not."
... 
This essay, St Valentine's Day, is the companion piece to Open To Everyone.

It is also the fifth in an octology written on St Valentine's Day: It is also the ninth in a group of twenty one on Love: I am indebted to Alexandra Platt and to Alexis Crump and to amanda "blue" leigh and to Ann Kalin and to Anna Taglieri and to my sister Anthea "Anth" Sarah Platt Haupt and to Barbara "Bobbie" Ractliffe Fairhead Coetzee and to Barbara Foerder and to Barbara Rushing and to Belva Shadwell and to Caren Cole and to Charlene Afremow and to Christina Via and to Claudette Crump and to Elaine Durbach and to Elizabeth Russell and to Francine Epstein and to Jean Shimabuku and to Jenneke Bryant and to Joani Culver and to Judith Haupt and to Judy Golden and to Julia Elliott and to Karen Donovan and to Kathleen Morris and to Laurine Platzky and to Linda McIlroy and to Linda Zraik and to Lisa Hayden and to Lisa Johnson and to Lynne Platt and to Marcea Wolf-Carter and to Marielle Adegran Rutherford and to Marta Weinstein and to Miranda Wannenburgh and to Nancy Scott and to Nassrin Haghighat and to Patricia "Patti" Zentara and to Rhonda Ogle and to Robyn Symon and to Sara Johnson and to Sheila Providenza and to Su Ball and to Susan Kralj and to Tamara "Tammy" Saitowitz and to Vanda Mikoloski and to Victoria Hamilton-Rivers and to Wednesday Reynolds-Wilcox who inspired this conversation.


It's St Valentine's Day today. Be my Valentine. In lieu of chocolate and roses, here are Conversations For Transformation specially for you.

St Valentine's Day, Christmas Day, and your birthday all have one thing in common: we celebrate each of them one day a year. Only  one day a year? That's way too scarce. Yes, each of them are marked on my calendar only one day a year ie each of them are limited by my calendar to only one day a year. But celebrating  what each of them stand for only one day a year? It's you and I  who limit celebrating what each of them stand for, to only one day a year. Celebrating what each of them stand for only one day a year, is way too scarce.

Regarding the scarcity of celebrating what St Valentine's Day stands for only one day a year: you don't have to go looking for love when it is where you come from (to quote Werner Erhard). No need for scarcity. Regarding the scarcity of celebrating what Christmas Day stands for only one day a year: you don't have to go looking for the divine when it's where you come from. No need for scarcity. Regarding the scarcity of celebrating what your birthday stands for only one day a year: you don't have to go looking for who you are when it's where you come from. No need for scarcity.

<aside>

It's beautiful: love, the divine, and who you are, are where you come from. All three spring from the same source. They're congruent. They're accessible - all the time. No need for scarcity. No need to limit celebrating each of them to only one day a year.

<un-aside>

Here's a St Valentine's Day possibility of relationship, an open possibility of relationship which includes but isn't limited to all the exclusive and committed relationships you're in: it's the possibility of being open to being related to everyone  you have been related to - which also teases the inclusion of the possibility of being open to being related to everyone you're yet to be related to.
Werner Erhard invents this possibility in our conversation, speaking over a quiet, intimate dinner recently. It's the kind of quiet, intimate dinner you set up for your friend / lover / partner and yourself on St Valentine's Day. As I listen him speak, in a burst of clarity I realize none  of my relationships and / or love affairs, once started, ever end. Yes it seems  as if they end. Yes it looks like  they end. Yes I pretend  they end. But no: once started, none of them ever end.

To be sure, proximity  (ie being in the same physical neighborhood) may shift. Workability  (ie the ability / willingness to function smoothly as a trusting team - damaged by breakup and divorce) may also shift. But what I start noticing as Werner continues to expand his possibility is once I love a person, there's a space I am which becomes enlivened, and which from that moment on, always loves them  - forever.

This space, expressed as a declaration, is: once I love you, I love you forever  - regardless of any changes in the state of proximity and / or the state of workability in our relationship. That's the first part. When I get the second  part, Werner's possibility of relationship really blows me away.

Here's the second part: given love is where I come from  (the very articulation of which is vintage Erhard), merely being alive imbues me with the space to have a personal, intimate friendship / love relationship / partnership with you and with everyone - past, present, and future - like a possibility.

That's the truth. Anything less than this can only be measured in degrees of inauthenticity.

And so to this essential communication for you, my Valentine, on this St Valentine's Day today. It's when you've said all of the bad things and all of the good things you haven't been saying, you will find that what you've really been withholding is "I love you" (to quote Werner Erhard).
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Background soundtrack: Sir Paul McCartney: My Valentine - wait for 2.96M download

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