An excerpt from the book: Dance With The Elephant - Life's Cosmic Equation.
As I look back on the divorce and the pain and suffering it caused for so many people, I find myself dancing with the yin and yang of life and the capacity for the human brain to rationalize almost anything.
Reflecting on the yin of my story,a part of me still has a lesbian-divorce-knife deeply penetrating in my side. A knife that inflicts piercing emotional pain any time I decide to mentally twist and turn it. I will always regret the torment and suffering my two sons had to endure. The divorce was bad enough, but the idea of my two sons being raised in an openly lesbian home, being chastised daily in school by kids mirroring the values of their conservative iron-range parents, just the thought breaks my heart to this day. My only hope is that my sons have or will someday forgive me for the choices I made.
When I shift my conscious mind to the yang of this story, however, the fact is my two boys grew up in a home where they were loved and supported by their mother and her partner. On weekends whenever possible, during holidays, and every summer, they had a father and a step-mother who loved and cared for them dearly. Was it perfect? Was it ideal? Hell no! But whose life is? And who am I to think I can determine the journey and destiny of my children's apple seeds and the destiny of their spiritual guides? I will always love and I take great pride in my first two sons and the direction in life they have chosen for themselves. I also wish the very best for my ex-wife and her partner. I am happy to see that our society continues to evolve in a direction of equal rights for the gay community.
Was this a path in life I would have chosen for myself? Was this an outcome that my ex-wife would have predicted when she first married me? Would either of us have decided to bring our two sons into the world, had we known the direction our lives were headed? If life was simply based on human temperament and socially determined personality, the answer to these questions would be unequivocally no. But as it all relates to my life journey, guided by my personal inner spirit, the tree that grew from my apple seed included branches that were meant to reach out in new directions, different from the life I led with my first wife. The pain and suffering I experienced through the separation and divorce was meant to shake me up and challenge my way of thinking about myself. I have come to the realization that it is the unexpected and the surprises in my life that will often change the course, providing a new direction and target for my final destiny.
Don likes to talk about the drama and trauma of life, a Western version of the Chinese yin and yang philosophy. My divorce was the most traumatic event in my entire life. I would call it my life's most significant emotional event. It brought about an immediate end to who I thought I was, who I was supposed to be, and where my life was destined to take me. It blew me apart and required months of counseling and years of group therapy. It took three long years before I started to put the pieces back together again.
Now let me shift forward twenty-five years and take advantage of our ability to look back in time. The divorce forced me to shift my way of thinking about the world. On a canvas that was previously painted either totally black or totally white, I was given the opportunity to see shades of grey for the first time. The trauma that shook me to the core and destroyed most of my values and dreams became the launch pad to a different way of looking at life. The grief and suffering brought me to a new way of understanding and appreciating the gift that allowed my apple tree to grow branches in new directions. For the first time in my life, I read books because I wanted to... I listened to every self-help tape I could get my hands on. As a result, I set goals and created a new path that would bring reborn meaning and purpose to my life.
A sign that things were beginning to turn around took place late in 1988. As I recall, I was listening to a self-help tape by Tony Robbins when I wrote down twenty-two goals for myself and over the next five years I successfully accomplished every one of them. A number of them that I still remember included meet a woman whom I would love and cherish, start my own training company, take a trip to Germany, and publish a family history book.
I met Bette Lou in December 1989 and we started dating during the spring of 1990, just about the same time both of our divorces were being finalized. Bette was a breath of fresh air. On our first date, I discovered that she was a 4H kid extraordinaire and she found out I was a past county agent. For those of you who don't know anything about the Ag Extension Service, the discovery Bette and I made during our first time together was like spreading freshly churned butter on a slice of hot homemade bread that just came out of the oven. Mmmm... mouth-watering delicious!
My tale of two wives story is kind of like the caterpillar who has to die in the cocoon before it emerges reborn as a butterfly. My Cosmic Legacy journey with Bette has been like a butterfly learning to fly for the first time. Our unified creative power has reinvented my life in every direction. She sees strength in my diversity and encourages my future exploration into the unknown. Where my ex-wife was a great match with my physical being, Bette feeds all aspects of my mind, body, and spirit. It's as though my apple tree of life discovered a new source of more intense sunlight, richer soil nutrients, and a bottomless reservoir of water to draw upon.
The list of gifts Bette and I have been blessed with over the past twenty years is almost infinite. The two children we created and nurtured together are the greatest example of our unified creative power. Our apple trees grow well together and the fruit we bear is plentiful, bringing meaning and purpose to our relationship and to the world.
My story here isn't about judgment or the need to choose right from wrong. It's about planting your apple seed in rich soil, open sunlight, and plentiful moisture. It's about letting go and allowing your inner spirit to help and guide you both in good times and bad. It's about connecting with people who feed you and whom you feed. It's about having the strength and courage to know when to change your direction. My cosmic legacy will be determined by the stories I created in the hearts of the people I touched and loved in life. The same will be true for you!
