Marita
My first encounter with Marita on April 30, 2019, happened much like any other acquaintance I’ve met online through my writings. She…
My first encounter with Marita on April 30, 2019, happened much like any other acquaintance I’ve met online through my writings. She reached out to me when she saw one of my hashtag comments on a Richard Rohr quote, introducing herself as a fellow Rohr fanatic. She proceeded to thank me for my book, Raising Hell, which she had read a couple years prior at Rohr’s recommendation, describing it as a game-changer. When we exchanged a few light pleasantries about ourselves, I found out she was born and raised in the stunning cruise ship destination of southeast Alaska and had recently moved back there after living in the south for many years.
That first week she ordered a case of Raising Hell books with which she intended to start a reading and discussion group within in her community. She relayed dreams of hosting some kind of spiritual retreat in her mountain valley community with myself and Rohr. I loved her dream big mentality, and in general, she had a very optimistic and positive energy. After ordering the books, she had my email address and wrote me a friendly letter describing her quaint little town and life in Alaska. This prompted a series of friendly letters between us, something I never usually had time for in my rigorous schedule as an ER nurse. But suddenly my schedule was opening up for the first time in many years as I had just accepted a summer position as a manager of a seasonal second-home resort on Lake Coeur d’Alene and would be leaving my ER job. It also meant that for the first time in many years, my stress level would plummet exponentially, and I would have a lot more time for things like letter writing and getting to know my new friend in Alaska.
At this time, Steve was in the process of moving to our new property in Puerto Rico, leaving me alone in Idaho for the summer to finish my new job commitment until the first week of September.
Our friendship developed slowly, over several months of letter writing. I had never met anyone who could write letters like Marita, bleeding her mind and heart on paper. She lived openly, unapologetically, passionately from her heart space, and it was so refreshing to meet someone in our day who enjoyed writing real letters about real things. We had so much in common with both the way we were raised and our worldview, it was almost like writing to myself! Once we compared titles on our bookshelf and about 70% of them were the very same books!
Marita and I grew up in very similar circumstances, she in a small town in the wild Alaskan wilderness, me in a small town on the wild Wyoming frontier. We both had a very similar spiritual background in Christianity, growing into adulthood with Christian values and worldview, and we both deconstructed the fear-based false teaching aspects of that faith. But we are also very different. She is like my untamed, wild-at-heart, liberated side; I am like her Nice Christian Girl, square, sheltered side — differences that can be both amusing and conflict-inducing at times.
How do I possibly describe Marita, the rare, lovely flower that she is? It’s like trying to convey for you the wonders of India with mere pictures. Giving you a feel for the ways she captivated my heart will take time as I work to show you who she is rather than merely telling you. However, it feels strangely familiar describing the essence of this woman because she is undoubtedly my twin flame, a concept I have only recently learned in order to help explain the intensity of this head-spinning, heart-pounding, life-altering, magnetic pull I feel toward her.
Twin flames are purported to be one soul or one energy source that splits into two before incarnating into this earthly time and space field in order to find each other and help each other grow through some significant transformative experience together. It is both an incredible time of elation and connection but can also evolve into something painful or challenging as twin flames are here to mirror each other’s best virtues and also worst defects (much more on this later!). It sounds kind of like a game, searching for and finding “yourself” at the most opportune time in order to assist with a certain level of death and transformation by seeing yourself in ways not otherwise possible. Whether or not the twin flame definition is true is irrelevant since we can’t know for sure, but it definitely offers a valid explanation for the way such a gravitational experience turns one’s life upside down and inside out.
After three months of writing lengthy, compelling letters — in late July — something between us shifted. Maybe it was the sungazing I had started doing in early July (it is claimed to invoke unexpected spiritual experiences). Or maybe the fasting. Whatever it was, we both felt almost simultaneously like a tidal wave of love and realization washed over us. Trying to resist it felt impossible. It was during this important transition that I had approached Steve to tell him it was “almost too late.”
I know the current monogamous model says in a case like this that you now have to choose. You can’t have both. And if you want to be a good person and do the right, selfless thing, you have to stop the new relationship no matter how painful. But what about the what the heart wants? When did we decide that the heart could not be trusted and should always be the casualty in the case of surprising (or familiar) developments? Oh yes, when in doubt, the Bible tells us so (or at least how we interpret it 2,000+ years later). And this is how we all learned to compartmentalize, distrust, and ignore our hearts.
In this case, my heart could not imagine being forced to choose. Yes, I had all that wonderful history with Steve whom I love and care about to the ends of the earth. But it did not discount the magnitude of the different, non-competing feelings I had developed for Marita by this time. Think of it this way. What if, after your second child was born, someone came to you and said, I know how deeply you love both your children, but you can’t have both. You have to choose. Are you going to keep your first born, the obvious choice, or your second born?
What kind of a choice is that? The love I feel for both of my daughters is absolutely equal in depth and intensity. Just because I had more past history with the firstborn doesn’t negate the future history and love connection that I will build with the second born. They are two completely different personalities with different gifts and abilities, and I have a totally different mother-daughter relationship with each of them. But the love I feel for both of them is equally legitimate, worthwhile, and indispensable. This is how I feel about Marita. She is my second born love.
Synchronicities
From the time we met until now, Marita and I have had so many miraculous experiences and synchronicities, even Steve is a believer. I will reveal more of these amazing events later, but here’s one prominent one. Last year when I took a travel ER job in Zuni, New Mexico, I rolled into town at my Airbnb — a quaint old inn at the town center — on October 18th. The inn had six rooms but, “due to Covid,” none of the were occupied the day I arrived. The owner told me to pick whichever room I wanted, so I checked out each room and picked the sunniest room in the house, #2. I got all settled and sent Steve and Marita pictures. Marita wrote back on our thread a few minutes later. “You guys are not going to believe this but…” she sent back a photo of her bed and it had exactly the same bedspread — a unique multi-colored southwest print! She had had the bedspread for several years and had just taken it out of the closet that day to put it on her bed. Also, I checked and room #2 was the only room in the house with that particular bedspread. Then I also noticed in the picture that we both had the exact same mustard yellow sheets. I also happened to notice that October 18th was the exact date that she and I had met for the first time in New Mexico the year before. Being at my first travel job experience and very out of sorts, it felt like a giant hug from the Universe.
Three Sisters
A couple months after Marita and I transitioned into romantic love space, I happened upon a book in a bookstore in Coeur d’Alene that I couldn’t pass up, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. About a week after I had begun reading it, it synchronously showed up in the reading list for the spiritual retreat Marita and I were planning to attend together for our first meet up in New Mexico, Seminary of the Wild: Wild Christ, Wild Earth, Wild Self (Richard Rohr was one of the keynote speakers for the week). There is a chapter in the book about the Three Sisters of Native planting tradition who appeared as a bundle of seeds to help the people never go hungry again: corn, beans, and squash. From the early days until now, these three are planted together for a harmonious garden.
My heart leapt at the reference of three, for at this time, I was searching for wisdom and some kind of confirmation from the Universe that the new frontier of relationships that we were forging was going to be okay, or even somehow better than okay. I needed to know that there is room for a different prototype than the nearly mono-monogamous cultural norm and that I wasn’t making a critical mistake. At that time, I was really struggling to envision how this was going to work out. The notion of three seemed daunting, impossible, competitive, doomed. Since I often take my life lessons and answers from nature, I was intrigued by the following quotes:
· When planted alone, these three do not thrive alone as well as together. The lessons of reciprocity are written clearly in a Three Sisters garden. Together their stems inscribe what looks like a blueprint for the world, a map of balance and harmony.
· Their layered spacing uses the light, a gift from the sun, efficiently with no waste.
· The organic symmetry of forms belongs together, the placement of every leaf, the harmony of shapes speak their message. Respect one another, support one another, bring your gift to the world and receive the gifts of others, and there will be enough for all.
· Acre for acre, a Three Sisters garden yields more food than if you grew each sister alone. By the rules of reciprocity, none can take more than she gives. The beauty of the partnership is that each plant does what it does in order to increase its own growth, but as it happens, when the individuals flourish, so does the whole.
· These three, wordlessly in leaf and vine, embody the knowledge of the relationship. Alone, a bean is just a vine, squash an over-sized leaf. Only when standing together with corn does a whole emerge with transcends the individual. The gifts of each are more fully expressed when they are nurtured together than alone. They counsel us that gifts are multiplied in relationship. This is how the world keeps going.
As I bathed further in this natural world parallel and the roles we each played with each other, I felt the familiar comfort envelop my heart. The Universe seemed to be nudging me along that indeed, three could quite possibly be a better, more stable model than two under the right circumstances (a cord of three strands is not easily broken…) but only time would tell.
The Blessing
The first full day Marita and I met in person, we had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet with Richard Rohr. Sitting down together in his office in the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque he heard our story and then, to our joyful surprise, gave us his priestly blessing, “It sounds like you ladies are doing everything the right way. I can feel the specialness of this relationship. You are indeed a power couple!”
Afterward, he led us out into his courtyard where we stood under a beautiful tree that he lovingly dubbed “The Trinitree”—after one of the most powerful and profound “Three” types provided in the spirit world—and we all video chatted with Steve in Puerto Rico. It could not have been a more perfect beginning for us in person, obtaining our favorite spiritual mentor’s understanding and blessing. That day was surely a dream come true, and the start of many wonderful — and challenging — days ahead.