I’m writing this post as a prayer and a vision for what is possible in regards to relationship dynamics. We live in a time where many couples are choosing to un-couple -- either divorce, separation or an unofficial parting are commonplace. Although this is new for me, I am already experiencing the difficulty of sustaining connectivity in the midst of leading separate lives. My former partner and I have all the ingredients for this possibility – good communication, lots of love and a shared interest in creating a loving and healthy environment for our children. Even still, I see how hard it is to get past our own “stuff” to see the bigger picture. And I am witnessing many other couples’ journeys…two people who came together for one of the most important missions on the planet—parenting, bringing life into this world. Whether they consciously chose to get pregnant or not, every child is “on purpose,” soul entering flesh to carry out incredible lives filled with endless cycles of falling, learning, getting up again, falling learning, getting up…How can parents who choose to go their separate ways continue to fulfill the mission of creating positive dynamics between each other and their children? This is the question I am currently living. We don’t really know what we are doing as human beings in this new phenomenon called divorce. We’ve only had a few generations of practice, and we’ve all heard countless stories or experienced in our own lives just how destructive the process can be – children caught in the crossfire of their parent’s mishaps, custody battles and emotional violence of all kinds. So far, the positive examples are few. Now is the time to create something different, and I believe that if there’s any community of parents to try, it’s here in Ojai. What I observe is that the work doesn’t stop between two people just because they make a choice to not be together. When there are children involved, we are inextricably linked to the other person..which might sound like a death sentence to some! But in reality, this is our continued gift of evolving. If there were any unconscious agendas to get out of growing by getting out of the relationship, we are out of luck! The universal task of actualizing our soul’s greatest potential will follow us through every single interaction we have with our former partners. I also observe that doing this gracefully becomes very difficult for two people who are no longer motivated by togetherness to maintain some degree of decency between each other. What then becomes the motivation? Ultimately, we are beckoned by the internal nudging of our soul’s work to have right relations between all human beings. But we are very crafty at putting a muzzle on this voice. So if not because we are inwardly called to create peace, how about doing it for the kids? Humans stayed together for countless generations “for the kids” – how about we create something new, something revolutionary, kind and loving between former partners “for the kids”? I think we are all aware that our children absorb every energetic pulse we emit, for better and worse. And every single one of us knows what it’s like to be a child and feel unspoken tension or witness arguments, or worse…And none of us are perfect parents because none of us are perfect human beings. But I’m not going to let us off that easy. Rise up, dear mamas (and papas) and create something unheard of, something few have maybe experienced. What does this look like? To me, this looks like maintaining goodness, love and friendship between former partners – for our children, for the sake of raising the vibration of humanity, and most importantly for ourselves, to honor the eternal process of evolving as human beings. Love is eternal. How that is expressed in the outer world may change, may live in different houses, may start new relationships. But the love that was once between two people never goes away. If we think it has, then what we are calling love isn’t love. I know there are some of you who are already pioneering this process, thank you… “For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation." --Rainer Maria Rilke