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  EARLY PRAISE FOR

  AN UNCOMMON BOND

  “Jeff Brown has done it again... Within your hands is another magical masterpiece. If you are ready for a whirlwind of radical honesty, bare-boned intimacy and the raw dissecting that MUST go into Sacred Relationship then read on. A jewel of the highest order.”—ANAIYA SOPHIA, author of Sacred Sexual Union & co-author of Womb Wisdom

  “In An Uncommon Bond, we are shown love as a relentless force within the universe, acting on the lives of the two main characters to crack open their hearts that their souls might come home to each other. And we recognize their story as our own. Written with passion, honesty and wisdom, this is an uncommon book.”—PHILIP SHEPHERD, author of New Self, New World

  “Jeff Brown elegantly weaves an evolutionary romance in An Uncommon Bond. Whereas most love stories end with “happily ever after,” Jeff takes us beyond the fairy tale and into the grounded spirituality necessary to truly meet the Beloved, both within ourselves and in our relationships. He is a master wordsmith, engaging and enlightening us with his whimsical word-play as we watch the journey unfold between Lowen and Sarah, the story’s “Scar-Crossed Lovers.” Armed with his witty-wise lexicon and his deep understanding of human nature, Jeff presents a new paradigm of relating that is essential to the healing and growth of our society.”—CANDICE HOLDORF, actress and author of From 6 to 9 and Beyond: Widening the Lens of Feminine Eroticism

  “An Uncommon Bond is both evocative and riveting, wrapping its way around the heart and soul of anyone who has ever been involved or interested in a deeper type of love that extends beyond the realm of common sense and connection. Jeff Brown brilliantly explores the rapture, the darkness, the confusion, and the elevation that pulses inside the painfully exquisite merging of two people who were unprepared for such a transformational and transcendent relational experience. Stunningly eye opening, shape-shifting and profound, I will never again look at the beautiful possibilities of love the same as before.”—VICTORIA ERICKSON, author of Edge of Wonder

  “In this beautifully written prose, Jeff Brown weaves powerful teachings and wisdom into a vulnerable tale of love, pain and truth. While reading, I experienced an integration of my heart and mind that opened a channel directly to my soul. I believe that with every vulnerable and raw truth told, each of us is uplifted into a timeless place where there are no words—just experiences of the soul. Thank you Jeff for taking me there.”—KELLY MCNELIS, founder of Women For One; www.womenforone.com

  “Jeff Brown has put into words the glory and anguish of love that all of us who have loved know so well. His words burrow into my heart. I feel him. I feel me. I feel our common experience in a way that expands my own personal understanding and gives me new ways to think and talk about the love in my own life. In addition, Jeff draws out of his experiences wisdom that honors these experiences and elevates his awareness. So often when we have had pain in love, it is easy to point the finger and deny our own part in the creation of the challenge. The male character’s willingness to take responsibility and take a hard look at his patterns leads to his enlightenment and enlivenment. This approach is inspirational. Anyone dealing with deep heartache over love lost can follow his tracks to come out the other side. And what is on the other side is reason enough to take the journey through the heart of darkness. I am delighted I got to take this journey. In my own relationship with my beloved, Tomas, we have hit some rocky patches and have had to take hard looks, too, at our patterns. What Jeff is sharing in his juicy and powerful book is what has worked for me and Tomas. It has been through our willingness to see ourselves more clearly that we have worked through our own dramas. What a gift to have Jeff’s book to inspire, support, and illuminate the path of relationship, and how to navigate it more honestly, and successfully.”—JOAN HEART-FIELD, PhD., author of Romancing the Beloved: A Sacred Sexual Adventure into Love

  “Jeff Brown holds a mirror up to the dance of the masculine and the feminine in this fearless look into the everyday rise and fall of relationships. A realistic and honest view of the true meaning of soulmates.”—JILL ANGELO, author of Sacred Space: Turning Your Home Into a Sanctuary

  An Uncommon Bond

  Jeff Brown

  ENREALMENT PRESS,

  TORONTO, CANADA

  Copyright © 2015 by Jeff Brown. All rights reserved. No portions of this book, except for brief reviews, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without the written permission of the publisher. For information, contact Enrealment Press at [email protected] (www.enrealment.com).

  Published by Enrealment Press

  PO Box 64

  Acton, Ontario

  Canada L7J-2M2

  Cover photo by Colette Stevenson (www.colettestevensonphotography.com)

  Author photo by Paul Hemrend

  Cover and book design by www.go-word.com

  Publisher logo by Brad Rose (www.facebook.com/GetSeenGraphics)

  Printed in the USA

  From the book The Power of Now. Copyright © 1997 by Eckhart Tolle. Reprinted with permission from new World Library, novato CA. www.newworldlibrary.com

  From Love’s Glory: Recreations of Rumi by Andrew Harvey, published by north Atlantic Books, copyright © 1996 by Andrew Harvey. Reprinted by permission of publisher.

  From The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, published by Harper Collins, San Francisco. Copyright © 1995 by Coleman Barks. Reprinted by permission of Coleman Barks.

  From Achterberg, Jeanne (1998). “Uncommon Bonds: On the spiritual nature of relationships.” ReVision 21(2): 4-10. Reprinted by permission of ReVision (Jürgen Werner Kremer).

  From the poetry collection Hope is a Traveler. Copyright © 2015 by Susan Frybort, published by Enrealment Press.

  Publisher note: The writings of the female character (Sarah Harding) in this book are taken from the writings of Susan Frybort. Some are intrinsic to the poetry collection noted above, and others from words written by her to the author of this book, Jeff Brown, as part of their personal correspondence. Reprinted with her permission.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Brown, Jeff, 1962-, author

  An uncommon bond / Jeff Brown.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-0-9808859-5-8 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-0-9808859-6-5 (pdf)

  I. Title.

  PS8603.R68394U53 2015 C813’.6 C2015-900292-3

  C2015-900293-1

  I dedicate this book to Rocketdog, to Bubbi Perlove, to Susan Frybort, to all the women who have loved and endured me, chiseling away at my armored heart with their beautiful offerings, opening and preparing me for the conscious relationship journey.

  I also dedicate this book to the brilliant Jeanne Achterberg, whose heart-echo lives on. You were right, Jeanne—there is a far more profound universe waiting for us in the heart of love’s magic. I can only hope that you are there now, held warmly in God’s embrace.

  And to all of you here and now, who are braving this new relational path, on your way to the next paradigm of enheartened consciousness, I wish you a transformative and magical journey. May you arrive at your next destination with your heart wide open, ready to embrace the next stage of wonder.

  Note to the Reader

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Note on the word “God”: When used in this book, the word “God” is not a linear, limited or limiting definition. I
t is not guilt or shame associated, not religiously affiliated, not affixed to any particular doctrine. It is an open-ended term that can be interpreted and applied in whatever way you personally relate to and identify with it: Divinity, Higher Power, Goddess, nature, Unity Consciousness, Source, Truth, Infinity, Wholeness, to name only a few. Whatever feels true for you. The author is himself an avid explorer of the God concept, and his perspective changes as his experiences inform and expand his consciousness. What he identified as God through a more individualized lens, is entirely different from how he came to understand God through the eyes of love. Perhaps God morphs as we morph, or, perhaps we are seeking an understanding far beyond our comprehension.

  Near the back of the book you will find a ‘Love Dictionary’ composed of words and terms that were ‘hearticulated’ in the following story. They include “Uncommon Bonds,” a term created by Jeanne Achterberg to describe the relationship phenomenon at the heart of this book.

  The telling of the story of uncommon bonds creates a new myth for relationships that involves the evolution and transformation of our being. The bonds may well be the threads in the matrix of humanity, and in the final analysis, the only thing that endures. We who have had bonded experiences can see ourselves as two of the many lights in the interconnected web of all life, and as these lights burn brighter in synchrony, we shake and move and transduce the filaments of the web so that the material universe is changed, subtly perhaps, but changed, nonetheless.

  —JEANNE ACHTERBERG

  There are two types of double stars.

  The pair that appear close,

  but are in fact at different distances

  and are an optical double.

  And there is the binary.

  The pair that are mutually attracted

  and bound to one another

  by forces of gravity and motion.

  You must find your counterpart in the heavens.

  —SUSAN FRYBORT

  An Uncommon Bond

  I met her when I most expected it. I felt Sarah entering my heart weeks before we met in real time. She was quietly everywhere—a distant flute, a subtle shift in wind direction, a whisper of longing that called me home. I felt her in my bones, in my breath, in the sudden and inexplicable lifting of my weary spirit. She was orbiting me, close at heart, eagerly awaiting our cosmic reacquaintance.

  Let there be no doubt: all love connections are not created equal. Some bonds are simply practical. Others are blindly rooted in pathology and old traumas. Still others are opportunities to heal and have essential needs finally met. And some have a mystical quality from the first meeting. Pure and simple. Apparent from the first out-breath. Unmistakably sacred. God rising on the wings of their love. This is how the timely and the timeless become indistinguishable—when love meets God deep in the heart’s inner temple.

  Does this sound insane? If it does, that’s okay. Great love is the most exquisite kind of madness, an asylum of delight. Enter its gates and divinity rises into view.

  Like all synchronistic delights, it’s only madness until it happens to you.

  1

  Divine Preparation

  Let’s begin in the beginning, when I was preparing myself for this great adventure. There is always a preparation phase before great love comes. Sometimes it’s a gentle one, sometimes it’s a harsh one. Mine was downright ugly. Perhaps this is the way the universe works—it deals you an ugly hand before it deals you a beautiful one. The trick is trusting the beauty when it comes. It may never come again.

  As much as I want to tell a love story that doesn’t include conflict, I can’t. War has framed my life from the beginning, influencing and permeating every step of the journey. I have lived war, I have loved war, and, even when I let it go, it has come back to reclaim me. We all have a way of being that we are here to outgrow. War is mine.

  I was born on a battlefield in suburban Toronto. From the outside, it didn’t look like a place of battle, but suburban homes seldom do. In a well coiffured sub-division, it had two rocking chairs on the sweeping front porch, a small man-made waterfall, and a sweet lavender garden that covered most of the front lawn. You would think that the Buddha lived there, it was that peaceful.

  Inside, there were three warriors. My histrionic Scottish mother screamed night and day, while my passive-aggressive Jewish father wavered between immobilizing depression and menacing attack. When their attacks on each other proved unsatisfying, they channeled their frustrations in my direction. They needed a punching bag more than they needed a son, and I unconsciously obliged. Although they named me Lowen, they actually called me “the mistake” behind muffled walls. I wasn’t the daughter they had longed for.

  We spent the first 17 years of my life in battle. If we weren’t screaming at each other, we were screaming at our neighbors and relatives. The quiet times—infrequent as they were—were mere respites from our habitual way of being. Once everyone got a chance to rest and refuel, the arguments began anew, stocked with more ammo. Both as a necessary defense, and as a perfect reflection of my male conditioning, I turned to armor as a way of being. With ‘never surrender’ as my mantra, I navigated the battlefield with panache.

  At the same time, I was a complete mess inside. There are few things more confusing than going to war with parents who are diminishing you, particularly when you are very young. If you fight for your dignity, you risk losing the love you need from them to develop. If you don’t fight back, you lose your self-respect and your development is stifled. How very confusing—to have to fight for your right to be here against the very people who brought you into existence.

  The Abandonment Dance

  When I finally escaped the clutches of my war-torn childhood, my forays into intimate relationship weren’t much better. I had imagined I would find some refuge in the arms of the feminine, but instead found that old habits die harsh. Each of my first intimate relationships seemed to magnify yet another unresolved issue, most of which I would have rather kept buried.

  Soon after fleeing the war zone, I met my first girlfriend. A tenderhearted social worker, naomi would come by with peppermint foot massage cream and pumpkin pie ingredients, hands at the ready. She wanted nothing more than to love me. She didn’t stand a chance. Whenever she reached for me, I ran away. When she backed off, I ran after her. Ne’er the twain shall meet.

  At the heart of our dance was an abandonment wound of radical proportions. Emotionally rejected by my mother, I was certain of only one thing in this world: my inherent unworthiness. If naomi loved me, she lost all credibility. If she exhibited signs of disinterest, she rose to immediate prominence in my inner world. If only I could get her to want me again, if only I could win her love, I could heal the wound. A perfect plan—until I won her over again, and immediately lost interest. Fractured by a distancing mother, I couldn’t bear to be left, even if I did the leaving. Crazy-making!

  For many years, this wound shaped my relationships in its own image. Naomi was merely the first reflection. After she wisely gave up, I commenced a lengthy relational cycle that reflected both polarities of the wound in perfect measure. About half the time, I was the distancer, pulling away from kind women who simply wanted to love me. After only a short time in their arms, I became bored with their availability and lost my sexual charge.

  The rest of the time I was the fuser, chasing unavailable wildcats as they sprinted off in the other direction. Their detachment actually ignited my sexuality, unconsciously turned on by the illusion that I was gaining the favor of my inaccessible mother. If I could bed the wildcat, I must be a worthwhile human. Of course, the ass was always greener on the other side. The moment they surrendered to my charms, I began looking over the fence for the next conquest. One way or the other, I was designed to avoid intimacy at all costs.

  It took me many years to realize that everyone involved in the abandonment dance was living out their own baggage, even the kind and connective women who seemed so perfectly available for love
. Although they appeared to have a greater capacity for intimacy than I did, the fact that they danced with my unavailability suggested otherwise. They wanted me for the same reasons I wanted the wild ones—as a reflection and perpetuation of their unresolved issues. It’s no accident that we were on the same dance floor together. We were all looking for dance partners in an empty ballroom.

  Love-Proof Vest

  No matter where I was on the abandonment continuum, there was a common thread—invulnerability. It came in countless forms: constricted musculature, evasive communication, detached sexuality, repressed emotions. Those who chased me knew it well. The moment they thought they had me, they immediately confronted the armor that encased my tender heart. My love-proof vest was impenetrable in form, crafted as it was with frozen feelings and congealed rage. Love relationship demanded surrender, but willfulness, conflict and armor were all I knew.

  Despite my gamesy ways, I was able to do one thing with conviction—study. In each of my first three years of university, I made the dean’s honors list. In my second year, I won a bursary for writing an award-winning essay on emotional healing. God knows I wasn’t ready to actually do any healing, but I was ready to write about it. Funny how that works. Funny how we come at things conceptually first, before life pushes us to experience them in real time.

  Just before my final year, I applied for law school. Although my LST and grades were strong, I was certain that I would be rejected. I wasn’t. I got into all six schools that I applied to. I decided to go to Osgoode Hall Law School in north Toronto the following autumn. I felt a deep desire to fight for the rights of the disenfranchised. If I couldn’t find fairness in my family, perhaps I could find it for others in the courtroom.

  Ignited by the stresses of study, my anger began to infiltrate my love connections. Violence was not an issue, but emotional abuse became a common occurrence. With no sense of how to express my anger in a healthy way, I took it out on my girlfriends. Not surprisingly, I specialized in women with terrible self-concepts. I shamed them, as I had been shamed. Nasty business.