Our Love Affair with Wisdom


As you may have read in the previous six posts in this series  we met and fell in love in San Francisco in 1976. Within one year we were travelling the USA leading weekend relationship trainings.

Paul & Layne - Hawaii 1980
Paul & Layne – Hawaii 1980

We then settled in Hawaii for a seven year experiment in dramatic personal transformation with a group of kindred spirits.

We were the leaders of the Empyrean Community where everyone was consciously using their relationships as a path of personal evolution and spiritual awakening.

In the privacy of our coaching room and in groups where families, co-workers, lovers, ex-lovers and friends gathered to use their relationships to grow in wisdom and love, we had the extraordinary privilege of listening to all their secrets.

People were encouraged to be open and honest, to reveal their innermost thoughts, feelings, impulses, perceptions and opinions.

We were all intentionally using the energy of love and forgiveness to heal our individual pasts and create a future more to our liking.

Being that transparent was often very difficult. We had all developed masks that we had been hiding behind. To bring our true selves out of the shadows required an act of willingness and will.

It was a superb training ground for visionary relationship educators.

Our students had complex, intertwined relationships with one another. The intricate web of unconscious relationship patterns was fully illuminated for us to study. We were able to observe the invisible creative workings of the relationships of an entire community of several hundred people.

Hidden unconscious codes are the mysterious means that determine the quality of everyone’s relationships. And we got to observe those patterns from every imaginable angle.

We had the unusual opportunity to connect the dots from a myriad of seemingly unconnected events, from dozens and dozens of people’s lives, across generations. These observations explained in profound ways how our relationships are not coincidental or accidental.

There is something so intelligent, so loving and so miraculous using our relationships like a classroom – a classroom in which we can all learn to bring forth the highest and best in ourselves and each other.

We were completely absorbed and enthralled watching these complex webs of relationship being woven and taking form before our eyes.

In our early days together we had seen how unresolved issues from the past were being acted out in our relationship with one another. But, to see a whole community doing the exact same dance was a revelation and a glorious spectacle.

In hindsight we can see that we were truly blessed to be living in this rarified sphere of human relating.

We were in love with one another, in love with life and in love with the wisdom we were receiving.

Most love affairs have their ups and downs.

Our most powerful feelings arise in our relationships . . .

Who doesn’t know the confusion of misunderstandings and the pain when another has unexpectedly failed you?

Or the relief and excitement when you make up and things start turning out again.

And the torture of feeling unexpectedly betrayed by the most important person in your life and you can’t figure out how to make things right.

Then there are all the feelings that can go with recovering from a breakup, divorce or the death of a loved one.

Diving deep and figuring out the agony and the ecstasy of relationships had become our full time job. And we had imagined that a soulful wisdom was the answer to all of these relationships dilemmas.

How could we possibly have known that our love affair with wisdom was vulnerable to all the same feelings of a human love affair?

                                                                                                                                              

We sincerely hope you are enjoying this stroll with us down memory lane. To be honest, this is the first time we have written about any of this and we are surprised at some of the feelings arising as we share this with you!

There is much more to come and we hope you will stay with us. There is purposeful good to this story that may have profound implications for you! Stay tuned for details of a big announcement coming soon.

Your comments, thoughts, feelings and questions about anything we share here is important to us. Just click on the Comments link to the top right of any of these posts to participate. We are especially happy that members of the Hawaii Empyrean Community have found their way here and have added their voices to this conversation.


11 responses to “Our Love Affair with Wisdom”

  1. WOW! What wonderful comments from all of you – thank you! It is very gratifying to know that sharing our personal story is touching you and is meaningful to you. It is what we have hoped for in relating our story in this way.

    Your comments mean more than you know.

    Paul

  2. What a great picture! What a beautiful story! I was around CA-southern in 60’s
    and 70’s too…..what times!!! Consciousness studies erupting out all over. Such
    interesting times. I am now 69 with the heart of a 26 yr old…..learning to be a life coach now after years of being a school teacher in various forms. I am Finally,
    just now, coming into my own as never before…life is such a joy! I can only dare to imagine what my life will be like at 80! And I am blessed with good health and
    longevity genes…we can create a different “elder life” than our parents or generations before. Truly be the gracious elders.

  3. P&L,

    The essence of the purity of your love shines so clearly and brightly in this photo. How fortunate I am to have gazed into those very eyes many many many times.

    The power of the ‘healing experiment’ continues on! I see it most every day in my private practice and recognize that the richness and compounding of our early work and devotion is still in action!

    It was a special time in the programs. Rare, extra-ordinary and truly privileged that we all shared such precious unconditional love and support. In my life and the lives of most that I cross, continue to include healing for the better. Sometimes sweetly, sometimes with great work involved, continue it does.

    Thank God for your vision and for all of who have, and do, and will continue to seek “Our Way to Conscious Relating” ….. Hallelujah! More love.. Ardyth

  4. Thank you for sharing these thoughts. I just turned 50 and feel that the best is yet to come, so for you to be looking forward to bigger stuff at 58 is inspiring to me. You are absolutely gorgeous with those sweet dimples! Ah, the vanity of youth – smile.. how nice that we can maintain our beauty even as the physical form goes through its changes. hugs, Evelyn

  5. I think your series is wonderful. Seems to me that the more we share, the more room we have to expand our horizons. The posibilities are limitless. I will be there to catch the tail end of your comet! Can’t wait. Maija

  6. Thank you kindly, Karen. I was 29 years old. It’s hard to believe I was so young and up to such big stuff in life.

    Now, I’m 58 and I think I’m just now coming into my prime.

    You are writing a memoir for a client. Do you think people would be interested in a memoir by me and Paul?

  7. Wow, this photo is gorgeous! Paul, you look handsome as ever, and Layne, this is as beautiful an image of you as I’ve seen. Your gaze is loving, penetrating. So you. 🙂

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