I and Thou

A Gestalt Poem:

If I just do my thing and you do yours,
We stand in danger of losing each other
And ourselves.

I am not in this world to live up to your expectations;
But I am in this world to confirm you
As a unique human being,
And to be confirmed by you.

We are fully ourselves only in relation to each other;
The 'I' detached from a 'Thou' disintegrates.

I do not find you by chance; I find you by an active life
Of reaching out.

Rather than letting things passively happen to me,
I can act intentionally to make them happen.

I must begin with myself, true;
But I must not end with myself;
The truth begins with two."

(Tubbs W. 1972. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, (12) 5 Beyond Perls)

This Gestalt poem was shared on the Open Space list.

At the Integral Education Forum, Mike (kang) and I have been dialoguing about "the active life of reaching out." I asked Mike, What do you find as the most effective way to get straight to someone's heart. . . and then invite change? Just some little questions!! To which he beautifully responded:

Getting into another's heart is like walking slowly and gently on a foggy misty day.... it is a kinda slow dance in an attempt to truely understand another... we really only begin to understand ourselves in relation to others...

When I think of heart I think of soul... it is the realm of our most heartfelt purposes.... our calling is found here....as Fredrick Buecher says: "Our calling is where our deepest gladness and the world's hunger meet."

Christy blogs about "That which connects." She shares a moment in a conversation between Ken Wilber and Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi

At one point Wilber says: "Buber talked about the I-Thou relationship--and the Big Mystery is that hyphen."

How do you experience that hyphen? How do you connect with another's heart? How do you connect with your own heart?