Thank you for this piece. Your words about “no self to love from” felt like a mirror to something I’ve been slowly arriving at through my own experiences of divorce, loss, rebuilding, and trying to form new relationships.
I want to share a few reflections. They may be a little raw and flowing though.
For a long time I misunderstood unconditional love. I used to think it meant loving someone even if they didn’t choose me back, or letting myself be loved in a way that erased parts of me. Now I see it differently. Unconditional love begins within - not as an egoic act of self-worship, but as the recognition that I am part of the universe, and the universe is within me. From there, choosing another person becomes a conscious act, not a dependency. Real partnership becomes a daily choice, not a reaction to loneliness or fear.
Your father is right about the transits -especially the Venus cycle and the endings marked by the final degrees of Pluto in Pisces and entering Aquarius (when we lose a typical core of understanding the marriage and a family). The Venus period really is about learning to find love within, not outside. And when we connect this understanding of the Universe with psychology and astrology together, everything becomes clearer: the inner world, the outer relationships, the patterns we repeat, the lessons we carry.
After my divorce and my attempts to build something new, I realized that I wasn’t actually choosing partners. I was choosing the parts of myself that were missing. I tried to fill my inner gaps with someone else’s presence. Now I’m slowly rebuilding those inner structures myself, without rushing, without escaping, brick by brick. Because when I restore myself fully and reconnect with my own inner love, the partner who comes will not be an addition to my wounds or a replacement for what I lack, but a conscious choice - someone to walk beside, someone I choose every day, and who chooses me, without running away from responsibility or from the discomfort of growth.
This is also why your reflection about “freedom” resonated so deeply. Many people confuse freedom with avoidance or with constantly searching for new dopamine in new partners. But real freedom is different. It’s the freedom that comes from inner contentment - when you don't need to compensate for the lack inside by chasing novelty. From that place, choosing one person becomes the purest form of freedom, not a limitation.
What you wrote about the disappearance of the lover made sense to me in a very human way. When the “self” stops clinging, love becomes cleaner. Less possessive. Less about fixing or filling anything. More like two whole beings walking side by side, aware that nothing needs to be owned. Maybe that’s what mature partnership is: love that doesn’t come from lack, but from fullness.
And choice itself is also acceptance - a process of becoming whole. A long path of remembering and rebuilding. A journey that, if we are honest, can take more than one lifetime. None of us becomes enlightened in one snap just because we suddenly understand the concept. If it worked like that, we’d all already be Buddhas. It’s a cycle - like moving from the Fool to the World in tarot, completing the whole journey and knowing that at some point it can restart again. Death equals rebirth. Transformation equals continuation.
So for me, the real cosmic joke is this: when I stop searching for someone to complete me, when I restore myself, when my love for myself stops being conditional or dependent, then the right partner will appear - not to fill my emptiness, but to walk with me. Not as the missing piece. But as the conscious choice.
Every day. Quietly. Freely. Without running from commitment.
Two whole universes choosing to walk together - not because they need to, but because they want to.
Your reflection stopped me in my tracks. Not because it validated what I wrote (though it did), but because you articulated something I was still reaching for—the distinction between freedom as avoidance versus freedom as fullness. That single insight reframes everything.
"Many people confuse freedom with avoidance or with constantly searching for new dopamine in new partners. But real freedom is different. It's the freedom that comes from inner contentment."
Yes. This.
I spent years after my 18-year relationship ended doing exactly what you describe—choosing partners who were "the parts of myself that were missing." Each new connection was an attempt to fill a gap, not make a choice. The body knows the difference, even when the mind creates elaborate stories about soul connections and destiny.
Your point about unconditional love beginning within—not as ego worship but as recognition that we ARE the universe—this is the piece that changes everything. When I wrote about there being "no self to love from," I was pointing at what you're describing: that place where inner and outer dissolve, where choosing another becomes conscious act rather than unconscious need.
The synchronicity of you mentioning the Venus transit is uncanny. My father just sent me that exact reading about moving from 7 years of Ketu (detachment) into 20 years of Venus (partnership). But as you so beautifully put it, this Venus period is about finding love within first. The partner who comes won't be an addition to wounds or replacement for lack, but conscious choice.
Your divorce journey and my recent dissolution experiences are different doors to the same room. That place where, as you said, "choosing one person becomes the purest form of freedom, not a limitation."
What really moves me is your honesty about the long path. "None of us becomes enlightened in one snap just because we suddenly understand the concept." Thank you for this. The Hanged Man card I pulled today said the same—integration takes time, the journey from Fool to World happens in spirals, not straight lines.
Your closing image will stay with me: "Two whole universes choosing to walk together—not because they need to, but because they want to."
This is the real cosmic joke, isn't it? We spend so long seeking someone to complete us, only to discover that completion was never the point. The point was to become whole enough that choice becomes free, love becomes clean, and walking together becomes a creative act rather than a survival strategy.
Thank you for taking the time to share such a raw, flowing reflection. Sometimes the universe speaks through strangers who aren't really strangers at all—just consciousness recognizing itself in different forms, walking parallel paths, arriving at the same truth from different angles.
Your words didn't just resonate; they completed a circuit I didn't know was open. The fact that you've been a silent reader until now makes this even more meaningful. Some truths only emerge when the timing is perfect.
Here's to the slow rebuild, brick by brick. Here's to freedom through fullness. Here's to conscious choice, every day, without running from commitment or growth.
And here's to those walking beside us—not to fill our emptiness, but to create something neither wholeness alone could imagine.
With deep recognition and gratitude,
Cian
P.S. - "Death equals rebirth. Transformation equals continuation." I'm writing this down. Some truths need to be remembered daily, especially in the void spaces between chapters.
Another masterpiece in the non dual dhamma diary 🤣.
There is a reminiscing of “there is seeing, but no seer, there is hearing, but no hearer…” etc.
The linguistic sleight of mind that freezes the Verb of everchanging reality into static nouns manipulable by tongue wagging vocalizations and the scrawling of semantics, semiotics and symbols.
But of course, the extension that there is loving but no lover is as profound as it is obvious in the paradoxically non-obvious way that mystery and insight intersect.
Written with gratitude, love and mirth, from nobody to no one. 🤣❤️
"Non dual dhamma diary" 🤣 - stealing this for my bio immediately. Though technically there's no one here to steal it and no one there who owns it, so... permission granted by the void?
You nailed it with the linguistic sleight of mind observation. Language really is the ultimate duality trap, isn't it? Every sentence assuming a subject doing something to an object, when really it's just... happening happening. Verbing verbing. Reality reality-ing.
"There is loving but no lover" - exactly! And the cosmic joke is that Love has been trying to tell us this forever, but we kept insisting on being somebody experiencing it. Like waves arguing about who owns the ocean.
The best part? This comment thread is just consciousness playing ping-pong with itself. You lob wisdom from your nobody-ness, I return gratitude from my no-one-ness, and somewhere the Universe is giggling at its own cleverness.
But here's the real kicker - even after all this realization, "Tai" still has to pay taxes and "Cian" still has to do laundry. The absolute dancing as the relative, pretending to forget itself just for the fun of remembering.
Written from the space between the last thought and the next one, addressed to the awareness reading before interpretation kicks in...
Nobody bowing to No One, recognizing Itself in the mirror of another non-existent friend 🙏😂
P.S. - If there's no lover, no loved, and no love... who's making dinner tonight? Asking for a friend who doesn't exist but still gets hungry.
P.P.S. - Weekly Wisdom commenting on weekend dissolution... the dharma has a wicked sense of timing!
Thank you for this piece. Your words about “no self to love from” felt like a mirror to something I’ve been slowly arriving at through my own experiences of divorce, loss, rebuilding, and trying to form new relationships.
I want to share a few reflections. They may be a little raw and flowing though.
For a long time I misunderstood unconditional love. I used to think it meant loving someone even if they didn’t choose me back, or letting myself be loved in a way that erased parts of me. Now I see it differently. Unconditional love begins within - not as an egoic act of self-worship, but as the recognition that I am part of the universe, and the universe is within me. From there, choosing another person becomes a conscious act, not a dependency. Real partnership becomes a daily choice, not a reaction to loneliness or fear.
Your father is right about the transits -especially the Venus cycle and the endings marked by the final degrees of Pluto in Pisces and entering Aquarius (when we lose a typical core of understanding the marriage and a family). The Venus period really is about learning to find love within, not outside. And when we connect this understanding of the Universe with psychology and astrology together, everything becomes clearer: the inner world, the outer relationships, the patterns we repeat, the lessons we carry.
After my divorce and my attempts to build something new, I realized that I wasn’t actually choosing partners. I was choosing the parts of myself that were missing. I tried to fill my inner gaps with someone else’s presence. Now I’m slowly rebuilding those inner structures myself, without rushing, without escaping, brick by brick. Because when I restore myself fully and reconnect with my own inner love, the partner who comes will not be an addition to my wounds or a replacement for what I lack, but a conscious choice - someone to walk beside, someone I choose every day, and who chooses me, without running away from responsibility or from the discomfort of growth.
This is also why your reflection about “freedom” resonated so deeply. Many people confuse freedom with avoidance or with constantly searching for new dopamine in new partners. But real freedom is different. It’s the freedom that comes from inner contentment - when you don't need to compensate for the lack inside by chasing novelty. From that place, choosing one person becomes the purest form of freedom, not a limitation.
What you wrote about the disappearance of the lover made sense to me in a very human way. When the “self” stops clinging, love becomes cleaner. Less possessive. Less about fixing or filling anything. More like two whole beings walking side by side, aware that nothing needs to be owned. Maybe that’s what mature partnership is: love that doesn’t come from lack, but from fullness.
And choice itself is also acceptance - a process of becoming whole. A long path of remembering and rebuilding. A journey that, if we are honest, can take more than one lifetime. None of us becomes enlightened in one snap just because we suddenly understand the concept. If it worked like that, we’d all already be Buddhas. It’s a cycle - like moving from the Fool to the World in tarot, completing the whole journey and knowing that at some point it can restart again. Death equals rebirth. Transformation equals continuation.
So for me, the real cosmic joke is this: when I stop searching for someone to complete me, when I restore myself, when my love for myself stops being conditional or dependent, then the right partner will appear - not to fill my emptiness, but to walk with me. Not as the missing piece. But as the conscious choice.
Every day. Quietly. Freely. Without running from commitment.
Two whole universes choosing to walk together - not because they need to, but because they want to.
Nataliia,
Your reflection stopped me in my tracks. Not because it validated what I wrote (though it did), but because you articulated something I was still reaching for—the distinction between freedom as avoidance versus freedom as fullness. That single insight reframes everything.
"Many people confuse freedom with avoidance or with constantly searching for new dopamine in new partners. But real freedom is different. It's the freedom that comes from inner contentment."
Yes. This.
I spent years after my 18-year relationship ended doing exactly what you describe—choosing partners who were "the parts of myself that were missing." Each new connection was an attempt to fill a gap, not make a choice. The body knows the difference, even when the mind creates elaborate stories about soul connections and destiny.
Your point about unconditional love beginning within—not as ego worship but as recognition that we ARE the universe—this is the piece that changes everything. When I wrote about there being "no self to love from," I was pointing at what you're describing: that place where inner and outer dissolve, where choosing another becomes conscious act rather than unconscious need.
The synchronicity of you mentioning the Venus transit is uncanny. My father just sent me that exact reading about moving from 7 years of Ketu (detachment) into 20 years of Venus (partnership). But as you so beautifully put it, this Venus period is about finding love within first. The partner who comes won't be an addition to wounds or replacement for lack, but conscious choice.
Your divorce journey and my recent dissolution experiences are different doors to the same room. That place where, as you said, "choosing one person becomes the purest form of freedom, not a limitation."
What really moves me is your honesty about the long path. "None of us becomes enlightened in one snap just because we suddenly understand the concept." Thank you for this. The Hanged Man card I pulled today said the same—integration takes time, the journey from Fool to World happens in spirals, not straight lines.
Your closing image will stay with me: "Two whole universes choosing to walk together—not because they need to, but because they want to."
This is the real cosmic joke, isn't it? We spend so long seeking someone to complete us, only to discover that completion was never the point. The point was to become whole enough that choice becomes free, love becomes clean, and walking together becomes a creative act rather than a survival strategy.
Thank you for taking the time to share such a raw, flowing reflection. Sometimes the universe speaks through strangers who aren't really strangers at all—just consciousness recognizing itself in different forms, walking parallel paths, arriving at the same truth from different angles.
Your words didn't just resonate; they completed a circuit I didn't know was open. The fact that you've been a silent reader until now makes this even more meaningful. Some truths only emerge when the timing is perfect.
Here's to the slow rebuild, brick by brick. Here's to freedom through fullness. Here's to conscious choice, every day, without running from commitment or growth.
And here's to those walking beside us—not to fill our emptiness, but to create something neither wholeness alone could imagine.
With deep recognition and gratitude,
Cian
P.S. - "Death equals rebirth. Transformation equals continuation." I'm writing this down. Some truths need to be remembered daily, especially in the void spaces between chapters.
It will come, you know. The door is open
Another masterpiece in the non dual dhamma diary 🤣.
There is a reminiscing of “there is seeing, but no seer, there is hearing, but no hearer…” etc.
The linguistic sleight of mind that freezes the Verb of everchanging reality into static nouns manipulable by tongue wagging vocalizations and the scrawling of semantics, semiotics and symbols.
But of course, the extension that there is loving but no lover is as profound as it is obvious in the paradoxically non-obvious way that mystery and insight intersect.
Written with gratitude, love and mirth, from nobody to no one. 🤣❤️
Tai,
"Non dual dhamma diary" 🤣 - stealing this for my bio immediately. Though technically there's no one here to steal it and no one there who owns it, so... permission granted by the void?
You nailed it with the linguistic sleight of mind observation. Language really is the ultimate duality trap, isn't it? Every sentence assuming a subject doing something to an object, when really it's just... happening happening. Verbing verbing. Reality reality-ing.
"There is loving but no lover" - exactly! And the cosmic joke is that Love has been trying to tell us this forever, but we kept insisting on being somebody experiencing it. Like waves arguing about who owns the ocean.
The best part? This comment thread is just consciousness playing ping-pong with itself. You lob wisdom from your nobody-ness, I return gratitude from my no-one-ness, and somewhere the Universe is giggling at its own cleverness.
But here's the real kicker - even after all this realization, "Tai" still has to pay taxes and "Cian" still has to do laundry. The absolute dancing as the relative, pretending to forget itself just for the fun of remembering.
Written from the space between the last thought and the next one, addressed to the awareness reading before interpretation kicks in...
Nobody bowing to No One, recognizing Itself in the mirror of another non-existent friend 🙏😂
P.S. - If there's no lover, no loved, and no love... who's making dinner tonight? Asking for a friend who doesn't exist but still gets hungry.
P.P.S. - Weekly Wisdom commenting on weekend dissolution... the dharma has a wicked sense of timing!