Paul Dunion, EdD

It was inevitable, right from the beginning.  My original home, tucked away, gently resting in the cavern of my mother’s belly, with her waters protecting me from harm.  And then the push, a push I will experience throughout my life in so many different ways.  Urging me forward toward an unwelcome separation and a broken heart.

The weeks and months that followed saw me seeking that original unity. I longed for a soft gaze, filled with warmth and welcome, for a tender touch or to be held close to a beating heart. I longed for closeness, longing for the bliss that maternal waters once held. Again and again reminded there was to be no return.

And then my own body and its evolving power – its sounds, movements, sights and smells.  Soon, I discovered my own agency, having the authority to move my body, to impact dolls, trucks, balls and blocks in endless ways! And then, the creator of worlds emerges, inseminated by my imagination.  A new unity, to be one with myself! And so, the birth of a new fool, confused over and over again by how much can be controlled and how much must be let go.

And then, I find you, and my heart’s longing for unity with another is enlivened. I fall into this longing embraced by its rapture.  The fool adapts to your wishes, in fear of losing you, only to find that I am losing myself. So, I begin to distance, desperately searching for a way to unite with myself, but feeling the loss of you.  I begin to fear that I don’t know how to truly connect to you or me.

I lose my way, feeling both unlovable and unloving. Convinced that anyone with common sense could easily walk the path of relationship.  I’ve seen them do it in the movies. Is it wise to trust my heart? How much heartache must I endure before I’m willing to welcome the heart’s fool?

When pride has been appropriately subdued by the weight of defeat, I may begin to accept the mystery of these unities. In my acceptance, I find an apprentice devoted to love’s lessons, a devotee to what is deeply relational.

In my unknowing, there is born in me a new faith declaring that more will be revealed.

Even when the light of that faith grows dim, I will not stand alone. I will ask for help, in order to once again find my way, bowing to the fool who dares step into these mysterious callings to unity and the cherished gift of wisdom  that is granted to the one walking a fool’s path.