Patrik Olterman Rodhe's Blog, page 7
November 21, 2015
I am Queer!
I remember last time I walked with the pride parade in Malmö, I had walked the parade many times before but last time was special, it was the first time I felt that I was walking not just in solidarity, not just a straight ally but this time I was walking for myself. I was walking as a part of the rainbow people, I was there to show love, pride and support for myself.
I am still straight, I am still a man (though I am reconnecting with my inner feminine), but those labels mean so little to m...
November 18, 2015
Falling in love
It’s a funny phrase isn’t it. We say that we fall in love like it was an open manhole cover on our way to work. Like we have nothing to do with it, like it is completely out of our control. We seem to think that love over powers us and strong-arms us into submission and then we free-fall into this madness we call love.
There is of course more to it than this. First of all there is the biology. Our bodies are attracted to other bodies that will make healthy babies and perpetuate the species. M...
November 16, 2015
True love
Disney has time and time again claimed that there is no higher power than this, that true love’s kiss is the most potent magic of all. This does of course come with the caveat that you can only have one true love and that comes with the constant fear that you may or may not be missing out on this magic in your life, because who knows, your true love may yet show up.
Alanis Morrisette hints at this in her latest ironic rendition of “Ironic” singing, it’s like swiping left on your future soulma...
November 15, 2015
Tantric what???
A friend of mine pointed out that I talk a lot about tantra, but I never explain what it is. So here is my attempt at offering a brief view on what tantra is and the tantric tradition has to offer.
Wikipedia defines tantra as:
Tantra, also called Tantrism and Tantric religion, is an ancient Hindu tradition of beliefs and meditation and ritual practices that seeks to channel the divine energy of the macrocosm or godhead into the human microcosm, in order to attain siddhis and moksha. It arose...
November 14, 2015
I love you just the way you are ….
I am cleaning the house and dancing around the apartment with the monster we call a vacuum cleaner singing cheesy love songs.
I find myself singing along to Billy Joel’s “Just the way you are” thinking it’s a song about accepting the other radically, unconditionally.
I said I love you and that’s forever
And this I promise from my heart
I couldn’t love you any better
I love you just the way you are.
But then as I actually tune into the lyrics I realise it’s actually completely the opposite, i...
November 13, 2015
The naked truth
Another week has past since I posted “Our sacred journey” and there have been countless of private messages and questions, ranging from: “How dare you?” to “Congratulations, now tell me how I can get there.” Although in every conversation there is this dancing around the question: But are you having sex with others, outside of your marriage? Most of the time not actually spoken, but all the time implied. It is sad and frustrating that in 2015, we still have a problem talking about sex and sex...
November 10, 2015
Relationship Anarchy
In the wake of my most recent post on how love is not static I would like to add some thoughts on what has been called relationship anarchy, a term coined by Dr Andy in 2004.
Dr. Andy writes:
Relationship anarchy questions the idea that love is a limited resource that can only be real if restricted to a couple. You have capacity to love more than one person, and one relationship and the love felt for that person does not diminish love felt for another. Don’t rank and compare people and relat...
Love is not static
It is especially true in relationships, love keeps changing and transforming and unless we change and transform with love we will “fall out of love”.
The minute we freeze frame the relationship or our image of our partner, we are no longer dealing with reality or life, then we are dealing with a construct of our mind. We may have frozen our perception but reality moves on changes, the person in front of us has changed while we held on to the old image.
Anything static is unnatural, I used to...
November 9, 2015
Reclaiming eros
Love is such an important word. Regardless of who you are and what path you follow love is somehow at the centre of things.
Love is a many splendoured thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love! (Moulin Rouge)
In the sacred scriptures of the Judeo-Christian tradition there are four words used for love: Agape (unconditional divine love), Phileo (friendship love), Storge (familial love) and Eros (romantic/erotic love). Of the four agape is used the most and store is used th...
November 8, 2015
Oh my, what a week!
Today is fathers day and I am promptly staying in bed, drinking tea and slowly looking at the world and my life with awe and wonder. Earlier in the week I had a lunch with a friend who told me that to boost her ego she would look at the girls from school who used to be pretty and see what they looked like now. I reflected back that to boost my ego I open my photo stream and I look at the pictures from the last year and I marvel at how awesome my life is.
It has been quite a week. Between comi...
