A Woman's Mystery

During the clear days of my first summer living in my little mountain cabin, I enjoyed moving my office to my long front porch -- with my laptop perched on a little make-shift desk. Here I would write and watch the various birds with the glorious mountain-scape all around me.

To my delight, one of my early visitors was a lone hummingbird (female, I figured, because of her dull coloring). She would briefly fly about the hanging basket of fuchsia, buzz around my head, then be off, followed by my promises of "one day" I'd hang out a bottle of nectar as well. (Hummingbirds are still rather new to me, so I've seen them as little magical, mysterious creatures.)

Finally one morning I "cooked up" some sugar water, filled the bottle, hung it on the outer edge of my porch, and called my little friend to breakfast. It didn't take her long to arrive to sample my "cooking." Then I heard a second unmistakable buzzing. Here came the ruby-throated, iridescent green-back male -- her mate? I was thrilled. But as soon as he arrived, he darted at my little friend, buzzing her away. He chased her in what seemed to me an attack, then began doing his masculine pendulum-swing aerial act!

"Be sweet, now," I said to my visitors, "and stop fussing!" After several days of that routine I announced to them that, although I loved them, they were "losing their mystery" for me with all of that noisy aggressive behavior.

The next day or so, I heard Marianne Williamson, a favorite author, give her "Miracle Thought for the Day" podcast on the subject of "intimacy."

(For a little background: I'm an "observer" of relationships. I haven't had a lot of experience, but I'm a keen witness on how creatures -- including men and women! -- interact. In my observations, I'm intrigued by a particular type of couple: they have been together for years and have stopped hearing each other; then it's like a tired gray fog of resentment hangs over them. He stopped listening long ago, and she talks even more.)

So Marianne's podcast on intimacy fascinated me. She talked about the upfront, "tell it like it is!" American culture that believes in saying whatever they're thinking -- even "in the name of intimacy." There is "value in discretion" she offered. "For women, particularly, it is important to retain our mystery."

Marianne asks the listener to consider that "in order to preserve intimacy -- you don't say everything you're thinking. I suggest to you," she continued, "that intimacy is not just where everything is spoken; intimacy is, more importantly, where everything can be heard. There are times that intimacy itself demands that we be very careful not only with what we say, but how we say it."

It's not about withholding or being dishonest, or "not being real, not being authentic," but it is about being real in the most loving, compassionate way. And coming from that space, you can trust your higher-self to say what is lovingly supportive.

There is nothing wrong with a bit of mystery. There are times, the author shared, "when mystery is a salve...when mystery is anything but a lie...it can be a higher kind of truth."

Marianne spoke about hearing a radio interview with a famous French couple while in France -- her travel mate interpreting for her. The woman was asked the secret of the couple's long successful marriage. "I never lost my mystery," the woman responded.

"When a woman retains her feminine," Marianne concluded, "truly stays within her feminine spirit, a man never grows bored. And a woman who talks too much, loses her mystery. Silence is part of our power; it is not a game, it is part of the dance. It's part of the feminine. We are powerful when we speak and we are powerful when we are silent."

I sign off on my newsletter articles with: "Love, listen, let go." Perhaps that's indeed the key to intimacy and relationship!