The Third Body

by Tom Balistrieri - Director of the Counseling and Student Development Center (CSDC)

The CSDC staff intends to periodically submit articles to Newspeak in an effort to convey important information to you. We hope you enjoy the articles and encourage you to come on down to the house on 157 West Street and spend some time with Bev, Susanna, Charlie, Sandy, Dan, Dawn, and me. We also would be willing to entertain any questions you might want answered, kind of a "Frasier" in newspaper form. Send your questions to the CSDC and we'll see if we can answer them for you in next week's newspaper. The article this week is about relationships. Hope you enjoy it.

Joseph Campbell defined relationship as within the context of love and defined love as pure kindness. Stop a moment and consider his words.........that when you are in a relationship your thoughts, words, and actions should be motivated by pure kindness.

The kindness begins within. We must learn to be kind to ourselves. To listen to ourselves and our needs. To forgive ourselves for not being perfect. To pat ourselves on the back when we do well. To eat healthy food, exercise, sleep, continue to learn, and not abuse our body and soul.

When we are able to be kind to ourselves living this kindness becomes a way of life. When motivated by kindness we are less apt to destroy our world and in fact create ways to make all things grow and prosper. A natural outcome of this self-directed kindness that naturally flows out into the world is our increased ability to attract the attention and affection of others. If we are lucky we will catch the attention and affection of that person who will share with us the experience of "finding the third body."

If two people understand and practice the kindness of which we speak, experience this mutual love, something truly wonderful manifests itself when the two are together. What appears is almost impossible to understand, to explain. What appears is a third body composed of the love, caring, understanding, listening, touch, and kindness of the two. The two feel it within themselves yet simultaneously feel it in the room and in the other. It is in the sparkle of the other's eyes, in the warmth of the room when they enter, in the thought they both have and then express at exactly the same time. The third body is especially present when the two are quiet, no words need to be said, yet the room is invariably filled with affection, love, and understanding. Maybe the third body is the combination of the spirit of the two. I don't know.

But what I do know is the third body does not appear or make itself known if people are unhappy, unkind, or abusive. Relationships are hard. Kindness to self or others is not always easy to come by. But you will find deep gratification in the effort spent attempting to find the third body. When the third body enters the room all is magic and the troubles of life briefly disappear.

Stop treating one another as bodies to be had, trophies to be won, items to be gawked at or chided. Relationship is not about hunting, laying, taking, screwing, or victory. Relationship is about pure kindness, intuition, communication, care, and compassion. It is about creating not destroying. Relationship is not only about two people....it is about creating the third body.

A man and a woman sit near each other, and they do
not long
at this moment to be older, or younger, nor born
in any other nation, or time, or place.
They are content to be where they are, talking or
not-talking.
Their breaths together feed someone whom we do
not know.
The man sees the way his fingers move;
he sees her hands close around a book she hands
to him.
They obey a third body that they share in common.
They have made a promise to love that body.
Age may come, parting may come, death will come.
A man and a woman sit near each other;
as they breathe they feed someone we do not know,
someone we know of, whom we have never seen.

-Robert Bly
Loving a Woman in Two Worlds

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