Who has the courage to reach love's peak? The easiest way is of course sex, but it is not the only way. And of course most sex doesn't reach love's peak. I am only talking to the women here from the distance of being a man. I will leave it to some woman to talk to the men. My mother was an award winning (in college) Dramatist, an English teacher, and in yet another career, a minister and then a teacher of ministers. She told me it takes a man to really get a woman, and vice versa, at least in writing, because there has to be distance and tension for this. She said the best men in literature were written by women, while the best women, by men.
Intimacy changes things. Love's peak cannot happen without intimacy and trust and faith because there is always a cliff and always jumping off the cliff. At the critical moment of decision no one can help. The best lovers learn to halt all encouragement just before. The leap must be freely taken, unhindered by promises and visions.
No Separation
In the deep of you
is a gate that love can reach
and reaching open.
I tell you surely
that you display the divine
the moment the gate
opens and the light
flames forth into the warm lamp
of your holy heart.
At love's peak I see
no separation between
the goddess and you.
March 3, 2009 12:45 PM
Contraction
1 week ago
Yes. I have been there before and it is the 'thing' I crave. Funnily enough, in my last relationship, in sobriety, I never could quite jump. I am examining intimacy now and I guess I find it to be a decision, just like you say here, but also I think there is a certain alchemy that takes place outside of all that, in which some things just bloody well happen and they can catch you by surprise and both delight and slaughter you, an
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's what you meant :)
(sheesh, the missing bit)...d you just follow that to where it takes you.
ReplyDeleteIt's the alchemy that makes the decision possible. Then it's the decision that makes the leap possible. Then it's the leap that makes the changing the world possible. Changing the world makes the next step possible, changes the alchemy and this cycle repeats as long as there is energy flowing.
ReplyDeleteWhen the energy falters, the decision remains and the changes are supported thereby until the energy returns, if it ever does. If the energy does not return the decision degrades without renewal in some way.
Love can still exist, without the alchemy, because the renewal sufficient for love's decision can come from relevant external factors which provide sufficient meaning, and from other sources of love, such as your children can provide, but this indirect situation can never be a peak experience in itself. The other loves certainly can be peak experiences, with alchemy of their own to spare.
See how complex the weave of love, and how essential there are many, why he or she who dies with the most love wins? Each love supports the others when they falter, starved of energy in the natural course of things. There is a synergy. The many form a whole that is more than the sum of the parts. The blowback is of course that if the tapestry falls out of favor for some reason the rich complexity can become very difficult.
That is why it is absolutely demanded that we become skillful weavers and skilled at accepting judgement of our limits. Then we have a fighting chance of not screwing this up. Even though it is easy to fall in love if the chemistry is right, it is also possible to decide to love, supported by the larger weave.
And more, of course, because the larger social fabric if it exists, like it does in some church groups and in AA (even sometimes in the workplace?) can support our individual efforts.
The absolute best source of support is mystical. Fortunately for us all, it is not required as an external experience because there is the divine spark within us that can serve, even without acknowledgement. We are better supported surrounded as well as from within and better supported from acknowledged support than from not.
f... i can't handle all this talk about...love. I always have such a great urge to leap, before...
ReplyDeleteAnyway thank you for writing this poem also for me. You do make me feel like a goddess.
Beautiful poem!
{{{Jozien}}}
ReplyDeleteI am sure I had you in mind when I wrote the poem :)
*eyes roll round in head* ....yes, I can see that . Guess I just do it without the analysing and miss it without knowing quite what 'it' is.....
ReplyDeleteIn reply to your comment on mine:
I agree, I have always been running from the sad. Anger has rarely been my issue. I am constantly bewildered and I do not WANT to 'get' most stuff that other people seem to just do or see as a matter of course. I choose ignorance in a lot of instances, though I prefer to call it innocence, and I believe this actually saved my life. Had I gone to the places some people I know went to there would be no way I could have survived it. Absolutely no way I could have lived with me.
This is hard enough.
If you ask Woody Allen, the only people who really reach love's peak, DIE...or at least experience la petite mort. Like you said in a previous post, when you "deliberately and deeply follow your heart" you go off balance, sometimes with societal rules. Your poem beautifull describes how one can become anchored and grounded by the depth of where that leap takes you.
ReplyDeleteMichelle, I believe I understand what you said about innocence/ignorance and preference. As for me, though I am capable of writing philosophicallly, at over 1000 poems in the last fifteen months, I guess I write more poetry than I do philosophy.
ReplyDeleteNo question you are one of the good ones. Sometimes I struggle with the obvious "other opinions" that many people in their lives seem to have of my friends. I often don't see the same things, or didn't until I went to AA.
I heard it said this way...I was the isolated black sheep until I found AA. There I found the rest of the herd.
I agree with you Kass, and with Woody in that I believe that Tantra is a Holy Path. Within that discipline there is the understanding that the orgasm is as well as all the rest it is a spiritual doorway. The power that fuels orgasm is sourced in the Kundalini serpent and can be ridden in a variety of ways. The most famous is to refrain from orgasm while using sex to increase it and redirect that power toward heaven (not the Hindu term). Then you ride it and rise.
ReplyDeleteIn the traditional Hindu view, women as childbearers are naturally much closer to heaven than men and need rigorous effort much less than men do. In the past this lead to certain surprising and (to many) distasteful practices.
This is why La Petit Mort and Death have so much in common, they are both direct doorways to God.
I don't practice Tantra, just think it presents a truth about this form of spiritual power.
oh lord,
ReplyDeletei'm falling.
i think, perhaps, there is much more to love's peak, in addition to intimacy, trust and faith, but also THROUGH literature, as well. Sex aside. Or maybe it is just me. But the mountain, the chasm, the leap, the fall is so much more paramount with that tension built. And there is no finer building tool then letters upon a page. Your mother was an extraordinary visionary woman. And you, an extraordinary man. We are lucky to have you here Christopher, sharing with us.
xo
erin
Thank you, Erin. You wouldn't think so of me looking in the door of my house. You would think another crusty old bachelor who doesn't know how to care for himself. I would crawl out of my nest, snarling at you for disturbing me...but then I might find out it was you and be embarassed instead. :)
ReplyDeleteOh.....you mean I'm not unique??
ReplyDelete*grin*
xxx
{{{Michelle}}}
ReplyDeleteNot unique, but fricken rare....
*grinning back*
*smooch*
the sexual aspect of tantra is but one of many. mostly there is the admonition, "say yes." yeah, to everything. find something in every damn situation to which to say YES. make the decision. take the leap.
ReplyDeletelet the heart lead. it's as smart as the brain. really.
Hello standing, your point is well taken and I know - I was only bringing out the part of Tantra most directly involved with this particular post and also most known in the west. I am happy you added your thought. I am as I said not a Tantric practitioner, but I am a devotee of passion, that is of the wisdom of the heart. It becomes a practice, Tantric or not, when passion is ridden like a horse rather than the other way around.
ReplyDeleteYou know what I can't help thinking about - one sided love. I can call it unrequited love but that totally melts away the passion and depth of love the one side has. Why is it that the peak cannot be reached without the other? Is a single person's love incomplete? Or may be, being able to truly love without believing that requiting it is what is needed to exalt it, might be the beginning of the single person journey to the peak.
ReplyDeleteMay be I have the answers to these never ending questions and may be I just want to shout "How unfair!" but that's just me. :)
Vinisha, a power issue is involved. The power of the erotic (meaning life force in this case) is not sufficient without amplification. That amplifying requires more than one of us most often. But this is an important moment. You asked a truly important question and I cannot do this justice without help. My first response is to make this question a post, and then to let it sink into the place in me that God may respond, place something in my life that steers me. I am pretty sure that something like synergy is involved.
ReplyDeleteI have posted on the question tonight.
The traditional Hindu path calls for individual passage, but also devotion to a guru. Hmmm.
I always have a tendency to lean on the power of human mind to overcome limitations. So somewhere, even my heart now thinks, I can amplify :)
ReplyDeleteI am not well versed with the Hindu path ways. A stranger once told me something that has lived with me till date and continues to influence my thoughts - "Religion is a path of life, a guide" and then I thought, do I need a formally written religion assigned to me by birth right to guide my way of life?
What I found was - I didn't agree entirely to one religion. Today, I borrow the teachings of many religions to decide my way of life, but I find the teachings of my soul to be pretty self sufficient.
Love without the other - in its fulfilled pure form is something I am yet to achieve and yet, I cannot get it out of my head.
To me, Vinisha, you are defining a path, a destiny. If something won't let you go then it is to be followed. This is what I call spiritual judo for lack of a better term. In certain forms of the martial arts, there is a dependency described and responded to. The form of the art is dependent on the style of the opponent. You are unwise to arbitrarily impose a style of action on an opponent. Instead you match the opponent with a response that amplifies the small imbalances you can find in the opponent.
ReplyDeleteIn a similar way, the spiritual path might best be a dialogue between you and your world, amplifying the invitations your world makes to your soul. Something like this can be called your spiritual destiny.
I have no problem with the idea that we cannot come to agreement, destiny to destiny, that I cannot find a solitary pathway and you can. Such things are defining for lifetimes I think. I think we are further called to tolerance and serenity across these lifetime destinies, and that this is something at which we humans are not so skilled. Religious intolerance is partly defined right here.