I will never take love lightly. I never have. However, when I was younger I was unable to match my true devotion and the possible. I wound up married, in a relationship I settled for after becoming convinced of two things. First I was convinced that I only really fell for people either not healthy at all or at least unhealthy for me. Secondly, I was convinced that God had presented me with a real alternative and said, “Go here.” I did not say such a thing to Annie, and rightly, because this was a private thing between me and God. However, I was gambling on the same sort of long term thing that is part of arranged marriages. That would be where the people in favor of the marriage will tell the reluctant partner(s) that they will grow into true love. That actually happened in the practical ways.
I am in love with romantic love. I love it when I can sense the Goddess behind the woman. I am not sure that works for marriage, not over the long haul, but there is no better way to transform the world for a time from the mundane to a world filled with sacred possibility. It is a source of genuine power as well. There is even a Path called Tantra which harnesses the power of Eros quite specifically. I have not entered that path, though I came close one time. I am not afraid of that possibility. I have experienced both the long haul and the fire. I know the fire can last at least two years. I have been there twice in my life. When the fire is in my life so is heightened psychic power. My poetry in its present form is a direct gift of the fire that burned in my soul from 1998-2001.
The Pearls
I heard you say love.
When my heart changed in the force
of love I left home
on a sea journey
to the outer banks of life
in a small wild boat,
in faith I will find
you when I get back with pearls
I string on the way.
May 16, 2009 10:05 PM
Contraction
1 week ago
Ooooh. I like that!
ReplyDeleteI agree :)
xxx
Here are pearls then, just for you.
ReplyDelete:D
I love the last lines. Beautiful imagery of the gift of love.
ReplyDeletei love you too :)
ReplyDelete"I am not sure that works for marriage, not over the long haul, but there is no better way to transform the world for a time from the mundane to a world filled with sacred possibility." I am intrigued, but I am equally saddened about the fire, and the fact that there is no alternate term for endurance other than "long-haul".
ReplyDeleteKaren, thank you.
ReplyDeleteJozien, I know you do. :)
Annie, I am not sure what exactly saddens you, that I am perhaps stuck in my verbiage? or that the truth seems to be what it is.
I would add a caveat. I don't know that my experience works as a universal, even though I think I am expressing it right for me.
My marriage was over twenty years and the life we lived was pleasant and useful and filled with love in its way, but it also had active alcoholism in it, first mine, then her severe medical trouble that erupted in her alcoholism. So there was always something basic that was chronic and very difficult.
In my first big heart thing I left it when I finally acknowledged at the heart level the shortcomings I knew were there in my head. That was just over two years.
In the second big heart thing she left me due to overwhelming personal life demands that made it impossible for her to continue with me. I knew that situation was coming at the very start but chose to work against the inevitability. That too lasted a little over two years. I choose not to get too specific about the details. It is too big a story.
So my observations are really specific to a certain history. I have no idea if there are other ways this thing works out. I do have a strong opinion that high energy flow requires a special containment. Burn out is real. I believe there are disciplines of love (like Tantra) that may be required or else damping the flame is the only other choice.
I really don't know, and find that I don't mind that I don't know, if the preamble is universally true or what. For once I think the poem stands well enough on its own. It's gorgeous, I love that 'small wild boat', and its conjunction with 'faith', makes me think of the old saints in their coracles...
ReplyDeleteThank you, Lucy. I think most of my poems stand well enough on their own. I like the challenge of writing some new stuff to go with them but that's just because I like to write. Perhaps I should let the poems be by themselves. Nah. :)
ReplyDelete