On Love (and I mean the mushy stuff)
Love is a goal and desire for many people. We fall in love with love, with the idea of finding a perfect person to fill the holes in our lives. It's the focus of much of our artwork, our efforts, our stories. We can't conceive of a world that doesn't involve the romantic love story.
But what is the truth behind the story? How do we balance the story of a perfect love with the reality of our lives, with an appreciation of the sacredness of the one we love?
The story involves two people becoming one whole, never complete again without the other person. In reality, though, this is a terrifying thought. Finding happiness with someone is desirable, but losing your identity to get there isn't.
Love needs to be seen as two people coming together and finding strength and joy in that companionship. No identity loss, no one person being absorbed by the other. Love is people choosing to walk together, finding strength and comfort in that companionship. As soon as it stops being separate people, though, and becomes me-and-shadow, it's not love. It's using a person. When the identity of the other person becomes irrelevant, and all that matters is that someone is there, you're not in love with the person. You're in love with love.
Romance is a wonderful thing. Being in love can be life changing. I have a husband I adore and would give up for nothing. But love in and of itself is not enough. There needs to be respect of the other person as individual, with his own needs and desires. Each person needs their own space at times, as well as time together. If we lose our identity in love, we become inherently unlovable, because there's nothing there to be loved.
In no other aspect in life are we as likely to try to change ourselves and other people than we are for romantic love. People give up their hobbies, their jobs, pieces of themselves, all for the hopes of a perfect love that will rescue them from their lives. But there is no rescue. If we take an offer that involves sacrificing ourselves for love, what we get is neither ourselves nor love, but instead a prison of our own choosing.
We need to find ourselves before we can find a partner. Or all we are is sacrificing ourselves and ignoring our Flame.
Questions:
How does being Divine relate to your love life? How does your partner being Divine relate? Which is harder to deal with?
What happens when you don't see both yourself and your partner as Divine?
If you had to choose between being whole yourself, or being in love, which would you choose? Why?
But what is the truth behind the story? How do we balance the story of a perfect love with the reality of our lives, with an appreciation of the sacredness of the one we love?
The story involves two people becoming one whole, never complete again without the other person. In reality, though, this is a terrifying thought. Finding happiness with someone is desirable, but losing your identity to get there isn't.
Love needs to be seen as two people coming together and finding strength and joy in that companionship. No identity loss, no one person being absorbed by the other. Love is people choosing to walk together, finding strength and comfort in that companionship. As soon as it stops being separate people, though, and becomes me-and-shadow, it's not love. It's using a person. When the identity of the other person becomes irrelevant, and all that matters is that someone is there, you're not in love with the person. You're in love with love.
Romance is a wonderful thing. Being in love can be life changing. I have a husband I adore and would give up for nothing. But love in and of itself is not enough. There needs to be respect of the other person as individual, with his own needs and desires. Each person needs their own space at times, as well as time together. If we lose our identity in love, we become inherently unlovable, because there's nothing there to be loved.
In no other aspect in life are we as likely to try to change ourselves and other people than we are for romantic love. People give up their hobbies, their jobs, pieces of themselves, all for the hopes of a perfect love that will rescue them from their lives. But there is no rescue. If we take an offer that involves sacrificing ourselves for love, what we get is neither ourselves nor love, but instead a prison of our own choosing.
We need to find ourselves before we can find a partner. Or all we are is sacrificing ourselves and ignoring our Flame.
Questions:
How does being Divine relate to your love life? How does your partner being Divine relate? Which is harder to deal with?
What happens when you don't see both yourself and your partner as Divine?
If you had to choose between being whole yourself, or being in love, which would you choose? Why?
posted by Vieva @ 11:40 AM
2 Comments:
At 8:46 PM,
Anonymous said…
A little bit after I got married, we got a letter or parcel or something addressed to Mr. and Mrs. [forename] [lastname], where the names in question were all my husband's. This got the snarky comment from a friend of, "I love it how married women become subsets of their husbands."
At this point, my current feeling about relationships is that an ideal-universe relationship is one in which the stuff that I naturally offer to a partner as a result of being in a relationship with them is the stuff they need and want out of the relationship, and vice versa. (The difference between that and reality is what I call "work". ;) )
I'd like to question the question about choosing between wholeness and love; I would submit that love is, in an ideal case, a manifestation of wholeness. The best loves are the ones that promote and support that state.
At 2:15 PM,
Anonymous said…
Odd to find this here today, just had this talk in very abbreviated form with my Minotaur husband, last night. What brought it to mind, mushily enough, was hearing "Unchained Melody" on the radio yesterday... and the words about "hunger for your touch" stuck in my head like bubblegum in a four year old's hair.
+++How does being Divine relate to your love life?+++
I believe we need to show that 'divine' to each other, some folks don't "know" love at all for various reasons. We cannot necessarily reveal love to the entire planet---but we can to that one "other" we become god or goddess for.
+++ How does your partner being Divine relate? Which is harder to deal with?+++
I am stupid. My God felt sorry for me and gave me a dream to reveal my poor beleaguered mate as his own "Proxy" for the Sacred Marriage. It became very easy indeed at that point.
+++What happens when you don't see both yourself and your partner as Divine?+++
I turn into a shadowy evil tempered bitch and try to castrate him with every world. Its not pretty.
+++If you had to choose between being whole yourself, or being in love, which would you choose? Why?+++
I'd choose being in love, as I am. I have been "whole" in the sense of being "wholly me" and not half of "us" and it was a stultifying experience. An experience of ugly hubris, of being less human, of being less sympathetic, less understanding, less reaching, less achieving. It was being inhuman and mechanical. Yes, sometimes I do want to brain the man, but as I found in years as a military spouse---seeing him leave, not knowing if he would ever return, no matter how angered I may be; I am undone with the concept of hungering for his touch and never being replete with it again. I will work and struggle and love. Love is the humbler that makes us capable of transcending human failings without becoming hubristic donkeys in the process.
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