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Beloved Tag

Give Me Love

john_lennon_yoko_ono_rolling_stone_kiss_17pju56-17pju5cI chose a TV-free, news-less diet many years ago. I have no idea what’s trending, what’s new, who’s saying what on Facebook, because in the shrug of human evolution the fundamental challenges stay the same.

We still struggle to accept each other’s “otherness”. We still sink into the oblivion of psychological fusion with something or someone who mirrors our own version of our own story about the world. We are anesthetised by a monochromatic life where everything fits with our version of “reality” our belief in what is “right” and “wrong”.  We react to the bits that niggle and jar us out of our somnambulant complacency with outrage or distain. “Love for ourselves, despite our imperfections, can come alive only when we also risk loving others – accepting their imperfections. And then we understand how starkly our attitude to ourselves, and especially the presence or absence of a feeling of self-worth, is mirrored in the larger society we are collectively creating,” writes Stephanie Dowrick.

“Boundaries” like “Co-dependence” are words that have lost their conflagration. The Sun is now in the boundary-less sign of Pisces, where it meets a line-up of planets, transiting at this time through the silent darkness of the heavens. The Piscean quality of beatific new love feels, tastes and smells so sweet because we see reflected in the eyes of our Beloved, our own Divinity. We breathe in his essence through diaphanous hearts; we invite him in through our transparent minds. We rock him gently in the soft bosom of our in-breath and our out-breath. In his gaze, we greet ourselves.

Love, like Life, is a tight-rope walk that requires vigilance and balance. There is no “right way” or even a “wrong way” to place one foot in front of the other on this eventful journey, and we are all travellers on the same road.

A friend, recently returned from a month in Pune, in India, was shocked to discover that not all Indians are “spiritual”. And that in contrast to western individualism, the general view in that industrialised, polluted, over-populated part of our world does not embrace her values of sanctity of life, gentleness, cleanliness or even common courtesy.  In the hologram, we see what we want to see, until it morphs into shadow. Beneath the immaculate robes of the guru, behind the altar of the priest and within the troubled heart of a golden-haired celebrity or sportsman, we find our own self-doubt and hubris that haunts like a hungry ghost. And yet we are so often shocked and saddened, outraged or betrayed, when our idol or loved-one must inevitably topple and fall into the salty soup of humanity.

We live on a binary planet with an illusive Moon that appears to be much bigger than the Sun when she is in her ripe fullness.

It is within the dappled shallows of contrast that we experience our duality. It is within the interplay of intense passion and the insecurity of possessive love in adult relationships that we discover our suffering. It is within the net of psychological fusion that scoops us like flapping tadpoles, confused and dying, unable to breathe alone. It is down the dark depths of our own narcissism that we draw up muddied water to discover the Lotus Flower of our soul’s beauty.Photograph by Eiko Jones TADPOLES SWIMMING

“The cure for narcissism,” writes Thomas Moore “is to move from love of the self, which always has a hint of narcissism in it, to love of one’s deep soul.” It is in this place of quiet stillness that our differences become obsolete, that the chitter-chatter of our self-protective questions crackle underfoot, a carpet of russet autumn leaves in the sunlight. It is in this place of quiet stillness that we need no longer struggle or strive. It is in this place of quiet stillness that we discover Love is all there is.

Tadpoles Swimming – Eiko Jones

Ed Sheeran –  Give Me Love

 

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Nothing Compares

Nothing compares to the passion, pain, the alchemy of unrequited love. The obsessive love of an extraordinary relationship may quench our soul’s thirst for drama and intensity. It may be the conduit for the fantasy and the creative Muse that is lacking from the soft comfort of our daily lives. When soul meets soul across time and space, this is no aberration, no psychological projection, and no insane fantasy.

In the realm of the soul, falling in love with someone we see everyday at the office, connect with on Facebook, or meet by “chance” at the video store, is beyond the crassness of words, the literalism of psychology. It is a process of wonderous self-discovery. Each relationship that touches our soul leads us into dialogue with the Divine.  “The fiery moments of a passionate experience are moments of wholeness and totality,” Anais Nin says. We may smugly moralise about obsessive attractions, narcissistic impulses, selfish behaviour, or in psychological parlance, talk about “withdrawing projections,” as we find the qualities that draw us to adore the Beloved, are of course, within ourselves. All very white picket fence, manicured lawn.  Pleasantville.  Nothing compares to the white hot passion of erotic obsession. Nothing compares to the Phoenix Love that leads us into a deeper, more soulful life. What we feel in our hearts, in our bodies, cannot be captured by cliches, emblamed with words.

Erotic love is not to be demeaned as merely a projection for our unlived life, but  celebrated as  an Angel of Awakening to the Countenance of our boundless Imagination. Our soul hungers for the Beloved, and our imagination lures us into the fathomless ocean of desire embodied in the flesh.  The symbolism of astrological transits from the outer planets to personal ones often suggest that passionate obsessions are not aberrations to be caged or cauterised. They are the wings that carry us to a life of more connection, to an acceptance of Who we are. W.H Auden writes powerfully of the crooked heart in each one of us that we must confront when the firebird of passionate love blazes through the dark depths of our psyche: “O stand, stand at the window as the tears scald and start; you shall love your crooked neighbour with your crooked heart.”

Many of us are now experiencing a sense of living on the edge of a world on the brink of great change.  Like two tectonic plates, Pluto in earthy Capricorn squares off against Uranus in fiery Aries, a crucible of heated, irrevocable change in our lives, in society, in the way we embrace the urge towards authenticity.  The emergence of the new always coincides with the breakdown of the old, so be awake to the whispers, the coincidences, the power of attraction, the wild song of Passion in whatever form it appears in your life these coming months.

I watched The Bridges of Madison County (again) and cried (again) for Francesca and Robert, these middle-aged soul mates. I cried for the choice Francesca made to shackle her desire for Robert Kincaid to duty and responsibility. Throughout history, men and women have made heart-wrenching choices to honour duty above the authentic call of their soul. So many of us have been raised in family awash with the tears of unspoken secrets. Lovers kept hidden, passion doused by fear, authenticity shamed into submission. Says John O’Donahue, “your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself.”

As Neptune swims into the deep waters of Pisces in February 2012, will we be willing to be still and listen to the passionate pieces of ourselves that call to us through music, poetry, the whisper of the wind? As we loosen the bonds of reason, will our souls ignite with delight in our Beloved who may be Clark Kent, Superman or Superwoman? Our  liquid light diamon that urges us to open our hearts, and sing our song.

What is your Passion, what calls you today to celebrate the Authentic You? “Passion is part of Real Life’s package – we were created by Love, for love, to love. If we’re unsure of our passions we must continue excavating until we rediscover them, for it we don’t give outward expression to our passions in little ways every day, we will eventually experience self-immolation – the spontaneous combustion of our souls,” says Sarah Ban Beathnach.

 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2cdyy_sinead-o-connor-nothing-compares-2_music   Sinead O’ Connor

 

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