If we do this, you could imprison me.
That’s true, I could try to do that.
And if you did that, I would fly away.
That, my dear, I would only assume.
If we do this, what will be in it for me?
The end to such questions,
you whispered in my ear,
Forever and ever and ever. . . .
I ONCE ASKED an engaged couple why they were getting married, and the woman responded to me, “Because I want to give the relationship the honor it deserves.” I thought that was a beautiful response. There is something about a public declaration of something that gives it deeper roots in the world around it, a gravitas it would not otherwise have. Whether or not the couple always chooses to rise to the occasion, themselves honoring the marriage through their own emotional discipline and efforts, is another story. But the environment has been created. It’s easier to exercise in a room where there is gym equipment than in one where there is not.
So many energies burst forth when we love, and most of us ask ourselves at one point or another, “How far should I go? How safe is it to surrender? How deeply can I fall?” Marriage is so powerful because the response to the question becomes “All the way.” There are no guarantees what will happen when you jump off an emotional cliff. You might crash on the rocks or you might develop wings. But you will never really know which one it is, until you jump.
Energy can achieve its highest manifestation only in an environment where it is allowed, totally and completely, to be what it is. That is what marriage, or any deeply committed love relationship, is at its best. It is an emotional context in which people are given complete permission to surrender. One person’s freedom to be who they are then becomes another person’s lesson in learning how not to judge them for it. If I totally allow you the space to become the person you are capable of becoming, then the person that you might have been, that you no longer wish to be, that has to be detoxed before you can transform to your next higher level, is bound to show his or her face at times. Am I, as your partner, strong enough to stay the course and understand what’s happening here, to work my own spiritual practice of nonjudgment and acceptance, not to freak out at the realization that I am stuck in a fairly small room with someone I would sometimes rather not even be in the house with?
A ring of fear surrounds love, like rings surround Saturn. But those rings are not solid, they are gaseous, and the forgiving heart flies through them as easily as an airplane flies through clouds. Once they’re forgiven, they disappear. And thus the tests of love.
PEOPLE ARE struggling today for a way to live fully and freely, unbound by conventions that no longer serve, yet within the eternal archetypes that delineate real and lasting patterns of existence. There are clearly no easy answers, but the fact that the culture is so teeming with questions is itself a very good sign. Men and women are getting to know each other at levels deeper than we knew possible, as we have begun the search for our authentic natures and, through them, the most authentic relationships. Real love and passion are indeed authentic.
Marriage, too often, is not.
Marriage is among other things very convenient, and convenience can be a very good thing. But too much convenience, too much definition, too much routine, can be the death of love. Too many marriages squeeze the love affair out of the house, and that is one of the reasons we see so many people fleeing that house as though they’re running for their lives. Bills, plans, futures, money, decisions, and petty arguments are too often allowed to block the romantic view of things. Why struggle to see the depths of a person when only his or her shallow self is expected home for dinner? Enchantment begins to disappear, when life on the edge gives way to life in an eternally boring center.
The challenge for married people, then, is to not let the practicalities of life overwhelm the romance of their relationship. It takes conscious effort to protect the temple space of an enchanted love. No matter how great the marriage, no matter how much people love their spouses, there is often a sense coming from married people that an essential element of freedom is missing from their lives. Equivalent to that, of course, is a sense coming from most single people after a certain age, that an essential element of stability is missing from theirs.
Marrieds and singles are constantly sending telepathic communications to each other. There is a constant conversation everyone knows is there, but which few dare to verbalize. First, there is the silent dialogue between married and unmarried women. It is a constant unspoken discussion in which each are always saying to the other, “God, I pity you,” and, “God, I envy you.”
Unmarried women pity married women because they seem to be tied to routine, and envy them because one of the routines they can count on is his always coming home. Married women pity unmarried women because they are alone, and envy them because they seem to have opportunities for romance and adventure that married women often lack. Both women hold the key to some essential aspect of a woman’s self, and it is reasonable that we all want excitement and stability both. We want inner as well as outer sustenance. Most modern relationships offer one or the other, and that is where a change is coming. We want relationships that serve the entire self.
I have seen marriages that did not seem smothered by routine. Often, however, I see an invisible prison wall around married couples, with a concomitant deadening of the eyes, resignation in the gait, and quiet though often unowned desperation. Marriage doesn’t have to be a prison, of course; ultimately, it is whatever two people make of it. But I can see how much our society has invested itself in the prison model of married bliss, which is basically a model of married guilt. You will be home tonight, you will park your body here and here only, you will pour all your affection on me, you will deny yourself experiences that take you on a journey outside the box we live in, and you will pretend that this is what you really want. Most significantly, you will feel guilty if you find yourself feeling otherwise. And you will agree that I have every right to be outraged, if I find you not toeing the line.
I don’t know why we’re all pretending anymore; the old model of marriage is clearly not working, as evidenced by our divorce statistics. The soul is expanding to a new sense of itself, and there is no growth without freedom. We bandy the word commitment around as though it was uttered by God, which it was not. And if it had been, what would He have been asking us to commit to? Only to each other’s bodies? I think not. I think we’re being asked on this earth to commit to the revelation of Truth as it flows through our life experience. This is hardly an excuse to self-indulge or a license to do whatever feels good. Quite to the contrary, I think we should commit to the highest level of right living that we’re capable of. I think we should live for others as well as ourselves. I think we should commit to the highest level of integrity we can muster. I think we should commit to taking responsibility for our own actions. I think we should commit to the effort to hear the voice for God within us, and follow its instructions to the best of our ability. And I think we should commit to the truth of a relationship as it arises organically from the relationship itself.
One of the reasons affairs are often easier than marriage is because society doesn’t bother to express an opinion about what an affair should look like. On the subject of marriage, society has practically written a guidebook, an accepted set of rules basically circa 1956, which amounts to an industrial system’s pronouncement not on what is good for our souls, or even our families, so much as what is good for a particular economic order. That guidebook has done as much to destroy as to build good relationships. Married people, it seems to me, should try forgetting what marriage is “supposed” to look like.
I trust freedom more than I trust rules. I think forbidden fruit is too appealing. I think the heart, when left to its own devices and honored for its own true yearnings, is good and responsible and caring of others. And I think telling other people what to do is deadly.
Married people can do the work to keep enchantment and romance alive in their marriage. But a woman who is merely living with a man can’t make the man her husband, because he isn’t. Something changes when people get married, there is certainly no doubt about that. The stakes are infinitely higher and not just for obvious reasons. A psychic shift occurs when we go through the door marked “Married”; in this extraordinarily deep rite of passage, the subtle mind is instructed to expand itself into the mind and heart of another. On an etheric level, two literally become one. On the level of our subtle bodies—made up of energy we are just beginning to scientifically understand—we can connect to another person the way an arm connects to the torso. Trying to pull an arm out of its socket would feel extraordinarily painful. Divorce can feel that bad emotionally, as any serious break-up can. But marriage is a different order of reality, a more intense connection regardless of how much love was actually shared there. For as long as people are married, there is a powerful connection through which spiritual waters flow back and forth between them, willed or not willed, conscious or unconscious. They have entered a holy room together, whether they treat it that way or not.
Whether married or unmarried, the key to enchanted possibilities in intimacy is the element of God’s love, the choice to invite a mystical Third to live with us and breathe in us. He will, if we invite Him to, consent to sit at our table and lie in our bed. There is a holy ghost.
The magic of love can be so hard to hold onto while we are living in this world. The veils of limitation and despair that wrap themselves around our brains each day, the obstructions to joy that are the rule and not the exception to the emotional tenor of our times, the disappointments and fears that press down on our hearts from every angle of our lives, make breaking through to a more miraculous state seem like little more than a childhood fantasy.
Yet spiritual practice makes it possible. God is always available to deliver us to the world beyond the veil. When we pray in the morning, seek prayer and meditation throughout the day, and close our eyes at night with a nod in His direction, then rays of light break through the clouds and illumine our inner skies.
What we want for our lives, and also our relationships, is to feel we are being used for something higher than our own purposes. Dear God, please use this relationship. Dear God, please use this marriage. Dear God, may innocence come forth here. Dear God, may both our souls grow stronger here. Dear God, may forgiveness be in charge here. Dear God, may we be Your servants and Your instruments, that together we might know joy.
AND THE YEARS go by. Middle age is the age of regrets. Turning forty is hard. You are forced to take stock of your life, whether you are in the mood to do so or not.
Yet at the same time, middle age is the after party, even better than the earlier one. There is so much power that comes from attuning one’s mind to what needs to be done in order to go forward. Regrets—and I know few people that are truly honest with themselves who past a certain age would say that they have none—humble us. They take us to our knees, and if we are wise, we say, “God, you and I both know that I did or did not do something I regret. Please help me atone, and help me go forward from a higher place than before.” Some people regret leaving marriages that they wish now that they had never left. Others regret not going after relationships that they wish now they had pursued. Some people mourn unborn children. Some grieve various other roads taken, or not taken, that haunt them now. There is something about age that makes the seriousness of life quite obvious.
And yet people age the way wine does, when our understanding of ourselves and others is allowed to deepen and express itself fully. People we have known over the years have a value in our lives that is different than that of people we have only known a short time. There is something about two people having moved through the stages of life together, that spiritually fertilizes the garden they share. There is an ineffable depth to having walked the walk with someone, from that land called “who we used to be” to who we are today.
Your hair is grayer than it used to be,
your belly softer.
I actually like this better—
You were so intimidating when you looked like God.
I couldn’t see your light
through all the gold that was surrounding it.
I tripped in fear
Your issues are more interesting now,
more layered and richer
In meaning and scope.
I’ve settled into you
Like into a comfortable chair.
Welcome to the world of the normal.
Isn’t it wonderful here?
Americans and Europeans tend to take different looks at sexual fidelity, American culture more at the effect of our founding Puritans than we seem to realize. As long as Americans hang on to the notion that monogamy is the only context for a righteous romantic love, then we will be stymied in our efforts to expand to new horizons in intimacy.
I believe that God is freedom, and I believe that only in freedom is the heart honed. People don’t change because there is a law, or a rule, that tells them to; we change because an experience, or wisdom, impels us to. There is a difference between sacrifice and renunciation. Sacrifice means I give something up. Renunciation means I choose willingly to let go something lower in order to achieve something higher.
A rule against something, as often as not, simply makes us want to do it more. Monogamy has a deep and significant meaning if it results from a heartfelt desire to keep an agreement with someone we love. If the agreement stems from the belief on the part of a couple that the containment of their sexual energy to their own bond best serves their mutual growth and the growth of their relationship, then it is a holy agreement indeed. A friend of mine told me that monogamy with his wife feels like a secret password that the two of them share, to a room that only they can enter.
But if, for whatever reason, a couple chooses to hold on to certain material, emotional, or even spiritual aspects of their marriage, while perhaps letting go a monogamous agreement, then it is time for us to grow past our knee-jerk projection onto that couple that their marriage is just a sham. In fact, a marriage where two people always drag their bodies back to each other’s bed, but share no significant intellectual, emotional, or spiritual connection—that marriage is the sham.
Monogamy in many cases has become less a soulful container for the power of sex than simply a badge of ownership. In those cases, sex can easily become more attractive with those who do not lay such claim on us. A rigid insistence on monogamy can actually do more to destroy than to build the connection between two people.
It’s often not what we do, but the internal impetus for what we do, that establishes its significance. Agreements matter. They matter deeply. And monogamy, if from the heart, is an agreement to enter into deep communion with another human being. It can be a meaningful and very sexy gift we give to someone we love, and that we cherish as a gift from them. But to throw it around self-righteously—just one of society’s leftover, no longer well-thought-out rules of behavior for a population invested in its limits to how much we will allow ourselves to love—is ridiculous and no longer worthy of who we are.
WHAT IS our deepest attraction to monogamy? Our deepest attraction is not ownership but safety. While the mortal mind sees monogamy as a feast for guilt, the divine mind sees it as a feast for love. At the level of our souls, we do not want monogamy in order to imprison each other, but to free each other—to create a context where the deepest level of safety might occur, that the deepest level of relaxation might occur, that the deepest level of growth might occur.
Some planes are simply two seaters; it’s just the way they’re made. There is no room in the plane for more than two people, and trying to crowd in an extra passenger could seriously endanger the flight.
If I really allow myself to love you, then a hint of madness will come over me. You have two choices. I can be totally cool all the time, or I can fall deeply, madly in love with you. Don’t ask me for both. If you don’t want to provide a context where I feel safe, then great, I’ll stay cool. But you will probably miss the magic, which inevitably comes with risk. Only little boys say, “Show me the magic, but stay cool all the time too, will you?”
I don’t mean pathological madness. That, I am absolutely responsible for. I understand that and I do the work. I am not Glenn Close and you are not Michael Douglas. No, I mean divine and righteous madness. I mean the healing crises induced by deep love, I mean the detoxing of the last few thousand years of dark and limited thought forms. I mean the monsters who are summoned out of their lair when the light of this love shines forth.
And that is why monogamy helps. It’s enough to deal with all these monsters coming up, without also having to worry about whether Cheryl or Sue is more attractive to you this week than I am. If you want me to really relax, and you want me to really let go and go wild, then remove those childish issues, will you?
Thank you. And I will do the same for you . . .
I didn’t even take his number.
Time can be such a threat to love. We begin to feel trapped by the illusions of the world, our limited circumstances, our withering dreams. Something about failure in any area casts a pall over every area, because it tempts us to constrict our hearts. It is painful to hope when we lack faith in ourselves. And if I look bad to myself, you start to look bad to me, too.
The beloved doesn’t seem strong tonight, but weak and afraid and not the savior we had hoped for. He or she seems to have given up, and this brings up terror in both of us. We are no longer amazed; we are no longer turned on; we are no longer impressed; we feel trapped and sapped. Stress and strain and weariness and sorrow now hide from view the gossamer spring of earlier, more enchanting days. Our love was once a pastel veneer over every sky, whether blue or not, but those days are no longer with us.
We need a miracle to restore our love when guilt and sorrow have strained it. We had made of our relationship an idol, perhaps, and forgotten that only God is God. Now, as we turn back to Him, and restore our bond to the source of All, then our bond to each other is miraculously healed. We can forgive ourselves for being human, once we remember the One who is perfect, and remember that He lives in us. People falter. God does not. Accepting that is key, to both acceptance of ourselves and our acceptance of each other.
God is in love with the essence of who we are. If only we could match His mercy. . . .
He got dressed this morning and left the bedroom floor a total mess.
There are bagel crumbs all over the counter in the kitchen, and jelly on the refrigerator door.
That is not your beloved.
I am not his slave and I am tired of taking his shirts to the dry cleaners. He can take his shirts himself.
That is not your beloved.
I deserve much more than what this man is giving me.
That is not your beloved.
THEN WHO IS MY BELOVED!?
Come with me, and see . . .
The only way we can see each other truly is if we see through the eyes of God.
Prayer and meditation are the fuel for the missile that takes us to enchanted realms. We spend an average of sixteen hours a day with our minds bombarded by the thinking of the world, and the thinking of the world does not glorify spirit. It glorifies personality, and in that dimension we inevitably fall short of the magnificence of enchantment. We have issues, we have weaknesses, we make mistakes, we fall short, we give up, we get caught, we fall down, we are human. And all of these make us, to the ego self, less ideal, less wonderful, less attractive.
What a trap this is for the loving heart. If love is diminished by our humanness, then what chance do we have?
The love of God is the glue that holds our hearts together when the world would pry them apart. Praying and meditating is a retreat to an enchanted castle, where we go to say, “Time out from the world. I want to know the essential truth, the most perfect truth. I want that truth to come into me, to reveal itself to me, that I might know my love. I will stay here in this miraculous silence, and commune with my Father/Mother God. The Lord will heal me of my vicious thoughts, and give me new eyes with which to see. I will remain here in His arms for as long as it takes to repair my hurting soul. And then I will return to the world, but I will not be the same. I will have remembered who I am, and I will have remembered my precious love. I will have returned to the place of our knowing. I will have seen who he really is. I will have sought salvation in the only place where I know that I can find it. Take me back to you, dear God. Take me back to love. Amen.”