Monday, October 15, 2007
Alchemy of Eros
Paraphrasing LIrigaray
There is Nothing going on between us. There is Nothing between us. True.
Nothing is the space in-between, the space that lovers can't enter without betraying the sacred contract of Two-ness, that if entered would prevent them from returning to themselves as I and You.
Nothing as the space of unknowing. Of radical otherness. The I is respectful and faithful to this unknowing. You who I will never know in the absolute and will never be mine. You who is different. Male and female -- this sexual difference, according to Irigaray, is what must not be surrendered in the name of love. It is what protects subjectivity while it connects through the space of Nothingness.
This space of Nothing, therefore, is Everything. The space of Becoming and Being. Out of respect, faithfulness, and loyalty to this space, the energy that would otherwise go into possession, completion, enfoldment, fusion -- is freed up to become Energy for the creation of community, of a civil life, of History.
This space is celestial/divine/sacred because it originally arose from an attraction between man and woman. The moment when the heart linked the Sky and Earth. So that the celestial is not only above but between. This between must be safeguarded and cultivated to preserve the mystery of each other. This is a call to a poetic way of dwelling. The beloved is sheltered in the silence of the heart, in the mystery of thinking, in the restraint of the gesture, its inward gathering, in a fullness that escapes the control of the will.
To the call of each other's name, they will respond from the dwelling and gathering place, rather than to the availability of the gaze or the hand.
Paraphrasing LIrigaray
There is Nothing going on between us. There is Nothing between us. True.
Nothing is the space in-between, the space that lovers can't enter without betraying the sacred contract of Two-ness, that if entered would prevent them from returning to themselves as I and You.
Nothing as the space of unknowing. Of radical otherness. The I is respectful and faithful to this unknowing. You who I will never know in the absolute and will never be mine. You who is different. Male and female -- this sexual difference, according to Irigaray, is what must not be surrendered in the name of love. It is what protects subjectivity while it connects through the space of Nothingness.
This space of Nothing, therefore, is Everything. The space of Becoming and Being. Out of respect, faithfulness, and loyalty to this space, the energy that would otherwise go into possession, completion, enfoldment, fusion -- is freed up to become Energy for the creation of community, of a civil life, of History.
This space is celestial/divine/sacred because it originally arose from an attraction between man and woman. The moment when the heart linked the Sky and Earth. So that the celestial is not only above but between. This between must be safeguarded and cultivated to preserve the mystery of each other. This is a call to a poetic way of dwelling. The beloved is sheltered in the silence of the heart, in the mystery of thinking, in the restraint of the gesture, its inward gathering, in a fullness that escapes the control of the will.
To the call of each other's name, they will respond from the dwelling and gathering place, rather than to the availability of the gaze or the hand.
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