Love is really important for our souls to connect with life. When we're kids, the first thing we do is attach to someone or something, like our parents or a favorite toy. As we get older, we start to love more things and people, like our home, friends, and activities.
Goal: Bliss, oneness, unity
Fear: Loss of love, disconnection
Response to Dragon/Problem: Love it
Task: Follow your bliss, commit to what you love
Gift: Commitment, passion, ecstasy
If we don't learn to connect with others, it can lead to big problems like autism or being too self-centered. It can also make it hard for people to stick to their promises to themselves, their loved ones, their jobs, or their beliefs.
Eros is like the guardian of our connections and attachments. These connections are very basic and physical. For example, a baby connects with its mother through nursing, which feeds the baby and makes it feel better. When people grow up, they might have a similar kind of close connection with a partner, where they feel very close, vulnerable, and trusting.
We feel Eros when we really love something, like a beautiful place, our job, a hobby, or a belief. It's when we care so much about something that losing it would hurt a lot. Without this kind of love, we might be alive, but we're not really living fully. It's passion and desire that make us feel truly alive.
When we make choices based on love, it's like our whole body is involved. We might feel drawn to one person but not to another. When we think about doing something we love, we feel excited and full of energy. If we think about something we don't like, we feel tired and heavy. If our mind and body don't agree, life can feel like a fight. But if they do agree, making choices is easy, and life feels smooth.
The Rule of Eros
When we're kids, we love things without thinking too much. We just love our parents, even if they're not the best, because they're our parents. We take in what they think about us without questioning it, and sometimes we need help later to figure out who we really are. Our parents also teach us to control our feelings, and we do it because we love them and want to make them happy.
When we grow up, we have to decide things like who to marry, what job to have, what hobbies to enjoy, where to live, and what beliefs to follow. We can make these choices just with our heads, thinking about what's smart and safe. But that often means ignoring what we really love.
Eros is about our deepest feelings, not just our practical side. Our society often discourages following our passions, but sometimes we do it anyway. It might feel like we don't have a choice, like when we fall in love with someone unexpected or choose a job that doesn't pay well but makes us happy. We know it's our true calling when it goes against what seems smart or safe.
The Left-Hand Path
Joseph Campbell talked about two ways to live. One is the safe and practical way, which is like using your head. But he said you might end up successful but in the wrong place, like climbing a ladder that's leaning on the wrong wall.
The other way is riskier—it's following what you love, even if it's not practical. People might not get it, and you don't know where you'll end up, but it's worth it because the journey is rewarding.
Love doesn't always make sense. In old stories, it was like a curse to fall in love with the wrong person. We notice love the most when we fall for someone who doesn't seem right for us, like someone who's not handsome or rich. When we can't help it, we realize we're not as in control as we thought.
Love is the strong feeling we get when our deepest self and our body agree.
Sometimes, great love stories are about loving someone you're not supposed to, like in old tales where knights loved married women. This love was so strong that the knight might die if the lady didn't love him back. It wasn't just about sex; it was deeper because it involved both the heart and the body.
Many famous love stories are sad because people didn't approve of the lovers, like Romeo and Juliet. These stories often end with the lovers dying. A book called Love in the Western World says that these stories are like old religions that talked about gods dying and coming back to life.
In the past, people thought of sex as a 'little death' because it means letting go of control, which can be scary. When we love someone or something deeply, we give up some freedom, and that can make us feel out of control, which scares some people.
When we're really in love, we don't have as much control over ourselves.
But we shouldn't ignore our practical side. Sometimes we panic because we're not used to feeling so strongly. An expert named Shirley Luthman says this happens when our mind isn't strong enough to handle the feelings. People in love might pull away because they're afraid of losing themselves. To handle strong feelings, we need a strong sense of who we are. That's why couples should spend time together and be friends, not just lovers, so their relationship can handle the strong emotions.
Love feeds our souls, and our souls help us develop our practical side. Without love, our practical side weakens. When we feel deeply, we care about others, like homeless people or starving children, and we want to help. We also care about our own need for love and connection.
Sometimes, when we can't help, love makes us feel helpless, like a kind of death. But if we can help, love gives us the strength to act, maybe with courage or care. Love can lead to more life, not just death. Not all love stories are sad; some end happily with marriage, like in Shakespeare's plays or Jane Austen's books. Marriage shows that we can mix love with being practical and fitting into society. Love can make us want to live more fully, but sometimes we have to let go of old ways to do that.
In many love stories, two people love each other but face problems, like thinking they're related or their families fighting. Today, problems might be misunderstandings or prejudice against certain kinds of love. If the lovers can't be together, it's a sad story. If they can, and everyone accepts it, it's a happy story with a wedding.
Ultimately, love helps us care about the world, like the destruction of forests. When we ignore love, we forget how connected everything is, and that affects our ability to live well. Today, loving and caring is important for our survival and to fix problems like working too much, buying too much, and addictions.
Kinds and Stages of Loving
There are different kinds of love, like a mother's love, romantic love, and spiritual love. One kind, called Agape, is about loving yourself first, which helps you love everyone and everything.
Love, in any form, is like our soul telling us to stop living without connection. It makes us stop being negative and start believing. Sometimes, we realize how empty our lives are and feel bad about it. We might feel like we're starting over, whether it's with a new belief, a new relationship, or a new job.
Love can also be about being kind, forgiving, and graceful. Religions say this comes from God, but we also need to forgive ourselves. Love makes us feel alive but also shows us when we've been unkind. Love helps us forgive ourselves and others when they don't meet our expectations.
To live by love is to accept that all love—however profane or however spiritual—is a gift.
Love also means sticking with what we choose and trusting it. In a relationship, we might not always feel super in love after a while. We have to believe those feelings will come back. If we don’t, we might hurt the ones we love. It’s the same with caring for others—some days we feel inspired, other days we just keep going and trust.
Living with love means seeing all love as a gift, whether it's everyday love or spiritual love. We can't force love to happen or stay, but we can choose to accept it when it comes. We need to be patient and open. Love has its own timing, and each relationship is different. Sometimes, when love seems to fade, we might worry, but it could just be before it gets even stronger.
When we're in love, we think about what's best for the person or thing we love, not just ourselves. At first, we might only love a few things and feel like we can't live without them. It's important to let ourselves love freely, even if it makes us feel vulnerable. But if we're not strong inside, we might get too dependent on love.
There are four ways to handle this. First, sometimes we lose what we love, and it hurts, but we learn we can survive. Second, we start loving more things and people, so love feels abundant, not rare. We might also feel love from a higher power. Third, some people who love a lot don't know how to say no, so they get used or help others in bad ways. Learning to be strong helps us love in a healthy way. Fourth, when we love ourselves, we don't need others as much because we always have our own love.
The Perversion and Reclamation of Eros: Passion and Its Shadow
In old religions, the world was created from the love of a god and goddess, like Shiva and Shakti dancing. Love was seen as good, whether it was physical or spiritual. But later, some religions that focused only on male gods started to see physical love as bad.
Most religions say 'God is Love,' but some that don't include female gods try to separate physical love from God. Still, even these religions have parts that respect physical love and women.
In a book called The Way of Splendor, Edward Hoffman talks about Jewish mysticism, or Kabbala, which believes in a God and Goddess together. They thought that when they were together, like in sex, the world was in harmony. Even though this idea faded later, it was important once. Some texts said that God comes close when people make love, so they were told to see sex as a spiritual act, especially on holy days.
A Catholic thinker named Matthew Fox is sad that the church has ignored physical love, but he points out that there's a tradition that respects sex, women, and the body. He mentions the Song of Solomon in the Bible, which talks about love and sex in a beautiful way, often seen as God's love for people. He wants the church to see sex as holy and criticizes the harm done by ignoring it.
Why do modern religion and culture seem to hate physical love? Audre Lorde says that when we devalue love, it turns into bad things like pornography. When we push love away, it becomes hidden and twisted, not healthy and good. In some Christian ideas, physical love is seen as evil, like the devil, and hell is for those who enjoy their bodies.
All lovemaking (as distinct from “having sex”) is Christ meeting Christ. Love beds are altars. People are temples encountering temples, the holy of holies receiving the holy of holies.... Go beyond “being in love” to being the presence of cosmic love embodied and reflected in two human lovers. —Matthew Fox
It's funny that people who hate physical love often can't control their own desires, like preachers who have affairs or old church leaders who hurt women, thinking they were evil. People who hate their own sexuality might have sex but feel empty because it's just physical, not emotional. This can lead to bad things like rape or harassment, where sex is about power, not love.
In a book called Truth or Dare, Starhawk talks about how some men are taught to be like machines, seeing women as things to hunt and their bodies as weapons. She mentions soldiers in Vietnam who had a saying that showed they saw their guns and their bodies the same way—one for war, one for sex.
Starhawk thinks about how in some cultures, male and female bodies are seen as holy, but in our society, some men are so cut off from love that they do terrible things, like hurting their own children. She feels sad for a man who doesn't know how to care for himself or others, and sees himself as just a tool or object.
Love smiles on people who see it as special.
Women can also feel bad about their bodies if they're taught that they're dirty or not good. They might not feel proud of their periods, enjoy sex, or see childbirth as amazing. Some women think they're only valuable if they're virgins or if they have sex to make men like them. They might feel less than men, maybe because of their bodies.
The Denial of Eros
Ignoring love can make us sick, violent, jealous, and see ourselves and others as objects. We might lose our energy and joy. Maybe long ago, people thought they had to suppress their desires to be good. They believed that to be spiritual, they had to give up physical love for a higher love, like in some religions that value being pure. Some people can turn their desires into spiritual energy, but many just try to kill their feelings.
This way is not good for us now. When we push away our desires, we blame others, like men blaming women for their own feelings, or hurting people of color, gay people, or lesbians. We also feel disconnected from our own bodies.
Now we know that to have higher love, we don't need to ignore physical love. Instead, we should embrace it and learn to love fully while still being good people. A thinker named Irene Claremont de Castillejo says that true love comes from accepting all parts of ourselves, not fighting them.
The Gift of Eros
Love gives us not just romantic feelings but also strong connections to our home, our friends, and the world. It's also a kind of personal strength that doesn't come from being in charge but from inside us. It's like being true to who we really are, and that comes from our deepest self.
We respect love by loving ourselves, others, and the earth. We do this by respecting our bodies and seeing that what's holy is not just above us but also in nature and inside us. When we see that, we can follow what we find beautiful, even if others don't. What matters is that we love it. That's how we discover who we are—by what we care about deeply.
Love and Birth
Love is about happiness and also about creating new things. Sex can lead to having a baby, but love also helps us create other things, like projects at work. Sometimes, when people work together, they feel a spark, but it's not always romantic—it's about creating something together. If they think it's romance and act on it, it can mess up their work and their relationship.
Levels of the Lover
Shadow: Jealousy, envy, obsessive fixation on a love object or relationship, sexual addiction, Don Juanism, promiscuity, obsession with sex or pornography, or (conversely) puritanism
Call: Infatuation, seduction, yearning, falling in love (with a person, an idea, a cause, a work)
Level One: Following your bliss, what you love
Level Two: Bonding with and making commitments to whom and what you love
Level Three: Radical self-acceptance giving birth to the Self and connecting the personal with the transpersonal, the individual with the collective
Sometimes, in relationships where one person is helping another, like a teacher and student, there's a feeling of attraction. But acting on it can hurt the person who's less powerful. There are rules against this, like not having sex with family members or with students, clients, or church members. There are also rules at work to prevent this.
The harm happens because the person with less power might feel forced to have sex, afraid to say no. Even if they agree, it still hurts because it stops the good growth that should happen in the relationship. Instead of helping the person grow, it stops that growth.
When adults take advantage of children sexually, it really hurts the child's mind and growth. Children need to feel safe to trust and be themselves. When a parent or trusted adult breaks that trust, it can damage the child forever, though nowadays, there's more help for survivors.
It gets worse because kids often think it's their fault, and even adults might blame themselves instead of the person who hurt them. This makes them feel like there's something wrong with them, which isn't true.
Transformation Through Eros
The movie Educating Rita shows a good relationship between a tired, drinking professor and Rita, a young woman who wants to learn, even though her family and background make it hard.
The professor, who's bored with his job, loves Rita. Even though he's not good in other parts of his life, he helps her learn, which is hard because he likes her better as she is, not as the educated person she wants to be.
This is different from other stories because he uses his feelings to help her be who she wants to be, not who he wants her to be. It's not just caring; it's passionate, and it changes both of them.
Love makes amazing things possible.
Rita becomes Susan because of his love and her focus. She doesn't let romance distract her. She sees herself growing and him helping, like a midwife. She doesn't lose who she was; she just has more options now.
Henry changes too. His bad habits, like drinking too much, lead to him being sent to Australia. But because of Rita, he sees it as a chance for a fresh start, not a punishment. Helping her makes him believe in miracles again.
James Hillman thinks therapy can be like a miracle because of love. The therapist shouldn't try to fix the client but just be there and care. The client wants to change, and that's what drives the change. Therapists can't make themselves love someone, but if they're really listening, love often comes, and that can heal.
Loving Ourselves
We can change by learning to love and accept ourselves. That means forgiving ourselves regularly and also forgiving others, because often what we don't like in them is something we don't like in ourselves.
We all have the ability to do good or bad things. Even if we don't act on bad impulses, they're still there. Forgiving people who hurt us or others helps us accept our own dark sides. Like in 'Beauty and the Beast,' loving the bad parts can turn them into something good.
But that doesn't mean we should let bad behavior happen. We need to be strong enough to stop ourselves and others from hurting people. At the same time, we should try to feel deeply about everything, not just the good parts. Whether we feel horror or love, real feelings can change things.
The best love story might be each person's journey to find what Jean Houston calls 'the Beloved of our Souls.' It's like looking for something special outside, but then realizing it's inside us.
What we adore outside ourselves usually carries with it the positive shadow projection of the deep wisdom of our own Souls.
Jean Houston thinks that wanting this special love is key to growing spiritually. She says that what we love wants us too. Her idea of 'sacred psychology' is about connecting with what we love, whether it's a person, a teacher, or even an idea.
When we love something outside, it's often because it shows us something wise inside ourselves. As we learn about different parts of ourselves, we might see them in others first. These could be anyone we know. But the most important part is finding our true self, which makes us feel whole and connects our practical side with our deepest feelings. Sometimes, this feels like finding God inside us.
Good spiritual leaders know that when people admire them, it's often because they're seeing their own potential. These leaders show us what we can be if we find our own inner strength.
In a book called Coming Home, Lex Hixon talks about a Jewish story where a man named Eizek looks for treasure far away but finds out it's been at his home all along. This shows that what we're looking for is inside us.
The belief that God guides us from the center of our being can completely transform the idea of obedience to God’s will.... The more completely and spontaneously I follow the direction of this inner guide, the more truly I shall be myself, the more I shall be able to realize and live out my own individual truth. In the phrase of a well-known prayer, God’s service is perfect freedom. —Christopher Bryant
The best kind of love is when we see that our deepest self is part of something bigger and holy. Connecting our thoughts with our deepest feelings is finding what's sacred. Even if you're not religious, you can feel amazed by your own value, which isn't about being selfish. In stories, this is like finding the treasure.
Like a mom loving her baby before it's born, we need to love the best part of ourselves that's growing. The more we and others support this, the easier it is to become our true selves.
Sometimes, we only find this after a lot of pain, like in the play For Colored Girls, where a woman loses her children but then finds strength inside herself, saying she found God in herself and loved her deeply.
If we stick with our feelings, even the painful ones, and keep loving life, we can turn bad things into good ones. Parker Palmer says that by accepting and feeling our struggles, we can change destruction into creation, and that's how we become our true selves.
Exercises
Give some thought to when, where, how, and how much the Lover expresses itself in your life.
- How much or how little is the Lover expressed in your life? Has it been expressed more in the past or present? Do you see it emerging more in your future? Is it expressed more at work, at home, with friends, in dreams or fantasies?
- Who are some friends, relatives, co-workers, and others who seem influenced by the archetype of the Lover?
- Is there anything you wish were different about the expression of the Lover in your life?
- Since each archetype expresses itself in many different ways, take some time to describe or otherwise portray (e.g., draw, make a collage, use a picture of yourself in a particular costume or pose) the Lover as it is expressed or could be expressed in your life.
What does or would it look like? How does or would it act? In what setting does or would it feel most at home?
Daydreams
Using relaxed, deep breathing to enter a meditative state, allow yourself to focus on your heart, imagining a small gold, glowing light in the center of your chest in the heart area. Imagine the gold, glowing light slowly becoming larger until it is as large as your heart, then your lungs, then the whole chest area, and finally, gradually as large as your whole body. From there imagine that light filling the room and then your community, the country, the world, and finally the solar system.
Then become aware of more intense, many-colored threads of light connecting you in particular to everything you love, care about, or feel strongly about. These threads may link you to stars, to the night sky, to a certain landscape, to certain animals or kinds of animals, to places and things, and of course to people in your past or present. Take your time tracing these threads until you feel yourself at the center of a web of loving connection.
When you are ready, return your consciousness from the threads to the golden light, and allow that light to shrink from the solar system to the world, from the world to your nation, from your nation to your community, from your community to the room in which you find yourself, and finally to your body, then your chest area, your lungs, and your heart.
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