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Love
| Inner
focus |
brain stem |
| Outer
focus |
angelic realm |
| Color |
indigo |
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From the Editors
Report from West Hollywood, California
Dreams of Love
Why the Brain Stem?
Book Recommendations
Love in the News?
Who’s Who in Love
Poetry
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From the Editors |
This month we are featuring Love, one of the Descending Principles (#20-29). In its ordinary meaning, we associate "love" with powerful positive connections between people, whether short-term (as in 'romantic love') or long-term. Love as a spiritual principle is broader and deeper, however. It emanates from the angelic realm and brings a current of transcendence to our lives. It allows us to experience the unconditional and the Unconditioned. It brings us to the edge of the human-divine boundary, and carries us across gently.
Robin Moore & Tamar Frankiel, Editors
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Report from West Hollywood, California |
This month's principle is Love. Here is a teaching from one of our dream sisters: |
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
a seal upon your arm;
for love is stronger than death,
passion fiercer than the grave.
...Many waters cannot quench love,
nor can floods drown it. (Song of Songs 8: 6-7).
Love and Death: two primary powers in the universe. No wonder Freud was fascinated by the concepts of Eros and Thanatos. But, our ancient poet tells us, even the 'multitude of waters' -- an allusion to the great floods that destroyed civilizations -- cannot quench love; nothing can wash it away. Ultimately, love lives and conquers death.
Love sometimes emerges most clearly in the face of death. One of my students, prominently contracted with the Principle of Love, had difficulty understanding this part of her soul contract. "I'm not a loving person," she would say. "I'm critical and judgmental; I'm more intellectual than emotional. I'm not one of those smiley people who loves everyone."
One day she told a story of something that happened when she was visiting patients as a hospital chaplain. She stopped to chat with a woman who was terminally ill, and they got into a conversation about what the woman expected to happen. The woman began to speak with great faith about looking forward to seeing her grandfather and other loved ones. Quietly, the room began to fill with light - not an ordinary light. The chaplain was astounded and deeply moved - as she told me the story, her eyes again filled with tears. "We were in the presence of this amazing Light that I could sense - I could see, feel, and touch. Then I had to leave. As I opened the door and stepped into the hall, I immediately felt the difference. I stepped back in - yes, the light still filled the room. But there was nothing in the hall. The light absolutely stopped at the doorway of the room."
Of course, this woman who had not yet understood her contract with Love was, as a chaplain, constantly demonstrating love! But it was the nearness of death that brought home to her the deeper experience of Love.
Love is the glue that holds the universe together. The Bible speaks of "cleaving" to God - an archaic word to us. The Hebrew word is devekut (pronounced duh-vay-koot), which has the same root as the word for glue in modern Hebrew. It is an attachment so close that one cannot, will not un-stick oneself.
People contracted with Love are ultimately attached. They may seek paths to non-attachment because it is so difficult to live in a world of mortality and fragmented relationships - where death and separation seem to overcome love, and bring so much pain. But in the depths of our hearts, we know Love is stronger - "a passion fiercer than the grave."
"Set me as a seal upon your heart, a seal on your arm." The Beloved calls to us to seal the relationship, to join fully in the grand design, to make an ultimate commitment with an undying passion to the future of the universe and every being within it. Not even death will stop us.
--Tamar Frankiel
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Dreams of Love |
We
can learn about the principles by examining our dreams.
Here are two dreams of Love:
The Golden Light of Love
I had met a man and brought him to the gathering. I knew I loved him. Patty - my oldest and dearest friend - was at the party. I wasn't telling anyone, even her, that I loved this man, because, although I knew everyone wanted me to be with someone, I was afraid everyone would say it is too soon to know. Then, in front of everyone, he told me he loved me forever. Not until I woke up did I realize that he was my friend of many years who visits me in my dreams. After he said he loved me, he kissed me. In previous dreams, we had never had a personal physical moment even though we had a deep psychic connection. Everyone - our friends - just accepted his statement and our love at face value. I was the one who was stunned to have this happen but I trusted him and knew he wouldn't hurt me. And I felt like I was home.
This angelic 'man' has appeared to the dreamer throughout the years. The dreamer does not experience their encounter 'at face value.' She senses there is something deeper in their meeting than normal social intercourse. This encounter is about the land of forever, the land where angels dwell, the land where we know our authentic selves and feel at home. This time, the dreamer was able to integrate the angelic encounter into the manifest world, feeling the kiss in her physical body. Is this because she has become aligned with the spiritual dynamic of Love?
Also, sometimes when we dream of friendly "parties," we may be experiencing a gathering of our soul cluster. It's possible that in this dream, "face value" also had a deeper meaning, because human faces, especially the eyes, are windows to the soul.
I'm dead. My body is on a table in a back room of the funeral parlor and it is undergoing rigor mortis. I can feel it creeping up my body. But I want to walk out and, somehow, the people nearby help me to stand up and walk, and I lurch into a van that is waiting near the door. It goes to the cemetery and the door opens. Everything is green and grassy, very beautiful. I stand at the door of the van looking out where my family is gathered, and now nothing in my body is moving except my eyes. My eyes are large and bright, radiant and alive, pouring out love to my children. I am immensely happy and so glad they can feel this.
Love transcends death, and the soul connections last beyond the body. The vitality of the soul, transmitted through the light of the eyes, conveys what words cannot.
Look
in your dreams for references to the brain or back of the neck
... for angelic interventions (especially tall, tan or brown people) ...for special parties... for the colors indigo or rose-quartz.
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Why
the Brain Stem? |
The brain stem modulates the involuntary systems of the body such as heart and respiration. Whereas the heart can be felt beating, and breathing is a continuously sensed action of the lungs, no one would, in ordinary life, know that the brain stem is behind it all. Similarly, Love stands in the wings (including angels' wings) directing the whole affair, whether we acknowledge it or not.
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Book Recommendations |
Love is Stronger Than Death, by Cynthia Bourgeault
Cynthia Bourgeault is a theologian, Christian mystic, student of G. I. Gurdjieff and Tarot, and an Episcopal priest. She writes of her intense relationship with a 70-year-old Trappist monk and hermit. This book invites us to share their complex love life both before and after his death (yes, love lives on in the spiritual body). Their story of a deep, divine-seeking love relationship outside the box of 'boy meets girl' illustrates how we have diminished and romanticized this most grace-filled of Principles. --RM
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver.
Marjorie Kehe in the Christian Science Monitor writes, "Perhaps what's most appealing about this book is the love that holds its disparate parts together -- love of family, love of good food, love of the planet, and the willingness to expend extra effort to safeguard those treasures." We haven't read this one yet, but it's getting great reviews. See this one at www.csmonitor.com/2007 /0508/p13s02-bogn.html.
A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, Richard Annan, and Fari Amini.
Not a long book, but deep on insight into ways that psychiatrists and other psychology professionals can work, modeling Love in the world. Moreover, unlike most psychology books, it's written beautifully! You can begin to feel the message through the language as well as understand it in your head. A heart-mind book based on hard research. --Cady Soukup and Tamar Frankiel.
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Love in the News |
Stories about love often involve either animals or angels, or animals acting like angels. The mysterious presence that hovered over someone after a car crash, or the strange voice that warned "Get out of here!" just before an accident, are paralleled by the 'angel dog' that guards a child through every epileptic seizure and the dolphins that joyously interact with autistic children. Sweet or tender or awesome, whether in physical form or not, the discovery of a caring presence stays with us in our memories. But it's not easy to find Love in the ordinary news. When we asked why, we received the following from a dream sister in Virginia:
I like Madeleine L'Engle's description of love as a policy, not an emotion. When dealing with adolescents, difficult family members, or people at work who just don't get it, that concept comes in handy!
Much of the love in the world isn't visible to us simply because we take it so much for granted (like the fact that people miraculously obey most traffic laws, so accidents are just that - accidents, not 'expectedents'!). Almost invisible: the love of parents for their children, the love of children for aging parents, the love that works in community. Such love doesn't usually make the news, so we assume it doesn't exist. It's like the microfauna on which an entire system relies - they're not as visible and 'sexy' as the mega-predators so beloved of newswriters and photographers - but they are what make every plant and critter possible, including (to our dismay) ourselves.
Love in community - ah, there's the rub - that we're experiencing falling apart in such vivid ways these days. Joan Chittester, a Benedictine nun and writer, when contemplating the Rule of Benedict as it applies to communities, says:
"Modern society has the idea that if you want to live a truly Spiritual life, you have to leave life as we know it and go away by yourself and 'contemplate,' and that if you do, you will get holy. It is a fascinating although misleading thought. The Rule of Benedict says that if you want to be holy, stay where you are in the human community and learn from it. Learn patience. Learn wisdom. Learn unselfishness. Learn love. Then if you want to go away from it all, then and only then will you be able to do it alone" (Joan Chittister, Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages, p. 33).
Such are my thoughts this morning as I'm contemplating the death of one of my personal beloved institutions in this tiny county - a small book club of women, nearly 25 years old in various incarnations, that just ripped apart due to misunderstandings and hurtful assumptions. In a small way, the women who belonged to the book club were windows onto this world for me, and it hurts to lose it. I guess that's a form of love, too.
--Cady Soukup
Here's what we did find about Love in the extraordinary news. Let us know if you see some other examples this month!
- Headline: A Hike into Horror and an Act of Courage
Tom Curwen, Los Angeles Times, April 29-30, 2007: While on a hike on Mt. Grinnell in 2005, a father and daughter went around a bend in the trail and found themselves face to face with a grizzly and two cubs. The bear attacked and the two stumbled down the mountainside. The father tried to fall in such a way as to draw the bear away from his daughter, but ended up landing right next to her. The bear tore at them both, but amazingly they survived. This article tells of their long journey to healing.
What the father remembered thinking when he found himself alive was "Thank you, God." Then, gazing into the sky above the mountains, he thought of people he knew who were dead.
"Thank you, Mom, and thank you, Dad," for being an energy he could draw on. Somehow it made him less afraid. "And thank you, Sophie." She was a patient of his, an 80-year-old woman to whom he had grown close, before she died the year before. "And thank you, Steve," his father-in-law, who had become his own father in a way. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Love, like the angelic realm from which it emanates, comes to our aid in times of greatest challenge. Let's remember in ordinary times to put ourselves in Love's hands!--TF
- Headline: Surviving Torture
by Louis Crew (www.rci.rutgers.edu/~Icrew/) When I taught at St. Andrews School in Delaware in the early 1960s (Robin William had my room when they filmed Dead Poets' Society there), the chaplain of Princeton at the time, Ernest Gordon, came to speak about his experiences at the River Kwai, which separates Thailand from Burma. Some of you may have seen the classic film, Bridge over the River Kwai, which records many of the grim details of that prison camp. . . The Japanese had been especially brutal in their torture; most prisoners died. For example, they would place men in small structures with tin roofs in the blazing sun and deprive them of water. They practiced exquisite tortures on the body.
"How did you survive?" I asked the chaplain.
"I practiced the discipline of remaking the face of each torturer into the face his mother had seen, cuddling him in her arms," he said. "It is very difficult to be swallowed in bitterness when you can do that, and it is the bitterness that would have killed me, even if I had lived."
The angels reveal that "Love is the primary pattern." We often have to look through the manifest levels of disorder in order to connect with the Love that is the glue that connects us all. Think of someone who has wronged you, or who repels you, or with whom you have 'unfinished business.' What spiritual practice will help you become available to the power of Love in the face of that person? (Adapted from A Wing and a Prayer by Katherine Jefferts Schori) - RM
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Who's Who in Love |
Famous people in whom Love came to life - the following have Sun in Love. If you know people whose birthday falls between the 19th and 21st of a month, they may have Sun in Love too.
- Paul Cezanne, 1839-1906
Revolutionary 19th century painter whose work bridged older artistic ideas, impressionism, and finally cubism.
- Claude Debussy, 1862-1918
Possibly the greatest of French composers and one of the most influential composers in modern music history.
- Edgar Cayce, 1877-1945
A psychic known as "The Sleeping Prophet," whose readings while in trance helped individuals with health problems and answered questions about the distant past and future. He believed he was guided by spirit to help humanity develop better ways to live.
- Malcolm X, 1925-1965
When Malcolm discovered the Nation of Islam, his love and devotion toward its founder helped him change his life. Ultimately, after his pilgrimage to Mecca and embrace of a broader Islam, he found a deeper love for all humanity.
- Robert F. Kennedy, 1925-1968
Brother of, and attorney general under, John F. Kennedy. He was a candidate for President in 1968, when he was assassinated. His dreams for expansion of social programs far beyond what his brother had envisioned grew out of his increasing awareness of the problems of the poor.
- Timothy Leary, 1920-1996
A psychologist best known as a proponent of controlled use of psychedelic substances because of their potential to liberate the mind; he later became a futurist and proposed models of expanded human consciousness.
- Janis Joplin, 1943-1970
One of the creative lights of the 1960s, whose development of a unique blues style captivated audiences. Her original hits "Mercedes Benz" and "Me and Bobby McGee" became classics. She died of an accidental drug overdose.
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Poetry |
Many of the contributions that came to us this month related to the theme of love and death. Perhaps we are being shown the truth that Love indeed transcends death.
The following song lyrics were written by Aviv Gefen for his dear friend who died at the age of 18. They became a popular Israeli memorial song after the war in Lebanon in 1982. Then, in 1995, Gefen was asked by Yitzhak Rabin to perform this song at a peace rally. After the performance, Rabin embraced Gefen; a few minutes later, Rabin was assassinated.
The time has come to cry for you, my friend;
I need to mourn your parting --
The longing I feel is like doors that open onto night
Forever, without end, I'll think of you, my friend
and we will meet again, you know.
All the other friends I have, their lights dim
when I recall your radiant glow.
The tears we are shedding flow to the sea
and salt the waves forever.
is made
of the same matter as the cosmos.
We are one and the same.
As I interact and serve others,
I appreciate the sacredness of Life,
the intelligence of all life forms.
How sad it is that all will pass away,
But yearning, never, never.
And like the waves, we crash forevermore
on the breakers, and on life's shore.
The time has come to cry for you, my friend.
Be strong up there.
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