A perspective on love, complete with wing- building instructions and unregulated flight attempt descriptions.

WARNING: Do not try this at home.

--------------------------------

What happens to our reason when we are in love? Why is love so compelling? Why do we call it a madness? Why does it seem to always be new, every moment we experience it? Why does it confuse us so? Why are we powerless over it?

Obviously, when we ask such questions, we are talking about that unique experience that cannot be created or summoned at will, that hunger for another that will drive us insane, that desire that will take our appetite, our sleep, our sanity.

The new definition for it may be codependency. It may be explained as a neurotic need to rescue our past. We may end up on Prozac over it. But the fact that we, modern people, tend to “diagnose” love, doesn’t mean that it is a disease.

Alchemists deemed the experience necessary, in order to transform the lead of our selfishness into the gold of our boundless magnificence. From rigidity to fluidity. From ego to Soul. How does it happen, and why? What brings it on? Can it be stopped? Avoided? Denied?

It starts with a recognition. The beloved is first seen or perceived in the midst of daily life, usually among common things and familiar people. But he or she is not part of that familiar world. And yet, the beloved is not a stranger to our imagination.

It is as if, in a world of strangers we have become familiar with, our sweetheart is the only one whom we truly know, even if we’ve just met. But this isn’t the kind of knowledge that requires shared memories. In order for love to blossom, what is required at his point is shared madness.

Let’s freeze this moment in time. The moment where we recognize the possibility for madness, perhaps similar to the feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to take off in a glider.

Our psyche has to be there already, eager to fly, preparing to jump. We couldn’t take off while sitting on our couch, watching TV. We must be standing on the edge, just waiting for the right wind to come up from behind us. Or in front, or underneath us. And this leads us to the next crucial question.

Is it really this person who awakens the madness in us? Or do we notice them in this way because we are already mad? Or perhaps, eager to be mad? Does psyche need madness in order to exist? It seems so.

Let’s now suppose that we decide to jump. In spite of our inner brothers and sisters who try to hold us back; in spite of our inner parents who threaten us with untold punishment; in spite of our inner friends, who laugh at our foolishness; in spite of our inner Buddha, who says it’s an illusion: in spite of our inner monk, who says it’s a sin. We jump.

Across from us, on the other edge of the canyon, guess who is waiting to jump, all strapped inside their glider, hair flying already, bright-eyed, pink-cheeked and bare smiled, willing to join us in mid air? You got it! The beloved. The one who is willing to share the madness.

And so we leave behind the safety of a foothold for the incomparable freedom that comes from leaving the earth. We become trusting, faithful, fearless, maybe for just a few moments, but for those moments we defy every possible law, human or physical, and we merge with eternity, where we know we belong.

As we glide through the air, we look at our beloved gliding towards us, alive, graceful, glorious, suspended in the same bliss. We no longer hear the voices that call us from the cliff. All we hear is the wind and the voice of our beloved, laughing, calling us. Nothing else but love exists. Nothing.

Of course gliders cannot truly stop in midair. Eventually we land. Sometimes we crash. Sometimes we get hurt, badly. And then all the voices say “I told you so”. And we look at them and nod.

Perhaps we forget about gliding altogether and go back to our couch and TV. But perhaps, in our attic or our basement, where psyche lives, away from the logic and reason of living rooms and sitting rooms, we are secretly building a contraption with wings.