One of the best books on
love is also one of the shortest and smallest. It’s by Anthony DeMello and it’s
called the Way of Love, and it could fit in your back pocket.
Anathony DeMello was a
Jesuit priest who deeply understood the sacredness of the present, and in this
book he starts each small section with a quote from the New Testament and then
proceeds to illuminate one or another facet of love.
Unfortunately, I’ve given
away all my copies, but in one essay he defines love is forgetting of
everything you have to say about or categorize about the other person: rich,
poor, pretty, ugly, man woman, good bad.
Just see them, accept
them, feel them as BEING right now, as they are.
You ask why I don’t put my
astrological sign.
Because I have seen very
few, almost no people, use categories to truly have deeper love and compassion
for people.
Many years ago, I was in
on the eneagram before it even go to Helem Palmer. It is a brilliant system,
with nine “ego types,” each with three subcategories, and people actually look
and act certain ways in all twenty seven slots. It was incredibly accurate in
predicting people and an almost irresistible way for people to separate and
judge and stay free from really seeing the present person in front of them.
I am an Aries. I have some
characteristics. Others I don’t have. I read a book once telling every single
day of the year, and my day, April 13, was in the week of the Pioneer and the
day was that of the Iconoclast. Me and Thomas Jefferson. Kind of true. A lot
true, and still, not me.
In a group I’m in there
are three sexual subtypes according to how they deal with tumescence: hyper
volatile , dissipated, fixed. And there are a range of stages of orgasm: turn
on, climax, restoration, recovery, stillness, and so on. People here, too, seem
to almost just about totally fit into one slot or another.
And then a certain sort of
soul murder takes place, or at least a blindness to the parts that don’t fit.
This can be people seeing
themselves, or seeing others, and then the mess of how do we really relate to a
real live messy, changeable, now one thing now another human dissolved down to
Aries and Scorpio. Or six and two. Or volatile and dissipated.
So, these categories sort
of work, and sort of / a lot shield us from the confusing unknown of what
another person is.
So, that’s a start.
Here’s the main astrology
I listen to, if I were to listen to that, Rob Brevsky’s Free Will Astrology.
Here’s me for this week:
Aries: “How we react to the sound of the
wind gives clues to our temperament, said philosopher Theodor W. Adorno. The
unhappy person thinks of "the fragility of his house and suffers from
shallow sleep and violent dreams." But for the happy person, the wind
sings "the song of protectedness: its furious howling concedes that it has
power over him no longer." I bring this up to illustrate a point about
your life. There will be a strong and vivid influence coming your way that is
like the wind as described by Adorno. It's neither bad nor good in itself, but
may seem like one or the other depending on the state of mind you choose to
cultivate.”
And you:
Scorpio: “Let's
imagine ourselves near the snowy summit of Washington's Mount Rainier. We're in
an unusual kind of cave. Volcanic steam rises from cracks in the rocky floor.
Above us is a roof made of ice. As we stand between the heat and the chill, we
find the temperature quite cozy. The extremes collaborate to produce a happy
medium. Can you accomplish something in your life that's similar to what's
going on in this cave? Metaphorically, I mean? I think you can.”
That being
all said, the most tumultuous relationship of my life, screaming, thrown coffee
cups, her chasing me naked out to a busy street to continue arguing, clothes
out the window,
And one
of the mildest, most serene, both gardening and bike riding and sleeping
outdoors for weeks on end on our deck in Sonoma.
Both with
a scorpio.
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