What if separation did not
ultimately mean loss, good-bye, or rupture of relationship? Traditional associations with separation
cover the gamut from abrupt departures (after an argument), bereaved departures
(after a betrayal or a broken trust) all the way to those of apathy or
indifference (after neglect or simple divergence of connection). I have grown
interested in this question of late, grafted as I seem to have been into a path
of erotic-chaste loves as contemplative practice, each of which, in its time,
enters into an act of separation. An act whose necessity is only intuited but
which signifies commitment, not departure; fidelity, not rupture; love, not
anger or indifference. What in the world...?
For my purposes, this
musing-matter does not refer to a marital commitment, which has an internal and
external, intimate and social logic all its own, interpreted in sacred
scriptures of many kinds and in faith communities of varying persuasion and
rhetorical finesse in today's secular spaces. I continue to learn within my own
marital commitment, but it has a singularity in my spirit-life-and-loves, an
integrity set apart from what I reflect on here. Here, in contrast or in some distance, I'm musing on what I
will call companionships of Spirit, though not all companions in my life would
be comfortable with that language. It has been a path of erotic-chaste loves as
contemplative practice, engaged with those whose life opened to such
possibility at the same time mine did. Almost without agency but with
receptivity and a sacred curiosity all the same. A path of erotic-chaste loves...
Loves, plural? Yes, plural. It’s
difficult to speak or write clearly of this path, immersed in a sex-saturated
media-American cultural soup as we are. It sounds salacious, seductive, even
adulterous. Something around which to gather and point fingers, whisper to
one’s friends behind cupped hands. The language around agape or platonic loves
suffocates the reality of this way—the latter funding life with a bit of
intellectual remove and the former tinging life with religious asceticism and
self-sacrificing kindness. Platonic brings old philosophers and dusty
intellectuals to mind. Agape brings suggestion of saints and martyrs—St.
Francis, Rabbi Akiva, Mother Teresa. What I mean by multiple loves as a
contemplative practice, in contrast, trucks in the world of the earthly, the
socially disruptive, the impassioned yearnings ‘allowed’ mostly for artists,
eccentrics, mystics.
And erotic-chaste? The sensation
of which I speak has deep roots in embodied wisdom, unruly energies through
which unpredictable-uncontrollable life erupts into awareness. A bit less sensational prose (pun intended)
comes under the title of devotion, but that brings to mind the associations of
“morning devotions,” at least for this Christian only one generation from
Baptist/Brethren scriptural-literalists. Such acts of piety are about the
furthest thing I can think of in the context of what I mean by the word. No,
this path erupts into one’s awareness from within the dan tien, the root
chakra, the generative source of human sexual and sensual energies—a place of
abiding presence and abundant joy, sensate pleasure and the yearning that
aches. Satiating the desire only deepens the yearning, which means ego
strategies of response and negotiation are useless. Connection births deeper
connection which births deeper awareness again and again of how much deeper one
can go. It hurts to yearn like this, but life grows vibrant beyond belief.
Literally. (As an aside, I’m beginning to wonder whether this is what Teresa of
Avila meant by her ‘prayer of pain,’ a manner of connection increasingly
painful but so enlivening that one desires it more and more, in search of its
Source. Not masochism but participation in Love greater than any mortal frame
can possibly withstand).
Any companionship of Spirit in
this fashion, to reach its transformative depth, requires a commitment and fidelity
tinged with ultimacy. Whether such things are articulated with intention may
depend upon circumstance and character, but there has to be a sense of
long-lasting connection for either or both participants to allow the other into
such intimate space, such shared passion. In one instance, the nature of
covenant was articulate in written prose. In another, the commitment was lived
into time over distance and cost shared fairly equally by both. Without the
commitment, without the enacted covenant, no container shapes to hold the
passions shared. Inevitably, though, if each participant is growing in
discipline and devotion, both will chafe against the perceived container. What served its
purpose to channel or hold shared energies inevitably becomes a box or worse, an
unintentional prison for one or both. As in any spiritual practice, the reality
is grow or die, which means growth pushes its seeds beyond previous bounds of ground. When this
time comes, what preserves and deepens the erotic-chaste love of connection and
service of all?
An act of separation, ironically
enough.
Contemplative Cynthia Bourgeault
observes the “art of separation” as an essential practice for those called into
what she calls the Fifth Way, relationship as spiritual practice. In her words:
“The art of separation is essential to conscious love.” When I first read this
in her The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: the Woman at the Heart of Christianity, I
thought I knew what it meant. I interpreted it against the familiar backdrop of
a spiritual friendship that reached its completion a long while back. Hearing it
again this past week (Holy Week or time spent in anticipation of Pesach), I
learned something different but consistent.
I learned that the separation I
had feared was loss or rupture of relationship is not that at all.
Recognizing release from the container does not mean conclusion of the
relationship, alive and breathing. It means a renewed, pregnant life, outside of control
of any and all. It means relinquishing attachment to a beloved in order to
release that energy into practiced awareness of connection amongst us all. The
language of container or covenant speaks a scaffolding into existence,
necessary for the mark of infinity to be impressed upon flesh and hearts. That
mark can never be taken away. It will never be erased. Yet spirits healthy and
growing always move into new air, new food, grafted life. Soil must always be
aerated. Winter must come if spring is to birth new life. Sound and silence
create each other, with quiet deepening presence, creating new capacity for
presence.
Doing this well requires practice
in the art of separation—perhaps a poem signaling a conclusion steeped in
the “I do” of fidelity--all without knowing whether it will be understood. In the first instance of my learning, it was
the shared community of faith that emerged to hold the conscious love without
and beyond its ‘container’ of covenant. In the second instance now, it was an
intuition or instinct that surprised me as it unfolded within a familiar
liturgy. Perhaps a call from an old and new Beloved, a rabbinic Ancient of
Days, perhaps not. Regardless, I recognized the pattern, the invitation. I was reminded that the many loves given into my
path each bring their spark of divinity. Each spark can only be tended if
relinquished to flicker freely, nourished and unattached. The path is to learn
being immaculately safe in the stewardship of erotic-chastity, a conjugal path
of devotion offered to those willing, within and beyond their other covenants
of commitment.
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