Dear Friends,

In an effort to broaden, and perhaps lighten (lets not get too serious here) our mutual considerations, I hope to start a conversation on these mysteries.  Clearly, being a man, there is a limit to what I can say here, at the same time a little true story...

Some years ago, I was in New England, having a long visit with Granny D. [ http://www.grannyd.com/ [1] ].  We were discussing politics, when completely out of the context of the political theme of the conversation, she turned to me, laid her hand on my arm (we were sitting at her dining table having tea and homemade oatmeal cookies, of course), and said to me something on the order of: "You know Joel, men have something special to say about love, and I encourage you to speak what you might know about it."  A few years later I began writing "the Way of the Fool", which has as its third theme (of four stanzas): Love.

I made there (in that book) a kind of cross of what to me were the four major forms of Love:

                            selfless human love (Agape)

nuturing love (Storge)          +                  comradeship or brotherly and sisterly love (Phileo)

                            sensual and erotic love (Eros)

The Greek terms (Agape etc.) were not meant to bind us to certain founding Ideals of Western Civilization, but simply to honor that more ancient thought, well all the while being concerned with considering such in much more modern terms.  Selfless Love I considered the most heavenly aspect of our nature, while sensual and erotic love I thought to be the most earthly.  The other two existed primarily in the horizontal social, while the first two were in the vertical spiritual.

I concluded as part of my examination of contemporary culture that we lived in a time of Fallen Eros, which is why I gave the title "The Redemption of Eros" to this journal entry.  I also recently remarked to Tom that (in a kind of jest) it would be fun to give a lecture to local anthroposophists, called: Sex and the Single Anthroposphist, for what do we do in an age where relationships do not last, our circles are filled with single people, and Steiner said very little about sexuality (just as he never explained to anthroposophists how to screw in a light bulb, which is why there is no answer to the question of: "How many anthroposophists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?").

Screwing, its seems, is a subject we will have to figure out for ourselves.  At the same time, here where we study freedom, the question of erotic life among single people (we'll leave out the married ones as they seem protected by Christ's admonition: They whom God has joined together, let no one drive asunder (or some such) seems to be such a juicy possible topic.  Of course, there are parts of this that must also be very private, so we must approach this all with a bit of care, and which is why I sought to lighten the whole thing right from the beginning.  To me, Eros is adult play, so let us not get to caught up in heaviness of any sort here.

We are also offered, on such a theme, the opportunity for wit.  The play of words common to the Victorian Age, where delight was taken in the ability to speak indirectly about what couldn't be spoken of directly, we can perhaps reinvent  I do have the sense that the Divine Feminine (whom I consider to be the Ruler of the Dark) must have a deep connection to humor, for the double (a whole other theme) cannot abide being laughed at.  In fact, one of the most healthy ways we have for dealing with our own shadow forces is to make sure that we laugh at ourselves as many times a day as possible.

Standing naked in the front of a mirror, something that tends to terrorize us in this culture of fantasy bodies and impossible standards of beauty, could well become the main way to start the day in a psychologically healthy way.  There we are, few of us formed according to the contemporary ideal, and most of us made to feel horribly guilty about it.  Now we gaze upon the body, our house, our temple and see if we can laugh at the silliness of it all.  For certainly neither Christ or the Divine Mother would laugh at us, but would certainly laugh with us.

Go out and look at some trees, the kings and queens of the plant world.  None are perfect.  Most are knobby, weird, strange and oddly unique.  And, there we are looking in the bathroom mirror, being so happy for clothes (Adam and Eve did get something right, didn't they?).  If we look at how individualized are our faces, why are we all choked up about our variagated bodies?  Well, mostly because greedy people want to make us feel bad about ourselves, so I say, screw them.  Lets all go out and find someone to get naked with, and have some fun.

lllllooooooovvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,

joel