Anam Cara

THERE IS A LOVELY DISARRAY THAT COMES WITH ATTRACTION. When you find yourself deeply attracted to someone, you gradually begin to lose your grip on the frames that order your life. Indeed, much of your life becomes blurred as that countenance comes into clearer focus. A relentless magnet draws all your thoughts towards it. Wherever you are, you find yourself thinking about the one who has become the horizon of your longing. When you are together, time becomes unmercifully swift. It always ends too soon. No sooner have you parted than you are already imagining your next meeting, counting the hours. The magnetic draw of that presence renders you delightfully helpless. A stranger you never knew until recently has invaded your mind; every fibre of your being longs to be closer. You have fallen into the vortex of Eros where words become gossamer light and kisses kindle fires. You want to erase distance and become one with the flame. You grow innocent and careless. And Eros can take many forms. Sometimes it can be slow, subtle and indirect, building quietly without anyone else even suspecting. Sometimes it can come at you.

It is always astonishing how love can strike. No context is love-proof, no convention or commitment impervious. Even a lifestyle which is perfectly insulated, where the personality is controlled, all the days ordered and all actions in sequence, can to its own dismay find that an unexpected spark has landed; it begins to smoulder until it is finally unquenchable. The force of Eros always brings disturbance; in the concealed terrain of the human heart Eros remains a light sleeper.

E

ROS

A

WAKENS THE

S

PRING

CREATION IS IMBUED WITH EROS. EACH LANDSCAPE, EACH SEASON has its own quiet Eros. In contrast to the glory of autumnal colour which is like the flaming of a final twilight, winter is a chaste season. Nothing flourishes. Every field and tree is cleaned back to its bare form. The night of winter comes in clear and sure. Against the bleak grey whatever muted colour endures seems ghost-like. But as ever, the circle travels on to its own beginning. And just when the amnesia seems absolute, the first tones of spring commence their infant flaming. Within a short while the exiled Eros of nature stages a magnificent return. From the dark under-life of cold fields, infinite tribes of grass ascend. Skeleton trees allow themselves a shimmering of leaves. Flowers arrive as if this were the place they had always dreamed. Having travelled through thousands of miles of sky and ocean, swallows return to their favourite holiday nests in outdoor sheds. Local birds become passionate architects high up in the network of trees. The terse silence of winter has given way to the symphony of spring. Eros has awakened. The shadow-dream of winter is coming to life in every corner. Birth is the inner and outer song of spring. If winter is the oldest season, then spring is the youngest season. The Eros of the earth calls forth the beauty of spring.

TERRA ILLUMINATA

THE BEAUTY OF THE DIVINE MIND DREAMED A CREATION THAT CAN never be lonesome simply because it is always in conversation with itself. Even high in the mountains you can come upon a field which through the centuries has grown intense with the personal elements of its own silent conversation: every spring, absent flowers return again to their familiar sanctuary beneath huge persistent stones whose surfaces are always deepening ever so slightly with the restless engraving of wind and rain. Far away from the industry and interference of human hands, such a field has always been quietly at work, enriching the constellation of its own countenance. In traditional farming, the farmer never simply used the land. The farmer also lived among his fields. Sometimes he experienced a deeper affinity with his fields than with his neighbours. He was alert to the slightest change in their countenances; his heart anticipated the variations that each new season added.

Eros is a divine force. It infuses all the earth. Yet, too often, in our culture Eros is equated with lust and sexual greed. But it is a more profound and sacred force than this. Eros is the light of wisdom that awakens and guides the sensuous. It is the energy that illuminates the earth. Without it, the earth would be a bare, cold planet for Eros is the soul of the earth. In the embrace of Eros the earth becomes a terra illuminata. Amidst the vast expanse of fields and seas, the providence of Eros awakens and sustains the longing of the earth. This is the nerve source of all attraction, creativity and procreation. Eros is the mother of life, the force that has brought us here. It constantly kindles in us the flame of beauty and the desire for the Beautiful as a path towards growth and transformation.

C

ALLING TO

E

ACH

O

THER

But the boundaries of time and glance and I love you are only

aftershocks of the main inevitable boundary that creates Eros:

the boundary of flesh and self between you and me.