Book Excerpts
Introduction
The Fertile Darkness
The Naked Heart
First Impressions
Faces in the Mirror
Dismantling Negative Patterns
Shakti
Union
Sexual Communion
The Essence

Articles
- The Secret of the Sexual Dance

Chapter 1

The Fertile Darkness

On Love
For even as love crowns you so shall he
crucify you.  Even as he is for your growth
 so is he for your pruning.
  -Kahlil Gibran
 

Spiritual partnerships are a holy fire.  The first intoxicating sense we get is of a great vibrant spaciousness, like sunrise on a mountaintop.  The air sparkles fresh, alive, and clean.   We step out of a black and white world into bright technicolor.  We feel lively, attentive, and full of vigor.  We radiate optimism and passion.  Romance is a great high, a glimpse into an unfettered quality of heart.  But often such feelings begin to fade. 

Typically, over time, a cloud of unknowing descends, and we find ourselves entering what might be called the fertile darkness, where questions, hard to articulate, float up from deep inside, forcing us to address deeper issues.  What is the true purpose of this relationship?  Who lives beyond these social masks?  To what extent do our needs define or impede our relating?  What is the source of the tension and attraction between us?  Why are we so happy, and yet afraid?  What is this spontaneous, irresistible, irrational, compelling longing that we feel?  Love, that strange, winged bird of paradox, is sometimes as painful as it is joyful.
 
Once such inquiry begins, we cross an invisible boundary, where the fire that will weld us into spiritual partnership is ignited.  A force more powerful and pervasive than our rational mind begins pounding at the door of our heart, shattering concepts and stirring up dragons, while the shadows of love dance around us.

The Exquisite Mirror

Relationships are an exquisite mirror.  If we look closely we can witness the ritual opening and closing of our hearts and the myriad ways our minds seek to avoid or embrace the fire of love.  We rub up against each other’s edges, only to confront the walls of our own imaginings and conceptions.  We point self-righteously to the flaws in our partner’s character only to discover in honest moments our own vulnerability.    As we move deeper into intimacy, the mirror grows sharper.  When the spiritual eye begins to open we sense a healing agenda emerging from the space between habitual modes of thought and feeling.   Gradually, if we persist and remain open, a brighter something is born—an understanding, a realization—and we find that through the excruciating ordeal of love and intimacy our inner hearts and minds are healed.  We call this healing part of the Invisible Wedding – invisible because the transformation occurs within, a wedding because the separation inside us is mended.  But the whole wedding, as we will explore further on, goes beyond the uniting of mind and heart, to include that of the individual with the Beloved.

In a spiritual partnership we explore together the rich fabric of our inner lives.  This nurtures not only ourselves but our spouses, children, and community.  A heart that learns to authentically love another learns to love all.   In more conventional relationships, goals are almost exclusively defined in terms of emotional and material security, whereas in a spiritual partnership the primary target is a deepening realization of wholeness.  The sometimes wild, unpredictable investigation of truth becomes more compelling than the ego’s need for constant reassurance. 

Investigating Our Feelings, Thoughts and Behaviors

In a spiritual partnership we are challenged to investigate—rather than suppress—uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that inevitably arise in the context of relating.  Even for couples already on a spiritual journey there is often the sense that life should be different than what it is.  We shouldn’t be jealous that our partner is hanging out with friends after work.  We should be making love more often.  We shouldn’t get so angry. We shouldn’t experience attractions outside of our primary relationship.  The list goes on.  Our mental judgments and imaginings are constantly battling with the reality of what is.  Such judgments originate from the ego’s fundamental insecurity and its chronic need for assurance and control.  All such issues once welcomed in as part of our investigation into ourselves, become powerful catalysts for personal insight and deepening intimacy.

Healing begins with an acceptance of what is, including our own judgments and oscillating states of mind.  To heal anger we must acknowledge it.  To make peace with fear we must welcome its presence.  To calm jealousy we must view it without self-judgment and condemnation.  Once we set a place at the table for our demons, perhaps they will no longer torment us.  Once we stop trying to control or manipulate the phenomena that fill our psychic and physical space, perhaps we can begin to heal and experience a level of intimacy beyond words.   But such a path will take us beyond our personalities, with all their likes and dislikes.  If we go far enough with our investigation we will meet in a place beyond the conditional nature of the ego.

A basic principle that we will explore throughout these pages is that healing and real intimacy happen from the level of the spirit, not the ego.  This is why Western psychology often fails to restore wholeness to the individual.  Caught in a mechanistic paradigm, it often does not acknowledge the transpersonal, intuitive heart within which mind, body, spirit, and environment are wed.  It is this unifying vision in the context of intimate sharing that we will explore in The Invisible Wedding.