L O V E R S… may be the luckiest people…in the world. Let me count the ways.
“Lovers… are very special people,” sings Barbra Streisand. “They’re the luckiest people in the world…” Thus goes Merrill and Styne’s hit song written back in 1964. Most people would enviously agree, although there are among us a few cynics who are convinced that being in love is a pain in the you-know-where.
What is it exactly that makes lovers so special? What is it that a lover exudes that tells us that he or she is in fact a lover? What are those qualities that separate people in love from everyone else? That “something” that defines a lover is the passion, sensitivity, juiciness, electromagnetic exuberance, magic and power of loving and feeling loved. The prototypical Lover is any man or woman pierced by Cupid’s arrow, or teased by the Love Goddess Venus/Aphrodite of Roman/Greek legends. From pale blush to exquisite pique and pining away, the range of response is enormous. Whether she’s “driving you mad,” or he’s making you “act like a silly schoolgirl again,” you know when you’ve been taken over by the seductive power of sensual, sexual love. Romance, intrigue and passion is in the air.
Of course, not all lovers are particularly romantic. Nor do they burn with the same intensity or heat. The spectrum is enormous, from cool to warming, slow burn to red hot lust. And there are degrees of possibility at each place on the spectrum –particular colors, shades and hues, certain textures and shapes uniquely discovered by each person who adventures into the fields of the Lover. In our imagination, we can picture the “fullness of the archetype,” the Lover residing at the center of a love see-saw as having the complete range of motion and emotion. The mature archetype has available all the musical possibilities, all the exquisite colors and feelings we could dream up. And as we imagine, so we experience the infinite possibilities of loving and being loved.
True lovers are blessed: They are aware of Life as sacred. Everything has special meaning for them, whether walking hand-in-hand or resting in the blissful tranquility of a sunset. Or making love, coming alive all over in bodily places they never knew existed before. Opening to contain the flood of pleasurable sensations coming over them, Lovers feel that life is inherently purposeful. All their senses are new: The sky is bluer, clouds send special hidden meanings, work is more promising, talents more obvious, skin surfaces more tingly alive to the wind. All five million sense receptors seem to awaken at once. Everything tastes better. Laughter is richer and fuller. Sexual lovemaking is, in the wake of the lovers’ devotion, indescribable, beyond words.
Lovers are the anointed ones among us. They are alive and alove all over, with all senses “go.” The world looks more inviting, more exciting, more beautiful. There’s more celestial music, especially the sound of our loved one’s voice. Or just in saying her name: “Maria,” sings Tony in the musical, Westside Story, “I’ve just met a girl named Maria, and suddenly I‘ve found how wonderful a sound can be…” To Tony, the sound of his lover’s name was “the most beautiful sound” he’d ever heard. Being in love is like that. For many of us, it’s the gateway to the spiritual, to the assurance of the existence of our souls.
Although lovers comes in so many sizes and shapes, ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds and have probably existed since Adam and Ever swooned in the Garden, there is a distinctive quality that all would-be lovers share: A hunger for a full-bodied experience of being alive. There is a drive to awaken all sense-abilities, what we might call “sense-you-all-ity.” This applies to both outer and interior worlds. Lovers seem to possess a special attunement, particularly to one another. Whether it’s being adept at finishing each other’s sentences so perfectly (which later, when “the romance is over,” or has taken a serious dive becomes a point of contention) or mysteriously knowing just where the “geeee spots” are during nightly lovemaking, lovers seem to have a particular intuition, instinct and telepathy working for them. Although they might not know that it has anything to do with their own willingness to be so open and intimate –nonetheless they just ‘know’ things. As the Beatles crooned, “Something in the way she knows…I don’t need no other lover…”
Another quality that the lover possesses is relatedness: All the world is anam cara, a friend of the soul, a kindred spirit, an extension of his or her shininess. At the heart, all are relations, and the lover lives it. The lover’s heart pulses with the Heart of all creation. She’s One with the Mystery of Life. In love with life, ecstatic, s/he transcends normal third dimensional reality, floats on air, except of course in the middle of third degree burning sex! But even that is somehow elevated from the norm. Lovers are like mystics of all ages, touching and touched by the Nameless that is Love ItSelf.
That’s not all that human lovers can be touched by. Perhaps you yourself have experienced the temporary insanity of over-identifying with the Lover archetype. This kind of lover is sooooooooo sensitive that s/he can’t function. “I can’t smile without you… I can’t sing… finding it hard to do anything,” moans Barry Manilow in his version of the pop song. No dog has ever been more miserable than that unrequited lover man whose woman isn’t speaking to him. No one is more of a ditzy space case than that poor gal biting her nails, nibbling chocolates, wondering if or when “he” will call tonight. This type of lover is addicted to intensity and suffers the excruciating experience of feeling powerless before the object of his or her love attentions. On the opposite end of the love seesaw is the lover who copes with the potential for extreme sensitivity and anxiety over losing control by shutting down, turning off, withdrawing. By killing the poetry, the art, the dance, the flowering, this lover hopes to survive the ups and downs of a love affair.
Fortunately or unfortunately, we lovers here on earth are human ones. We are seldom able to sustain the mystical, ideal state that is our subliminal inspiration. Mortals, we are prone to falling out of love, off the pedestal, off the carousel. This book aims to help lovers find their way back, to help salvage broken hearts and disillusioned minds. It’s dedicated to the archetypal Lover in each one of us, to funding courage to take the leap over and over again, over the walls and back into the Garden. To be a lover is after all, to be alive, and aware of that in the boldest celebration.
[First published by Single Magazine and Entertainment Guide, Jan-Mar, 1998]
