Love Letters
Do Not Catch Lightning in a Bottle
 First leg of the journey home:
It's late. I'm tired. Too much beer and Chinese bloats my belly against the seatbelt.
Not enough time with you weakens my soul. I love you with the foundation of my daily life. Without you loving me in return I am unwillingly suspended in the vortex of meaningless existence. It is too strange to contemplate. Too painful to consider.
It is strange how loving you is always poised on these pages as a precarious knife-edge balance between heaven and hell, between blissful joy and agonizing pain. It is strange there seems no middle ground. On the other hand it would be stranger if there were something in between.
Moving. We're moving down the taxi-way to my final destination with you. As I think about it that is more than metaphoric. All my life I have been moving in a direction that, in my end, leaves me, my final years with you. There is no finer destination in the universe for my soul, no greater resting place than to fall asleep one last time in your arms.
Changing planes after a long wait:
This is not marriage, I thought. I am repelled by that label. This is sacred, and sacred is not marriage. It is something entirely different.
Marriage is a menial obligation. This, what we have, is a sacred expression. Marriage is codified conflict, obligated interaction based on commitment, careful manipulation, mixed with meaningful dialogue, charismatic interchange, and attempts at remote sensing of the other's needs, wants, desires.
That is nothing like the sacred union. Union is, or it is not. It exists. It has no states except on or off. It is because the sacred exists. It is not because the sacred bond has gone missing in action. Or never was. These are the distinctions that matter, differences that are all that matters. Can you see that? Can you feel that? Can you wiggle into that space and understand with clarity what this means to you, your life, your hope for long-term, fulfulling relationships? And mine?
But, perhaps the distinction between marriage and union cannot be taught, only caught, understood only when you are already in the space defined by union. Being caught in the frame of marriage is being framed by social convention, by cultural expectations, which have nothing whatsoever to do with the union that springs forth from your soul.
When you are lost in convention many things may fit, many things, that is, except your soul. But when you are moved by your soul there is no convention, no measuring rule, no outside reference to see if you are on track, if you are going in the right direction. Your soul is not informed by these external reference points. It has none.
The soul has no way to determine where you are going because "where you are going" has no meaning when measured in the context of your soul. In your soul there is only that which vibrates and that which does not. Simple. Simplicity. Truth.
So, it is here that you can tell the truth of your relationship. Once you accept the primacy of your soul over convention you will know the difference without the telling of words on a page. The truth of union does not lie deep within your soul. It is you. It is your essence revealed with clear simplicity.
No, this thing that we have is not marriage, nor should it be. Marriages last or they break apart. Souls are. And when the truth of union expressed from your soul bursts into the open, it will touch, and be touched. Do not extend that into marriage-like expectations. Unions last a lifetime (perhaps before and after) although time together may be short or long, unions are always with you.
Unions last but that does not mean they keep you together. It only means you are together in your co-joined souls, and the time you exist within each other's space is limited, no matter how long that may be. It is a gift that cannot be earned or captured. It comes and goes of its own accord. Though the connection will last unbroken, our short time together, as painful as it may be, is whatever it is. And nothing can change that.
Lightning cannot be caught in a bottle. But that does not mean it is not powerful, nor forever changing of those struck by it. It may be an imperfect metaphor, but in this instance it is apt. Marriage is trying to catch lightning in a bottle to keep the magic alive, controlled, and forever within reach. All it does is break the bottle.
The union of souls is lightning too powerful to be captured, too magical to be controlled, too unknown to be settled into routine. But it will be with you forever. Celebrate what a union is. Invest in its fleeting joys. Bathe in its exploding light. Do not assume it will always strike you in this way forever. Once stuck by the union of souls, embrace. It will never let you go, though you may never see each other again.
So, do not try to catch lightning in a bottle. Rather, spend your life in the joys of being struck – the unlimited pleasure of spending time together.
No, this is not marriage. This is sacred. Undissolvable. You cannot create the sacred. You exist within it. And so it is with you and I.
You are the sacred lightning of my life. Thank you for hitting me and lighting my way to joy.
Zander C
Copyright 2007-2009, Zander C. All rights reserved.
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