Lunar Reflection

The moon tonight suggests almost pregnancy, so full is it.

The blues band had a lengthy practice; and when it was over I went for a walk by Bayou St. John, the quiet water where I like to go to think. 

I was thinking a lot about the past and how it’s misshapen the present. I’ve been thinking about the things I’m trying to do to take responsibility for the hurts I’ve caused, and how sometimes that feels like lying down under an avalanche.

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Life's Not A Beach: Real Love In The Time of the Idiot Relationship

A long talk late into the night with a very dear friend who struggles with a pretty good life, a pretty great spouse, fantastic kids, and a hole right in the middle of the heart that keeps opening up wide.

We talked about relationships, about how we all kind of long for the easy, shallow intimacy of playing house and beach vacations and constant sex and every-night’s-a-date-even-when-you-stay-home.  The kind of things we get when we’re single, or freshly in love, the period when you really aren’t getting to know the best of somebody but their best face.   We all like that stuff: but it’s idiot-love.  You no more know a person’s quality when they’re happy than you know a horse’s quality when he’s in the stable…

…Love isn’t measured by the amount of pleasure and satisfaction you get out of a relationship. It’s measured by how well you face the dark.

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Parenting, Anxiety, and Permanent Effects on The Limbic System

Updated on Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 9:12AM by Otter

Excerpt From A General Theory of Love about how we’re formed early on with much of our response-mechanisms in place; and how that can predispose us with needs that we really do need met.

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Continuance

Image Copyright 2012 by Otter

Good morning.

Nothing more than that: 

Just, good morning.

Well.

Not just that…

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On The Nightstand

A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, Fari Armini, and Richard Lennon explores the evolutionary and neurological realities of love and desire and what goes on in our reptilian brains when we’re in love.

Worth reading if you’re in love or hope to get that way soon so you can understand what’s happening and avoid the train-wrecks. Indispensable if you’ve been in the train-wreck.

My review. Excerpt on unconscious emotional reactions included: we’re having a special.

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Book of Otter: Handling Hatred

Hatred is the most powerful emotion.  I’ve not been familiar with it until recently.

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Playing Sober and Un-Coupled: A Few Thoughts On Changing

We played a bar tucked away in an old neighborhood in the suburbs tonight.  It was pretty enthusiastic for so small and out-of-the-way a place, with boiled crawfish in the back giving the place a homey feel and people appreciative of our music dancing.

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Book of Otter: Scent of Death / Scent of Love

We consider scents, and goodness.

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Corvus: Introspection

The corbus I surprised in California with my camera

Further reflections on limerence, addiction, and finding my balance. If you’re getting tired of that, move on. There’s nothing to see here.

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The Song of Solomon and Erotic Dysfunction

A “celebration of married sex” is the usual Christian description of the S.O.S.: you can Google it to see the kerffufliana and anxiety around its interpretation.  And to be very sure, the allegorical reading of the poem as a love-note between God and Israel (or the Church, or the Soul) is ancient, rabbinical, and classical.

I taught all that (except for the “married” part), but not until we’d uncovered its erotic characteristics.  And in my reading of the poem, it isn’t anything like a celebration of married love.   One aspect of the Song of Solomon though that’s underexplored is the enormous tension in it between sexual desire and the disapproval of the community.

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