Enchanted Love

by Marianne Williamson

  There comes a point where we have done as much of the inner work as we can do by ourselves. For a long time, many of us felt the need to forgo intimate relationships while we did our inner work, from which those dramas distracted us. But the emotional zeitgeist has shifted now; at this point, we need intimate relationships in order to go further with our inner work. Intimacy has become our new frontier because honesty in life is relatively easy, while honesty with an intimate partner is ten times harder; integrity in life is relatively easy, while integrity regarding an intimate partner is a much more confusing issue; and forgiveness as a principle is easy enough to grasp, while forgiving an intimate partner can take more wisdom and grace than we feel we’re capable of.

  To commit to the dynamics of an enchanted romance is to commit to climbing an emotional mountain, embarking together on a potentially perilous journey. It is to say, “What we know of relationship dramas is not what we want now. Our prayer is to not repeat the past. We invite the spirit of God to enter this relationship with us, to transform the thoughts we carry from before, to open our eyes to the awesome vision that stands before us now, to help us not cower in fear before the beauty and the power that we see in each other. May the potential of this love become its reality.” On earth, as it is in heaven. And during the day, as during the night.

  Amen.

  MY GENERATION paid a terrible price for our overcasualization of romance, particularly its sexual element. It is as though we toyed with the emotional equivalent of nuclear power, and upon realizing this, have now created the sexual equivalent of the anti-nuclear movement. We don’t want to get rid of sex, but neither do we want sex to get rid of us! We are looking for new containers for the power unleashed when two hearts recognize each other and in their excitement collide. The answer to our former destructiveness is not to avoid romantic love but to recreate it. We need new models for romantic expression in an age when we are ready at last to be truly mature, and know that spiritual perspective is the hallmark of maturity.

  We have not put romance and sex in the same category as God and spiritual practice for a very long time, if ever. The most we have been able to do is find ancient traditions, usually not even from our own cultural or religious lineages, that delineate possibilities for grace-filled romantic experiences. But it is time for our generation of Westerners to claim for ourselves, in the context of our own traditions, the notion of holy romance in today’s astounding world. In both Judaism and Christianity, the communication has been mainly, “Get married, and then we’ll talk.” Well, hello. What if we’re not married? Does that mean that there is nothing spiritual in our relationships to work on until then?

  The spiritual crux of romance is the issue of partnership itself: Am I going through this life alone, or am I walking with my beloved? Are we competitors, or are we allies? Are we two parallel tracks, or are we entwined? Are we parallel in some ways, and entwined in others? Are we parallel on some days, and entwined on others? Which day is which? And do we know how we truly feel about these things, and do we know how our partner feels?

  These issues demand serious and heartfelt conversation of a kind that doesn’t just happen by itself. Yet it is depth of conversation and forgiveness, not the joining of bodies, that determines the presence or absence of real relationship. Until we know this, there is a level on which we are bound to emotionally walk alone, even if our bodies sleep with the same person for twenty or thirty years. What is the goal of our relationship? That is the question we ultimately face. Is the goal to have a warm body next to us (decent goal, but not necessarily magical)? Is the goal to raise children (decent goal, but not necessarily magical)? Is the goal to create a home together (decent goal, but not necessarily magical)? Or is the goal to find an enchanted realm of ever-expanding opportunities, for growth of who we are and who we can be together, lighting both our inner and our outer skies? Then sex is magical; then raising children is magical; then a home is magical.

  If we want enchantment, we have to prepare the brew. And that takes effort, as writing a song takes effort or building a house takes effort. It takes inner as well as outer work: dedication to the discernment of spiritual truth as it flows through our lives and relationships. It means learning what it means to show up for another person, what it means to give something from the depths of ourselves, what it means to receive, what it means to make another person feel safe without indulging his or her neuroses, what it means to take responsibility for our own issues, what it means to bless and support someone else, what it means to meditate with another, to forgive another, to pray with another, to reveal to another, to delight another, to celebrate another, to create new life on some level with another, to avoid the temptation to abandon another, to avoid the temptation to attack another, to learn to be kind and patient even when we’re not at all in the mood, and still—in the midst of it all—to NOT rely on another for either our sustenance or our wholeness. To remember always that God is here, in the middle of the relationship, and that what your beloved cannot give you today, God gives you always.

  When we master any of those energies, for an hour or even for a moment, we transcend emotional gravity. We move into a realm not of infatuation but of heightened reality, a very serious emotional and spiritual flow that, when achieved by enough of us, will cut like a laser through the encrusted darkness of the world, remove the rock, resurrect our lives, and start the world all over again.

  “Your reality is so different than mine,” you said.

  “How so?” I asked.

  “The way you see the relationship is so much more mystical than the way I see it.”

  “I don’t know if I buy that,” I said. “I couldn’t be seeing what I’m seeing unless you were seeing it too.”

  “That’s true,” you said.

  “In fact, to be honest, I think you’re a closet mystic.”

  “True as stated,” you said.

  “So isn’t there an issue here about owning who you really are? Have you heard the story about the eagle and the chickens, where the baby eagle got raised by chickens so no one told him he had wings?”

  “Yes,” you said. “I have. Joseph Campbell told an even better one. A mother lion, heavy with child, threw herself into a herd of lambs, to feed. But she was so heavy that the fall killed her. The baby lion was born, and then was raised among the lambs.

  “After a passage of time, a male lion was preparing to attack the lambs in order to feed. All of a sudden, he saw a young lion among them, and said, ‘What are you doing here?’

  “ ‘Ba-a-a-h,’ was the young lion’s response.

  “So the adult lion took the young lion aside, telling him who he was and forcing him to eat the meat that lions are supposed to eat. The young lion gagged at first, and had a hard time swallowing it. But in the end he came to realize that this was his food, and this was his leonine nature.”

  The story obviously meant a lot to you. I could tell by the way you sighed. And later I realized it was my story, too. I’m the reverse tale: I am a lamb who was raised among lions. We are both trying to actualize our own essential natures now, and recognize in each other a spiritual mentor. You feel good when you’re around me because, in my presence, you feel like a lion. And I feel good when I’m around you, because in your presence I feel like a lamb.

  Out of your wound came the medicine for my healing, and out of my wound came the medicine for yours. God, in His infinite mercy and genius, uses even the darkness to create more light.

  At the highest level of our being, the lion lies down with the lamb. Our strength and our gentleness, our assertiveness and our tender ness, our male and our female, our leader and our follower, our yin and our yang, our divinity and our humanity, all merge together in harmony and balance.

  And then, when the universe is really sparkling . . . you lie down with me.

  My friend Sandy Scott says that every relationship involves a “gift exchange.” There’s always an exchange of gifts in a relationship, and kno
wing this reminds us of the spiritual purpose of having one. There are lessons for us to teach, and lessons for us to learn, in every human encounter.

  In intimacy, our capacity to love is the greatest, and our temptation to judge is the greatest as well. The possibility that we will merge our heart with the heart of another is the negative ego’s greatest fear, because that merger is the death of the ego! Fear-based ego is nothing more than the belief that we are separate beings, and truly joining with another puts the lie to that lie. It is the crucifix in front of the vampire, the casting out of devils, the water Dorothy poured over the Wicked Witch, the kiss of the prince, and the resurrection of our divine nature.

  Once we have experienced true joining with anyone, then the track is laid for our minds to experience it with everyone. That doesn’t mean we will, but it means we have an increased emotional capacity for doing so. A softened heart toward anyone makes the heart at least potentially softer in its dealings with the world. Intimate love is spiritual training for everything in life. It is not meant to be an exclusive sanctuary from the pain of the world, but rather an inclusive balm for the sorrows of the world. In learning to show up more fully for one person, we learn to show up more fully for life.

  It always blows me away when people say they “don’t have time” for a relationship. And what else is time for? For what other purpose are we living our lives? And can we really be passionate and creative in one area while we suppress our passion and creativity somewhere else? Emotion is like water. It can’t be cut down the middle. It can’t be put on a shelf. Intimate love, particularly an enchanted love, is the engine room for a certain kind of creative existence. When the burners are blasting there, the entire ship is ablaze with magic.

  It is a broader, more universal love toward which the planet is evolving, and all individual relationships are meant to serve that higher purpose. That is why there is such cosmic momentum behind true romance. It feels, when we fall in love, as though we have received a gift from God, and in fact we have. But when God gives a gift to anyone, it is never meant for that person alone. All gifts of God are intended for everyone. Spirit recognizes that in a particular combination of souls, the highest possibilities exist for the evolution of all living beings. Spirit sent Jennifer to John because, within this love, she has more chance of becoming, and more quickly, the woman she is capable of being. And Spirit sent John to Jennifer for exactly the same reason. Spirit thus gave both John and Jennifer to one another as their relationship “assignment.” In that sense, Cupid is very real indeed. His arrow says, “Stop and look at this person. There is something for you to learn here, and something for you to teach.”

  And God’s gifts never stop giving. If Jennifer is lifted, and John is lifted, then the world is lifted in ways that neither of them will ever even know. As Jennifer and John are lifted together, then their gifts to the world are exponentially increased. That is why people cry at weddings. We’re not just happy for the lucky couple; rather, we unconsciously know that if this depth of devotion is possible for anyone, then it’s possible on some level for all of us.

  When two hearts join in ecstasy and rapture, an army of light ascends and the world is brought closer to heaven. Literally. The beloved’s hand on us, like a baby’s hand, holds a power that is straight from God. Heaven is, in metaphysical terms, the experience of our oneness. The world is a holographic universe, with every piece containing the whole. An enchanted love between any two people is a blessing on the entire world.

  Thus the awesome power and responsibility of intimacy. The question that faces us is so much deeper than, “Are my needs being met here?” It becomes, “How can the world be blessed by our having found each other?” God wants us to be deeply, completely, and powerfully happy, because happy people are the most effective people. If your partner left the house feeling happier this morning because he or she spent the night with you, then know this: you served the world today. Just being in a good relationship is an ultimate service to the planet.

  And yet, for all its obvious magic, love is as daunting at times as it is compelling. The deeper our fear of the light at the center of ourselves, the deeper our fear of truly loving another. No matter how much a relationship blesses us, no matter how good it feels, and even perhaps at times because it feels so good, this soul medicine, when first offered up, can appear to the mind like a cup of poison. Enchanted partnership takes courage, because it challenges us to be. In the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, and thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, a gauntlet with a gift in it.” God brings us love, but we must meet it with courage or it will slip through our hands. When love walks in, we had best meet it with backbone.

  And when we do, we become different creatures. We are no longer adrift in our own aloneness, but are anchored in a steady love. Our ship is sturdy. Our love is to be depended on—not because its form will never change, but because someone else has given us their promise, with their eyes, with their actions, with their words, with their kisses, that this bond is neither small nor unimportant, that this commitment shall in some way last forever, and this lifetime shall not be lived alone.

  “I thought you would never get here,” I said.

  “I know. And that’s what took me so long. . . .”

  Dear God,

  Please lift my heart

  above the pain

  of former trials.

  Remove from me

  the thoughts

  that hold me back.

  Make clean my heart,

  make clear my mind,

  make new my life.

  Amen

  9

  Removing the Ghosts

  There are monsters in my past, my darling.

  So what? I have a few in mine. But I am not the monster.

  I am not the monster, and the monster is not me.

  FROM THE PERSPECTIVE of miracles, only love is real. Nothing else exists. The fact that something is in cosmic terms mere illusion, however, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the power, if left unhealed, to ruin your life. In this physical world, illusions are very powerful indeed.

  One of the places where we all tend to hold the greatest amount of unhealed fear is in our relationships with our parents, and until that fear is downloaded from our psyches, we tend to carry it like baggage into our adult relationships. Forgiving our parents is imperative if we want a healed, enchanted love.

  Many of us carry deep and serious wounds from childhood. Child abuse and neglect abound in the United States and have for years. They are played out in various forms of spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical violation, and literally millions of Americans are the seriously walking wounded.

  Others of us are not the seriously walking wounded—we did not suffer at the hands of seriously pathological parents—but nevertheless we are the walking wounded still, having been brought up by people just like us, parents who tried their best but could not help but pass on the wounds that they themselves received as children.

  For years I couldn’t figure out how much of our past, particularly family issues, we had to delve into in our efforts to emotionally heal ourselves. I knew that most of us carry scars from childhood, but I saw so many people overindulge themselves harping on it. Living in the past can be merely an excuse to avoid the present. More than anything, I was afraid that were I to look too closely into my past, I might end up judging someone I didn’t want to judge or blaming someone I don’t want to blame. The last thing I wanted to be was someone blaming all my problems on my parents.

  Yet looking with spiritual perspective at our childhood issues doesn’t lead us, in the end, to blame others, but rather to simply understand them more deeply. Until we do that, it can be hard to unravel the personal mysteries that limit our awareness. Unresolved childhood dramas can be very disempowering. They create and maintain the fear-based, unrecognized beliefs that run our lives without our knowing it. And they can limit our capacity t
o forgive by limiting our ability to understand who and what it is that we need to forgive.

  To say “I don’t blame my parents” is not necessarily the same thing as saying, “I hold them blameless.” Saying that you don’t blame your parents can be just a disguise for saying, “I do blame them, but I don’t want to have to admit the fact that I’m judgmental!” Real forgiveness is when you realize that in the larger scheme of things there’s nothing to forgive, because all mistakes are a call for love, and lovelessness has no permanent effect. But spiritual work is not a substitute for psychological work. And forgiving someone can be much easier to do when you have a fuller understanding of his or her life experience.

  Our parents had parents, too—they were wounded as children, too—and they didn’t know any more about how to get it right in this life than we do. Most of us are not victims of our parents, so much as we and our parents have all been living for years at the effect of the unevolved, fear-based energies permeating this world. None of us deserves blame and all of us deserve compassion. Sometimes you can’t really forgive your parents until you have allowed yourself to cry for them.

  I was raised, like millions of others around my age, by the “tumbler generation.” Almost every night when my father got home from work, he would drink a highball, one jigger of scotch with water. No one at that time would have considered this anything other than simple relaxation. He was certainly not a drunk, not as we think of that term. But what I understand now is that that one drink every night when my father got home was just enough buffer between him and his own emotions to guarantee that he would not be available to mine. I grew up starved for a certain emotional closeness with my father, and later in life would set up man after man to be as abstractly adoring as my father was abstractly adoring, yet ultimately as emotionally detached as my father was emotionally detached.