Enchanted Love
Page 15
Someday, when all of this is over, we will laugh at this. And you will say, “Do you remember when you were so mad at me, when I wanted to take that trip with my friends?”
And I will say, “Yes, I remember that. I didn’t know it, of course, but I was totally invested in making you a monster, and I couldn’t think of any other way to do it.”
“You did quite well,” you will say to me.
“But hallelujah,” I will say to myself. “I don’t have to do that anymore—to you or to me or to anyone.”
WITH HALF of all American marriages ending in divorce, we desperately need to embrace a more sacred way of dealing with this experience. We need it for ourselves, and most importantly, we need it for our children.
Divorce is not necessarily a real end. It is a change, to be sure, and an end to one form of a relationship—but it need not be an end to what is most important. If you have children with someone, then they are your family. And that family remains. Most divorced people I know would want very much to find a way to have a friendly, loving relationship with their ex, if they only knew how. And those who do are so clearly blessed.
In my book Illuminata, I wrote a sacred “divorce ceremony” that prayerfully guides a couple to place their now-ending marriage in the hands of God. It blesses the bond that does not die and surrenders the one that does. God is asked to illumine the transition. What violence is wrought, in our hearts and in our children’s hearts, when there is no grace around something this painful and significant.
Whether or not we choose to participate in such a ceremony, the murmuring of our hearts can still secure the blessings of the Lord.
Dear God,
We place this marriage
and this divorce
in Your hands.
Heal our hearts, dear God,
and heal our children.
We release each other in love,
and we bless each other forever.
Help us to forgive the past,
to see the beauty and innocence
in ourselves
and each other.
We thank each other for the good times,
and forgive each other for everything else.
May nothing in the past
except its blessing
remain with either one of us.
We thank each other
for the many gifts,
and vow to hold them in our hearts forever.
In this moment,
may our relationship be reborn,
to serve this new season of our lives.
May the Holy Spirit
guide us and bless us.
Forgive us both,
dear God.
Amen.
And when our beloved has passed from physical existence, a chapter in our relationship with that person is over. But the book of life itself never ends. If our beloved dies, he or she will be as an angel on our shoulder. And if our hearts are open, we will feel their wings brush gently up against our neck, every time we turn around.
Dear God,
Please tie a golden cord,
one end to my beloved’s heart
and one end to mine.
With Your hand upon this cord, dear God,
please make our bond eternal.
May neither sickness nor pain,
conflict nor death,
defeat or take away our love.
Cement my heart
to the heart of my beloved,
forever and ever.
Amen.
If the person we love still lives, but has withdrawn his or her affection, then it is possible that cords of energy still connect us in unhealthy ways. At such a time, it is best to ask God to remove those cords, to even cauterize their ends, that we might be free of attachments that no longer serve. Through sex and longing and depth of emotion, we can find ourselves tied to places and situations no longer useful to our journey. Then it is time to cry, and to pray, and to deepen. Yet such moments help inform us of the nature of love, and thus the nature of life. We come to understand more deeply who we really are and why we came here. When we see that, we begin to smile again.
And in time, we will begin to laugh.
Dear God,
Receive my praise
and thanksgiving
for the love
who is in my arms.
Amen
13
Song of the Beloved
On the day when you said yes, I sat down and could not believe my search was over. Yes, there will be no more emotional back alleys, where I have wandered in the hopes of being fed. Yes, now I had better put up, after all my protestations that I’m the one for you. Yes, it is true, the holiness and power in the air tonight mean I have ended one life and begun another.
No, I do not feel confident that I will not trip or fall. No, I do not always feel good enough to be at your side. No, I do not feel absolutely sure of the decision we have made. But neither do I feel I have a choice. For my heart calls out from an ancient place and declares you are the one—that to be with you and walk with you and pray with you and cry with you will hone my soul and redeem my past, and free my song at last. When it does, I will sing for you. And then we shall both be free.
Come with me now, into a forest deep. I will not let go your hand. There is waiting there, in a grove of grass, a surprise that will make you laugh. You will feel there like a child again, and we will play among the wild. I will not be who you see before you, yet you will recognize my eyes. Lion, tiger, lamb and bird, I will magnify your every thought and be your every dream. Pet and lover, mother, sister, queen and servant shall I be, until you rise from all still dreaming to be alive at last. And when you do, I only hope that I will still be yours. I do not take for granted this, but wish with all my heart. Your light this day relieves my heart; your light that day will penetrate the darkness of my pain. Then I will rise like the phoenix bird and join with you in flight. We will not be who we used to be. We will be angels then.
I will fly, if you will fly. We will fly as one. We will not regret the choice we made, to love each other now. For we both know the pain we knew, walking the corridors of a loveless world. We will hold each other up. We will free each other’s soul to sing. The music of the universe will reconstruct our souls. The love we share will light the sky, and dark shall be no more. God will surely join us there. Hallelujah, we shall sing, and fall into His arms. Fall into mine for now, my love, and I will make you glad.
This is the day the Lord hath made, this is the table prepared for us, this is the love to heal us both. Thank you God, for my love at my side. Thank you God, for everything. Thank you God, for all of this. Thank you God, for you.
THE HEART BECOMES supple, or love cannot find us. Walls cannot join with one another, but tender spirits can. And in that joining, a power greater than the sum of its parts is released into the universe. A mysterious laser enters into us, expanding who we are, altering our personal boundary lines, redesigning the map of our former existence. We are becoming who we need to be to stand at each other’s side.
And thus is created the space called “we”—not you, not me, but a sacred dimension called “we.” A space to be honored, protected, and, above all, cherished. A space of love that is not of this world, but with the power to transform it. It is a hospital for the broken spirits of the two who have arrived here, a place to rest after years at war, and a womb for the preparation of the identities we are forging now. We were born alone, but we will be reborn as cosmic twins.
And that is what we find, when we finally ascend to the highest peaks of love. Enchanted intimacy bestows a shared ministry, a common mission of two souls in service to a force that is bigger than either one. We are separate and we are one as well—indeed, as is all humanity. It is time to live as if our oneness mattered. We seek, through an enchanted love, to live the principles we so fervently wish to see guide our civilization. They are the principles that already guide the stars, and naturally g
uide the hearts of those who are in love. That is why lovers are the natural leaders of the dawning age. Enchantment restores our better nature. Both of us feel, “What I want, more than anything, is to be my best for you. What I want, more than anything, is to provide you with warmth in all the places where you have wandered in the cold for so long. What I want is to become someone who gives to you with the naturalness of a fountain giving water, and receives from you with the graciousness with which the earth receives the rain.”
Allow your mind to gently embrace the image of your beloved. Now see, with your mind’s eye, an angelic presence, a being of light who stands at his or her side. Allow yourself to slip into the luminous skin of this angelic force, to merge with its light and then to gently become it. Ask God to make you a profound beneficence in the life of the one you love.
Pray that the doors to love be opened in your heart. Dear God, please make me a giver, not a taker. Dear God, please make this love a playground for our higher selves. Dear God, please make my beloved a very happy person. Dear God, please use me to restore her smile, to repair his heart, to promote the healing of my lover’s life. And with our love and through our love, dear God, please heal the world. I vow to try to do my best. Please bless us both. Amen.
There is such stillness here in this place, where there is only you and I, with the knowledge that this has been going on forever. We paused in conversation, for what—a thousand years? Speak to me again, for your voice is coded with the music I have longed to hear. I will join you in this dialogue, I will speak my word and sing my part. The silence lasted long enough, and it is time to begin again.
ALL JOINING of hearts is a joining in God; there is no love but God’s. Each love we share is a facet of His Light, in a cosmic diamond as real as anything we can see or feel in the physical world.
Enchantment builds a bridge across time and space, compensating for whatever apparent lack there is in our normal modes of communication. If I’m one with you in the realm of enchantment, yet lack either phone or emotional permission to call, you might just happen to hear a song on the radio that says to you what I would say if I were at your side.
The song was not played “by accident,” and you know it. You feel it. This is the kind of thing that occurs naturally in the presence of love. It is part of a mystical fabric that is woven between those who love and claim enchantment. Our old, mechanistic modes of being are like old airplanes next to the space shuttle, compared to the illumined capacities that spring forth when our hearts are open. These new capacities are not metaphorical; they are very real. They include the ability to fly across time and space (when we love each other enough, we will not need airplanes), communicate across time and space (when we love each other enough, we will no longer need the Internet), and bring peace to all the world (when we love each other enough, we will have no need for war).
Enchanted lovers create a hole in the wall now blocking our view of paradise. The wall will come down in the world, when it crumbles in our hearts.
So this is the adventure I propose to you: I want every thought and every feeling, every hope and every dream, every fear and every pain. I want them all. I will put them in my pot and pour in spices from the East. I will stir them with my will, and add my love and prayers for you. Later you will dine with me, and the food you eat will make you strong. Your shallow self will cook away, into the depth you carry in you. Bring to me your hunger, and I will feed you from my womanself.
Bring to me your yearning, for I am big enough to meet you there. I bring with me a spirit who will dwell with us forever. It will make of our love an enchanted place, and we will become who we are.
Now come up to the wall with me, and the wall will disappear, my love.
The wall will disappear.
Say yes, and you will never be sorry. Say yes, say yes, say yes, say yes, say yes . . .
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Al Lowman and Mitchell Ivers for being my midwives on this book. Thanks to Simon & Schuster for allowing me the privilege of publishing it. Thanks to Anne-Marie Wilk for making my world work while I was writing it. Thank you to Sandy Scott for awesome support. And thank you to Emma for making Mommy’s heart so very glad.
ALSO BY MARIANNE WILLIAMSON
Illuminated Prayers
The Healing of America/Healing the Soul of America
Emma and Mommy Talk to God
Illuminata
A Woman’s Worth
A Return to Love
About the Author
Marianne Williamson has been lecturing on metaphysics and spirituality since 1983. She is the bestselling author of A Return to Love, A Woman’s Worth, Illuminata, Emma and Mommy Talk to God, Illuminated Prayers, and Healing the Soul of America, a revised and expanded version of The Healing of America. She is the spiritual leader of the Church of Today in Warren, Michigan.
For more information regarding Ms. Williamson’s work, please visit her website at www.marianne.com.
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Copyright © 1999 by Marianne Williamson
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Williamson, Marianne, date.
Enchanted love : the mystical power of intimate relationships / Marianne Williamson.
p. cm.
1. Love. 2. Man-woman relationships. 3. Intimacy (Psychology). I. Title.
BF575.L8W553 1999
299'.93—dc21 99-39531
ISBN 0-684-84219-X
0-684-87025-8 (Pbk.)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-2707-0 (eBook)