“If you will hold my hand, then I will hold my breath and cast my fate in the direction of my heart. I will put on hold my lesser dreams and reach for what is truly mine.”
It is rare to find a collection of words and ideas so profound that you stop and say “That is exactly right, perfect,” and you read and reread to take it all in. I’ve read millions of words, but few have changed my mind and my desires so quickly like Enchanted Love by Marianne Williamson, who I looked up because I quoted her once.
Find it, read it, if you dare. Here are parts of three paragraphs from pages 26-27:
Our deepest human need is not material at all: Our deepest need is to be seen. We need adventure. We need meaning. We need identity. We need love. Most people bear the terminal stress of walking the world unseen, a mere number or cog in a lifeless machine. Mystical romance is a space of resurrection and repair. It does more than help us survive a soulless world; it helps us to transform it.
The problem with most intimate relationships is that they are not romantic. They do not involve a deeper knowing…. To be truly seen, in all our innocence and glory, is to be truly healed.
So many people say that they are looking for love, yet they are actually committed to never finding it. Many people would really rather not know of the scars and triumphs of the person who lies in their arms. Many people who say they are looking for love are merely looking for superficial comfort. Real love entails readiness to die to who we were, in order to be born again prepared for love, truly worthy of the romantic heights. Real love is comforting, to be sure, but not always at first. In becoming romantic artist, we must pierce the armor that hides our hearts, and that piercing is not comfortable. It is horrible and painful. It can take years of tears to melt the hardness that develops in this world, covering our tender, gentler, inner selves. Tears for every devastating loss. Tears for every humiliating failure. Tears for every repeated mistake. Those who allow those tears, even honor those tears, are not failures at love but rather its true initiates. First the pain, and then the power. First the heart breaks then it soars.
