I am indebted to Curt Hill who inspired this conversation.
I am love with you.
Wait! Did you hear me say "I am in love with you"?
Look again. That's not what I said (it's not a typo).
There are two things to get here. One, if you heard me say "I am in
love with you", notice your already always listening for it, regardless
of what was actually spoken. Two, "I am in love with you" is a concept,
whereas "I am love with you" is an experience (to get that, try both on
for size - exactly as they're spoken).
An overriding assumption of life in the world as we know it, is
"This isn't
it!"
("it can't be it, there's gotta be more") - Werner distinguishes (I'm
paraphrasing)
life as a game in which what
isn't, is more important than what is.
As a corollary of
"This isn't it!"
ie what goeswith it (as
Alan Watts
may have said) is I have no love to start with, and if I don't get love
from you, I'll have none at all. At worst, that's an interesting place
to be in. At best, you're in good company if that's where you're at: I
have no love, similarly you have no love, but we revel in whatever it
is we call love that we, each having none, give to each other - a
strange state of affairs indeed.
Yet when you and I are in relationship with each other that way, it's
still one of the best things there is, one of the best things available
to us, one of the redeeming features of life as we know it as it creeps
on at this petty pace (as
William Shakespeare
may have said). That's what we mean literally by "being in
love": that rare, indeterminate yet delicious state in which I, having
no love, am loved by you, also having no love, and each putting our
no-love in the space between us, in which we then both
swim
(hence the expression "being in love") yet having no real mastery over
causing it nor having any of it left if either of us doesn't want to
play anymore.
An entirely new possibility for love is called into being when I take
responsibility for my experience. When I look at my experience of love,
I see love ("allowing another to be exactly who they are, and exactly
who they aren't") as my source. I come from it. I am it. At first, that
seemingly most obvious of all obvious realities, eludes me. Yet as I
look at it, I notice (if I pay attention) I can never not
grant that way-of-being to another (double negatives aside) if I'm
being true to who I really am.
Being love, I bring love to relationship, rather than looking to you in
relationship to give me love. Love is my source. Love is where I come
from. I am love. Being love, you bring love to
relationship, rather than looking to me in relationship to give you
love. Love is your source. Love is where you come from. You
are love.
