Interstate

Half-eaten fries, the remains of hash browns,
fill the table’s distance between them.
She scoops the car-keys, says she’ll not be long.

In the washroom mirror she checks her face
close up; sees years of wearied waiting.
She steps into a sticky afternoon.

How long before he’ll notice, before he’ll ask –
the forecourt is nauseous with diesel and ocean –
ask if anyone’s seen a woman in middle years.

She’s onto the freeway, jittering across lanes.
And why, he’ll wonder, now that the kids are gone,
now that they’re free to hit the road each spring.

She overtakes on automatic, clearing Carolina –
recalls the one dream he has left, of building a boat;
upriver in summer; dry dock in winter. The two of them.

An unforeseen calm settles with sundown: she longs
for nightfall on unbroken stretches of highway.
It’s clear ahead as far as her eyes can see

- Anne-Marie Fyfe

Image: Arsenic and Old Lace… by !Vintage-Vixen

When the cotton flower blooms,
O noble father.
Bring that season back for me,
O noble father.

It was in that season that I lost my song.
Separation choked its throat,
Sorrow ravaged its face,
Like water in ruined wells were its eyes.
It was a song that brought to lips,
The scent of musk.
O noble father.
Bring back that song for me.
O noble father.

One day my song and I,
In that enchanted season,
Ploughed the earth of my heart,
Sowed it with seeds of undefiled dreams.
No matter how many tears I poured on it,
No flower bloomed.
O noble father.
Bring back one flower for me,
O noble father.

What use your fertile lands
If daughters wilt?
What use your lakes
If the swans are parched?
What use your ample wealth
Your granary of pearls,
O noble father,
If you cannot bring back the season,
When the cotton flower blooms.
O noble father.

- Shiv Kumar Batalvi
Transl. Suman Kashyap

Image: The Cotton Bud Flower by `emmil

Love Poem

See the swallows quit the eaves
And fall the yellow walnut leaves,
The vines with autumn frost are numb,
Why don’t you come, why don’t you come?

 Oh, come into my arms’ embrace
That I may gaze upon your face,
And lay my head in grateful rest
Against your breast, against your breast!

 Do you remember when we strayed
The meadows and the secret glade,
I kissed you midst flowering thyme
How many a time, how many a time?

 Some women on the earth there are
Whose eyes shine as the evening star,
But be their charm no matter what,
Like you they’re not, like you they’re not!

 For you shine in my soul always
More softly than the starlight blaze,
More splendid than the risen sun,
Beloved one, beloved one!

 But it is late in autumn now,
The leaves have fallen from the bough,
The fields are bare, the birds are dumb.
Why don’t you come, why don’t you come?

 - Mihai Eminescu

1850-1889
Romania

 Image: Come Cuddle Please by =AndersonPhotography

In love the whole world seems beautiful¹. In love we see the beauty of a forest and look beyond the value of the timber. This love is a lamp that allows us to move toward a greater light that suns our lives. We begin to see hints of loves sacramental nature – hints of the fourth kind of love where matter and mystic do not commingle.

This is the love of poets. “The energy of eternal delight” described by William Blake. A hidden power waiting to be discovered.

This is the love of mystic poet George Russell² who said of his teenage romance claimed “intense and passionate imaginations of another world seized me …. every flower was a word, a thought. The grass was speech, the trees were speech; the waters were speech the winds were speech.”

No wonder he wrote “I think o f the earth as the floor of a cathedral where altar and presence are everywhere.”

This is the world of the Romantic movement, where imagination. Nature is a “plantation of God” said Ralph Waldo Emerson³ and “standing on bare ground … the currents of the universal being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.”

But this our own creative vision – an allegory of a greater divine state. This love is empowered by our instincts. Jung described the instincts of sex, the instinct to activity and by the reflective instinct. A seed of self awareness, this reflective ability allows us to see beyond ourselves, to build societies, ensure our societies survival. Yet we are gifted to be able to replay the experience in story and drama, and even science.

It offers catharsis, creative and intellectual vision and meditation.. This love takes us beyond the moment to moment snaps shot of momentary pleasure liberating us to creativity. Creativity that makes empathy possible.

Yet in cosmic dance of creation, Maslow reminds us that there are basic steps from biological, security, social and ego needs required before we are truly reach self expression. As much as it tries, It does not stand outside of life’s realities.

It could be argued that we mostly live in a world of fantasy. Yogic gurus and kabbalist’s argue we reflexively respond to our world as the monkey mind urges us forward from one sensation to the next. Each sensation giving us a chemical fix in our brains.

So this is the world both of delight, and delusion, a synaesthesia of dance and colour rushing in. It is the love that can enthral or crush us. Like love of Romeo and Juliet it frustrates all who seek to control the uncontrollable. It can enliven or destroy.

But if it destroys then is it really love – or love turned to lust? Perhaps this is a love of beauty that may be described by the intellect and faith of poets and believers alike.

Or perhaps the answer lies in our approach, the questions we ask of love and the degree of balance that we extend to it.

Unless we seek the hidden energy within, we can continue to grasp the pleasures of a lover. Once we know ourselves, we see our soul mirrored in a lover. Once realised, Its creative ability can build to unselfishness and empathy. Unknown or ignored it can collapse into lust and sexploitation.

This is the love of Venus, Isis or Aphrodite. This is the artistic love of the divine feminine, called both pure and a whore, depending on whose asking. She is Kali who is mother, carer and demonic destroyer ….

…. and here we face a dilemma.

Love is a pursuit of closeness. Once achieved, it can easily become routine. Each day must reawaken the search to discover what is new in our lover. To yearn cross a chasm for love, to bridge challenges, to discover what is closer to our lovers heart than us and become it.

The problem in failed romances is rarely lack of love. It is that I expect you to love me by my narrow definition. This is why it is nor right narrow love and restrict it. Because if I define love to narrowly it will not meet another persons expectations.

It is because I want you in my life, the traits I would tolerate in a friend bother me when from you. It is because I love you that it drives me crazy. If I didn’t care then I wouldn’t love you. I could keep you at a distance as I can separate from a former school friend.

In the heat and intensity of passion, emotions are fragile and fickle – but that is what makes them exciting. If it never changed it would not be love – it would be security.

If you want stability, stay with your mother.

On the path of true love we arrive at a unity where artificial distinctions dissolve and we discover the whole person we admire – and in so doing we discover ourselves.

In a 17^th century allegory called The Chymical Wedding, the hero climbs into the bedchamber of the Naked Lady Venus which is described psychologically by Esther Harding⁴:

“To raise the veil of Isis is to see nature as she really is, to understand what it is that underlies the manifestation of this world and of the emotions that so move us, to see them in their ultimate reality, not veiled by rationalisation or illusion. He who is able to do that and so face reality, becomes consciously immortal, or perhaps it should read ‘conscious of immortality’, for he has released his mind himself from the conditioning of time and space, and especially from the distortions of facts bought about by his own ego orientation.

The centre of consciousness has shifted from the personal ‘I’ of his ego, to a more disinterested focal point which embraces in its outlook a larger range and has in consequence a more detached attitude.”

Clearly this requires a balance of both passion and reason. Romantic success requires the creative healing, the creative growing of love.

 But how, will be addressed in our next article.

Image: Love In Lights by ~kevio89
loving You by ~lovelybutterfly

1Much of this section is derived from meditations on Naomi Ozaniec’s The Kabbalah Experience’

2AE(George Russell), The Candle of Vision, Inner World of the Imagination, Prison Press 1990.

3Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selected Essays, Penguin Books, 1985.

4Esther Harding Womens Mysteries, Rider, 1971.

I hate breaking my habits.I hate eing dependant.I hate being angry.I hate being insane.I hate losing my values.I hate losing respect for myself.I hate losing my controls.I hate seing my happiness in another person,I hate not accepting the other personAs they are.I hate living in dread of losing the one I love.I hate to want my love dead.But everything I hate is nothing but me.A mirror always shows what lies in front.I thank love for showing me myself.

- Bharat Thakur

Image: Mirror by ~Subryna

When the twilight is gone and no songbirds are singing
When the twilight is gone you come into my heart
And here in my heart you will stay while I pray

- My Prayer
Jimmy Kennedy and Georges Boulanger

Love is a prayer. Like Rumi of old we can yearn for God or yearn for a lover. Love can be expressed both communally and most intimately. Love can give to all and most privately dissolve two souls as one.

Perhaps it is because love is the art of finding – and cherishing – yourself.

From lust to love, we waver from fear of rejection, to deep compassion. In prayer we beg for our needs, ask compassionately for blessings for the oppressed, and love our deepest spirit.

In loving rhymes we can reflect alone in sonnets for our beloved. Another roams the world breathing her lover in every breath.

But love is no mental excursion. It touches our skin, and envelops our whole like the most elaborate ceremonial garb and its glow reaches from our deepest core to the world.

Whether in public or private, love prays intense and personal calling for us to anchor to our deepest moorings. It is easy top think in these moments of yearning that our love, life and our happiness is bound in one soul mate, much as many pray for eternal salvation in a world to come.

From our first glimpses of consciousness we seek to make our way distinct from our environment. If Freud was right, we at first see everything as part of ourselves. The fleeting glimpses of a nurturing mother sustain us and teach us love. Caresses, warmth and tenderness are our earliest memories.

We develop pragmatic answers We at best glimpse small experiential snatches of life leading to secondary and further questions. However, love defies philosophic psychological or scientific reduction.

Even if we could explain its mechanics its expression is as diverse as there are lovers.

The soul talk of prayer that aspires to the most divine intimacy, tefillah in Hebrew, is derived expressed in its root – to judge, differentiate, clarify and to decide what really matters in life.

The moment we love – like the moment we pray – we realise that our memories are delusory. That in learning to love we find we must not anchor our souls to our lover. But to our unanchored soul that defies time, space or memories. What we once called love was lust to be replaced by a reality of self and lover grounded in reality.

A realisation that we made perfect the imperfect . If we can still love what is unlovable in our selves and our partner.

In the Western tradition intimacy is referred to as knowing. Sex is far more than just a physical cohabitation – it was an intimate merging of souls and discovery.

Perhaps this is why the story of Adams sin – eating the apple in the garden, has become analogous with sex. Just as apples are linked to seduction. Neither the word apple or sex is mentioned in the Biblical account.

Still, there is a great lesson – a metaphor if you will – to be found in the quest for true love. Snakes are through out the ages symbols of secret knowledge – even in the zodiac, freedom seeking Aquarius is symbolised by two snakes – often mistaken as waves curving.

Then there was the tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad.

Then follows an existential moment of primal uncertianty. Suddenly, naked innocence is lost.

Then, hiding in shame, Adam hears a voice: Adam where are you.

Clearly, this is no missing person search. God already knows the answer. Rather, the primal man hears a nagging question plaguing us all.

The existential demand to know “Who are you?” or “Who am I?”

Eve had been promised power in knowing good and bad, to be like God …. and yes, there is power in knowledge.

Ask any scientist.

The sin lays in needing to know something that has no corresponding need in the soul. A search for facts for facts sake. Knowledge is made powerful in its utility. Science delights in finding falsifiability, and defining the limits of a theory. Existential knowledge must also be verifiable by experience.

In chasing knowledge they – and we – seek to find our self in external facts, or in the case of love, lost in the arms of a lover. We seek to find ourself in love and in its pursuit we lose our way. We are hiding from ourselves.

In that moment, we hear in the garden of our soul a nagging voice “Where are you?” which becomes “Where Am I? Where am I … now?”

In love we are more receptive to our inner world We can, in lust at least, ignore it in the pusuit of desire. Yet to endure love requires we open to our essence, our inner self.

We are left asking, perhaps in different words, or disguises “Where am I? Who Am I? What am I here for?”

In the mirror of a lover we find our answers. In love, as in prayer, we find the answers are deep within. It’s just that to harness its power, we have to love outside and beyond ourselves.

Image: Prayer For The Lovers by ~CakesFactory

The Lovers Prayer by ~Buffichar

“I falter before the task of finding the language which might adequately express the incalculable paradoxes of love” wrote Carl Jung “I have again and again faced the mystery of love, and have never been able to explain what it is.” 

Knowing what love is seems almost impossible. Is love a biological trick? A divine gift? Or somewhere in between? 

We are fascinated by the union of opposite natures – of masculine and feminine.  

In the Bible – both Jewish and Christian – the word “to know” describes sex (Gn 4:1; 19:8; Mt 1:25).  However, this knowledge is far from a casual acquaintance – a one night stand, or a passing glimpse of a womans body. 

The mystical traditions describe a divine knowledge and the mystery of union, what Jung called the mysterium coniunctionis, involves “a spiritual meaning latent in the secret of creation as a whole¹”  

In Jewish mysticism ten divine qualities or sephirot are described as part of the kabbalistic Tree of Life. Like a crown, the highest intellectual quality, keter, sits above and apart, between the unexplainable infinity of the divine. It sits in the archetypical world of Atziluth, but forms part of supernal triangle with chochmah, wisdom, and binah, understanding, both part of the creative world or Briah.  

Seen only in rare spiritually refined moments, In the 13^th century, the rare external glimpses of keter, as a complementary Sephirah called Da`at, or knowledge.  

It is shown in the middle, harmonising the left and right sides of the tree of life – one side called the Pillar of Severity and the other the Pillar of Mercy. In the middle line, or Pillar of Equilibrium or Consciousness, graphically it is portrayed “Da`at occupies the middle position between the two parts of the brain. Being in the middle, it unites the opposites and bridges the paradox. Together, Hokhmah, Binah, and Da`at make up the mental base underlying all creative expression.²” 

“Knowledge, then, is equivalent to the complete union of opposites. The only way for man and woman to love each other, not only physically but also spiritually, is to remove all the barriers that separate them. In essence, a man and a woman in love can reach closeness as no two other human beings can.” 

Jung argued that while sex is often only see in terms of lust and pleasure, it has greater unconscious archetypal – a spiritual – significance often forgotten in the heat of passion. What Jung called a relationship of anima to animus. Symbolizing the “union of the feminine and masculine principles and, as a mystical, numinous experience, must also be approached in symbolic terms.” ( Dreifuss) 

Psychology points out that the processes of creativity and individuation can be experienced in sexual terms. The union of opposite principles ‘gives birth’ to a new experience much as the joys of love can create new life.  

The integration of the fragmented unconscious found in Freud and Jung are implied in the ideas of the kabbalist Isaac Luria, called the Ari, whose words were recorded by his student Chayyim Vital ( 1542-1620). Luria described man’s divinely appointed task to help restore the divine sparks from broken vessels of a shattered cosmos . 

Fascinated by kabbalah in later life, Jung claimed “a full understanding of the Jewish origins of psychoanalysis would carry us beyond Jewish Orthodoxy into the subterranean workings of Hasidism and then into the intricacies of the Kabbalah which still remain unexplored psychologically.³“  

Perhaps this integration of parts is the meaning of Adam and Eves being ‘one flesh’, made whole, being completed in a soul mate. In Chassidic circles it is taught soulmates were one soul in the heavenly realm, and they are to discover each other, and through the trials of life, become renewed and stronger in love and appreciation. 

That which is concealed is loved more once discovered. 

The mystery of love was not lost on ancient mystics – especially the erotic Song of Songs. Jewish thought applied it as a metaphor for God and the Jewish nation, later Christian mystics as a metaphor for Christ and the Church and Islamic writers such as Rumi describe loving Allah in poetic romantic terms. 

Rather than just describing each other in beautiful poetry, the lovers outpouring of metaphors “denote the symbolic level of the relationship, pointing to a reality beyond the partners’ conscious relationship that hints at the divine, at another realm and an unspeakable mystery” claimed Gustav Dreifus. 

“ The mystery of love is a fascinating secret, an impenetrable enigma that no psychological interpretation can possibly “explain.”” 

In his psychological analysis, Dreifus points out that “Shulammite and Shlomoh, derive from the Hebrew root sh-l-m that denotes both peace and wholeness. The dual nature of their names, simultaneously private and transpersonal, turns them into a quintessential embodiment of the man-woman relationship. The Shulammite enchants Shlomoh, who describes her beauty in strikingly rich and poetic terms through metaphors borrowed from nature that allude to earthlinked, symbolic, and archetypal aspects.”  

Here, Dreifus draws on Lurias kabbalistic understanding, linking the mystical love of song of Songs with what seems like incestuous incidents in Genesis, and even perhaps references to Egyptian poetry. 

In the Ari’s kabbalistc model, divine revelation is divided into five Partsufim. Keter is called Arikh Anpin, “the Long Suffering,” representing pure mercy and divine love⁴ and is described as a Grandfather. Th next level, Cochmah and Binah are described as Abba and Ima, or mother and father respectively. The thirs lvel, the offspring, are brother and sister, the son Ze`ir Anpin, or Hesed Din Tifereth with the sephoroth Netsah Hod Yesod and daughter Nukvah or the tenth sephirot Malkhut She is both the daughter and the son’s consort. 

It is the psychology, and not technical kabbalistic jargon, that I want to highlight. In describing these ‘great archetype images’ here Dreifus calls on the great Kabbalist Aryan Kaplan. 

Kaplan observes that in the classic kabbalistic texts the Ets Hayyim or the Idrot, the relationship between Abba and Ima (father and mother) and Ze`ir Anpin and Nukva (son and daughter are described as Zivug, or sexual union or attachment. 

“As the Ari describes it, there is an entire process by which Ze`ir Anpin is born. It starts with a Kiss between Abba and Ima, which then develops into a Zivug. We understand of course that these relationships have a very deep symbolic meaning. The Song of Songs, for instance, begins with the verse “Let him kiss me with the kisses of His lips’.”

Just as the kisses of foreplay may lead to sexual union and pregnancy’⁵, Kaplan explains that “To the Kabbalists, a kiss symbolizes the meeting of minds, whereas a zivug represents the melting of bodies, of total essence.”

Dreifus explains: “.The kiss is a meeting of lips, mouths, and tongues, alluding to the meeting of heads, minds, and souls. The melting of the bodies represents the total essence, namely, mystical oneness in the orgasm. The numinosity of the experience is explained by the analogy between the human and the divine copulation (between Ze`ir Anpin and Nukva).” 

He then again quotes Kaplan “Abba and Ima come together and Ima becomes pregnant with Ze`ir Anpin; she carries him, gives birth to him and nurses him. She then becomes pregnant a second time, the second pregnancy being not a physical but rather a mental pregnancy which develops Ze`ir Anpin’s Mochin, his personality, and Nukva de Ze`ir Anpin, who is his sister.⁶”

Of course, in Jewish law brother sister unions are forbidden. These unions are described as occurring in the realm of Atzilut and according to Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch, called the Tsemah Tsedek ( 1789–1866), these unions are too holy for human beings to dare.

 “Atsilut is one aspect of the collective unconscious. At its deepest level, the Song of Songs portrays incest between brother and sister. Incest is prohibited between human beings because of anthropological and psychological reasons. Symbolically, however, incest represents the union of opposites. It is a feeling of joy. It is a numinous experience conveying the feeling of being on the road to individuation” writes Dreyfus.

“This explains the incestuous relationship between the patriarch Abraham and the matriarch Sarah, who were actually half-brother and sister, whereas for Isaac, calling his wife Rebecca his “sister” is a deeply symbolical figure of speech.”

Perhaps, in our highly sexualised Western world we have forgotten the deeper symbolic yearnings inherent in love and passion.:

Still, the ritual of Luria’s kabbalists is a far cry from the therapeutic use of kabbalistic archetpes today. How can these metaphors help in real love?

Therapist Sanford Drob, explains “ the Lurianic symbols of Shevirat ha-Kelim, the “breaking of the vessels” and Tikkun (emendation, restoration) suggests that all vessels, all containers, all world-views and ideas, including the Lurianic Kabbalah itself, are continually subject to deconstruction and emendation.”

In kabbalah a “portion of the world was left uncreated by God, a portion of the self remains uncreated in each individual. ….. The most important sense of the unconscious is not that part of one’s past that has been stored away in an archive, but rather that part of one’s potential which has never been realized or, perhaps, even recognized. “

This psychotherapeutic process heals the soul through the realization of his/her personal potential, but also, the client’s relationships to others and the environment he says.

In terms of a love relationship, kabbalah and the Bible commends a soulmate-couple to ‘become one flesh’. Clearly this means more than sexual union – going to a prostitute does not make ‘one flesh.’

Chassidic philosopher, Rabbi Manis Freedman takes the questioning even further: Kabbalistically a soulmate was already one in heaven – so they cannot become one flesh – they already are one.

Being of one mind is not enough – close friends can be of one mind but not soul mates.

The Bible describes the whole nation of Israel being of one heart at mount Sinai – but they weren’t one flesh.

However, Freedman argues that when that united soul, unify in shared mind, heart and soul experiences shared in love they have a shared fleshly experience. The experience recreates their love on a higher level.

You become one flesh by taking your soul mate seriously. When done in love, taking your soulmates ego seriously is a giant step, says Freedman.

Chassidus teaches the idea of both an animal and Godly soul, and when we know our animal needs we can turn it to good.

When you know your own ego needs but can consciously ignore them so you can consciously gratify another’s needs then you can become one flesh.

When you are thinking about your own needs alone you take up space. In other words, you exist. When you contribute – and stop worrying about your existence – you and your love becomes alive.

Image: Loving you by *Marori

Loving Couple by ~Highball

loving You by ~lovelybutterfly

1Gustav Dreifuss, The Union of Opposites in the Kabbalah, JOURNAL OF JUNGIAN THEORY AND PRACTICE VOL. 7 NO. 1 2005.

2Ibid.

3Jung, C.G.  Letters, ed. by Gerhard Adler, Aniella Jaffe, and R.F.S. Hull. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Vol. II, p.157 358-9.

4In the Zohar it is called Attika Kadisha, the Holy Ancient One. Arikh Anpin is from the Aramaic root Anaf and the Hebrew root Af, meaning anger and means slow to anger.

5Dreifus, ibid

6Kaplan, A. (1990). Innerspace: Introduction to Kabbalah, meditation and prophecy (A. Sutton,

Ed.). New York: Moznaim, p 105.

Love Song

You’ve got nice knees.

Your black shoes shine like taxis.

You are the opposite of

all farting and foulness.

Your exciting hair

is like a special moss,

on your chest are two soft medals

like pink half-crowns under your dress.

Your smell is far beyond

the perfumes at parties,

your eyes nail me

on a cross of waiting. Hard is

the way of the worshipper.

But the heart line on my hand

foretold you:

In your army of lovers

I am a private soldier.

Gavin Ewart

Image: all my loving by ~ntscha

Can Porn make you a better lover? Really…? Yes says author Leil Lowndes. But not the anatomically ridiculous male sex romp. Try female romantic soft-X porn instead – or a good romance novel.

I don’t recommend porn – and admit to being more than a little sceptical. So skeptical that I am asking – begging – for your opinion.

Its just that the good doctor has touched on the nerve of the female psyche that men don’t quiet get.

Lowndes Logic

Men know that women like romance – in their heads, it just hasn’t quiet sunk in at the level of practice.

The fact that each month, 150 new romance novels roll off the presses should make men ask what women are yearning for. Why are they filled with hunks like the strong silent stranger, the tycoon who flips his priorities when he meets the love of his life, and even Mr. Mom.

By the way, the majority of romance readers are college-educated and earn an average of

$40,000 per year – not some hard up nit wit stuck with kids wanting to dump her husband.

We all know it and we hear the same story from study after study: When read the same erotic story in a study at Louisiana State University, men remembered .the woman “clawed at her partner’s back and wrapped her legs around him,” whereas women remembered as the hot parts of the story scenes in which “they looked deeply into one another’s eyes.”

Don’t fight it guys, learn from it.

“Unlike male porn, women’s films show you how a woman likes to be kissed and how she likes to be caressed, talked to, and made love to” wrote Lowndes in How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You.

“You’ll pick up other practical hints, like suave ways to slip on your condom.“

Leil recommends films by directors like Candida Royalle, Gloria Leonard, and Deborah Shames as romantic Fem-Porn is a no holes barred view “the way a woman likes it, in her movies.”

… and “A picture is worth a thousand words. A moving picture is worth a thousand still pictures.” A movie will be remembered far better than any book.

Even the bad ones at least can teach a guy what women relate too.

“Women’s sex movies, in contrast to men’s, are more complicated. In place of raw sex, there is steamy sensuality. The films show an emotional connection between the partners, and affection. Closeups on faces reflect the partners’ feelings.”

….Guys, please  remember girls get turned on when we see the delight in their man’s face!

For many women fully aroused only when they feel deep affection or respect for their partner.This is why the build up and atmosphere of female erotica is an important lesson for men to learn,

“Candida Royalle’s films, you’ll master techniques on how to touch and caress a woman. In Gloria Leonard’s, you’ll find that humor and sex mingle. In Deborah Shames’s films, you’ll learn more about creating just the right atmosphere to make [her] fall in love with you.”

“From all of these women’s films you’ll learn that humor, romance, a buildup of tension, and strong, slow hands are what work with women.”

Besides some great ideas that will unleash a woman’s desire between the sheets—or on the dining room table, or in the elevator, or on the beach how the women desire to develop a relationship. Ypi may lack the budget of a fictional millionaire lover – but you can learn what she feels and show her she is loved.

“Loving you makes her hotter. Your loving her makes her hotter still” wrote Lowndes.

Of course, a lot of guys would never want their mates seeing them watching Christine’s Secret or A Taste of Ambrosia so sneak a peak at a Harlequin romance for ideas instead.

Now guys, before you start feeling sick at reading how handsome, masculine, sexy hero named Sam is mouthing the sentiments and feelings. He saying what women traditionally feel. What they want you to say. Sam wants to talk, he wants it more romantic, and he thinks he’s falling in love.

Sam, the tender man who needs her, who loves her. Sam, the strong, the gentle, the passionate. But Sam’s passion was not for sex, it was for her.

Twenty-five million readers regularly buy romance novels. Don’t fight it – learn from it.

Do you want ideas about a romantic evening?

Of course, in that passionate out door sex scene, Sam’s feelings, Sam’s expressions, and Sam’s cries came crashing into Emma’s consciousness through the pounding rain. Then after the “one glorious eternity” there was the “warmth that was more than just physical” and the promise of the future: “I want to hold you forever.”

”Memorize a few of the phrases and study the choreography of the moves. Hearing “I need you, I want you, I love you” above the roar of the wind and the waves strikes a primitive pre-lib chord in practically every female heart.”

You may chuckle, guffaw, gag, roll your eyes, or double up on the floor choking with laughter, but twenty-five million females can’t be faking it, she said.

“Corny? Perhaps. But certainly no more unrealistic or wishful thinking than the hot animalistic females who cavort through male porn films begging men to be allowed to do them.”

The fact is, romance is very steamy stuff to a woman.

But What if? ….

Ok … I understand Lowndes logic … still, I wonder if just perhaps, what a girl would think if she found her lover watching some steamy Fem- Porn?

Would she really be grateful he was trying to find romantic ideas?  Or would i she be suspicious he was secretly fantasizing over the curves of the female lead?

Since women yearn for intimate connection with their lover could fem porn ignite unconscious fears and cause doubt?

What do you think? Ladies: would you be happy if he was watching Fem-porn? Gentleman: Do you think fem porn would make you feel closer to your lover?

images:Romance by ~rhinosserossy

romance by ~ssecret

(material adapted from How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You by Leil Lowndes, CONTEMPORARY BOOKS, 1996)

Walking Away 

Cold fingers
Wrapped around my wrist
They’re yours
No longer do I feel warmth with you.

Black tears
Full of regret fall
They’re mine
Sometimes its difficult, these things we do.

Icy glares
Like darts to my heart
They’re ours
Painful like drawing blood from a dove.

Walking away
The only way out
It’s gone
That crazy little thing we called love.

 - tearingmascara

Image: Walking Away by ~charbee

Old photographs

On my desk is a photograph of you
taken by the woman who loved you then.

In some photos her shadow falls
in the foreground. In this one,
her body is not that far from yours.

Did you hold your head that way
because she loved it?

She is not invisible, not
my enemy, nor even the past.
I think I love the things she loved.

Of all your old photographs, I wanted
this one for its becoming. I think
you were starting to turn your head a little,
your eyes looking slightly to the side.

Was this the beginning of leaving?

- Gabeba Baderoon

Image: Old Photo by ~lemontree12

Panchali

Pulled into my husbands’ court by my uncombed hair

Thrown onto the floor where hundreds of feet touch its thick, red silk

The flowing carpet rises and falls like the mist of my lotus-laden lake

I know you are immovable in your rage Shákuni!

Your ego knows no limits, it is like a snake stalking a mouse

Quietly without remorse in its meager heart

All eyes watch me cry in anguish as you pull my ????

To the end of this room it flows like the Ga?g?

Shining with its thin, gold-laden fabric

And crippled by your greedy fingers!

Dignified beauty you tossed with your dice

Human emotions you sacrificed with your heart

Bring your eyes to mine to see one word: regret

Ha! You are the nectar’s enemy: regret!

If you spit on my chastity then K???a-Devá will smite you this instant!

His cakra?: a knife for your spineless body

All my fears that followed me at night when I visited my lord in secret

Nibbling on the black pearls around my neck while I watched the roses rise

They are you…a shadow that rapes Sóma-Devá

I cannot give you my body for it belongs to Ke?ava!!

My life will one day be returned to his village

To live as a cowherd while churning milk for his hungry pink lips

The boyish smile and curly hair barely touches his shoulders

Eyes so wide yet shaped like the waning moon

Little specks in the corner of both are galaxies unknown to us

So far away where other people exist for whom K???a-Devá is their mah?r?ja

If I am his then he is my ruler too!

Shákuni, you are the drunken ego: a corrupted seed for humanity!

My body is a vase holding the virtues of S?rya-Devá

He touched my spirit to give me a bit of his own

Disrobing me in front of my husbands and all the ?ryas of their kingdom

is a sacrilege!

I beg you to stop this great injustice!!!

Can’t you see I have sunken into a sea of distress!?

No, you are busy drowning my voice with your wicked laughter

Brahm?-Devá gave you a boon that protects your life from any physical or divine harm

Yet, has he no shame when seeing this monstrous deed?

Ma! You are Sarv?suravin???-Dev?, come to my rescue!!!

Show your terrifying face to this savage

Make him cower under your crippling stare, ma!

Turn his limbs into brittle sticks so he will stop treating my honor like a toy

Sunil P. Narayan

Image: Radha alone by ~shyam108

For centuries, tansy has been used as a folk remedy, but now scientists from Britain and Spain believe the plant may have medical benefits after all, as a treatment for herpes. The team’s findings, published in Phytotherapy Research, are the result of joint work between two teams to established scientific evidence for traditional medicines.

Tansy, Tanacetum vulgare, is a flowering plant found across mainland Europe and Asia. From the Middle Ages onwards the plant, whose folk names include Golden Buttons and Mugwort, has been used as a remedy for various conditions, from fevers to rheumatism. However, it’s supposed medical benefits have always been questioned.

“Our research focused on the anti-viral properties of tansy, especially the potential treatment it may represent for herpes,” said lead author Professor Francisco Parra from the Universidad de Oviedo. “We currently lack an effective vaccine for either HSV-1 or HSV-2 stands of the disease, which can cause long term infections.”

Professor Parra’s team which specialises in investigating new antiviral compounds, both through design or by screening natural plant extracts, began joint work on the properties of tansy with the research group led by Dr Solomon Habtemariam from the University of Greenwich, which studies European medicinal plants to establish the scientific evidence for traditional medicines.

Through a mechanistic-based antiherpetic activity study, the teams revealed which constituents of the plant are responsible for antiviral activity.

“Our study revealed that parthenolide is not one of the major anti HSV-1 principles of tansy, as has been suggested. However we found that tansy does contains known antiviral agents including 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid (3,5-DCQA) as well as axillarin, which contributes to its antiherpetic effect,” said Parra. “This shows that multiple properties of the plant are responsible for the supposed antiviral activity of tansy.”

The joint study used an established anti-HSV study model on both crude extracts of the aerial parts and roots of tansy, as well as some purified compounds to analyse the plants anti-viral activity.

“Although the precise molecular targets for tansy extract require further research this study reveals the clear potential of tansy to treat the dermatological lesions caused by HSV, concluded Parra. “This shows that systematic pharmacological and phytochemical studies such as this can play pivotal roles in the modernisation of European traditional herbal medicines.”

Image: folk medicine… by *shotsfiredimagedown

Adapted from: Wiley – Blackwell (2011, February 23). Old folk remedy revived: How tansy may be a treatment for herpes. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 27

I often wondered why – with the exception of the prolific Jacob, the Biblical polygamists had so few children.

Perhaps research of Mormons from 1830 and 1894 mat reveal why Big Love may not mean Big Family.

According to a study published in the the March 2011 issue of Evolution and Human Behavior, polygamy practiced by some 19th century Mormon men had effect of suppressing the overall offspring numbers of Mormon women in plural marriages.

The research was conducted by scientists from Indiana University Bloomington and three other institutions.

The more sister-wives a Mormon woman had, the fewer children she was likely to produce.

“Although it’s great in terms of number of children for successful males to have harems, the data show that for every new woman added to a male’s household, the number each wife produced goes down by one child or so,” said IU Bloomington evolutionary biologist Michael Wade, whose theoretical work guided the study. “This regression is known as a ‘Bateman gradient,’ named after the geneticist who first observed a similar phenomenon in fruit flies.”

The researchers’ survey of birth, marriage and death records from the Utah Population Database covers nearly 186,000 Utah adults and their 630,000 children who lived or died between 1830 and 1894. This period marked an important transition for the nascent Mormon Church, as polygamy began to be phased out in deference to U.S. laws banning the practice but also via internal pressure from the Mormons themselves.

The scientists’ study confirmed their expectation that a moratorium on Mormon polygamy would have the effect of decreasing the intensity of sexual selection among males and ultimately bringing the strength of reproductive selection on men closer to that acting on women. With fewer polygamous marriages, more males had access to wives, which led to a decrease in the variation in Mormon males’ mating and reproductive success. The scientists estimate that ending polygamy reduced the strength of sexual selection on males by 58 percent.

“This study was very exciting for us, in large part because you just don’t get to see the demographic effects of dramatically changing a mating system within a single population — in any organism,” Wade said. “It’s an added bonus that this change from polygamy to monogamy just happened to involve people who kept such thorough records of the marriages, births and deaths at that time.”

Wade, who specializes in the evolutionary biology of mating systems, says much of his work has elucidated and expanded on the ideas of Angus Bateman. Bateman, a prolific theorist, was unable to empirically test all his theories about mating and mating fitness before he died in 1996. Last year Wade and Northern Arizona University biologist Stephen Shuster co-wrote a retrospective on a classic paper Bateman wrote for the journal Heredity in 1948. Wade and Shuster extolled Bateman’s vision, in particular the way in which Bateman thought sexual selection should be quantified. Bateman’s critics thought his reductions of biology were too simplistic, yet Wade says Bateman’s simple formulas are often dead-on.

“Bateman’s ideas still are very much alive, the present study included,” Wade said. “It was also his idea that selection could be stronger on males than on females, that what can be an advantage to males can be a disadvantage to females of the same species. And the advantage isn’t just in having more mates. You may simply produce more offspring, than the average, if you’re a male successful in reproductive competition against other males.”

Which isn’t to say systems of polygamy in humans or elsewhere in nature are necessarily good for all the males involved. Indeed, Wade says, polygamy is a bad thing for most males of a species.

“When the ratio of sexes is about equal, for every male that has three mates, there must be two males that have none,” Wade said. “If a male has even more mates, then the disparity among male ‘reproductive’ haves and have-nots can become quite great.”

So if polygamy (or the female equivalent, polyandry) is disadvantageous to most of the sequestered sex and most of the mate-sequestering sex, why should such systems survive?

“The complete answer is still forthcoming,” Wade said. “One thing we know now, based on rigorous studies in many species, particularly the fruit fly, is that selection can be so strong on males that it can drag the entire species off of a naturally selected viability optimum.”

Wade points to a familiar example.

“Take the peacock,” Wade said. “Its tail is magnificent for attracting females and bad for attracting predators. It is believed that in some situations there is a “predator hard cap” on the fitness of sexual characteristics. But there’s also research suggesting even the predator hard cap can be overpowered if sexual selection on males is strong enough. That is, males trade high risks to their lives in order to gain large numbers of mates and thereby offspring.”

Image: Polygamy by ~cephaloneiric

I’ll see you, again

the clean silver lining rushes down and
splashes into the depths of the Earthly water
what it once contained has slipped away.
mother’s purity enters, and tickles my innards with cold
sprinkles of water,
folding in and out
over the rocks and under the rocks

the wind breezes through the chilly night air
blessings, enfolded in my breast, clinging to the dark stone,
awash with waves, cold and burning,
the object of my contemplation -
the object of my obsession, of
where a question comes to mind:
a longing to be held,
as the innards get tickled
by sprinkles of water

pure and harsh, tender and stern,
that lash my rocking soul with cords of love.

Goodbye, my love. I’ll see you, again.

- Celine Berghmans and Zachary Esterson

Image: You’ll See Colors Again by ~Asilwen