Desire is the energy of our dreams. Distinct but inseparable, desire and imagination affirm: our very existence is relation. They are the constant gravity of our being-together; the ever present drawing us into meeting.

Desire and its dreams are our only gateway to understanding ourselves, each other and the world.

The play of desire and imagination is the essence of our being. Their articulation is manifest as our relationships … with our selves, our families, our communities, our worlds … as we are  creating them.

But, oh, what traps there are!

Image is not desire and desire is not image. Inseparable as they are, they neither capture nor hold each other. Image is not the target of desire, but its arrow; its means, its medium of reach; its memory of past journeys. Imagination and expectation are the shape of desire’s past encounters on its journey … to discovery and possibility.

We come towards each other through the images of our dreams, expectations, wishes … wrapped in the raiment of our memories and their stories.

Desire does not seek the complement to our dreams. Rather, desire seeks the creation of something new in our encounter. Desire seeks the emergence of a new possibility in our meeting. Desire seeks the articulation of a new word between us.

Desire draws us together … only to further the conversation between us.

When image is mistaken for desire’s target and not its arrow, our encounter gets locked into the struggle between us to validate our frozen memories.

Desire and love are only identical when the requirements of the true object of desire are met: desire, as love, requires the surrender of its dreams.

Surrender of dreams in our meeting allows the silent space between us where desire can find the new possibilities we bring to each other. Without that surrender, the space between us is filled with cycles of repetitive memory. Desire recycles as consuming resentment and disappointment.

Desire, understood and misunderstood, creates two ways of being between us that always will bedevil us.

When desire is swept into the myriad variations of the sadomasochistic dance, we barter our dreams to our use of each other; to the capture of the other’s dream as a complement to our own.

When desire is love, we surrender our dreams to the possibilities of that undefined space between us; to the creation of a new word through which we discover again each other and ourselves.

***

whirlwinds

tear me

from the web of my desires

to see

silence

gives us all our

freedom

and love

abides the wind

through letting be

and surrender of its dreams

after James Donnelly

The Fall

***

the way can be spoken of

but it will not be the constant way;

the name can be named,

but it will not be the constant name.

the nameless was the source of the myriad creatures;

the named was the mother of the myriad creatures.

hence,

constantly surrender your desires

in order to observe its subtlety;

but constantly allow yourself to have desires

in order to observe what it is after.

these two have the same origin

but differ in name.

difficult to see

they are the gateway to all that is possible

after…Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 1

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©  2014 James Donnelly, DSW.LCSW

All rights reserved

South Garden Press, New York