The Art Of Passion
If desire is our driving force, then passion is its volume turned on and tuned up to high!
You see, when life, love and relationships get challenging, which they will, it's not enough just to have desire. It's too easy to give up. And we inhabit a world where this ‘giving up’ is rife, leaving us with scattered relationships, and a gnawing sense that maybe there’s something more that could have been drawn upon, that could have tended to the sparks that still glowed as embers, not quite extinguished.
We need something else, something stronger, something that is able to burn through the obstacles before us, and importantly, to burn us up, in service and sacrifice to something more. For that which we believe in; for what we ache for, yearn for; and for what we love, truly love.
Passion is this more sustainable force. It has a sacred quality to it. There's within its force an element of surrender to that which is greater than us.
Yet, it takes courage to live in, to bring to, and to invite passion into our lives, relationships and bedrooms.
There needs to be a willingness too. It's not 'will', that's too fixed, like iron, unyielding. Willingness is softer, more allowing, and holy. You see, passion has got Spirit on its side. It's got the Divine in its makeup!
And the only way to truly let it in is in bowing to its requirements. It asks of us to be vulnerable.
Vulnerability. The ability to be wounded.
Passion. The willingness to suffer for something or someone that we love, desire, want or need.
Any volunteers?!
In all honesty, we really just want an easy, simple, joyful, and pleasurable life don't we? Hence why it is easy to turn away, to let go of, give up, when life gets tough.
You see, life takes work. Love takes work. Love is not a ‘wishy washy’, candy floss, sickly thing. It's a verb. It's an action. Love is action. And passion is that which drives us to 'take action'.
Passion is hard-core though! Yet it is vital. It is our fire. Our endless burning flame. It is our Spirit.
It's easy to say that we want a life, love, relationship, sex, filled and fuelled by passion, but do we really? Maybe we've been burnt before? Or been the one to spit fire like a dragon, turning to blackened ashes that which we once held so close and dear?
Yet, if we keep on denying, turning down, or extinguishing our fire, our passion, then we live a lukewarm, cold, or worse, a freezing/frozen life. We tone down and mute our emotions (energy in motion). This energy that moves through us, in us, animates us, and is expressed by us. We freeze, numb, shut down our ability to feel. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but if you want to kill, destroy, a relationship, then turn cold on it. As soon as one becomes frozen, we are not able to be in a relationship, not with ourselves never mind another.
This creates quite a lonely, sad and dull life. A safe, yet stale, life. Worse, we can end up in a state of dis-ease: physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and especially, soulfully. A life without soul.
Passion, true passion, is a soul quality. It rides, and resides, in the syrupy space within us and between us all. It feels like an urgency, as opposed to an anxiety, the latter most of us are familiar with! It’s a great ‘Fuck, Yes!’ to life. To love. To desire. To joy. And to all of our e-motions, no matter. It’s being open to it all. And to bearing the volume of life moving through us. To suffer it. As it’s not always comfortable. It’s a wildness and a hunger too. And it’s often not tame.
Maybe this is why we’re scared, or tentative of, this passion, of true passion. Because it is the wildness of our soul. Because it is our fire. It’s creative and thus destructive. Maybe we don’t understand it? Maybe we don’t know what it truly requires of us?
We might be wary of its more destructive side where we burn ourselves up, lose ourselves, become consumed! And in that red hot fire blindness, cause chaos, not just to ourselves, but to those around us too near to our flames!
Yet, if we are careful, if we tread with care, if we can start a relationship to passion itself, we can create a new way to be with it. A new dialogue. But we have to be ready. Willing. We need to have our own permission. To ask ourselves: ‘How much life am I willing to live? To receive? To offer? To give? And to express?’
Passion brings us joy. You could say that our joy is found in passion. It brings us into the now, thus it slows us down to truly taste and savour life’s beauty. It takes us into flow too. It requires us to be grounded. Embodied. To be in our bodies. Our body is the earth. Fire needs a strong container, a resilient pot, capable of holding and bearing as it burns. There’s more power and focus available too within this frame, we can direct passion’s arrows with intention and clarity of purpose when needed.
Our heart, in its softness, its tenderness, its devotion, is in connection to, and thus aware of, the beauty of life, of us, of what it feels to be human, through the senses, through true seeing. This being blinded by beauty causes the eyes to tear, and it’s this water that gives a flow to the fire’s movements, and stops the fire from destroying us and others. It’s vital.
Earth. Water. Fire.
And Air. The breath that nourishes us. Holy Spirit. Divine and Dirty Devotion. A Prayer. Of being in service. Soul. Life. Love.
It requires us to be in truth. Passion doesn’t hold back. And thus it can be messy and direct in its fiery arrows. Move over Cupid. Passion’s arrows make yours look tame and churlish! And speaking of the gods, those Greek and Roman Pantheon rife with story and myth. Well they were full of wild passions weren’t they?! Of lust and envy. Greed, revenge and jealousy. Clearly these aspects are part of our divine experience too, not just of our human one.
Passion will drive us in to adventure. The Holy Son of us in embrace of and with the Divine!
Passion can and will inspire others. Set others aflame. When we see or hear someone in their passion it is truly wondrous isn’t it? We catch fire too! Spirit knows and recognises Spirit, and it responds. We only need to look upon Sufi Prayer whirling and Flamenco dancers with the cries of ‘Amen’ and ‘Ole!’ resounding around them. The audience glimpsing God in them. The duende. Life. Spirit. Love.
And yet, passion isn’t always so wild and intense in its expression. It’s also quiet. A quiet passion.
Because its nature is reverence. Yet, we might overlook this in another, in our partner, even in ourselves. These more refined and subtle expressions of and aspects of passion are often invisible and trampled upon by the noise of the ‘extra’ ordinary seeking society. This is a shame, and deeply sad.
So this is a rallying cry. No, maybe not a cry, rather a whisper, or a soft voice of ‘yes’, one that you might need to lean in towards, to listen to, to hear its words:
This is for the quiet ones,
The shy ones,
The sensitive ones,
The ones with little to say, as passion, like truth, is often silent.
The ones with no fancy moves, thank god,
The ones without a show tune,
The ones not needing to prove their passion, to you, to God, to life.
The ones who go slow.
The ones who know that to gaze upon a thing is to see its beauty. Truly.
The ones whose presence is like the silent still rock weathering every storm.
Anchored. Strong. There. Listening. Present.
Because the most passionate quality of them all; the one thing that’s guaranteed to turn our knees to jelly, our heart to beat fast; to cause the fire to run through our veins as we lick our lips and cross and uncross our legs, feeling excitement start to flow between them; the one thing that can make us say ‘Fuck, Yes!’, is, presence.
Presence.
The beloved. The one so intimate that there’s no separation between us. The compassionate witness. The mystery. Love. Love. Love.
Passion, in whatever form it takes, is simply presence.
So maybe the only thing we need to do is to be present to and with each other. To start from there.
It’s easy to take each other for granted. To take life for granted. Love for granted. We may live our lives, in and out of the bedroom not really there; one foot in and one foot out. Our thoughts on work, family, tomorrow, last Tuesday, someone else.
Can we bring ourselves back here, just here, and give our kind, curious and devoted attention to whoever and whatever is before us? Can we lean in?
We only ever have this moment. This heartbeat passing time. Savour it. Don’t waste it living a half-life. See its beauty. Let it burn you up to God.
Be passion itself.
Aho.
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