Love

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Adopting this loving observers’ perspective on yourself can offer an “appreciative jolt” that allows you to see—and truly feel—how it is that you add value to those around you. From this perspective, you can better discern your good qualities. Of course, you still have your own unique set of less-than-good qualities as well. If your mind gets pulled toward those, gently invite yourself to table those shortcomings for now. You can always examine them later. This is a rare moment to spotlight the good in you and you don’t want to miss it. Another way to bypass your obstacles to self-love is to visualize yourself together with any or all of these individuals and to speak the phrases of LKM as “we”: May we feel safe. May we feel happy. May we feel healthy. May we live with ease. You can think here of the good qualities that you and this other person (or persons) share, and visualize the good wishes that emanate from your heart as surrounding and infusing the two (or more) of you. You might find that thinking of yourself together with these cherished others provides a more comfortable stepping stone on the path leading you to direct love toward yourself. Even if you have a hard time populating the circle with people who you know appreciate you, you can populate it with any or all of the people around the globe who have—or have ever—practiced the ancient technique of LKM. After all, each one of these people—whether an aging widow in Thailand, a thirtysomething prisoner in Texas, or His Holiness the Dalai Lama himself—has practiced extending the wishes of loving-kindness to all people, because all people yearn for and deserve to feel safe, happy, and healthy, and to live with ease. Perhaps it can help you to visualize yourself as tucked into the masses of humanity for which others have extended their earnest expressions of love. Loving-Kindness for Yourself

• From Less (2017)

  Arthur Less did not publish until he was in his thirties. By then, he had lived with the famous poet Robert Brownburn for years in a small house—a shack, they always called it—halfway up a steep residential stairway in San Francisco. The Vulcan Steps, they’re called, curving from Levant Street at the top, down between Monterey pines, ferns, ivy, and bottlebrush trees, to a brick landing with a view east to downtown. Bougainvillea bloomed on their porch like a discarded prom dress. The “shack” was only four rooms, one of them expressly Robert’s, but they painted the walls white and hung up paintings Robert had gotten from friends (one of them of an almost-identifiable Less, nude, on a rock), and planted a seedling trumpet vine below the bedroom window. It took five years for Less to take Robert’s advice and write. Just labored short stories at first. And then, almost at the end of their lives together, a novel. Kalipso: a retelling of the Calypso myth from The Odyssey, with a World War II soldier washed ashore in the South Pacific and brought back to life by a local man who falls in love with him and must help him find a way back to his world, and to his wife back home. “Arthur, this book,” Robert said, taking off his glasses for effect. “It’s an honor to be in love with you.” It was a moderate success; none other than Richard Champion deigned to review it in the pages of the New York Times. Robert read it first and then passed it to Less, smiling, his glasses on his forehead for his poet’s second pair of eyes; he said it was a good review. But every author can taste the poison another has slipped into the punch, and Champion ended by calling the author himself “a magniloquent spoony.” Less stared at those words like a child taking a test. Magniloquent sounded like praise (but was not). But a spoony? What the hell was a spoony? “It’s like a code,” Less said. “Is he sending messages to the enemy?” He was. “Arthur,” Robert said, holding his hand, “he’s just calling you a faggot.”

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  A man must have this confidence, in himself and his cock, to fuck a woman in the ass. If he does not have this control, his cock will direct the action; he will move too quickly, hurt the once-willing woman, and rarely, rightly, will he be given a second chance. Why A-Man has this authority I do not know. Psychology might find childhood reasons, but I believe, ultimately, that it’s something God-given, a deep knowledge of personal responsibility. This kind of self-possession and lack of desperation can get a man a long way with a woman . . . or at least partway up her ass. In the end, it’s who you are that will get you somewhere. Or nowhere. He told me once that he likes being where he shouldn’t be, crossing the velvet rope, hand in the candy jar, late to work, cock in my ass, an ass too small for his cock. A-Man made it so deeply into my ass because he dared. No one else really tried. Anyone who dares to be that intimate, that crazy, well, he might just get somewhere he never got before. I am in the throes of coming at the moment of first touch, my body, pussy, ass so open they peel outwardly to suck him in. I was never that open before. If I were that open to someone else, would I feel the same joy of openness? No. They would annoy me long before I was that open. It’s all that yakking that ruins it; it reveals too much. A-Man is the least annoying man I’ve ever known. And the only one who never yields to my will. At the same time, contrary to easy supposition, I do not believe that it is the arrogant, macho man who is the great ass-fucker: he is the asshole. That guy probably doesn’t even like women, he’s too busy competing with other men. In my limited experience, the great ass-fucker is the patient, gentle man, the one who knows how to listen to a woman, how to be with a woman, and has the equipment that can slow her down. He is the one who can imaginatively experience her submission—her release of control—with her, and thus know precisely how to get her to that place: he absorbs all that she gives up. He is a kind man, A-Man. OBITUARY After such a stunning start, I prepared, as any bright woman would, for the end. Great love always brings thoughts of death and separation. This was a war —between decency and desire, between convention and pleasure, between me, myself, and I—and that great aphrodisiac fueled my craving. With the assumption, or expectation, of longevity gone, the moat of self-protection and the apathy of safety disappear and passion floods the world.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  May you, [your name], live with ease. Adopting this loving observers’ perspective on yourself can offer an “appreciative jolt” that allows you to see—and truly feel—how it is that you add value to those around you. From this perspective, you can better discern your good qualities. Of course, you still have your own unique set of less-than- good qualities as well. If your mind gets pulled toward those, gently invite yourself to table those shortcomings for now. You can always examine them later. This is a rare moment to spotlight the good in you and you don’t want to miss it. Another way to bypass your obstacles to self-love is to visualize yourself together with any or all of these individuals and to speak the phrases of LKM as “we”: May we feel safe. May we feel happy. May we feel healthy. May we live with ease. You can think here of the good qualities that you and this other person (or persons) share, and visualize the good wishes that emanate from your heart as surrounding and infusing the two (or more) of you. You might find that thinking of yourself together with these cherished others provides a more comfortable stepping stone on the path leading you to direct love toward yourself. Even if you have a hard time populating the circle with people who you know appreciate you, you can populate it with any or all of the people around the globe who have—or have ever—practiced the ancient technique of LKM. After all, each one of these people—whether an aging widow in Thailand, a thirtysomething prisoner in Texas, or His Holiness the Dalai Lama himself—has practiced extending the wishes of loving-kindness to all people, because all people yearn for and deserve to feel safe, happy, and healthy, and to live with ease. Perhaps it can help you to visualize yourself as tucked into the masses of humanity for which others have extended their earnest expressions of love. Loving-Kindness for Yourself When you’re ready—perhaps after you’ve eased your way in by sidestepping your own obstacles using one or more of the strategies just described—try experimenting with directing full-on loving-kindness toward yourself, following the ancient traditions of LKM. Again, it can be tempting to avoid or minimize this portion of the practice, for all the same reasons previously discussed. Stay alert to the possibility that you may disguise your neglect of self- love as humility or as selfless compassion for others. These rationalizations can be common. Move past them. The idea here is simply to experiment with and explore self-love using your personal experiences as your data. As you experiment, notice areas of resistance and become curious about them. Although by definition, areas of resistance beg you to turn away, decide in advance instead to hang in with them.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  What a mess.” Eve pauses, tears in her eyes. “My night with Josh was even better than I had imagined it would be. It is hard to put into words how I felt because I didn’t know a feeling like that even existed. We were finally in a peaceful place, just the two of us, and we had what seemed like an endless amount of time. It felt like we were a real couple, completely devoted to each other, completely in each other’s bodies and minds. We had sex for hours and I kept whispering in Josh’s ear, ‘I love you. You make me so, so happy. ’ “‘I know, baby, I’m happy too,’ he said. “‘Do you think we can make this place our home?’ I asked him, referring to the small hotel room that seemed so perfect in that moment.” Eve lifts her head and looks at me, “As I tell you this now, I realize that I just projected all my wishes on that stupid hotel room. I feel like such an idiot. When we were lying down and I put my head on his shoulder, I didn’t think about anything. Nothing else existed in the moment. I was truly happy.” Eve pauses briefly. She doesn’t look at me and continues. “There is something unusual about being in Josh’s arms. Something about his touch. It’s like he is both strong and gentle at the same time and I feel that I totally lose myself when I’m with him. It’s a feeling I’ve never had before. But I guess that was the problem. That’s why the night ended so badly.” She sighs. “I woke up at 6 a.m. and when I left the hotel I turned on my phone. I had ten voice mails and many texts from the babysitter saying that my son had had an asthma attack and that they were at the hospital. I started sobbing, trying to reach the doctor on the phone. I just couldn’t believe that I had let that happen. That was the moment when I realized that I had lost control of my life and was in big trouble. That’s when I decided to see a therapist.” She turns to me and asks in a desperate tone, “What am I going to do? Tell me. Is it crazy that I love him? ” Freud wrote that one of his least favorite things to do was to work with patients who were in love. For Freud, love was an irrational feeling and the person in love was in a semi-psychotic phase, out of touch with reality. He believed that this phase did not allow the patient to be in touch with any emotional reality other than their love and erotic feelings, and thus genuine awareness was almost impossible. Irvin Yalom opens his book Love’s Executioner by saying that he, too, doesn’t like to work with patients who are in love.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  Getting fucked in the ass gives me hope. Despair hasn’t got a chance when his cock is in my ass, making room for God. He opened up my ass and with that first thrust he broke my denial of God, broke my shame, and exposed it to the light. The yearning is no longer hidden; now it has a name. This is the backstory of a love story. A backstory that is the whole story. A second hole story, to be entirely accurate. Love from inside my backside. Colette declared that you couldn’t write about love while in its heady hold, as if only love lost resonates. No hindsight for me in this great love but rather behind-sight—cited from the eye of my behind. This is a book where the front matter is brief and the end matter is all. After all, my end does matter. When you’ve been ass-fucked as much as I have, things get both very philosophical and very silly very quickly. My brain has been rocked along with my guts. Having a cock in her ass really gives a woman focus. Receptivity becomes activity, not passivity. There’s just a whole lot to do. His cock pierces my yang—my desire to know, control, understand, and analyze—and forces my yin—my openness, my vulnerability—to the surface. I cannot do this alone, voluntarily. I must be forced. He fucks me into my femininity. As a liberated woman, it is the only way I can go there and retain my dignity. Turned over, ass in the air, I have little choice but to succumb and lose my head. This is how I can have an experience my intellect would never allow, a betrayal to Olive Schreiner, Margaret Sanger, and Betty Friedan, and an affront, from the rear, to many modern “feminists.” Oh, but once there, there is no going back—not to control, not to being on top, not to men more feminine than me. This is simply how my liberation manifested itself. Emancipation through the back door would never be, for any rational woman, a choice. It can only happen as a gift. A surprise. A big surprise. This story is about my coming to experience—and sometimes understand—terms that allude to spiritual endeavor. I have learned more of their meaning and power through being sodomized than through any other teaching. Anal sex is, for me, a literary event. The words first started flowing while he was actually buried deep in my ass. His pen to my paper. His marker to my blotter. His rocket to my moon. Funny where one derives inspiration. Or how one gets the message. I knew after my initiation that I must write it all down. To keep track, bear witness to myself, to him, to the harmonic energy we generated. Enough to burn holes through the parameters of my existing world. Enough for the word God to take on meaning. Enough for gratitude to flow like water.

• From Less (2017)

  “My friend Carlos.” Naked, muscled, and browned by the sun, like a polished redwood burl: young Carlos lifting his head from the towel as he hears his name. “You boys are all so beautiful. Lucky man to have snatched you up. I hope he fucks you silly.” She laughs. “Mine used to.” “I don’t know about that,” Less says softly, so that the Italian will not hear. “Maybe what you need at your age is a broken heart.” He laughs and runs a hand through his bleached hair. “I don’t know about that either!” “Ever had one?” “No!” he shouts, still laughing, bringing his knees up to his chest. A man stands up from behind the woman; her pose has hidden him all this time. The lean body of a runner, sunglasses, a Rock Hudson jaw. Also naked. He looks down first at her, then at young Arthur Less, then says aloud to everybody that he is going in. “You’re an idiot!” the lady says, sitting straight up. “It’s a hurricane out there.” He says he has swum in hurricanes before. He has a faint British accent, or perhaps he’s from New England. The lady turns to Less and lowers her sunglasses. Her eye shadow is hummingbird blue. “Young man, my name’s Marian. Will you do me a favor? Go in the water with my ridiculous husband. He may be a great poet, but he’s a terrible swimmer, and I can’t bear to watch him die. Will you go with him?” Young Arthur Less nods yes and stands up with the smile he saves for grown-ups. The man nods in greeting. Marian Brownburn grabs a large black straw hat, puts it on her head, and waves to them. “Go on, boys. Take care of my Robert!” The sky takes on a shimmer as blue as her eye shadow, and as the men approach the waves they seem to redouble in violence like a fire that has been fed a bundle of kindling. Together they stand in the sun before those terrible waves, in the fall of that terrible year. By spring, they will be living together on the Vulcan Steps. “We had to do a quick change to the program. You can see it has a new title.” But Less, conversant only in German, can make nothing of the words on the paper he has just been handed. People are coming and going now, clipping a microphone to his lapel, offering him water. But Arthur Less is still halfway lit by beach sunshine, halfway in the water of the Golden Gate in 1987. Take care of my Robert. And now, an old woman falling and breaking her hip. She sends her love. No rancor, no feelings at all. The Head leans forward with a whisper and a comradely wink: “By the way. Wanted you to know, those pills work great!”

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  A-Man was fucking me so often and so well that she was easily dismissed, often forgotten. That he is free to fuck whomever he likes and yet repeatedly calls me, comes to me, fucks me, seems a greater proof of love and desire on a daily basis than a commitment of monogamy would be—especially if it was made only to prevent insecurities from rising to the surface. Is his love as deep as mine? I don’t care if it is as superficial as mine is deep as long as he, and his rock-hard desire, show up at my back door several times a week. Sodomy ignites a gratitude of great scope. I suspect that until he shattered the control panel of my being—my mental acuity and my physical power—I had never really loved before. How do you know it’s love, real love? When you meet the one with whom you are not afraid to die. The one who takes away that constant gnawing fear of death and gives one air to breathe. Not afraid to die, this is the feeling he generates when he fucks my ass. Pussy penetration does not delve this far into my psyche; does not break the barrier; does not stop the fear. Did the love or the sodomy come first? Love grows from lust. This I know. Besides, I don’t trust love. I’ve heard it declared too often. But I trust lust completely. #121 After, I say, “Maybe it’s not even sex. Something else. Beyond sex.” Did I have a regular battle-to-the-end clitoral orgasm? No. Had I even thought about it? No. Only a fool would hold on to what she knows while being shown some land of release beyond orgasm. The land of harmony, of deep harmony with another human being. Family. He is my family. K-Y “What’s your afternoon like?” It begins. He has an appointment at six, will be over at three. It is now two. One hour. The courtesan takes over. I turn on the bath, all hot, and let it fill. I check the condom stash and refill it, always having plenty, at least five, more is better, a feeling of bounty, of possibility, like popcorn. I check the K-Y tubes, pushing the insides to the opening end and then rinsing them off under the tap, sticky from last time. The heat rises as I wash those tubes. I use my pink nail brush to wash just under the ridge on the cap where his thumb pushes it open. Dirt always collects there; it’s how I know that tube was used. I adore washing those tubes smooth.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  When you’re ready—perhaps after you’ve eased your way in by sidestepping your own obstacles using one or more of the strategies just described—try experimenting with directing full-on loving-kindness toward yourself, following the ancient traditions of LKM. Again, it can be tempting to avoid or minimize this portion of the practice, for all the same reasons previously discussed. Stay alert to the possibility that you may disguise your neglect of self-love as humility or as selfless compassion for others. These rationalizations can be common. Move past them. The idea here is simply to experiment with and explore self-love using your personal experiences as your data. As you experiment, notice areas of resistance and become curious about them. Although by definition, areas of resistance beg you to turn away, decide in advance instead to hang in with them. Witness how you experience resistance and even lean in toward it. I can guarantee there’s more to learn by leaning in than from turning away. When you avoid a challenge like this, you forfeit opportunities for experiential learning that yields wisdom. Yet when you approach these areas of resistance, your return on this investment is better awareness and understanding, both of yourself and of love. Knowing that it can be all too easy to zoom past using yourself as your target as you begin your LKM practice, you might decide up front that you’ll focus exclusively on yourself for several weeks. Even mark off this time on your calendar. This is in fact how LKM has been taught to the participants in my team’s research studies. The very first guided meditation our study participants are offered focuses exclusively on the self, and they are instructed to stay working with this particular meditation daily, for the first two weeks. This is not self-indulgence. Rather, many LKM teachers find that exploration of self-love provides a solid foundation from which to later expand love’s reach. You can use this reasoning if you need to justify this level of self-focus to yourself: Self-focus has been part of LKM practice for millennia, and it will help you deepen your skills for extending your experiences of love to many, many others. You can start in small ways simply by becoming aware of your body. Your body has its own pace, your mind another. Simply attending to your body coaxes you to slow down. Once you tune in to your physical sensations, you might discover a need to shift positions, stretch, or give yourself a few minutes of massage. Doing so is a form of self-love that instantly creates more comfort and ease. Just as eye contact is a key channel for making a connection with another person, awareness of your own body sensations is a key channel for self-love. It’s the platform from which you can offer yourself compassionate attention. Try This Meditation Practice: Self-Love

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Or “Nan”? “‘Nance”,’ I said. ‘Then I shall call you “Nan” - if I might?’ If she might! I nodded and smiled like an idiot: for the thrill of being addressed by her I would gladly have lost all of my old name, and taken a new one, or gone nameless entirely. So presently it was ‘Well, Nan ... !’ this, and ‘Lord, Nan ... !’ that; and, increasingly, it was ‘Be a love, Nan, and fetch me my stockings ...’ She was still too shy to change her clothes before me, but one night when I arrived I found that she had had a little folding screen set up, and ever afterwards she used to step behind it while we talked, and hand me articles of her suit as she undressed, and have me pass her the pieces of her ladies’ costume from the hook that she had hung them on before the show. I adored being able to serve her like this. I would brush and fold her suit with trembling fingers, and secretly press its various materials - the starched linen of the shirt, the silk of the waistcoat and the stockings, the wool of the jacket and trousers - to my cheek. Each item came to me warm from her body, and with its own particular scent; each seemed charged with a strange kind of power, and tingled or glowed (or so I imagined) beneath my hand. Her petticoats and dresses were cold and did not tingle; but I still blushed to handle them, for I couldn’t help but think of all the soft and secret places they would soon enclose, or brush against, or warm and make moist, once she had donned them. Every time she stepped from behind the screen, clad as a girl, small and slim and shapely, a false plait smothering the lovely, ragged edges of her crop, I had the same sensation: a pang of disappointment and regret that turned instantly to pleasure and to aching love; a desire to touch, to embrace and caress, so strong I had to turn aside or fold my arms for fear that they would fly about her and press her close. At length I grew so handy with her costumes she suggested that I visit her before she went on stage, to help her ready herself for her act, like a proper dresser. She said it with a kind of studied carelessness, as if half-fearful that I might not wish to; she could not have known, I suppose, how dreary the hours were to me, that I must pass away from her ...

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Other concepts that go by the word love in our shared cultural vocabulary—the all-consuming desire, the exclusive bonds, the commitments to loyalty, the unconditional trust—are best viewed as key players within the larger positivity system that surrounds love. Each in fact grows stronger as your moments of love accumulate: When you’ve truly connected with someone else, your trust in that person expands, your relationship and loyalty deepen, and you want to spend more good times together. But that’s only half the story. The causal arrow also runs in the other direction: Each of these players within the larger positivity system—the desire, bonds, commitments, and trust—also triggers subsequent moments of loving connection. Put simply, it’s far easier to connect with another person, when your desire, bond, commitment, or trust is present and strong. So these players are both cause and consequence of loving connections. This is what sustains the complex and dynamic positivity system that forges your often inexplicable ties to family, friends, and community. Love energizes this whole system and sets it into motion. There’s a lot going on here. It’s no wonder that love puzzles us. Adding to the confusion, the word love is commonly affixed to different parts of the system. So when you tell someone that you love him, you may well be invoking a range of different, albeit closely related concepts. You might, for instance, mean to say that you crave the time you two spend together. Alternatively, you could mean to say that you trust that person and intend to be loyal yourself. Or perhaps professing your love to another serves as a way to elevate that particular relationship as an especially important one in your life, a way to invite or secure that person within your innermost circle. And perhaps most often, your declaration of “I love you” is meant to convey “all of the above.” From a practical standpoint, there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. I wouldn’t ask you to upgrade your vision of love if I didn’t see a big payoff for doing so. When we unravel love in chapter 2, you’ll begin to understand it in terms that your body knows. For now, suffice it to say that although you may subscribe to a whole host of definitions of love, your body subscribes to just one: Love is that micro-moment of warmth and connection that you share with another living being. I want to emphasize, though, that love isn’t simply one of the many positive emotions that sweep through you from time to time. It’s bigger than joy, amusement, gratitude, or hope. It has special status. I call it our supreme emotion.

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  III. In the 3SL T. usage of deyaicdw the same elements appear, the word being used of personal friendship where the element of admiration, usually accompanied with desire to benefit, is prominent (Mk. 10" Lk. 71 Jn, n8 13®*); of God's attitude towards Jesus, where approval is evidently the chief element of the thought and the word approximates the meaning of ixXI-yw, " to choose " (Jn. 336 Eph. i«); of the love of God for men of good character, where the meaning is much the same save in degree of emphasis (a Cor, 97); of the love of God and of Christ for even sinful men (Jn. 3" Gal. 2M Heb. X26 i Jn. 4iab), where benevolence, desire to benefit, is the chief cle- ment; of the love which men are bidden to have for God and for Christ, and of Christ's love for God, in which admiration is rawed to adoration, and in- cludes readiness to serve (Mt. 22" Jn. 14"' *»' al Rom. 8" i Cor. H* i Jn. 4*°*) ; of the love which men are bidden to have for one another, c*vcn their enemies, in which the willingness and desire to benefit is prominent* ami in the case of enemies admiration or approval Calls into the background (Mt, 22*8 Jn. i3*«« Rom, 13'' • Eph. $•*• m i Jn, a«»)» and finally of tht low of things, when admiration and desire to possess are prominent, to the rut ire exclusion of desire to benefit (Lk, n*» Jn. u« i Jn. a1*). As concerns dyaidoi) and ftXfo), it is to be observed that white In thr biblical writers* at least, the two terms have a certain common of usage in which they may be used almost intcrchangmbly, yet in 9cXfo emphasises the natural Hjwnlancous affertltm of ow* |H*r?ion d»r another, while itawfcw refers rather to love Into which there fftfrw tin Hi*- ment of choke, and hence of moral character* It i* umni^trnt with thh distinction that Ata^dw is never used with the mi'iming "to km** (whiih ^tXlu ftonietimeft lias) and is rarely used of lovr (hut swir i Sam, t.i1" * Cant, !«• <• 1 3x-*» as against the lew strong statem^ntH<»f (irimm and CVrfiirr, 5, ?, f tXifv; andr/. abocxx. inTh,); that h nrvrr mnl in tin* i iitii mand to men to love GixJ or men} ami very rarely of (Jod'a !ti (but see Jn. i6w); but that either term IK* «if t^v« between roan and man, into which thcrii enter* more or «I ttie rirntrni, of choice and dtcMoa* €J» Jn* 1 1»« M with 1 1* *nni jit. »» with 2iT, IV, *Ay4«i|» imlffce the verb, and rtrtaln «! Hn «** cur from Homer dawn, fir*t in th«t Lxx, an*t in wholly limtteci to biblkai and ChriMtian C*/, M. awl M, F^\ i, ?» In the Lxx It it <rf low flt« tvf i ij» and the in Cant. ; but w lui^r 4w* 'AFAriH 521

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  118), partly to his preference for a term which suggests that love, joy, peace, etc., are the natural product of a vital relation between the Christian and the Spirit. Observe the word (@ev in v.% and cf. 2°. The use of the singular serves to present all the experiences and elements of character in the ensuing list as a unity, together constituting the result of living by the Spirit. Yet too much stress can not be laid on the singular, since Paul always used it when employing the word in its figurative sense. On the importance of the distinction in the apostle’s mind between 60 Kapmos Tod mvevpatos, and Ta yapicpata (Tov TVEVLATOS) or 7) Pavepwols TOV TvEevpmaTos, see detached note on IIvedua and Zapé, p. 489, and Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes, pp. 62-97, esp. 77 ff. The two lists, the present one and that of 1 Cor. 128", contain but one common term, miortis, and this is undoubtedly used in a different sense in the two passages. Under the terms Yaplopata mvevpatiKa and davépwois Tov mvevpatos the apostle includes those ex- traordinary experiences and powers which were not necessarily evidential of moral character in those in whom they appeared, but because of their extraordinary character and of their asso- ciation with the acceptance of the gospel message, the word of God (1 Thes. 21%), were regarded as effects and evidences of the presence and activity of the Spirit of God. These are all ex- ternal and easily recognisable; note the term ¢avépwous in 1 Cor. 127. Under the term 0 xaprés Tod mvevparTos, on the other hand, are included those ethical qualities and spiritual experiences which were not popularly thought of as evidences of the Spirit’s presence, but which, to the mind of Paul, were of far greater value than the so-called yapiopata. See 1 Cor., 314 GALATIANS chaps. 12-14, esp. 12°!, chap. 13, and 141. Thus while retaining the evidently current view, which found in the gift of tongues and prophecy and power to heal disease evidence of the Spirit’s presence (see also Gal. 35), he transferred the emphasis of his thought, and sought to transfer that of his disciples, from these things to the internal and ethical qualities which issue in and control conduct. Whether the terms listed in vv.%? % fell in the apostle’s mind into definite classes is not altogether clear. d&yé&ny, evidently meaning love towards other men (cf. vv.': 4), stands in a sense in a class by itself, and is probably thought of as the source from which all the rest flow. Cf. v.4 and 1 Cor., chap.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  I first invite you to experiment with extending warmth and goodwill to everyone you know and then to stretch that positive vibe even further to encompass everyone you don’t know. Once you set your sights, mind, and heart on these larger aims, you’ll find countless ways to forge tender, loving connections with everyone, without a single exception. These are not just idle wishes, empty intentions, or a futile form of magical thinking. In wishing people on the other side of the planet to be happy and peaceful, you need not believe that your wishes somehow metaphysically travel the world to change the course of their day. The point is to change your day, by conditioning your heart to be soft, open, and caring toward each new person you encounter, regardless of how remote the prior connection between you may have been. This chapter features both formal and informal practices to help you extend the reach of your love, even in the face of uncertainty or ambiguity. Redefining love as those micro-moments of positivity resonance you can share with nearly anyone breaks open extraordinary opportunities. To be sure, extraordinary opportunities pose extraordinary challenges, not only to see the chances for loving connection but also to be ready for them. Micro-moments, by definition, are fleeting. If you blink—or slip into self-absorption—you miss out. Even so, merely seeing opportunities to connect, without being prepared to act, can make you lonelier. To build community and escape painful isolation, you need to teach your heart to be ready. Hone your skills for capitalizing on those life-giving micro-moments so that, as the river of fresh opportunities for love flows toward you, you’ll be poised to jump in. Try This Meditation Practice: Loving All Retreat to a place in which you can sit undisturbed. Ground yourself by placing your feet flat on the floor, and adjust your posture until your body feels both alert and open. Lengthen your spine and lift up your rib cage. Since emotional states are deeply embodied, seek out the posture that feels attuned to expanding love. Start, once again, by drawing a few slow and deep breaths, resting your awareness on each one as it moves through your lungs and through your body. Next, bring your awareness to your intention for this session. Articulate this intention silently to yourself. Perhaps it’s to awaken yourself to the vast sea of possibilities for love, or to find joy in connecting with all the people you’ll encounter today. As you practice, remember to lightly bring your awareness to your heart region. Pay attention to any shifting sensations in your body and face. These physical aspects of your experience matter more than the particular phrasings you choose.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Studies show that these moments of back-and-forth positivity resonance are not only satisfying in and of themselves, providing boosts to each partner’s own mood, but they also further fortify the relationship, making it more intimate, committed, and passionate next season than it is today. Another person’s expression of positivity, from this perspective, can be seen as a bid for connection and love. If you answer that bid, the ensuing positivity resonance will nourish you both. Two ways to fortify your intimate relationships, then, are to bring your own good news home to share, and to celebrate your partner’s good news. Regardless of who initiates, the key is to connect to create a shared experience, one that allows positivity to resonate between you for a spell, momentarily synchronizing your gestures and your biorhythms and creating the warm glow of mutual care. Sharing or celebrating the joy of some personal good fortune is certainly not the only way to foster the micro-moments of love that strengthen relationships. Any positive emotion, if shared, can do the same. In collaboration with my colleague Sara Algoe, for instance, I’ve explored how kindness and appreciation flow back and forth in couples, creating tender moments of positivity resonance that also serve to nourish intimacy and relationship growth. In particular, we’ve examined how people habitually express appreciation to their partners. We learned from this work that some people tend to say “thanks” better than others. Genuine feelings of appreciation or gratitude, after all, well up when you recognize that someone else went out of his or her way to do something nice for you. Another way to say this is that the script for gratitude involves both a benefit, or kind deed, and a benefactor, the kind person behind the kind deed. Whereas many people express their appreciation to others by shining a spotlight on the benefit they received—the gift, favor, or the kind deed itself—we discovered that, by contrast, the best “thank-yous” simply use the benefit as a springboard toward shining a spotlight on the good qualities of the other person, their benefactor. Done well, then, expressing appreciation for your partner’s kindness to you can become a kind gesture in return, one that conveys that you see and appreciate in your partner’s actions his or her good and inspiring qualities. How did we know that this is the best way to convey appreciation? Because compared to expressions that merely focus on benefits, those that also focus on benefactors make the partner who hears that “thanks” feel understood, cared for, and validated. And this good feeling—the feeling that their partner really “gets” them and cherishes them—allows people to walk around each day feeling better about themselves and better about their relationship. And in six months’ time, it forecasts becoming even more solid and satisfied with their relationship. Saying “thanks” well then isn’t just a matter of being polite, it’s a matter of being loving, and becoming a stronger version of what together you call “us.” Becoming Resilient.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  So I draw cartoons to make him happy, to give him other worlds to live inside. I draw his dreams. And he only talks about his dreams with me. And I only talk about my dreams with him. I tell him about my fears. I think Rowdy might be the most important person in my life. Maybe more important than my family. Can your best friend be more important than your family? I think so. I mean, after all, I spend a lot more time with Rowdy than I do with anyone else. Let’s do the math. I figure Rowdy and I have spent an average of eight hours a day together for the last fourteen years. That’s eight hours times 365 days times fourteen years. So that means Rowdy and I have spent 40,880 hours in each other’s company. Nobody else comes anywhere close to that. Trust me. Rowdy and I are inseparable. Because Geometry Is Not a Country Somewhere Near France [image file=image_rsrc4RJ.jpg] I was fourteen and it was my first day of high school. I was happy about that. And I was most especially excited about my first geometry class. Yep, I have to admit that isosceles triangles make me feel hormonal. Most guys, no matter what age, get excited about curves and circles, but not me. Don’t get me wrong. I like girls and their curves. And I really like women and their curvier curves. I spend hours in the bathroom with a magazine that has one thousand pictures of naked movie stars: Naked woman + right hand = happy happy joy joy Yep, that’s right, I admit that I masturbate. I’m proud of it. I’m good at it. I’m ambidextrous. If there were a Professional Masturbators League, I’d get drafted number one and make millions of dollars. And maybe you’re thinking, “Well, you really shouldn’t be talking about masturbation in public.” Well, tough, I’m going to talk about it because EVERYBODY does it. And EVERYBODY likes it. And if God hadn’t wanted us to masturbate, then God wouldn’t have given us thumbs. So I thank God for my thumbs. But, the thing is, no matter how much time my thumbs and I spend with the curves of imaginary women, I am much more in love with the right angles of buildings. When I was a baby, I’d crawl under my bed and snuggle into a corner to sleep. I just felt warm and safe leaning into two walls at the same time. When I was eight, nine, and ten, I slept in my bedroom closet with the door closed. I only stopped doing that because my big sister, Mary, told me that I was just trying to find my way back into my mother’s womb. That ruined the whole closet thing.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Whether or not the feeling of love ensues, studies of couples show, hinges a lot on how you respond to your partner’s positive expressions. Do you lean in toward them? Or do you shy away? Do you meet them in kind, expressing your own genuine positive emotions in turn? Or do you shrug them off as irrelevant or point out the potential downsides? Researchers who have carefully coded couples’ responsiveness to each other in situations like these find that those who capitalize on each other’s good fortunes, by responding to their partner’s good news with their own enthusiasm and outward encouragement, have higher-quality relationships. They enjoy more intimacy, commitment, and passion with each other, and find their relationship to be more satisfying overall. In other words, when one partner’s good news and enthusiasm ignites to become the other partner’s good news and enthusiasm as well, a micro-moment of positivity resonance is born. Studies show that these moments of back-and-forth positivity resonance are not only satisfying in and of themselves, providing boosts to each partner’s own mood, but they also further fortify the relationship, making it more intimate, committed, and passionate next season than it is today. Another person’s expression of positivity, from this perspective, can be seen as a bid for connection and love. If you answer that bid, the ensuing positivity resonance will nourish you both. Two ways to fortify your intimate relationships, then, are to bring your own good news home to share, and to celebrate your partner’s good news. Regardless of who initiates, the key is to connect to create a shared experience, one that allows positivity to resonate between you for a spell, momentarily synchronizing your gestures and your biorhythms and creating the warm glow of mutual care. Sharing or celebrating the joy of some personal good fortune is certainly not the only way to foster the micro-moments of love that strengthen relationships. Any positive emotion, if shared, can do the same.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  He stands by the bed naked, hard, and beautiful and says, “Show me your pussy.” He watches as I take off my thong, lie back on the bed, and bend my knees up and apart. Looking at my pussy, he says, “Spread it apart.” With a hand on each side I open my little pink pussy lips to him. He kneels before me and sucks on my clit, sings on my clit like a troubadour breaking all the rules. I flowed into his tongue and he murmured, “You like it when I eat your pussy, don’t you?” “I would die for it,” I admitted. I cannot imagine feeling greater love in all my life, nor do I expect to ever feel greater love, except for him. Nor would I ever ask or want greater love than I feel for him. With any others, after him, I will need to rest. THE UNWRITTEN RULES We are not domestic. We stay in the desire, in the bedroom—and out of the kitchen, the laundry, the office, and any other room that would threaten to bring in reality. We have, on a few occasions, when famished after sex, cooked dinner—well, actually he cooked it, but then we ate it in the bathtub with candles, floating a large metal bowl filled with tender rare meat between us. Both of us in the deep end, of course. We’ve never been to a movie and don’t plan on going to one, ever. Why would we? We are the movie: the porn that can never be—visually astounding, spontaneously inventive, genitally graphic, and viscerally soul-searing. It isn’t predictable with A-Man. The sex, the ass-fucking, that is the only constant. We never don’t fuck. We are not monogamous. Never have been and never will be. Neither of us has ever asked for it and neither of us has ever offered it. Offering it is the only way it could happen—neither of us would intrude on the other’s free choice. Free choice is at the core of what is hot between us. The subject has been discussed only to establish what is mutually understood. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is the basic policy. He says, “I don’t need to know.” He pays attention to what is, not what isn’t. Having never done this before, I thought about it plenty. If one has sex with someone other than the Beloved, what happens? Does one risk diminishing one’s affection for the Beloved? Does it contaminate the love? Or does it merely confirm the love in every way, the contrast illuminating the beauty of the Beloved yet again, in yet another way, from yet another angle. And this gift to each other—the freedom to allow for other experiences—only enhances the love. Love without chains is love.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Part II of this book is all about making changes. You’ve long admired people skilled at making genuine, heartfelt connections. They seem so perceptive and nimble, so resilient and generous. You’ve long imagined that being a “grown up” would bestow you with such perspective and grace. Yet age, measured as time since birth, provides no guarantees for maturity or wisdom. In chapters 5 through 9 , I offer you explicit guidance on how to seed love more often and more effectively, love for yourself and love for others, through thick and thin, in sickness and in health. You’ll come away having learned that love need not remain an unpredictable and elusive state. With practice, you’ll find you can generate love anytime you wish. Love will become a renewable resource that you can tap to fuel your own well-being, and the well-being of all those within your radius. Love is our supreme emotion: Its presence or absence in our lives influences everything we feel, think, do, and become. It’s that recurrent state that ties you in—your body and brain alike—to the social fabric, to the bodies and brains of those in your midst. When you experience love—true heart/mind/soul-expanding love—you not only become better able to see the larger tapestry of life and better able to breathe life into the connections that matter to you, but you also set yourself on a pathway that leads to more health, happiness, and wisdom. CHAPTER 9 A Closing Loving Glance I NEVER KNEW HOW TO WORSHIP UNTIL I KNEW HOW TO LOVE. —Henry Ward Beecher After spending months building the case for this book for why it’s worth upgrading your view of love, I’ve become convinced that this simple call opens the door to an endless process. The work of science, after all, is never done. Even though the latest discoveries about love’s impact on your body, brain, behavior, and future prospects can fill volumes and fill you with amazement, it’s equally humbling to recognize how little we actually know about love’s full impact. New discoveries about love’s power will continue to unfold. As they do, you and I alike will be called to upgrade our views of love, time and again, to reimagine this life-stretching experience from the ground up once more. Whatever your prior beliefs about love, my hope is that I’ve piqued your curiosity to begin to see love as your body experiences it, as positivity resonance that can momentarily reverberate between you and virtually anyone else. Before these reverberations fade, they initiate biochemical cascades that help remake who you are, both in body and in mind. It’s also worth considering whether you’ve unwittingly placed constraints on your own experiences of love by following cultural norms.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  Why A-Man has this authority I do not know. Psychology might find childhood reasons, but I believe, ultimately, that it’s something God-given, a deep knowledge of personal responsibility. This kind of self-possession and lack of desperation can get a man a long way with a woman . . . or at least partway up her ass. In the end, it’s who you are that will get you somewhere. Or nowhere. He told me once that he likes being where he shouldn’t be, crossing the velvet rope, hand in the candy jar, late to work, cock in my ass, an ass too small for his cock. A-Man made it so deeply into my ass because he dared. No one else really tried. Anyone who dares to be that intimate, that crazy, well, he might just get somewhere he never got before. I am in the throes of coming at the moment of first touch, my body, pussy, ass so open they peel outwardly to suck him in. I was never that open before. If I were that open to someone else, would I feel the same joy of openness? No. They would annoy me long before I was that open. It’s all that yakking that ruins it; it reveals too much. A-Man is the least annoying man I’ve ever known. And the only one who never yields to my will. At the same time, contrary to easy supposition, I do not believe that it is the arrogant, macho man who is the great ass-fucker: he is the asshole. That guy probably doesn’t even like women, he’s too busy competing with other men. In my limited experience, the great ass-fucker is the patient, gentle man, the one who knows how to listen to a woman, how to be with a woman, and has the equipment that can slow her down. He is the one who can imaginatively experience her submission—her release of control—with her, and thus know precisely how to get her to that place: he absorbs all that she gives up. He is a kind man, A-Man. OBITUARY After such a stunning start, I prepared, as any bright woman would, for the end. Great love always brings thoughts of death and separation. This was a war—between decency and desire, between convention and pleasure, between me, myself, and I—and that great aphrodisiac fueled my craving. With the assumption, or expectation, of longevity gone, the moat of self-protection and the apathy of safety disappear and passion floods the world. Well, it flooded mine, anyway. Now is all there was, all I had—and I knew it. The aphoristic obituary was especially comforting. My testimony would serve if he died, if I died, or—worst of all—if he flaked on me. He had the biggest, hardest, and most gentle cock I ever knew. He was the one who fucked me in the ass, missionary-style, before he fucked my pussy.