Love and Death

The Death nature has an old habit of surfacing in love affairs just at the time we feel we have won over a lover, just as we feel we have landed "a big fish." That's when the Life/Death/Life nature surfaces and scares everyone sideways.... Whenever love is nascent, the Life/Death/Life nature will always surface. Always.

I first read Dr. Estes' book, Women Who Run with the Wolves, in college. I remembered seeing a poster for it in the Women's Center at my first school, then picked up the paperback out of curiosity in my sophomore year. I cried many times during the first time I read it. I've come back to it time and again, and I always find it nurturing, inspiring, and true.

What is it about? Quite simply, it's about the souls of women. It's about feminine spirituality - not "feminine" in the definition of hierarchical and repressive cultures the world over, but the feminine as it truly is. Wild. Instinctively aware. Creative. Resilient. A force of nature.

But it's not all happiness and light. Nothing is, and that is the point of Skeleton Woman, the incarnation of the feminine Divine that Dr. Estes invokes in the chapter Hunting: When the Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I've been pondering the meaning of this wisdom for the last few days, as I've run into a "scared" patch in our relationship. There are many complicated feelings at work, involving the end of my last relationship, the speed at which this one is progressing, my childhood issues, and the newness of D/s for me. It's a lot to handle. I turn back to Dr. Estes, remembering what she said about love and death.

Oddly enough, I had a jolt of recognition while reading a review of "Babe: Pig in the City" on the AV Club (they consider it a largely underrated bit of sublimely surreal children's film). The "Babe" films, the AV Club points out, do not lie to children about what eventually happens to animals on farms, which is part of their appeal to adults and children who are not stupid. Most of us eat animals. Even those who refrain from eating animal flesh, as I did for nine years, sometimes use animal products. It's very difficult to avoid it completely. Every animal we eat, wear or use to stick paper together was killed. Death surrounds us.

And yet, I'm really not being morbid. Because Death in Dr. Estes' universe is not something to be feared. Death is an incarnation of the Divine that brings an end to one thing so that another can begin. Death governs not only our end, and the end of other living things, but the pain of childbirth and the endless cycles of death and rebirth that make up the universe. And in order to love, we must confront Death.

It would be a mistake to think that it takes a muscle-bound hero to accomplish this. It does not. It takes a heart that is willing to die and be born and die and be born again and again.

We must confront Death in order to love, because love requires us to face reality. No relationship founded solely on that which is fun, nice and happy will last for a lifetime. Life brings with it other things, and sharing them is essential. And love itself will wax and wane over time. It goes through its own cycles of growth, maturity and decay.

From her very flesh and blood and from the constant cycles of filling and emptying the red vase in her belly, a woman understands physically, emotionally and spiritually that zeniths fade and expire, and what is left is reborn in unexpected ways and by inspired means, only to fall back to nothing, and yet be reconceived again in full glory.

My college boyfriend was kind of a jerk, in a really passive-aggressive way. But what really sealed it was when my father died. We were long-distance, and it just so happened that he was coming to visit just as, 3,000 miles away, my estranged father passed away. I was declared his next of kin, and was legally responsible for disposing of his remains. It was impossible for me to make the trip, so I had to sign, notarize and fax a document giving that right to someone else. And my boyfriend wouldn't come with me. He said he was tired from driving in and didn't want to put in his contacts.

If you can't handle it when bad things happen to other people, then clearly you haven't mastered Dr. Estes' advice. Just like Margaret Cho's boyfriend who said, "Um, you pee blood, so, bye." It indicates an acute case of immaturity. And yet, in seemingly ironic fashion, those who are more well equipped to respond to loss and crisis tend to also enjoy the rest of their lives more fully. The immature, on the other hand, get upset when someone drinks the last diet soda.

...the Life/Death/Life cycles prevail whether we wish them to or not. Yet if we live as we breathe, take in and let go, we cannot go wrong.

Take in, let go, and take in again. It's that simple. And it's that hard. But it's always wonderful.