“Love as thou wilt.”
–Blessed Elua[nbnote ]Blessed Elua and his precept come from Jacqueline Carey’s book series Kushiel’s Saga, starting with Kushiel’s Dart.[/nbnote]
Such a simple precept, no?
To love as you will, to give into your desires and feel, experience, love.
But what are the implications of loving unabashedly, loving freely? In an ideal world there would be none, in an ideal world “Love as thou wilt” would be the only precept that we all held sacrosanct.
We don’t live in an ideal world, where skin is skin (no matter the gender)… if you think I’m wrong, turn off the lights. Is the skin of a man any different from the skin of a woman when you touch it?
Our society today does not view love as a branching path; there is a set of defined rules, restrictions, and expectations. And yet love is never ending, always shifting, a veritable labyrinth filled with winding paths, dead ends, and more than one entrance and more than one exit.
“Love as thou wilt” the Gods bid us.
Where did we as a society allow what we hold most dear to be warped and twisted, to be made rigid?
Is it not time to return to Love as thou wilt? Is it not time to fully realize that love doesn’t care about gender or age, social class or location?
Sexuality itself is on a sliding scale. Would sex really be so different if you were to have it with a man instead of a woman, or vice versa? Of course it would be physically-speaking in certain ways, but would the passion be any less if you gave it free reign?
Would the pleasure be stunted if you went outside the “normal” bounds that society has placed upon sex, sexual desire, and yourself as sexual creature?
Does a sapling not grow because it was placed in soil other than the soil of its forbears? Would love stay dormant because you tried something new, something forbidden?
A sapling would grow tall and strong, as long as the soil it grew in was true. Likewise, Love would blossom in any circumstance, in any pairing or poly-situation, if given the chance …if the soil it grew in was true.
Love is our sacred trust, to feel, to live, to breathe it in. To let love run unchecked and free, unfettered by rules and restrictions.
Is it possible, to live in such a world where “Love as thou wilt” holds true? Is it possible to live and love one another as is our wont, and to raise our youth to do the same?
Can such a simple ideal survive and prosper in a world where ideals are seen through filtered lenses? Where love is no longer based in emotion and attraction but rather the participants’ genders?
“Love as thou wilt.”
Try it. You just might like it. It just might change everything.
Have any thoughts or questions? Make a comment!
I love having discussions in the comments thread. <3
Hetaera of Naamah
[nbnote print="true"]
Hetaera of Naamah
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22 Responses to What is Love?
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Beautiful, darling. Absolutely and truly beautiful <3
Isn't Hetaera's writing amazing? I'm learning so much from all these wonderful people. Thank you for your comment, Angel! *hugs* <3
Thank you, I'm so glad you liked it! :D
This is why I ADORE working with you all, you have just underlined and highlighted everything I could have though of! I love you all to pieces!
*hugs you all* I truly believe I am Pansexual, falling for the person, who they are, what they are, in their entirity.
I love you all to pieces!!! :*<3:p
My recent post Recovery Very graphic content!
I love you to pieces!!!!! And I echo your sentiment, Damned.
I absolutely ADORE working with ALL of you! You are all so intelligent, sexy, sassy, confident and always teaching me new things. Opening the doors of my heart.
Thank you one & all for your contributions to make this into the community and resource it is! <3
With gratitude,
Bella xxo
"I truly believe I am Pansexual, falling for the person, who they are, what they are, in their entirity."
Congratulations! And I'm so glad that we could help reaffirm already held beliefs. It's so nice to know that other people are out there that think the same. :D
Sigh…. the beauty of words, of dialogue, captivating minds and hearts and space…challenging us to love without convention and in many cases without the modeling the child in us so craves…the beauty of words, type-written and framed, creating altars over mantels, in nooks, around corners, surprising and delightful, like the memory of a cherished conversation, or afternoon spent scrawling our desire in sharpie ink…manifestas hung in bathrooms, the ones that wash old paradigms from our skin as we bathe our faces in cool clear water.
And the beauty of daring to dream…
Amen Sweet Love. Amen. xxx
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Arabella, Arabella. Arabella said: Wet Ink: What is Love? http://bit.ly/a6Q2I1 [...]
So much of conventional morality, I think, is the residue of the mindset of absolute rulers from long ago who wanted their subjects to have children, to labor for them, to be taxed and (for boys) to go to war. Love without procreation is indeed a revolution, no matter what sexes are involved.
"Love without procreation is indeed a revolution, no matter what sexes are involved."
Yes. Yes. I agree with you there. We are living in a world that has, in certain ways, grown past itself, yet we are constantly continuously running up against the very constructs that (arguably) helped us to grow to this point… But now they are keeping us stuck.
To Love… To Fall In… is a revolution all its own.
And clearly this revolution is ongoing. By the very fact that this site exists a sort of grass roots movement is evolving, maturing, spreading. Constructs from the past are falling away, especially when it comes to love and sex.
We just need to keep the dialogue for it open for this revolution to continue. xD
Ohh, yesssssssssssssss. (Please!)
Mmmm….stripping away constructs and pressures, shedding them as though they were garments too heavy against the skin-laces bound too tight, cloth too constricting for our pulsing, enlivening desire…seeking out the roots of our conditioning, as though weeding our gardens, fertilizing our own fields so that love may grow, with roots deep and branches reaching high. That our love may nourish others…that each shrub and bush, tree, and flower might feed the next, so that soon we are a forest of love… a polyamorous, pan-sexual, affirming ecology of Love. xxx Slyce
"…a forest of love… a polyamorous, pan-sexual, affirming ecology of Love."
Yessss.. yes. And how it feels to lengthen the breath into that space, to allow the mind and heart to wander there… to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, there's another way to go about all this. Hallelujah.
My recent post Synergistic Love Letter
Bella Love, when we have our mansion, can we get a print of that Eros and Psyche framed in glittering gold and mounted upon the crimson rose wall of our spiraling stair entry way? Right beneath the couture chandelier? xxx S
What a beautiful way of putting it Slyce! :D
Isn't it? *swoons*
Oh.my.goddess.
This is absolutely beautiful. Both the sentiment and the writing itself. Thank you, Hetaera.
I love it. Love what you've said, and how you've said it. And that you've taken such a big question that so many people never think about and made it accessible…
I've believed for a while now that straight is a myth, and vanilla, too… simply because there are so many different forms of love and lust and passion and intimacy and sensuality and sexuality. I really think that if we strip away the societal constructs and pressures (especially those that we internalize), it would be a very different world… a pansexual world, perhaps. *smiles*
You're goddamn brilliant.
Lots of love,
Bella <3
My recent post Synergistic Love Letter
Ahh, thank you Bella! <3 I'm so glad you like it.
Pansexuality, now that is something to work towards, xD.
xoxo
Hetaera
Hetaera, dear one,
I more than like it. I am nourished by it. Thank you… thank you.
And yes… there is work ahead of us all. But how glorious that we can dream it and voice it!
Bella xxo