What about love? For me personally it's something you practise not something to think, analyse or read about. But the truth is I read a book about it this weekend: Corine Koole, 'De zeven wetten van de liefde' (2018). The title of this book translated from Dutch into English: 'The seven laws of love'. Laws is too strong for this book (marketing trick?). It's not about laws, it's about the seven themes Corine found again and again in the more than 1,000 interviews about love she made last ?ten? years. Seven themes:
- Being in love
- Desire
- Sex
- Great love
- Eternal love
- Pain
- Faithfulness
Was I surprised? Did I read something new? Flabbergasted? No, all I read felt natural and pretty familiar.
A few quotes I would like to share. A series to describe great love (page 170):
1. A great love makes life whole.
2. The beloved is a constant; against that background everything becomes meaningful.
3. If your partner has disappeared, it feels like real pain in your body.
4. Great love can not be suppressed. Not even after years and years.
5. The great love is like a hug, overwhelming. It protects against anxiety, nervousness.
6. A great love evokes a shared, free energy, as if you are breathing the same air together that is otherwise available to no one else.
7. A big love is nice, exciting, horny.
1. A great love makes life whole.
2. The beloved is a constant; against that background everything becomes meaningful.
3. If your partner has disappeared, it feels like real pain in your body.
4. Great love can not be suppressed. Not even after years and years.
5. The great love is like a hug, overwhelming. It protects against anxiety, nervousness.
6. A great love evokes a shared, free energy, as if you are breathing the same air together that is otherwise available to no one else.
7. A big love is nice, exciting, horny.
Faithfulness (page 235): Faithfulness is constant wonderment, faithfulness is looking at the other person, looking very closely, and accepting that the man or woman you are with changes over the years, as everyone changes, grows older, and perhaps flawed. Faithfulness is not sticking to how it used to be and how it started, but rather the change itself. The realization that no day is the same, that perfection does not exist, and that you rejoice in it. (...) Being and staying loyal to a loved one is not something that restricts individuals and prevents individual development, but makes it possible.
Balance (page 239-240). It's all about finding a balance between the sun side and shadow side of the one you love. Embrace the shadow side too of your lover.
Space (page 246). The very heart of love is faithfullness. Give your love the space to be her- or himselves.
In other words, just be you. I don't want anything else. Be like a cat - she always is her divine self. Be like a bird - fly or land whenever you want ... I will not squeeze.
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