illumination

Two years ago I spent summer solstice sobbing my eyes out, cursing the long days and short sleepless nights. At the height of the sun’s power, all that was illuminated was the pain of an unexpected break-up. The pie chart of my brain and being was primarily devoted to obsessive thought about my loss, my heart chakra was blown wide open, and I was tender and raw. I was completely miserable.

This summer solstice I once again found myself distracted, preoccupied, and unable to sleep, deep in obsessive thoughts, raw, tender and heart wide open. This solstice, however, I’m happy. Ecstatic, really. Such is the power of love.

And such is the risk of love. My current state can lead directly to the former state. In the last two weeks I’ve devised countless strategies to “slow it down”, trying to keep some cool remove and clinical detachment. I’m a therapist and know too much about both the chemistry of love and the way we can fall for someone to learn yet another hideous lesson about not going for someone who replicates and triggers all of your childhood hurts. Plus, I’ve had my heart broken before. I know the power that good sex has. Good sex opens the heart chakra, each orgasm releasing oxytocin, a chemical which promotes bonding. Good sex makes you feel connected and incredible sex with somebody who makes you laugh, well, damn, that makes you feel like you are falling in love. And what exactly is the difference between the feeling and the fact? Isn’t the fact of falling in love pure feeling?

Looking around my house, every room contains spells and invocations of the very thing I’m trying (quite weakly, I admit) to ward off. The house altar is covered in rose petals; a huge Mexican heart shaped mirror sits above the mantel in the living room. Every piece of art I’ve made is in some way an invocation of love. My bedroom I’ve consciously made an invitation to love and sex , from what is above the doorway to the red lava lamp which is decorated with roses and pearls. My journal with all the wishes I’ve made on the new moon sits near my bed, documenting the movement from wishes for a healed heart to wishes for an open and full one.

So, the night of summer solstice I hardly slept, instead making love with someone who makes me laugh, makes me think, and makes me….you know. She’s as big a personality as I am, with as many friends and as devoted to them as I am to mine. This year, what the solstice sun has illuminated has me wondering once again at the power of magic and the power of love. Can the world really be this bright and wonderful? Can I really risk feeling this way? Can I really risk not feeling this way?

Like the fool card in the tarot, I’m jumping off the cliff and free falling. It’s terrifying, it’s exhilarating, and in many ways, it feels like I have no other choice. I asked for this. And amazingly, miraculously, I seem to have gotten it. Can this really be true?