Intimate connection

Humans are wired to seek intimacy with something or someone: physically, chemically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, and/or instinctively. Call it romance, bonding, relationship, sex, spiritual communion, religion, attachment, obsession, lust, addiction, or whatever you prefer; all of us are seeking it on some level or in some form, but often frustrated, depressed or traumatized by its elusive nature.

Libido reimagined

“Libido can never be apprehended except in a definite form; that is to say, it is identical with fantasy-images. And we can only release it from the grip of the unconscious by bringing up the corresponding fantasy-images.”
~The Collected Works of C. G. Jung

As a simplified definition, libido is the energy that animates human life. In and of itself, it is no different than the energy that creates or moves everything in the universe, except that it is scaled down for human use. Libido is sometimes referred to as the life force, sex drive, psychic energy, kundalini, the creative or divine spark, etc.

Like most manifestations of energy, you cannot perceive libido through the human senses or mind alone, unless it presents itself in a form that you’re able to recognize and experience, which is what the Jungian related quote refers to.

We don’t perceive the wind until it blows against or moves something. We don’t see moisture in the air until it forms into a dewdrop, raindrop, cloud, etc. The key word being form: energy or life experienced through form. This necessity for form is not any different for libido, except that it’s often manifested to us through imagined forms or mental projections, especially when a tangible form of something we need or seek to experience does not exist in the outer world (objective reality). As Aristotle once said, “Nature abhors a vacuum,” especially the human mind, and so it imagines what is not completely perceivable or accessible in the outer world as we conceive it.

We experience our lives in both the physical world—if such a thing exists—and imagined worlds of our making—often a hybrid of both: our imaginings projected onto physical reality, like painted art on a canvas. In fact, modern psychological theory straddles the fine line between understanding the effects of the outer, tangible world versus our inner worlds (mental, emotional, and unconscious). Nowadays, there is a great controversy over this very topic, as to what has the greater influence over individuals and whole societies: the so called outer world of tangible circumstances or our imagined worlds—good and bad.

Note: Initially, Freud narrowly defined libido as the energy behind our sex drives, while Jung conceived libido as propelling the full range of human experience, with its many nuances of expression: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, symbolic, archetypal, mythological, creative, artistic, dreaming, etc.

First hookup

“What we seek constantly in romantic love is not human love or human relationship alone; we also seek a religious experience, a vision of wholeness.”
~Robert A. Johnson

2:13 AM

A puttering engine whines down beach street on a frigid night. The sound of rusted struts and worn wheel bearings bouncing along frost heaves and pot holes. Headlights fluttering. Shadows of leafless winter limbs shifting and merging against the bedroom wall. He watches and listens—passively—without comprehension. Eyes half open, half shut.

An electric blanket covers him to the nostrils. Thermostat set to 60 F. A frugal man of limited means, he found this place at the dead end of Beach street, near the river’s edge, where it takes a sharp left and meets Willow avenue—another dead end and entrance to the old Jewish cemetery. He bought the property for a song. The street itself a hazard, with its heaves and holes, notorious for frozen fogs overflowing the river bank at night.

An anonymous chat, several hours earlier. She’d answered his Reddit post; an anonymous stranger. He’d baited the invitation with homemade hot chocolate on a frigid night, marshmallows too. Sex on the mind, but unstated.

Continue reading “First hookup” →

Sensual woman

A man feels both excitement and fear over a woman’s sexuality, a conundrum that seems to defy resolution. He takes delight in being the focus of her desire, yet fears the rabid lusts of other men, who lurk in the shadows, awaiting their turn.

And so he either succumbs to his fear, judging her desire as bad, accusing her of indiscretions or fantasies of the worst kind; or he resolves to appreciate the blessing of her sensuality, rejoicing in God’s masterpiece, a gift to all who experience her, both near and far; now, then, and tomorrow.

Lust

Lust is God’s cohort, AKA the trickster: the ever present two-headed serpent, tempting us onto the path of somewhere, a convoluted journey to nowhere. They are the straw that stirs the drink, the manipulators of divisive consequence, the mistress and master of crashed endings and slippery beginnings, Ms. Femme Fatale and Mr. Homme Fatale incarnated.