Dedicated to Groom Jim and Bride Sonia Sonia, newly wed this past time, may you always be bride and groom and to Bruce and Mary married for years modeling for us all how to be bride and groom every day What a Weddings Should Be.. Revealers of the Div ...
Archive for the ‘Eros-Ethics-Meaning’ Category
The Secret is in the Eyes: Marc Gafni
In Honor of White Umbrella: The artist’s eye, the lover’s eye, is unfurnished. It is not blinded with the opaque trappings of pre-conceptions and mis-conceptions. —- It is for this reason that we often equate the lover and the poet. Indeed ...
Love is not Blind: Marc Gafni
“Love is ‘the great art of the spirit.’” Art is where each magnified detail is part of a harmonized whole. An artist is a master at perceiving. What is so special about the artist’s eye? It is always open to the New, the never before notice ...
Is Love Blind? Marc Gafni
Is love Blind? Love to a fault is always blind Always is to a joy inclined Lawless winged and unconfined And breaks the chain from every mind William Blake Whoever said love is blind is dead wrong. Love is the only thing that lets us see each other w ...
Love is NOT an Emotion: Marc Gafni
In this understanding, love is not merely an emotion. It is at its core a perception, which then brings in its wake a gorgeous and pleasurable emotion. Again, the model is the sexual. Just as sexual perception produces in its wake the pleasing sweetn ...
Love is not an Emotion: Marc Gafni
Love Misperceived We have come a long way. It is now clear that, contrary to what we are taught, love is not at its core an emotion. At least not in the sense we were used to thinking about emotions. We are taught that an emotion is something that ha ...
Yada Yada Yada: Marc Gafni
Yada Yada Yada:) We understand now that Love is a perception modeled by the sexual. To fully ground our point in Biblical myth, we just need to summon up the evocative English phrase “carnal knowledge.” It is an idiom which is rooted in the trans ...
Harlot Masquerade: Part VII: Marc Gafni
Dear Reader, Hi, Sometimes, as in today’s first post – the first paragraph will repeat the end of yesterday’s post to allow for continuity for the new reader. Hope that is helpful! love marc Disappearing Spouse Syndrome There is a w ...
Harlot Masquerade: Part VI: Marc Gafni
The Heruta story needs to be read as a critique of Hiyya who is blind both to himself and to those who love him. Hiyya cannot be a lover because he has no perception. Hiyya is blinded by spiritual ego. Disappearing Spouse Syndrome There is a wonderfu ...
Harlot Masquerade: Part V: Marc Gafni
Many years ago when I was 19 years old I broke up a relationship with a woman whom I loved with all of my heart. Though not yet a Rabbi, nor even a teacher, I felt powerfully called to the spirit. I believed, as I had been taught, that only a full cu ...
Harlot Masquerade: Part Four: Marc Gafni
Hiyya has passionate sex with Heruta. His new found vitality is alluded to in his springing up the tree top to bring her a fruit. The fruit is a pomegranate filled with seed, classic mythical symbol of Eros. Tragically, he is not transformed by he en ...
Harlot Masquerade: Part Four: Marc Gafni
posted by Marc Gafni assistant Remember one of the last scenes in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town? Emily, who has died in childbirth, asks the ghosts if she can go back to visit her life. They say — you can, but no one ever does. Emily cannot understa ...
Harlot Masquerade: Part Three: Marc Gafni
posted by Marc Gafni assistant Although Hiyya usually studies at the academy; On this day he studies in the Garden. The Garden represents a place of magic and sensuality, the alluring domain of nymphs and Goddesses of nature. There he positions himse ...
The Harlot Masquerade: Part Two: Marc Gafni
There is much to say about this terse but telling scene. For now, let’s focus on the beginning. Hiyya was, it seems, an ascetic who viewed the denial of sexuality as the path to holiness. His wife had apparently agreed to let him pursue this path, ...
The Harlot Masquerade: Part One: Marc Gafni
There is powerful mythic story of perception in the Babylonian Talmud. It is about Rabbi Hiyya and his misperceived wife. Rabbi Hiyya bar Ashi3 was used to prostrating himself and utter the following prayer: “May the all-merciful One deliver me fro ...