Burning Down the House:
Romantic Love and the Difficulty of Living Amongst the Embers
By Michael Karlin
President — Mythic Imagination Institute
What is romantic love? This question has plagued philosophers, theologians, sociologists, psychologists, and hormone charged
teenagers for millennia. It plagues all of us. It is so real, so tangible, yet so ephemeral and elusive. It must always end in pain, yet
we cannot live without it. Romantic love is an enigma.
In his remarkable book We: the Psychology of Romantic Love, Jungian psychologist Robert Johnson posits that the
Western notion of romantic love is severely warped. He believes that we have misread the tales of the Troubadours, who many
think invented the Western notion of romantic love in the Middle Ages as part of a spiritual, not physical quest. The first of these
tales was Tristan and Isolde, which is essentially the archetypal model for all epic love stories that follow, from Romeo
and Juliet to Titanic. In these tales, the lovers meet, instantly fall in love, overcome great odds to be together, and
everything else in their lives drops away and loses any meaning. They are willing to risk everything, family, friends, wealth, and even
death for the sake of this true love.
Johnson would say that in our literal world we have concretized the symbols at play in these stories and have lost the metaphor.
These stories, like all myths, are to be read as psychological and spiritual tales of our inner world. This form of love represents our
passion, our bliss, our true calling in life. That which we know deep inside our souls is our true mission in life. It is an outward projection
of our soul. Johnson contrasts this love, represented by Tristan's love for Isolde the Fair, with the love of marriage, represented by
the love of Tristan for Isolde of the White Hands (a different princess). Unlike with Isolde the Fair, Isolde of the White Hands is not
an illicit, forbidden love. It is a love that can exist within the context of a family and community. In this "stirring the oatmeal" form of
love, Johnson talks about the love between spouses that is deep, real, enduring, and eternal, a selfless love that develops and matures
over time. Not the "burning down the house" form of love, which is not sustainable. Ultimately that form of love is all about self-love,
because that is exactly what it is. It is a love of one's own soul projected onto another.
This concretization and misunderstanding of these myths have so permeated our culture that we all, by and large, seek an
unsustainable, unrealistic form of love that more than half the time ends in divorce, and yet we do not seek our true passions in life,
and instead choose to live a life that was crafted for us by our culture. We have inverted the myth!
This dichotomy is not limited to Celtic myth, but is pervasive in most mythological traditions. Joseph Campbell summarizes this
dichotomy perfectly as he describes the highest two of the five levels of love that are reflected by the god Vishnu in Hinduism. In
Reflections on the Art: A Joseph Campbell Companion, he states,
The fourth level of love is that of spouse-to-spouse, and here there is the business of androgyne, of identification with the Other.
You have found the god in your heart, and now the god is found in this intimate and most enduring kind of relationship.
Then we come to the highest order of love, the fifth, and that is compulsive, uncontrollable, illicit love, where there is nothing
but love and you are totally ripped out of yourself in relation to God. You are le fou, the crazed one who's gone mad with love.
In marriage, one is still harmoniously related to the society and the neighborhood, but with this fifth stage of love, everything except
love drops away, and there is just a one-pointed attachment to the other. All else is forgotten, and nothing else matters. I am sure
some of you have had this experience. If you haven't, it's too bad.
Rabbi Yossi New, a Mythic Journeys 2004 and 2006 presenter shared with me
a very beautiful concept about sustainable, "stirring the oatmeal" relationships. Many times, the Rabbis will interpret the lives of the
Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Torah as archetypes for different stages of our own lives, instead of as three different
generations. As we look at the special type of relationship that each had with his wife, we get a sense of how a healthy relationship
unfolds over time.
The key attribute of Abraham's relationship with Sarah is respect. This is demonstrated many times throughout the text, but none
so dramatic as when Abraham and Sarah first descend into Egypt. As they are crossing a river, Abraham sees Sarah's reflection on the surface
of the water and it is as brilliant as the sun, and at that moment, he recognizes her physical beauty for the first time. This incident occurs
after they have been married for many decades, and Sarah is the most beautiful woman in the land, and always has been. Yet now, after
so long, Abraham finally recognizes her physical beauty. This seeming hyperbole is used to demonstrate that Abraham had such respect for
Sarah that he valued her as a person, and not an object. He loved her inner beauty, and only when he indirectly saw her physical image did
he recognize how physically beautiful she was.
Isaac and Rebecca represent shared values. When it came time to find a wife for Isaac, Abraham sent his servant Eliezar back to Haran,
Abraham's homeland. He did not want to find a wife for his son among the Canaanite women. Abraham, most of all, wanted to find a wife
for Isaac who shared the same values. When Eliezar brings Rebecca back to Canaan, it is evening, and she sees Isaac from a distance praying
in the field. When she realizes that it is Isaac, she dismounts her camel, veils her face, and the first thing that Isaac does is to bring "her into
the tent of Sarah his mother". While his mother had been alive "a lamp burned in her tent from one Sabbath to the next, her dough was
blessed, and a cloud hung over her tent." When Sarah died, these blessings ceased, but when Rebecca entered her tent, they resumed
once again, signifying that she was a worthy successor to Sarah and would carry on her values.
Finally, when Jacob, the son of Isaac, comes across Rachel, he immediately falls in love with her. He agrees to work seven years as a
shepherd for her father in order to marry her, and when, after the seven years, her older sister Leah is switched for Rachel before the
wedding ceremony unbeknownst to Jacob, he agrees to work an additional seven years, so he can really marry her. Their love is legendary,
and is reinforced throughout the biblical narrative. It was pure, passionate, ecstatic love.
When we look at the arc of these three stories as one relationship in transition over time, we see a healthy model for developing an
enduring, passionate, giving relationship. First, there must be mutual respect for each other. We must see the sanctity and inner beauty
of the other. If there is no respect, then there is no foundation for a relationship. Next, there must develop a shared set of values that
can act as guiding principles for a shared life and a family. Once respect and shared values are established, then there is the basis for true
and enduring love to burn brightly for eternity. Happy Valentines Day!
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