"Is my passion perfect?"
"No. Do it once again."

According to the teachings of the Kaballah, most humans have a "soul-mate", meant to designate "the other half of ourselves, the one person who makes us whole, who fits us perfectly, who allows us to become the human being we were meant to be". Similarly, the Zohar describes the uniting of soul-mates as a miracle greater than the parting of the Red Sea. Jewish mysticism dovetails nicely with early Christian and pagan conceptions of man's initial hermaphroditic nature, evident perhaps even in the Biblical book of Genesis. Such ideas, clearly incompatible with the institution of a powerful centralized Christian Church, dug their own graves (and the graves of those who held them) during the Christian Crusades and at the Council of Nicea.

According to the Aztecs, creation was the result of complementary opposition and conflict. Like the dialogue between two individuals, the interaction and exchange between opposites constitute a creative act...the great creator god, Ometeotl, God of Duality...Possessing both the male and female creative principles, Ometeotl was also referred to as the couple Tonacatecuhtli and Tonacacihuatl, Lord and Lady of Our Sustenance. Although Ometeotl constitutes the ultimate source of all, his and her progeny of lesser but still powerful deities perform the actual deeds of creation.

Early Mayan civilization is believed to have shared a similar belief in hermaphroditic divinity. Some scholars have even argued that the mythical image of the mermaid posits early hermaphroditic belief.

After my travels in India, I discovered very similar ideas of divinity and power-sharing in the Hindu religion-- ideas which are left open for individual exploration through tantrism.

On new exhilirations

Until the end of my undergraduate career, when friends asked me where I wanted to get married, I deferred the question with a curt-- "I don't know. Dr. before Mrs." The refrain still hisses.

Undergrad and environs, I wore my loves like unwashed jeans, dirty in all the familiar places, comfortable enough for Greenspan-type "soft landing" ideals. Ideals and ideas were my forte, and falling in love almost beat good philosophy for me sometimes. But I was always in love. It was the backdrop, my smile the stage-hand. It was my drug, my religion, my ends, my means, my happiness, my dismay.

So I never thought that falling out of love could be so beautiful-- never even imagined what it might mean to lose the security of a back-drop, the warm womb of an intended end, to trade solace for satiation-- and emerge scathed with such lovely scars. The truth does set you free, but not in the way one might expect. "Rising like a phoenix from the ashes" is an appropriate description, as is Schumpeter's "creative destruction". It's the greatest liberation you never wanted; and the most amazing constant you can never properly expect. Growing virtuously into knowledge sometimes requires violating both law and custom, severing all ties to safety, to be able to come back home.

Am I savage enough for Dan?

Last night, for lack of love and honor, an old friend an I decided to try and get our question answered by Dan Savage. If it gets answered, I will post a link. :)