Fire

But I believe in the power and positivity of people’s passion. I believe passions are a direct link to our soul, they are part of the fire that makes us alive
~ OH, Passion Positive

And I would cast myself in her fire, could I only find it. Where is it? How can I get there? Does anyone have directions? Are there directions? Are directions even necessary? What must I do?
~ OH, 035 haiku (when I give)

to the beauty of passion that fires our soul.
~ OH, 028 human her

I have written a great deal about different sorts of uxory and their interior motivations, ultimately deciding the exact sorts are innumerable and unimportant when compared to acquiring adequate emotional functionality in a relationship. And though I struggle with labels for my passion, both in our relationship dynamic and in my life lessons, and though I have with good reason largely given up labeling ghost in this arena, I have not given up trying to understand my passion and our relationship dynamic.

And in the course of examining my interior motivations, I usually place side by side my desire to see and participate in her happiness with my desire to see her passion and her desire fulfilled. And if I had to list them according to their importance to me, I would place her happiness and her passion first, my seeing these second and my participation in these third, though I do not truly experience these things with any distinct separation – they are all of a compact meaning (also here). 

Recently however, the following happened in quick succession:

First as I was saying ’Yes, Dear’ I became conscious (not for the first time) that as is often the case we both knew she wasn’t actually telling me what to do – I was merely acting as if she were and she were playing along. Which reminded me of play and roleplay as a way to forget the necessary ambiguities and uncertainties of existence and manage to have some enjoyable and fun meaning in life.

And so I realized (also not for the first time) her command or request or suggestion –the kind of communication by which she imparts her desire– was clearly not as important to me as the attempt of her happiness through her desire - my doing for her was my attempt on her happiness and desire.

Then I thought since desire fulfillment can be a path to happiness (something I already knew) -and vice versa- (something I tentatively guess) it’s no wonder it’s so difficult to differentiate whether I want her happiness or her passion more, just as it is difficult to differentiate out the for-her-is-for-me-dynamic whether I want these things for her happiness-desire or for my happiness-desire (a similarity I hadn’t quite thought of before) – but that also these distinctions mightn’t really matter at all (something I definitely hadn’t thought before).

And that’s when this came to me:
I want us to move in her happiness-desire direction and/because it is my happiness-desire to do so.

Sure enough, I was still standing there a bare moment after saying ‘Yes, Dear’, when I realized that at that very moment, for the first time with any sort of distinction, I was feeling and experiencing this exact and precise thing - this holistic compact for her happiness-desire is for my happiness desire is what our happiness desire is.

This was my motive, the thing I wanted - this was my desire, my yearning, my passion: first and foremost to  agreeably do whatever for her, all I could and with a will, so that she and I might move dynamically together, towards, with, in accordance with, her/our/my happiness-passion-zest-fire.

And it seems to me all my uxory might quite simply be about doing what I can to feed her fire, and so feed our fire, by moving in her happiness-desire direction, and so thus move in our happiness-desire direction.

And I think this is why I have never tended towards the force/demand pole of the spectrum so much, for while I understand the force/demand relationship power dynamic symbol and I certainly would love it if as part of our love symbol negotiation my wife enjoyed “demanding me/us to her measure” a bit more, more often and more deeply, than she seems to, the force/demand symbol to me is more of a means to an end. And the ‘fire motive’ meaning that the ‘force/demand’ symbol has for me is more important than the symbol itself. I’m going for fire –that is, movement in her/our happiness-desire direction and the feeding her/our passion and fire– however it is we go to get there, whatever love symbols we use.

And so this also occurred to me today:
I would gladly, willingly and happily take  daily (insert choice drudgery here, e.g. scrubbing of toilets) at my wife’s passionate command, even her mere suggestion if born of her passion, than to ever take sex from her begrudging concession, or just once take anything from her resentful directive.

And of course it’s important to point out that I missed the obvious wholeness of this experience for so long because I tend to over-differentiate. For instance my erotic truth is true even when not erotic:

…seeing her process of desire and obtainment has an erotic edge. … I love seeing inside her, seeing into her primal experience of desire, seeing how her desire, her most interior self, demands me and everything around her to her measure. It’s the way she loves, lives and desires; it’s how she presses forward on her inside path toward her pleasure and personal good.
~OH, Erotic Truth

And here:

take us now, demand us to your measure
for I seek to see (beauty to me)
your center self in pleasure
~ OH, 025 need

So I rephrase from several places: 

Giving my wife the help fit for her fire, for her happiness, her pleasure and her passion, is when I feel perfectly at peace with her, perfectly one with her, as though I were born to love her, as though it were love’s fate, love’s destiny and love’s worth I should be 100% there with her and there for her, for the purpose of participating in her/our happiness-desire direction and process.

And for me that peace, that powerful frame of mind that I want and seek for her but also for myself, for me and for my sake - it is that peace that is a beautiful, passionate, numinous moment akin to standing safely upon the sun, that peace is when I am happy and complete because being her ‘help mate’ is something that completes me, the ‘me’ that I actually, truly am. For this fire is part of my function, part of my fulfilling purpose in life, part of who I am and what I am supposed to be doing, and upon this fire I believe I must learn to stand tall – must live, learn and love the things I am supposed to while yet here on this earth.