Modern Ireland has had a complex and painful journey toward the recognition and acceptance of Eros. In the old Irish tradition, there was a wonderfully vibrant acknowledgment of the power of Eros and erotic love. This finds expression in one of the most interesting poems from that era, a poem by Brian Merriman called “Cúirt an Mheáin Oidhce” or “The Midnight Court.” Written in the eighteenth century, much of this poem is given from the perspective of a woman. It is a radically free, feminist perception. The woman’s voice speaks:
Amn’t I plump and sound as a bell,
Lips for kissing, and teeth for smiling,
Blossomy skin and forehead shining,
My eyes are blue and my hair is thick
and coils and streams about my neck;
A man who’s looking for a wife
Here’s a face that will keep for life;
Hand and arm and neck and breast
Each is better than the rest;
Look at that waist! My legs are long
Limber as willows and light and strong.
(TRANS. BY FRANK O’CONNOR)
This very long poem is a ribald celebration of the erotic. There is no intrusion of the frequently negative language of morality, which tries to separate sexuality into pure and impure. It is redundant in any case to use such words about clay creatures. How could you possibly have such purity in a clay creature? A clay creature is always a mixture of light and darkness. The beauty of Eros is its passionate thresholds where light and darkness meet within the person. We need to reimagine God as the energy of transfigurative Eros, the source from which all creativity flows.
Pablo Neruda has written some of the most beautiful love lines. He says, “I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, / dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses. / I want / to do with you what Spring does with the cherry trees.” This thought is so beautiful; it shows that love is also the awakening of springtime in the clay part of the heart. Yeats, too, wrote some inspiring lines of love poetry, such as “But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you / and loved the sorrows of your changing face.” These poems show a recognition of the special depth and presence within the beloved. Love helps you to see the Other in his or her own unique and special nature.
THE WOUNDED GIFT
One of the great powers of love is balance; it helps us move toward transfiguration. When two people come together, an ancient circle closes between them. They also come to each other not with empty hands, but with hands full of gifts for each other. Often these are wounded gifts; this awakens the dimension of healing within love. When you really love someone, you shine the light of your soul on the beloved. We know from nature that sunlight brings everything to growth. If you look at flowers early on a spring morning, they are all closed. When the light of the sun catches them, they trustingly open out and give themselves to the new light.
When you love someone who is very hurt, one of the worst things you can do is to directly address the hurt and make an issue out of it. A strange dynamic comes alive in the soul if you make something into an issue. It becomes a habit and keeps recurring in a pattern. Frequently, it is better simply to acknowledge that there is a wound there, but then stay away from it. Every chance you get, shine the gentle light of the soul in on the wound. It is helpful to remember that there are ancient resources of renewal and refreshment in the circle of love that bring and hold you both together. The destiny of your love is never dependent merely on the fragile resources of your separate subjectivities. You can invoke the healing of the third force of light between you; this can bring forgiveness, consolation, and healing in stony times.
When you love someone, it is destructive to keep scraping at the clay of your belonging. There is much to recommend not interfering with your love. Two people who love each other should never feel called to explain to an outside party why they love each other, or why it is that they belong together. The place that they belong is a secret place. Their souls know why they are together; and they should trust that togetherness. If you keep interfering with your connection with your Other, your lover, your anam 
ara, you gradually begin to force a distance between you. There is this wonderful two-line poem from Thom Gunn called “Jamesian.” Henry James is the most precise and utterly nuanced of novelists. He described things in such fine detail and from so many different angles. But such insidious analysis can become obsessive and destructive of the lyrical presence of love.
JAMESIAN
Their relationship consisted
in discussing if it existed.
If you keep shining the neon light of analysis and accountability on the tender tissue of your belonging, you make it parched and barren.
A person should always offer a prayer of graciousness for the love that has awakened in them. When you feel love for your beloved and the beloved’s love for you, now and again you should offer the warmth of your love as a blessing for those who are damaged and unloved. Send that love out into the world to people who are desperate, to those who are starving, to those who are trapped in prison, in hospitals, and into all the brutal terrains of bleak and tormented lives. When you send that love out from the bountifulness of your own love, it reaches other people. This love is the deepest power of prayer.
IN THE KINGDOM OF LOVE, THERE IS NO COMPETITION
Prayer is the act and presence of sending this light from the bountifulness of your love to other people to heal, free, and bless them. When there is love in your life, you should share it spiritually with those who are pushed to the very edge of life. There is a lovely idea in the Celtic tradition that if you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have. One remembers here Dante’s notion that the secret rhythm of the universe is the rhythm of love, which moves the stars and the planets. Love is the source, center, and destiny of experience.
A Friendship Blessing
May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.
May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness.
May this change you.
May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you.
May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging.
May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them and may you be there for them; may they bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth, and light that you need for your journey.
May you never be isolated.