Judy2

Truly, this was a fascinating place, with its changing element of distant water, its great plain lines of pasture, its ordered vistas of foliage! The passion for beauty lay deep below the tossing, driving impulses of Felmington's nature, and it rose up now as he stood on the yew-edged terraces of Balnillo and gazed before him. For the moment everything in his mind was swallowed up but that abstract, fundamental desire for perfection, which is, when all is said and done, humanity's mainspring, its incessant though often erring guide, whose perverted behests we call sin, whose legitimate ones we call virtue; whose very existence is a guarantee of immortality. The world, this crystalline morning, was so beautiful to Archie that he ached with the uncomprehended longing to identify himself with perfection; to cast his body down upon the light-pervaded earth and to be one with it, to fling his soul into the heights and depths of the limitless encompassing ether, to be drawn into the heart of God's material manifestation on earth - the sun. He left the garden terrace and went off towards the Basin, with the touch of the elemental flood of truth into which he had been plunged for a moment fresh on his soul. The whole universe and its contents seemed to him good - and not only good, but of consummate interest - humanity was fascinating. His failure to snatch the map from Ferrier's hand last night only made him smile. In the perfection of his transcendent creation all was, and must be, well! Flemington, Violet Jacob (p.80)

"abashed the devil stood, and felt how awful goodness is." Paradise Lost, iv.846-47

"Dark still it was, but she saw him laughing at her, and then she put down the lantern and somehow resistance went from her, she hadn't wanted to resist, he was holding her close to him, kissing her, her cheeks and the tip of her nose because he couldn't see well in the darkness. And then he waited a moment and his lips came to hers and they were trembling as her own were, she wanted to cry and she wanted to laugh in a breath, and have him hold her forever, so, in the close, and his trembling lips that came into hers, sweet and terrible those lips in hers. There was a great power of the honeysuckle that year, the smell of it drenched all the close in wet, still weather, it perfumed the night and the kiss." Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon (p.136)

Sometimes i'm really tempted to give you guys a random number just to see how many of you would look me straight in the eye and call me a "low quality woman" and tell me i'm such a whore.

@Proserpina thank you:) and no worries, feel free to comment or ask questions.

▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ Intimacy Spectrum // different attitudes towards Life - suicidality. you can't move an inch closer towards Love. you are terrified. you'd rather die than see more of your own self, of Life in all its rich manifestations, of your shadow. you are fearful and selfish, which is understandable and valid. staying alive is your real death, because it means that you have to open up to previously avoided or unwanted aspects of Reality. 'suicidality' may be overt or covert, in a more subtle and less clinical sense of the word. it is unnatural in the sense that no one is born finding themsevles at this end of the spectrum, but experiencing it can be a gift as it shows the downsides of the avoidant 'holding back' attitude towards life in its most extreme expression. as a result, one becomes aware of the whole dynamic of intimacy (...) and can consciously decide to commit to Life (God and Love), acknowledging the truth of what this means. - holding back. you're okay with being alive, but feel hesitant and are looking for compromises. typically you'd hold onto hopes, expectations and "shoulds", fighting a battle between good and bad, right and wrong. you may perhaps even see that Love is inevitable but can't open up to it, at least not fully. you are fearful and selfish, but again, this is understandable. i would guess that most people enter this part of the spectrum in their early childhood years and experience subtle variations within it, but mostly stay here for the entire duration of their lives. alternatively, a person may become so fed up with the constant disappointments that one will approach the lower end (unconsciously) or the upper end (consciously) of the spectrum. - all in. you are fully committed to Life, "Life is Now", you know that Love is the only way and are fully committed to this path. Not only do you think of Love as your highest value, but you embody this knowledge and live in accordance with it. Being selfless is to love yourself as deeply as you can, with no excuses and nothing in the way. Whatever seems to be in the way, you love that, too. You love all of yourself, all of Life, and see everything and everyone for what they truly are. you are selfless and courageous, even when you are terrified and wish you could escape this task. this is the path that leads to God. *important note: an "attitude" describes an energetic tendency, a centre of gravity that your dominant perspectives and actions(!) are directed towards. this does not mean that one cannot feel scared while acting with an attitude of "Love". an attitude of selfishness and fear is not "evil" or "aggressive"...it grows from loving intention, but tends to be corrupt and untrue in its reasoning (...). ........................................... i hope that no one here takes this as a personal insult or anything of that sort. this is just my understanding of the different phases and attitudes i can find myself in and i thought i'd share this for those of you who can relate. there aren't any exact boundaries to these stages, it's more like a spectrum that one can learn to perceive or pay attention to. note that your relationship with and attitude towards Life directly translates into your willingness to be "truly intimate". personally, i have gone through various phases of each stage (not in the order indicated above!) and have a feeling that this is an important pattern to be aware of. there are numerous counterintuitive ways in which you can transition from one end of the spectrum to another, you can go full circle from the lower to the upper end, and then time may pass and you fall back to a 'holding back' type of attitude, etc. The mind is sneaky and will try to corrupt this knowledge and trick you into all sorts of rationalisations though. For instance, trying to get to the lowest low because you know that you may potentially go full circle there and suddenly feel ready to love unconditionally is not the best idea. Your thoughts tell you one thing, but the underlying energetic attitude of avoidance can't lie. my apologies if i'm not doing a good job communicating this. this is just a rough outline and not a perfect or complete explanation. ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪