In a time and space that seems both
oversexed and -at the same time- still somewhat repressed in regard
to sexuality, it might be interesting to explore the question of the
Eros archetype. One might start with the fundamental question: what
does Eros mean ? Or, if one looks at it in an archetypal way: who is
Eros ?
The first things to «get» is that
Eros is a God. This means that there is in reality nothing trivial
about Eros. Rather the other way around: a «God» means in my book «
a major archetypal force». Eros is the archetypal force working
behind the Law of Attraction. Everything that attracts us, that we
find attractive is an emenation of Eros.
Every person carries inside themselves
their own personal and transpersonal Eros. In a more differentiated
way of perception one could split up the Eros wholeness into 12
Sub-Eros´es, plural, as each of the individual´s 12
subpersonalities has their own microcosmic Eros. Which might lighten
up another fundamental misunderstanding around Eros: in consensus
reality people assume that the erotic is something that comes from
the outside. That assumption is misleading, as it oversees the
fundamental aspect that human being in the first instance carry their
own Eros(es) within themselves -which THEN get trigged by stimuli
outside themselves. And -but this would lead to a whole new book,
potentially book title 987 – of course, it is well worth noting
that the stimuli that meet us from the outside don´t meet us
accidentially, but in correspondance with the laws of the larger
cosmic dance. They come when they must, in order to challenge to
individual to exactly the growing edge that (s)he requires at that
point in time & space.
Which has already pretty much answered
the another fundamental question, namely which function Eros has in
our lives, why we need to be attracted to something or someone
erotically: we need the attraction -as a superb trick of the cosmos-
to pull us out of our old selves and get -excuse me, - our asses into
gear. Moving towards that which attracts us, so that it can -on the
long run- make us meet the yet unrealized potential that is still
asleep in the shadow realms of our own soul. Thus, the erotic
attraction is meant to direct our attention towards our own shadow,
with the intention that we eventually realise that symbolic content
behind it as our own material, waiting to be kissed awake, in good
old – and always equally new- Cinderella style. BTW: note that your
role in this play is to be the princess asleep and the
climbing-kissing prince at the same time !
To formulate it inversely: we cannot
get attracted to something that we already have realized ourselves.
Eros turns his back there, it is not interesting ! This means that
Eros is always, always, always (old shamanic wisdom, you have to say
it THREE TIMES) related to the shadow. And even if we might not be
too hip to hear it: the Eros that attracts us to our partners is
cannot be other-Wise.
Our partner is (a large part of) our
shadow. In that context we have the chance to either see the partner
as such (loving and learning) or fighting him/her, that in reality
only are a reflection of a dark part of ourselves. Dark as = not
visible. Not as = scary shit.
Eros is all around and all within, and
a driving force of both personal and collective evolution.
Eros has consenus reality been reduced
to physical sexual attraction. Nothing wrong with that form of Eros
-Life would be quite a lot poorer and less fun without it- but that
is just ONE of TWELVE possible forms of Eros.
Eros is all around and all within, any
given moment of time and space, and a (the ?) driving
force of both personal and collective
evolution.