THE DAILY TRAVESTY | Compersion Part 2
THE DAILY TRAVESTY for February 10, 2000
    Volume 1, Issue 28
 
The Travesty Online: www.angelfire.com/zine/dailytravesty
E-mail: bcphillips@chesapeake.net
 
 
               When love beckons to you, follow him,
               Though his ways are hard and steep.
               And when his wings enfold you yield to
           him,
               Though the sword among his
           pinions may wound you.
                And when he speaks to you believe in
           him,
                Though his voice may shatter your dreams
            as the north wind lays waste the garden.
                               --Kahlil Gibran 
 

A CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED...
 
Part 2 of 3 by Eric Francis
 
Compersion is an idea that emerged from something called the "polyamorous" culture, a segment of society in which people openly choose to have more than one committed lover.  In such arrangements, it obviously becomes necessary to work through jealousy, but in the early days of the polyamorous movement, something else was discovered: once jealousy was understood and hearts opened, great feelings of warmth, pleasure and appreciation became available at the idea of peoples' partners loving others.  In other words, the bliss of love and sexual ecstasy would expand in a wave-like ripple.  When people drop their guard and just feel, so much pleasure is possible -- more than we ever imagined.
 
Sure, other stuff comes up, but it was already there, and it's as though love is washing it out of us so that we can really be free.  That other stuff -- resentment, anger, fear of abandonment, and the rest -- all needs to come up in order to give the relationship a chance to have life.  Swept under the rug, these things are far more damaging.
 
Growing through them is a process.  It's relatively easy get turned on witnessing another human being's ecstasy or erotic joy.  It's a lot more challenging to live with the implications this experience seems to have in our relationships, and is part of the delicate walk of negotiating our sense of security in the universe.  We don't want to lose this other person who is so dear to us, whether we lose them to another person, or because they can't deal with their fear of losing us.
 
Love, as we often define it, is usually considered to be an exclusive rather than inclusive game.  Someone loves you and therefore doesn't love anyone else.  But when you add it up, this usually comes out to a loss, because in our short visits to the planet, in a healthy state of mind, we might want to love everyone who is righteous and true, and to return the love of everyone who touches our hearts, and call that safety and nothing else.  For living in the constant fear of loss and betrayal is hardly safety; it is hardly the security we say we seek; it is a setup for total paranoia, but strangely, sadly, it's called love.
 
And as for sex -- it's no big secret that we're turned on by many people.  But it's only been the "moral high ground" of certain, let's say, social movements, that has instigated the idea anything but strict heterosexual monogamy and sex for reproduction only is permissible.  In this world, do we need to live by these ancient codes?  Well, not if we are honest.
 
It is true that if one's lover has sex with another person, or even gets close to another person, they may choose to be with that person and not you.  And this is a possibility we have to face no matter what.  Living the way of compersion brings this to the surface where we can see it and work with it.
 
Yet remember that more often, jealousy has nothing to do with one's partner actually having sex or sharing love outside the relationship.  It is about the imagined fear of loss.  We can become jealous at the mere idea or suspicion of this, or at our partner's fantasies, and even at the love shared with him or herself.  In plenty of relationships people stop masturbating (and creating art or music or writing or taking long walks in the woods) because it's perceived as a threat by their partner.  And that is not life.
 
Compersion takes us to the next realm beyond.  It is about being with and appreciating our partners for their desires, dreams, wishes and their personal journey to selflove.  It's about being real, and having relationships as real people.
 

 
 
 
"When I was eight or nine years old, I acquired a split beaver magazine.  You can imagine my disappointment when, upon examination of the photos with a microscope, I found that all I could see was dots."
 
 
 

i just wanna love more.  there's a river in my head.  the only way out is down.  the only way up is down.  the days roll by like thunder like a storm that's never breaking, all my time and space compressed in the low pressure of proceedings, and they beat against the sides of my life like fists against the sides of my life, and the roads all lead behind me, so i wrap the wheel around me and i go out.  there's a river in my head.  i'll take you home.  love more.

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