Defining Love

[midwestyankee]

Not as a verb at all but as a noun, my friend.........

A verb in any form indicates action (or reaction). I am speaking of love in the sense that it is an entity almost. Without love as a noun, there is no catalyst for love as a verb.....you can't make yourself love someone. And in the form you use, it is a verb based on action or reaction to the orginal noun form.....you feel love and therefore react to it by loving.

Soon I fear we will be tallying the angels making love on the head of a pin.

 

[Sappholovers]

Back to love

The language of love can confuse. The heart feels and the head thinks, or so we so often say. But the heart is a muscle. Emotions and feelings are the brain's work (the limbic brain). Love fascinates, so I am curious to study it through science as well as through poetry (and experience).

Natalie Angier has a wonderful chapter in "Woman: An Intimate Geography" on love subtitled: "The Chemistry of Human Bondage." Here is where I learned that people are more apt to fall in love in times of stress....as love's chemistry gives us the best anti-stress medicine. (This is in part why roller coasters and scary movies can be good for dates and why freshmen in college experience a lot of crushes.)

But science can only takes us so far, which is why I also love returning to the verses of Sappho as one of the first lyricists about love:

#44

Without warning

As a whirlwind
swoops on an oak
Love shakes my heart


#39

...If I meet
you suddenly, I can't

speak--my tongue is broken;
a thin flame runs under
my skin; seeing nothing,

hearing only my own ears
drumming, I drip with sweat;
trembling shakes my body

and I turn paler than
dry grass....

 

[Sappholovers]

Swept away by Eros...

Here's something about the experience of loving (and not just loving a partner) from a book by Stephen Nachmanovitch, a musician, entitled "Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art":

"Writing, playing, composing, painting; reading, listening, looking--all require that we submit to being swept away by Eros, to a transformation of self of the kind that happens when we fall in love..... Falling in love with our instrument or with our work is much more like falling in love with a person, in that we experience the rapture and delight of the discovery, but then we are saddled with the effort of fulfillment, wth love's labors and the hard lessons in which illusions are striped away, in which we confront difficult pieces of self-knowledge, in which we have to stretch our physical, emotional, intellectual stamina to the limits, in which our patience and our ability to persevere and transcend ourselves are tested."

 

[DLL]

[No message]

 

[Sappholovers]

p.s. On love's alchemy

Natalie Angier writes about love in a chapter sub-titled the "chemistry of human bondage."

What she does not explore is love's alchemy, or how love can transmute the simple act of sex into something almost magical and mystical in its powers....

It's fun exploring ways to intensify erotic pleasure. Is there anything that does it better than love? If so, please share.

 

[GiveawayGirl]

Soon I fear we will be tallying the angels making love on the head of a pin.

Yank....sometimes you can be such a MAN!

 

[GiveawayGirl]

Re: p.s. On love's alchemy

It's fun exploring ways to intensify erotic pleasure. Is there anything that does it better than love? If so, please share.

Sappholovers, I'm sorry that I have already expended today's dose of intellectual energy in my bickering with yankee. The only answer to your question that comes immediately to mind has to do with batteries

(Give this girl a break, she can only refrain from being a smartass for so long.....)

 

[midwestyankee]

Yank....sometimes you can be such a MAN!

Finally, we agree.

 

[GiveawayGirl]

Finally, we agree.

what fun is that?

 

[midwestyankee]

what fun is that?

GG, sometimes you can be such a woman.

 

[GiveawayGirl]

GG, sometimes you can be such a woman.

We differ again......

Yankee, all the time I am THE woman!

 

[midwestyankee]

We differ again......

Yankee, all the time I am THE woman!

<insert non-existent "exasperated" smiley here>

 

[GiveawayGirl]

<insert non-existent "exasperated" smiley here>

LOL.....I can imagine about now you are quite thankful I am not YOUR woman

 

[midwestyankee]

LOL.....I can imagine about now you are quite thankful I am not YOUR woman

And no doubt you're thinking the inverse as well.

But if it weren't for some spirited discussion now and again, would we ever learn much or make any progress in this life?

 

[GiveawayGirl]

And no doubt you're thinking the inverse as well.

But if it weren't for some spirited discussion now and again, would we ever learn much or make any progress in this life?

How did I know the king of growth and progress would say something just like that?

I am taking the advice of your friend.......I'm going to smell the roses and enjoy the view......I've grown enough for awhile.

 

[midwestyankee]

How did I know the king of growth and progress would say something just like that?

I am taking the advice of your friend.......I'm going to smell the roses and enjoy the view......I've grown enough for awhile.

As always, GG, you found a way to have the last word with which I can not disagree.

 

[GiveawayGirl]

As always, GG, you found a way to have the last word with which I can not disagree.

LOL, and this surprises you? What I lack in concrete thought, I make up for with tenacity and stuborness

 

[midwestyankee]

LOL, and this surprises you? What I lack in concrete thought, I make up for with tenacity and stuborness

No, it does not surprise me. Not at all. <insert non-existent lilac smiley here>

 

[Sappholovers]

vibes

GiveawayGirl,

From my experience, love can also enhance the charge of a vibrator.

My partner finds that the best way to intensify the effects of her Wahl vibrator is to have my fingers inside of her while kissing her (or a nipple).

 

[GiveawayGirl]

Re: vibes

GiveawayGirl,

From my experience, love can also enhance the charge of a vibrator.

My partner finds that the best way to intensify the effects of her Wahl vibrator is to have my fingers inside of her while kissing her (or a nipple).

Yes, I could see that there would be pleasure in that........unfortunately, I use my alone....but that's another thread

 

[TantaLiza]

Soon I fear we will be tallying the angels making love on the head of a pin.

Guess that leaves me out.... don't get to make love on the end of a pin or anywhere else these days... ~sigh~

Again, I'm lost....

 

[Ammo44]

sorrt to interupt the LOVE dicussion but did anyone see the Navy/Orangemen game...


OMGGGGGGGGGGGGG what a great game!!!!!!Now thats what i call LOVE

Missed it dammit!!! I did see Syracuse/John Hopkins earlier........

 

[midwestyankee]

Guess that leaves me out.... don't get to make love on the end of a pin or anywhere else these days... ~sigh~

Again, I'm lost....

Don't worry, Liza. Making it on the end of a pin doesn't leave room for any of the imaginative positions anyway.

 

[DLL]

Originally posted by Ammo44
Missed it dammit!!! I did see Syracuse/John Hopkins earlier........

 

[Ammo44]

wow we were at the navy/princeton game it was awesome I have to say i was cheering for the midshipmen(dont tell pops) it was really some game ...glad a new york team won though...happy b'day sweetie....buzz me manana k?

Love those dangerously HOT kisses.......and I will...thank you Pretty One...