True Love

To know you is to love you, and to love you is to serve you.

Before I met you, I thought I knew love. After many vain pursuits, I discovered in your presence - in your grasp - that true love is something much deeper, something much more powerful, something much more demanding than the mere shadow of love I had walked in for so long.

Though I had touched and teased the flame of power for so long, I had never thought to let the fire engulf me until I met you. When I met you, all other roads fell from existence and before me lay only the walk of fire. I removed my shoes and with the strength of your unwavering gaze, I walked the coals of true love, which sweetly burned my feet. You then took my darkened soles and bathed them in water scented with rose petals until I was new again. Cleaned, you soothed them with aloe and kissed each toe in breathless adoration. The sun set on my old life, on my wandering life, and rose again on a new world horizon.

I am still learning your power and I am still learning my control of that power. There is a space which is only ours, that we share in the warm tungsten glow of quiet evening, and in this space we push and pull each other, unveiling our weaknesses, our strengths, our vanities, our insecurities, and reveling in a balanced, equal, and fair exchange of vulnerability. It is a joy and a freedom I never thought I could know until I met you.

To serve you is my greatest liberation.

You are reading quietly in your seat in a corner of the room, the reading lamp casting you in a soft yellow glow. I bring to you a cup of tea and a small plate of pastries, a refreshment to warm your belly. You have been busy, you have been stressed, and now you steal some moments to read a distraction. You have asked nothing of me but my support, patience, and understanding, and so I quietly place delicate offerings at your altar. Never before could I have imagined myself taking such forms of worship, but you have opened my eyes to love most pure, and my knees bend to it in sublimation.

As my lover, you ask only that I love you; as my partner, you ask only that I support you; as my Sir, you ask only that I obey you. Three requests, three wishes, three points of a triangle - the most cosmic of all shapes. Love, support, and obedience - I practice these in quiet meditation, and find at the other end my Nirvana in you.

I withdraw from you, but you catch my hand. I look into your eyes - they are tired, worn, but uplifted by the vision of me. You kiss each fingertip and then hold my hand against your chest. I am moved by your tenderness and touched by your love. In fact, it is such a wave of security that I am suddenly weak. In my place, I am not to ask for anything, but it is in my weakness that I find the desperation - the courage - to speak.

"Sir," I say quietly, "Sir, may I please stay with you?"

You smile. "Of course, yes of course you can. Draw up that chair over there."

But I am overcome with something deeper, I am overcome by my desire to serve you, to be less than you, to humble myself before you. In your light I safely give up the burden of my dignity, release my ego of its pride, become at once part of the greater energy of the universe.

"No, Sir...I wish...may I just...sit here on the floor...beside you?" I lower my eyes, but you force my chin to look you in the face. You are glowing with love, knowing the meaning of the gift I present now to you. It is beyond anything tangible I could give you, and it is love beyond that which most people know.

"I would love that," you say.

I realize I have been holding my breath.

With a slow exhale I sink to my knees and press myself as close to you as possible. And then, testing my courage further, I place my head in your lap. You look to me again and put down your book to tenderly stroke my hair, weaving your fingers between the strands, caressing my scalp, and sending me deep into the warm soft waters of utter submission, of utter love.

My heartbeat slows and all the universe stretches out before me, unveiling its secrets and its meanings and its peace. I am suddenly nothing and everything, at once powerless and powerful. It occurs to me that to some I may seem a dog at her master's feet - and in some ways, I am - but I wonder how many times they have known the divine settling of release, relinquishment, renunciation. For I too once wandered in their world, a spirit without a body, my body a temple without a god. I followed several teachings, but my faith ended in heartbreak. When I found you, I learned to believe again.

Here - on my knees with my head in your lap and pressed as close to you as physically possible - I find myself at total peace, at ease with the world, resigned and surrendered to the confusion and uncertainty of life, anchored against the waves of turmoil to you, my rock, my god, my tether. Should the world suddenly collapse around me, I would not care, for I am in your presence, and all things are right with you.

The smell of your skin is a sweet drug to my senses, and I feel my eyelids become heavy with a childlike drowsiness. Again you run your fingers through my thick hair and massage my scalp, and I am lulled into a trance, meditating on my submission, surrounded by warmth in the gold tungsten light. Everything melts away to reveal its pure form, and love distilled is you.

I am so overcome with these revelations, that the spirit moves me to tears.

You touch my face and lift my chin to you. Your own eyes shine with wetness. Something untouchable has just passed between us, some burst of energy has passed through the line that connects me to you and you to me.

You tighten your grip on my chin, not to hurt me, but to command me.

You whisper, "Thank you. Thank you for all of this."

I weep openly, giving you all of my weakness and giving you all of my strength, for a love like this is not borne lightly.

"Thank you," you say again, your voice trembling.

You cup my face in your hands, your large firm hands, and I grip your wrists for support, for connection.

You lean down and kiss my forehead.

My heart soars.