Soul Work

 

The Sacred Marriage

“Blessed be the longing that brought you here and quickens your soul with wonder.”

John O’Donohue

          Recently, a video circulated on Facebook of James Brown and Pavarotti singing “It’s a Man’s World.” I’ve watched it twice, and both times I cried—sobbed is more like it. Now, given that Pavarotti’s voice beings emotion to the most stoic of us, and James Brown is…well, the one and only, perhaps crying is a normal response, but I can’t tie it to either of those. So, the question sticks with me—why does that performance make me cry?

          Here are some of the lyrics: “It’s a man’s world, it’s a man’s world. Man made the cars to carry us over the road. Man made the train to carry the heavy load. Man made the electric light to take us out of the dark. Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark.” Great so far, right…no tears. Then there’s the chorus: “But it wouldn’t be nothing without a woman or a girl.” And in the outgoing verse of the song—which I’d never paid attention to until I actually read the lyrics—there are these lines: “I sympathize with the man who don’t have a woman. He’s lost in the wilderness. He’s lost in bitterness, he’s lost, he’s lost…”

          The loss of the “other” whether it be a woman, man, or someone who claims neither gender, is a soul wound. It creates within us a longing for love and connection and whatever soul-need is missing. We are usually in such pain that we don’t examine it very much. We simply find a replacement—too often a lesser version as unsatisfying as a pacifier to a hungry baby. Longing is of the soul, and we mistakenly believe that a person outside ourselves can fill that need. When they can’t, disappointment is the result. As James Brown says, we feel lost in the wilderness, and bitter about it.

          Jungians write extensively about the sacred marriage, or the “coniuntio.” The conjunction or blending of the feminine and masculine principles—eros and logos. The balancing of the dual energies, the yin-yang, if you will. In the song, Brown alludes to it in chorus: “it wouldn’t mean nothing without a woman or a girl.” The superficial translation is, of course, “it wouldn’t mean nothing without a lover,” but the deeper longing of the soul is for the coniunctio—the sacred marriage. When we finally discover the lover within—that energy, whether masculine or feminine, brings about wholeness. When we understand that the source of fulfillment is within, and not without, it “quickens the soul with wonder.”

          When we meet another person, who gratifies our need for connection, we feel “full of wonder,” but it doesn’t quell the soul’s longing for the sacred marriage within. When we expect another to take the place of our soul work, we are invariably disappointed—because that’s an unrealistic expectation. Many relationships, especially rebounds from prior unsuccessful ones, also end in “the wilderness,” simply because we expect our soul to be fulfilled, and it isn’t. There is only one path to soul fulfillment and that is to do the inner work that leads to the sacred marriage. And the tears? Well, I always cry at weddings!

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane