An Essay on Romance Part 3

A short essay on romance.

Romance,

• woo: make amorous advances towards
• have a love affair with
• the group of languages derived from Latin

Question 3:What do I feel is romancing?

Romance for me is a dynamic balance of three ideas, the artifact (or the matter), the process (or the event) and the intent.

I use this dynamic balance for many approaches and here I choose the analogy of food. Romance can be viewed as food for the mind, heart and soul. There are many strategies for obtaining food, preparing and consuming it. At the core of many human cultures are aspects of hunting and gathering. One hunting strategy is to pursue the animal, while another is to lure them into a trap. One strategy for gathering is to go where the food is growing and harvest it, another to cultivate a garden. Today we can go to the market and obtain our food that way, or have it delivered to our doorstep. Regardless of these strategies they all require knowledge of the environment.

Food is the artifact, hunting and gathering is the process by which food is obtained. The core intent of gathering food is to sustain our lives. Most of us feel good about food. It must be a popular analogy for me, because I find interacting with the food process to be romantic.

The strategies of hunting and gathering are both berry effective for both men and women when romancing. Offering the right flower just might be the appropriate point for Cupid’s arrow. A new scent just might be the appropriate attractants for a mate. Strangely enough humans have enhanced the food gathering process and to a degree minimized the hunting aspect of it. We rarely hunt for food, save perhaps when we are looking for a bargain or a certain type of food. Instead we usually gather it at farms, then gather it at the supermarket then gather it at our homes. Hunting, especially for animals is more of a modern day fringe exercise or maintained by certain cultures that have kept to the ancient traditional values. Strangely enough most of the traditional values had a tendency to be sexist, men hunted and women gathered. During these times, well we gather the food, even the animals are gathered for us, so the tendency is for the female to do all of the shopping, although men do still hunt and fish, but not so much on a regular daily basis.


Romantically for non-romantic cultures it seems to be that men still employ a hunting strategy, while women use a gathering strategy, and something about it is quite unique actually. Many species of animals attract mates through scents and courtship dances, yet often they are not flamboyantly displayed (this of course gives them a camouflage advantage to conceal themselves). Humanoid women on the other hand, go to great lengths to display themselves flamboyantly, something quite unique with the animal world.

Of course for romantic cultures, the hunting and gathering may be done by women and/or men, and that is quite something. I had the delightful opportunity to work for a while with an amazing man from Brazil. He was from an Amazon tribe and due to circumstances spent time with both his tribal culture and that of the developed modern western world. This gave him some amazing insights which he was happy to share. He told of the women of his tribe, they were the hunters of men. When they had a romantic interested with someone they would actually stalk them, find out their likes, patterns and habits, track them through the jungle where they would walk. They would pursue relentlessly, and strike with an intoxicating spell that could not be resisted. When they had the man alone, they knew what to do with him to break down any resistance, turn him on and totally submit to the flow of romantic passion. The passion flowing through this man while he talked was absolutely astonishing. Is this common with your culture? You decide, but from what I have seen this is very exceptional with a non-romantic culture.

I now conclude this review of an edited essay I once wrote a while back with a few ideas about intent, the underlying drive of romance. While food is for survival, and to some romance holds that special place, for many it is not, and that is something I will look at further with some new ideas that have recently shown themselves to me.

But first, some ideas on intent.

When there is purity and integrity with the intent, the process can lead to an artifact of great beauty. One of the icons of romantic women Sheherazade actively created tales, her intent to keep her and others alive.

Sheherazade, a woman of exceptional intelligence, wisdom and bravery saved not only her life by telling a series of spellbinding tales during the dark of Arabian nights, but the lives of a dwindling supply of virgins of her country, and, in so doing, educated a King.

http://www.wic.org/artwork/shehera.htm

I have brought forth the idea of a very romantic man Gibran and a very romantic woman, Sheherazade. As I have pointed to throughout the essay, these are potent and important creations and cannot be left solely to humans alone. So once again, I bring forth the wisdom beyond humans, that of they sly fox, who brings a most important lesson about romance to a Little Prince.

The Little Prince meets the fox at Chapter 21.

The fox is clear about the artifact. He wants to be tamed.
The fox is clear about the process, which involves the Little Prince coming to visit him every day.
The fox is clear about the intent if you tame me, then we shall need each other.

As the story unfolds there is a greater gift that is revealed.

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

The little prince is a wonderful story, with beautiful pictures from the author. It is full of amazing insights and you can read and look at it’s entirety here:

http://www.angelfire.com/hi/littleprince

So what is romance to me? A dynamic balance of the artifact, the process and the intent.

I may make a mess of the artifact footprints on the sand that the tide will wash away. I may not be the best dancer on the beach. Yet I know the purity of my intent. Pure unconditional love.

• Past Blast Part 3 - CEX 01:46:45 03/08/2008 (0)