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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

Soulmate, Myself:
The Wedding Song

Verse Two, Part II

Traveling On to the One Person Status

return to "Verse Two, Part I" page

©1971 Public Domain Foundation

I am now to be among you at the calling of your hearts
Rest assured this troubadour is acting on My part.
The union of your spirits, here, has caused Me to remain
For whenever two or more of you are gathered in My name
There am I, there is Love.

A man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home
And they shall travel on to where the two shall be as one.
As it was in the beginning is now and til the end
Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again.
And there is Love, there is Love.

Well then what’s to be the reason for becoming man and wife?
Is it love that brings you here or love that brings you life?
And if loving is the answer, then who’s the giving for?
Do you believe in something that you’ve never seen before?
Oh there is Love, there is Love.

Oh the marriage of your spirits here has caused Me to remain
For whenever two or more of you are gathered in My name
There am I, there is Love. 

Elenchus. Twins “drawing life and giving it back again”
reminds me of the ancient Chinese yin-yang theory.

Kairissi. It does offer that feel, doesn’t it.

E. I think there’s some universal meaning here which
transcends time and culture.

K. A question just came to me: The Wedding Song is an authoritative
message from Heaven, and if, in some measure, the song is putting its stamp of approval on an interplay of opposites, a "giving and receiving" (see below), which is yin-yang theory, how does this square with what we know about “God as Singular Pervasive Reality” as opposed to the world of the ego with its clashing opposites?

E. Yes, I see what you mean. There seems to be a contradiction,
especially when the song also asserts that the goal of Twins is to “travel on toward One Person.” Wouldn’t this mean we’re to eventually leave yin-yang dualism in favor of a grand unity?

K. And yet The Wedding Song seems to want to have it both
ways.

E. Ok, let’s talk this out. Tell me what you know about yin-yang theory.

K. The words yin and yang mean “shadow” and “light.” It’s
a way of looking at nature or reality. Yin-yang theory sees everything as a matrix of complementing opposites: up and down, hot and cold, in and out, light and dark, wet and dry, and many more.

K. But these opposites are only seemingly in opposition and in fact represent a unity, a dynamical system of movement, of one changing into the other, thereby creating balance and harmony.

E. Like two phases of one process, fluid and moving.

K. Yes, like that. And that’s why in the yin-yang circle, the two
halves are separated by a curved line, poetically indicating a
flowing of one into the other, as day follows night.

E. That’s a good example. If we were in outer space, looking
at the Earth, we’d see one part bathed in sunlight, with the
other in darkness.

K. From our perspective here on the planet, day and night
might seem to be stationary and fixed conditions, but from
outer space we could actually see the dividing line of day
and night constantly shifting and moving, morphing into each
other.

E. Just like the yin-yang halves in the circle attempt to portray.
So, what does this mean for lovers? What is The
Wedding Song trying to tell us about the nature of Twin love
by the use of a “giving and receiving” yin-yang symbology?

K. Well, let’s look at our assumptions. Female and male are
often viewed as separate, independent entities, but yin-yang
theory suggests that this discrete polarity is only apparent,
not real, with a better view that of female and male as two
parts of one system.

E. Ok, I think we’re getting somewhere now.

K. Here’s what I think our problem has been concerning traditional
views; the metaphor of becoming the sacred One
Person is very ancient and is found not only in the Bible but
other spiritual writings. But what does it mean? When we
hear of becoming One Person, I think there’s a tendency to
imagine a loss of male-female identity, now swallowed up
by a great stultifying monolithic singularity. That could seem
frightening. But yin-yang theory teaches that neither dualistic
element is taken away but, together in confederacy – two
sacred individuals - will form a whole.

E. Confederation, not federation. That’s good. This would indicate
that we will always retain our male-female identities.

K. I think that’s the truth, or why would Heaven go to so much
trouble to create within us a sense of autonomous personhood? Is there not a reason why God is properly viewed as a duality, a Mother-Father? – and should not this concept have some bearing on those “created in the image," Twins, who, while united, retain individual identity?

E. I think this idea of the "two halves" dynamically creating a
whole, as opposed to "two wholes" being phased out in favor
of a monolithic singularity, is a very important idea, and,
in my opinion, sheds light on future modes of being, far into
the distant eternities.

Editor's note: The teaching-metaphors we adopt to describe Twin-love make a big difference. They reveal an underlying philosophy of life and reality. Are Twins “two halves” or “two wholes”? “Two halves” is a way of saying that Twins are on their way to receive more and to become more and will not be losing anything of value; but “two wholes” suggests that Twins are already final products, have arrived, and any tampering with the system can only result in a diminishment.

Elenchus is right: our fundamental view of the process, by logical extension, “sheds light on future modes of being, far into the distant eternities.” Why is this important? It’s important because there are those who teach that in the “far distant eternities” we will lose our sense of self, our individualized personhood, and, like a drop of water losing its identity in the ocean, we will be absorbed into the mindless “Great All.”

Well, we can hardly wait. But there’s not one particle of support for such anti-humanistic thought. (See much discussion on this in the "500 afterlife testimonies" article.) The best teaching from the afterlife flatly denies any such notion. The Wedding Song, too, does not adopt this view. Instead, it emphasizes “life,” ever-rising degrees of consciousness. Twins draw and give back, that is, mutually help to facilitate, enhanced levels of awareness. This yin-yang dynamical process of moving forward and gaining more and more “life” is poetically described as “traveling on” toward states of greater and greater love, joy, and intimacy, the sacred “One Person.” But it is a sentient “One Person,” with the individualities of the lovers safeguarded.

Woman – many females, but one Woman

Adam would name one more creature, and this time, with God’s
help, he got it right.

The English word “woman” will have its own etymological roots, but,
according to the Hebrew text, “woman” is a word coined by Adam:

Genesis 2:23 And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because
she was taken out of Man.”

Adam explains to us what he means by the term Woman: “She is part of
my own flesh, my own bones. She was made from a part of me - she is
me in another form.”

In this poetic soliloquy of Adam, we find metaphoric depiction of what
the great Spirit Guides say is the origin of all Twin-Soul couples: in some
sense, by mysterious process, it seems that Twins were created as one soul-essence and “divided.” This is why Twins are so much alike and mirror each other – that is, on the deep soul level, not necessarily on the surface of personality - although, over time, as they live and love together, they will grow into and share this blessing of affinity, as well.

Interestingly, we find this concept of “man-woman original dividing”
expressed in the ancient literature of several cultures. But notice the
important point for us. “Woman,” as defined by Adam, denotes much
more than common usage today. “Woman,” effectively, becomes synonym
for “Twin Soul.” In Adam’s vocabulary, “woman” means “you are
just like me.” 

John and Mary, caught up in the dualistic illusion of Good and Evil, believe there are lots of “fish in the sea.” But this idea has not worked out so well for them. There are untold numbers of pretty faces to distract, countless numbers of females from which John might choose. But once his eyes open to “God as Singular Pervasive Reality,” he will find God within his deepest consciousness; and, when he does, he will also find himself, his true self. With this awesome discovery, his “Life,” his own "Eve,” cannot be far removed.

Yes, there is endless quantity of females from which to choose; however, for each Man, there is but one Woman - that is, only one like himself, as himself; but, as we’ve said, finding her will cost a few dollars more. A certain spiritual maturity is required, and that’s a little harder to come by than just deciding to go hunting.

Every authentic spiritual marriage is an “arranged marriage” – arranged
by the Divine Parent(s). Man cannot choose Woman, wouldn’t know where to find her, or how to begin. She was already chosen for him a long time ago. He just needs to emerge from his death-trance of despair, to receive God’s gift for him, allowing him to properly gush like an idiot as all men, truly in love, do. In the real love, to the quiet amusement of his Eve, he never quite gets over the gushing. In the real love, she has more power over him than she might wisely admit to.

Breathlessly, Adam is compelled to exclaim to Eve, to Woman, “You are just like me - you are Soulmate, Myself.”

Kairissi. Freud said that a primary cause of psychological
dysfunction is humankind’s universal fear of self-knowledge.
We’ve already touched on this with our discussion of Adam “knowing” Eve. Think about this. The great psychologists speak of man creating society and civilization for the purpose of repressing himself. Once we’re
attuned to the problem, we see it manifested everywhere
in daily living. Think about all the things people do to
distract themselves from their own thoughts.

E. People hide from themselves.Kriss, you’ve touched on a
most important principle of wisdom. Isn’t it interesting that
the lauded Oracle at Delphi summarized her entire message
as “Know Thyself” – as if to say, it’s the key to everything else.

K. We’ve said this before, but it needs to be emphasized,
I think God gave Twins to each other to help them
explore the riches of the deepest inner person. It’s frightening
to go down that deep. We’re afraid of what we’ll find. I
think God knew how hard it is and gave us to each other to
help us do this.

draws … life – you wouldn’t do this just for anyone; no, of course not

Who is the one who draws life from you and sends it back? Who is the
one who makes you feel alive, ambitious to develop yourself, to be
successful? Who is the one who makes you want to risk, to open your
soul, to come out of yourself, to be more than you’ve been? Who is
the one you want to be proud of you? Whose encouraging look, whose
teasing antics, whose melodious voice do you covet? Who is the one
who makes you feel confident, less afraid to engage life, more assertive
to face the challenges of creating a good future? Who is the one who
makes you want to study, to grow, to work hard, to expand, to soar? Who
is the one about whom you can honestly say, “I like everything about
you,” even her faults, as these merely highlight her strengths, yet
undeveloped. Who is the one whose absence sends you into a tailspin, and makes so-called life, without her, not worth living? Who is that person? Does she have a face, and do the heavens open when she smiles – for you? Can see her in your mind’s eye now? – well, then, congratulations, you just might have met your Twin Soul.

Woman draws her life from man – she comes alive first

Eckhart Tolle and John Welwood, with support from ancient Eastern wisdom, suggest that it is Woman, typically, who is the first to awaken to
the reality of a soul-bond. She is first to “come alive” to what he means
to her, and to them.

This preeminence in awakening occurs, it is said, because Woman is more in touch with the inner energy flows of her body and, therefore, is the first to recognize, within, “a disturbance in the force.”

But don’t count him out just yet. He can catch up; and, if required, in order to help her, can even supersede. As Gibran's “first sight” of the Beloved is a most disheveling event of one’s eternal life, such disorienting perception can, for a time, be “swept under the rug” and repressed, purposefully smothered by the cares of this world and fear of change. She might hide in these distractions.

It takes some time to integrate, to one’s life and consciousness, the blasting coming-to-awareness of “the union of spirit.” Remember, it's no legal fiction and will upend your life. Even so, the forward momentum of habitual activity, duty to family and heritage and old modes of thought, might serve to temporarily block the upheaval of shocking revelation of the arrival of one’s destined love. This means that the experience of “first sight” could be temporarily repressed as one’s egoic organism struggles to regain the safety of former equilibrium.

If this happens to her, a time of studied ignorance, then, not to worry, a rescue is being planned; there is a particular one meant to also "draw life" from her; he will eventually begin to awaken and fulfill his purpose. And if he, albeit belatedly, enters the process at this point, then “the last might become first.” The road to cosmic reunion is filled with psychological potholes, fits and starts, and hobgoblins, for, as Shakespeare warned, “The course of true love never did run smooth.” Yes, he might yet supersede: she started this fight but, once his comatose-ways are done and his eyes open, he will finish it. When he finally enters their fight, she needs to be well prepared for “sacred combat” (see the discussion below). He does take prisoners.

Even ancient literature tells us that girls mature faster than boys. Well, as she had retorted, he always was such a slow-developer, such a big disappointment, you know. But the race goes not always to the swift and the first -- and she’d be unwise to bet against him once he gets his eyes in his head. That gushing of his, finally revving up now, is fueled by hidden forces, as Silver Birch informs us, among the most powerful in the universe.

Woman … man – the Hebrew words

These English words, "woman" and "man," it is plain to see, are related; so, too, in the Hebrew, with “Isha” (woman) and “Ish” (man). The Hebrew signifies “coming into relationship,” that is, the female and the male with each other. This is the root-essence of the word Adam chose to address his mate, but with his own spin on the word: “she is the one with whom I will enter relationship, that one who is just like me”!

As indicated in the Hebrew, when the female-Twin comes into relationship
with the male-Twin, she becomes Woman; likewise, he becomes
Man at her coming. Stated philosophically, the sexes cannot know their
fulfillment, their sacred destiny, without each other. Mary doesn’t know
this, but, until her true mate comes, she’s merely female and not Woman; and yet, on a certain level, she does know this, evinced by the loneliness in her life.

See the Word Gems articles for extensive discussion of the Hebrew words in Genesis related to Man and Woman.

But allow me to offer a short section from those writings, an expanded version of Genesis 2: 23, 24, based upon the deeper sense of the Hebrew. It’s etymological x-ray vision:

And the man (the adam: the representative human, the clay
image of God, the one identified with the earth) said, “This
is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall
be called Woman (isha: one with whom ish is affiliated; one
who receives the need of another to be in relationship), because
she was taken out of Man (ish: one who affiliates, lives
in community and relationship with isha).” Therefore shall a
man (ish: the one who is designed to seek relationship) leave
his father and his mother [that is, all prior relationships in
order to be free to enter relationship with isha], and shall
cleave (gluing: an existential desire to seek wholeness with
isha) unto his wife (isha, that is, his woman: that particular
one, against all others, designed just for him by virtue of her
soul energies which exactly match his own); and they shall
be One Person.

Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again – how the sacred couple serves as catalyst, each for the other, to the “life” of greater consciousness

Permit me to summarize and clarify our discussion on “Woman draws her
life from man and gives it back again.”

The soul, the essential core-being of each person, was made perfect,
complete, and whole – so much so that Genesis refers to it as having
been “made in the image of God.” There is so much wonder, potential,
and riches packed into the hidden person that God had to invent eternity to provide enough time for us to become all that lies dormant within.

But, will we unpack it? Why should we agree to do so? Sounds like a lot of work.

Some years ago I discovered the tape-recordings of direct-voice medium
Leslie Flint (see this on the Word Gems site). I listened to over 500 taped
testimonies from people on the other side regarding their views of life in
Summerland. A few of these persons, such as Elizabeth Fry, I found to be
extremely wise. But the vast majority, to my dismay, exhibited a lackluster approach to life. Here is the essence of what these many had to say:

“Well, I’m doing ok over here. I wasn’t so sure about things at
the start, but now I’ve settled in and life is pretty good. I like
sitting in my rocking chair, watching people go by, or picking
plums in my orchard, or just lollygagging. I’ve heard there
are good things to do here, but, you know, I’m pretty satisfied,
and I wouldn’t want to rock the boat and try something
crazy. I wouldn’t want to lose what I have or be reprimanded
in some way. So, I’m fine, and I just want to keep things the
way they are.”

Think about this. These people live in a world of expanded mental powers,
possibly 50 or 100 times what we have on Earth; they have the opportunity to study any subject, and not just by reading books, but with
private tutoring from master teachers, those who might have been world
famous on the Earth for their accomplishments. Even more, fantastic
opportunities for recreation are there for the taking, such as space travel
and exploration, a virtual “Star Trek” opportunity.

And, with all of this marvel for the asking, what do so many of these timid little spirit-persons want to do? They want to sit in a lawn-chair in their plumb orchard, watch the world go by, and “not rock the boat.”

Dr. David R. Hawkins It is only the minority of people who seek self-improvement or personal growth. This is because whatever one's self-criticisms, one secretly really believes that one's way of being is okay and probably the only correct one. They are all right as they are, and all problems are caused by other people's selfishness, unfairness, and by the external world.

Eric Hoffer, The True Believer People who see their lives as irremediably spoiled cannot find a worth-while purpose in self-advancement… They look on self-interest as on something tainted and evil; something unclean and unlucky. Anything undertaken under the auspices of the self seems to them foredoomed… Their innermost craving is for a new life – a rebirth – or, failing this, a chance to acquire new elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose and worth by an identification with a holy cause.

It’s their right to remain indolent, and no one will disturb them, and they can continue to vegetate for hundreds of years, if that’s what they choose.
But this is not God’s plan for us. We were not given “factory installed,
state-of-the-art, high-tech” cerebral capacities in order to nap in a plum
orchard. Nothing wrong with plum orchards, and I might like to have one
on my farm over there, but I trust that I shall be too busy to visit it very
often. The songbirds will like it, though.

And so the question becomes, how shall human beings find motivation
to develop themselves? There’s a lot of developing that’s lying fallow. As
Father Robert Benson from the afterlife said, our human potential knows
“no discoverable upper limit.” Some call it the “inner cosmos.” How shall
that potent “life,” that “one life” of consciousness which links us to God,
and to all others, come to the fore?

There are thousands of “brotherhoods” and “sisterhoods” representing a myriad of ways to live life and to achieve happiness. But the Troubadour Spirit-Guides believe they have the best answer for humans to effect apotheosis. The way forward they say is via Authentic Eternal Romantic Love.

Twin-Soul love, each mate for the other, seems to be the best way to
draw out the “life,” the riches within. Those hapless who say they want
nothing more than napping in an orchard, in effect, are also telling us
that they’ve not yet met their Twin lovers, nor are they likely to do so
until they abandon their fear-based thinking.

There are things we might not do for ourselves, but we will do them both
to please and to help a Beloved. We might amble our way on a whitesand
beach for a hundred years, without a care to develop our minds
or talents, but we will develop ourselves in order to please or to be with a Beloved. We might be content to drift, here and there, in a paradise-world of Summerland, not doing much at all, but, in order to serve the interests
of a Beloved, we will embark upon a program of self-development, a
disciplined regimen of education and skill acquisition, that would make
Dale Carnegie proud.

Contrast this progressive spirit of Twins with that of our friend John.
Remember his internal little speech on his wedding day? True, he was
looking forward to working hard and making something of himself. But
this ambition really wasn’t for Mary, so much. He really didn’t care what
Mary thought about this; not really. It wasn’t for her. In fact, he was going
to do this whether she liked it or not. The important thing for him was to
make his mark on the world, and even to get dad off his back. Pretty
Mary was a bit-player in the whole process.

But this is not the love shared by Twins. They want to enjoy everything with, and for, each other, together; or not at all.

“Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again.” See these two
sacred lovers now, so engaged in purposeful living, laughing and teasing, with each day as celebration of simply being together. Growth and self-improvement are part of the air they breathe. They want to become more than they are, to expand and to enhance themselves; for self-respect, of course, but it’s never lost upon them that a primary impetus for advancement is simply to please each other, to be proud of each other.

Adam wouldn’t necessarily be so bothered to make something of himself
if it were just himself, for himself – but he will do it for Eve. Heaven knew
this, and this is why Twins are a gift from God to each other for purposes
not only of enjoying life but of evolving the soul. Each for the other, they become "reason to stay alive for."

A man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home – forming
a new societal building-block

We’ve discussed how father and mother represent biological life, but
there’s something else in this verse worthy of our consideration.

Spirit Guides such as Silver Birch say that everyone has a Twin Soul, which means that eventually everyone will enjoy a true romantic relationship. This could suggest that, in the distant future, the romantic Twin-Soul family unit will constitute the basic building-block of astral society. I believe this is a glimpse of ultimate reality.

To that end, Twins, in their coming together, will leave behind, in terms of
primary focus, all other relationships. In reference to “father and mother,”
this would of course mean that parents, the formative home and
hearth, would become less significant to one’s life. This is only natural.
We weren’t made to live with mom and dad indefinitely, and if they’re
of sound mind, they wouldn’t want it either.

But, by extension, this verse of The Wedding Song leads us to understand that other relationships will also be displaced in favor of the coming Sacred Beloved. She shakes up everything in life.

In my Word Gems article on “Divorce” I stated:

“Your relationship may be ‘breaking up,’ but you
won’t be ‘breaking down.’ If anything, you’re correcting
a mistake that was hurting four people:
you and the person you’re with, not to mention
the two people who you [both] were destined to
meet.” D. Ivan Young

The sorrowful experience of marital divorce must be
viewed within the larger context of where we are right
now in terms of our journey toward spiritual maturity.

As we’ve discussed, the scientific evidence for the
afterlife changes everything; and, as Kairissi and Elenchus
came to see, “everything that happens in this
world is provisional, reversible… nothing here is real…
nothing here ultimately matters,” as it’s subject to revision
and displacement by events and circumstances
of the coming Summerland “real world” …

Few of us will be surprised to learn that the marriages
of our world are not based upon that which is enduring,
that is, things of substantial nature. Therefore, let
us not be utterly shocked to learn that most, virtually
all, of present marital relationships will be swept
away by our steadily advancing maturity and spiritual
growth. As the ancient parable instructs, we cannot
put “new wine into old wineskins,” as new truth will
burst and destroy old containers; and the relationships of this
world, expressions of base John-and-Mary egoism, to
various degrees, will not survive our better frames of
mind and heart in the coming “real world” of Summerland.

Charlotte Dresser, Life Here And Hereafter (1927):
transcribed by Dresser, words sent from the
other side: “We see many who come here who
had thought they had made an alliance which
would last forever, who had no real conception
of such happiness. It is felt only once by anyone,
and can never be mistaken when it really comes.
I have watched the growth of several such attractions
here, and I realize that the earth-life seldom
encounters the real thing. Many married people
continue here together for a long time, and yet
gradually drift apart as they learn the true laws
governing such matings. It is always happiness,
however. Such separations here are never accompanied
by sorrow.”

All of which is to say, we will not, and should not, be terribly
surprised to learn that divorce will be a necessary “pruning,”
a readjustment of our living situations, a natural part of growing
up, as we discover our “true selves” and what we really
need for our eternal lives – and not only “what” we need,
but “with whom.”
 

Kairissi. Within each half of the yin-yang circle there’s
a very small circle reflecting the essential nature of its
counterpart.

Elenchus. If Twins are “drawing life and giving it back again,”
then we would expect some level of shared essence.

K. That’s right. The Spirit Guides often speak of man and
woman in terms of “wisdom” and “love.” But this does not
mean that woman is without wisdom, nor man without love.
The small circles, each in reference to the opposing half, reflects
this sense of overlapping nature.

E. It seems that “wisdom” and “love” are default settings, but
do not describe either in absolute terms. Think of "right brain, left brain" -- that gets us close to the idea.

A man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home

We have seen that this phrase in The Wedding Song alludes to the famous verse in Genesis requiring lovers to leave father and mother in
order to form their own new family-unit. Children have their own destiny and purpose and are not the property of parents but, during formative
years, are merely on loan to them from God.

We’ve also seen that this verse might include directive for Twins to leave
all prior relationships in favor of their cosmic destiny – call this necessary
pruning, the sacred divorce.

While all this realignment has its place in the coming new ordering of life,
it takes more than leaving parental home or an earlier marriage to qualify
for eternal romantic bliss; people leave those former arrangements all
the time, but without benefit necessarily forthcoming.

A primary theme of The Wedding Song is that of entering “life”; that is, a
higher level of consciousness allowing one to “see” that which has never
been seen before. And while the various disentanglings of relationship
already discussed are part of the fulfillment of the command to “leave
father and mother,” The Wedding Song is after bigger game here. There
are other “fathers” and “mothers” to be left behind in order to enter that required state of higher consciousness.

As a homework assignment, I must refer you to the “eight core” Word
Gems articles. These label and discuss the “fathers and mothers” with
which, during our time of immaturity, we dysfunctionally identify. These "abusive parents," of a philosophical nature, must be left far behind:

And they shall travel on to where the two shall be as one – that which
is said and not said

Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
(NKJV)

The artful Troubadours play with this Genesis verse by deleting and adding new words. The concept of leaving father and mother in order to be joined to one’s wife is replaced by “they shall travel on.”

the two shall be as one – it’s “one person,” much more than “one body”

In the true love, as an advanced feature of “upgraded software,” you are
“one person” with your Beloved even if she’s absent - a thousand miles
away, or in the next world. Spatial proximity doesn’t matter (“quantum
entanglement” has taught us this). The romantic sense of “one person” is far more potent, far more erotic, than any paltry John-and-Mary nexus. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

There are those who trivialize the term “one flesh” in Genesis 2:24 and
reduce it to mean mere sexual intercourse. This is not the primary sense
in either Genesis or The Wedding Song.

Strangely, Big Religion is the first to insist that “one flesh” just means a
roll in the hay. I’ll tell you why they want to sell you this idea. In their
power-mongering, they might attempt to control physical actions of their
followers, but they know they cannot control people’s spirits and hidden
thought-life. And this is why they will define “one flesh” as something
purely animalistic. It's something they believe they can regulate in the world of externals.

Editor’s note: This word-play sleight-of-hand concerning "one flesh" is what Adrian talked about in the Foreword with totalitarianism redefining terms, making them less spiritually oriented:

“Both Winston and his lover, Julia, were guilty of ‘sexcrimes’
which in Newspeak meant the sex act performed with love
and passion. The authorized version was ‘goodsex,’ which
meant sex for reproduction only with no pleasure.”

Some of the great thinkers featured on the Word Gems site assert
that those who attempt to win an argument by doing violence to
words will do violence to bodies if opportunity allows. Assuredly, this
is correct, as we’ve seen it many times in history; we see it today, all
around us. Those who cannot win hearts and minds on the merits
of their arguments resort to “fake news,” character assassination,
and if a Jefferson-Paine-Madison rule-of-law were not in place, they
would kill you and claim to be doing the will of God or furthering the
common good.

Propaganda and sleight-of-hand is the norm, with a truthful, straight
answer the rarity. With so much money and power at stake, the arena of Big Religion attracts to its leadership large numbers of needy and neurotic egos who “want to use you and abuse you,” as the Eurythmics sang. Everything they touch becomes suspect; every “infallible” doctrine issues as just one more power grab to make you feel “no good.”

Within the short compass of our recent discussions here, we find totalitarian Big Religion attempting to (1) replace unbreakable soul-pledges with vows; (2) impose a marriage-ceremony ritual to supersede the more important meeting-of-the-minds, “the union of spirits”; (3)
suggest that the Bible, and their self-serving interpretation of it, is
infallible word of God, instead of acknowledging the living word of
God’s testimony within each human heart; (4) misrepresent “one
flesh” as mere animal riot, while ignoring the spiritual One Person;
(5) demand unthinking cultish obedience and calling this “loyalty to
God Church.” This devaluating “Newspeak” is what propagandizing
totalitarian regimes will do to rob you of “ownself.”

The Hebrew vision embedded in the term “one flesh” refers not primarily
to sexual coitus but, more generally, to that which is “flesh and
blood” or, by extension, of the “person” – which is how The Living Bible
translates the verse: “the two become one person.” And this “one person”
speaks to the spiritual aspect of marital union, a level of advanced
consciousness, and makes it primary, relegating a “union of bodies” to
second-best. We’ve seen this ranking in The Wedding Song many times.

This concept of the spiritually integrated “one person,” rather than mere
“flesh-on-flesh,” is captured in Jesus’ words in Matthew 19, “They are no
longer two but one.” Jesus uses the term “one” not to indicate a union of
bodies, not the sex-act, but that male and female are no longer two purely separate individuals but, in an idealized sense, become one undifferentiated person.

Kahlil Gibran: “Forgive me, Beloved, for I have addressed you
as you, yet you are the fair half of me which I lost when we
left the hand of God at the same moment. Forgive me, my
Beloved.”

Another very good example of “one flesh” referring not to bodies-in-contact but to “one person” is I Corinthians 6 – see the discussion below. Paul says that all sexual intercourse between non-Twins leaves its participants more lost and lonely than ever, as they “can never become one.” Paul means, “spiritually one,” the sacred One Person, the exclusive domain of perceived wholeness and completeness. This is the obvious meaning here as he’s addressing those who do, in fact, engage in one-flesh physical sex, those who do become one in body but, in their physical union, can never become spiritually one. Only Twins can do that. John and Mary already understand this; they well know that their sex-life does not leave them feeling whole and complete but, rather, quite the opposite.

Physical union, sexual intercourse, is supposed to picture something,
something important. It’s not an end in itself, not to be demeaned as
recreation with a date on a Saturday night, and it’s not the primary purpose of marriage, no matter what John insists. Physical union, sexual
intercourse, is meant to foreshadow, to symbolize, for Twins, their increasingly advancing sense of the spiritual One Person, a growing perception of wholeness, completeness, and satisfaction. The world is mad and drunk on mere physical sex, and so they won’t want to hear this,
but, here’s the problem in more detail:

If you allow yourself to become physically one with another who is not
your Twin, you will not symbolize the spiritual One Person; only Twins
can do that. And why is this a problem? For John and Mary, imposters to
true love, sexual encounter becomes a symbol, not of spiritual oneness,
but, in their case, internal disharmony, a grating dissimilarity, the “love that
has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight.” And therefore all non-Twin
sexuality, though “blessed” by the Nice Young Man at Church with his
magic hand-signs and magic words, constitutes a violation of romantic
natural law. For this reason, it becomes what Kahlil Gibran called “the sinful marriage.”

All “sin” as violation of natural law, of the kind which disregards reality
– not the fatuous, man-made concept of “sin” as breaking an arbitrary
church rule -- carries with it a natural and automatic penalty, a natural
justice, to be registered in one’s spirit. There’s no arguing with it, and
there’ll be no bargained-and-paid-for dispensation to absolve. We have
entered the world of Jesus’ uncompromising dictum, we will “pay the
last penny of infraction for every untoward thought or deed” (see the
Word Gems article). “Sin,” in this sense, reflects the nature of things,
part of the fabric of reality, with no judge and jury required or allowed.
We do it to ourselves. And this is the way natural-law morality works in
Summerland, too.

And what is the penalty for sleeping with someone who is not your eternal
Twin? On some level of awareness, we will know it’s wrong, as did
John and Mary even on their wedding day, as they knew they’d “settled”;
one will sense, toward the illicit partner, within one’s deepest person,
albeit in wordless subtle whisperings, the exact opposite of what gushing
Adam felt:

“You are not like me, you are not part of me, you do not belong
to me, I should not be here, I belong to someone else, I can’t do this, I wasn’t made for you, this isn’t what I signed on for.”

But, then we shut it down. We repress and cover it up. It’s easier to stifle
“the inner whispering of the soul” than to face the music of our John-and-
Mary decisions. Spirit Guide Margaret called this denial of one’s
inner truth a “blasphemy against the holy spirit of love.” The word “blasphemy” means “to speak evil against.” And what is being spoken against? It is the “holy spirit,” rather, in plain language, “the purified consciousness” of true love; that is, on some level of awareness, we know better.

Margaret is saying that people often speak evil of, disregard and
repress, the promptings of the purified consciousness regarding true romance, and injure themselves in this prevarication. Mary knew she didn’t really love John and “sinned against” the whispering testimony of her own higher nature, as she traded her body for the trinkets and baubles
of domestic-business concern and mammalian impulse.

Secondly, when we “sin against the purified consciousness,” we enter the
dangerous world warned against in Jesus’ teaching, commonly referred
to as “the unpardonable sin.” This is not something God is involved in, but we injure ourselves, such that, we run the risk of not being able to recover from injury.

How does this happen? If we sin against the “purified consciousness of romantic love,” that is, when we stifle our own inner testimony of the soul, when we shut down our own inner dissent, we damage the very mechanism by which we are meant to discover truth, we injure and maim our own capacity to right ourselves. The conscience becomes diseased and compromised. As the modern translations of scripture put it, it is “sawing off the branch that you’re sitting on.”

How can we hope to win, and recover from our own self-inflicted injuries, if we pervert our own internal guidance system, which was meant to protect us? We need this clear sightedness for all moral aspects of living; but, as most relevant point to our discussion here, the greatest tragedy is that we diminish our ability to recognize a Twin lover when she comes. When the lights go out in one’s spirit, we go blind to all good things, including the identity of the Sacred Beloved.

Moreover, as Spirit Guide Margaret warns, we create darkness in our spirits and make ourselves candidates for the Dark Realms upon crossing over. She flatly stated in no uncertain terms that the self-deception of John and Mary, in their Machiavellian ways of using each other for private agenda, and then pretending this charade to be honorable and lawful marriage, constitutes the most common reason for people to spend time in dark detention upon transitioning.

Editor’s note: In I Corinthians 6, the apostle Paul says that sexual
union, between two who are not meant to be together, quickly becomes a harmful and self-defeating recreation; that, it will leave you “more [lost and] lonely than ever.”

Many years ago, I wrote a long article of detailed exegesis of Paul’s
teaching in I Corinthians 6. Since then, I see things more clearly and
can now offer a shorter explanation of his message.

“There is more to sex than mere skin-on-skin. Sex is as much
spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Genesis, ‘The
two shall become One’... We must not pursue the kind of
sex that ... leaves us more [lost and] lonely than ever; the
kind of sex that can never become One. There is a sense in
which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin
we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies
that were made for ... God-modeled love, for becoming One
with another... Don’t you see that you can’t live however you
please, squandering what God [gave to you as Divine gift].” I
Cor. 6: 15 - 19, The Message

Let’s look at this in a traditional translation, as well:

“Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?
shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the
members of an harlot? God forbid. What? know ye not that
he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he,
shall be one... But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the
body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his
own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple
of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and
ye are not your own?” I Cor. 6: 15 - 19, KJV

I must avoid the temptation to speak on every word here. Essentially,
Paul has taken Jesus’ “unpardonable sin” teaching and has
made it specific to John and Mary.

Notice how Paul references Genesis 2:24, “two … shall be one.” He
is speaking of the lofty Twin Soul vision of marriage, not the knockoff
brand of this world. (He addresses John-and-Mary unions in I
Corinthians 7.)

Paul uses difficult terminology. He talks of sins “without the body”
and sins that are “against the body.” It’s his way of saying, “We all
do stupid things, and yes, these ‘sins’ will injure us, like a broken
arm, but we can recover and heal; however, if we strike at our very
capacity to heal ourselves, if we defile the purified consciousness,
beclouding our very center of being, how do we come back from
that? This injury is more serious.”

Part of the confusion here is how Paul uses the term “body.” At
times he means, “it’s just the physical shell,” but at other times he
means to say, “the body as present receptacle of the purified consciousness.”

When he speaks of "sins against the body" he means "sins against the body as temple of the purified consciousness." This kind of sin dulls our senses and makes it more difficult to return to a better frame of mind. "Sins without the body," while not recommended, do not injure us, relatively speaking or nearly as much, at the core of being. Why is sexual sin in a separate class of danger to ourselves? It tampers with the very essence of life, destiny, and ultimate reality. Twin Soul lovers, "made in the image, male and female," are meant to emulate, in a mystical way, the Oneness of Mother-Father God.

“Fornication” here, as opposed to modern parlance, is not just pre-marital sex, but any unauthorized sexual liaison between non-Twin partners, those who can never become spiritually “One.” The Greek word for “fornication” is pornea, which includes a wide range of sexual impropriety, for the unmarried and the “married” John and Mary.

“Harlot” is a harsh word. I would not have used it. It’s very offensive to John and Mary. But Paul uses it here with calculation, for its shock-value. He’s right in line with the teaching style of Jesus in Matthew 19 (see below) who chose an even more offensive word in his Twin-Soul lectures – “eunuch,” a castrated man. These teachers are not trying to win a “Miss Congeniality Award.” They want to wake us up with
jarring language.

Here’s the problem: We’ve been duped, let astray, given false security, made a sucker by the doctrines of Big Religion and The Nice Young Man at Church. And people are going to get hurt by this malfeasance. Consider what we learned from Spirit Guide Margaret about the “hell to pay” by those couples who merchandize each other with private agenda. In Paul’s terminology, “harlot” refers not to some adventure in a red-light district, but any unauthorized sexual liaison between non-Twin partners, those who can never become "One.”

Some of the great psychic-spiritualist preachers of the latter 19th century, such as the eloquent Andrew Jackson Davis and Henry C. Wright, used similar expressions. So, too, Abbess Heloise, in her passionate letters to Peter, spoke of “harlot” in a similar sense. Heloise, always impolitely bold in her statements, a fierceness born of her intense love for Peter and her disdain for Despotic Ecclesia, defined “harlot” as society’s “respectable” woman who marries for wages; not necessarily a paycheck but all of those perks
that Mary sold herself for, while perceiving that her body did
not belong to John.

Paul is saying what we discussed earlier: “Don’t you know that sexual
union is supposed to mean something, and represent something?
It’s meant to symbolize True Love’s ‘Oneness’ of Genesis 2:24.”

“Joined to the Lord as one spirit” is Paul’s method of speaking of the “one life” of God and higher consciousness. "Members of Christ" means "a oneness with the Christ-Consciousness." And this is why he says, if you pervert this process, no matter if you’re so-called “married” as John and Mary fancy themselves, you will end up “more lost and lonely than ever.” In fact, it will be more miserable for you than those who are lonely by themselves. Why? Because you’ve sinned against the purified consciousness, that is, you went against the “still small voice” of conscience telling you that it is wrong - because you belong to someone else.

Only Twins can know the ultimate Oneness resulting from their God-approved sexual union. And when we defy the inner whispering of
our own souls and sleep with someone who is not our destined Twin, no good can come from it – as Paul uses the phrase, we “sin against our own bodies,” and enter the realm of the “unpardonable sin,” as per the instruction of Jesus.

“More lost and lonely than ever; the kind of sex that can never become One.” John and Mary, in their heart-of-hearts, no matter their
wedding-day over-sized smiles for the crowd and the cameras, already felt vaguely “lost and lonely” as they walked down the aisle. Are we having fun yet?

Kairissi. I would like to say a word for Mary in her defense.
Mary is not a bad person. I know this because,
before I was with you, in my spirit, I was a “Mary.”

Elenchus. (silence)

K. Mary works so hard to keep it all together. She
wants a good family, she wants the best for her
children, and she works hard to please John. Yes,
we know that in some ways Mary is immature; and
maybe, down deep, she does know there’s something
wrong somewhere, and maybe she did “settle,” but
she married quite young, and thought it was all for the
best at the time, and so what do you do after getting
yourself into a bad situation?

All of Mary’s “offenses” are “forgivable.” I’ll tell you what her problem is – I
know it so well. When John thought he wanted to be
with her, first of all, it felt so good just to be wanted
and accepted by someone half-way reasonable. It
was a heady intoxication for Mary to feel “approved.”
Suddenly, all of Mary’s inherent womanly proclivities
– call them mammalian, or instinctual, if you like, as
they probably are; but – all of her female desires went soaring.

She could now see, could almost touch,
as a reality, those children she’d yearned for, and her
well-ordered house that she would make into a nice
happy home. Should she have been a more circumspect,
wise, and prudent? Yes, it would have
been better, but, she married in her early 20’s, and
who can be so wise and mature at that young age? It’s
just not going to happen so easily.

E. There is no condemnation for Mary, and she
will recover. As you say, it just felt so good to be accepted.
The potent thrill of John-and-Mary romance, albeit temporary, can seem very real while the plasma is hot and cooking. During this time of intense illusion, love seems to be solid and substantive. But then, to Mary’s dismay, it all begins to unravel so quickly, just as friends warned her, and as she herself feared.

K. This issue of “it just felt so good to be accepted” is a big problem for Mary. She’s not strong enough to feel good about herself without a man telling her she’s worth something. This is not healthy. A young Mary, with wedding-day stars in her eyes, hasn’t yet figured out that John didn't really accept her at all – I mean, her truest person. He’s just enamored with her body as a lifetime pleasure-source; see his wedding photos, how intoxicated he looks, look at that big wolf-grin. It's not his fault, really, he's just a young mammal doing his thing, and it doesn't take an ace-detective to understand that he really doesn’t care so much about bonding with her “real person.” That wasn't part of the deal for him. In coming quieter days and months, after the thrill of the wedding-day festivities, she'll finally allow this realization.

E. There's much unhappiness in the "withdrawal symptoms" of the wedding-day high.

K. We have learned that God is Singular Pervasive
Reality. Beside God there is nothing else. God’s “good”
has no opposite. Therefore, Mary’s choice to be with a
man who was not her ideal mate is not “evil,” as such;
it may not have been so wonderful, either, but, “the
good” is that her ill-advised choice will lead her to a
greater wisdom. Her ensuing sadness and despair, the
dark disillusionment in times to come, of living with
a man whom she does not truly love, becomes that
great “classroom” of “Adam’s death-trance.” Mary’s
years of suffering within the ranks of “the miserably
married” will constitute spiritual and psychological
preparation for the joy awaiting her, the advent of her
True Mate.

E. The author spoke of denying the inner whispering
of the soul, which is sometimes called the “unpardonable
sin” because we shut down our conscience,
which is meant to be a guiding light. How do we reconcile
this for Mary?

K. I’m sure the author will agree when I say that Jesus’
original teaching about the “unpardonable sin” was
given to hard-hearted clergymen who very well knew
better, were malicious, and had a good deal of knowledge.
Mary is not malicious nor hard-hearted, by any
means. She’s not like them. And she hasn’t spent
years thinking about these issues as a philosopher;
she will do that later at 3 AM. But whatever her “sin”
is in this regard, it’s a sin of weakness and illusion, and
I think she’ll find healing rather quickly. Should she
keep “shutting down” the inner whispering? No, she
shouldn’t, as this will hurt her, but not irreparably. She
allowed herself to get sweet-talked, some of it by herself,
into a bad or less-than ideal marriage, and now
she’s not bold enough to right her situation. Should
she be bold enough to change her life? – yes, but not
being courageous is also a forgivable offence, and
she’ll recover from her ill-advised devotion to marital duty.

E. In that stern classroom, which is this difficult world,
Mary discovers, and it doesn’t take long, that tuition is
very expensive these days.

Editor’s note: There is a humorous account in the writings of Swedenborg
(see the Word Gems article) concerning his visions of the next world. He offered it as a true story. Three young men killed in war stumbled into Summerland and were being shown around by a Spirit Guide. The fallen soldiers, not having had the chance for sacred marital love and family life, were naturally distressed in their fears that heaven might be run like a monastery.

Their attending cicerone Spirit Guide made light of this and, with many twinkles of the eye, assured the young men that not only did they still retain all of their necessary biological apparatus, but that it could used effectively in the customary manner. The men kept asking, however, in different ways, if this were really true, as they couldn’t believe their good fortune. Later, they came upon a group of young adults who were laughing and joking together and having a good time, among whom were many beautiful women. This naturally sparked the interest of the three young men, but the Guide, in a light-hearted way, cautioned his new arrivals that these women were “spiritual virgins,” as the Guide used the term.

This did not mean that they honored some deluded notion of celibacy and had entered a convent, but that these girls were preparing themselves and their hearts to be with a destined Twin Soul. As such, they lived alone, touched no one, and allowed no one to touch them; which meant, they would have no objection to being friendly and sociable, but, the Guide warned, if the young men tried to suggest sleeping with them, they’d be shut down in no uncertain terms.

The Guide encouraged the young men that, if they wanted to be with a lover, they would need to enter a program of spiritual development, thereby preparing their spirits to be worthy of being with their own destined Sacred Beloved. All this, from Swedenborg’s vision of Summerland, fits very well with the message of The Wedding Song.

the two shall be as one – John and Mary turn this scripture on its head

As we’ve learned from the apostle Paul, the sexual union of John and
Mary cannot take them to spiritual Oneness.

When Adam laid eyes on his Twin Soul, Eve, he became overwhelmed
with a sense of “you are just like me!” But the opposite begins to happen
for John and Mary. Their attempts at intimacy result in perceptions
of “You are not like me! I don’t belong to you! I feel more cut-off and
solitary, more lost and lonely than ever, especially when you touch me!”
Instead of “becoming one,” they, in effect, represent “becoming two”;
that is, they progressively experience more separateness, more isolation,
more aloneness.

Editor’s note: People want to defend John and Mary:

“Wayne, you’re a fanatic, an extremist. You totally distort the
picture of romance with a one-sided view. Ok, alright, we all
know that there are too many miserable couples trapped in
bad marriages, but let’s not forget that there are also lots of
pretty decent marriages out there, too. Maybe they aren’t perfect as you paint the picture, but there are many couples who get along pretty well. They’re friends, they do things together that are fun, and they’ve made a good life for themselves. And their kids are doing fine, too, and they did enjoy those Christmas mornings and birthday parties for the little ones. And these good couples are also serving in their communities and churches, helping with youth groups, the choir, and serving the needy. I think this is a pretty good record for many couples named John and Mary out there. Why is this wrong?”

Well… we’ve already addressed these sentiments. This is Mary’s argument on her wedding day.

The confusing part here is that John and Mary’s union, in many
cases, does seem to work, or almost works, for a while; not perfectly,
but tolerably well.

In the early years of marriage, each of them is extremely busy, no time even to think. John’s working a lot to get ahead on his job, maybe taking extra classes for a promotion, and Mary, too, is working, also, possibly, taking classes, but most definitely she has not lost sight of her house and preparations for her coming babies. But they’re young marrieds and have lots of energy to work at two or three jobs at a time. In this frenetic pace and great forward momentum of life-circumstance, John and Mary are very distracted and have no time for introspection; nor, in a real sense, for each other.The “still small voice within” has been muted by the din of the cares of this world.

And then John gets his promotion, and Mary gets her dream-babies, and the furious activity of life is ratcheted-up still another notch. Even so, family life seems pretty good for them. Their sexual union, however, is sporadic, perfunctory, mechanical, mostly at John’s behest, and without true intimacy. For Mary’s part, she’d just like to get it over with. But it doesn’t really matter so much to Mary. She has her kids, and John is a good man and supports the family, and so life moves on.

With the passing of years, however, the children have their way
of shedding their cuddliness, begin to grow up, and become less
dependent on Mom. Mary discovers this to be a little unnerving.
Unwittingly, she had staked her identity on being needed by the kids,
and now, when they don’t require her services so much anymore,
she’s at loose ends. The house seems less friendly and less warm at this stage. Increasingly, she feels more alone and isolated in her marriage.
She begins to wonder what she ever saw in John that made her decide
for him. This is not the way Mary thought it would be. That cup
of lukewarm milk on a cold night is not nearly as enticing anymore.
She’s discovered, by painful experience, that there are worse things than being alone by yourself; much worse is being alone with someone else.

The true marriage, the true romantic love is much more than friendship,
raising kids, helping out at church, and sharing the cost of a
mortgage. The true marriage, the true romantic love, is about adventuring
together toward spiritual Oneness, a Darling Companionship
of doing everything together, studying and serving, of seeking the highest and best for the other, of pursuing ultimate reality and cosmic destiny as romantic mates - the joy of exquisite intimacy and sheer delight of just being together. John and Mary know nothing of this.

But people love to defend John and Mary. It’s all they know; for, as
The Wedding Song instructs, the true marriage, the true romantic
love, is “something never seen before.” In Matthew 19 we find Jesus
speaking of Twin-Soul love and addressing a group of hard-hearted
men who were intent upon defending John-and-Mary views of marriage.
Not once, but twice, during his discourse, Jesus injects the
caveat, “Most of you will not be able to accept what I say here.” (I
strongly encourage you to read my Word Gems article on the divorce-
and-marriage teaching of Jesus in Matthew 19. You will find it
under the “Divorce” icon, the “Editor’s 1-Minute Essay.”)

People don’t want to hear about the systemic inadequacy of John
and Mary. It strikes too close to home. I was speaking to a lady who
had read my “Prometheus” book on Twin love. Her first impression
was one of awe at the magnitude of the joy that lies ahead for everyone in finding a Sacred Beloved. But then, later, she admitted to me, as she thought about the implications of it all, “a sudden pang of fear went through me.” She realized that Twin love will mean the death of all John-and-Mary dreams of finding happiness through the conventional marriage. Yes, this is Jesus’ warning: “Most of you will not be able to accept what I say here.”

If people are heavily influenced by the dysfunctional ego, they might
cross over and continue in their well-worn habits and roles of this
world. I have read of reports from the other side of immature John
and-Mary couples who resume traditional modes of living: he sits in
his easy-chair by the fireplace, and she falls back into her old duty
of getting his slippers and pipe! – just the way they did it when they
lived in New Jersey! For those who want to defend John and Mary,
don’t worry, no one will interfere with what you want to do. We
are all granted license to delay, indefinitely, the supreme joy, the
extreme delight, of finding one’s Twin, if fetching pipes and slippers
is how you want to live your life in Summerland. Go knock yourself
out.

There’s a dramatic case of this sort of John-and-Mary dysfunction
reported to us by Troubadour Spirit-Guide Margaret (see the full account
on the Word Gems site). Margaret was helping a new-arrival
lady find her way in Summerland; however, still a “Mary” in her
thoughts, this good lady was burdened by what she believed to be
her duty, that of finding her husband and reluctantly joining him
again in a loveless marriage. The husband, not a spiritual man, was
caught in a dark place and could not come to her. At the repeated
request of the lady, Margaret finally agreed to take her to see the
churlish man she had lived with.

Upon arrival, the man resumed an old role as domineering husband and began complaining to her, “Well, it’s about time you found me! It’s the same old you! You’re always so lazy and never treat me right!”

Margaret, now, as “prosecuting attorney” for the lady, with great severity, begins to rip a new one for this pompous and surly fellow “named John”:

“You are no longer on Earth. This woman is no longer your
wife, but free to come and go as she chooses. Her home is
waiting for her, a home which you yourself realize you cannot
enter. Shame upon you who, with your selfishness still
unchecked or unchanged, are not content with having blasted
her mortal existence and filled it with sorrow and care but
now seek to drag her into the semi-darkness where you
find your congenial home.”

No one had ever punched this egotistical John before, and now,
dazed, he is taken aback by the well-placed blows of the radiant
Spirit Guide advocate. Sheepishly, he tries to salvage at least a modicum
of his old domain. With calculated and mock sincerity, he begins
to piously drone:

“Forgive me,” said he, “I will not curse you now as I have done
in the past. I will not even seek to do so. I will not again ask
you to come to me until I find myself more worthy. I did not
realize my unworthiness until now. Promise me when that
time comes…”

But Margaret interrupts his fine little speech - and shuts him down again, this time for good:

“She can make you no promises, and you must seek to extract
none. Those days are over. But I will make this promise in her stead, that when you become truly worthy of the love of a good woman, the desire of your heart, whatever it may then be [as you come to know
that desire in growing self-knowledge], shall be gratified.”

Margaret is dangerous: “She won’t make you any promises, but I’ll
make you one, mister!” She forcibly asserts, spells it out for him,
to the effect:

“The lady whom you presently revile is not your wife, and, in a real sense, never was! She is destined for another – and so are you, but you have a lot of work to do before you find your true one. You’ll be busy for a while, trust me.”

If you live in a loveless John-and-Mary marriage, you have every
right - moreover, a directive - to leave. If you feel that you need to
stay in the same house, then have your own room. Keep in mind
that to continue “playing house” hurts four people: (1) you, (2)
your absent Twin Soul who grieves his loss of you, (3) the person you
are now with who is being kept from his true mate, and (4) the true
mate of the person you are with. There’s hidden, and not-so-hidden,
damage all around in this John and Mary charade of marriage.

John and Mary serve their temporary purposes in this unspiritual
world; primarily, that of becoming living parables of what not to do.
Do not trouble yourself to defend them. All these worldly unions will
suffer abandonment in Summerland, the “real world.”

And they shall travel on to where the two shall be as one – the origin
of the marriage ceremony?

Genesis 2:24: Therefore a man shall leave his father and
mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one
flesh. (NKJV)

The worldly churches love to proclaim that Genesis 2:24 represents the
first marriage ceremony, the origin of the “sacrament of marriage,” and
biblical support for the Church’s authority of what happens at the wedding
altar.

This verse offers nothing of the kind; quite the opposite, actually.

The true marriage is a “union of spirits,” as Love Personified insists. What
happens at the altar, with the clergyman’s magic hand-signs and magic
words, counts only a farthing's worth.

The true marriage is an unseen, spiritual event. It is a nexus of souls, of
inner-persons. Worldly churches, ever on the look-out for opportunities
of power-and-control, have no hope of regulating the hidden world of
private spirituality, and so they elevate to high status the visible marriage
ceremony - the magic hand-signs and the magic words – in order that
Ecclesia might regulate it.

In Summerland, there are no wedding ceremonies; not as such. There are lots of wedding parties and wedding celebrations, but no one is deceived about the process of how people become married. As we’ve learned from the great teachers, destined Twin lovers are as married, right from the “soul nursery,” as they’ll ever be. And so, a wedding celebration in Summerland is not a way to “get married” but to formally announce, to family, friends, and all the universe, that a destined couple has finally entered sacred realization of “always having been married.”

As Kairissi would say, “Oh, that little thing.”

And they shall travel on to where the two shall be as one – all for this
purpose

We have seen that the referenced antecedent Genesis verse is a kind of
“cut, freeze-frame” statement:

Genesis 2:24: Therefore a man shall leave his father and
mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one
flesh. (NKJV)

In effect, it becomes an editorial comment asserting that all activity,
from Genesis 1:1 to 2:23, was designed to lead us to this point. In other
words, in the cosmic sweep of things, the entire universe was created in
order that Twin Souls might enter into the magical and mystical process
of becoming One Person.

Why is this so important, and what does it mean?

And they shall travel on to where the two shall be as one – the breaking of the One into the Two and “gluing”

Silver Birch: “It is through shadow and darkness that you
come into the light. It is through storm that you come into
sunshine. It is through difficulty that you come to attain. It
is through conflict that you reach peace. Life can only be
achieved through comparisons. Were your paths an even
monotone, there would be no unfoldment. The development
comes through the clash of varying circumstances which
mould and mature the latent spirit.”

The Wedding Song cuts the phrase “joined to his wife” from Genesis 2:24
and, in its place, pastes “they shall travel on.” What are the Troubadour-artists getting at?

The following quotations are from Jewish scholars, Shokek and Leavitt, in
their Kabbalah and The Art of Being: The Smithsonian Lectures:

“According to the Hebrew Bible, beginning with the first chapter
of Genesis, the creation of the world signifies a unique
process. It signifies a ‘breaking’ of the One into the Two: In
the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth... and
God divided the Light from Darkness... and God called the
light, Day, and the darkness he called Night...

Everything that has a beginning is also subject to an ending.

But there exists a domain beyond the reach of time’s degradation. There, things simply exist, eternally, have always been, have no opposite, no duality, and do not suffer loss.

“This formula of the creation, i.e., the ‘breaking of the One
into the Two, established from the dawn of history the ‘opposite
couples’ of every existent thing... it also established
the duality of the human being... God created man in His own
image, in the image of God He created him; Male and Female
He created them (Genesis 1: 27).”

Shokek and Leavitt offer brilliant insights regarding the philosophical
basis for a system of duality that we see everywhere in the universe.
Allow me to add that, in addition to Male and Female, halves in a generic
sense, the dualistic subdivision runs deeper, with halves in a specific
sense: Male-Twin and Female-Twin; as we have seen, Man and Woman
are synonyms for these latter terms.

The authors point out a Hebrew word that literally means "gluing."  

Genesis 2: 24: For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined [i.e., glued] to his wife; and they shall become
One [Person].

This Hebrew word is found elsewhere in scripture, indicating humankind’s
joining – a gluing - to God. which metaphor signifies a primal human
desire for Oneness with Divinity; however, since this concept of
“gluing” is also employed in reference to Twin love relationships, I believe
we might rightly presume that we are to find God through the romantic
interaction with a Twin, the Sacred Beloved “made in the image.”

Shokek and Leavitt speak of how the One becomes the Two, that all
of creation is structured as a system of halves, the primary example of
which, the ultimate dualistic clash, Man and Woman, each seeking a
specific Half in order to experience wholeness, oneness, completeness.

Why would the universe be designed in such a manner? My sense is this:
I think that God - who or whatever God is – essentially, is unknowable.
We can know things about God, and even, mystically, gnostically, sense
God, but it may be true that we cannot directly know God, not in an
absolute sense; nor shall we ever. If this is the case, then God may have
designed the universe as a matrix of Halves, a clash of mirror-opposites,
to serve as a kind of teaching aid, the negotiation of which -- the quest
to commune with one’s own specific Half, and the resultant sense of
Oneness, with her -- might be the closest we shall ever come to knowing
God, to knowing Cosmic Wholeness, that Grand Integration, all leading
to increased spiritual awareness and evolutionary progression.

We have learned that “one flesh” denotes “one person.” In line with this,
the Jewish authors explain that the Hebrew meaning of “gluing” does not
primarily lead us to a bonding found in physical union, which biological
nexus merely points to something more profound; but,

“…a yearning for reunification of the Two parts that broke
from the One. It is a concept asserting that the two parts of
the whole, the ‘Halves’ that broke during the creation, the
Heaven and the Earth, the Man and the Woman, and even
the Masculine and Feminine aspects of the Divine, desire to
return to their pristine condition to become whole again.”

“All created things are ‘Halves,’ and all created things realize
by their nature that they came from the One and broke to
the Two and the many. Since the consciousness of all ‘Halves’
urges them to recognize that they are incomplete, and since
completeness is the end that all things yearn for, all things
depend on the One, wish to imitate the One, and yearn to
return to the One.”

Another way of stating this is that the very purpose of the dualistic universe, that cosmic matrix of Halves, is that of leading humankind to a
sense of wholeness, oneness, spiritual awareness, which is Love. This
oneness begins with a personal integration, moves toward finding one’s
Twin, then progresses to a universal love for all people and all creation.

“In other words, all things seek ‘gluing’ by their nature... Man
and Woman seek to cleave to one another, seek gluing, not
because they are ordered to do so, nor because it is an accepted
custom of society, not even because of procreation
(Genesis 1: 28), but because gluing is inherent within their
own nature. The two parts known as Man and Woman seek
their authenticity that can be found only in their return to
wholeness.”

“The conception of the two separated parts evolves from a
consciousness that recognizes its inner voice crying ‘I am half.’
I will have neither peace nor tranquility until I find my second
half; and then I will cleave to it, and commune with it, and we
shall be [whole and complete] again.”

A heavy statement: “neither peace nor tranquility until I find my second
half.”

But why does The Wedding Song replace “joined” with “traveling on”?
There could be many reasons, but here’s one that I see.

“Traveling on” indicates a process. Finding oneness and wholeness with
a Twin is not a single event, but a dynamical process that knows no end.
Growing in oneness, Twins transforming themselves into the spiritual
One Person, will occur progressively for them, more and more, in their
eternal lives.

Editor’s note: While it is true that a system of clashing opposites will lead us to knowledge, it is also true that the highest level of knowledge, concerning those virtues which have no opposite, cannot be attained by “contraries.” See the Word Gems article on this topic.

Kairissi. The creation story’s “breaking of the one into
the two,” along with Shokek and Leavitt’s insightful
analysis, fits well with yin-yang theory.

Elenchus. The Wedding Song’s “travel on” speaks to
energy and movement, a constant interplay, and this
too is made-to-order for the yin-yang symbol with its
curved dividing line indicating a process of transformation.

K. Ellus, I’m so glad that life will be changing; I mean, for
the better. This means that we’ll always be growing toward
greater and greater perceptions of romantic intimacy and
wholeness. To think of eternity as a fixed and static process,
somehow strikes me with terror.

E. I think this is why Love Personified ends verse two
with a repetitive, “there is Love, there is Love.” It’s a love
that’s moving, changing, growing.

draws her life … gives it back again - clashing opposites

This particular phrasing of “drawing” and “giving back,” it seems to me,
is The Wedding Song’s way of indicating that the dualistic clash of which
Silver Birch spoke, a sweet clashing reciprocity, gives rise to “life,” increased levels of consciousness.

And they shall travel on to where the two shall be as one – the joy of
oneness

We have spoken of “life” and how Twins draw it from each other. They
grow in consciousness of the “one life,” resident in all creation, the life
which is God.

The clash of dualistic opposites, expressed in all creation, greatly helps
to awaken Twins to each other and to the life within.

But the greatest dualistic clash, the one for which the entire universe was
created, is the Man-Woman interplay. All examples of “the one broken
into the two” seek gluing, but the grandest expression of this principle
finds fulfillment in the interaction of Female-Twin and Male-Twin.

These sacred two are not just ordinary elements of “the broken parts”
but represent the very “image of God.” As such, when Twins come together, they will experience a sense of oneness and wholeness that the
other “broken parts” can merely point to.

Oneness issues in perceptions of love. And when Twins experience oneness, the spiritual One Person, they will enter into a cognition of satisfying love otherwise unavailable in the entire universe.

“Traveling on” toward the status of the spiritual One Person, attaining
increasing levels of intimacy, means that there is “no discoverable upper
limit” to their perception of romantic love and joy. “Traveling on” speaks
to process. There is no final destination, as the marvelous journey never
ends. There is no ceiling to the joy resident in God’s mind, and Twins,
together, will explore this limitless delight.

And this is why, as I’ve stated, for Twins life itself is suffused with a sense of celebration… just to be together… just to do all things together… adventuring and exploring, studying and serving, laughing and teasing… as they travel on toward Oneness.

the two shall be as one – a distillation

Allow me to bring together and crystallize what we’ve learned about this
ancient metaphor, the spiritual One Person.