"Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was made a personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and equinox! This is what is the matter with us, we are bleeding at the roots, because we are cut off from the earth and sun and stars, and love is a grinning mockery, because, poor blossom, we plucked it from its stem on the tree of Life, and expected it to keep on blooming in our civilized vase on the table."
--D.H. Lawrence [1]
We're all "bleeding at the roots" because we're all suffering from the effects of treating sex as a substance. In fact the biggest "substance abuse" of all is monogamy. One person will satisfy all your needs forever! You don't need anyone else or the earth or the sun or the stars! When put this clearly it's obvious nonsense, but this is precisely the real meaning of the concept of "romantic love" and its supposedly "correct" outcome of monogamy. The present fad of "serial monogamy," where one marries and then divorces and moves on to marry another etc., is just as bad, if not worse. All the energy is continually devoted to trying to make this particular monogamous marriage "work" and then the next one and then the next. No energy is fed back into the whole of either the culture or the place. Of course that's one of the reasons for the monogamous "ideal": it keeps the economy of the Industrial Growth Society going very well. There's no end to the "things" needed to keep it going: new hair styles, new make-up, new fashions, new appliances, new furniture, and new house, to begin the "new life" one more time!
