The Goddess Abides: A Novel
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Read between September 2 - September 15, 2021
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“I wish you to be happy. You will find your happiness in different ways. Just now you are sure it is in marriage. Well, perhaps so. But the time will come when it will be in something else.”
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“Do not limit happiness,” he had said gravely. “One takes it where one finds it.”
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One happiness has passed, but hold yourself ready for the next, whatever it is. If you do not see it on the horizon, then you must create it where you are. So long as you live you may find happiness if you search for it, or create it for yourself. Perhaps the search itself is happiness.”
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“We inhabit these bodies, my darling. They are our only means of conveying love. We speak, of course, but words are only words. We kiss, yes, but a kiss is only a touch of the lips. There is the whole body through which the sacred message can be exchanged. And for what do we nurture the body with food and drink and sleep and exercise except for the conveyance of love?”
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Love is never guilty. It comes to us, always to be welcomed, from whatever source, at whatever time. One love does not displace another. Each love is added richness.”
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“I want to tell you how I love you. I want to tell you now, while I am still fully alive, while my brain is clear, while my heart beats, while I have words upon my tongue. I love you. I have always loved you. I loved you before I ever knew you, before we ever met. I loved you because I knew the sort of woman I would always love, must always love, and when I saw you, I knew you were she. Of course I love your body because it is yours and because it pleases me. But I love your body because your spirit dwells there, because your incomparable brain is housed in your beautiful skull, because your ...more
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love for you. Love is the torch that lights my way. ‘O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?’”
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“Then we shall meet beyond the grave. The power to love—I to love you is easy enough, my darling, but you to love me, this gives me guarantee. Love pierces through all that is false, all that is ephemeral. Love finds reality, love creates the longing to live forever, and the longing is the promise of immortality. ‘He that loveth aright,’ Plato tells us, ‘is born of the immortal One.’ O my darling, thank you!”
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There could be no question of “keeping.” She must rise to heights of her own. She must be quite willing to release him while she loved him—even because she loved him, for love, if it be true, seeks only the fulfillment of the beloved and this on the highest level.
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She must be forever the abiding goddess.