Falling in Love: Part Twenty Two: Marc Gafni

In Ecstasy

The perceptions of falling in love is but one expression however of a broader kind of perception. This higher way of seeing is the path of Ecstasy. Ecstasy, from the Greek word ex-stasis, means “to move beyond stasis,” that is “beyond the apparently solid, into motion, movement, and life itself.” Its Latin root ex-stare means to stand outside yourself.

To say I’m ecstatic is to say, “I am beside myself. I am overwhelmed by intense experience. The veils of my illusions have been pierced and something essential touched.”

Ecstasy is the highest perception of love. Ecstasy is modeled in the raptures of sexuality but expresses itself in every facet of being as well. Ecstatic dance, music, exercise, study or work are all an essential part of what we need to be both nurtured and wise in the world. The defining feature of ecstasy is that we touch a place of union where the wall has come down.

In falling in love we touch it in the experience of intimacy. We have defined intimacy as shared identity. It is precisely this expansion of self which is ecstatic. The move from I to We is the greatest joy of a human life.

marc gafni
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