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There is a spiritual dimension to every relationship, whether or not the participants acknowledge it. Two people come together because spirit wants them together. Whatever the origin of a relationship, it is important that a couple sees it as driven by spirit, not by individuals. The role of spirit is to be the driver, to monitor our relationships. It can help us to be better people, to keep us connected not only with ourselves but also with the great beyond. People in the West can strengthen their intimate relationships by maintaining this connection. It is very easy to lose ourselves in the everyday world and forget about our ties to spirit, yet without it we resemble the walking dead. Praying and walking in nature, away from our daily routines, allows us to open up to the spirit’s message.
Rituals can also strengthen this connection, by helping us heal our wounds and remain open to spirit’s call. Not all rituals from Africa can work here, like sacrificing a chicken, for instance. Couples in the West could use meaningful things they have had since childhood, objects that have become sacred to them. With the presence of relatives or friends, bring those two sacred objects together in pot or basket, then keep them in a space reserved as a shrine. It can be kept in the bedroom, or somewhere in the house where both can have access to it. You can use that special place to draw energy from, especially when things become hard. You can go back to that source, access the time before problems came, and really draw energy from that.
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A couple’s intimacy is not solely about the pursuit of pleasure. If you try to aim at pleasure only, intimacy will be short. Once an intimate relationship is taken out of its spiritual context, it faces many dangers. People involved in a solely sexual relationship, for instance, hope that the person with whom they are involved might give them the connection they crave. The relationship doesn’t have any kind of grounding force or foundation to hold it. No one can truly connect on a sexual level who does not have in his or her bones something sacred. It’s a very hard concept to explain, but the point is that there is an intimate connection between sex and the sacred. People who are desperately drawn to sexual activity are in many ways men and women desperately trying to break into the spirit world. Their desire indicates a deeply rooted belief that something greater exists.
This is why I think that modern culture, in its obsession about sex, is actually in a misguided fashion admitting its longing for the sacred. If you see this huge billboard with all kinds of alluring sexual images, look beyond the obvious sexual craving it reveals and see the need to reconnect with a force that can heal us.
-- Sobonfu Some, The
Spirit of Intimacy
the stubbly brothers (Robin and Don)
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