Monday, January 16, 2023

San Juan de la Cruz: Poesias Completas

So many questions, and so many of them the same questions I have been asking for decades.  Who is this beloved, the love in which San Juan allows himself to be subsumed?  Is it something within him, or something larger, something Divine?  Is it different at all from the love of another human, or of oneself? Or is it just the same human ecstasy with another cloak?  Is all religion, all love even,  just a mask for something within us?  Are we making it all up?  Whatever it is, where and how can I find it?

The overarching question as I read this though, was, "Did it really happen?" Did San Juan actually succeed in surrendering himself to this ecstatic love, whatever it was?  Or is this entire conceit aspirational, wishful thinking, "Wouldn't it be nice if . . ."?

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