First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes X with a baby carriage. Then what?

OK, enough of this silliness with hotpants and contests. Let's talk about something more serious. Stumbled on a really great piece on love (what else matters, really?). Since I like to eat the ice cream first, here is the conclusion:

"But what about longing? Desire? The very human craving for delirious romance? Even when we know better, even when we've learned the hard way that no other person can possibly make us whole and we've entered into a conscious relationship, where does the longing go?

'Longing is a wonderful, very vital energy,' says Florence Falk. 'It's not the longing that's the problem, it's what you do with it.' As we begin to reclaim our selves and find our core strength, she says, not only is it possible to develop a real, loving relationship, but the longing can be redirected to something greater than ourselves, something transcendent.

And, says Stephen Levine: 'If another person is the most important thing in your life, then you're in trouble and they're in trouble because they become responsible for your suffering. But if consciousness is the most important thing in our lives and relationship is a means toward that end... Ah! then we are approaching paradise. We are approaching the possibility of actually becoming a human being before we die.' And maybe that is the future of love."

More here. Talk amongst yourselves. Oh, and feel free to leave your reactions in the comments. ♦DiggIt! ♦Add to del.icio.us ♦Add to Technorati Faves