We are not individuals, and never were. We developed in groups, live in groups, and exist as members of many complex relational entities. When we love another, that being becomes an organ of our lives and minds. Our ways of seeing, feeling, relating and experiencing the world all modulate dramatically in light of our relationships, particularly our love relations. This is true even of places. Strangely, we are so imaginative it can be true of objects.

When we bond, we begin to live -through and with- each other; our minds are not our own (they never were), we modulate constantly and are deeply influenced by those we relate with (and our inward ideas or visions of them). We are constantly evaluating ourselves and the peculiarities of our relationships in our minds, and we live in the world in this fashion.

When we separate from someone beloved, it is an experience of death: a part of -ourselves- can no longer function; the circulation is cut off, the attempt to reach into the other and live and feel and know through them short-circuits. The unexpected nature of this pain can be quite unbearable.

But it is also a form of grace.