Unkissed

Rumi's poetry inflames the passion of every heart in love. And yet, his words, and as he called it, his drunken state of wild openness were not for a lover. His unfettered passion was his love for Life and Being. Judy Garland's heart igniting words, "For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul" are actually the only lines of love and joy in a heart wrenching poem of the deadness felt after a lover has left her. What do they both share? A kiss.  


At first it seems odd that the most intimate and tender expression of love, where the emotions of the heart and mind are given physical shape in the lips, we cannot give ourselves. We cannot kiss ourselves with the kiss of a mother upon her child as he sleeps, the kiss of lovers aware, the kiss upon the face of a loved one whose soul has just left to begin a new journey. We cannot kiss ourselves.  And maybe that is why Rumi and Judy Garland's words resonate so strongly, they reflect our need, our desire to be so loved, worthy and tendered that we experience the kiss.  Perhaps Life, in creating us without this ever so beautiful expression, did so as a reminder. To be so loved, so tendered, so worthy we must love, tender and give worthiness to ourselves first.  To know only the kiss of the heart's inward touch, the lips of silent compassion and surrender to who we are. To whisper to our sense of self, "For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul."