October 1970. I had a first romance, I knew the hug, now I do not want to live with my parents anymore. From the past let’s make a clean sweep. And the only permissible way is marriage. So I want to get married as soon as possible. Okay, but with whom?
Here is the backdrop of my arcane VIII JUSTICE. My friend the master cartier and tarologue Jean-Claude Flornoy had accustomed to say: Justice knows what she refuses, but she does not know what she wants. It was quite my case. I hesitated to choose the chosen one. My Justice is a waltz hesitation: a step forward, two steps back. There are three girls circling around me. And another around which I turn. But I can not decide. If it is, it will not be one of the four. I really do not care. All I want is a social status: husband. I’m sick of being a kid. Or teen, finally it’s the same. Unreal. Not the real life, oh no.
My life can only begin with a woman. My wife. The trouble is that I have four. I love them all four. I have often loved many women, worse: I have never ceased to love any of them. All my darlings are in my heart, very warm. How can one stop to love? In any case, I am incapable of it. Love evolves, it knows phases, if we believe the novelists. It changes but never disappears completely. He is embers under the ashes. A breath can revive him.
Yes, you get it, I had an artichoke heart.French expression meaning: to fall in love easily But this heart is not yet open. This heart is too green, it has not suffered enough. It is waiting for setbacks. The bitter cut. The narrow door of the broken heart.
How can one love when the heart is closed? It is the pain that opens hearts. Pain is mother of an ocean of love. This is the divine program that humans are exploring. No one escapes his law: suffer and love. But heartache can not be bought on Amazon.
We can say that it is a grace. It honors who it wants. And no one implores it. You can not wish to suffer. You are cozy until we have a heart. If you have to suffer to grow, why grow? Why suffer? No way !
So far, none of your heartbreaks have gone past half an hour. None of your love stories broke your heart in two. No lost love has devastated you, stripped you, emaciated you, disenchanted you. You are still a greenhorn.
The love court
There existed in the Middle Ages a very charming custom, forgotten or misunderstood, the tradition of courts of love. The ladies of condition entering maturity gathered around them some youngsters chosen on purpose to make them in love with them, and, refusing them, to bring them to the sorrow of love and therefore to the opening of the heart.
This relationship between the lady and her serving knight was imperative to remain platonic, any carnal consumption would have been a failure. For the heart to open, it is imperative that the desire of the youth is at its height. The refusal of the lady elected from her heart and empress of her thoughts becomes a sort of end of the world. Everything crumbles, the young is reduced to ashes, and from these ashes a man can be born, able to love, so really man.
This is the version that Jean-Claude Flornoy gave me. That of Wikipedia is tasteless and incomprehensible. Here is the most telling extract, which unfortunately does not say much.
In the Life of Bertrand d’Alamanon, Jean de Nostradamus writes: “This troubadour was in love with Phanette or Stephanette de Romanin, of the house of Gantelmes, who held court of open love in his Romanin’s castle, near the town of Saint-Rémy, in Provence. She was the aunt of Laurette d’Avignon, Laure so much celebrated by the poet Petrarch.” (source) Online and in line. This is a bit short, young man. In wanting to please everyone, this kind of encyclopedia does not satisfy anyone.
This description of the courts of love would go better to the distinguished receptions of the ladies of the good society. The big ladies have always held salon. Each had its day, each holding its rank by inviting the most prestigious guests. It was already in Molière’s time.See Les précieuses ridicules
More than two centuries later, Proust shows us that it is always done. Her Mrs. Verdurin also has her day when she is in the salon. There you find musician, poet or painter, around beautiful aristocrats like Odette de Crécy, an illustrious love of Swann. (source)Du côté de chez Swann The habit is tenacious in these ladies of the high – or so-called such.
But these worldly salons are not courts of love. This magnificent tradition has disappeared, and with it, the authentic amorous initiation, which did not go with the back of the spoon, it is true, but which prepared young people for real life, open, generous and sensitive .
Courteous love
A court of love does not happen in the yard. Court must be understood in the sense given to it in the expression courting. In his beautiful book Love and the West, Denis de Rougemont analyzes very finely the courtly love, in which he sees the prefiguration of the romanticism, and even the archetype of the love in the Western conception. Provence plays there a special role:
The courts of love were to the chatelaines, to the ladies, what the art of war was to their husbands, to the knights. Maynier affirmed: “These Ladies established a Court of Love in the 12th century, under the authority of the Berengers, Counts of Provence, continued until the 14th century; they decreed there true and false glory, points of honor, pressure, false oaths, infidelities, jealousies, and all that concerned similar things. Also in these itinerant courses, trouvères, troubadours and ladies developed a culture of singing, dancing and poems.” (source)
The games of love and beautiful speech can be similar to those of war, because both are mortal. So initiatic. The courts of love are not only salons where one speaks, sings and dances. The young man receives a sentimental education during practical studies of the love life. The diploma is his broken heart. I remember that this is a non-carnal love. The Lady is both inaccessible and irresistible. To covet it is inevitable, to admit it is unforgivable.
There is the example of Lancelot, who loves Guinevere with a chaste and devastating passion, but always the queen refuses him. Like Tristan and Isolde, the couple share the same bed, but they are separated by a naked sword. If they try to get closer during the night, the sword will hurt them. In despair at not being able to conquer the queen of Britain and Britanny, Lancelot ended by killing himself. He will perish alone, having failed in the sworn faith, having denied his destiny. Sometimes the heart does not break so easily.
Justice for me alone
At home the opening of the heart was only too shy. It took me other heartbreaks, terrible, cyclonic, mortal, before I was really able to love without waiting, to give myself without surrender, to forgive without retaking.
The arcane JUSTICE slice with his sword, but cheat with his scales. See his elbow pressing on the board. This justice must be at my service. It must condemn my enemies and gimme back what they took from me. At that time I did not care about the three women I had dismissed. I cared so little about them – the height of unconscious cruelty – I invited all three of them to my wedding party. Yes, I call that a pretty crap. I thought I’d do well … I was a sad shit with a marble heart.
I was much older than now. Which is not surprising. After JUSTICE comes THE HERMIT, an old man turned towards his past. JUSTICE is done, I am dead and gone. My bad attitude (invite my 3 other fiancées to my wedding) is a good illustration of the spirit of this arcane. Claim justice to our advantage, very selfishly. And do not worry about being fair to others … up to ignore their existence, their truth, their sweet and soft heart. JUSTICE is a predatory arcane.