We want to learn how to work with Eros so we can restore agency at the deepest levels of cause and effect. Through the five cornerstones of attention (approval, intuition, power, intimacy, and optionality), we develop the skill to listen to Eros, recognize it, be with it, and be moved by it. Only then can we open ourselves up to the possibility of entering the Erotic mind. Approval allows us to open to the totality of life. Intuition and power allow us to listen to Eros and develop the capacity to act on it. Intimacy and optionality enable us to experience moments in all their intricacy, making it possible for us to visit any location. Together the cornerstones help us cultivate a powerful, dynamic attention capable of operating at all levels of intensity and subtlety, in all conditions, allowing us to engage in the infinite play of life that is Eros.
Approval: Approval is the ability to see the full spectrum of life, the willingness to engage with it, and to love it no matter its content. Approval is admitting and looking directly at what is, without necessarily agreeing with it, and without attempting to bend it to our will. When we meet an experience with approval, we choose a perception that seeks beauty and truth rather than judgment. Approval seeks truth over fear; it begins with the conception that this (whatever it is that life brings us in any moment) is right. The whole of life is right, and we need to discover how. Approval can turn a situation that is a potential threat into potential power.
Intuition: We develop intuition by learning to actively receive the directions we hear, no matter how subtle, nuanced, or mysterious they are. Reception is distinct from projection, as projection may include fantasy or imagination. Fear and behaviors that are out of alignment with our deeper values cut us off from our intuition. When we are projecting, we cannot simultaneously be receiving. When we are passively receiving, information is filtered through default and preformed views. Intuiting Eros requires us to be prepared for the unknown. Relaxing into uncertainty, we listen with curiosity and are open to possibility.
Power: Power is the ability to stay conscious and maintain volition in the face of programmed behavior; it is the ability to use attention to organize and direct psychic energy. Power doesn’t occur solely as defiance or rebellion, though defiance and rebellion can at times be part of its expression. Real power comes when we are able to change what is around us through our presence alone, and then make a choice as to whether we will be changed by the condition in which we find ourselves.
Intimacy: We explore intimacy through relationship with the things around us. When we allow ourselves to be permeable and accessible, we can enter other worlds and allow them to enter us. Intimacy is living in the reality of conversation with the whole of life—interior life, human life, wildlife—and the various expressions of the underlying force that inhabits all. We can develop the ability to feel a moment in its full expression: tremulous or bright, strong or soft, vibratory or smooth. We learn how to be fully present, open, and engaged with our internal and external worlds. We feel and relate to anything and everything we experience. The empathy we feel when there is this resonance is intimacy, and we only ever harm that which we cannot feel.
Optionality: At the core of our being is optionality, a consciousness that allows us to go anywhere. Optionality provides access to all gifts—the full spectrum of potential where we feel most ourselves because every aspect of us knows it may be invited out at any moment. This is ultimately what we are seeking: a sense of everything being open and limitless. This is the home within ourselves to which we return. From this location of optionality, every part of us becomes available. It is a dynamic state of consciousness where possibilities are numberless.
