"What you have witnessed was a deeply honest commitment to the General Welfare Principle," I said in response to her magical story.

      She shook her head and grinned. "I would say, it was much more than that. It was far more advanced than what you have enshrined in your American Constitution. It was something deeper, something that should be enshrined in our very life."

      "You were referring to the Preamble of our Federal Constitution," I corrected her. "A preamble sets the stage for a beginning. It doesn't create a commitment. The commitment has to come from within. There were a few isolated periods in American history when the principle in the Preamble meant something to the people and caused a commitment. Those were the great periods of prosperity when America became the envy of the world."

      "Would you also say that those were periods of Love being reflected?" she asked. "Do you realize, that what I saw in my dream is a perfect platform for exploring the roots of our loving in Love? Love isn't a shallow abstraction that one trots out in a parade of emotions. There is a great Principle standing behind it, and unless one understands this all-embracing Principle, one doesn't understand what Love is. Herein do we find its mystery."

      "And the magic of it," I added.



      Erica agreed. She agreed with me on many things. Also she was a fascinating person to listen to.

      We exchanged thoughts for almost an hour on this subject, and on the worlds upon worlds that it encompasses.

      It all seemed magical to me, what went on between us, what we said to each other, and what came out of our conversation that was almost unbelievable. What we shared totally defied our surroundings. We were in a dark corner of a dark pub, but with perceptions unfolding that made this ending of our day into a brighter event than we ourselves could have imagined. The evidence for that became apparent when we stood up to leave. We suddenly realized to our surprise that we had forgotten to order anything from the bar.

      "Who needs beer in times like these?" was my comment.

      We left happy that night, far happier even than we were after our dancing. Naturally, she allowed me to drive her all the way to her house.

     

      It was near midnight when we left the pub.

      When we arrived, she asked me to stop as we came to the block where she lived. The street was empty, the night-breeze still warm. It was quiet, now. We, too, had become quiet. We got out of the car. She pointed to her house, down the middle of the block, but asked me not to follow her there. She said that she needed this space to become herself again. After our final embrace and a kiss she turned away without either of us saying another word. Those words would have been too difficult to say. I watched her silently. She never turned back until she reached her house.

      I felt sad for this 'failed' ending to such a brilliant day as it had been. I felt sad, because I felt that deep in her heart she had wanted this ending to be different. She drew the line in the sand to prevent the sexual intimacy that she spoke of and evidently wanted, but couldn't allow. If she had commented that sex isn't such a big thing in comparison to this day of light that had unfolded between us, I would have accepted her answer with joy. It would have reflected the truth. Our day together had been pervaded with a most wondrous glow of joy from beginning to end. This glow had lasted for hours upon hours. No sexual intimacy that I remembered, except from distant times, or elation, excitation, or whatever my life had been of late, measured up to the splendor of our 'endless' day that we had shared, and the memories of it that were now lodged in my heart. She had denied herself the experience that very little would have been added by sexual sharing to what we had already established. I was sad to see her walk away, realizing for what little thing she forced herself to close the door to the brighter things that also mattered.

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Stories about  Healing from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche