Some folks, including myself, have wanted to ask Richard about Elizabeth Taylor,* but out of respect, I have declined. However, Richard volunteered the following:
Ann: Richard, I gather you have something to say regarding Elizabeth.
Richard: Yes. Elizabeth and I are soulmates, though at this stage each is off doing their own work. (I do abhor the current use of “their”) as a singular pronoun, but it does have its conveniences.)
The term “soulmates” has somewhat florid and romanticized connotations, but in fact it simply means two – or more – entities that have creation origins in common. As such, the pull between them is immediate and irresistible.
I say this not to excuse the many excesses that the two of us put the planet through as we brawled and loved and finally blew ourselves up in a frantic and necessarily doomed attempt at merger. Merger between any two – or more – created beings, even soulmates, is simply not in the cards. Even the most closely attuned spirits have their own work in the evolutionary process, individual work which is essential to the ultimate destination of each soul, that is, the resolved and resting commitment to the expansion of the creative force.
And that force is love, love for the imperfections in creation that give it its nooks and crannies, peaks, troughs, and boundaries, not the sometimes maudlin pap spouted by some of our more virulent and incessant writers, talkers, and self-help gurus.
This love is not for sissies. It does not deny the self, it expands it, and, though sometimes that expansion may take place in a field of unrelieved torment and self-abnegation, it is nevertheless self-affirming. The role of the self in its proper place is as the catalyst for creative development and spiritual expansion of that creative force.
The lot of soulmates is not easy, for the power between them is combustible, both generative and destructive, and they often get caught in the aftermath of associated explosions as often happens to any person in an erratic and intense relationship.
Some come together only to be separated by excruciating and inevitable circumstances in order to learn that one cannot lose oneself in another, even a soulmate, without eventually triggering the painful consequence of untangling. Even soulmates are still two separate souls, and each must be separately nourished in order to support the complementary whole.
Some are still fighting a long lost battle with a nonexistent enemy under the mistaken and illusory idea that they have to maintain their independence and control because they know what it is to be lost in another to the detriment of their own souls.
Whether we struggle with differientiation after an over-weighted entanglement or whether we resist connection to avoid that seemingly inevitable consequence, one way another, from wherever we are on that spectrum, we come up against the bear with which we all wrestle, and that bear is the balance between the individual and the whole.
Those on one end of the spectrum have given too much and must reestablish center and fight their way through the rage of allowing themselves to be subsumed in another to the detriment of their own soul’s growth.
Those on the the other end have tried that route and are determined never to go that way again – even if that means holding God at arm’s length.
But never fear, though the process is relentless, thorough, and heartrending, it moves inevitably toward a creative balance as I can attest. Elizabeth and I will never be apart even while we work to tend our own fires so that our eventual reunion will be one of equals, not of one fire hell-bent on trying to subsume the other.
Everyone who has struggled for balance in relationships has set themselves a fearsome task, but it is doable for all that. If you face this challenge, call on me at any time, for I have walked the boards where you now tread.
I remain,
Your battered, broken, and not so humble servant.
October 12, 2021
* Elizabeth Taylor, (1932 – 2011) was a British-American and actress whose affair with Richard Burton was one of Hollywood's biggest scandals.
Free Image: Albany/Colley, Pixabay.