Each of us as selves are memory which is preserved both for our own becoming and for our future encounter with the other. The relation to one another, as well, is preserved in memory - corresponding not solely to an internal element held by each one, but as an undertaking-with, of complex and subtle nature. Paradox is present where our spiritual evolution is ensured through memory, and yet we forget ourselves, stepping into and beyond the abstract space of memory, where the memory is incurred thanks to relation to the other in difference. With you, I forget me.
In every reflection it is the case that we risk the loss of the volume and the asymmetry of being, which is living. We risk glorious image and large spectacle, a certain attachment that does not serve Dasein. Vision risks the loss of the abiility to perceive the real, the living volume always unfinished, mobile, in becoming. Something of binocular vision is abandoned with an image, and with it the articulation of difference between self and other, alterity lost in a specular play that is not perceived as such.
The mirror or speculum suspends time in an indeterminate space - personhood frozen, ossified, in what it is presumed to be. Sages have sensed the difficulty of leaving aside constructed tradition, not dissimilar to this constructed personhood, and entering into a relation with another, who is carrying out the same gesture of reception. To return to relatedness at the level of tradition or the level of the person is to regain the evolution of time, and we find a way, together, of going and coming to the past and the future without forgetting the present. Founded upon need and desire, fidelity to self and other, and remembering and planning. The present is the necessary space of the experience of singularity, even in difference.
Thus to dwell is a fundamental trait of the human condition. While recognising that dwelling necessitates construction, of language, and poetry, not merely for it's own purpose, but in cultivation of the living as that which does not grow by itself. Vertical and horizontal blossoming, transcendence, depends on this. The house that is built is not primarily a refuge from the storm nor a hollowed out space where the divine once-was, it is a space where the horizon of the already lived and defined reopens. Where the bridges between past, present and future and passages between self and other can be elaborated.
No external measure can validate what is built, no standard existent can judge the task, the interior work entirely ascertained in the blossoming of Dasein in the self, the other, the whole of the world, of dwelling. The divine lies in each of us, and precisely between us, all around us, celestial and terrestrial, dialectical link in the spiritual becoming of each one. Heart itself is the indestructible link, sustained in the movements both lowest and highest.
The intimate requires separate dwellings
Alternating in move and rest, towards and withdrawn, irradiating spirit and subtle energy, a duration is woven where the two are intertwined, and a nonlinear dwelling is incurred. Time and space become translucent, open, mere dwelling placed as a letting be and a letting come. Through desire we encounter the gift offered of the other, and ourselves gathered in the embrace of their welcome. Space here is not dimension-distance, the inner expanse encountered in each other's view radiates across more than time, more than space, generative of curve, enveloping and enveloped. No homogeneous definition can suffice.
An estrangement from the other, an inwards turn to the self, brings the other into a space of mystery, announced as alterity, in an act of touching, knowing 'I am different from you, here, and we connect'. Drawing near necessitates allying two intimacies, not submitting one to the other. Attraction is awakened in the difference between the two worlds, the mystery, one to the other. To cover another with figments of imagination is to necessitate theft but to maintain an approach. Proximity here is not as with proximity to things, a secrecy in mystery can be maintained by both parties, not just one. A shift beyond poetic dwelling is called on.
An approach to each other will advance step by step towards un-covering, of oneself and the other, re-opening the place in which each one in a moment takes shelter to prepare for an encounter. Receiving oneself, here, there is a turning back, a modifying, to transform the dwelling in order to better live Dasein and to secure the memory of becoming of self, other, the whole world.
Approach is only possible in the irreducible difference of the other. Something comes to pass which is not entirely one's own or the others, and which speaks of what the bringing together of two worlds produces. What in this way occurs gives itself to each one inasmuch as each wants to welcome it, and to secure its memory.
The beloved is sheltered in the silence of the heart, in the restraint of gesture, it's inward gathering. Of letting be and letting grow in withdrawal towards a proximity with oneself, which always, in part, remains nocturnal and silent. Too, the other cannot be reduced to a substratum from which we elaborate our own culture - we advance to the other in darkness, the disclosure of their coming never revealed in the light of day. Other beings remain multiple in what is - never fully or completely integrated into our world, of a language with which we are never fully conversant. We must prepare the place and in no way preserve an identity for the other, without becoming.
The name of the other
Union with the other is never complete, on pain of no longer existing. Difference demands the relinquishing of the whole, and fidelity requires that we relinquish immediate fullness in order to obtain fruit which is never permanent or at the disposal of one of the two, alone. In fusion a lightning strike of love can reopen the path to proximity otherwise overgrown with attachment.
If they remain free and faithful to themselves, the call of the name of the other enacts a gathering of self, rather than a mere availability to to the gaze. The name of God here represents the transfer of the other into the beyond, the guarantor of alterity, the space of our entering into relation, there is no reduction into the One available here, but emergence, Heidegger's 'fold' the staying-shape of the one within which the other cannot be contained, preventing the closing of the fold. Eternally open.
What I know is always already partial, already foreign to the core of Being from which the other draws the organisation of the becoming of their existence, entering into the presence of the present. The attentive approach of the other gives me a real and a meaning still to come, now unknown to me. The other appears as we each withdraw into the self, a gesture which includes opening to the other, in the same instant - the other doesn't just appear because I speak them.
From the other irradiates a truth which we receive without the source being visible - we indirectly perceive that from which the other elaborates meaning, the light then reaching us illuminating both the subject and the world, opening possibilities, elaborating space and time, a site of existing, it's space beyond. In life we can source sense of shared destiny in mortality, throwing off games and mere symbol, accepting not only the irradiation that emanates from the other, but too that we can be guided by the other, in fidelity to ourselves.
The Nothingness that Separates Us
For humans, the gesture of gathering oneself up to open oneself out is much more difficult than it is for, say, flowers. We must learn to not to artificially hold ourselves open with language, how to be in the pulsation of difference, between self and other, such that we maintain, authentically, the opening. Philia, friend-love, in the tension and release, renouncing appropriation without limits in order to let the other be.
In the space of dialogue between-two, nihilism finds positive fulfilment, calling into question one's own world so as to bring into existence and access the world of the other. Not to destroy the yesterday but to view into the future of the most possible and most perfect blossoming.
The practice of the negative as insurmountable and absolute subjectivity is what safeguards the site of difference, and thus connection. Instead of working to secure the world of one's own, the maintenance of the negative allows us to restore the nothing that separates us. This nihilism lies in a real that has always been, a real that calls to question our values and gives access to a new epoch of think/feeling.
Consciousness, not merely as knowing but extending to and beyond the other, encountering the unknown becomes the chance of entering into presence, the light that then shines is that of an intimate sun that supports life and makes it grown without illumination in diurnal light. Consciousness is too of the interior, illuminating the flesh and being illumined by it, able now to take a nocturnal perspective on itself. Illumination is not a separation, but a return to the hearth, a hearth to be linked with each one, not shaped for our own purpose, but linked in being, a care and a letting be. To be calm and to be changing, each providing the other with confirmation of boundary without imposition in any form, supports beyond the horizon of legal system, or linguistic frameworks.To comprehend this moment in history, we will encounter deep connection with all subjectivity, not bearing the imprint of the gaze of the witness.
Light never illuminates the whole without paralysing becoming, we need a view raised in acceptance of the balancing play, the dance between shadow and light. Light uncovers, for a moment, the figure of the whole, returning in darkness to difference, in the very next instant. The human too dances this space turning inside and outside on pain of losing their humanity. Surpassing this matter is not the question - rather the transformation of it into beauty, the transubstantiation into the divine, is the nature of illumination in contemplation.
The light that someone radiates is not necessarily perceived by the one who gives it to be seen, perhaps a proof that mortals are destined for light but for light in it's effects, not an intrinsic peace, or joy. We extend toward the proposal that touch lies invisible in everything, including seeing, touch which allows a drawing back into oneself, that intimate light, touch which is also the illumined-illuminating encounter with the other, overflowing from one's own world to taste another's brightness. This light which we call God, faithful to the nothingness that God guarantees. A nothingness which is precisely and everywhere, not nothing.
Ref: Irigaray, L. (2002). The Way of Love. London: Continuum. 137 – 174.
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