Adapted From The Original by Yoav Aptobitzer 
The Original Lovers
The first blind date took place between Eros, the God of love, and Psyche, the most beautiful princess in the world. She was so pretty, that no one dared ask her hand in marriage.
In despair, the king her father, turned to wizards who announced that his daughter would be taken by a bridegroom born of the seed of a cruel and wicked dragon. The parents never prayed for such a wedding.
The wedding preparations looked like those preparing for a funeral, and when the day came, shivering with fear, Psyche was taken to her husband.
After the first night of love Psyche lived in paradise. During the days she meandered around the palace gardens, dipped in the cool creeks, and tasted the most exquisite foods. In the nights she made love with her husband, the perfect lover, whom she only met in the dark.
Seeking The Light
The story goes that Psyche loved the sexuality, the endless satisfaction of all her desires. But what happens when our beloved stops satisfying our desires? Or what happens when light enters our consciousness and we see our beloved the way s/he is, not the way we imagined him/her? This is a painful moment. Like the light that hits a newborn and causes its eyes to contract, so do we wish in that moment to return to the warm darkness of the relationship’s early days.
In our personal growth, and in particular within relationships, there comes a moment when the pleasures of the senses are no longer enough. The realization that we are in the dark enters our heart. This is when the aspiration for awareness and light starts growing.
But let us return to the paradise park where Psyche lived. In paradise, the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge caused a manifestation of evil versus good, a painful separation between man and women.
Plato said that love is the aspiration for connecting that which is separated. Love in all of its forms, from loving a human to loving God, is based in that same yearning for connection. When we are pushed out from our mother’s womb, we experience the separation from Eden for the first time, and with it our first love for our mother is born.
Connecting With Others
A loving consciousness and understanding are the key to connecting with others. In our essence we are not different from each other, we are all siblings in birth, aging, and death; we all seek warmth and loving.
The understanding is that the Other’s heart is as vulnerable and sensitive as our own, and that we need to listen to their deeper meaning, not to their words and deeds alone. We need to base love on the foundation of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
How shall we meet the good in another? By understanding that the good exists within us, as well as in each and every one in our world.
Psyche’s story is about love that moves from darkness into light. In order to bring Eros back to her, Psyche undergoes a maturation process in which she acquires all traits needed for a mature love. The ability to separate between different emotions, the ability for waiting out a storm, the ability to see things from a wider perspective, and the ability to set boundaries.
At the end of a difficult journey she meets Eros again and from their love a girl is born. Her name? Joy. This teaches us that practicing love may be a process with moments of falling and rising, but it comes with a wonderful reward.