In order to have Motion one must have Change. In fact, one must have this in order to have anything at all. Now this Change is what we call Love, thus “love under will” is the Law of Motion.
New Comment on AL I.29
Love in Thelema is change.
The ideas of “love under will” or “affirming change” can give the impression of something static (“me,” my “true self”) witnessing or affirming some change “over there”. I don’t think that’s the meaning, though.
Love is really the participation of me with something or someone else, through the process of change. So I’m changing along with it.
So really the question of love is a question of what we’re participating in at any moment, such that we’re transforming it and vice versa. It’s a co-evolutionary, co-developmental process.
Generally the things we enter into those sorts of relationships with are things (or people) that we care about. Before we think or before we even choose some course of action, we find ourselves somewhere. More importantly, we find ourselves wrapped up and involved in things. We find ourselves caring about things.
Not only do we find ourselves caring about and wrapped up in things. There’s a kind of force or compulsion in our involvement. Because we’re being changed as things around us are changing, it’s hard to get a neutral standpoint to look at ourselves and what we’re doing. It’s like being caught in the current of a river.
Divination is an attempt to symbolically interact with that current in order to understand its patterns and potentials for redirection.
We can find ourselves caring for a pretty long time about something that isn’t really worthy of our attention or involvement. We are subject to profound self-deception.
This is one of the sources of tragedy.
My suggestion is that “love under will” has nothing inherently to do with romantic love. It means learning to care about what is worthy of our attention—thereby learning to live a life that is less tragic.