Sonali-Liu Yifei-ranked love

This is supposed to be blog 9, but it is finally dragged out until blog 10. I reviewed the schedule of week 19, trying to recollect some inspiration that I leaked out of my mind in the last two weeks. Fortunately, the topic of “the nature of poetry” grabbed my attention. It reminded me of the symposium my best friend Vivien was to throw. The symposium was about “the love which moves the sun and other stars”, extracted from <Paradiso> (which means Heaven in Italian) written by Dante, depicting his journey through heaven, which was comprised by 9 concentric spheres surrounding the earth and the destination-Empyrean. Interestingly, the process is quite matched with what he portrayed in <Divina Commedia> about the Inferno.


The 9 spheres, which was represented by the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars,Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, and the Primum Mobile, individually symbolized different traditional associations such as “inconstant” (moon),”ambitious” (mercury). Now stop the meaningless talking I got from Wikipedia. What I really want to talk about is the only word that appears repetitively in 3 spheres: love. The first “love” is in the third sphere-Venus, traditional associated with the Goddess of love. However, since Venus can fall within the shadow of Earth, the love it represents is veiled by an unfavorable sense-temperance. The second “love” appears in the eighth sphere-the Fixed Star with other words like “faith”, “hope”. The positive symbolic may came from the fact that the Fixed Star is out of the shadow of Earth. The last “love” came in when they reached Empyrean, a region beyond physical existence, the abode of “God”. This is when the sentence “already my desire and will were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed, by the love which moves the sun and the other stars” finally comes out. 


Honestly, I rejoiced to find the beauty of coincidence. One is about the previous three loves “human’s love”, “love of hope” and “the love which moves the sun and other stars”. The other is about the book named <7 loves> I mentioned in one oral report about marriage and family. In the chapter of affection, the first love is about “love of desire”-like Venus herself restrained with resentment, suspicions and other frustrating chains. The second love is “love of blessing”-such as letting go with the hope of happiness for the lover. The third is “the eternal love”. No matter possessing or losing, the love will not be dominated by emotional feelings. As long as knowing the person’s existence or once existence, the love will persist. 


Three are all love but not simple fancy. Even the marvelous word “love” also can be ranked in to decent and not-so-decent queues. Shouldn't both passionate love and selfless love be equally beautiful and unforgettable? Maybe love can never be equal or theoretically proved their discrimination between one another. After all, it is time to come to the end of the blog. The light touch of dragonflies to the water surface is always better than completely revealing the vein.