LOVE THAT LIFTS: INTRODUCING THE ASCENDING CURRENT
Some forms of love don’t just ground us—they lift us. They set fire to our hearts and beckon us toward something higher, more expansive, more radiant than we thought possible. This is what I call the Ascending Current of Love: the movement of desire that draws us beyond the ordinary and into the sublime. It is not content with what is; it longs for what could be. This current courses through spiritual longing, through creative inspiration, and especially through the powerful energies of eros.
We’ve all felt it—those moments when love or desire carries us up and out of our usual sense of self. When a lover’s gaze opens a vast sky inside us, when a piece of music or a line of poetry feels like a transmission from a higher world, we are not merely enjoying an experience. We are being lifted. That is the essence of the ascending current: it is the soul’s rising motion, its innate call to awaken.
Eros, Otherness, and the Climb Toward the Divine
To understand the Ascending Current, we must look more deeply at eros—not just sexual attraction, but the full-spectrum longing that draws us toward union with beauty, spirit, or the divine. In the ancient Greek tradition, especially in Plato’s Symposium, eros was described as a ladder: we begin by loving individual bodies, then souls, then ideas, and eventually beauty itself—pure, unchanging, beyond all form.
In this sense, eros is inherently vertical. It climbs. It yearns for transcendence, not in opposition to the world, but through it. And this upward arc is often catalyzed by what I call heterophilia: love of the different, the other. While heterophilia may be most readily associated with opposite-sex love, here it points more broadly to the kind of desire that reaches across difference to find connection. When we are magnetized by what feels unfamiliar or complementary—by energies we lack or do not fully understand—we are often being invited into an experience of growth and spiritual elevation.
This is why eros and heterophilia both align with the Ascending Current. They stretch us. They challenge our limits. They draw us toward transformation.
The Beauty of Healthy Ascension
When the Ascending Current flows in a balanced and integrated way, it nourishes us deeply. It inspires, liberates, and uplifts. Spiritually, it can bring us into moments of awakening—experiences of unity, of clarity, of divine intimacy. In relationships, it can ignite a sense of being transported by love, of seeing the sacred reflected in the beloved. Emotionally, it can manifest as a drive toward growth, evolution, and expanded consciousness.
In such moments, the language we naturally reach for is poetic. We speak of being “carried on the wings of eros,” of “rising into love,” of being “touched by the infinite.” These aren’t just pretty phrases; they are linguistic markers of the soul’s ascent. They help us name what is otherwise unspeakable: that we are not merely human creatures having spiritual experiences, but spiritual beings rediscovering our source.
True ascension is not a departure from reality. It is an elevation of our perception, a widening of the field in which we meet the world. It does not deny the body—it illuminates it. It does not flee the self—it reveals the deeper Self.
When the Light Burns: False or Corrupted Ascension
But not all that rises is holy. The same upward longing that leads us to awakening can also be hijacked by the ego. When we seek to transcend in order to avoid—when we use spiritual practices to bypass pain, trauma, or emotional depth—the Ascending Current becomes distorted. What once lifted us now disconnects us. What once felt like freedom begins to look like dissociation.
This is what I call false ascension—a kind of vertical escape that appears enlightened but is actually rooted in fear or disembodiment. It can show up as spiritual bypassing, where lofty ideas replace emotional integration. It can manifest as ego inflation, where someone believes they are enlightened while avoiding intimacy and humility. It can even take the form of ecstasy addiction, where we become hooked on peak experiences and unable to stay grounded in the mundane beauty of everyday life.
Poets and mystics have warned of this trap for centuries. They speak of “burning in the light,” of becoming lost in the clouds, of mistaking intensity for truth. In these moments, language becomes a double-edged sword. Metaphors that once inspired us can now mask our avoidance. When we say we are “rising,” we must ask: are we ascending with awareness—or fleeing from something we refuse to face?
Speaking the Heights with Wisdom
The challenge, then, is not to reject the Ascending Current but to discern its quality. Is this movement lifting me deeper into life, or pulling me away from it? Is this spiritual experience helping me to grow more present, more compassionate, more whole—or is it another way of avoiding what is painful or unresolved?
Language plays a powerful role here. The metaphors we choose shape our self-understanding. They can either clarify or conceal. So when you speak of your ascent, speak skillfully. Use language that illuminates not only the heights but also the path beneath your feet.
Let your metaphors soar—but let them also touch ground. Let your longing be luminous—but not untethered. For the true Ascending Current of Love does not reject the world. It carries the world upward, into greater coherence, greater beauty, and greater freedom. And when it is integrated into the whole of our being, it becomes not an escape from life, but a deepening of life itself.
And as for heterophilia—the love of the other, the different—it remains one of the most potent catalysts for this kind of ascension. When we encounter someone whose essence challenges or complements our own, the soul is stirred into motion. That stirring can lift us into new vistas of understanding and feeling. But only if we remember: the goal is not to escape into the other, but to discover, through them, what we have not yet known in ourselves. Heterophilia can be a holy mirror—but only if we bring our full presence to what is being reflected.
