Holy Longing continued:

In every mystical tradition, saints and lovers speak eloquently of the soul’s search for the beloved, its yearning for the gods, its longing for communion. The bride in the Hebrews’ Song of Solomon sings her erotic yearning for her bridegroom, desiring to kiss him because his love is better than wine. The bride proclaims fervent union at last: “My beloved is mine, and I am his.” Her triumphant proclamation recalls the cries of Christian mystics such as Julian of Norwich: “We are in God and God, whom we do not see, is in us.” The Greek maenads, or mad women, dressed in fawns skins and ivy crowns, carried lit torches and danced wildly around Dionysus, desiring nothing but union with him. The Egyptian Queen, Isis, lamented and longed for her murdered husband, Osiris. After finding his body parts and rejoining them, she united with him. Osiris was resurrected a god, king of the dead. In the Hindu tradition of devotion, milkmaids, known as gopis, long for union with Krishna, the dark blue god. Krishna’s sixteenth-century devotee, Mirabai, wanted to be turned into a heap of incense, burned into ash, and smeared on his chest. <a href="https://medium.com/@conniezweig2/holy-longing-continued-41b50d360b9a">Website</a>