Beggar's Game

She took me in on a winter's night
The air was brittle and the moon was bright
My heart was heavy but her touch was light
Deep in the dance we wandered
Deep in my heart she fell.

The candles glistened and the water gleamed
She drew a bath and the windows steamed
She looked like every woman ever dreamed
In the heart of a lonely man.
In the heart of a lonely man.

She took my blindness and she led me through
As night retreated and the daylight grew
And with the first rays of the sun I knew
Love had another captive
Love had another fool.

The spell is broken and the chains fall free
Finally my heart has come home to me
It seems I've waited an eternity.

These lyrics from Dan Fogelberg's Beggar's Game are words that most of us would like to be able to say to someone we care about, but few of us feel such poetry, such depth of expression within us. Why? It's societal programming, plain and simple. These are sentiments from another time and place for most of us. We are taught to believe men are from Mars and women are from Venus, entirely different in our programming. Generally, the culture within which we live focuses on the differences between us rather than what we have in common.

But men and women share a lot more in common than one is led to believe. But you would never guess that from what you read in the news or watch on TV or at the theater, or by listening in to most any conversation between a woman and a man. Again, why is it this way?

Men have been led to believe that by somehow thinking or acting romantically, it is a sign of weakness, and that others are going to view them as soft – too soft to be a real man. On the flip side, women too often skip over romance because they have pre-judged that it won't work with men – that it will fall upon deaf ears, as that is the ruling narrative that we encounter at every turn in society.

So the beautiful poetry and glorious appeal of Love as we find above is lost in the day-to-day interactions between women and men because most of us have allowed society at large and other people to control our natural instincts toward relationships. We all lose. We pave over our vulnerabilities and give up before we even begin to play the game.Perhaps to explore, to discover true Love is the whole reason we are here. It is time for each of us to “break the spell” and let the “chains fall free”.