Decrease in Love

The season asks each of you to decrease something — and the target is the ego's inventory: the demands, the irritations rehearsed, the need to be right, the tally of who gives more. The image is your practice: curb the anger, restrain the wanting — the two great inflators of every domestic storm. If external decrease has hit (money tight, time scarce, energy low), take the Judgment's comfort: sincerity makes the two small bowls sufficient; couples are rarely closer than when honest simplicity replaces performance. And decrease your faults visibly (line 4): every irritation genuinely reduced lowers the wall — watch how quickly the other hastens gladly near.

Decrease the apparatus: the persona, the games, the wanting so loud it drowns discernment. Line 3 is the season's arithmetic — when three travel, one departs; when one travels alone, a companion is found: release the crowd of half-attachments, the roster kept for insurance, the inner committee of competing wants, and the space clears for one genuine bond to form. Sacrifice, too, the attachments that swell the ego — the validation-seeking, the trophy logic. What you give up from the surplus returns as substance; the fifth line's promise waits on the far side: upon the sincerely simplified, increase descends that nothing can oppose.