Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit. I said, "I will climb the palm tree; will take hold of its fruit." May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine. (Song of Songs 7:7-9)

The Beloved is very tall, nearly inaccessible. But the Lover will climb.

We tried to climb at Babel and Jacob dreamed of climbing. By climbing we could claim our desire... a cluster of dates, sexual union, or much more.

Diotima taught Socrates, Socrates taught Plato, and Plato taught us: "For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only-out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form." (Symposium)

But another taught that it is not in climbing but in descending the tree, not in striving but in self-giving, that love is fulfilled.