What is the history of a kiss?

Question

doing this as a research need more information

Answer 1

THE HISTORY AND SECRET OF The Kiss

"It's been too long since somebody whispered, oouu...shut up and kiss me."

We've all heard the expressions; 'The sweet kiss of success,' 'Kiss and make up,' 'Kiss and tell,' as well as the 'kiss off' expression, 'kiss my a_ _.' From the kiss of the King's ring, to kissing the ground upon arriving home on an airplane; from the first kiss of spring's new lovers, to the kiss bestowed on a newborn; from the kiss of greeting a friend, to the 'kiss of death'- there's a lot of kissing going on! What's it all about? The kiss is a powerful passageway and medium of communication in sharing emotions. It is the threshold to invisible possibilities, turning matter (our bodies) into spirit. Rilke the poet says, 'isn't that what all lovers want, to become invisible?' In the kiss, two worlds come together to transform each other. Many poets and saints alike, live their whole life in ecstatic celebration for one kiss with the divine, the beloved. A single kiss can change your whole life forever. It can inspire and wake you up, or it can make you wish you were never alive. Is there magic in a kiss? Are dreams fulfilled? Or does one kill the dream with making it only a physical materialistic phenomena Is it mere child's play and poetic fancy to romance the kiss of Spirit, the kiss of the future beloved? Reality has a way of killing the notion that a prince charming will come along and kiss the sleeping princess into a 'happier-ever-after' wakefulness!? These days we have become all-too-good at turning the prince or princess into a frog, or a monster of love. How can we get the magic, the kiss, the joy and passion for life back into our arms and hearts and turn the frog into romance and passion? Whether of Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, Bill Clinton, or Pierce Brosnan, the puckered lips have the power to change the course of lives.

"Excuse Me, As I Kiss The Sky !" - Jimi Hendrix, from 'Purple Haze'

Many artists, saints, holy men and women throughout time, bear witness to the fact of being touched or kissed by love, the Spirit, or some divine energy or angelic force. A kiss can trigger exulted perceptions revealing a greater meaning to life. A kiss can be a heavenly messenger for change. In the 16th century, the Rosicrucian's Christian Rosencreutz (a Spiritual being said to be overshadowed by Buddha, Mani, Zoroaster, and the Christ) was legended to bestow a 'kiss' or touch from the invisible spiritual world to awaken the soul to destiny. It was said that this often precipitated a near-death experience (or some devastating loss in one's life), followed by a total review of one's life and a sense of being 'born-again'(as the Celts, Buddhists, and Christians refer to it). It certainly would shake me being kissed by invisible beings, but this was a popular metaphysical belief akin to the 'kiss of good luck'. This kiss awakened a vigorous sense of renewal invoked by a higher power, a spiritual divine intervention (kind of a 'God made me do it, versus 'the devil made me do it' thing). History has it that biblical heroes such as Moses, Aaron and Jacob, left this world for a better one as a result of a kiss from God. Many ancients felt that the 'kiss' signified a death of the past, a renewal of self, and a rebirth into a higher world. Nowadays we're touched by such notions as the new age, the 'Celestine Prophecy,' the 'Mutant Message,' or even a song on the radio. Maybe it's just a syncretistic moment that inspires us just when the sun breaks out of the clouds and pours onto our face. For many of us, after a good day's work, the kiss of our pillow looks good; but many of us still hold out for higher dreams of romance and futurity. We are captured by a higher vision and hope renewing to our hearts. The soap opera dream of a magic kiss and romance fills our world with the sweet promise of a Hollywood night at the movies. Are we the true mystics, troubadours, and saintly taskmasters of the world whose cup of love overflows to all of life? Do we see and feel something so beautiful that we may never recover...till we attain what we seek - total bliss and joy in the song of life and creativity singing from every heart, bird, and tree? Till all of William Blake's hills are echoing the songs of heaven? Or are we romantics crazy-gone-nuts with Elvis's shaky legs?

"...That glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven." -Psalms, 85:10.

Kissing is mysteriously missing from the history books. Not much is delineated. Early Christians recognized each other with a kiss, the 'kiss of Christ.' Originally, St. Paul enjoined Christians to "Salute one another with a holy kiss." Eventually this got carried away by grasping over zealous followers, bordering on dionysian orgiastic gatherings rivaling the great Pagan celebrations. Obviously this had to stop and the church fathers under Tertullian quickly dampened this spirit with injunctions not to kiss on days of fasting and special feast days. "Such as are fasting withhold the kiss of Peace...on the day of Good Friday...we do forego the kiss." -Tertullian. As time went on it became easier and more fashionable to kiss rosaries, statues, altars, holy cards, and the Bishop's hand - not so much fun, but thought to be safer. This too had its excesses. The lips and beard of a solid bronze statue of the god Heracles (Greek) at Agrigentum were almost completely obliterated by the kisses of his impassioned devotees. At St. Peter's Church in Rome was a bronze statue of the saint which, since the fifth century, has been kissed so many times that most of the right foot is gone with the lips of the worshippers. Seems like people want to kiss! Nowadays people go hysterical to kiss or even touch their favorite movie or rock stars - even their pictures! From Elvis to Pearl Jam, Led Zepplin to Mad Madonna, Magic Johnson to Mick Jagger, Tom Hanks to David Letterman, from Beastie Boys to Cheryl Crow; to kiss a celebrity or a "god" is to never wash your mouth again, to touch the higher worlds, and to enter the realms of the divine celebrity. Some just rub precious stones and crystals, pictures of the saints, or even the bat before entering the batter's box. Other's keep their kisses secret for exactly the right wrong person who will make all your "stuff' and unresolved issues come up. Still others kiss the one who makes all the unresolved issues stay in Pandora's box. The kiss has the power to waken or kill, and like the true spiritual experience, you can't remember what really happened till you're there again; and when you're there again, you don't really know what will happen next. The full heart felt kiss seems to express our highest dreams and aspirations. A kiss can be an initiation process. It can be a mutual act of freedom, a co-creative thrust into the future right in front of you in which you are co-pilot with fate and destiny. A kiss can put your life on the line. It is the act of giving and receiving. A real kiss can't be faked, it is ultimate vulnerability. I guess if we had it figured out totally, we'd stop doing it; after all, how many times do you need to go to Disneyland?! Bob Seger might be right, "It's a Mystery, how the heart beats...".

"Just one kiss from your lips, just one wish...hold me tight." -the Elementals, Waking On Each Other.

The kiss is a touch of the lips, a sign of affection or love, a greeting, a show of reverence; it is a universal sign of 'being connected.' But it is more. In the game of pool, it is the impact between two moving balls. The pitcher in a baseball game has been known to spit on the ball and rub it hard, the batter kisses the bat, makes the sign of the cross, and steps up to the batter's box in an attempt to hit the ball into a hole in the outfield, circle the diamond or square, and get home to joyously hug and, at times, kiss the team-mates. Often in the heat of glory and 'scoring', you will see football players, soccer players, or hockey players jump all over each other and kiss (no wonder they get into so many fights!) In new age lingo, it is the impact of two auric eggs touching. In the sixties, "balling" (physical and auric interpenetrating) was a term for "making love." To 'kiss the holy book' was a term throughout history associated with taking a oath. Kissing a bible or sacred holy book was meant to seal a promise, vow, or commitment. On the other hand, to 'kiss the dust' referred to yielding in submission to a higher authority, or even to be put to death or slain. To 'kiss the rod' was to accept punishment or chastisement for one's misdeeds. To this day, a mother will 'kiss where it hurts,' or kiss the injured place of a child to 'make it better.' Kissing can get complicated, especially when it comes to 'kiss and tell.'

"Kiss, Kiss; Bang, Bang" -Stuart Franke, Where the River Meets the Bay.

Throughout history, peoples of all faith would kiss statues of heroes and saints, relics and even tombstones of the holy to acquire blessings and healing. The pictograph "to pray" of the pre-Sargonic Sumerians (c.3500 BC) was, according to the scholar Langdon, a man "throwing a kiss" to the god. Many old world religions entertained this gesture of 'blowing a kiss' to the gods or heavenly tutelaries. When we wave and 'blow a kiss' to departing friends we are repeating the actions of these ancient worshippers blowing kisses to pagan deities. Burton reports the early Muslim saluting the Kaabah and Stone with a kiss. Roman subordinates rendered homage to the emperor by kissing his robe. The Buddhists, even today, will prostrate and kiss the ground before the High Lama or Spiritual Teacher in respect to the Buddha nature within. The Catholic will kiss the Bishop's ring, or in becoming a priest will prostrate and kiss the ground before the Bishop empowered to do the initiation. Mary Magdalen kissed the feet of Jesus. Jesus kissed the disciples feet as a gesture of humility and service. People today still kiss the Popes feet, or even the ground before him. The Knights of old England kissed, but most modern athletes such a tennis players, boxers, etc., are more inclined to shake hands; or in some sports, slap hands with the opponent team; though they will kiss the trophy or winner's cup etc. The power of the kiss is to enkindle the inner fire and feelings to touch and be touched by the outside world. Every kiss is one-of-a-kind, spontaneously invented on the spot; yet, the pressing of lips together, like pressed flowers left in an old book, can leave an indelible mark on our soul. Kissing is a way we share ourselves with another.

"A kiss is the shortest distance between two." - Henry Youngman

Today the kiss is considered less a prelude to mating than a sign of appreciation, respect, connection, and regard. Yet, it is something communicated at a non-verbal level that still holds us in its magic. It can totally encompass the mind and feelings allowing time and space to implode with emotion, and explode with dreams of infinite possibility. A kiss should be felt and given. Awareness receives a kiss. It awakens inner forces capable of flooding one with feeling and meaning. The kiss is a bridge between the inner and outer worlds, a splash of heart waves against the shore of the body. To mingle the fire in the lips and breath is to mingle our souls with the divine. The origin of kissing under the mistletoe which grew on the old oak tree of the Druids was meant to end and start a new year. Kissing around the Maypole of spring, was to invoke new beginnings and prosperous times of growth. A kiss can awaken love, or be the kiss of the traitor Judas. History teaches us that a kiss can be magic or tragic. For most of us, it is deeply personal and reveals the true nature of our heart and feelings. The kiss can take us to an unknown border on the edge of ourselves, challenging us to cross over to something bigger than ourselves - the world.

"Lips only sing when they cannot kiss." -James Thomson

An early form of the kiss was with the nose, the 'sniff-kiss.' It began in India around 2000 BC, traveling east to China and then west to Europe. The ancient Celts had no word for 'kiss.' The Romans denoted three kinds of kisses; friendship, affection, and passion. Chaste Artemis awakened sleeping Endymion with the light brush of a butterfly kiss (later it's Sleeping Beauty). Goethe's Faust awakened Margaret's passion with a kiss. Kissing on the lips seems to have been started by the early Christians and then Romans, but it was the Troubadours and their Courts of Love and Chivalry in the ninth to twelfth century that popularized and ennobled the 'kiss' to exalted heights of splendor and morality. To the Troubadours, once you kissed someone, you were connected for life, and perhaps beyond, to protect and to cherish, to honor and defend, from this time on to eternity. To kiss and fall in love was to vow to each other to stay connected in every way possible till each reached total enlightenment and the eternal portals of heaven. Once connected with the 'sacred kiss', neither hell nor high-water could part souls from their high goal of peace and happiness for all living beings on earth. To the Troubadour, the compassionate glance, the magical touch, and the spiritual kiss was equal to the Mahayana Buddhist vow to unite with all who are Enlightened and all who seek freedom from suffering. It was the eternal bond of friendship and joy.

"Night. Oh you in depths dissolving,

face against my own.

- Rilke, On Love And Other Difficulties

So why do bugs, insects, and small creatures stick themselves into small holes? To get as much of their bodies as possible in touch? And what of the caterpillar from whose lips spins a cocoon awaiting the kiss of spring to spread its butterfly wings against the warm kiss of the sun? The downward sinking energy of the plants and trees rooting snugly into the soil while the other end works to rise upward and heavenwards to flower and fruit, is more than a mere metaphor for the downward thrust of warmth, blood, and passionate embrace in allegiance with the ever aspiring and rising heights of the soul in ecstasy and heavenly love. Why do humans put themselves between the covers to go to sleep at night? Or into tight or snug fitting clothes, for that matter? Even protozoa are attracted to touch (tactism, tactual bodies of lower creatures, or even humans in the full embrace and throb of love) to create offspring. A gentle touch can excite the brain, but the rapture of a kiss, energizing the highly specialized erotogenic touch-zone of the lips transcends the greatest poet's "rapturously glowing" words of magic and "burning sweetness." Touch is the mother of the senses; and sex and love, death and rebirth, are more entwined than meet the eye - it meets on the lips, the door to the underworld of the lost and found, death and rebirth, and even spiritual initiation. Where one individual ends and the other begins is just part of love's mysterious kiss. To close one's eyes in the breath of a kiss of love is to dissolve and melt into a greater reality than the limited self. Like the Nile River once a year in spring, one can swell in feelings and be carried away, to rise and overflow fecundating and fertilizing the surrounding fields; or be drunk with Bacchus where "love is the drug, I'm thinkin of." The kiss can open Pandora's box (or even Forrest Gump's box of chocolates for that matter!) The kiss can be the door to the greater or lesser mysteries of life, you can lose your head...you can find the world...you could lose your head again. Without love or pure motivation, the kiss can be dangerous. It can definitely put you through changes, ask anyone!

"The wine we really drink is our own blood.

Our bodies ferment in these barrels.

We give everything for a glass of this.

We give our minds for a sip." - Rumi, from Unseen Rain

So what is this secret of the mind's eye breathing on the water's of the blood? The light shining in the darkness? The bread on the waters? What is the secret of the blush of the cheeks and rose? Why are the lips rosy ruby red? Is it not that the blood is closest to the skin here? The kiss is metaphysical, it is not totally understood by science nor history. It remains a secret to the uninitiated, the unloved. And as the ancient Fire Philosopher's, Theosophists, and Rosicrucians knew; the reincarnated EGO (the eternal pilgrim soul seeking enlightenment), or the true 'self' comes through the warmth of the blood to meet the light of day (sense awareness); to, in time, awaken the heart of enlightenment in truth and love\compassion. Somehow, the head and heart can come together on the lips. There is a real fire here that transcends gun powder? Or is this just a romantic's dream? Massage therapists and Chinese acupuncturists point out that the conceptive vessel or acupuncture meridian rises from the root survival/ sex chakras (psychic centers) to just below the lips, while the governing vessel or meridian rises from the root behind and below to go over the head to just above the lips. The lips are where heaven and earth meet the past and the future.

"Soul meets soul on lover's lips." -Shelley

Is this the secret of the kiss, that two souls meet? In the kiss; light, breath, and warmth meet. The light of awareness and the warmth of friendship mingle in spirit with the breath. The highly individualized light of awareness in the head goes down with the breath to meet in the chamber bed and grail of the heart. This is metaphysics, to try to understand how the inner meets the outer, how processes and potentials within ourselves awaken. The warmth held secret within the blood (the vehicle for our common humanity and all previous lifetimes, the 'I AM' the totality of all my experience) rises to the chalice of the heart, and then to the lips. In the kiss is the possible metamorphosis of the past and the sweet promise of the future. Here all meet. And you thought it was a meaningless peck on the cheek!? The body and the blood, the bread and the wine, the past and the future kiss in the 'Cosmic Christ', the possibility of spiritual awakening, wholeness, and holiness. Perhaps this is what led Christ, in the Christian tradition, to say, "Where two or more of you meet, I will be there." Or, "This is my Body, This is my Blood." All religions have their sacred kiss, or meeting. Geez, we can hardly settle the latest strike, let alone bring peace to the Middle-east, Russia, Yugoslavia, or Tibet. Perhaps we should kiss at half-times and all time-outs at all sporting events, arguments, and conflicts. The sacredness and power of the kiss is a secret few fully realize, yet comprehend; though many are presently in deep research. It is something that cannot be forced nor faked, it is both given and received, and something more than can barely be explained in light of day. Perhaps one day, the kiss will become our new fiery weapon for peace, prosperity, and friendship. Till then, I leave you with a 'kiss of peace' and this last kiss of a thought of Rumi's...(You thought I was going to say, "shut up and kiss me;" didn't you?)

Answer 2

Hey chantal a,

An intriguing question. My thought is that Grog and Grona were exchanging food, when they discovered that the felt something more than food passing when first their lips met. But I will find some more on this too.

Don't forget - Blarney, Misseltoe, and Ellis Island Kissing post.

Answer 3

Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon in "Bound" Brokeback Mountain-under the staircase "Boys Don't Cry"-Hilary Swank and Chloe Sevingy in the grass. Sharon Stone and her lover-Basic Instinct All the women on "The L Word" have some hot scenes.

Answer 4

They were a heavy metal band in the 1970s, although the term heavy metal did not come into use until later. lead singer Gene Simmons now has a reality show with wife? Shannon Tweed.

Yes, I am embarrassed I know this stuff.

Answer 5

Kissing was discovered by the Neanderthal inventor, Boge Natz, and his wife, Ralph, about 80,000 years ago.

Answer 6

Kiss was discover by Adam and Eve when they had their baby they kiss him on forehead and Thank God for baby .After that Adam kisss Eve on her head.

Answer 7

check out this website

it is a part of library . thinkquest .org

and has the brief history of the kiss so i think it is exactly what you need

Answer 8

Need to do "research" eh? Shouldn't this be in the Singles & Dating section? [Sorry ;-) ]

Answer 9

sorry cant compete with the answer before me!