Love....

I don't celebrate Valentine's Day - it's probably my least favorite holiday honestly - however I think that our world in general needs a little more love and acceptance and support.  Love can be found in so many various forms throughout our world and for me - seeking and giving love in all forms is an integral part of who I am and how I choose to interact with the world every day.

However, over my journeys in recent years I've thought about love and how we as a culture typically treat love and those we claim to love.  Too often it seems like love is treated as a chain instead of like wind to lift those people we claim to love, to keep loved ones connected to us rather than encouraging them to grow, blossom, and reach all their individual potential.   Does love need to be limiting or should it be more expanding?  Shouldn't love be uplifting, supporting, freeing and celebrating?

Love should leave us all freer, stronger, and safer to be who and what we are meant to be rather than constraining and limiting.  Love should be wild and strengthening to everyone.  Connections are made stronger when they are freely and naturally occurring.  Freedom of motion is also what allows us and our connections to grow and expand and support rather than stiffening and limiting growth.

"Everything wants to be loved.  Us sing and dance and holler, just trying to be loved." Alice Walker, The Color Purple

I recently ran across this poem on Elephant Journal and the beauty and honesty and strength in it was such an echo of my own spirit that I wanted to share it on as well.  Love is such a beautiful, enriching, wonderful joy - why ever limit it?

Is connection and comfort not sweeter when freely offered and received?  Shouldn't the offering and receiving love leave everyone feeling safer and more secure because it is freely and completely given by choice?  To me - loving someone means creating safety and support for them to go and explore and grow and know that they are loved freely.  When love limits it becomes a cage and is not full love but rather emotion connected with fear - fear of loss and change.  Love supports growth and change - Individuals and relationships do shift and change, growing and evolving - much like the very ground we all live on.  Earth and nature shifts and through this process creates a more stable and supportive environment for all of us. Our natural world is as strong and sustaining and supportive of us as it is because it is ever changing - the seasons, the sand on beaches, the water that has etched the rivers and canyons, earthquakes and landslides, even forest fires - all shift and change the natural environment to allow it to continually grow stronger over time and thereby more supportive and loving of us.

One of my favorite quotes is "Love more and be awesome!"  More than Two

Valentine's day is typically a tough day for me because it is a day I associate with my uncle's suicide and some other rather traumatic early adolescent experiences.  In addition - my perspective on embracing everyone and loving is core to my identity and how I move about this world - so I prefer to emphasize it throughout the year rather than focusing on traditional romantic love one day a year.  Life has also taught me that with great love comes great pain - But as Garth Brooks sings: "Our lives are better left to chance/I could have missed the pain/But I'd of had to miss the dance" - and personally I'll take the pain to be able to fully experience the joy and beauty and love.

"So we have two choices: embrace and love what we have and feel joy as deeply and fully as we can and eventually lose everything - or shield ourselves, be miserable....and eventually lose everything." More Than Two